My favorite entrée was grilled salmon from the tasting menu, served with a passion-fruit sauce and a terrific vegetable hash with some tropical roots mixed in. I like the grilled swordfish kabobs ($25), too, except for some uncooked wine in the couscous with raisins. Then there was the roasted Cornish hen off the tasting menu. The Globe found there to be too much salt in the stuffing (I agree to an extent), and thought a fake-tasting chicken stock dominated the risotto (fixed by the time I got there). Hardly any restaurants have the resources to make real stock these days, so the usual fix for risotto is lots of cheese. Not here. The stuffing was studded with chorizo, which was too salty and spicy in this context. The hen was cooked correctly, so its just-slightly-gamier flavor, still closer to chicken than even turkey, was evident.
Filet mignon ($32) with potato croquettes was handled just right, except for excess salt on the otherwise terrific broccolini. Pan-seared cod ($26) was also a hearty if simple dish, with roasted fingerling potatoes and sautéed greens. Then there was the “Porcini-Encrusted Lamb Chops, Pomegranate Glaze, Whipped Purple Potatoes, Roasted Root Vegetables, Dried Fruit Relish” ($35). Don’t be frightened. The glaze and the crust are subliminal. What you get are two double baby lamb chops, cooked to order (medium rare) with mashed potatoes (they do look purple) and baby carrots. The dried fruit are apricots and raisins. You can just ignore them.
If you ignore the menu prose, you have some prosaic but sound entrées. What goes well with the prosaic? Wine, which can be overwhelmed by too many spices or sauces. Lobby has a satisfying list, well served in oversize glasses. But ordering by the glass has risks when you’re dining early — namely, you risk getting a glass from yesterday’s bottle. This may have been the case with a 2005 Vidal Fleury Côtes du Rhône ($8/glass; $30/bottle), which had dark fruit but was hot with extra alcohol, and even with a 2005 Acacia “A” pinot noir ($10/$40), a red wine that should show better. A 2006 Veramonte sauvignon blanc ($8/$32) was delicious, crisp with pineapple and spicy aromas. It’s a Chilean white that tasted like good New Zealand.
Tea ($4) is made from bags (okay, sachets), but in a pot. Decaf coffee ($3) is where coming early gets you the fresh cup. Desserts are fairly decent — though, again, the kitchen doesn’t balance flavors well, and some get lost. Pear-ginger tarte “tain” ($9; they meant “Tatin”) tastes more like ginger-pear, but the pastry is wonderfully flaky and the crème-frâiche ice cream is pleasantly sour with the caramelized fruit. Fig bread pudding ($8) just needs more figs or more fig sauce. But the flavors in the chocolate bourbon pecan pie ($9) seem to cancel each other out. I found the homemade ice-cream sandwich trio ($10) hard to eat, except for the burnt-sugar ice cream between the molasses cookies. All of the cookies were too crisp, so I couldn’t eat them as sandwiches without dripping a lot.
Service was relaxed and attentive, which indicates that there were no apparent nerves about the day’s bad review — though there were lapses between courses. The room is like a sushi bar; perhaps this is what designers do with small spaces.
As for the Globe’s review, it suggested that Lobby stick with bar food. I think Lobby should just simplify its menu descriptions, hold the salt and exotics, and focus on food that goes with wine. Then pick one dessert and pump it up.
Robert Nadeau can be reached atRobtNadeau@aol.com.
