November 16, 2003
Dinner with Bogie
The Rat Pack Cafe doesn't look like much from the outside. One roadside sign announces it's location -- and that black and white sign is drowned out by a hundred other neon atrocities along Route 9 in Framingham. To get to the restaurant, you have to drive down an alleyway past the trendy, blue-lit Legal Seafoods and the dizzying strobe coming from the laser tag arcade next door. As soon as you enter, you notice how small, dark and eminently classy the place is. Supposedly there are Rat Pack pictures on the wall, but the candlelight made them hard to see. The dinner conversation was interesting enough that I rarely looked past our table anyway. I suppose it's a mark of a good restaurant that the atmosphere, decor and music are seamlessly integrated into your whole experience of the evening.
Our waitress was unusually bright and witty. She managed to engage in long attentive conversations with us while still maintaining an air of efficency and haste. She quickly admitted to knowing nothing about a wine one of us requested, and then solicited our opinion of it later "to pass along to other customers, since I don't drink whites."
I had a warm spinach salad strewn with bits of roasted nuts and topped with a marinated portobello mushroom. It was a good mix of flavors and the roasted nuts gave the whole thing a hint of smokiness. My entree was roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Everything was well-cooked and seasoned, the servings were also quite large -- I only finished about a third of my chicken.
Dave says, "I had a salad made of romaine hearts with anchovy slices and a ceasar parmesean dressing on top. The anchovies were not excessively fishy which is always nice. My entree was a slice of tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus and carrots. All of it was wonderful, except that I should have taken the waitress seriously when she said that the chef tends to undercook meat intentionally, so medium would have been better than the medium rare that I ordered. Nevertheless, it was still very good."
My one disappointment was that we had to leave so soon. Our agreement with the manager was that in exchange for fitting in our last-minute reservation, we promised to be gone by eight. Our waitress tactfully and apologetically reminded us that we were running short on time and regretted being unable to offer us coffee or dessert. It's just as well, since the entrees averaged $25 each and the bill, even when divided among three couples, was no small thing.