After a long night of drinking and eating to celebrate a friend's last day at her old job and moving on to bigger and better things, Leah and I met up in Davis Square to contemplate our evening. Her friends had decided to brave Newbury Street on the weekend with the most number of graduations in the Boston area, a decision we found ... questionable. In any case, we decided to grab a beer in the square while we figured it out.
We started discussing places in Davis, but with Tufts graduation the next day as well, Davis Square was packed, and we'd hit up most places in the area already (except Istanbul'u and Gargoyles on the Square, the former just wasn't striking our fancy at the moment and the latter I'm sure was packed / you usually need a reservation there anyway. So to escape the hordes, we thought, how about Inman or Union? I texted my sister who lives in the area, who immediately responded suggesting The Druid and Tupelo, which was exciting since I haven't been to either! In fact, I hadn't even heard of Tupelo, so I quickly replied "Druid!" I then proceeded to look up Tupelo, saw it had 4 stars on Yelp, found brisket and jalapeno mac and cheese on the menu, and quickly we had changed our minds.
Inside Tupelo, there's a small bar that seats 6. While we were waiting, we grabbed a couple beers from their bottle list. In keeping with their southern theme, they feature a large selection of Louisianan beers, particularly a number of Abita bottles including their flagship Turbodog, as well as Dixie Brewing's regular lager and their "Blackened Voodoo Lager", a dark lager with stout and smoke flavors. On tap they featured local seasonal beers from Cisco and BBC, so all in all a good, if not particuarly wide, beer selection. Also it's interesting to note that since they do not have a liquor license, they decided to offer a cocktail list, with the alcohol base made from beer and wine rather than liquors. The shandy, made with lager, ginger and lime, tasted, as one might expect, almost exactly like a ginger beer. The michelada, a traditional Mexican drink that sounds absolutely terrible to me, is made with lager, tomato juice and some assortment of spices. It was good, according to my sister, though I didn't try it. How adventurous do you feel?
Once seated, we quickly strategized on the food, and since no one was getting a dish with the jalapeno mac and cheese as a side, we got a side to share with the table. On special that night were fried boneless chicken thighs and a "cheeseburger" meatloaf, apparently so-called for the cheese sauce that comes over it. While I immediately imagined some horrific bright orange sauce with a Velveeta-like consistency (thinking back to Fabio's Top Chef cheeseburger disaster), the cheese sauce actually looked quite reasonable, and according to my sister's boyfriend, the dish was delicious, although as a general theme the portions were gigantic. It occurred to me during the meal, why does comfort food make us feel so uncomfortable? :: rimshot ::
We started with the fried oysters, which were excellent: moist, salt, and crispy all at once, and came with a creamy, slightly spicy dipping sauce. For my own meal, I ordered the beef brisket with mashed potatoes. I was really hoping the mashed potatoes would be lame so I wasn't tempted to try and cram them in in addition to everything else, but the were (un)fortunately well-seasoned and a cut above your average mashed potatoes, though I still only ended up bothering with a few bites. The brisket itself was like none I had ever had before - it was completely blackened on the outside, giving it a nice contrast in texture with the chewy bits. It was clearly well and slowly cooked, as it fell apart quite nicely, and was topped with something I had never considered would go well with brisket - not a sweet barbecue sauce, but a tart sour cream-based sauce, something like what you commonly find with fish tacos. It was an innovative choice, gave the dark brisket a refreshing note, and surprised me - something I value highly when eating out.
The fried chicken thighs were also tasty, and if you're at all uncertain about what to get, get them so long as they are on the menu or on special. I especially enjoy that they chose to make them with thigh meat, which is just empirically better tasting than breast meat, and I really don't understand why people waste their time with chicken breast. There's just no way to make it taste good, or if you do you've most likely done it by negating any possible health benefit you might have gotten from eating a leaner cut. In any case, the breading was crunchy and well-seasoned, and the meat was moist. You can't ask for anything more.
The side of jalapeno mac and cheese was disappointing. The spice level was low to medium, and suffered from a common issue when cooking with chilis: the spice level was largely dependent on whether there was an actual slice of jalapeno in your particular bite. I also prefer the cheese in my mac and cheese to have a stronger flavor, and in lieu of that for there to be some seasoning in the mac and cheese, but it was overall just bland.
While we didn't save room for dessert, their desserts are provided by neighboring Petsi Pies, which I've heard is delicious, so if you somehow manage to make it through a whole meal here with some extra room, first of all let me know how you did it, and second of all go ahead and do it. Maybe you're a competitive eater or something. I couldn't possibly imagine, we practically had to roll ourselves home. Walking back to Central at least helped us stretch our stomachs and feel like we were working off one or two bites of the cheese grits. Max.
On the scale of "Avoid", "If You Find Yourself In The Area", "Worth a Trip", and "Go Immediately Right Now OMG", I give it a "Worth a Trip".
Tupelo, Inman Square, 1193 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Website: http://www.tupelo02139.com/
Twitter: @tupelo02139
