This Is Framingham

 
I was thinking about how I haven’ been to Desmond O’Malley’s in about a year.  For some reason I always forget it’s even there. This morning I drove by and saw they were doing construction/renovation there and did a little investigating.
Looks like it will be unveiled sometime this month as the Metro 9 Steakhouse, still owned by Desmond O’Malley’s.
On their craigslist post, looking for wait staff, they describe themselves as an upscale steakhouse:

A fine dining experience awaits our patrons in an upscale, sophisticated setting located on Rte 9 in Framingham, MA. Metro 9 will serve affordable, high quality steaks, chops and fresh seafood ranging from $16 to $26. With our November 2006 opening, we are now seeking quality-minded individuals ready to provide the best dining experience in a professional manner to our customers.

Sounds interesting if the food and service is as good as it seems it should be.  Probably not a place I’d go to all the time but I’ll definitely check it out.

My cousin Amy and I went to The Aegean on Route 30.  I haven’t been there since they moved into the old Chi-Chi’s so it was nice to finally check out the new location. They did a remarkable job remodeling inside.  The dining room is spacious with two levels and pleasant lighting that is just dim enough to be comfortable yet not awkward.

When we sat down our server brought over a bowl olive oil with feta cheese and some bread. ????? ??? ???????   The feta was soft and flavorful, not the plasticy hard stuff like at grocery stores. 

We decided to get an appetizer of fried cheese, pretty good but we could probably have done without, but we wanted to try it.

We both got the house salad with yet more feta cheese and a very light, tasty dressing.

For entrees, Amy got the spinach pie with rice and green beans and I got the special of tilapia with tomatoes, mushrooms, capers and garlic which was really great.

The portions were so big we ended up wrapping up half of our dinners. ???? ????? ???? 777 Somehow we took a look at the dessert menu anyway.  We always say we’ll just look at the dessert menu but end up splitting something.  Tonight we split the chocolate mousse cake.

This is a serious cake, very intense chocolate I can’t imagine one person finishing the whole thing themselves- but very good. ??? ????

The service was excellent too, from our professional server to the course timing and waters being filled throughout the meal.

Also, very nice and clean bathrooms (sorry, no pictures!)

Thumbs up for The Aegean!

I was alerted by the good reverend Bob that the Chicken Bone Saloon was now just “The Chicken Bone” and seems to have changed owners as well as the format from biker bar to family restaurant.

As long as the food is still good, I don’t see a problem with this, although I’m curious to know the story behind the change over. 

I love the chicken playing a flaming guitar on the sign, if nothing else, that’s a good enough reason to like the new Chicken Bone.
I haven’t been in yet since the new owners took over but on their site they show some pictures that show they made changes inside.
The Chicken Bone is one of the few non-Brazilian restaurants in downtown, nothing against Brazilian restaurants but it’s nice to have a little variety so I’m grateful that the new ownership didn’t decide to pick up and leave downtown.

Also, next door used to be a building that my uncle had his auto part store in (after he moved it from the corner of Waverly and Concord).  They knocked this building down about a month (or more?) ago and I have been trying to find out what will be going there. 

Last time I was in the chicken bone they said it was supposed to be a health clinic but I read that a health clinic is going in on Union Ave. 
I REALLY hope they’re not putting two health clinics downtown.  I want downtown to be a cool place but no one is going to want to come here if all the stores are turned into health clinics or places of worship, offices, etc…  I think downtown needs vacant stores/restaurants being turned into new stores/restaurants.

 
Tonight we went to Ken’s Steakhouse. I like this place because it’s old and different from everything else on Rt. 9.
As many reviews I’ve read online, I can see how people say it’s overrated, the steaks are not phenomenal, actually I don’t think I’ve ever had anything phenomenal there but there’s just something about this place I like.
We’ve never had a bad meal there and have always had good service.

I feel I need to note that both of us have never noticed this before but at the bottom of the menu is a disclaimer “M.S.G. used for flavor enhancement”.  I don’t know if we never noticed it before or if this is new, but when Ethan asked if they could not use M.S.G. on his steak the waiter said M.S.G. is on all of the steaks already but the other dishes (chicken seafood etc…) don’t use it.  Kind of odd but I thought it was something to point out since I know people (like Ethan’s dad) have to be very aware of when M.S.G. is used at restaurants.

One of the unique things about Ken’s is their wall of fame-like display of salad dressings as you walk down the hall to the host desk (where there are yet more bottles of salad dressing displayed).

The decor is pretty dated from I don’t even know when.  Tonight I noticed they have updated the table settings though. Tables used to have yellow tablecloths with red napkins, now both linens are white.

We both started off with a caesar salad which was a pretty good size for a pre-meal salad.
Ethan got the filet on a plank (the picture came out too dark) and I usually get the same thing but the Eggplant sounded good so I got that.
It was basically eggplant parmesan but rolled up and I was happy with my choice. 

Tonight I think we’ve had the best waiter we’ve ever had there tonight. He didn’t try to up-sell any appetizers, wine or desserts on us. He was very polite, professional and had good timing (he also gave a double thumbs-up when we told him everything was great).  There was also a piano player in the dining room which was nice to listen to during the meal.

We had an early dinner and were done a little past 7:00pm. By this time almost every seat in the dining room was filled. Its good to see a living establishment of route 9’s glory days doing well in a land of chain restaurants and stores.

Sorry for the repost if anyone saw this a while ago, this was another post that got deleted the same week I posted it because my server got hacked had “problems”.
Over the summer we went to Francos because we heard so many good things about it. ????? ???? glc   I remember the guys at the counter were friendly and it was nice and clean inside. ??? ?????? ????
We got half plain/mushroom:

By now I really forget how to describe it.  I remember we thought it was pretty good but I can’t remember anything unique about it. nice fc   I would go back though.  Maybe when I do I’ll re-post but I just wanted to add Franco’s to the pizza quest.

Tonight I went with some friends to John Harvard’s at Shopper’s (stupid) World.
John Harvard’s is decent for a chain restaurant. They have great beer selection that they brew there and pretty good food.

We got Harvest Spice beer with cinnamon-sugar rimmed glass which was really good.

I got a burger, Jen got a cheeseburger and Amy got a Buffalo Chicken Salad.

The lighting is kind of dim in there but it’s a comfortable atmosphere and better than a lot of the other options around there.

Not much else to day without going into my usual Shopper’s World mourning/rant so I’ll stop here.

I thought we’d try something a little healthy this time and go to “Big Fresh” at the strange route 30 mall.  I remember this mall used to have actual stores in it but now inside are just the back doors to restaurants you’re supposed to go in from the outside. Weird place.

Big Fresh was better than I thought it would be like inside.  It’s put together well for having such a small space and they display local artists’ work on the walls.

We just got ours to go.  I got a salmon and brown rice wrap and Ethan got some sort of Asian chicken wrap and a side of beet and asparagus salad.
The wraps were pretty good although I thought they could have lightened up on the amount of rice, I know its good filler but maybe a little more greens would have been good.  Ethan thought his was decent too.

The beet and asparagus salad was ok, nothing amazing but it I felt better about eating that than chips or fries.
I’d go back to Big Fresh, it’s nice to have a healthy option for fast food in the area.