We had dinner at Ventuno last Friday, and it again proved itself one of the island’s top restaurants. The menu may seem confusing at first, but it really is divided into Antipasti, Primi (mostly pasta dishes), Secondi (mostly meat dishes), some snacks, and Dolci (desserts).
Unlike a lot of other restaurants, Ventuno still serves bread, a half loaf of terrific ciabatta for $6. You can get it with butter, olive oil, or probably both. It’s crusty and excellent!
We started with five local oysters with a grapefruit granita for $21. The grapefruit ice blended well with the oyster liquor to make a wonderful start to the meal.
One of us ordered their outstanding Caesar salad with romaine. Celery, ciabatta-parmesan croutons and Caesar dressing ($19).
For one entrée, we ordered Agnello: slow cooked and grilled lamb coppa ($48). Coppa is an unusual cut, in that it is part of the collar of muscles that extend from the loin. There are only two per animal, so it is fairly rare. Usually it is cooked slowly, resulting in really tender piece of meat. In this case, it is grilled briefly for the flavor as well. It was some of the tenderest lamb we have ever tasted. It was served with heirloom polenta, broccoli rabe, and a caper-anchovy gremolata.
For our other entrée, we ordered Capesante e Gamberi: grilled shrimp and Nantucket sea scallops, served with house bacon, grilled spring onions, spring peas herb gremolata, parsnip crema an preserved lemon piccata($51).
Finally, we split a dessert called Bomboloncini ($15): bittersweet chocolate filled donuts, coffee gelato and chocolate sauce. A delightful end to an outstanding meal. The bill, with two glasses of wine, including tax, but before tip was $233.26. It was one of the best meals we had during our visit.
The Boarding House and The Pearl were sold by the Raynors to Blue Flag Partners in 2019, and after the pandemic and some remodeling, they re-opened this spring. The Boarding House does not have any on-line presence, because they no longer take reservations. You just show up at or after 5:30 to have dinner with them.
The new version of The Pearl is less formal than its predecessor (no tablecloths) and very friendly, as evidenced by the substantial crowd dining there on Thursday. While the menu has some similarities to the old Pearl (our 2013 review is linked here), the menu is definitely the creation of the new management. They do not mention their chef’s name in their publicity, however.
The menu has some similarities in style to the old Pearl, including the Salt and Pepper Wok Fried Lobster, now with a Market Price of $80, and the 60-second steak and eggs ($33) share plate. And the menu is divided as before in 5 Snacks, 8 Shares, and 6 Entrees, but it is rather briefer than its predecessor.
What is very different is the style of the new Pearl. The staff are warm and friendly, and the diners all seem to be having a good time. The austere blue décor has been replaced with tan composition table tops, with napkin settings including both silverware and chopsticks, emphasizing the style of the new Pearl as Asian Fusion.
For our visit last Thursday, we selected two snacks: Lobster Rangoons ($27) and Heritage Pork Dumplings ($25). We did ask how much the Wok Fried Lobster was, and it turned out to be $80, but our waitress told us we would be happier with the Swordfish Katsu ($49) instead.
We also asked her whether, with these two starters, we would still need to order two entrees, and she said no, suggesting we could always add in another Share such as the Spring Pea Fried Rice ($25). So, we ordered that too.
We got the Lobster Rangoons first, and –a word of warning—these come right out of the fryer and onto your plate, and are full of hot steam. Don’t bite them directly: cut them open first. They are excellent.
Our Heritage Pork dumplings came second, and considering how dark the sauce was, it seemed more likely to contain black bean sauce than the specified red chili oil. But again, they were very good.
The Swordfish Katzu is a very interesting idea. It is basically swordfish breaded with Panko crumbs and deep fried. It doesn’t specify any sauces in the preparation. However, by deep frying the swordfish, they have solved the problem of dried out swordfish, which is all too common in other preparations. The swordfish was tender and juicy unlike any other version we’ve had. It was served with green goddess curry, spring peas, and mint.
Unfortunately for variety, the spring pea fried rice was rather similar, so we probably should have picked a different side dish. It came with chorizo and mushrooms, cured egg, crispy garlic and mint, but the peas and rice predominated. We show the two items plated below:
Finally, we chose two desserts, Cooper’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies, with sea salt and almodn milk to dip them in ($10) and Miso Caramel Budino ($12) with coffee syrup, milk chocolate crunch, candied ginger and crème fraiche.
The Budino was outstanding! Our bill was right around $200 including tax and $5.16 “kitchen appreciation.” Definitely a good deal for the evening.
We keep coming back to Le Languedoc almost every year, because we know it will be very good. No surprises: just great food and service. While the menu changes a bit all the time, it always seems mostly familiar.
You may be seated in the more formal main dining room, the downstairs bistro floor, or in warm weather on the covered patio. The menu and service are the same in each room.
Unlike other restaurants, Le Languedoc still serves bread and butter: and a decent pat of it, not little foil wrapped things. They provided a cranberry bread and a garlic bread this time.
This year was not different. We both came with the idea of ordering the Steak Frites ($42): strip steak smothered in bearnaise, with a substantial side of garlicky French fries, and watercress with a white truffle vinaigrette (shown above). You just can go wrong with this one. And it was as excellent as ever!
We chose different starters: one of us had the Chopped Salad with Bleu Cheese and Buttermilk Dressing ($18). It was a substantial serving and as delicious as it always is.
Our other choice was the Selection of Artisanal Cheeses, Honeycomb, Crisps, Marcona Almonds and dried Apricots ($22). This one is also on the dessert menu if you want it afterwards. While not identified, the cheeses seem to be a Brie, a goat cheese and a hard sheep’s milk cheese. A delightful appetizer.
For dessert, they offered a relatively new Small Town Girl Buttercrunch Sundae with Cream, Chocloate and Caramel sauces and butter crunch topping, (Petite $10.75 and Grand , $13). We split the big one. The small one might have been enough, but it was delightful.
The evening was an excellent experience as usual. The only hitch was that the waiters we so busy that the forgot to bring us out glasses of Cabernet to go with our steak. When we got to talk to a waitress, she apologized and delivered the wine late, and at no charge. Again, this is a class act.
Our bill with tax but before tip and with 2 drinks was $182.97. We’ll be back!
From its austere beginnings a few years ago, Lemon Press has evolved into a lovely full-service restaurant. While maintaining its organic identity (even though “organic” is a marketing term), they have developed a menu containing some beautiful and delicious recipes. Lemon Press is at 41 Main Street, in the spot formerly occupied by Arno’s. They open each day at 8am for takeout and sit-down service, and close at 3pm (2pm on Sundays). They reopen for dinner at 5:30pm on Wednesday through Sunday.
We stopping in for breakfast, and ordered coffee, tea, pancakes for one of us and eggs over easy for the other. Imagine our surprise to see that Lemon Press is one of the few restaurants in the US to bring you tea in an actual teapot, with the hot water already steeping the teabag!
What started out in our minds to be just pancakes, turned into a lovely dish of Rose water Hotcakes ($15) with whipped cream, farm berries, candied sesame seeds and cardamom syrup. You can see the two sausage patties ($5) in the background. This was a delightful presentation and utterly delicious.
Likewise, the eggs over easy and toast turned into 2 eggs, bacon, breakfast potatoes, micro salad and whole wheat toast (butter provided) for just $15.
We noted that there is a pepper shaker on each table, but no salt or sugar. They did bring sugar for our tea, and probably would have brought salt if we’d needed it. Service was simply excellent.
The bill with tax but before tip was $43.34, and we couldn’t have been more impressed.
The Club Car, the storied restaurant just above Straight Wharf has reopened under new management, with remodeling that is much closer to the original Club Car setting than its previous informal décor. The story of the Club Car is long, and we recount it here from 2017. After Tom Proch retired as chef, the Club Car was sold to 3 investors, including an experienced and well-regarded chef. However, the informal lunch counter-like décor and new veggie-heavy menu never caught on, and the chef was dismissed by the other investors who restored a somewhat more formal décor and a more classic high-end American cuisine.
It is this new incarnation that we report on here, after this new version of the restaurant had been open just about a month. The layout of banquettes is very nice along the windows and back wall, but the center row has a high partition between rows of tables with 2-tops along the back, many of which are not great for people with long legs and /or big feet. Of course, that is where we were seated.
The new menu includes several specialty cocktails, each including an ingredient you may not be able to pronounce and a more classic menu. This menu include appetizers, five soup and salad choices, and eight entrees ranging in price from $31 for the Eggplant Parmesan to $65 for the Veal Schnitzel. Other offerings include Salmon, Seared scallops, Halibut with black truffle risotto, Lobster pasta, Center-cut Filet, and Lamb loin.
Based on Marianne Stanton’s recommendation, we both ordered their Crab Cakes appetizer ($25) with beurre blanc and yuzu pickled daikon. The crab cakes were quite tasty with the buttery sauce cut by the pickled daikon. But as a Baltimore crab cake fan, I would prefer a spicier taste (usually brown mustard mixed into the crab cake), and a bit more crab and less filler. Nonetheless, these were delicious. Other appetizers include Gougeres, clams casino, steamed mussels, grilled octopus, steak tartar, seared foie gras, fried hallumi and mushroom tartine.
For main entrees one of us selected the Lamb loin ($38), on Israeli couscous, with eggplant, Swiss chard and coffee jus. It was juicy and medium rare as we requested, but it was not all tender, although really quite flavorful.
Our other entrée was the Lobster pasta ($47) made with cognac, tomato and brown butter, served on pasta. You got a lobster claw, poached, and half a lobster tail grilled. The claw was tender, but the tail not so much, as grilling can easily dry out lobster meat. The flavor, however, was excellent.
We should interject here that we wondered about bread being served with our meal. The busboy didn’t answer at all, but our waitress said they didn’t offer bread, but could provide some toast. That seemed unusual. Later, when the maire d’ stopped by we asked about the bread, and he said that they usually suggest the Gougeres (cheese puffs, $7) instead. Too bad we didn’t think of that, as they would have been a great accompaniment.
There were only four desserts recited, but we went with the chocolate ganache pie with ice cream. How could you go wrong with that? You couldn’t: it was superb.
The bill with 3 glasses of wine and tax but before tip was $221.49. Not bad!
This is a shakedown period for the Club Car and they are certain to straighten out the kinks as the season progresses. You should definitely give it a try. To put it in perspective, we ate only once at the previous vegetable heavy incarnation and had no intention of going back. This version shows real promise and we’ll be back again on our next visit.
In this year’s round of visits to Nantucket’s top restaurants, we began with Dune. We’ve been visiting Dune regularly since chef and owner Michael Getter opened it around 2010 and have always been impressed. This year, we found it outstanding in both food and service. While the menu changes regularly, this one is representative of Dune’s excellence.
We began with Roasted Red and Gold Beets ($23.50) with whipped goat cheese, balsamic and red sorrel vinaigrette. The beets were sweet and tender and went very well with the goat cheese and vinaigrette.
Our other starter was even more spectacular: Sautéed Florida Rock Shrimp ($21.50) served on a crispy chickpea polenta, with edamame, roasted red peppers, barley crunch and the most delicious sweet zucchini pickles. While the shrimp alone were very nice, the polenta squares under the shrimp and those pickles made the dish an outstanding experience.
For our main course we chose the Pan Roasted Sea scallops ($52.50) with a spring asparagus risotto, trumpet mushrooms and a brown butter sherry vinaigrette. The scallops were sweet, tender and juicy and not a bit dry.
And finally, our other main entrée was Miso Glazed Scottish Salmon ($48.50) with carrots, gold beets, bamboo rice, an avocado-miso-carrot puree and sesame crunch. We found some edamame there as well. This medium rare salmon with these accompaniments was simply stunning.
Finally, one of our desserts was Strawberry Pavlova ($16). A pavlova is a crispy meringue, here served with a white chocolate ganache mantee’, strawberry sorbet and a coconut crumble. Along with the fresh strawberries, this was a delightful mixture of textures.
Our other dessert was a delicious Chocolate Pot de Crème ($14) with a peanut and chocolate crumble.
Overall, this was a top-notch experience, with an excellent staff. At one point, I accidentally dropped my fork, and the waitress scooped it up and gave me a new one in about 4 seconds.
The dinner with 2 drinks and one glass of wine was $262.14 with tax but before tip, but including an optional kitchen gratuity of $4.81. The restaurant delivers the bill with a QR code on it (From the Toast app) that allows you to pay the bill by scanning that code with your phone. A great evening all told.
Bonnie Garmus’s novel Lessons in Chemistry has been wildly popular since its 2022 publication, and praised by nearly everybody. The story of Elizabeth Zott, a Master’s student at UCLA who was attacked and raped by her research supervisor makes quite a tale. In this story, she is denied permission to continue for her Ph.D. and essentially expelled, for defending herself from this attack. Sadly, it is all too believable.
The story is essentially a charming fantasy where Elizabeth leaves the research institute where she took a job to become a TV cooking show host, where she emphasizes the chemistry in the recipes she describes. I call it a “fantasy” because of her dog Six-thirty with a 1000-word vocabulary, who apparently can read Proust, and her preposterously precocious daughter, who is reading Dickens around age 4. The story over all is a lot of fun: especially in the first two acts. The third act is a deus ex machina ending that seemed a bit much, and more worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan.
But, let me interject that I was a chemistry graduate student about the same time as her story, graduating from Oberlin College in 1964 and getting my Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Ohio State in 1969. And Garmus and her editors simply did not take a lot of care in describing the chemistry and the labs of those days, and these clinkers spoiled the elegance of her beguiling tale. I note that female Ph.D. scientist Ricki Lewis has somewhat similar views you should read as well. The following contains spoilers.
One event Garmus comes back to several times, is that women in the lab are so uncommon that everyone assumes they must be secretaries, even in graduate school where there are sure to be female students. The fallacy, of course, is that secretaries dress professionally, while student researchers wear lab attire: sweatshirts and jeans are common, or grubby lab coats. I still have one of mine.
Having missed her chance at a Ph.D. (at least at UCLA) Zott takes a job at Hastings Institute, a sort of Nevermore Academy for second string scientists. But among them is Calvin Evans, an up-and-coming scientific wunderkind who is carrying out research on abiogenesis, the conversion of common chemicals into components found in living organisms. Of course, the book makes no mention of Wohler’s synthesis of urea from inorganic materials in 1828 or the Miller and Urey experiment in 1952 that started with a flask of gases (water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen) likely to have been in existence before life began. After applying an electric arc inside the closed system, Miller found that several essential amino acids had been formed. (Lewis mentions this as well.)
The initial confrontation between Zott and Evans comes about when her lab needs beakers, and she learns that he has boxes of them. Beakers? What the heck would she want beakers for? They are essentially glass vessels open to the air and, I might note, easily spilled. If she is doing biochemistry related to her own interest in abiogenesis, she’d be doing it in small, closed flasks under nitrogen or argon.
Needless to say, these two socially inept scientists are quickly attracted to each other and soon move in together. While they are attracted by their scientific discussions, Garmus can’t reproduce them very well. She quotes them arguing about the number of covalent bonds in some compound: basically, an introductory high school or freshman chemistry topic. In fact, we have no idea what either of them are actually working on.
Bunsen burners
The book mentions Bunsen burners throughout, as if they are part of the standard research lab. But they are not. Open flames in an organic chem lab are an invitation to bench fires. I never saw a Bunsen burner after I left undergraduate school, and when I visited a couple of years later, they had all been replaced with electric appliances.
Heating mantle
Hot plate with magnetic stirrer
Basically, chemists use hot plates and heating mantles, which wrap the round-bottom flasks they use in carrying out reactions. And many hotplates have a second control knob that controlled a spinning magnet under the heating surface. Then you put a small Teflon covered magnetic bar in the flask, and used the rotating magnet to spin the stirring bar and keep the solution stirred.
Cooking is Chemistry
One of the principal ideas we are to get from Zott’s abilities as an excellent cook is that “cooking is chemistry.” And it is indeed, but Garmus’s examples are not that persuasive. While living with Evans, Zott does most of their cooking, and makes notes like
@200˚ C/35min = loss of one mol. H2O per molecule sucrose, total 4 in 55 minutes = C24H36O18.
The reason why this is utter nonsense is that there are probably hundreds of compounds with that compressed empirical formula. It tells us absolutely nothing about what the compound is or what is actually going on!
In a later scene, after she has set up a lab where her kitchen was, she has a sack meaninglessly labeled C8H10N4O2. Since she uses it to make coffee for her neighbor, we are to infer that the label refers to a formula for caffeine. But it would have been more correct and almost simpler to have simply sketched the molecular structure instead:
Caffeine
After her first show, she makes out a shopping list, including CH3COOH, which no one recognizes as acetic acid (or vinegar). If she’s not trying hard to be obscure, she could have written “vinegar” in the same number of characters, or HOAc, the usual abbreviation. In that abbreviation “Ac” stands for the acyl group, CH3C=O and the H attached to the oxygen is the acidic proton. Concentrated (glacial) acetic acid is nasty stuff, and not suitable for salads. Vinegar is about 4% acetic acid, and she should say so.
She also keeps saying “sodium chloride” for salt, but chemists would usually just say “table salt” to distinguish it from other salts in the lab. Or, they might say “NaCl,” which is shorter, still.
During one of her shows she takes questions from the audience and one woman confessed she had really wanted to be an open-heart surgeon. Zott asks her the molecular weight of barium chloride, and she quickly answers “208.23,” so Zott assures her that she is ready for work towards a medical degree. I don’t know a single chemist who could answer that off the top of her head. We’d look at the periodic table and find the atomic weight of barium and of chlorine (137.327 and 35.453) and knowing that the formula is BaCl2, we’d calculate the atomic weight and come up with the same answer. But answering that immediately is just a parlor trick for a few people with photographic memories who are super-calculators. It doesn’t say much about her knowledge of science. (OK, maybe this was a joke, but it didn’t land that way.)
In another amusing moment, she was given a can of the sponsor’s soup. She tosses it into the trash, because “it’s full of chemicals.” Well of course it is. Everything, including water, is a chemical. She then goes further suggesting products like that would eventually kill you. This may be Garmus’s opinion, but it shouldn’t be Zott’s, because there is no science behind it. Preservatives added to canned soup are there to keep it from killing you. And there is no evidence that they are dangerous. “Full of chemicals” is just a random slogan based on ignorance and would not be Zott’s view.
Publications
Throughout the book, Garmus refers to the nonexistent magazines Chemistry Today and Science Journal. If she means Science she should have said so. It’s a major publication. Other professional journals she might have mentioned are the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry,Proceedings of the National Academy and Nature. I don’t think the ACS journal Biochemistry existed yet. But for news, she should have mentioned Chem & Engineering News, which is a weekly chemistry news magazine published by the ACS.
However, if her boss Donatti copied her notes and published a paper, it would have taken him weeks or months to write that paper and probably a year for it to be refereed, edited and published. So, it appearing two months after Zott returned is just literary license.
Calvin Evans’ Death
Sadly, their loving relationship is cut short by a freak (and preposterous) accident. His original gravestone gets damaged, and when she has it remade, she included the inscription below.
She says that she is “opting for a chemical response that resulted in happiness.” This is probably the structure for oxytocin, but a more accurate structure drawing is shown below, that would be easier to engrave on stone.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is sometimes called “the love drug,” because it is associated with romance, sex, childbirth and lactation. She could have written it on the tombstone more succinctly as the 9 amino acid components:
Cys – Tyr – Ile – Gln – Asn – Cys – Pro – Leu – Gly – NH2
Or even more compactly in biochemist’s notation as
CYIQNCPLG-NH2.
Conclusions
This is a funny and entertaining book, that would have been more authentic if they’d talked to some lab chemists about how labs really operated in 1960s. Some of us remember them quite well. Read it and enjoy it, with a grain of salt (er, sodium chloride).
Oh, and there is no conceivable reason why Elizabeth would be using a cyclotron (p. 6). They are primarily for physicists, and sometimes for radiation therapy. And finally, The Mikado dialog is not racist (p.21), and the soprano does not cause all the trouble. That job is reserved for Koko, the patter baritone!
The photo at the top of the article is from the set of “Jekyll and Hyde, the Musical,” performed at the Wilton Playshop in November, 2022.
Pressburger quietly opened in Wilton last week and more people are finding it every day. This is the third Pressburger in Connecticut: they also have stores in Norwalk and New Canaan. The menu is fairly simple: build-your-own burgers, a few specialty burgers, hot dogs and grilled cheese. But they are all prepared to order on the spot. They anticipate adding a few more items in the future.
So what is a Pressburger? They start with fist sized balls of fresh ground beef, lay them on the grill and close the lid, pressing the meat into a patty. This amounts to cooking the burger on both sides at once, and sealing in the flavor more effectively. This is shown in the pictures of the press in use and what the press looks like when they use it. That latter photo is from the Taylor Company web site. They add the cheese shortly before they taken them off the press grill.
While the burgers are cooking, they grill the Martin’s potato rolls on the open griddle, and then ask you which toppings you want. There are about a dozen free choices (Lettuce, Tomato, Raw Onion, Pickled Red Onion, Grilled Onion, Pickles, Pickled Cucumbers Jalapeños, Pickled Jalapeños, Dill Pickle Relish, Potato Chips, Hot Cherry Peppers, Old Bay Seasoning, Pickled Carrots) and a few specialty toppings (Thick Cut Bacon, Chili, Grilled Mushrooms, Sauerkraut, Cheese Sauce, Onion Crunch) that cost extra.
You also have a choice of quite a few free sauces (House Sauce [Chipotle Aioli], Mayo, Sriracha, Sriracha Aioli, Ketchup, Yellow Mustard, Honey Mustard, Dijon Mustard, Spicy Brown Mustard, BBQ, Smoky BBQ Aioli, Buffalo Sauce, Old Bay Seasoning, Malt Vinegar).
Then they wrap the burger and you pay and go. Or you can eat there, as a number of people were doing when we visited.
In addition to beef burgers, you can order Veggie burgers and Beyond Meat burgers, and a gluten free bun or a lettuce wrap. Hot dogs also come in beef, chicken or Veggie.
Their menu includes a house salad, kale Caesar salad and banana pudding or whoopie pies for dessert, as well as four flavors of milkshakes. You can select from a number of specialty beverages from a chilled display or get one of the Coke products from a fountain dispenser.
So, how are these burgers? We’ve been there twice and are pretty impressed with food, service and the pleasant staff. But that’s not enough. How do they compare with the competition?
To find out, we bought a single burger from Five Guys, one from McDonalds and one from the Wilton Pressburger, all within 30 minutes and took them home to compare. We also weighed each of the three patties. Their cooked weight was
Pressburger — 2.36 oz
Five Guys – 2.01 oz
McDonalds – 1.13 oz
Pressburger wins. Our taste test of slices of the three burgers made it clear, that Pressburger also tasted the best. Pricewise, Pressburgers are competitively priced, with single patties for $6.99 (plus $1.00 for cheese). A similar Five Guys is $7.89 (plus $1.10 for cheese), and the teeny McDonald’s burger is $1.49. Fries at Pressburger are $4.99 while those at Five Guys are $5.99, and at McDonalds are $2.99.
As far as fries go, McDonald’s always receives high praise, but in fact it isn’t very long before they are limp and soggy. And while Five Guys gives you enough fries to fill a Motor Home, they deteriorate in just a few minutes. The crinkle cut Pressburger fries were still warm and tasty even an hour later.
Pressburger fries are cooked on the spot from frozen crinkle cut potatoes. And as Kenji Lopez-Alt has reported, frozen fries are actually better, because the ice crystals improve the surface of the fries when they are cooked. They also offer sweet potato fries
We think that Pressburger is a winner and are happy to have one so close by in Wilton!
Athithi opened in the Gateway shopping center last fall and we have found it a delightful addition to Wilton’s restaurant scene. The menu features a wide variety of classic Indian dishes and a few other regional specialties. Note that the Dine-In menu and the Takeout menus are slightly different, because not all of their dishes travel. However, the menu is extensive and everything we have tried has been excellent. The restaurant features two Michelin star experienced chefs: Executive Chef Hemant Mathur, and Chef Chandru Krishnasamy, who along with Executive Manager Prince produce an outstanding experience. The word “Athithi” means “Guest” and we assure you that they treat their guests very well.
We first visited in November, before they had their wine license, and I went last night to brough home an excellent take-out meal. They clearly have that license now, however.
If you dine there, you will start with crispy naan bread served with two dipping sauces: a green one: mint chutney and a red one (coriander chutney), that is warmly mild and spicy with notes of cinnamon. They are good on your bread and on whatever entrée you order.
We tried a couple of interesting appetizers: the salmon and crab cakes ($14) served on an elegant little dish with a suspended sauce dish of green chili aioli. The other was Ragda Chaat ($11): potato cakes with white peas, tamarind and mint chutney. You could share the salmon-crab cakes, and you definitely can share the Ragda Chaat as it is a substantial portion.
For our main courses, we ordered Rogan Josh ($22), a lamb stew with Kashmiri red chili, and Chicken Korma ($20), chicken cooked in a rich and creamy cashew sauce. Note that for your entrees you can specify mild, medium spicy, or spicy. None of them are going to burn your mouth, though. The medium and spicy are only slightly different. In medium, you can taste the spices, and in the spicy version the spice taste lingers in your mouth between bites.
We found the Rogan Josh with tender pieces of lamb the be an excellent choice, but I’ll have to admit that my wife’s Chicken Korma in cashew sauce won the night for us. It was delightful.
Finally, the menu lists four desserts, a Mango Cheesecake, Kulfi Falooda, Shahi Tukda and Moong Dal Halwa. They are probably all delicious as one of chefs has specialized in desserts. We know what mango cheesecake would be, but Kulfi Falooda? It’s a kind of ice cream sundae, made with Indian ice cream (no eggs), sweet basil seeds, corn starch vermicelli and rose syrup. Sometimes chefs add nuts or dried fruit as well. This version was absolutely amazing and I’d order it every time, except that I know the other three desserts will be great as well.
Take-Out
I went back last night to try some more dishes while my wife dined elsewhere. I ordered Punjabi Samosa ($8), which is a common Indian street food, described as a crispy turnover stuffed with spiced potatoes, chick peas, and green peas. Without trying the main course, I can attest to the winning greatness of this snack.
For my main course, I order Chicken Biryani ($19) served with mint yogurt. Indian chefs obsess of making perfect biryanis, where each grain of basmati rice should be separate. The spices may include saffron and garam masala. I ordered mine at the top level “Spiced” and found it smooth and aromatic without being overly aggressively spicy. Like everything else, at Athithi, it was excellent.
I didn’t order a dessert, because the takeout menu doesn’t include any, but there was this extra cup of something beside the mint yogurt sauce. It was a complementary rice pudding!
Welcome to Athithi and we’ll surely come back many times!
Straight Wharf Restaurant is one of Nantucket’s absolute gems: an excellent seafood restaurant with four star food and service overlooking the harbor. It is great for special occasions or anytime, considering the prix fixe pricing structure they introduced this spring. For $78, you get the choice of any appetizer and any entrée from their extensive menu. There are a couple of items with supplemental charges, like their famous clambake, but they are worth it. It is still a terrific bargain. Dessert are extra, but not terribly expensive.
Our service began with a bluefish pate as an amuse-bouche served with excellent crackers
Bluefish pate
followed by some excellent bread and butter.
On this visit we each had to again experience their (shell-less) clambake of lobster, littleneck clams, spicey chorizo, fingerling potatoes (as potato chips) sweet corn (as a delicious emulsion) for a $17 supplemental charge. This is nominally a half-sized portion, offered as an appetizer, but it is still a fantastic (and filling) dish, as shown in the photo above. This is their signature dish and we’ve had it several times in the past, and it never fails to amaze.
Scallops
For one entrée, we had scallops. Now scallops are usually presented as just sautéed and served with little else. But here, in this outstanding restaurant, the scallops were served on a sunchoke mole`, that is a puree of sunchokes with some unsweetened chocolate added for richness, and served with green beans sugar, snap peas and some more sunchokes, along with a mango and gooseberry salsa and some bits of oranges as well. What a delicious and imaginative presentation.
Salmon with tarragon toum
It’s hard to get decent salmon in restaurants, as it is often dry and overcooked. But this salmon was slo-poached, and incredibly juicy and tender. It was served with a tarragon toum, a sort of tarragon-based mayonnaise, roasted beets, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, fennel, arugula, garden herbs and a preserved lemon vinaigrette. It was outstanding, and our only regret that after that capacious appetizer, we couldn’t finish it all.
Chocolate cherry tart
Finally, for dessert, we had a delicious warm chocolate-cherry tart. The pudding itself was actually hot, right out of the saucepan, served with a bit of vanilla ice cream, to top it off.
The amazing thing is that including two cocktails and two sodas, our bill, including tax, was only $289. Compare that to some other restaurants and you’ll know what a terrific deal this was. And the service was warm, friendly and attentive.
