A visit to Bina Osteria

My lady and I have been meaning to check the place out for quite some time now. We have been to another of the owner's places (Bin26 Enoteca) a few years back and enjoyed the experience. The place has a similar vibe, but on a larger scale since Bin26 is located on a very small place along Charles street in Boston. The choice was made even easier by the return of Restaurant week.

We started by Moseying over to the bar and having a drink. We had an interesting drink made with a bitter liqueur called Amaro. It was refreshing but it seemed a little pricey at $10 a drink.

We finally sat down for dinner, and as it is usually the case, one of us orders from the RW menu, and one orders a la carte. They had 3-course menus for both options, and the price difference was minimal between the two (an oddity in most other times we've done RW). I chose a chicken wing appetizer and the lady chose the Carne Cruda (Beef Tartar). The Carne cruda was excellent. The celery pesto was a bit strong but still paired well with the beef. The wings were a little bland. they sat in what looked like a celery puree, but I really could not tell. It in fact seemed to "suck" the flavor out of the wings making them taste even less of them. It seems odd, but I can't describe it any other way.

For the main dish, the lady selected the Bistecca (steak) with the creamed cauliflower, peppers and spinach, medium. I chose the Agnello (lamb), medium-rare with the vegetable caponata and grilled polenta with herbs. For wine, we chose their featured nebbiolo (can't remember the label).

For some reason, the kitchen messed up both preparations by at least two levels. Her steak was well done and my lamb was medium well. Neither dish was "destroyed", but they certainly missed the mark. It could be that they could not properly control the final rest temperature of the meats because of their small size. Mind you: I'm not complaining about the dish sizes-which were small but fine-but rather about the lack of attention to the resting temperature. The only saving grace was that somehow the dishes still tasted good enough to eat. I must have had the laziest lamb ever because it had none of the characteristic "gamey" taste associated with lamb cooked past medium doneness. The Polenta was excellent, and it helped in overlooking the meat faux-pas.

The Lady's dish suffered from the same ailment, sans the goodness of the polenta. The cauliflower was like a buffer between the caponata and the beef. It really brought nothing of note to the dish. If you've ever made cauliflower puree, you know that it needs a lot of help (especially when used as a replacement for mashed potatoes, which are nothing more than a delivery mechanism for butter, cream and whatever else tasty-but-bad you want to put in them), but alas, these had none :( Her steak was still quite good despite being overcooked for her taste, so that helped.

The dessert was the highlight of the meal. It was a simple dark chocolate gelato that tasted like it was made just before serving. The flavors were bright and fresh along with a great, intense dark chocolate flavor.

Meal preparation notwithstanding, the entire staff were extremely nice and our waiter was excellent. I only wished that the meal matched their enthusiasm.

Would I recommend Bina to a friend? I'm not sure. I guess I'd say the staff was great and the place is very nice, but I'd be wary of at least ordering meats there, since (based on my experience) they tend to overcook them. Considering their usual (high) dinner prices, I'd say go there for a nice drink and maybe an appetizer, but that's about it.

I do recall the waiter telling us that they usually carry two menus (inside/outside tables), so maybe the outside menu is executed better?

Later,

Restaurant Week Foray #1: The Left Bank

Restaurant week is upon us on once again in the Boston area. It is nice to check out more places "on the cheap". This time, we traveled out of the city to a place called The Left Bank located in the Stonehenge Inn in Tyngsboro, MA close to the border of NH. It is positioned as one of the hidden restaurant jewels in the area. It boasts a large wine selection and a Wine spectator award of excellence. We have friends that live close by, so it seemed like a good choice.

They have a very extensive wine list of primarily "A" list wines. The wine list seemed more "vertical" than usual. They have all the usual big name suspects from California and Bordeaux. The red Burgundy selection was very small for some reason. The Spanish selection was also a little light. The Australia section seemed ok, but I can't remember. In the interest of being fair, I looked at the red wine selection only. Their while wine list might have been different.

If you are looking to do a vertical tasting of many high-end wines, this is the place to go. If you're looking for lots of variety and some of the new players, you will probably not find it here.

The RW menu consisted of either Ceasar salad or potstickers for the starter, Steak, Salmon or Fetuccini for the second course, and Sorbet or a Banana spring roll for dessert. Out of the four of us, three stayed with the RW menu, and one went off-menu. I went for the Caesar salad, the steak, and the spring roll.

The salad course was very good. The truffle oil gave the salad an extra bit of earthiness to go with the Parmesan cheese. I'm not a big fan of Romaine lettuce ribs, and they kept them to a minimum. The Steak was undercooked on all three cases. We ordered medium-rare, medium well and medium. Every single one of them came one-notch back (medium-rare was rare, and so on). The accouterments were very meager for the amount of steak, which was a little disappointing. Being a "veteran" of RW outings and this is the one part where restaurants don't skimp. I wasn't looking for buffet portions, but something that matched the amount of steak would have been nice. It just seemed odd.

The other thing that was a disappointing was the wait staff. They simply disappeared in between . The place seemed busy, but not full by any means. Maybe they're not used to having that volume of people at a given time, or maybe they thought that we were not going to order anything else since we ordered from the prix fixe menu. They probably would have done more drink business with us if they stopped by from time to time. Their loss, I suppose.

Would I go back? sure. It is tough justifying the trip for me having similar places in the city, but if you live in the area, it is certainly a good place to visit.

Later,