The Critics Ate Monkfish, Fish Bowls, and Tear-Worthy Italian Subs This Week

Julia’s Choice

The Boston Globe’s Devra First is back to reviewing restaurants, and her return to starred reviews starts with Les Sablons in Cambridge. The restaurant “is where Julia Child would eat now,” she writes, because “Les Sablons is Reminder No. 4,782 that hospitality is what really makes a meal memorable.” She writes that the “beer game is particularly strong” and that “the smaller plates outshine the large,” noting there is not “a dud among the starters.” First recommends the spring vegetable crudite and the white asparagus a la plancha. Of the main dishes, First writes, one of her favorites was the monkfish, “juicy and succulent,” and she calls the sweetbread vol-au-vent “basically the best pot pie you’ll ever have.” Dessert, including the lemon posset, “ties it all up in a bow.”

A Good Bowl Restaurant

The Globe’s Sheryl Julian visits Legal Fish Bowl in Kendall Square, where she finds rice bowls topped with all kinds of seafood. As she writes, the restaurant is a little late to the “fast-casual” game of customizable meals, but “they’re very good at it.” She writes that the “seafood is perfectly cooked,” as is the rice, and the tuna in the Tunanimous Choice bowl is “superb.” The salmon in the Pick Your Hoisin bowl is “beautifully flaky,” Julian writes, similarly praising the Noodle It Over Shrimp bowl, which comes with a noodle base instead of rice.

This Sub May Make You Cry

For the Dig, Marc Hurwitz visits a duo of Briccos. The North End spots are complements to the Bricco Restaurant and “feel like places you might find in an ancient Italian city,” Hurwitz writes. The Panetteria’s breads “are nothing short of extraordinary,” including ciabatta with olives or stuffed with prosciutto and parmesan, French and Italian baguettes, and a focaccia he calls “one of the best in the city.” Meanwhile, Bricco Salumeria & Pasta Shop is chock full of charcuterie and cheese, plus pasta, salads, and sandwiches, like the Italian sub Hurwitz dubs “so delicious that it may make you weep.”

• Where Would Julia Child Eat? We Think Here [BG]
• Legal Is Late to the Bowl Concept, But Very Good at It [BG]
• Bricco Panetteria and Bricco Salumeria/Pasta Shop [DigBoston]