I was unable to make it to Ecco's complimentary-meal soft opening last week, but the doors opened for real last night. Does anyone have feedback on East Boston's newest hot spot?Today's Globe has a piece on Ecco that isn't a restaurant review, but rather an examination of how a "martini-tapas bar" like this reflects the influx of young professionals in the neighborhood.
9 comments:
Hi,
I tried out Ecco on Saturday night and was very impressed. Here’s a recap of the night:
Background info: I called around 4 to make a reservation for two people – they were completely booked. Showed up around 7:30 and the bar was busy, the lounge was about three quarters full. We lucked out and got two seats at the bar as another couple got up.
Atmosphere: Done up really nice. Tony Bennett music played for the two hours we were there. The only bad thing I saw was that the bathrooms are for one person only. Also, the plasma tvs weren’t connected to high-def cable so the picture was mediocre.
The people: A social experiment at best. There were hipsters from the Gumball and Porter 156 buildings, old school Italians in their Sunday best suits, and a few younger folks that turned out to be a little under dressed. Overall the crowd was much more upscale than any other place I’ve seen in Eastie.
The drinks: A huge selection of martini’s all priced at $8.95 (I think) for a generous size. The wine list was not huge but was definitely adequate with a few bottles priced around $18!
The service: As I mentioned we were at the bar which was slammed. We were greeted immediately and had some fresh placemats put down in front of us. Then we didn’t see the bartender again for another 10 minutes. Overall it was about 15 minutes from bottoms down to bottoms up.
The food:
Overall pretty good. We started off with the tuna tartare which was served with an olive concoction and a seaweed salad – it was excellent. I ordered the lobster mac n cheese which was good. There is no way it was 100% lobster meat, you could see a few claws but there was some other white fish filler in there that was not lobster. Regardless of what the menu says they should know people in these parts know what lobster meat is. I’m not sure it was worth the $18 (one of the most expensive things on the menu). My date ordered the Salmon and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were good and had some sort of tomato base to them. The salmon was great but arrived cold. Seeing they were so busy we decided not to send it back. We were surprised the food arrived cold as we waited over an hour for the food to arrive.
Overall: We’ll be back. Its great to have a nice place in the neighborhood. I’m sure they’ll have all the minor kinks worked out in the next few weeks at which point we’ll be ready for some more martinis.
Thanks for the detailed report. Sounds interesting.
sounds terrible. lobster mac + cheese sans lobster and cold salmon.
Maybe I made it sound worse than it was. There was some lobster in the mac and cheese but there was also some sort of lobster filler which I think was white fish. Also, the salmon wasn't ice cold it just wasn't hot as you would expect since it took an hour to arrive. Its still a decent alternative to a burrito which is about the only other food in this area.
Whats up with off the boat on porter st, drove by and it looks like they have expanded their space,do they have a martini bar like ecco,it looks like they have a new dinning room, will they add more italian dishes to their menu, or will it remain fish oriented. The entire porter street is shaping up with all these new resturaunts, great to see more added in the future on porter st.
I went to Ecco on Sat night. I had made a reservation but we had to wait about 15 minutes. Not a problem... the place was very busy.
All of us very impressed with our meals. We had the warm spinach salad, crab stuffed cherry peppers, mushroom soup (my favorite), salmon and tuna. Everything was very, very good... we were very impressed. The bread was also very good. I had a glass of house wine.. not sure what it was, but for 6 bucks, it was pretty good!
The only complaint we had was the peach belini my sisters each ordered one- they were warm (ended up adding ice to them)and tasted more like a mimosa.
They did a very nice job on the interior. I look forward to going back during the week with some friends and maybe go to catch a game on their flat screen TVs.
Overall, the experience was really good. There were a lot of familiar faces from Eastie which was kind of cool.
What is going on with the land Lombardo owns at porter and London streets like to see a resturaunt there
I talked to the owner at Off the Boat a couple weeks ago and he said they're just putting in a small dinning area, a few tables and that they got a beer/wine license. I'm not sure if they're changing their menu but it's nice to have such great seafood and now it'll be nice to have a place to sit down with beer or wine and enjoy it too!
Food was bland and the service was terrible. Skip this one and go into the north end
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