Sunday, April 4, 2010

Boston Restaurant: The Savant Project

posted by Katie

What: The Savant Project
Where: Mission Hill (Brigham Circle Green E line stop)
Honeys Heart: Our absentminded waiter
 
Kelly and I have both written about how much we love Groupon, and I'm happy to report that Boston Groupon has been offering a lot more restaurant groupons recently. I love restaurant groupons because they apply to food AND DRINKS...which means you can skirt around Boston's strict discounted drinks laws and essentially create your own happy hour.

Shannon and I had been looking for a place to do Easter brunch since we wanted to do something special as this would be our first Easter apart from our families. When we saw the groupon for $20 for $40 worth of food and drinks at The Savant Project, we knew we had our place.


The moment I walked into The Savant Project, I felt like I could be back in Portland. The restaurant has a gritty-chic thing going on and was pretty small with a decent-sized bar in the main dining room and a little patio out back.


It was a beautiful day, so Shannon and I chose to sit outside. It was great being outdoors but we decided the patio could have used some music and a little straightening up.

We started off with a basil and blackberry mimosa for me ($8) and a millerosa: miller, oj and orange curacao ($5.50) for Shannon. For our second round, I went with a traditional mimosa instead, which I liked much better.



The Savant Project's brunch menu is not very extensive, but I find that refreshing. I decided to try the Fresh Ginger Pancakes with whipped lime cream and sake drunken berries ($8). I couldn't really taste any ginger in the pancakes but they were delicious nonetheless, especially with the addition of the cream and berries.


Shannon ordered the Scrambled Eggs with swiss cheese, herbed parmesan, and applewood smoked bacon ($8) which came with toast and home fries. Strangely, the eggs were flat but still tasted fine. And Shannon's pick won points with me as the home fries were made of regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. Yum.


Aside from the tasty food and good drinks, Shannon and I also enjoyed our brunch thanks to the little crush we developed on our waiter. He was grungy-cute and seemed kind of out of it as he had to double check our drink and food orders and asked us at the end of our meal whether we had already paid or if we still needed our check. That might have annoyed some people, but we found it charming. Which may or may not have been due to the nice little mimosa buzz we had going on...

When our (finally) check came, we were pleased to see that with our groupon, we only owed $4 for our meal. That basically boiled down to $12 each plus tax and tip once you factored in the $20 it cost us to purchase the groupon. Not a bad deal. Shannon and I plan to return to try some of the lunch/dinner fare, as the hamburgers that some of the people around us ordered looked pretty darn good.