Meal at Masa

Summer Restaurant Week in Boston just started and I could think of no better way to celebrate than doing a girls’ night out with Jen, Eva and Rosie. Unfortunately, Jen ended up having to bail due to a sinus infection (although she has promised to rally for our Thursday night reservation) but Eva, Rosie and I had no problems getting to Masa, which is within walking distance of the Arlington T stop.

At Masa, unlike most restaurants, the only menu they offer is their special restaurant week menu. I actually enjoyed this because it not only makes it easy to choose what you want to eat, it gives the impression that Masa is really focused on making their meal great, despite the discounted Restaurant week pricing ($33.09 for your choice of appetizer, entrée and dessert). It was also a nice touch for them to feature several wine selections ($7) and “canteen” drinks such as sangria ($5) on the restaurant week menu as well.

Now for the fun stuff, the food!

At Masa, you get served a great bread basket with cornbread (definitely one of my favorites) and a typical sliced white bread - on the side came the option of three different spreads, from left to right, some sort of chipotle hummus, a honey molasses butter, and some sort of spicy cheese sauce. The combination of the cornbread and the honey butter was incredible, and prompted Eva to say "it tasted like breakfast!" I thought the cheese sauce was good, but tasted just like the Frito lay cheese dip you can buy in a jar and microwave (I say this as in it tasted good!):



For appetizers, I thought Rosie ended up with the best one - a Mexican chorizo and shrimp quesadilla with cilantro jalapeno pesto and smoked crema:

I went for what was essentially a ceasar salad with red tortilla strips and roasted green chile dressing that was incredible:

Eva went with one of her favorite dishes, a smoked seafood gazpacho with cucumber, avocado and cilantro:

While the girls each went with a glass of wine, I tried my first caipirinha, a Brazillian drink made with cachaça - to me, it tasted like a very strong Strawberry mojito:


For entrees, Eva chose the blackened red corn meal crusted fried skate (try saying that three times fast) with sweet corn fritters (her favorite part of the meal), spicy mango slaw and green chile tomatillo sauce - although I'm not usually much of a fish fan, I have to admit it was pretty good:

Being the carnivores that we are, Rosie and I opted for the southwestern-style steak with chile dusted frites, chile lime arugula salad (ok, but no strong flavor) and guajillo bourbon sauce - it was all very good but I ended up only eating one piece of steak to save room for dessert:

There was no question on what we would order for dessert - when given a choice between flan and molten chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry sauce, what would you choose?

Exactly what we did - the molten cake resembled a brownie more in terms of texture and flavor, but no complaints from me:


The three of us walked out of the restaurant satisfied and actually glad that we had to walk to the Arlington T stop since it would give us a chance to work on our stuffed feeling.

A note of caution - the three of us did bring home leftovers from the generous portions and I don't know what it was, but we didn't notice how pungent they were until we left the restaurant! Just an indication of how nicely spiced the food was.