Bina Osteria

It's Restaurant Week here in Boston, and while this is normally one of the highlights of the year (along with the other RW in February), this time around I haven't been feeling quite as inspired as usual. Granted, on Monday I had a delicious dinner at Rialto consisting of a salad of beets three ways (roasted, fried in thin slices, and pickled), and bluefish with a corn-tomato salsa of sorts (really, you can't go wrong with fresh corn and tomatoes this time of year, but deliciously executed nonetheless), and blueberry sorbet with a lime zest meringue (incredibly refreshing). Coupled with a table by the window overlooking the Charles Hotel plaza, you really couldn't beat this meal for $30.09.

Today's lunch, however, did not go as well. A few friends and I went to lunch at Bina Osteria, the new venture of the owners of Lala Rokh, a fantastic upscale Persian restaurant in Beacon Hill, as well as Bin 26, a wine bar/enoteca where I've never been, and haven't really heard much about in a positive or negative light. Regardless, I was looking foward to this meal. Let's just say that I, and my dining companions, were underwhelmed.

We'll start with the decor. Very clean and modern, with high ceilings obscured by some sort of large, white panels hanging at varying angles, which creates an interesting somewhat architectural look. The decor is generally white and sparse, with raw concrete support pillars in some corners and floor to ceiling windows partially hidden by sheer gold on silver curtains. Tables are covered in white cloth, with the exception of a long, high table near the back wall that was made of some tan-colored rock composite where patrons sit across from one another on bar-height stools. We almost missed the bar and low, red couches in the lounge upon entrance. In sum, not the most interesting, but nothing offensive.

On to the food. We were given a basket of three varieties of breads upon arrival, one a more traditional Tuscan, one a moist, airy bread, and the other a dense almost biscuit-like roll, served in a nice wooden bowl along with olive oil for dipping. All fairly good, yet nothing to write home about. I do, however, appreciate the variety. I read that psychologically, when at a restaurant, people will order something different from their companions, even if they all want the same thing, because in the moment, we crave variety, yet over time we could eat the same dish over and over and be perfectly happy, if not happier because over longer periods of time, variety becomes unnecessary (just think of your favorite pizza). We treat simultaneous alternatives (the bread bowl) much differently from sequential alternatives (monthly pizza night). But I digress.

Appetizers up next. "Etruscan" soup was actually quite good: a puree of chickpeas with rosemary, a drizzle of olive oil, tiny squiggles of sliced squid as a garnish in the center, and a little twisted breadstick placed elegantly across the bowl. Next time I'll remember to bring a camera, but the sight of this in a pure white bowl with a large rim was quite charming. A pleasing contrast of textures between the smooth puree and slightly chewy squid, with the hint of rosemary peeking out from the background. The tomato and mozzarella salad was fairly typical, slices of fresh mozzarella topped with halved cherry tomatoes and arugula, drizzed with olive oil. If made with quality ingredients, you really can't mess this salad up, and Bina didn't disappoint, serving it on a white, rectangular plate. So far, so good.

Entrees were a different story. "Bruschetta" turned out to mean something along the lines of "things piled on top of bread." Boring bread, basically a quarter of a dense Tuscan (i.e. no salt) baguette, but not nearly as good as any the bread we had seen earlier in the meal. My "Branzino Bruschetta" was described on the menu as having marinated branzino, fennel, and tuna bottarga (roe). Let's work in layers: The branzino was placed on top of the bread and was fine, not too salty but still a little fishy, the fennel was... fennel. I like fennel, but it was just shaved and placed on top of the fish. The tuna borgatta? Nowhere to be seen. No sort of oils, vinaigrettes, anything. Bland to look at with the muted tan of the bread (not even a nice golden crust), pale pink-ish fish, and white slivers of fennel (on a much too small rectangular white plate), and just as poor a showing in flavor. Uninspiring, to say the least. The other bruschetta contained an olive "paté" that seemed more like a tapenade, "dried" tomatoes (they were fresh), and arugula. Not exactly what was advertised, but certainly more colorful than the other dish, albeit on the same bread. Slightly better, but not much. And where to begin with the lamb? Two overcooked pieces of lamb approximately the size of Tic-Tac boxes stacked with two slices of polenta the same size. The vegetable caponata, as described on the menu, was conspicuously missing.

A case of false descriptions? Perhaps. The menu certainly made our lunch sound much better than it turned out to be. Overall, not awful, but I won't be rushing back.