No limits on prix fixe elegance
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We thrifty New Englanders like to get our money's worth, hence the lure of the prix fixe menu. A set price buys you a number of courses, typically an appetizer, entree, and dessert. Theoretically, it's a better value than ordering the courses separately. While this is standard practice in France and other European countries, American menus tend to be strictly a la carte.
Restaurants in Boston that offer prix fixe menus are mainly French. Several area hotels offer very nice, albeit expensive, prix fixe options, but they are set menus. We wanted at least three courses, with dessert, and choices for each course.
At $19, Les Zygomates' prix fixe menu, offered Monday through Thursday, is quite a deal, considering most a la carte entrees alone start at the same price. The menu changes weekly, and the prix fixe options are not offered on the regular menu. Appetizers include a choice of salads or soup. When we visited, the chilled potato, fennel, and pear soup, laced with fresh herbs, was a welcome summer starter, as was the house salad of mixed greens and endive tossed with a wonderful mustardy vinaigrette.
For entrees, there are always red meat, poultry, and seafood choices; there is no vegetarian option. A customer at an adjoining table quipped, "The vegetarian entree is the hanger steak au poivre without the steak." This hanger steak, a stringier cut of beef than filet mignon, was quite tender, with intense bordelaise sauce, flavorful from red wine and shallots. The lighter haddock with roasted vegetable vinaigrette was moist and flaked easily, and we sopped up the extra sauce with crusty rolls and the accompanying sauteed new potatoes.
While wine is not included in the price, Les Zygomates is also a wine bar, and offers over 40 varieties by the glass. A tasting option lets you sample a smaller glass of wine for under $3.
Desserts, unfortunately, did not match the quality of the entrees. The choice includes ice cream, cheese, or dessert of the day. We got the last piece of an odd peach tart - a dry, almost inch-thick base topped with overcooked, dried-out peaches - unexpected for peach season. The white chocolate bread pudding was nothing special, with no discernible white chocolate taste. Next time we'll go for the ice cream. A nice touch: the price includes coffee or tea, with a small dish of lump sugar and chocolate wafers. In true French fashion, our server disappeared after bringing dessert. We were having a good time and didn't mind the long wait to request our bill.
The back of the restaurant is the nonsmoking section, and tables are very close together - some might say cozy. The tables by the bar at the front have a more open feel. Check out the bathrooms, papered with labels of hundreds of wine bottles.
The Cafe at Maison Robert has long been a personal favorite. The room itself is lovely: exposed brick walls and a high vaulted brick ceiling. Tall arched windows open onto the lush greenery in the outdoor dining area.
The food tends to be well-executed traditional French. There are two prix fixe menu options, $18 and $25, culled from items on the menu, which changes seasonally; you save about $4 to $7 per person. The $18 menu includes salad or soup of the day - a rich, creamy vichyssoise the night we visited. The lighter chicken terrine of the $25 menu was a refreshing summer appetizer. Chunks of tender white meat were suspended in a soft tarragon-laced aspic, complimented by a small frisee salad.
For entrees, the $18 menu offers a vegetarian dish of a leek, goat cheese, and olive tart that was not as good as it sounded. The leeks were undercooked to the point of being crunchy, and the olives overpowered the dish. We had better luck with the $25 option of truite amadine - classic trout with almonds. The trout was bone-free and cooked just right. The grilled duck breast with orange sauce was deliciously juicy, although we like the skin to be a little crispier. The sliced meat was served on a homemade rice cake, and the accompanying sauce was meaty and not too sweet. Entrees came with fresh but unremarkable steamed broccoli and carrots.
The lemon tart was slightly sticky but had a good tang, a buttery crust, and a garnish of fresh berries. The creme caramel was almost too light, but we were quite full at this point. Service here is very good - an accident of spattered wine was quickly covered with clean napkins, and our water glasses were never empty. Both the indoor dining and the outdoor patio at the cafe are relaxing spots.
Upstairs at the Pudding is famous for its deck draped with hanging plants and herbs, a green oasis overlooking a Harvard Square alley. We like the inside dining room as well, with its forest green walls, high ceiling, and strings of decorative tiny lights. The noise level can make conversation a challenge.
Upstairs at the Pudding calls their four-course fixed price option a "tasting menu." For $48 you may select from any appetizer, salad, entree, or dessert on the regular menu (certain items incur a $5 surcharge). The price is high, but the choices are plentiful and creative. You need to do a little math to calculate the price value; some choices may yield a savings of as much as $16, other combinations come to less than the tasting price.
Our server made sure to point out that the tasting menu portions are the same as the a la carte portions. Which is to say, not huge. Appetizers in particular are quite small, although beautifully presented. The Provencal goat cheese was a diminutive round of creamy cheese atop a tangy confit of roasted yellow tomatoes, topped by a small tuft of tender green mache. Not meant to be shared. However, for a four-course meal, these servings are ample. Homemade potato gnocchi were seven or eight delicate bites, complemented by a creamy pesto and a crunchy deep-fried round of eggplant.
The arugula in one of the salads was fresh, delicate, and not at all bitter, decorated with bits of shaved fennel, crimini mushrooms, and small squares of asiago cheese.
The menu changes daily, with some mainstays. Seafood was plentiful on the night of our visit. We enjoyed the bold flavors of arctic char with a few thin spears of asparagus, seaweed salad, and an eggplant "caviar." The roasted halibut was borderline overdone, but it went nicely with the saffron tomato broth and slivers of sauteed artichokes. Spinach risotto, with a wild mushroom ragout, was the most generous dish on the menu. The rice was slightly undercooked but tasty nonetheless, redolent of garlic.
The dessert menu is impressive. The chocolate souffle cake was a plate of sweet treasures: the rich cake atop a crisp meringue, dribbles of caramel and chocolate sauces, scoops of burnt caramel ice cream on small cookies, plus a shot of Grand Marnier in a sugar-edged glass. The mundane peach-almond tart paled in comparison. But the coconut cake, an individual 4-inch-high round of moist golden cake covered with coconut frosting and served with a side of pistachio and raspberry coulis, left us very happy.
Lise Stern is a freelance writer.
