'98 on a plate

The year in review

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Robert Nadeau

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Here are the awards for my restaurant-reviewing year, which of course could be entirely different from your dining-out year. In fact, if you've been reading these reviews carefully you've saved yourself some trouble, and your year was probably better than mine. Even so:

Restaurant of the year: (tie) Carambola; Jumbo Seafood.

Non-Asian restaurant of the year: Campania.

Special award for noise reduction in a loud decade: Laurel.

Eponymous salad of the year: carambola salad at Carambola. Star fruit made sweet and sour and herbal.

Lunch of the year: seafood paella at Taberna de Haro.

Sandwich of the year: catfish vinho dalhos at Clem & Ursie's in Provincetown.

Breadbasket of the year: Campania -- two peasant white breads, both terrific.

Vegetarian appetizer of the year: fried spring roll at Grasshopper (it's the taro).

Regular-menu entrée of the year: roast duckling à l'orange at Brasserie Jo.

Vegetarian entrée of the year: gofhi char chari at Tanjore -- potatoes and cauliflower in Bengali spices, including fennel and kalonji seeds.

Best off-menu special nominated for regular-menu status: (tie) fresh spring rolls at Carambola; Chilean sea bass in black-bean sauce at Chang Sho.

Most innovative wine list: the all-organic list of wines and beers at Five Seasons, which is also, of course, the Most Ironic Wine List.

Best desserts: Campania.

Worst trend: serving soup in oversize flat bowls so it gets cold quickly.

Best trend (tie): putting fried things in soup; New Zealand sauvignon blanc with fusion food.

Trend upon which Stephen and I disagree: Irish bars with good but un-Irish food (I'm for them, he's against them -- to be decided over darts, Guinness, and vegetarian quesadillas).

The Third Annual Howard Mitchum Memorial Medal for Innovation in Seafood Cookery: John Levins, executive chef of Green Street Grill.

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the year in review

art - classical - dance - dining - fiction
film - jazz - local music - news - non-fiction - 1 in 10
rock - styles - television - theater - wine

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Stephen Heuser

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I'll remember 1998 as the year Boston proved itself able to support an astonishing number of upper-end bistros. (I had thought that year was 1997, but they just kept opening.) Still, not a lot of ground was broken in '98: existing trends flowered further, and among hip restaurateurs we saw a slight (and tasty) move toward French classics. Nowhere I ate stands out as "restaurant of the year," but there were a lot of fine moments.

Soup of the year: potato bisque at Anago.

Appetizer of the year: (tie) the cornmeal-fried oysters at EVOO, which reminded me how good New American food can be when it's smart; the onion-gruyere tart at Aquitaine, which reminded me how good French food can be when it's simple.

Entrée of the year: hanger steak with truffled demi-glaze at Aquitaine. Even the fries were exquisite.

Dessert of the year: passion-fruit cheesecake at Aura. The best of an extraordinary dessert menu. (Runner-up: anything at No. 9 Park.)

Beer list of the year: No. 9 Park, for a list that's muscular and Belgian, sort of like Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Weird trend of the year: soup poured at tableside into a bowl of dry ingredients.

Trend on which I'm willing to be convinced: good non-Irish food at Irish pubs. I'm waiting.

Trend on which Robert and I really disagree: fried things in soup. Anago's potato bisque is good despite, not because of, the salmon cake floating in the bowl. And let's admit it: tempura just gets soggy in broth.

Best summer dining experience: fresh shellfish platter on the patio of Angelo & Sons in East Boston, with a bucket of Rolling Rocks on the table and the Logan runways half a mile off.

Restaurant I'd like to see emulated: Le Gamin. There oughta be a law -- for every new high-end restaurant, we get a place like this that can serve an excellent small meal for $8.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com. Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser[a]phx.com.