“Flavors of Bedford” Restaurant Review: Blue Stove at Nordstrom

October 31, 2015

By Ken Gordon

BlueStove_logoThis is the Restaurant Review that got me out of the dog house.

For more than a year now, I have joined various business associates and Chamber of Commerce members for lunch at Blue Stove. Its small plate menu is a great way to get just what each diner is craving.  Each dish is somewhere between a tasting and an appetizer.  So each of us orders three items, and we have a meal.

The problem is the “each of us” referenced in the last sentence has never included my wife.  And each time I have gone, I have come home to face the dreaded question, “Where did you go for lunch today, dear?”  When the answer comes back Blue Stove, a little jealousy creeps in.

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But not this time.  My son and I took Breena to celebrate her birthday, and it was a great occasion to finally include her in the small plate whimsy.  We had a wonderful dinner:  A little of this. A little of that. And then a little bit more.

We started off with a fig and blue cheese salad with candied pecans. It was a wonderful mixture of sweet figs with salty blue cheese and crunchy pecans.  They married nicely together and set us up for the dishes yet to come.  Married together nicely.  Do you see what I did there?

Our next course was a transition between the salads and main course, in the form of Szechuan lettuce cups with glazed chicken.  The chicken was crispy on the outside, prepared with a tangy orange zest. It was moist on the inside and prepared perfectly.  The portion was so ample we ran out of the iceberg lettuce leaves we used as wraps, but the attentive wait staff brought more right away.

Among the seafood choices,we tried the jumbo lump crab cakes.  Two crab cakes came moist, flaky and tender and included very little if any filler.  Breena is a crab cake connoisseur and it passed muster. Or at least remoulade.

For our meat entrée, we tried the crisp spicy dark cherry glazed beef. It came as advertised.  It was seared to perfection on the outside and tender inside, with residual heat that made the dish particularly complex. The sauce was full body, and delicious.

You may have realized by now that our 12-year old son did not appreciate the eating adventure of this meal quite as much as we did. He found comfort in the special of the day, the house ground beef slider with bacon jam and cheddar cheese.  Unwilling to release a single taste to his parents, we placed one order for ourselves, just to sample.  They came two to an order, tasty meat patties in a fresh sweet bun.  Our only suggestion is that the dish be added to the main menu, as it is a wonderful dish for “tweener” kids like our son.  He rounded off his meal with the sweet potato fries, crispy shoestring potatoes cooked well on the outside and in.  “The best I ever had, dad”, was his rave review.

Blue Stove presents a fun opportunity to sample varied tastes.  Its turns dinner into a complete and unusual night out.  You might not think about heading for Nordstrom’s for an interesting dinner, but consider it the next time you’re looking for a treat.

 

Ken-Gordon--head-shot600Ken Gordon is Bedford’s State Representative in the Massachusetts legislature, a member of the Bedford Chamber of Commerce, and a former restaurant reviewer on the North Shore. 

By agreement with the Bedford Chamber, he does not announce visits to restaurants participating in Flavors of Bedford, so can objectively file these reports.

Gordon’s reviews will focus on restaurants participating in Flavors of Bedford, a fundraising event for the Bedford Chamber of Commerce.

2015 Flavors of BedfordFlavors of Bedford will take place from 4 to 6 pm on Sunday November 8 at the Doubletree Bedford Glen Hotel, 44 Middlesex Turnpike in Bedford. Tickets are $40 per person, with special senior and group rates. For more information and to buy tickets visit https://www.flavorsofbedford.org/tickets.html.  

Flavors of Bedford benefits the Bedford Chamber of Commerce, and a portion of the proceeds will go to the Friends of Hanscom, an organization that supports military personnel at Hanscom Air Base in Bedford and though out New England.

 

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