We moved to West Roxbury a little over a month ago and are learning our neighborhood little by little. It will definitely be so much nicer and easier when the weather gets warmer and we can walk around and explore. In the meantime, we're lucky enough to have friends who volunteered to come out to our neighborhood for dinner so we could check out a new-to-us restaurant. I have a long list of places I want to try in both West Roxbury and Roslindale but somehow selected West on Centre for this particular evening.
West on Centre is located right in the heart of West Roxbury on Centre Street and is a quick drive from our house. I had heard the food was good and was looking forward to a nice evening there. We arrived a few minutes early for our reservation and waited in the bar area for our table to be ready. I immediately loved the bar area and thought it was so cozy. I can definitely see going back for a glass or two of wine and some appetizers.
Once we were seated in the dining room, we ordered wine and cocktails, along with some appetizers. We tried the chipotle honey bbq chicken lollipops and the chipotle-braised chicken quesadilla. I always love the presentation of chicken lollipops -- they're so much more enticing than chicken wings.
The quesadilla definitely had a nice kick to it and came with some flavorful pico de gallo on the side. Both dishes were solid starters. (Maybe I'll order them again with my glass of wine at the bar.)
One of our friends got the baked haddock, which has a Ritz Cracker crust and is flavored with white wine. It was served with creamy mashed potatoes and buttery green beans. I didn't try it, but it got good reviews from our friend.
Our other friend got the burger. It comes with cheddar cheese and caramelized onions on a brioche roll. There's usually applewood-smoked bacon too, but she ordered it without. Again, I didn't try this dish, but she really liked it.
Jeff got the famous steak tips (I say famous because the tips were featured in the top 5 on TVDiner). The tips are grilled and marinated and served alongside creamy mashed potatoes and Parmesan-baked broccoli. Then everything's topped with hot, crispy onion rings (thin ones that resemble strings more than rings -- which I love, so I was definitely stealing some off Jeff's plate). He agreed the tips deserve a top spot.
For my dinner, I went with the butternut squash ravioli. With this dish, I'm used to the squash flavor just being inside the ravioli, but these handmade ravioli were actually covered with a creamy pumpkin sauce too, as well as Pecorino Romano and sage brown butter. Sometimes pumpkin dishes can suffer from too much spicing and taste like pumpkin pie, but that was not the case here at all. The dish is on the heavy side -- with all that cream and cheese -- and I only made it halfway through the full portion (a half portion would probably be perfect for me), but the leftovers warmed up nicely the next day.
We were all happy with our meals and had good service as well. I loved the cozy atmosphere and neighborhood vibe and think West on Centre will become one of our go-to neighborhood spots. There are a lot of events there that sound really fun, like Taco Tuesdays, Winter Wine Dinners, and Tempt Me Thursday Wine Tastings. I imagine we'll be checking some of those out soon enough! Oh, and brunch too!
What restaurants are you enjoying in your neighborhood?
