As much as I enjoy cooking, there are times when I go out to eat. This is especially true in the Fall, when I am teaching. Monday nights are often a good time, because I finish work at 5 PM, and it is particularly dreadful driving home at that hour.

Here are three short views of a lunch and two Monday night dinners in the last 10 days.

Legal Seafood – Kendall Square

Legal has been a fixture in Cambridge/Boston area dining since its founding in 1950. I think I’ve been eating at their restaurants since 1966. In recent years we often went to the Kendall Square restaurant with guest lecturers in our classes. However, the pandemic hurt their restaurant business badly, and it was sold two years ago. The Kendall Square site was shut down, but this year it re-opened under new management.

My lunch with a colleague a two weeks ago was a treat. I had a seared tuna appetizer, followed by fried calamari. Good to be back with old friends.

Bin 26 Enoteca

My first Monday night venture was to this small wine bar and restaurant on Charles Street. From my reading online, I was intrigued with their boutique wine selection and their house-made pastas, featuring one made with cocoa powder. The wines were available in a variety of quantities, e.g. 100 ml, 200 ml. 400 ml, etc. This enabled me to have a small glass of a Corsican rosé to start, (Niellucciu, Sciaccarellu, Yves Leccia 2020) and then a red wine (Niellucciu,Grenache, Sciaccarellu, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Domaine Maestracci, Clos Reginu, Corse Calvi), also from Corsica, with my pasta. I enjoyed it all very much.

Bar Enza

The following Monday night was spent at another wine-centric, Italian-oriented restaurant in Cambridge — Bar Enza. This one had been recommended to me by a friend who is a wine importer and distributor in Massachusetts. The dish I ordered was exquisitely-made, Fregola with Clams and Zucchini. It was spicy on the tongue and a treat for the eyes. I was able to get a glass and a half of Punta Crena Vigneto Reine Mataossu Colline Savonesi, one of my favorite Ligurian wines, to go with the meal.

Altogether, this business of eating out at times is a real pleasure. And the traffic going home afterward was much more palatable.