Once Upon a Dinner @ Kitchen, South End, Boston, MA

"Once Upon a..." is a new series created to feature my forgotten meal shares.  I will write about meals that I have neglected to blog about whether good, bad, or indifferent.  Hope you enjoy some of my long lost culinary memories, whether I did or not!
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For those of you who follow this food+cocktail+travel blog, you are most familiar with my ravings about the fantastic foods and drinks I've enjoyed the most.  Most of you may not be aware that I have literally not owned a pot or pan in well over a year and I'm an avid kitchen dodger.  Even when my kitchen was fully stocked with tools, I just did not have much interest in cooking regularly.  I do get inspired at times to whip up simple things like this, or this, or even this, featured on the "Home Cooking: The Rare Moments" section of this blog.

I write all of this to express that I have almost never written an entirely negative review of a restaurant, especially one that I've enjoyed immensely in the past and one that is owned by the same chef as an all time favorite place of mine (Marliave) where I always enjoy phenomenal dishes.

I dined at Kitchen not too long after its opening in 2012.  You can find that dinner review, here.

On the slushy February evening in question, I met up with a friend with whom I was eager to share a meal because we consider ourselves well-traveled in the world of culinary arts and in the actual world- though he definitely trumps me on a number of countries!  I decided, after offering the then-relatively new Alden&Harlow (reviewed, here), yet, we decided to meet up at Kitchen and we were both sorely disappointed with our meals.  Jimmy, an old friend and the bartender there at the time was my only saving grace for the evening.  
After my arrival, I spoke to Chef Scott Herritt, which I usually do if I see him at one of his establishments (including Grotto and Marliave).  You can perform this, universally polite gesture a million times and only receive a semi-snarky, shallow, who-the-hell-are-you "hey" or barely any response at all.  It's silly, a bit ridiculous and almost humorous.  
He was finishing up at the pass and clearly about to make his way out of the door well before we ordered out meals.  Now, I've not experienced or had any hint that once he's gone, the quality of the food would decline.  This has not been my experience at Marliave for sure.  

I can only chock up our experience to that fact that there was no secondary check of food quality before it left the kitchen on this particular evening, or the remaining staff was disinterested in serving up their best.  Either way, it was simply unacceptable.  There was no one person to express our complaints to at the time, so we simply focused on enjoying what was salvageable from the plates in front of us, but more focused on the glasses before us as we explored a few things with Jimmy. 

This cocktail was featured on the Tipples of the Month Series Jan/Feb 2014

One dish that stood out as equally inadequate for the both of us was the duck breast.  A soggy excuse for a lovely piece of poultry, its fat lacked rendering and the texture of its skin was insulting at best.  The lackluster, watery mash serving as its base did very little to revive this flimsy, rubbery corpse and the Brussels sprouts received very little attention.

The saddest duck breasts in Boston.

The miniscule roasted marrow bone, served with duck liver and anchovy pate and toast points, somewhat elevated the experience with its complex flavors and textures. The fattiness that makes bone marrow so intriguing and addictive -  the smoothness in texture, richness, and salinity of the pate, were both mellowed by the crispy toast triangle.

On this roller coaster of emotion we called dinner, the "Under glass", a dish from circa 1903 made of wild mushroom over toasts and topped with housemade ricotta was confusing and all around deflating. I could not figure out why the blandest ingredients were proposed to one another.  The ricotta would have benefited from an uplifting ingredient, perhaps with one featuring some hint of seasoning.  The wild mushrooms were lame in their presentation and flavor...a bit of acid or salt would have made all the difference.  
Perhaps its previous incarnation, written about by Boston Globe's food writer Devra First was more palatable - wild mushrooms served with cheddar and a side of oxtail.  Read it here.

Wild mushroom and housemade ricotta over griddled brioche toast under a belljar.

Sans glass

The sparse bacon-wrapped scallops were plump and sweet, but again, its accompaniment were DOA.

There are still a number of dishes I'd like to try at Kitchen, especially brunch.  I'm not giving up just yet.  

Again, you can read my first review, here.

Have you had a meal at Kitchen?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.