Material Morsels
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MATERIAL MORSELS Reviews with a materials flavor.
Merrilea J. Mayo, with contributions from Altaf “Tof” Carim, presents a review of the Berkshire Grill, which is a restaurant located within an easy walk of the Hynes Convention Center, site of the Materials Research Society Fall Meetings in Boston. If you are a Hynes convention cowboy, spending long hours in the stationary saddle, it is mighty tempting to mosey down the street just a few yards away to the Berkshire Grill, plop down in a booth, and have someone else wrassle up a few of those ornery buffalo chicken tenders. As inevitably as the second law of thermodynamics, the Berkshire Grill targets its ambiance to the weary conventiongoer: exposed brick walls, wooden booths with dim hanging lights, and skewed perspective paintings on the wall in aqua blue and plum red. Patio seating is also available. Found here are steaks, Asian food that is not all that Asian, and other chain comfort foods. But if there were truth in advertising, the Berkshire Grill should be renamed the “‘Just OK’ Corral.” The best dishes are those that require little or no preparation by the staff and come right out of the institutional food supply van or perhaps traverse a glancing angle over the stove. The gyoza appetizers are the same 0.5-mmskinned beauties that you get at TGI Friday’s and were therefore a highlight (sometimes institutional food is actually good!). The calamari and potato skins are also absolutely standard out-of-the-frozenfood-bag that you will recognize from a dozen chain restaurants or Sam’s Club. Steaks are steaks and are generally prepared well. For my money, I would rather have my steak prepared over a backyard grill, complete with a tantalizing aroma of volatilized hydrocarbons that wafts for blocks on a crisp fall day and makes me the envy of all my neighbors. Yet the Berkshire Grill’s medium-rare filet has that Fe-nuanced tang of real red meat that cannot be denied its place high on the flesh-to-cardboard steak scale. The tenderloin cooked medium was a notch below. The romaine lettuce in the accompanying Caesar salad was wow! fresh, with an exceptional energy release rate on fracture. The salad did not have the anchovies associated with real Caesar salads—not that I eat them, you know, but you kind of feel you are entitled, just the same. Now for the odd and not entirely pleasant surprises. First were the deliciouslooking warm rolls, brushed with glistening molten butter and parsley, hand-served with obvious pride and silver-toned tongs. Just as I was taking the first bite, I noticed something familiar and odd. The smell. Musty. Very musty. Where had I encountered that smell before? Then, the sudden
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Berkshire Grill 111 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02199 617-266-8194 Take-out available Mon.–Thurs., 11:00 a.m.–midnight Fri.–Sat., 11:00 a.m.–1:00 a.m. Sun., 11:30 a.m.–midnight realization: It was the exact smell of my refrigerator at home, when too many things have been in there too long. And so, one assumes the dough for the rolls suffered a comparable entropic d
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