Forum, Estragon, The Brahmin and Woodward

"For an appetizer of beef crepinettes, short rib braised for 72 hours is shredded and formed into a patty, cooked in caul fat for extra richness," reports Devra First for The Boston Globe after dining at Forum in Back Bay. First enjoys the restaurant's "way with beef" but is less pleased with too-salty scallops and the need for explanations for "the kind of restaurant whose menus are laced with quotation marks." The wine list? "Real." The celery sorbet atop a whimsical rendition of ants on a log? "The dessert equivalent of the Easter Island statues, both arresting and confounding." [The Boston Globe]

MC Slim JB reviews the South End's Estragon Tapas Bar for STUFF Magazine Boston, calling chef-owner Julio de Haro's tapas "beautiful" and singling out the pringa, "a confit of beef shank, pork belly, Spanish chorizo, and bone marrow" and puerros con Romesco: "young leeks sauteed to melting tenderness and accented with a sauce of peppers, garlic, olive oil, and ground almonds." However the paella mixta is the dish that makes the other diners jealous. Slim calls the combination of rice, scallops, squid, mussels, shrimp, and chicken accented with saffron a "showstopper," and notes that this eatery has outlasted some of the neighborhood's showier flashes in the pan. [STUFF]

Robert Nadeau at the Boston Phoenix pays a visit to The Brahmin in Back Bay and finds it to be "a useful restaurant with a bad name," assigning it two stars out of a possible four. Nadeau considers the decor and layout distracting nearly to the point of vertigo and complains that offerings like tater tots with multiple sauces do little to honor the nostalgic concept of the restaurant, though he appreciates the "Forbes' sidecar" cocktail as "a smooth and rapid delivery system for cognac." There are menu inconsistencies such as non-grilled grilled asparagus, though Nadeau generally approves of the restaurant's small plates, dessert and service. [Boston Phoenix]

Boy did Forays of a Finance Foodie writer Jessica Cickay like her meal at Woodward in the Ames Hotel! Maybe it had something to do with the restaurant's food and beverage director attending to her party as though he were "the fun uncle I never had." Cickay relishes Woodward's short rib tortellini with Madeira and truffle butter and says that out of the three flatbreads she sampled, the roasted mushroom, truffle oil and cress "screamed my name the loudest." [FFF]