was on a zoom meeting when our manager mentioned that she was making pot roast for dinner, which reminded me that it had been a while.
i live on winter hill and remembered that of my favorite places way back – urban gourmet had become city slickers. decided on the pot roast entree. came with a roll two sides – got mashed and spinach – all were delicious.
prices are fair, delivery was prompt. i live alone and will be back entrees i wouldn’t make just for myself – looking forward to trying the meat loaf, garlic steak tips, and pork cutlet milanese.
Wow! Can’t believe they’re still around—good for them. I remember enjoying their food but it’s been so long, I can’t recall anything specific, only that they had a spiffy menu under the guise of a pizza shop,
Pretty sure City Slicker has changed ownership from the original owner (who long ago owned Urban Gourmet in Ball Sq and always struck me as a stand-up person). That’s neither good nor bad, I still trust the menu a lot.
The menu seems not to have changed much (if at all) since the change. I don’t like the pizza quite as much now, but still enjoy the menu as a whole. They still bake their own bread, E.g. the rolls that come with salads.
Re: salt, I find much of City Slicker’s food “fully seasoned,” or “full-flavored,” never too salty for me. But I hear your comment as legit: you will never use descriptions like a gentle waft of light, springtime dew or a hint of peach blossom memories.
I like the jalapeño vinaigrette on salads, or, as in the case of the quesadilla, when it’s mixed with avocado and tomatoes.
At one of several positions I had in that Cambridge area, we used to order from City Slickers all the time! This was about early 2000s and before Kendall Sq had all restaurants come in - you had the Black Sheep, the ABP, and the Legal Seafoods, Amelia Trattoria and my long gone Izzy’s (RIP). There was also this rather blah Chinese place that had mostly Chinese American food, the name escapes me. If you were willing to venture further, you could hit Emma’s for pizza, Beauty’s pizza and Mulan for Taiwanese.
City Slickers was one of the few places that had a decent range of offerings for salads, sandwiches and hot entrees. They also had fantastic offerings of frozen yogurt, so my team and I ordered lunch probably at least 2-3x per week. The food was always solid - good to see that they are still in business.
Yeah, it was pretty terrible. I was trying to be polite. I vaguely remember from the Chowhound days that it had its fans for no other reason than the lack of Chinese food in the area at the time. Most of it was just typical Chinese take out joint types of food that I wasn’t interested in, but they had a few classic southern Chinese dishes in a small section of their menu.
They had roast duck on the menu and it tasted like roast duck they bought from Chinatown that they microwaved for guests. The only dish I got more than once (when I was too busy) was their ginger scallion noodles. This is a dish you can whip up in 10 minutes at home, and has almost no special ingredients. It was pretty blah, and absolutely no wok hei.
I had a roommate who worked there, around 1984-1985. The waitstaff had a codeword for cockroaches. When they saw one in the restaurant they would tell the other workers that they saw a ‘friend.’
But I wouldn’t say that Royal East is Kendall Sq. at all. It is much much closer to Central Sq.
And there were some other really good eating places in the Kendall Sq/Cen Sq sphere in the early 2000’s. Blue Room and Salts are two that come immediately to mind. And Salamander lasted until 2000 in ~Kendall Sq until its ill-fated move to Copley Sq later that year.
Blue Room had a great lunch time option, and I used to go regularly, but not Salts. Great dinner for sure, but no employee is running to Salts on a lunch break.
My recollection - and this is confirmed by a Boston Globe article I am going to link to - is that the original owner sold City Slickers and the new owner sort of destroyed the food - at least changed it enough that local clientele were upset - so the original owner bought City Slickers back and restored it to its original quality. This occurred in the 2016-17 time frame.
Was it Beantown Cafe, or something like that? Bean in the name rings a bell.
Edit: BeanTowne Coffee House. And it’s since closed (August 1, 2019), but the old article said there is a sister restaurant in New Hampshire that was still open when that article was published back in 2019.
No, sorry, I am going back to late 90s. Old school Jewish deli, cafeteria-style. Don’t remember ever eating there, only getting takeout, it was maybe not a sit-down place. I recall it being in the same plaza as The Blue Room but I could be wrong, that’s a lot of brain cells ago.
I vaguely remember from the Chowhound days that it had its fans for no other reason than the lack of Chinese food in the area at the time. Most of it was just typical Chinese take out joint types of food that I wasn’t interested in, but they had a few classic southern Chinese dishes in a small section of their menu.
