Strongly Worded

I'll Have the Clam Creme With Potato Morsels

So my parents live in a small town about two hours away, and I see them maybe every six weeks or so. Usually I visit them on the weekends; on the few occasions when they come to the city, it's just for the day. They arrive in the morning, and we go out to lunch, and perhaps we go to a museum, or browse in some store for a while. They dislike driving in the dark, so they usually leave early.

Because of this, while I have lived in Greater Boston for eight years, I have yet to go out to a fancy city dinner with my parents. This week my dad is in town for a conference, and so he and my mom are here for most of the week. A long time ago I got a gift certificate as a work appreciation thing, and it was to a restaurant about which I was unenthusiastic. So I sold the gift certificate on craigslist (There is a major secondary market for gift cards on there ... I sold it to this older couple who buy cards all the time, and we conducted the transaction in a bank parking lot ...), and have been hoarding the cash ever since. So this confluence of events inspired me to take my parents out to dinner (finally) to Oleana, which is one of the area's best-known delicious restaurants. And it was meh. My dad was tense and fussy - all he wanted was lamb. My mom's order was good but not amazing. We had two desserts: salted caramel ice cream served over a sesame-cashew cake with roasted pineapple; and a pistachio crepe with poached cherries, pistachio ice cream, and buttermilk semifreddo. I thought both were exquisite, but my mom didn't. While I did not personally cook or choose the dishes we had, I still wanted her to love them.

For tomorrow night, I made reservations at Radius, which is even more famous (and also much more pretentious - it's the kind of place where the waiters present each dish to you as if it were a celebrity, and they give you a new napkin if you get up to go the the bathroom). I've only been there once, when Banter Boy took me there to celebrate my liberation from my soul-sucking job; It was one of the most memorable meals I've ever had. But now I don't know. It's weird: my mom is as fascinated by food as I am. She watches Top Chef (and all those shows on The Food Network). She reads cookbooks. She entertains constantly. But she was lukewarm about tonight, has already expressed reservations about tomorrow night, so maybe we should call the whole thing off and go eat at some seafood place she spotted near their hotel.

I'm so disappointed. I so rarely get to go out and eat fancy food. But I think eating out with people who are not enjoying or appreciating the meal is decidedly un fun. So if you're in the mood for New England clam chowder, let me know. I'll probably be on the waterfront tomorrow night, with my parents. Maybe we can meet up.

Posted by Dori at 8:18 PM