Per usual, Friday night is date night. We decided to head to Stix Restaurant for dinner and drinks. I went there a few years ago for a girls night out during Restaurant Week and I was not impressed. However, I had previously blogged about winning a $50 gift card from Boston Chefs and we thought it was worth another shot.
B made a 7:30 reservation but since it was nice out, we headed over a little earlier. We grabbed an outdoor table, which had an enclosed view. Some of the other tables had worse views of the Pike and construction. Its not exactly appealing. We read about $5 mojitos and $1 oyster bar on their website, but our server did not mention it and nothing on the menu indicated it. However, we heard another server offer the special to another table so it was very strange. When we inquired about it, she only told us about the mojitos despite the tables around us being served oysters when there is no oyster plate on the menu. We had to further push her to explain the $1 oyster bar. We were not off to a good start.
B and I each ordered a frozen mojito. It was tasty and the perfect drink on an outdoor patio. I started out with a half dozen oysters. They were large and succulent and perfectly served on a bed of salt. However, they were really poorly shucked. I'm a raw bar aficionado and am lucky enough to have a major seafood chain restaurant as one of my clients. In other words, I have seen and eaten a lot of shucked oysters and this was jagged and one or two oysters had small pieces of shells in it.
We ordered another round of frozen mojitos and various small plates - lobster wonton tacos, sausage trio, shitake potstickers and fried calamari. Our server assured us that everything would be served tapas style and served when ready. Since there were a lot of small plates, we wanted to make sure everything didn't come out at once. We sipped our mojitos and while others were served breadsticks to munch on, our server neglected to give us one until right before our meals were served. It was just bad service all around. That being said, the breadsticks was served with a delicious ricotta butter. They were absolutely delightful.
The rest of our meals? Not so much. Despite her assurance that everything wouldn't come out at once, it did. And the food left a lot to be desired. The lobster wonton tacos would have tasted great if the lobster had been fresh and it was clearly not. The sausage trio was delicious - skewers of keilbasa, bratwurst and a third unidentifiable (but delicious sausage) with an accompanying mustard - grainy, Chinese, and honey. But the presentation left a lot to be desired. The shitake potstickers were disproportionate - too much wonton and not enough mushroom filling. And they were way too greasy. The calamari was just okay but not crispy fried. I was not thrilled with our food and instead order another six oysters to eat.
The bottom line? I will probably never go back to Stix again, but it was nice having a $17.00 bill at the end of the night.
Since it was beautiful, we decided to end the night with dessert at Finale. I haven't been to this place in over five years but we wanted to end with a sweet dessert. B got a glass of pinot grigio and I the high caloric Finale Freeze - Baileys, butterscotch s. We split the Fantasia plate, which came with bites of their desserts. My favorites included the creme brulee, strawberry shortcake (the shortcake was seriously out of this world - so light and fluffy), and the majari mousse. While this is not my first choice for desserts, it was a nice (and cheesy) and overly sweet way to end our date. Update: Finale has posted an excerpt of my blog on their website. Its pretty cool!
While we had mediocre meals, it was nice to end the work week and start the weekend on a low-key date night. The rest of the weekend was a bit crazy, which I'll blog about later (once I've recovered some more).
xoxo
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