DaVinci Ristorante, Boston

Dinner deal at DaVinci was too good to resist: $33.09 for three course on the full menu. Of course, we start out with the standard, "Do you have unblended rye?" When the waiter comes back and replies, "Yes," I almost burst out laughing. Need to rephrase that to "What kind of unblended rye do you have?" So he goes back to the bar and the bartender comes over and tries to tell me that Makers Mark and Basil Hayden are rye. They're not, are they? Have I been confused and mistaken and obnoxious all this time....probably yes, but not about this. So we discuss my drink a little and I order a Basil Hayden perfect manhattan. I see him, over the divider between the table we are sitting at and the bar area, shaking away. AARRGGHH! He brings back my drink and instead of leaving, he wants to know how my drink is. What I wanted to say was it would be a whole lot better if you just got this disgusting looking foam off of it. But I take a sip and say, "Thank you. It's very good.
First course is crab cakes with a red onion, apple and arugula slaw type concoction on the side. These people are really into long plates with swirls of yellow pepper mayonaisse. Not a problem as these crab cakes were quite good.
The waiter highly recommended the braised pork and he did not do me wrong. It came with saffron risotto and broccoli rabe. Meat just fell off the bone and the risotto...let's just say, I'm still dreaming about this stuff.
Another long plate for the chocolate souffle which came in a separate cup from the vanilla ice cream. Brilliant! Sometime during dessert, I see our waiter come out of the kitchen, pass the hostess desk with a dish on fire. He runs out into the street. As we leave, I ask and he says he's OK but you could tell he was quite shaken up.

Tavalo's, Dorchester

Tavalo is a newer restaurant/bar that is part of the expanding Chris Douglass chain which includes Ashmont Grille right across the street from Tavalo. We, of course, choose the full bar over the almost empty dining room at 7 pm, Friday. Odd start to our night - I send the young female bartender into a mini-meltdown with my standard "Do you have any unblended rye?" She gets the usual deer in the headline look, turns her back to us and fumbles around a bit, then moves over to the equally young mail bartender. Several minutes go by when neither of them turns around to face us. She goes off to do something and he continues to ignore us for several more minutes. Finally he comes over to us. I go through my hole rigamarole...very little of each sweet and dry vermouth, stirred not shaken...blah, blah, blah. No rye. Only a few types of bourbon so I go with a Knob Creek perfect manhattan. The guy on the bar stool next to me comments after I place my order that he's never heard anyone ask about unblended rye. The drink turns out pretty good flavor-wise but it's not very cold. Good thing about the wait is we have had plenty of time to figure out what we want to eat. We get an cheese plate which wasn't bad but wasn't great. We got the Goat Cheese, peppers, carmelized onions and roasted garlic pizza (we asked for and got no olives - I have never understood olives on pizza. The thing just looked awful and tasted pretty bad too. The female bartender must have seen the look on our faces because she came right over and asked if we didn't like the pizza and almost in the same breath offered to get us something else. We try the margherita pizza. We can't return the second pizza but it was seriously flawed too. You can't complain about the ingredients because they have chosen to make pizzas with tomatoes instead of sauce and it was quite pretty even with the not quite red tomatoes. But the entire center of the pizza dough was not cooked. Given all that though, I would try this place again and I might even give the pizza a try again. The bar staff eventually warmed up to us, the patrons next to us were friendly and it might be a good place to catch a Celtics game.

Coogan's

Did I get a beer? Not likely. Did I forget to take the picture until after I had drunk half of it? I have done that before but no. This, my friends, is the Knob Creek manhattan I got for $11 or thereabouts at Coogan's, 160 Milk Street, Boston. And this, my friends, is just wrong. Yes, this is a beer joint but come on. Hit the restaurant supply store and buy a dozen cocktail glasses. Hit the outlet stores and get a dozen for $24. Where's your pride? My water glass looked eerily similar to this glass. It was kept full upon request but swept up and not replaced at one point. Never saw a food menu and was never offered one or asked if I wanted anything but this place has $10 lobsters and some other specials before 7 pm.

One of the draws is the Trivial Pursuit game. I think teams exist before they arrive; the group I was with is supposed to have some good players. My team (the man who insisted I take his business card who ditched me, the team, the whole kit-n-kaboodle for the blonde at the other end of the bar; the out-of-towner who pulled Frederick Douglas out of who knows where as the correct answer to one of the questions but offered nothing else for the rest of the game; and the only other person in there besides me who ordered a manhattan - same glass, same sad look) finished in the middle of the pack.