Boston Restaurant Week - Toro

Sunday was the beginning of Restaurant Week in Boston. Actually two weeks, participating restaurants offer prix fixe menus ($33.10 per person for dinners). We live in near a bunch of restaurants which we've never gone to for fear that they would be a big waste of money, so we made five reservations. Sunday night was Toro, a Spanish tapas place. (Toro has a famous chef owner, Ken Oringer. And, coincidentally, we saw his episode of Iron Chef America the day before.)

The restaurant is actually fairly small -- 55 seats -- and was not d-bag-y (as I feared). It's actually more lively and homey. And the service was great. More importantly, on to the food we ate:

Pinchos:

Corazon a la Plancha - grass-fed beef heart with romesco
Cabeza - pig-head terrine with carrots

Okay, let me just go ahead and spoil the ending for you: it was fantastic. Everything. Every little bit. And when we went home and looked at the regular menu prices, it was all fairly reasonable. We're going back (you would be extremely lucky to come with us). Anyway, the cabeza was basically a pate made from pig's head with little tiny shavings of extremely sweet carrots. The beef heart came sliced thin and piled on top of toast smeared with romesco sauce. It was like the best roast beef you ever had, the extremely smooth texture probably the only sign that it was heart.

Tapas:

Boquerones - white anchoives in vinegar and olive oil

I haven't really liked anchoives in the past; they're very oily and fishy. But even though nothing in this dish disguised those basic properties, they were somehow really great anyway. Also, that was some yummy olive oil.

Pulpos - octopus

So soft but not mushy.

Maiz Asado con Alioli y Queso Cotija. La Especialidad de la Casa - grilled corn with alioli, lime, espelette pepper and aged cheese

These just had chunks of butter coating it. You'd think that'd be gross and too rich. I was undeterred.

Asado de Huesos - roasted bone marrow with radish citrus salad and oxtail marmalade

Oh my. As Sean (his first time eating marrow) said: meat butter. Salty, flavorful and flavored, fat. It's awesome. I expect that someday soon, we'll pop in for a drink and this. The oxtail marmalade was really oxtail on toast -- I'm not sure where the 'marmalade' comes in.

Vientre de Cerdo - crispy pork belly, Burgundy snails, fava beans and smoked maple crumble

The very last thing I ate. It was great, but I wasn't that into the fava beans and maple crumble.

Dessert:

Churros con Chocolate - airy crisp fried pastry with chili infused chocolate

Best churros we'd ever had.

Okay, probably not a lot there for any vegetarians to work with. Sorry. To summarize, by far, the best tapas I've ever had. A few more random thoughts: Now I admit that I have a high tolerance for fatty/oily foods. I've eaten lardo. Usually after tapas, you feel greasy. Even though there was oil and fat and butter in everything, I didn't feel that way at all. And though I was worried there'd be tiny portions, we were both satisfactorily full after the meal.