It’s amazing. If you’re planning a trip, definitely go for it. They vary it a bit depending on the season. I went during the summer a few years ago and it was paired with roasted stone fruit. I see their menu now has more fall appropriate sides. I uploaded a picture on a recent thread about must order items when you dine out.
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I did not know about La Bodega in Watertown but after looking it up, and asking the wife, we both love the menu and it looks like a cool spot. It may very well be our front-runner - great suggestion thank you! And it allows us to pop into Branch Line nearby for drinks too which is neat
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I’ll add to the love for La Bodega and that duck is out of this world delicious if duck is your think. Nice vibe, very laid back owners. Where else around Boston can you enjoy Uruguayan-style cuisine.
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So I’ve been calling La Bodega slightly before they open and during service every few days, multiple times a day and they have yet to pickup. They don’t appear anywhere online either so we’re going to forego it since we can’t get a reservation.
The wife and I settled on Matadora in Woburn because it looks like a cool, fun spot and getting a reservation was super easy. Another contender we explored, which is way out of the way, was Forge & Vine but it ended up being too far and the only available table was too late.
With that said, we will make it a point to check out some of these recommendations over the course of the next year because a lot of them seem awesome, even La Bodega
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Their website says you can text them – did you try that?
I’ve also never managed to eat there. They are closed Sundays, which is often our going-out night, and the one time we actually showed up after being unable to get through, they were closed for a week of vacation which hadn’t been noted on their outgoing message when we tried to call. Menu sure does look good though.
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@fooddabbler I missed that somehow but it’s kind of too late now, we’ve made plans. I’m bummed, I can’t imagine there’s many other spots doing their Uruguayan thing. Hopefully I’ll get to go some other time… But I also don’t believe that it should be difficult to get a reservation, especially in 2022 with all of the options available across the web.
@Parsnipity: let me know how you landed a table should you succeed hehe
I am excited for Matadore though. Menu looks awesome, the space is unique and very open which is great
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That’s a bummer. Wonder if they have staffing challenges too. Surprised you can’t at least leave a message. Maybe texting works better.
They do also accept walk ins, so if you are in the neighborhood and pop by another time, maybe that works better.
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Yeah not an option, I live nearly an hour away 
I hope you enjoy Matadora, definitely looks interesting. Tapas in Woburn for us is Pintxo Pincho.
It might be more casual for a"date" night, but its pretty good and the owners are very nice.
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@JeremyK We’re going to check out Avenue in Medfield this evening in conjunction with a fun-sounding Trustees event at Rocky Woods. All new to us. Do you have any experience there (I only ask because it’s not terribly far from you)? Is it date-night material, or not?
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I’ve actually been and it was - by far - the loudest dining experience of my life. I don’t know what it is about the place, but the acoustics are mediocre. The food however was very good and I remember leaving with a happy belly but ringing ears
Hope you had a better experience?
We went to Avenue last week and loved it. I didn’t think it was loud at all and I’m aware of acoustics generally. How was it @digga ?
We were walking toward Avenue when B got distracted by the pleasant patio at Nosh and Grog. The last-minute pivot was not a good one. Our food took a long time to come out (tables seated after us got served before us) and once B’s meal came out, we guessed why. I had a paltry single lobster bao ($15) based on the server’s recommendation (even though I recently vowed to eat less lobster) and a not very good mushroom taco. Spring onion had decent fresh pasta with butter and Parmesan. B liked his fried chicken sandwich but the potato salad that he ordered was basically cubes of raw potatoes with none of the garnishes (such as dill) that were advertised on the menu. It went uneaten and he even told the server about it (the man never complains about anything at restaurants). We think this is why our food took so long - the kitchen was scrambling to make potato salad instead of telling us that it wasn’t ready and sent out raw potatoes. But we want to visit Medfield again (we’ve never hung out there) so Avenue it is for our next visit.
PS We we’re eating VERY early (4:30 pm) to make our 6 pm event so I doubt we would’ve run into the acoustics issues that @JeremyK encountered.
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Wooof, sorry to hear. I could have told you to avoid it. We have friends and Medfield and everyone unanimously said that Nosh & Grog absolutely sucks when it comes to the food and service. There’s not much competition around though so they seem to strive because of those factors
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By the way I don’t recall following up on Matadora.
The experience overall was pretty bad and a real bummer. Service was confused; they brought the wrong dishes, and tried to even auction off some dishes we never ordered to us during our meal. My wine came within 45 seconds, but my wife’s martini took nearly 25 minutes. The food was very hit or miss, including their patatas bravas which were described as crunchy on the menu but were nowhere near crunchy when they arrived. We were planning on having a full dinner there but after a first round of 4-5 dishes, decided to call it quits early and left only to have cheese and crackers at home later. Avoid.
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What a bummer!
That sucks, sorry to hear. There were a lot of good suggestions made, I hope you get a re-do!
That mimicked our one experience at Matadora before covid - if it wouldn’t be in a hotel it wouldn’t survive.
re: avenue - My husband loved his steak special, my friend and I split a special pasta and the salmon, and we loved both. The appetizer, a special, was nothing great - kind of a caprese skewer. Dessert was a blondies topped with ice cream that the 4 of us split, happily. I’d give it an A- - and service was excellent.
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