Eating at the Top.

My sister "volunteered"* to watch all 4 kids this weekend so that my wife and I could get away for some much needed time alone. We chose to go to Boston - I know, it doesn't seem very original, but we usually go with kids, so we figured we would try to do some "adult" stuff. Friday night, we had dinner at The Top of the Hub. This is the restaurant that sits on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Tower. We had a fabulous time.

The evening started when we showed up 20 minutes early for our reservation (conveniently made online from their website). As soon as we stepped off the elevator, the maitre d' greeted us and whisked us to a table ahead of the 30 people standing in line (who had NOT made reservations).

I have often thought that I should be a restaurant critic. I love to eat, so I have all of the necessary qualifications, right? However, how many of you have ever read a restaurant review without having any idea at the end whether or not you should eat there? It seems that many restaurant reviews are written so that only chefs and other restaurant critics (i.e. failed chefs) can understand them. Therefore, in my never-ending quest to be a "selfless do-gooder" (yes I have really been called that) I will attempt to impart some USEFUL information about this restaurant.

Why would I want to go here?
The first category is what I like to call the "LUCKY FACTOR". Every man who takes his wife out to dinner for a special occasion usually only want to know one thing - "If I take her there, will I get lucky tonight?". Now, every woman has their own scale - some are pretty low maintence and any place that you don't yell your order into a speaker from your car window is probably good enough. Others are more selective, and need to be taken some place where the use of silverware is necessary. Still others may require even more sophistication. However, regardless of any standards, I can guarantee that this restaurant will meet or exceed any woman's high standards.

Rating: 10

$$$$
The second category is Cost. Normally, cost is not something a true critic really cares about, and only mentions as an afterthought at the end of a review. However, in the spirit of selfless-do-gooder-ness and attempting to provide a true service to my readers, I will discuss cost now; so that if you are a cheap bastard, you won't have to waste your time reading the rest of the article. If you are not an independantly wealthy trust-fund baby, or the CEO of Microsoft, you will probably find it a little bit on the pricey side. You won't have to take out a second mortgage or rob a bank, but you will probably have to dip into the kids college fund, or throw it on the plastic and and pay for the dinner every month for the next ten years. Seriously, the total for two of us, (no alcohol) was about the same as 2 weeks worth of groceries for the family. (if you are thinking to yourself "that's not too bad" then you haven't seen MY grocery bill.)
Rating: 67

What does the butter look like?
The next category of interest is the "Butter Shape". Everybody knows that a fancy restaurant must serve their butter in a unique shape. I don't know why, but years later, this is often the only thing that some poeple remember. Anyway, the butter is shaped like little tiny golf balls. I give them points for creativity (although baseballs would have been better), but must take some points away because in the low light when stacked on top of each other, they kind of look like some sort of art deco table decoration. A less-cultured diner may have to search for the butter patties for a while before actually discovering them - leading to the potentially emabarrasing moment when they ask their waiter for the butter and he has to point out their ignorance (note: in case you are wondering, this did NOT happen to me). Also, it still does not beat out the "Eagle" shape of the butter form the Washington-DC area Marriot I stayed in a few years back.

Rating: 6


Is the wine list good?
No Self-respecting Restaurant Critic would write a review without discussing the Wine lists. This is difficult for me as I am not really a wine connoisseur. I can't tell the difference between a $5 bottle of the cheap stuff from Cumberland Farms and an $1800 bottle of Meritage, Harlan Estate, 1991. I don't know what wines goe with what foods, I don't know what gets served chilled vs. the kind that gets served lukewarm. I DO know that you generally do not serve wine with Ice Cubes, which I think is the main source of my ignorance. I just don't trust a drink that you can't put ice cubes in. Even Coffee is acceptable to serve with ice cubes. For me, the colder the drink the better - and the best way to get it cold is to throw some ice in there. Anyway, I digress.. Being ignorant in the ways of wine, I have developed my own way of judging wine lists. There are a couple of categories. First of all, there is the wine:food ratio. This is the ratio of number of wine choices in the menu compared to the number of food items. This is important for two reasons - first of all (and the most obvious reason), a higher number means more wine choices. In addition, fewer food choices generally means that the food quality is better because the chef has more time to devote to each individual creation rather than hurriedly having to slap stuff together. Anyway, the Dinner Menu at The Top of the Hub lists 26 food choices (including appetizers) and 179 Wine choices, yeilding a wine:food ration of 6.8. This seems to me to be very good. The second category is variety. The choices range anwhere from a $7 glass of something something all the way up to an $1800 bottle of the aforementioned Meritage (whatever that is). Rating: 17

Stop jerking my chain, and tell me about the food!
Now to the meat (no pun intended) of this review. The FOOD. The food was fantastic - wanting to make the most of our experience, we chose the Chef's Tasting Menu, which is comprised of 7 courses - essentially a sampling of several different menu items.

Course 1: Sautéed Foie Gras - (Click Here if you don't know what Foie Gras is). I can honestly say this is the best I have ever had. (granted, a fairly limited sampling). The sweet glaze (I'm not sure what it was) on top, combined with the unique flavor of the Foie Gras is a culinary experience not to be missed.

Course 2: Native Lobster and Avocado Citrus Salad - The dictionary describes a salad as "A dish of raw leafy green vegetables, often tossed with pieces of other raw or cooked vegetables, fruit, cheese, or other ingredients and served with a dressing" - so I was expecting a salad with some lobster meat in it. Apparently the chef subscribes to the "anything mixed together" definition of salad (- like many of the other great salads - chicken salad, macaroni salad, egg salad, jello salad, etc.) because when this dish was served it looked like a big pile of Guacamole. And actually, that is not far off - Lobster Guacamole would be a good way to describe it. It was delicious however.

Course 3: Pan Seared Halibut (crusted with Oven Roasted Tomato and Artichoke Puree). This was my wife's favorite dish of the evening (and if we were to return, she said she would order only this) - and my second favorite. I have never tasted fish like this, and frankly my pathetic working-class vocabulary lacks the words to describe it. Let's just say it was delicious.

Course 4: Tuna Tempura (Soybean Puree, Miso Truffle Broth). The waiter, noticing my wife was pregnant informed us that the Tuna is essentially raw, and asked if she would prefer for it to be cooked. She said yes, but I chose to have it the way the chef originally intended. It was pretty good - the soybeen puree tasted a lot like very tasty mashed potatoes, and the sliver of a truffle on top was bursting with flavor. By this time, my wife was kind of full, and since Top of the Hub is not the sort of place where you ask for doggie bags, at $85 per person I wasn't about to let it go to waste. I ate hers as well. I have to say, although both plates were delicious, I preferred the cooked version.

Course 5: Grilled Tenderloin of Beef Au Poivre (Potato Strudel, wild mushroom Ragout). This was MY favorite course. I chose mine to be cooked Medium-rare - again, as the chef intended. My wife, who is not a big fan of pink (or juicy) meat chose Medium-well. With the first bite, I was in love - the meat was tender and bursting with flavor. I closed my eyes and made a little noise like, um, well anyway... (my wife actually asked me if I was ok, and when I told her I was savoring the flavor, she told me to stop it was freaking her out). Let's say that it was the best piece of beef I have ever had. Again, to my delight - my wife was STILL full, so I had to finish her course as well. Unlike the Tuna, however, if you're not squeamish, I would recommend the medium-rare version. The Potato strudel was intersting - it looked like a slice of pie with many layers of potatos cut paper-thin. For my motor-head friends, the best way to describe the way it looks is like an air filter. This was also delicious, but it was just potatoes - the beef was the real star here.

Course 6: According to the menu, this was supposed to be a "summer salad of fresh vegetables" but apparently, much like movie producers and CBS News anchors, chefs are permitted a bit of "artistic" license. The dish I was served (althought technically fitting the description of "fresh vegetables") did not appear to be like any salad I had ever been served. It consisted of a tomato slice, topped by a white thing that appeared to be a slice of an onion, but turned out to be a white beet, topped by a regular beet, with blue cheese crumbled on top and raspberry vinagarette dressing. Now, I like tomatoes, but I haven't eaten a beet since my mom forced me to as a child, and I absolutely abhor blue cheese - and even if the three things were my three favorite foods, it would have never occurred for me to put them together and call it a "salad". However, I am nothing if not a champion eater, and I was not about to be deterred. I dove in fearlessly and was pleasantly rewarded when I realized that the items blended together for a taste that was really quite pleasant. I ate the whole thing and actually considered attacking my wife's as well - which was basically untouched. I did not however - sharing a few bytes of a couple courses is one thing, but devouring the majority of two seven-course meals would be bordering on gluttony, I think.

Course 7: Dessert taster. The dessert taster was actually 4 different things - a little bit of pineapple sponge cage, a coconut something other, a white chocolate ball with whipped cream, and a rasberry something or other in a choclately shell. They were all delicious - but I'm not really much of a dessert person. I would have much preferred another slice of beef (except for the fact that I was really not very hungry by this time).

All in all, It was an interesting culinary experience. The next time, however, I will simply order the beef, perhaps with the spicy lobster soup as an appetizer, and possibly a real salad. (you know, the kind with leafy greens). My wife feels the same way, except she would order the Halibut.

Rating: 42

What was the service like?

The service was outstanding. The Waiter was very attentive, but not obtrusively so. Although I think he had OCD. My wife kept putting her water glass down apparently in the wrong place, because every time he served us a new course, he would put it back where it belonged. Those of you who are socially clueless and don't know which silverware to use for what course will be delighted to know that this situation will not present itself. For each course, your old silverware is collected and new silverware appropriate for the situation is brought out. If you accidentally get butter on your butter knife, never fear - the waiter will bring you a new one. Perhaps if you simply order an entree the waiter would get a break, but with the 7-course tasting menu, we kept the waiter busy the entire time. He earned every penny of his $50 tip.

Rating : 53

What about all the other Crap?

Some would call this "Ambiance". The restaurant is on the 52nd floor of the prudential Center - affording a magnificent vew (from our table) of the charles river and and the city of Cambridge. There is a live jazz band, which was fantastic (I don't like to listen to jazz all by itself, but I find it great for background while eating). It is not overly formal - some people were very dressed up, but most were in what you would call "business casual". There is the one odd side effect of this type of restaurant - virtually everybody in attendance is there for some sort of celebration, and so there is an abnormal amount of picture taking, but the waiters are very gracious and will be happy to take your picture for you. We joined the crowd in this respect and asked the waiter to take our picture, but I declined my daughter's request to take pictures of the food - I didn't want to make that much of a spectacle.

Rating: 29

Summary

So, to summarize - It's very expensive, but the food is good, and you'll probably get some when you get home, so it's worth it.

Average Rating: 76

p.s. If you are trying to make sense of the rating system - good luck.