Belgian sugar waffle @ Mr Crepe

When I posted about the deep-fried cupcake from Kickass recently, I compared it to the Belgian sugar waffle from Mr. Crepe.

A confession: I had no idea what I was talking about.

That is, I hadn't tried the Belgian sugar waffle from Mr. Crepe. And I assumed I probably wouldn't have the chance to do so, given that the Chowhound thread on the subject suggested they were rare (delicious) birds.

This morning, feeling both pancakey and lazy, we went into Davis Square for breakfast. Mr. Crepe was open and quiet for a change. I was about to order something chocolate-and-banana-related when I saw a chalkboard that had a drawing of a happy waffle sporting a jaunty green scarf and the words "Belgian sugar waffles are now available!"

"Um ... are Belgian sugar waffles available?" I asked.

"Not right now," said the guy behind the counter. My heart sank.

"I need to defrost and cook some; it'll take about a half-hour."

Only thirty minutes between me and the legendary waffle? I could wait.

So we ordered coffee and smoothies, and The Boy got a ham-egg-Brie crepe, and we sat in the window and watched Davis Square wake up.

And then it came.



Fresh from the iron.



Glistening with sugar.



It was steaming and caramel-fragrant.

It was like warm, sweet bread.

It was like a freshly frosted, dense donut.

It was heavenly.

But aaagh! Who knows when I'll get another? What are the chances of being near Mr. Crepe when the Belgian sugar waffles are ready (or when I'm just hungry enough to wait)?

I guess I could always make my own ...

Five thoughts about Ten Tables

We checked out the new Ten Tables in Cambridge this weekend. (Sadly, the lighting was too atmospheric for decent photos, so you'll have to make do with words.) Here are a few observations:

They like cream. A lot.
Okay, I ordered the vélouté of fennel to start, so duh, cream. The Boy's jamon serrano-wrapped sea bass was served in a puddle of cream sauce. And the desserts were all dairy-enhanced in some way: with Thai-basil ice cream, with rum ice cream, with muscat sabayon (eggs count as dairy, right?). Not that cream is bad, you understand; it just seemed there were few light, fresh options. Maybe this is just Ten Tables' winter menu and they'll lighten it up for spring.

It's loud.
Was Craigie loud? I don't remember. But at Ten Tables, at least on Sunday night, we had to lean across the table to talk each other.

On the other hand, this did allow us to hear the fabulous exchange at the next table: a couple, possibly on a first date, with the guy doing 90% of the talking. At one point, during a soliloquy on his dating history, he said, "I've been thinking about trying Match.com."

A little too quickly, the woman responded, "Oh, you totally should."

There was a pause, and then the guy said, "Oh …" And above the noise, you heard his romantic hopes die.

Somebody knows sausage.
It's rare to find sausage in good restaurants at all; Ten Tables' menu had two (two!) choices. I did consider getting both the merguez appetizer and the boudin blanc main, but decided that would probably be Wrong (sigh) so just went with the latter.

It was light and delicate—almost fluffy. It came with duck breast with fantastically crispy skin, lentils in a light mustard (and cream) sauce, and thin matchsticks of apple that made for a perfect foil of crunch and sweetness.

If you go and there's sausage on the menu, you should get it, whatever it is.

The waitstaff needs to read the wine list.
We started with wine; I asked for the Crémant de Bourgogne, one of two sparkling wines by the glass on the list. Our waiter (who was otherwise lovely) disappeared and came back with The Boy's order. And disappeared again.

And then he came back and asked me, "Which wine did you want?" And disappeared again. And came back and said, "That's only available by the bottle." Not until I pointed it out on the menu ("That one, the second wine on the page") did he figure it out. And by then I'd finished my appetizer.

Comparisons to Craigie Street are unavoidable.
Of the wine mix-up, The Boy observed, "That would never have happened at Craigie." Which is true: those guys know their bottles. And it's hard, in general, not to look around Ten Tables and remember what came before. There's only so much you can change in a low, narrow, basement space.

Ten Tables has done some painting, and the area inside the door where you'd wait has been legitimized as a table for four. The French poster art is replaced with a chalkboard of—I think—dessert options (low lighting made it hard to read).

But there's still a coat rack in the foyer, and the menu still comes on a clipboard, and you still have to dodge servers to get to the restrooms.

And the food is still good. I don't want to say it's better than Craigie—I'll need some repeat visits and comparisons before coming to any conclusions—but the dishes are creative and the ingredients are fresh.

Any resto going into that spot would have big shoes to fill; Craigie wasn't just a high-end place, but also a neighborhood favorite for that part of Cambridge. Ten Tables may have to walk around in those shoes a little, but I think they'll fit quite comfortably.

Like a disappointing blind cake date

Last year, I wrote about a project dedicated to revealing the differences between depictions of food on packaging and the goopy, suspicious reality hidden within.

Recently, I was ... well, perhaps fortunate isn't the right word. Point is, I was given a box of this:



Looks good, right? Here, get closer:



And now let's open the box.



In honor of the original German project, I attempted to recreate the photo on the packaging. But because I didn't have any raspberries, I substituted the packet of OxyFree 504 oxygen absorber (catchy tagline: "Do not eat!") that was stuck to the cake.

Now, I know no one is going to buy something if the photos make it look flattened and burned. But I'm certainly not going to turn to the Ya-Hoo! Baking Company the next time I need to order baked goods. Sure, their cheesecake looks deep and delicious, but is that the reality? How much makeup is it wearing?

Misleading photos are no better in food marketing than in online dating. If you're trying to attract someone with the promise of sweet deliciousness, you'd better be able to deliver. Otherwise there's no second date.

Oh, and did we eat the cake?

What do you think?

Restaurant Week: Lunch at L'Espalier

Q: What's better than going to L'Espalier for lunch?

A: Going to L'Espalier for lunch during Restaurant Week. Three courses: $20.09.

Q: What's better (or perhaps worse) than having to read a long, rambling post about how well crafted, beautifully plated and generally delicious the food was?

A: Having to look at a whole bunch of photos. (Sorry.)

To begin, a salad of spring greens with rhubarb vinaigrette and Three Sisters cheddar:



And a light, sweet Vidalia onion soup dotted with licorice sugar (dark and explosive on the tongue)



with a tiny island of light, fluffy parmesan flan, topped with roasted almonds.



Next, pork belly with caraway-roasted potatoes and pickled-ginger sauerkraut.





And, for a little extra, one of the spécialités de la maison: juicy, salty sirloin burger with pulled pork (!), served in a toasted brioche bun with Roaring Forties cheese and slaw ...



The burger came with thick fries that were more like roasted potato (a slight crunch to the outside; light and fluffy inside), and a trio of condiments that included a homemade barbecue sauce and a lovely garlic-truffle ailoi.



For dessert: chocolate brownies with crumbled white chocolate ...



And a mango mousse with macademia nuts.



This is allegedly Restaurant Week for Winter 2009. But as of this dessert, spring has officially begun.

Deep fried cupcake. Deep. Fried. CUPCAKE!

On Friday afternoon, office buddy Dawn alerted me to the existence of the deep-fried cupcake from Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square (a place I'd visited only once before, despite its relative proximity to home).

On Saturday morning, we were so there.

For future reference, this is what you need to make a deep-fried cupcake:



You got yer regular standard deep-fat fryer; yer necessary cupcake, of course; there's yer squeezy cream; and tucked in the corner would be yer bottle of chocolate sauce. Not shown is the bowl of light batter in which the cupcake is doused before frying.

Commence to drooling and/or dialing 9 and 1 and getting ready to dial 1 again.

While we waited for nature to take its course, we checked out the other cupcake options, which included pretty sparkles:



The Green Monster:



The S'mores:



And the, um, "Cheesy Catnip Kittycake," which I assume was not for human consumption.



And then our deep-fried cupcake was ready! Oops, no it wasn't; our server had switched on the fryer and thrown the cake in without giving the oil a chance to heat. I didn't even want to know what the result looked like.

She was very apologetic ("We don't usually start deep frying until the afternoon," she said), and soon had a second cupcake in and sizzling.

While we waited some more, we watched one of the bakers unwrap several three-pound blocks of butter—and when I say butter, I mean Plugra—top them off with a couple of wholesale-sized bricks of cream cheese, and set the whole thing to churning in a serious industrial mixer. That, my friend, is how you make frosting.

And then our server took a paper cone (genius, and the only possible way to present a deep-fried cupcake), swirled chocolate sauce into its base, placed the cake inside, added more chocolate sauce, and finished it off with a generous dollop of cream.

There's actually a deep-fried cupcake under here.



See?



In truth, it could have done without quite so much smothering; save for one small corner that had missed the chocolate-and-cream deluge, and was therefore still crisp and crunchy, the rest was a big, soggy fistful.

Not that it was bad, mind you. As things that are deep fried and loaded with fat and sugar go, it was a fine example of the form: sweet and warm and completely indulgent, halfway between hot doughnut and deep-fried Twinkie.





We ate it walking down the street, our faces smeared with chocolate syrup and cream. It's not something one can consume delicately or with any pretense of sophistication. It's also something best shared; a whole one may just finish off a healthy person of average size.

And then it was gone, and we were left with a slightly heavy taste of cooking oil on the tongue. I'm not sure whether the solution would be to change to a lighter oil, or to allow the cake to drain a little before serving, or just to crank the heat up higher to make the cooking time as short as possible; that might be something to work on.

Davis Square has few options for state-fair-like indulgence, with the exception of the Belgian sugar waffle at Mr. Crepe or a scoop of maple-walnut from J.P. Licks (and even there you can almost legitimately claim there are healthy choices; hey, strawberry ice cream has fruit!).

So now there's something else to add to the list of heart-stopping goodies, though note that Kickass only does deep-fried cupcakes Friday through Sunday. Maybe it's for the best.