Where to Eat | Sorellina

In honor of it Boston’s Restaurant Week(s), I decided to review a restaurant I dined at during the last Restaurant Week, in August. For those of you not familiar with how Restaurant Week works, here is a quick breakdown:

First of all, it’s pretty great. Restaurants can choose to participate by offering a special menu at specific prix fixe pricing. There is often a lunch option, offered at around $20, and a dinner option, offered at around $30. Much to my dismay, they seemed to have upped the cost this year, but tis the way of inflation! Current restaurant week prices are: $28.13 for a three course lunch, and $38.13 for a three course dinner. Usually, there are a couple of choices for each course, and some restaurants are even offering a light lunch menu of two courses, at $20.13. Many restaurants only offer these special menus Sunday through Friday, so be aware when making reservations. Tip: Make your reservations EARLY! This is a website that I like, offering menus and dates that the special pricing is available:

http://www.restaurantweekboston.com/

Now, let’s get to the good stuff…

Restaurant: Sorellina

http://www.sorellinaboston.com/

Neighborhood: Back Bay

Price: $$$

Reservations available online through OpenTable

[Photo Source: SorellinaBoston.com]

I dined with a friend of mine who loves good food like I do, J and I both chose different options on the menu, so we could sample. I will discuss mostly what I ate so as not to bore, because I could wax poetic about delicious food forever!

The atmosphere is wonderful. It’s quiet but not that stuffy quiet, and the colors are muted tans and browns with beautiful charger plates on the tables. What is a charger? Don’t worry, I didn’t know either. Apparently, it is a pretty plate that goes in place of where your actual plate of food will go, as a nice looking placeholder. Anyway…

My favorite part of the meal was, oddly enough, the appetizer. Gnocchi – I thought I died and went to pasta heaven. A little background about me and these little potato dumplings: I can’t get enough. Gnocchi and tuna tartare are must-tries for me at any restaurant that offers. But, more on tuna tartare later, this is about the gnocchi. They were tiny, and swimming in a light pesto sauce. Light in texture, not light in color, as the sauce was a full on basil explosion, with the perfect amount of garlic. The gnocchi literally melted in my mouth. I never wanted this dish to end. J asked if I was going to be okay, because I was in some kind of food happiness daze. The bad news: they don’t feature this on their regular menu or on their restaurant week menu this time. But, they have another gnocchi dish with lobster on their current menu, and if they’re using the same gnocchi as I enjoyed, please order it, for me.

For our entrees, I ordered the steak and J ordered the chicken, which is actually Cornish hen. J enjoyed hers, as did I, although it wasn’t particularly remarkable, and I have had much better steak elsewhere (and will tell you about in a later post).

The desserts were fantastic. I ordered the chocolate option (and I usually do), and J ordered a lemon dessert that she raved about.

The great part of restaurant week is that you can try a restaurant you may not have wanted to shell out the dollars for usually. The bad part is that they often don’t offer the items on the regular menu, so you are forced to go back and try it again with the regular menu. Tricky, tricky…

For the love of the Bean,

ARB

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Ashley R. Bean | All Things Food Contributor

 

Erin Barry | Luxury Real Estate Sales & Leasing | MGS Group

774.353.6817 | erin@maggiegoldseelig.com

Boston | Brookline | Cambridge