If you’re in town in August, you’ve got a sweet deal.
Two hundred restaurants plan to participate in Boston’s Summer Restaurant Week, which will actually take place over two weeks, Sunday, August 9, through Friday, August 14, and Sunday, August 16, through Friday, August 21. A prix-fixe lunch will cost you $20.09 and a prix-fixe dinner will set you back $33.09. Nice.
Except for three things. Restaurants go through trends as does every other facet of American society, and there are three that annoy me and might be annoying you too.
First, there is the server, who has done a fine job taking your order and serving it. Then, when your mouth is full or you are deep in conversation with your friends, he or she returns. “Is everything all right?”
Well, of course it is. Otherwise we would have mentioned it. Don’t interrupt diners with that question like that. I understand you have been told to do this, but it is rude.
Second, chefs, remember what cooking is and why it exists. Foods that are heated and cooked for the right amount of time taste better than foods that haven’t been. So why are you serving us items cooked nicely on the outside but raw and tasteless in the middle? Raw is fine in small bits and surrounded by the appropriate condiments. But it does not compliment a beautiful halibut encrusted with pistachios and served with a lovely sauce.
Julia Child started this raw trend in the 1960s when she was on a mission to persuade Americans that mushy vegetables were not as satisfying as bright green, lightly cooked ones. But like many missions, hers has suffered from mission creep, and the original purpose has been lost. The raw trend will probably end soon.
Finally portion-size is still a problem. I know we can take bits home, but, frankly, the item doesn’t taste the same heated up in the microwave the next day. And large portions mean we don’t have room for dessert or we don’t order an interesting starter course because we know two courses are too filling. And it’s why we split orders—never satisfactory for either the diner or the restaurant. If your vegetables are dreamy and your potatoes or cous-cous servings are delightful, few diners will miss the extra few ounces of the main attraction.
Having complained about restaurants, we should be grateful they exist at all in Boston.
The city’s restaurant history is not rich. Apparently a French restaurant opened in Boston in the 18th century, which must have been better than those derived from the Puritans, but until the last couple of decades of the 20th century, there were few restaurants here of any quality. Durgin Park was famous for its abrasive wait staff. Locke Ober didn’t let women into a good portion of its dining room.
Washington, D.C. had a diplomatic corps to encourage restaurant diversity and quality. California had a growing season that facilitated the move toward fresh, local ingredients, and New York is New York. But Boston was slow to catch on.
Perhaps that’s because the dining-out class went to private clubs to eat. Or maybe New England boiled dinner was just as unappetizing served in a restaurant as it was when served at home.
Bostonians relished their jimmies, frappes, oysters, lobsters, clam chowder, Parker House rolls and lime rickeys, but were unaware of morels and mussels, even though mussels, at least, were along the shore, there for the taking. Even Italian restaurants served mostly spaghetti, with little relationship to the menus Bostonians enjoyed when they visited Rome.
At some point things began to change. Jasper White was one of the restaurateurs who stimulated interest in good dining, but it was still Julia Child, in the public television studios of food-challenged Boston, who opened New Englanders’ eyes—as well as those of the nation—to the preparations folks in other countries were enjoying.
By the mid-nineties, Boston’s restaurants were as good as those in most cities, but even now, other cities sometimes surprise us with their better depth and breadth.
But the restaurants we have, we like. Some residents complain that restaurants are noisy, but other residents gladly trade the noise for dozens of places within a few minutes walk where one can enjoy fresh ingredients manipulated by chefs who are artistic and imaginative.
We can’t imagine a Restaurant Week in Boston in the 1980s. There weren’t enough good restaurants. So if the servers keep interrupting us when we’re deep in conversation with our friends, it might be the price we pay for coming up in the world.