La Bodega in Watertown Is an Inviting Place to Graze, According to a Critic

Superb Gazpacho

MC Slim JB visits La Bodega by Salts in Watertown for his latest Improper Bostonian review. The menu features what Slim calls “elemental tapas,” in the style of Spanish and French-Basque cooking, with a touch of Uruguay. “It’s an inviting, intimate setting for grazing,” Slim writes, calling out the pan con tomate for its status as a “crazy-simple” and “crazy-good” item. He also calls the kale salad delectable and recommends the grilled provolone, which comes “generously dusted with oregano.” The white gazpacho is “superb,” while the Maine oysters get a subtle smokiness from the charcoal grill. Finally, the wild mushroom escabeche “wows with clever embellishments,” like baby artichoke nuggets and a “tenderly poached farm egg.” Overall, Slim writes, the restaurant is “a very sweet place” to be.

Pretty Restaurant With Delicious Dishes

In an overview of the best new restaurants in and around Cambridge for Harvard Magazine, Nell Porter Brown especially zeroes in on Pammy’s, calling the restaurant perhaps “the prettiest” among dining options between Harvard and Central squares. According to Brown, the detailed interior matches the polished menu, which features items like “a salad of crisp, salty fingerling potatoes, chicory, and red ruby grapefruit, laced with garlic-chili pesto,” which cleanses the palate nicely. Brown also calls out the mushroom bruschetta with its chewy toast, ricotta, and slices of jalapeño: “The peppers don’t rock the mouth — they contextualize the soft rich cheese and meaty mushrooms.” Other items of note were the “playful” branzino entrée with braised sunchokes and the nodi marini pasta dish with guanciale and a poached egg. Overall, Brown writes that you can’t have too much of a good thing at Pammy’s.

• Gaga Bodega [IB]
• Stellar Restaurants in and Around Cambridge [HM]