Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Taste of Cape Cod Holiday Festival
Nov. 23, 1-6 p.m.
Resort & Conference Center of Hyannis
This time of year, the drive to the Cape is shorter than the wait at the new Craigie. The best Cape restaurants, including Barnstable Restaurant & Tavern, Gracie’s Table, Island Merchant, Bleu, Circadia Bistro, and Vining’s Bistro, among others, will be serving up samples of their signature dishes.

Da Vinci Prix Fixe
Every Monday and Tuesday, 5-10 p.m.
Da Vinci
You don’t have to wait for Restaurant Week to enjoy a great deal at Da Vinci. Every Monday and Tuesday, they’re offering diners the choice an entree, appetizer, and dessert for $29 per person. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Harvest Pumpkin Dinner
Nov. 14, 5:30 p.m.
Summer Winter, Burlington Mall
You know we love our pumpkin beer, but we also love food that features the orange squash, and not just for pie, either. Summer Winter’s dinner fills our fancy with gourd-laced empanadas, roasted chicken with caramelized onion and roasted pumpkin sauce, and pumpkin beignets.

Home Sweet Home
Nov. 14, 7-11 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Cambridge
Go ahead, skip dinner tonight. You’ve got better things to fill your belly with. Namely, desserts from the best pastry chefs all over town, who will be competing at the dessert tasting to benefit the Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund to help the homeless. Guests will sample delectable treats from Rosie’s Bakery, Zephyr, Burdick Chocolate, Kickass Cupcakes, Toscannini’s, and more. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Phantom Gourmet Beer & Food Phest
Nov. 8, Noon-midnight
Suffolk Downs
The brew masters have hand-picked enough local and international beers to fill a 400-foot-long hall. Of course, there will also be some phan-tastic food from favorite spots to keep you satiated amongst all those suds.

Dante’s Ball Brawl
Nov. 9, 2 p.m.
dante
Chef Dante de Magistris has organized a ball game, challenging local chefs to a meatball cook-off on the patio. Guests judge the entries, with the winner claiming the immodest title of “Best Balls of ‘Em All.” (more…)

I attended two very different tastings this past week, each terrific in its own way, one fancy, one rustic.

Let’s start with the fancy, shall we? Like many of you, I’m feeling expansive today.

Let me start by saying that I’m no great scholar of Italian wines. I’ve spent more time exploring France and California, thanks to a stint in San Francisco. My limited exposure to southern Italian wines has yielded to many sips that were harsh, acidic, and forgettable.

All the more delight, then, to sample the wines of Sicily’s Tenuta delle Terre Nere—paired with lovely food by the young chef Justin Melnick—last Thursday at Tomasso Trattoria. (more…)

While I’ve always considered a good meal to be a fine form of entertainment, I’ve never been a big fan of food-with-entertainment. (See: dinner cruises.) That said, last week I was pleasantly—nay, wildly—entertained by a Tuesday night show at the Beehive.

NYC’s Pinchbottom Burlesque brought a Halloween-themed act to town, and the night was a far cry from any dinner theater I’d ever seen. (OK, so my only experience to date had been a 1987 showing of Oklahoma! with a side of rubbery Chicken Cordon Bleu. But still.) (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Oct. 31, 5-10 p.m.
Halloween Prix Fixe Menu
Om
The posh Harvard Square eatery offers a $50 prix fixe menu tonight in celebration of the bewitching hour. Indulge in festive concoctions like Nightmare Salad, Mummy Monkfish, and a tasty dessert that’ll satisfy your Halloween sweet tooth.

Every Monday through Friday, 5-7 p.m.
Economic Relief Program
Townsend’s
The Irish restaurant, recently reviewed by our food critic, Corby Kummer, created a package deal for diners that includes a bottle of the “Wine selection of the week,” and one appetizer, and one entrée—all for $15 per person (yes, $15, we double-checked). Apps include mussels with Smithwick’s Ale or fall greens with red beets, and entrees include Irish-style Bolognese, beer battered fish & chips, or a Wagyu beef burger with aged cheddar. (more…)

Everyone’s talking about how the economic catastrophe correction is going to affect the restaurant world. I’m worried myself. Restaurants are important to Boston—culturally, economically—and they’re getting squeezed hard by higher food/fuel/healthcare costs at one side of the P&L sheet, and skittish customers on the other.

Less urgently, I worry about what it’ll do to food landscape. It seems like diners have just started getting over the comfort food fad in favor of less sedative, more adventurous fare. I like a nice bowl of mac n’ cheese as much as anybody, but it was getting stultifying. Just ask chefs. You think they want to make jazzy meatloaf every night?

(more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Salem Harvest Fest
Oct. 18, Session 1: 2-4:30 p.m.; Session 2: 5:30-8 p.m.
The Gathering, 217 Essex St., Salem, MA
When it comes to libations, we don’t discriminate. At the Salem Harvest Fest, sponsored by Pamplemousse and Magic Hat, we’ll be sipping on European and American artisanal brews, wines from South Africa, France, Italy, Spain, and New Zealand, and mead from the UK and Denmark. Beer before wine? Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.

Bowen’s Wharf Seafood Festival
Oct. 18-19, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Bowen’s Wharf, Newport, RI
Sit back and have your own shellfish shindig with lobster dinners, clam chowder, stuffed quahogs, clam cakes, shrimp, scallops, and raw oysters—all while listening to live music and entertainment.

Wellfleet OysterFest
Oct. 18-19, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Main Street, Wellfleet
The two-day outdoor celebration of the incredible, edible mollusk features a shuck-off, shellfishing exhibitions and tours—and barrel upon barrel of sweet Wellfleet oysters and clams, plucked fresh from the beds for your street eating pleasure. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Nantucket Restaurant Week
Restaurant week: Sept. 29-Oct. 5
Nantucket Whaling Museum
Click here for restaurants
Just when Islanders thought it was safe, Nantucket summons the crowds back for more. More than 20 Nantucket restaurants are offering three-course dinners for $25 or $45. Make it a weekend getaway with special travel and lodging offers.

Mon.-Fri., Oct. 1-31, 5:30-7 p.m.
Celebrate 5 Years with Union
Union Bar & Grill, South End
The South End boite is turning five this month, and to celebrate, they’re offering customers a $5 liquid nirvana menu and complimentary bar bites Monday through Friday from 5:30-7 p.m. Try the Apple Blossom (vanilla and apple vodka topped with cider) or a Chai Side Car (apple brandy, chai infusion, and citrus). The free bar food is worth the trip alone–think BBQ short ribs and goat cheese crostini.

Free Snacks
Sunday, Oct. 5, restaurant hours
UFood Grill locations, (201 Brookline Ave., 530 Washington St., and Logan Airport)
All week long, customers voted for their favorite UFood Grill selection, UBerry or UnFries, and yesterday the king of boxing and the restaurant’s new spokesperson, George Foreman (see our interview with him here), announced the champion. On Sunday, you can stop in at any location to get a free sample of the winning dish.

Best of Boston Dining
Monday, Oct. 6, 6 p.m.
808 Gallery, Boston University, 808 Commonwealth Ave.
Everyone who went to this party last year is still raving. It’s more food than you could ever imagine–so plan accordingly. Sample bites from Best of Boston Dining winners danté, Grill 23, Gaslight, Hungry Mother, Neptune Oyster, and many more…

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Sept. 19, 6:30 p.m.
Farm Aid Eve Dinner
Henrietta’s Table
Fuel up for Farm Aid as chef Peter Davis hosts a night-before party with a farm fresh al fresco buffet and live music from home grown musician, Will Dailey. The evening begins with cocktails at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 7:30 p.m. Proceeds from each $100 ticket benefit family farmers.

Sept. 20, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Phantom Gourmet Food Festival
Fenway Park
Food Phans will sample up to 80 of their favorite local eateries, then gain entrance into the Lansdowne clubs for some post-nosh partying. If you consider yourself a Very Important Phan, hit the Jake Ivory’s VIP bash featuring Ernie and the Automatics and even more finger-lickin’ food. (more…)