gaslight brasserie du coin (boston)

My friends Antoinette, Renee, and I attended the patio party at Gaslight restaurant last night. I saw a blurb about it on the Boston Chefs website and we managed to get our names on the guest list for the party which was celebrating the opening of their patio space for the summer. It's funny because they kept emphasizing how it was limited to 50 people, but there were nearly 200 people there after the first hour and so there was a shortage of passed apps going around.


We enjoyed complimentary drinks from Svedka Vodka and Harpoon Brewery, and freshly shucked oysters from Island Creek Oysters. It was a nice way to spend a summer evening and I can see the patio area becoming a popular destination this summer.

Renee and I stayed at the restaurant for dinner and had quite a feast. She had their halibut special which was served with a corn succotash and said it was quite good. It was a pretty large piece of fish and she asked for some of it to be wrapped up to take home. Unfortunately, we didn't realize until right before we left (and after dessert) that the waiter never brought it back to our table. :(

I had the duck confit ($17.50) which was served with an orange gastrique, citrus chard salade, and roasted garlic potatoes. It was absolutely delicious! It has been a while since I've had duck and man, it was finger licking good. Of course, we couldn't let any of the freshly baked (still warm) French bread go to waste, so I sopped up everything on my plate. No shame, no shame at all. It paired really well with my glass of Gamay Beaujolais wine too ($10).

We shared the molten chocolate cake dessert ($6.95) which was served with creme Chantilly (think sweetened whipped cream). It tasted wonderful but I have to say that the presentation was kind of a flop. Literally. I mean, look at this picture. Right??

Overall, it was a nice dining experience at the restaurant and the patio party was a lot of fun. I will say though, it is quite loud inside the restaurant and it was difficult to hear our conversation even though it was just two of us and we leaned across the table toward each other. I think they could turn the music down a notch and it would be a little better. A great restaurant for a romantic date (if you can deal with the loudness), and certainly good for a group outing if you don't mind spending more on an entree. Would not recommend it for a family with small children though. Great wine selection, nice bar, and a party atmosphere.

Gaslight Brasserie du Coin
560 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02118
617.422.0224
http://gaslight560.com

voila!

I took another French cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts called "Voila!". I was thrilled to find out that Scott would be our instructor (he was one of the instructors at the last class I took) and it was even more fun because my friend, Stephanie, took the class with me.

There were only 9 of us in this one, and we made 7 dishes: Warm Crab Tartlets; Chilled Cream of Zucchini Soup with Mussels and Fresh Mint; Seared Marinated Tuna with Black Olive Vinaigrette; Potato Puree; Duck Breasts with Coriander, Endive, and Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce; Confit of Fresh Chestnuts, Walnuts, Fennel, and Onions; and Crepes Suzette.

I took on the potato puree dish even though Scott warned us that it was labor intensive. I thought, "How can this be hard?" Aside from the usual peeling and cubing, we used a large food processor to mash six cooked potatoes with some milk and butter. Make that a cuppa butta. Then after that, we still had to thin it out a bit more with some light cream. Then Scott had me press it through a food mill to get out the larger "particles" (i.e. bits of potato skin). Yikes! I've never had creamier and smoother potatoes in my life ("as smooth as a baby's butt" as one woman put it - lol)!

Stephanie decided to tackle the zucchini soup recipe. While the potatoes were cooking, I helped her by cleaning two large bags of mussels, which included de-bearding some of them. It was kind of weird watching them close up and knowing that they were alive.

I couldn't eat any of the dishes except for my potatoes because of my food allergies, so I took my portions home in Tupperware containers for Tony to enjoy. Everything looked great though, and the kitchen smelled so good. Oh wait, I did grab some of the cooked tuna that didn't fit onto the serving platter and that was yummy.

This was Stephanie's zucchini soup right before it went into the blender ...

... and this is what zucchini soup looks like when you can't find the blender's cap.

Actually, I did try a bite of the soup with a mussel and it was de-lish!

Scott flambeed the crepes Suzette with cognac. Pretty cool.

Will definitely take another class there! So much fun and good food in the end. How can you go wrong?

cambridge school of culinary arts

Last Christmas, Tony gave me a gift certificate to the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts so that I could take any of their cooking classes. I enrolled in their "City of Light" class which features French dishes. There were 18 people enrolled in the class and we had 2 teaching chefs, so it was quite a crowded kitchen!

We made nine dishes total: Mussels in Cream Sauce; French Onion Soup; Chicken Fricassee with Cognac; Individual Beef Wellingtons (with a Mushroom Duxelles stuffing); Asparagus with Tarragon Butter Sauce; Pommes Dauphinoise; Salad de Bleu D'Auvergne; Fraises au Poivre et au Rouge (fresh strawberries with peppercorns and red wine); and Cream Puff Croquembouche.

Some seriously good food, ya'll.

Each of us wore an apron and had our own little station. We went around the room and the two chefs, Peter and Scott, asked if anyone had particular dishes that they wanted to work on. I picked the pastry cream for the puff pastries and got to work with a nice man named Phil who had arrived just as early as I did. He made the choux paste which was then piped out to form the cute little cream puffs.

Before we got started, Peter explained that we should read through the entire recipe to prepare for the various steps by gathering equipment and ingredients. Of course, I didn't realize until my arm wanted to fall off how much whisking I would have to do for the pastry cream! Man! I think my right bicep is much thicker than my left one after last night.

Although it was pretty hectic with that many people, it was fun to be able to watch others prepare the various dishes while I was waiting for the cream to chill in the fridge. Everyone was really friendly and helpful so people would ask if you needed help if they were done with their dish. A couple of people came alone like me, and there was a cute father and daughter team, plus two or three couples so it was a nice mix of people.

Of course, I ended up not being able to eat all of the dishes because they would have one or two ingredients that I'm allergic to. So I kind of planned ahead anticipating this problem and brought some tupperware containers to take my portions home in. Yes, I got a few strange looks, but after I explained my situation everyone understood and some even told me that it was a good idea because we ended up having a ton of food and a bunch leftover. Anyway, I brought them home and let Tony enjoy them. He said they were really delicious! I plan to make a couple of the dishes for us in the future and will just alter the recipes to exclude the things I'm allergic to.

I had a really fun time last night meeting new people and working with them in the kitchen. I'm enrolled in another French class called "Voila!" in May and my friend Stephanie will be with me that night, too. They do a lot of "Couples Cooking" classes on Friday nights, so I want to see if I can get us into a Sushi making one.

Bon appetit!

celebrating 8 & 1

To celebrate our eighth year together and our first year of being engaged, Tony surprised me by having me meet him downtown after I got off work on Friday, November 30th. Our "anniversary" date is usually celebrated on December 1st each year but he had a gig that night; and then we got engaged on December 3rd last year but a Nor'Easter was supposedly on its way to us that day so we opted to going out on a Friday night.

So I met him at South Station in downtown and we walked over to the ICA. I don't think I had ever really gone to a contemporary art museum before, so this was quite a different experience. Different as in interesting. Unique. Very interesting. We were more taken by the giganomous elevator that was like a whole building's floor moving with glass surrounding you all around, and the cool architecture of the building. What was funner than anything else was seeing my friend, Aja, who I totally forgot manages the gift shop there!

Anyway, I totally shot these pics illegally (shhh, don't tell anyone!). The first one illustrates the wide open spaces inside the museum. The second one is of a stunning chandelier that I just couldn't resist capturing. And then the third one is of this aerial sky camera that some dude created (it was featured in Make magazine) Fricken genius! I would LOVE to have a camera that you could take bird's-eye-view photos with ... BUT ... I don't think I'd ever have the patience to build this contraption the way this guy did. Sheer genius.



Afterwards, we caught a cab to a restaurant called Radius. Wow! Talk about a stunning restaurant! We felt a little underdressed as we walked in because a lot of the men were wearing suits and ties, but the hostess assured us that we were okay. They seated us right away even though we were a little early for our reservation, and our waitress was super super nice. It's a French restaurant and the atmosphere is kind of low-lit and posh, but still comfortable.

We ordered the Confit Pork Belly to share as an appetizer because it just sounded so darn good (how can you go wrong with pig fat?! Sorry, Jill, if you're reading this!). There are people that walk around handing out warm, round, little bread rolls throughout the course of the night and so we enjoyed those while waiting for our food to come. With our glasses of Bordeaux of course. :)

Shortly after we had ordered our food, the waitress brought out a small complimentary appetizer for each of us from the chef. Unfortunately, it had jalapeno peppers on top so I couldn't eat it. It was really good (according to Tony), so I swapped our dishes and now it looked like I had eaten the whole thing up while he let his sit there. Funny thing was that when the waitress - who, by the way, had a beautifully strong English accent - came back to ur table, she saw his little plate was full and asked him, "Did you not fancy that, sir?" I explained that I was allergic to the peppers on top and couldn't eat it, which confused her since my little plate was empty. Then Tony had to chime in that he had eaten all of mine and was going to devour his. But then she was still confused and tried to take his little plate away until he grabbed it and almost bit her hand off (ha ha ha -- totally exaggerating here but you get the point ...). And then she realized what had happened and said that there were jalapeno peppers in our appetizer dish, so she was going to run and tell the chef not to put them inside for my sake. So totally sweet of her, even though seriously? I never would've thought that they'd put jalapeno peppers on something like Confit Pork Belly when they listed bok choy, manila clams, mussels, cilantro and coconut nage as the other ingredients. But then again, I'm no cook!

A couple of minutes later, she came back to our table with two bowls and explained that the chef wanted one of us to experience the dish as it was truly meant to be eaten with the jalapeno pepper garnish, so he made up two smaller portions for us. Of course, mine didn't have the pepper on it, and just the whole idea of him being so accomodating nearly made me cry! And I tell you, after one little teensy bite of this dish, I was nearly melting! It was THAT good. Man, I could've eaten ten more servings of it. The flavor! Mmmmm!

Okay, you can totally picture us sopping up the yummy pork fat flavor with the bread rolls right about now. And butter. Sinful.

So, on to the entrees. Tony ordered the Seared Day Boat Scallops which were served with delicata squash, roasted cauliflower, autumn olive sauce and szechuan peppercorn. De-lish! And I ordered the Mediterranean Sea Bass which was served with a garlic-parsley sauce, braised mushrooms and cippolini, escargots, swiss chard and port reduction.

Yes, I said this place was French. Escargots. Snails.

I seriously, seriously don't remember eating snails. Errr. If I did, they were so fricken good I didn't care what they were! Seriously. I think I thought they were the mushrooms.

Anyway. So yummy. So rich. So good. So would go back for another really special occasion type of celebrating. So would eat snails again if they tasted that good.

But ...

(there's always a but!)

The one thing that was a leeeeetle bit disappointing was their dessert menu. Most of the stuff had nuts on or in them. And then there was creme brulee which didn't entice either of us. Aw shucks. Ya can't have them all, right?

So when the waitress came back and asked us if we wanted dessert, we lied and said that we were too stuffed to eat dessert. (If you're that waitress and you're reading this now - we didn't really mean to lie but we couldn't think of any other nice way to say, "Lay off the nuts!" in relation to the dessert options!)

Anywho - she brings us the bill and a small plate of mini desserts - six of them! Like little yummy parcels of chocolate and goodness. Tony ate both of the ones with the raspberries on top plus one of the coconut macaroons. And then I inhaled (somehow) two pieces of dark chocolate something something and the other coconut macaroon. Point: empty plate. Second point: we obviously weren't that full. LOL

But there was a little comment card included with the bill so I made a note and suggested that they didn't have so many desserts with nuts on or in them. And that I was extremely gracious for the chef accomodating my pepper allergies.

And to end it all, we trekked home in the freezing cold together. :)