Festivus Gastronomicus
Review: Parish Cafe
So Jen’s fancy job at Boston Photo Imaging is right next door to the Parish Cafe. The folks at Parish have gotten about a thousand “Best of” awards in the city, so last Friday we went to check out the hype.
361 Boylston St.
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 247-4777
(map)
Not only has the Parish Cafe already received myriad “Best of” awards, but earlier in the day Jen’s photo place did a photo shoot for a new award they just won. Their menu of exotic sandwiches is already famous throughout Boston and now the chicken wings (pronounced way-ngs) are also garnering accolades for this trendy little spot.
Sandwiches are what put the Parish Cafe on the map. Their gimmick is sandwiches created by celebrity chefs from the Boston area. Of all the gimmicks to choose from, this is perhaps the most scrumptious of all gimmicks.
Their flagship sammy is the Zuni Roll, which isn’t much of a sandwich at all. It’s like a burrito designed by NASA. You see NASA doesn’t know a damn thing about burritos, but they know quality. Despite looking like a burrito and being of exceptional taste, a Zuni Roll doesn’t taste anything like a burrito. Sooo like NASA to design a burrito like the Zuni Roll. Where am I going with this?
The Zuni Roll is a hot tortilla wrapped sandwich with smoked turkey breast, crisp bacon, chopped scallions, Dill Havarti cheese with cranberry-chipotle dipping sauce. It tastes like a rolled up pocket of warm loveliness with bacon. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wish you had ordered one instead of telling Jen you’d let her get it and you’d try something else. Oh Snap!
I got a S.D.L.T. I’m sure you know about the L and the T; the S and the D are for smoked and duck. I ordered it because I love duck and I wanted to see what chef Geoff Gardner of Sel de la Terre would do with carte blanche to create sandwich amazitude.
Chef Gardner’s creation was superlative. Of special note was the subtlety of the caper mayonnaise and the high quality of the rye bread. This sandwich had it going on.
Much to the dismay of every customer they’ve ever had, all the sandwiches come with cole slaw or potato salad as a side dish. This is basically their way of getting out of having to even give you a side dish. After all, has anyone ever eaten cole slaw? If it had been cole slaw infected with e. coli instead of spinach, we still wouldn’t have any idea it was dangerous to eat.
If you overlook the lame side dishes, you are able to enjoy a fabulous sandwich selection, great atmosphere (right off the Common), wide assortment of beers and cocktails, and attentive service. This place is definitely worthy of all the praise they’ve gotten.
Also, Jen got to take some of the chicken wings from the photo shoot home and they were damn good for lunch the next day. Respect.
October 5th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Ahh, but their potato salad actually made me LIKE potato salad, so I wouldn’t knock it too hard.
And the Zuni Roll at Parish tastes EXACTLY like its Cottonwood original. I don’t know how they do it.