Results tagged “dinner”

    

This week, a hurriedly planned family dinner turned out to be a real pleasure. Lumière, located in West Newton, is a small French restaurant that manages to give great service and delicious food better than some downtown restaurants. Given a name like Lumière one would expect a luminous experience with lots of lighting, which in one room is delivered by the unique wall sconces shaped like open booklets containing writing or music. They are as fascinating as they are lovely, so don’t be surprised if someone in your groups spends part of the night trying to read one of the pieces of “paper”. The other room houses intimate booths with a ceiling draped with cloth, allowing light to filter through in a soft, romantic fashion. The best thing about all of this unique lighting is that the restaurant is actually bright enough to read your menu; a rare treat among small French bistros.

The first time this Bostonist saw Joe Sent Me it was winter. It looked like just another bar from the outside, pubby and cave-like in the winter snow. At the time we were worried about being cold and were doing much of our drinking inside our own house to avoid having to interact too heavily with outside’s frigid temperatures and piles of snow. However, a couple of weeks ago Joe Sent Me located on Main Street in Waltham got another look. Always on the lookout for any restaurant with outdoor seating to take advantage of the brief months of lovely Boston weather, we noticed a chalk board outside of Joe Sent Me proclaiming in bright red letters Patio Open. Immediately intrigued we vowed to try it before the climate turned south again. Well, we did just that last week with a friend for a late lunch.

This Bostonist hasn’t spent a lot of time in Needham. After the fantastic experience we had at a little restaurant there called Blue on Highland, though, this suburb is definitely on our map. We picked this restaurant on a whim, wanting something nice, nearby, and not too expensive. The menu at Blue on Highland is simple but contains a little bit of everything. From burgers and pizzas to filet mignon and chicken scaloppini, there is a delicious option for everyone.

Last week this Bostonist had the pleasure of attending the grand re-opening for Spiga, a wonderful taste of the North End in Needham. Spiga really touts two separate menus: a lunch menu, filled with delightfully simple paninis and delicious wood-oven grilled pizzas; and a dinner menu featuring more complex fare, like the wonderfully rich spinach and ricotta ravioli in an intense duck ragu. Last week’s grand re-opening festivities featured items from both the lunch and dinner selections.

A night in Framingham and Natick offers a lot of perks: endless shopping opportunities, a multi-screen movie theater… and restaurants galore. However, many of the restaurants are old favorites, with emphasis on old over favorites. Who isn’t a little tired of eating at Chili’s or Legal’s? We are, and so we decided to give a shot to the new chain in town, British Beer Company. Located on Route 9 right in front of Jordan’s Furniture, the Framingham British Beer Company is hard to miss with its bright yellow building and enormous sign. The restaurant boasts ample parking and even free valet, at least on the Saturday night that we visited. Inside, you’re likely to encounter a wait on popular nights. However, BBC does have call-ahead placement that actually works: we called about an hour before arriving and were seated at once.

Recently, Financial District stalwart Locke-Ober stopped serving lunch. This news impacted the neighborhood on a macro level: it's a landmark, a bastion of Brahmin culture, a pillar of the local restaurant industry. But on a micro level, it barely registered among regular Financial District work-bots: even in the best of times, many people working here were never able to afford their lunch in the first place.

The dinner bell’s a-ringin’! If you’re feeling a mite peckish and thirsty on top of that, try a few of these beer dinners coming up.

On a Friday night, after finding the Franklin completely full, we strolled down to the South End Buttery, which recently began serving dinner in addition to their breakfast goodies. The Buttery beckoned with open tables in back and candlelit two-tops outside on the sidewalk, so we thought we'd try the new menu. We settled in towards the back at a high table, and our bouncy waitress was quick to hand out the paper menus, which now feature a wide array of cocktails, wines, salads, entrees and of course, tasty-sounding desserts.