Nourish

I was getting ready for a weekend trip up to Maine, but Liz wasn’t picking me up from work for another hour, and I had gotten out early.  I figured that the best way to kill some time would be to have an early dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, and I started walking down the road in Lexington Center looking for a healthy dinner option.  I say healthy because I had recently started trying to eat right and lose some weight, and I didn’t want to sabotage myself so early in the game.  I stopped in front of a newer restaurant in town called Nourish, and read the motto of the eatery: “Eat Well, Live Well.”  This was a message I could get behind, so I entered the establishment.

I came in at an off-hour for a restaurant, around 4pm.  However, I was promptly greeted and seated, and this pleased me.  I started of the meal with a glass of organic, responsibly harvested wine and a plate of Maine crab cakes, and ordered a chicken tabouleh plate for my entrée.  My waiter was polite and knowledgeable, and I was happy so far with my Nourish choice.  As I waited for my meal, I read the literature about Nourish on the menu and table ads.  This restaurant uses local and organic ingredients when possible, and prepares food with smaller meat and larger vegetable portions for a more balanced meal.  They also state that while they would love to use all organic ingredients, it would be cost prohibitive to do so for the consumer, so there is a theme of responsibility shown by Nourish for the environment, health, and wallet share.  I appreciated that and hoped that the food would be as good as the message.

The wine I picked out was pretty standard table wine, not too remarkable, but not bad.  All of the wines were either organic or responsible grown or harvested, so that was a nice touch.  The appetizer came to the table, and the presentation struck me immediately.  The two cakes were in the middle of the rectangular plate with a mixed green salad on one side, and a sweet potato slaw on the other side.  True to their word, there was a smaller helping of meat paired with larger sides of veggies.  The cakes were very delicate, with a light and crisp cornmeal breading.  The inside of each cake was very soft and the flavor was subtle, sweet, and enjoyable.  Each cake was topped with a squirt of a tartar sauce, the only part of the presentation that wasn’t especially well done.  The salad was fresh, and the slaw was very unique, with a tahini dressing on sweet potato strings and what I think was seaweed as well. 

Either way, the appetizer was nice, and was followed by an appropriately timed chicken tabouleh plate.  On the plate were pita triangles, salad, hummus, and chicken tabouleh, and I took the approach of making little pita sandwiches.  The food was good, but I thought the plate was quite salty, and that is saying something, as I love my salt.  The dressing on the salad, the hummus, and the tabouleh were all salty, making the plate almost seem pickled, and man did I need some water when I was done.

All told, the meal was pretty good.  I would go to Nourish again for some healthy eating, but I might steer clear of the tabouleh plate.  I like the idea behind this restaurant, and hope that they can execute a bit better to solidify their longevity in the Lexington Center restaurant scene.