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INQ
Generally good food, despite drawbacks
BY ROBERT NADEAU
INQ
INQ
617.536.9321
279A NEWBURY STREET, BOSTON
OPEN MON–THURS, 11 AM–11 PM; FRI, 11 AM–MIDNIGHT; SAT, 9 AM–MIDNIGHT; AND SUN, 9 AM–11 PM
AE, MC, Vi, Di
FULL BAR
NO VALET PARKING
SIDEWALK-LEVEL ACCESS TO SIDEWALK TABLES; MOST INSIDE TABLES DOWN NINE STEPS, OR UP FULL FLIGHT OF STAIRS

INQ has been open since March, and some things are still not settled. The official pronunciation has gone from "ink" to "in-cue" as though it were a shortened version of "incubate." Not everything listed on the menu appears as advertised. And they run out of things. One night we asked for olive oil with focaccia, and the server said they had run out. Run out of olive oil? Early visitors complained about the service when it was busy. One local daily paper gave the place a half-star out of a possible four; the other daily has never given it a full review — not a good sign either — and their preview story denounced the décor.

Despite these objective and subjective drawbacks, I enjoyed two recent visits to INQ, and propose to re-pronounce it yet again, as "eye en cue," like I.N.Q. I even liked the interior décor, the lipstick-red walls with blinding blue accents and shiny black furniture with white cushions, bringing to mind the best-known abstractions of Piet Mondrian. The outdoor dining is among the nicest on all of Newbury Street, with plenty of tables spaced so well that smokers are not a real problem. The food was generally good if not remarkable, and the service entirely fine.

The secret may be not to get too tricky. The basket of focaccia is nice oily bread even without olive oil, but the butter served has no relation to it, so just eat the bread and enjoy the overtones of salt and rosemary.

For an appetizer, you can do a lot worse than the Caprese salad with "ugli tomatoes" ($8.99). That implies heirlooms, and ours was a simple three slices of superb high-season red tomato with some fine domestic fresh mozzarella. The garden salad ($6.99) had plenty of radicchio, baby spinach, and baby beet leaves, set off with red onion and cherry tomatoes.

Go up to the arugula salad ($9.99) and it features canned hearts of palm, semi-ripe avocado, and corn — an odd but satisfying mélange. The fried calamari ($9.99) is a decent job: light breading, not too much grease, and a dipping sauce of spicy tomato sauce served chilled.

But when you get to something like the tower of eggplant ($9.99), forget it. The tower is more like an old-fashioned beehive made up of three thick slices, fried to absorb some grease but apparently unsalted, with dull cheese and duller tomato sauce. Tuna seared with sesame seeds ($13.99) was a little better, but not my favorite spin on searing sushi-quality tuna with a crust. The sesame seeds tasted a little stale, so the five rounds of tuna lacked a sharp rejoinder like the traditional wasabi.

My favorite entrée was the steak. And my second-favorite was the chicken. The former is described as "honeymoon steak" ($24.99), so maybe 1950s honeymoon jokes are back in fashion along with brown cocktails? It looks like top sirloin, but cuts and tastes like excellent tenderloin. The fried onion strings were supposed to have smoked paprika, a trendy condiment that must have run out along with the olive oil. Same story on the "Cabernet demiglace" sauce — no wine, no meat reduction. Without it, they were like any other fried onions — too much frying and not enough onion. The mashed potatoes were just fine, however.

The roast chicken ($16.99) was the boned breast with the drumstick section of wing attached — what is sometimes called a Statler chicken. But mainly it was nice and juicy and well-seasoned. I didn’t like the fried corn cake with it; too tired. The sautéed spinach was well worth eating, especially with the bit of gravy.

And I really liked the risotto of the day (ours $19). The menu claimed it was made with "vielene nano." It may actually have included vialone nano, a small Italian rice that some risotteers just dote on. (In matters risottian, I am a carnaroli man, myself). It certainly had the classic risotto texture of distinct grains, creamy with a hint of chew. Three seared sea scallops on top had plenty of flavor.

The best buy here is probably the INQ burger ($10.99), a fine patty with an unmistakable undertone of fresh ground pepper, served with skin-on and seasoned French fries. The scallop entrée ($23.99) was two-thirds larger than the risotto (five sea scallops), but not much different, except for wilted frisee and cubes of pancetta as a garnish. A special on trout ($25.99) was pretty, with a boned-out fish re-formed around some vegetable stuffing, and I liked the couscous and snow peas on the plate, too, but not enough to justify the price.

Speaking of price, the wine list offers almost nothing under $40. That said, there were several attractive choices right at $40, including our 2002 Argentine malbec from winemaker Nicolas Catena. He packs a lot of fruit into a wine from one of the minor blending grapes in Bordeaux that takes on a lighter, livelier quality in Argentina, somewhere between a really well-made merlot and the cabernet franc-based wines of the Loire valley. Decaf ($2.50) was good on both visits.

Desserts are also best when simple, especially the Callabaut chocolate cake ($9.99), which has just enough flour to avoid the cliché fallen chocolate cake. It’s warm, it’s strong, but it doesn’t fall, even when topped with very good house-made vanilla-bean ice cream. Crème brûlée ($8.99) is also very good with a strong vanilla flavor. A dish of papaya sorbet ($6.99) was nothing special. The tiramisu ($8.99) was too simple: just cream and a few ladyfingers soaked in some espresso. And strawberry shortcake ($8.99) was a lot but the biscuits had too much baking-powder flavor to them, and strawberry season has really passed, although they had a couple of ripe ones on the crème brûlée.

Service outdoors was fine on a warm night. When we went indoors on another visit, our waitress apologized for leaving us alone while she tended some outdoor tables. Fair enough. The soundtrack seemed to be mostly world music, with a little techno. I recognized the Buena Vista Social Club and Misia, a Portuguese singer. A techno fan might pick out the work of Moby. You know you’re getting old when you begin to doubt that techno hits will be revived someday on oldies radio. Surely some young couple, somewhere, thinks a particular song by Björk is "our song," and will ask the band to play it at their wedding.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.


Issue Date: September 23 - 29, 2005
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