E-Mail This Article to a Friend Sweet — and savory — dreams (continued)
	Where to find the fantasy islands • Bomboa, 35 Stanhope Street, Boston, (617) 236-6363. The three-course prix fixe menu is offered Sunday through Thursday. • Bristol Lounge, Four Seasons Hotel, 200 Boylston Street, Boston, (617) 351-2053. The Four Seasons Tea Royale is served daily from 3 to 4:30 p.m.; the Viennese Dessert Buffet is served Friday and Saturday from 9 p.m. to midnight. • Café Fleuri, Langham Hotel, 250 Franklin Street, Boston, (617) 451-1900. The Chocolate Bar runs on Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m. • Excelsior, 272 Boylston Street, Boston, (617) 426-7878. • The Federalist, XV Beacon Hotel, 15 Beacon Street, Boston, (617) 670-2515. • Finale, 1 Columbus Avenue, Boston, (617) 423-3184; 30 Dunster Street, Cambridge, (617) 441-9797. • Jasper White’s Summer Shack, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 867-9955; 149 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, (617) 520-9500. • L’Espalier, 30 Gloucester Street, Boston, (617) 262-3023. Tea is served Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. • Locke-Ober, 3 Winter Place, Boston, (617) 542-1340. • Neptune Oyster, 63 Salem Street, Boston, (617) 742-3474. • No. 9 Park, 9 Park Street, Boston, (617) 742-9991. • Novel, Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, (617) 385-5660. Tea is served Monday through Friday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. • Oak Room, Fairmont Copley Plaza, 138 St. James Avenue, Boston, (617) 267-5300. • Via Valverde, 233 Hanover Street, Boston, (617) 742-8240. — RT

How could you possibly top that? By returning for dinner, of course. Here, too, you begin with the scallop velouté, but this time it’s followed by roast lobster — skewing Asian with yuzu butter and coconut — and Champagne-style sole with lemon and cèpes. Foie gras and truffles now appear in a mousse served with brioche toasts and port gelée, while the earlier presentation of sweetbreads, rabbit, and celeriac is reconfigured, with the meats filling fresh agnolotti and the root creamed in service of the sauce. Rich as the two dishes are, they’re bridged by a third that’s every bit their equal: bone-marrow flan with wild-mushroom fricassee. Next alights the bird — Muscovy duck breast, in this case, intriguingly balanced by pineapple relish and watercress purée. And again granité provides brief relief, this time in both cranberry and apple flavors — although the first dessert is plenty refreshing in itself; sweet-tart Meyer-lemon marmalade gains in creamy contrast from yogurt sorbet and almond nougat. Rissole completes this feast as well, and most of the aforementioned lunchtime wines do double duty at dinner. Of course, if it all strikes you — an impossible-to-please type even in your own fantasy world — as slightly skimpy, you can opt for a supplemental selection of cheeses for an additional $4 per piece.

Meanwhile, if anyone’s got the New American chops to follow in Lydia Shire’s clogsteps across the kitchen floor of Excelsior, it’s former Harvest chef Eric Brennan — as he’s currently proving with a five-course tasting menu as variegated and robust as the handsome dining room, complete with famous glass "wine tower" in which it’s served ($85/$125 with wine). The current roster leads with saffron-tinged lobster tail — poached, chilled, served with fennel rouille and smoked tomato, and paired with a sauvignon blanc. Next up, Florida black grouper adapts to winter weather with a dusting of porcini, a spiced red-wine reduction, and sunchoke-potato rösti, complemented by a glass of shiraz. Vermont pheasant receives similar seasonally appropriate treatment, braised with sage, sliced, and served with both parsley purée and a sauce of rendered foie gras, as well as warm Brussels sprout–bacon salad. Once you’ve drained its accompanying pinot noir, prepare for a glass of Rioja alongside lamb two ways: roast loin and braised shank dress up with a drizzle of mint oil and potatoes puréed in goat’s milk. Finally, a dessert duo includes semifreddo-like frozen nougat soufflé and torta di amaretti, plus a honeyed sip of Moscato d’Asti.

On that note (i.e., Italian), we might turn to Via Valverde, where the tasting menu is the focal point of restaurateur Paolo Diecidue’s vision. Actually, the word "menu" is something of a misnomer, since said vision is derived from the sort of eateries you find in campagna that simply start bringing food to the table from the moment you sit down — dishes based solely on available ingredients and on the chef’s mood. In that spirit, says Diecidue, every chef’s tasting at Via Valverde is to some extent improvised, "orchestrated between the kitchen and the front of the house. We’re going to take you around Italy in four courses" ($67/$107 with wine). Assuming, that is, you’re willing. "If you’re someone who’ll come in and say, ‘I don’t eat this, I don’t eat that,’ we recommend you order from the [regular printed] menu," Diecidue admits. But by "you" he doesn’t mean you, fantasy star. You and your co-star for the evening, he knows, are game for anything — which is why he and chef Daniel DeCarpis will prepare a special antipasto for each of you, followed by homemade pasta, a tailor-made entrée, and a cheese course. Perhaps they’ll bring you crespelle al forno filled with wild mushrooms and truffle-scented mascarpone, while your (more-or-less) significant other receives house-baked bruschetta topped with prosciutto, warm gorgonzola, and poached figs. Perhaps, promises Diecidue — because he really likes you — "I’m gonna bring you a rabbit and I’m gonna blow your mind," while your special friend gets dibs on seared sea scallops in a saffron-scented tomato broth. Perhaps sea urchin will be involved, or homemade sausage. In any event, your meal will be a journey — especially if you’re bringing wine director Peter Nelson, also of the Wine Bottega, along as your wine guide. After all, he too is ready to "take you places you’ve never been," oenologically speaking. If such talk sounds not simply passionate but downright intimate, well, your food-fantasy dialogue will be writing itself.

But perhaps you’ve heard enough: alas, you sigh sadly, even my dream pockets are empty — even in dreams I find naught but lint. Never you mind: pampering needn’t be painfully pricey. Take teatime: there are affordable alternatives to the exorbitant examples above. Back at L’Espalier, for instance, you can order the Make Way for Ducklings ($23) and enjoy the same tea-paired pastries and petit fours that pop up in Red’s Basket, eschewing only the canapés and sandwiches. Or you can check out Novel. With its tall, velvet-draped windows, globe-like chandelier, and smattering of Audubon prints, the Boston Public Library’s lovely café indeed provides a stellar backdrop against which to imagine yourself as an Edith Wharton character — inwardly brooding over dark secrets while chatting away aimlessly and nibbling at the goodies included in your Novel Tea ($19.95), which, in their stylishness, could themselves have been created by Wharton. There are bite-size sandwiches, three rotating varieties in all, including roast beef with caramelized onion and red peppers, mozzarella-cucumber with pesto, and chicken salad in a sun-dried-tomato wrap; two scones, usually cranberry and blueberry; two tea breads — one vanilla, one berry; and three mini-desserts, currently pecan pie, lemon-curd tart, and chocolate torte filled with raspberry cream. And, of course, there’s a pot of your choice of 10 teas to languish over in oh-so-literary fashion for as long as you like.

Dinnertime yields some deluxe deals, too. Think lobster’s out of your league, even for a splurge? Think again; at Jasper White’s Summer Shack, the signature clam bake, only $27, is a veritable cornucopia of crustacean and bivalve alike. Steamed together in a single bag are a one-pound lobster, mussels, clams, corn on the cob, new potatoes, chorizo, and a single egg — which historically served as a gauge for doneness (by rising to the top); a wonderfully extended belly will be your own indicator for doneness.

If you’d just as soon spread the wealth over the length of a few courses, Bomboa may be your best bet. Its three-course prix fixe ($30) is an unexpected weekday luxury, not least for its faraway flavors. Currently, for an appetizer, you get your choice of mesclun salad with tropical fruits, cashews, and hearts of palm in a Champagne vinaigrette, or mussels steamed with black beans and chicharrón in romesco sauce. Entrée picks include the ever-popular steak frites with chimichurri sauce; roast chicken with adobo sauce and a yucca-cilantro purée; mahi-mahi with bordelaise (a rich wine-and-marrow sauce) alongside gigande beans with mustard greens and bacon; or, for a $5 supplement, pan-seared scallops with a pistachio vinaigrette and truffled-cauliflower risotto. As for dessert, those determined to forgo the signature chocolate buñuelos due to some sort of contrary streak will actually be rewarded for their perversity with coconut bread pudding.

Speaking of perversity: if chocolate plays a part in your most private fantasies, Boston boasts numerous outlets for your desire to work itself out healthily, in public. Undoubtedly the most renowned of these is Café Fleuri’s Chocolate Bar ($26). Now in its 16th year, this seasonal all-you-can-eat buffet draws Scharffenberger snobs and Cocoa Puffs cuckoos alike with its jaw-dropping, eye-popping, saliva-triggering spread, which currently includes dozens of cakes, tortes, pastries, candies, and made-to-order crêpes (as well as a selection of diet-friendly desserts, which we will, of course, happily ignore). You want details, you say, your voice growing husky? Very well: orange-mousse torte layered with chocolate génoise; white-chocolate-green-tea panna cotta; chocolate-croissant bread pudding with crème anglaise; Mexican chocolate soup; chocolate-dipped strawberries; almond-chocolate clusters and coconut-white-chocolate clusters; chocolate-chunk scones; even chocolate "sushi" and "pizza" ...

But let’s leave the rest up to your imagination. After all, we’ve got to get back to the Bristol Lounge for its Viennese dessert buffet, where participants of all flavors get the sugar orgy under way. There’s linzertorte and Sachertorte, caramel cheesecake and pumpkin pie, almond bark and nut brittle, tapioca and chocolate-dipped pineapple; there are homemade marshmallows and cookies galore; and there’s still more where it all came from. There’s a crêpe station, where you choose your own ice-cream filling and topping; a two-chocolate fondue station; and a sundae bar, where you can pile on the Heath pieces, Oreo chunks, and chopped pistachios — and, of course, the cherries and whipped cream. (Just go easy on that nozzle.)

Finally, if you’re truly insatiable, get thee to Finale for its signature Chocolate Bliss ($26.95). With a whimsical presentation worthy of Miró or Calder, this sampler for two raises chocolate porn to an art form. Centered on Nicole Coady’s hallmark molten-chocolate cake, it also includes espresso-mousse torte, chocolate-pecan clusters, an assortment of truffles from white chocolate–strawberry to toasted almond, a mousse-like chocolate-amaretto cream, and two ices: caramel gelato in a coconut-cookie cup and pear sorbet in a chocolate-tuile cup. Tomorrow it’s back to the reality of store-bought this and sugar-free that, but just for tonight, let’s let this fantasy reign.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthtobias@earthlink.net