Craigie On Main

Reviews 3

LE

Leo O

Came here with reservations for 3 and we got seated immediately. I am giving this place 4 stars only because the service was excellent and I enjoyed the overall experience BUT the food was just alright. Let me explain. Some things going for the restaurant was the service as I mentioned above. They have a row of tables that seats up to 4. The waitress poured 2 glasses of water on one side, then walked all the way around to the other side to pour the last glass just so she didnt have to reach over the table. I thought that was above and beyond what she needed to do. They give a little more than enough for each portion. Especially when you compare to it NYC, they give more BUT it doesnt taste as good as some of the NYC restaurants for similar or equal pricing, hence the 4 stars and only recommending to come here once and not again. This restaurant might be the most sophisticated food in town, then I understand why a lot of people gave this place 5 stars. If it were to stand up against restaurants in NYC, I think it would be around 3.75 rating. In any case, onto the food. 1st course, we ordered: Crispy Fried Pigs Tails, Grilled Spanish Octopus, and Lamb shank pasta The pig tails was delicious but overly salty for my taste, my companions thought the salt content was just right. The flavor profile is more asian/thai mix. The meat was tender but there are some small bones. The waitress recommended using my hands to eat it, but a fork was just fine and much more civilized. I would recommend this dish. The spanish octopus in my opinion lacked seasoning. You got the full tenticles. Because it was the entire length with varying thickness, the ends of the tenticles were burnt and that ruined my taste buds. I would recommend preparing the tenticles differently so everything is evenly cooked. The thicker portions of the tenticles were tender though. They didnt make it rubbery or chewy, Ill give them that much. The lamb shank pasta was flavorful. I wish they gave more of the sauce/broth. The sauce/broth had deep lamb flavors to it. Absolutely lovely. Reminded me of a bolognese sauce. I would recommend this dish. Earthy flavors to the dish. 2nd course we ordered: Tor Tor fish? of the day (dont remember what its called, ugly fish head which is dis proportioned to the rest of the body), Venison, and beef brisket (forgot the full description). The fish did not complement the red beets at all. Didnt go well together and didnt taste good. My assumption is that they tried to use the beets to cover up some of the fish taste. It didnt work. I think the fish would have worked with just seasoning and pan frying it. Then combine it with a liquid sauce, maybe an earthy type of sauce. The venison was cooked to perfection. Loved the marble meat. Definitely enough pieces on the dish if you want to share. Flavors went well together, quite a heavy dish. The beef brisket was decent. Lots of sauces and it was basically a well season brisket, nothing spectacular. But I preferred the venison much more. 3rd course we ordered: Banana Millefeuille, Apricot tort, and Cajet Creme Caramel. Loved the millefeuille, lots of banana flavor and the glazed sugar over the banana on top really added to the dish. The apricot dish was presented beautifully but its on the tarty side. I think if you just ate the apricot with the ice cream and pistachio without that yellow gel on the dish, it would taste a lot better. The cajet creme caramel was decent as well, but it was my least favorite out of the 3. If you dont like kumquat, then you wont like the dish. The kumquat just didnt complement the other components, the flavors from the kumquat was just too strong. I think they should have just made it a powerful dessert dish. Overall, decent meal but I would only go once.

A

A Private User

After hearing endless talk about Craigie on Main, my boyfriend and I decided to test it out. Really excited for a nice dinner out, we both left more than underwhelmed. The food was over the top in a way that detracted from the meal, the environment was only ok and the menu is generally overpriced for what you get. I would definitely not recommend going to this restaurant unless you are a very adventurous eater. I consider myself pretty open to trying new foods, but it was challenging to find anything I wanted to try. Most meals included bone marrow or other strange animal parts. Literally, between both of us, there were only 2 entrees and 1 appetizer we were at all interested in trying. That has never, ever happened to us before! We began our meal with the ragout appetizer. This was probably the best of everything we ate, other than the bread, but really not that exciting. The organic chicken two ways entree was by far the most disappointing meal. The piece of crispy thigh probably contained approximately 4 tablespoons of salt (I wish I were kidding). The roasted breast was average at best. The day boat scallops were not as terrible as the chicken, but they did not have that truly good, buttery taste that a good scallop should. Instead, the scallops were somewhat tough and nothing to write home about. I will say the wait staff was very friendly (though our waitress was unknowledgable as to the wines and what best to pair our food with). Biggest complaint with the waitstaff was they that constantly interrupted us to fill our water glasses after only taking one or two sips. It was very disruptive to our meal. The manager must have noticed our lack of excitement over the food and he came over to us to ask how we were doing. This move certainly helped rescue an otherwise disappointing meal, but was a little too little, a little too late. As for the environment, the tables were kind of packed in and did not have the feel of a nice restaurant. The tables were also of varying heights, which is a strange inclusion for a restaurant like this. We were seated in a high corner table that felt somewhat like sitting at a bar. In sum, the talk is just that - only talk. Boston has so many incredible restaurants, but Craigie on Main simply does not make the cut. The overly priced food is only an added benefit - I wouldnt pay anywhere near what we did for the food we received! Such a disappointment, but one that I simply have to share.

RO

Rodolfo De la Vega

I decided to go to Craigie on Main due to the good reviews and recommendation from some friends. It was supposed to be a very good restaurant to have a good meal and it didnt quite turn out that way. The service was very good, they were prompt to call and confirm the reservation, thorough about my wifes food allergy and they seated us in one of the "romantic" tables, which turned out to be a booth-like table whilst all the remaining tables are small, square, traditional 4 or 2 seats tables. The waitress was nice and attentive and gave some recommendations about the menu which we appreciated. My biggest problem was the food. It has limited menu, like you would expect from any high-end restaurant, which was even more limited for my wife because of her shellfish allergy. We decided to go and share the renowned pigs head as an entree and I had the pigs tail as an appetizer. And then the problem began. The pigs tails came and they turned out to be just fried portions of a pigs tail soaked completely in a sweet and sour sauce. It was very disappointing to get a simple fried dish which in order to compensate, they just submerge it with a sauce thats the one giving all the flavor to it. And then the pigs head came and it got even worse. Its half a pigs head, which when you taste it you immediately can tell that it was slow-cooked to get the "fall off the bone" meat and the deep fried in a hot oil to get the crunchy skin. It comes with some chinese crepes and hoisin sauce. And thats it. No matter how much you I wanted to try and think of an excuse for them to do this, I couldnt come up with something. Theyre famous, "signature dish", is just a fried pork version of a Peking duck. Theres no special taste to it, theres no chefs seasoning to the pork, nothing. After the food debacle came the dessert, which was the nougat-praline and the crispy caramel parfait. In no other restaurant have I noticed the pre-frozen condition and impossibility to cut through it. Overall, my impression was that of a restaurant in need of a menu makeover.