January 22nd 2014: Dinner with a Friend at Aragosta Bar and Bistro, Boston

Today, my original plan was to have dinner with a friend at Salvatore's  in Medford, but he canceled at the last minute. I had already changed my plans to eat somewhere close by when another friend called to ask me out to dinner. I managed to get reservations at Aragosta Bar and Bistro, a modern Italian restaurant located inside the Fairmont Battery Wharf hotel.

The inside of the hotel is pretty nice, as can be seen by the pictures I took below.

The restaurant was pretty fancy as well.

For appetizers, we decided to go with the Lobster Bisque (Crème fraiche, chives)

and the Crispy Potato Gnocchi (Lobster, pancetta, creamed leek).

The soup was actually pretty good, with a clear truffle flavor to it. The gnocchi was simply scrumptious as well.

For our main courses, I got the Risotto (Pumpkin, gingered mascarpone, roasted chestnuts, preserved apple),

while my friend got the Nantucket Scallops (Cannelloni bean "succotash," parsnip purée, grapefruit).

As always with pumpkin dishes, the risotto was a little too sweet for my liking, while the scallops were actually pretty tasty in my opinion.

Unfortunately, it was the dessert we got the Fritelle (Banana, salted caramel, crème anglaise), which totally disappointed us, as what came out was simply a basket of donuts with sauces on the side. 

I thought the banana would be stuffed inside the donut, but nope there was nothing inside. And to think we were paying 10 bucks for the dish. Overall, we thought that the food was a little overpriced, given the small portions we got, although I did like most of the food. Give this place a try for the ambience, just don't get the risotto or the donuts.