Beantown Cravings

If you are carless in Boston, you pretty much feel clueless if you're required to venture to Newton, Quincy, or any other place not within a mile of Boston Common. Thank goodness, 51 Lincoln, is located just a small skip off the D Greenline's Newton Corner stop.

Newton residents might recognize 51 Lincoln as tenant of what used to be the home of Le Soir, an upscale French restaurant that catered to the older suburbian patrons with cash to spare.

I never went to Le Soir but I feel completely comfortable speculating about it: it sounds stuffy, unoriginal, and pretentious. 51 Lincoln 51 is therefore its three-fold opposite.

The interior design warrants a whole separate review. The owner and chef designed allof the wall paintings and the entire establishment's color scheme was oriented around his favorite burnt orange hue. Half-walls and open angles give the entire space an airy, inviting feel; this is not a restaurant where you go to hide.

The menu is upscale and quirky: conventional dishes are given new life with interesting sauces and side pairings. For example, the scallop stuffed chorizo appetizer ($9) sits next to its own mini-pitcher of lemoncello, which adds a pleasant tang to the salty seafood. The pan-seared watermelon steak with eggplant chicharrones ($9) seeps succulent juices that are offset by the bloody tomatoes and meaty eggplant. (For a lovely history on chicharrones, go here.)

Share a pasta dish before proceeding
on to the more protein-heavy entrees. Conversative diners will be pleased with the house rigatoni bolognaise ($15), but I would recommend you venture out of your comfort zone (do it!) and try the lobster noodles with poached lobster and champagne sauce ($18). These slippery noodles with fleshy chunks of lobster meat marinate in their own luxurious bath of champagne and butter. Divine.

I sampled all of 51 Lincoln's entrees but the braised short ribs with polenta fries ($24) was by far my favorite. No knife is involved in consuming this dish; the meat practically melts off the bone and the sweet, tangy sauce sticks to everything, including the fluffy polenta fries that would only be ruined by ketchup. Others worth trying include the saffron roasted game hen with polenta and cheese casserole ($24) and the shrimp and grits with pickled vegetables ($19).

Side dishes at a 'nice' restaurant often just seem bland and/or superfluous. A nice exception is 51 Lincoln's intensely crunchy (but soft on the inside) sweet potato pancakes with apple garlic jam ($5).

51 Lincoln offers a selection of home-baked pies and a delicious double chocolate cake, but the real decadent treat is the pumpkin flan ($6). The creamy pillow of custard with a gentle pumpkin flavoring seems to hover over a splash of light syrup ($5). You'll find room for this dessert no matter how many sweet potato pancakes you eat. Trust me, I did.

Eating at 51 Lincoln has helped to erode my irrational angst about going "all the way" out to Newton and challenged my belief that all the really good restaurants are in the city proper. Go there now before the secret gets out.