Hungry Hungry

Today is Adam’s birthday so we went out for a wonderful dinner last night with our friends Zayiri and Zames at Hungry Mother in Kendall Square. Adam and I discovered the tiny restaurant when we walked by Hungry Mother a few months ago when it had just opened. We were on one of our long meandering walks through Cambridge where we hit practically every square of note (Harvard, Central, Kendall, Inman, Porter, Davis).

The menu looked awesome so I made a reservation for Adam’s birthday. I was really looking forward to trying it out since we’ve been reading glowing review after glowing review of the place, the Globe being the most recent this week. The food is southern prepared using French techniques, the décor is hip, southern, country and refined all at the same time if that’s possible. The menu is very well edited and everything we ordered was delicious.

I loved that every other dish featured some sort of gourmet house cured pork product like homemade bacon. Since his great grand folks are from the south possibly from the hills, Zames kept making references to his “hillbilly” roots throughout the evening, how the “hillbilly” in him really liked this or that about the place. Eventually, his wife Zayiri said, “Let’s not forget he grew up in San Diego.”

Here’s the rundown of our meal:

Drinks:
Sweet Tea – Adam and I both ordered it, just sweet enough to be delicious, not too cloying sweet like Mickey Ds.

Dr. Pepper, Rye & Bitters – Zames insisted on ordering this drink because all three ingredients individually reminded him of the south so he figured all three together would be like a southern trifecta. Zayiri said it tasted like cough syrup, but Zames seemed to enjoy it greatly.

Pre Dinner Nibbles:
Deviled Eggs – Wonderfully creamy and yummy

Boiled Peanuts with grey sea salt – Reminded me of edamame

Appetizers:
Ribs – Adam’s favorite dish of the day, they were really tender, fell off the bone and flavorful

Fried Green Tomato BLT –

Fried Oysters – Looked good and Zames and Zayiri polished them off

Main:
Flank Steak with Yukon gold potatoes, caramelized onions and fried onions – Adam and I both ordered this and the meat was super tender and flavorful. The onions were nice too.

Cornmeal crusted Catfish – The crust was super crispy, the fish was perfectly cooked and it tasted pretty light.

French Style Gnocchi – Made from a pate choux dough that didn’t have potatoes. Light, buttery and delicious.

Sides:

Baked grits with cheese and bacon – One of my favorites of the evening. I didn’t even think I liked grits, but the corn flavor was delightful.

Cornbread – Always good

Collard Greens – I’m not into the bitter greens, but they were good.

Dessert:
Chocolate Cake – rich 4 layer slice

Buttermilk Pie – lemon zest flavor

P.S. The bathrooms were also Southern/French themed. They had wallpapered one with pages from Julia Child’s cookbook and the other with pages from a Southern cookbook…brilliant and super cool to boot. I’m considering something similar for our downstairs bathroom off our kitchen.