Henrietta's Table (Manners)

Last night we ate at Henrietta's Table in Harvard Square. We've been there quite a few times; they do a great Sunday brunch buffet, and the regular menu involves comfort-food staples (roast chicken, pot roast) and local ingredients.

At my previous visit, for lunch with my friend Jean, she had a beautifully subtle chilled carrot and ginger soup, and I had a three-foot-high slice of the fluffiest quiche I've ever tasted.



Last night's visit started with salads. For The Boy, red oak leaf/fennel/Westfield Farm goat cheese/blackberry, flavors that sang together. Love the daring color scheme, too. Reminds me of my wardrobe.



For me, watermelon/arugula/feta, with grilled red onion and a pleasantly tart cranberry vinaigrette:



The cheese was lovely, and went salt-and-pepper with the arugula. But ... but. The watermelon was full of seeds, which wasn't cool; I spent too much time trying to spit them gracefully over The Boy's shoulder. And the salad greens included more than a few yellow-spotteds (you can just see one top-right in the above shot), which suggests someone wasn't paying close attention to what was going on the plate.

The mains were a good recovery, though. I went for striped bass with julienned Drumlin Farm cucumbers and — best invention evar — cheese-and-tomato mashed potato. Which, come fall comfort-food weather, I will crave fortnightly.



The Boy ordered smoked, roasted pork shoulder with pork sausage, beans and greens. It was a little too spicy for my still-baby tastebuds, but The Boy described it as "like Redbones, but fresher and better."



No problem there, right?

Well, not with the food. But yes with the fact that when our server initially took our order, which included cocktails and wine, he brought all the drinks out together.

So the wine sat and warmed up while we drank our martinis and ate the salad (a slight pause between gin and greens would have been nice, but hey). Apparently it didn't occur to the server that we didn't intend to double-fist our drinks. Sure, he didn't know we wanted the wine to go with our mains, but then again he didn't ask.

This isn't the first time I've felt that the service at Henrietta's Table is wonky. When Jean and I went for lunch, we were halfway through our apps when our entrées came out, leaving us to figure out whether to cram down the rest of one dish before the second got cold, or abandon the appetizer altogether.

Don't get me wrong; the servers aren't bad. They're friendly and positive and seem to be having a good time. So I don't know whether the issue is in the kitchen, or whether there's a breakdown in communication that means the staff isn't aware of who should be doing what.

I should go back a few more times to investigate. At least as long as they have strawberry-basil ice cream on the menu ...

Lamb Jam: not a baaaad way to spend a Sunday

When I first came to the US, I was surprised to find that lamb was not a popular meat. It was rarely on menus, and hardly ever available in grocery stores. (My go-to celebration dish became lamb navarin, for which I'd make a special trip to WholeFoods, one of the few places that carried the meat in different cuts back then.)

These days, lamb is getting special attention. It even gets its own parties.

Today we went to the Charles Hotel in Cambridge for Lamb Jam, am American Lamb-hosted celebration of all things sheeptastic that featured chefs from 17 area restaurants presenting baaa-centric dishes.

So we tried lamb loin roulade with smoked lamb shoulder from Lumiere's Michael Leviton:



A lovely spoonful of lamb leg with a touch of ricotta, topped with miner's lettuce, from Joseph Margate at Clink:



Roast lamb with a sweet, delicate curry sauce and flowers (and a shard of caramelized sugar, which was a genius touch) from Clio's Thomas Rice:



Roast lamb with tomatoes and spiced yogurt, from Camillo Diaz at Casablanca (the meat here was closest to my childhood ideal of roast lamb — my lamb-madeleine, if you will):



A lamb canelloni with lamb ragu from Robert Sisca at Bistro du Midi (this was The Boy's favorite):



A braised lamb shoulder on a bed of creamy Ansons Mills farro, the whole thing given complex depth with Kalamata olives and garlic, courtesy of Chris Parsons of Parsons Table in Winchester (this was my favorite):



Roast lamb served with a light, fresh tart of leeks, feta and peas (and more lamb) from Sel de la Terre's Ben Knack:



A fabulous crispy lamb fritter accompanied by picked radishes I could have eaten by the handful, from 606 Congress's Greg Griffie:



A completely obscene slider of lamb confit topped with triple creme Brie on a brioche bun (send cardiologists' invoices to Toby Hill of Pain D'Avignon):



And, from Peter Davis at Henrietta's, BBQ lamb shank braised in beer with local beans:



There were more, of course, but even we couldn't do all of them.

We also got to sample beers from local breweries (Watch City, Berkshire Brewing, Cape Ann, Mayflower). And we met some fun and cool people, including the lovely Sarah of Pink Shoe Diaries and (with Adam) Brew England and their damn-cute friends Andy and Peter.



And then we loaded up on lamb swag (lamb tote! Lamb tattoos! Lamb jerky! Lamb lip balm! Yes! SPF 15!) and trotted home, feeling just a little woolly.

Culture (and food) Saturday!

Lunch: Henrietta's Table in the Charles Hotel. The shabby-chic farmhouse furniture makes it feel a little like dining at Pottery Barn, but that can be forgiven. Especially when they do lovely cocktails (mine: champagne and raspberry purée; The Boy's: a feisty Bloody Mary):



The Boy ordered a quiche of roasted cauliflower, sweet onion and two blue cheeses. It didn't look particularly exciting on the plate, but it was insanely rich and creamy and delicious.

My pulled lamb-shank with sweet fingerling potatoes and feta cheese, quite apart from being fantastically tasty, won the prize for most photogenic.



Next stop: the A.R.T., to see Julius Caesar. Is there a better day to see this play than March 15?

We had good seats.



This production moved the action to the 1960s, and everything had a Kennedy-esque feel (the men in tuxedos, the ultra-hip furniture, the jazz trio, the Oldsmobile that, um, descended from the rafters). To give the story an extra twist, it had been re-imagined as the possible dream of Lucius, Brutus's deaf slave--a Shakespearean take on Tommy Westphall, wearing Superman jammies. And at the end, the cast danced to a Nelly Furtado song.

It was powerful, and visually stunning (and three hours long), and we came out feeling a little dazed. We started walking up Mass Ave, and then remembered that the Alloy Orchestra was doing live accompaniment to Josef von Sternberg's silent-era Oscar-winner Underworld at the Somerville Theater that night.

When was that likely to happen again?

So we picked up tickets, and then went to Diva for dinner, figuring a nice vegetarian Indian dinner would make up for our extravagantly rich lunch. More cauliflower, this time in a fresh aloo ghobi with potatoes and cilantro, plus dal makhni, plus a desserty naan with apricots and coconut.

And then off for more cultchah.

We'd seen the Alloy Orchestra accompany Buster Keaton's The General at the ICA. But that's a film we know well; neither of us had seen Underworld, so we were interested to see how well the music would work against an unfamiliar setting.

This time, our seats were not as good.



Still, we had a mostly unobstructed view, and the only downside to the evening was that the two women behind me were intent on carrying on a conversation throughout, reading the title cards to each other and discussing the action. You know how much I love that.

I wanted to turn round and hiss, "It's a silent film! That means you two have to be silent!" But I didn't.

Aaaanyway, the film was great--an early example of the gangster movie, and obviously a template for many of the films that followed in the genre. It was gritty, and violent, and occasionally funny (at the end of a long, decadent party, exhausted guests wade through cartoonishly excessive piles of paper streamers that cover the floor, ankle-deep).

Neither of us paid as much attention to the music as we did for The General, partly because we were more focused on the film and partly because we were much further away from the musicians (the photo above shows how they were smooshed together in one corner), so not as easily distracted by business with mallets and accordions. But the score certainly flowed well, moving gracefully from gunfire-action to moments of tenderness to more shootouts, keeping pace with the drama.

And then we staggered home, wearily proclaiming that we really need to get more culture, and should try an opera or some modern classical music.

And then we got tickets to see Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Live.

I wonder how they'll manage the squiggles?