The Critics Ate Frog Leg Risotto, Crudo, and Pho This Week

Frog Legs

Boston Magazine’s Jolyon Helterman pays a visit to Oak + Rowan in Fort Point, which he writes feels “differently urban, like an ambitious city restaurant beamed in from some parallel diningscape.” The menu is a “bizarro” mix of crudo, small plates, fresh pasta, and “ornate entrees,” he writes. “The food here can be magical,” including an excellent tuna crudo and Helterman’s favorite dish: risotto made with frog’s legs, cooked confit-style and topped with raclette cheese and sorrel purée. The desserts are “masterful, beautiful arrangements,” Helterman writes, noting that “there is a lot to love in the food at Oak + Rowan.”

Julia Child Would Have Felt Right at Home

The Boston Globe’s Devra First checks out the newly opened Les Sablons in the old Conductor’s Building in Harvard Square. She tucks into crudo (“coral slices of salmon with mint, cucumber water, and snap peas”) and rye spaghetti that’s served with black trumpet mushrooms and pesto, plus some English pea soup and a main course of roasted monkfish. For dessert: lemon posset and chocolate cremeux. “Spring is on the menu,” she writes, and she calls Jackson Cannon a “superstar,” noting his Bijou and Les Sablons cocktails.

Gentle Heat

The Globe’s Ellen Bhang visits Noodle Market in Arlington for a sampling of affordable Thai and Vietnamese cuisine. She samples the banh xeo with wok-sauteed shrimp and bean sprouts and praises the pho dac biet with rice noodles and a topping of thinly sliced steak, tendon, and tripe. The banh mi is filled with a choice of protein, and Bhang tastes “an appealing platter called banh hoi,” which features rice paper, noodles, salad veggies, and grilled pork. “It’s delicious, one of the best items on the menu,” she writes. The Thai dishes tend to be sweet, she notes, including the pad thai, and “extra spicy” green curry comes with a “gentle hint of heat.”

• Review: Oak + Rowan in Fort Point [BM]
• Les Sablons Pulls Into Harvard Square. All Aboard! [BG]
• Where Pho Meets Pad Thai [BG]