Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tasted Menu & Dinner @ Blue Inc.

About a month and a half ago, I was contacted by Alex Rosenfeld, Founder and CEO of Tasted Menu, a website and forthcoming mobile app focused on dish specific reviews at Boston Restaurants, asking if I would be interested in participating in their pre-beta launch as an early contributor to the site. Essentially, Tasted Menu allows users to rate, review and share photos of dishes based on current restaurant menus, which then show up in a "what are people eating right now" news feed and link to your individual profile as well as to the site maintained restaurant menu page.
I didn't hesitate to jump on board, this website sounded right up my alley! The potential of landing dinner invitations on the company if I surpassed certain thresholds of contributions in advance of the beta launch was also a motivating factor. While contributing, I discovered you can follow other users in their dining adventures and not unlike the Facebook concept we all know and love, "like" their reviews and photos. Some of the more unique features also caught my attention. For example, once you review 6 or more dishes at a certain restaurant you become a "Maitre'd". If you post about a certain number of food specific items or ingredients you become a "Gourmand of ...." (currently I am the #1 Gourmand of cocktails, surprise surprise and yes, you can review restaurant specific cocktails, too!) Tasted Menu is officially launching to the public in mid-October (any day now!) but if you want to request a user name in advance, head to the site and use "Daisy" as your invite code. Then you can check out the dish ratings and reviews (linked below) from our recent dinner at Blue Inc, and contribute reviews of your own if you feel so inclined!!
Not that long ago, I posted about my lunch at Blue Inc. This time around, I met Alex, Bianca and Rachel for dinner. The bar and restaurant were packed on a Tuesday evening, the atmosphere was loud and lively compared last time, a quiet and subdued Friday afternoon. We were seated promptly for our reservation at 8pm. I started with a Fat Boyz Margarita, Bianca chose the Anorexic Model and Rachel went with Cheffy. We rated our drinks based on the sites standard 10 point scale. Which drink received a rating of 8.0 and which one a 6.2? Only one way to find out...
We started the meal by ordering two dishes off the Bar Menu to share.
The Fresh Made Scallion Pancakes received an average rating of 5.8 and the Spicy Tuna Tacos which only got a 5.4 . The majority of us seemed to enjoy the scallion pancakes, but they didn't blow us away. We agreed there was no spice whatsoever in the tacos. They were light and refreshing, but somewhat of a disappointment overall.
For our main courses Alex sampled two dishes off the appetizer menu, the Pan Seared Scallops and the Hand Rolled Sage Gnocchi. The rest of us ordered traditional entrees and very much enjoyed them! Rachel got the Cabernet Braised Shortribs, Bianca the Pan Roasted Natural Statler Chicken and I went with the Signature Honey & Hoisin Duck Glazed Confit.For dessert, everyone except me ordered a different flavored Liquid Nitrogen Milkshake. Since I had already ate/drank one of these when I was in for lunch, I opted for the "Signature" Butterscotch Fondant with dried and fresh strawberries and black truffle ice cream. I appreciated the opportunity to dine at Blue Inc. once again. I felt the bar bites were lackluster but the dinner entrees showcased much more creativity and skill. I should also mention, I am under no obligation to blog about Tasted Menu, I am doing so because I think it's an amazing website that like minded Boston food scene will appreciate! The concept is innovative and the content is informative while the design is user friendly and the site itself very efficient. 


If you've already had a chance to check out Tasted Menu, what did you think?

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