Saturday night found me at Kartabar on Thayer St. I was looking forward to a fun night celebrating a friend's birthday and catching up with friends I had not seen in a few weeks. I'd had some decent pizza there once before outdoors , on a sunny afternoon, but this was a completely different experience.
Kartabar is a scenster see and be seen place. Go for drinks, go to cruise, go to dance. Expect to see older men buying drinks for pretty young things and lots of drinks on fire. Dinner not so much. Dance music is blasting so much that you can forget having any meaningful conversation in a large group. If you are a beer fan your choices are pretty limited to Guinness and Blue Moon. The wine list did feature a Natura Organic Carmenere that was sublime- like drinking velvet. However this is more of a cocktail establishment, especially ones that can be set aflame.
The menu held a questionable interest- flavors that intrigued but on closer inspection were not going to meld. One order of calamari marseilles and a lobster ravioli later and it was like getting halfway through a first date and really wishing you were elsewhere.
The calamari marseilles would have been great if there had been more than a hint of olive and a bit more fresh basil. The idea was good, the basil flavor on the calamari was divine- had the olive decided to show up it would have been one mouth tantalizing rendezvous. The lobster ravioli was shaped like little fish- a great eye candy, but so empty inside. The lobster was missing that special something that keeps you wanting more. The sauce flavor was sharp with tomato on mine and almost entirely lacking tomato on another diner's order. I was rather underwhelmed.
I'm sorry Kartabar. Maybe drinks and dancing sometime down the road, but really, I'm just not that into you.
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