Yankee Swap Restaurant Review: Selle de la Terre

For Restaurant Week Boston 2008 this year I went to Selle de la Terre on State Street. I'm reviewing it because I'm extremely bored at work and can't think of anything else to do. Pathetic? Maybe...

Appe-teaser: Before I get to what I had for a first course, allow me to begin bitching. The restaurant week menu isn't on the internet. The only mention of it on the Selle de la Terre website says that menus change daily and suggests the perspective patron "call for [their] latest creations." Now, I have a blog. I know what it takes to post a couple of lines of text onto the interwebs. It's really not hard (that's what she said). Get your shit together. Anyways, I had some sort of cream of asparagus soup. It was actually quite tasty, though a little salty. There were two small stalks of asparagus laid dantily across the top of the soup that seemed to have been frozen, which provided an interesting contrast with the warm soup. Still, I couldn't help but feel the soup wasn't particularly complicated, a feeling that would become a theme of the evening's meal. Overall though, I would rate the soup as the best part of the meal.

Main Course: For my entree, I enjoyed the steak. Again, you won't be able to find this one on the menu online. It definitely wasn't the ribeye that they've got on the regular dinner menu. It came with 2 peices of charred asparagus and a mini-mushroom sucotash. My steak was perfectly medium rare and I really enjoyed the crunch left in the asparagus. The mushrooms were very well seasoned and though the idea of mushrooms and steak fit comfortably into my paradigm of a manly dinner, it wasn't especially imaginative. I was also a little annoyed at the prospect of more asparagus after my soup. Though quite delicious, this course was basically a steak, and though a good one, nothing too imaginitive.

Dessert: Yup, good, but pretty boring again. I had the chocolate silk cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, 4 blueberries, 2 blackberries and 1 streak of a fruit sauce. It was really tasty, had an incredibly smooth texture and was a great finish to a very solid meal, but I'd be lying if I said I was impressed with the culinary technique involved in preparation.

Beverage: In lieu of wine, I decided to try a cocktail from the menu. This is the only part of my meal that was on the normal menu, though try as I may, I can't seem to find the cocktail menu online either. Selle de la Terre is really starting to annoy. Anyways, I had the Greyhound. I believe it was pink grapefruit juice, some sort of top shelf vodka and  Lavender flavored syrup.  It was particularly tasty, but for 11 dollars I could buy a handle of Poland Springs Vodka and an entire grapefruit orchard.

Swap Verdict: 20 bucks won't buy you shit off this menu, so this review is pretty pointless.  But then again, so is most of the information on this blog.

Swap Countdown: 74 days.  

Set It and Forget It!

To kick off our coverage of the build up to the preparation for the planning of the 2008 Yankee Swap we've decided to give you the first in our long series of gift suggestions for the '08 extravaganza.  Today's gift suggestion: stock!  Do you know that if you had planned ahead and bought 20 dollars worth of Apple stock as your Yankee Swap gift on this date in 1998, you could be giving someone over 350$ worth of stock come December 6, 2008?  It's true.  And imagine if you had traded your garbage bag full of Swisher Sweets for that 20 bucks worth of Nintendo Co. Ltd. stock at the first Swap... you'd have, like, 75$ worth of Wii-tastic s-to-the-izzock!  What stock should you think about buying this year for your gift?  Good question, and we here at Perry Street have got you covered with our exhaustively researched market analysis.  Bulls, bears, people from Connecticut... we've looked at all of the major factors that are influencing today's economy and picked the following sure things:

1) Decker Outdoors Corp:  Makers of the world's most conservative, functional, practical, ridiculous fashion trend, the UGG boots, this is a company you can be sure will be there when you're dead.  I mean, it's not like these kinds of fads ever wear themselves out or anything.

2) Halliburton Company: Talk about a stock that's ready to blow up... what, too soon?

3) Atlantic ACM: When VOIP takes off, you'll want to know about it.  When Verizon sells its share of tubes to AT&T, you'll want to know about it.  And when this company goes platinum more times than Hov because of a certain ruggedly handsome face-man, you'll be glad you got in on the IPO.  

Don't worry folks, this is just the beginning of the gift advice.  We plan to practically drown you in suggestions.  Feel free to post your own using the comment spaces below these posts.  Ladies and gentlehumans, start your brains...

2008: Year of the Rat, Yankee Swap turns 4!

Of course, in China the Yankee Swap would be legally 8 years old, but that's beside the point. Now, we know that it's August and most of your minds are focused on trading bodily fluids with Michael Phelps, trading blows (pun!) with Alicia Sacromone, or trading capital-share-this for market-value-stock that, but at Perry Street the buzz has been all about the Yankee Swap. We want to make sure this year's swap is one for the ages, something that really shows God how much we care. Short of a virgin sacrifice, we plan to make sure Jesus and his Dad hear us loud and clear. So make sure to mark you calendars, book your flights and get all of your shots! We want YOU at the Yankee Swap and we can't wait to steal your present and leave you with whatever shitty gift Blaze brought! Check back here early and often for gift suggestions, flight coupons and random swap related musings! Yay Yankee Swap!