Restaurant Review: Neighborhood Restaurant and Bakery

Over a decade ago, I moved into an apartment in Somerville situated between Union Square in Somerville and Inman Square in Cambridge.  During the year and a half I lived there, I spent more time visiting Inman than Union.  As I found out yesterday, clearly this was a mistake.

The Neighborhood Restaurant and Bakery, located at 25 Bow Street in Somerville, has a forgettable sign above the door.  The interior is small and a bit cramped.  If you go in and look at the menu, you might think the prices are a little high for a breakfast nook, although they are certainly close to what you'd pay at Bickford's.

None of this prepares you for the food or the service.  The place was mostly packed when we arrived late Thursday morning, with only a couple of tables available.  The variety on the menu is a better than what you might expect to find in your standard local breakfast establishment, including occasional Portuguese fare alongside pancakes and waffles.

Before we properly got down to business, our server brought us each a small cup of what tastes like sweetened orange juice and a plate of lightly sugared fresh fruit.  While my dining companion left the juice to me, which I generally drank, she ate most of the fruit on her plate, as did I.  She ordered tea, which was brough to the table in a coffeepot and poured into her waiting mug.  All breakfasts come with juice, the small fruit plate, and your choice of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.  I do mean "and" - there are free refills.

My dining companion ordered whole wheat pancakes, while I ordered the steak and eggs breakfast with some extra mushrooms for the steak.  Both of our meals came with toast and homefries.  Her pancakes were dry, but they were also tasty and fluffy.  Our server initially mis-heard my stated steak request for "pink all the way through" as "cooked all the way through," which she did fix as quickly as possible when I brought it up to her, and the replacement steak was a good hunk of sirloin.  I ordered my eggs to be poached and served on my toast, like Mom used to make, and it was excellent.  The eggs were properly runny, the toast was thick and crunchy but not tough, and it was just as good as I'd hoped for.  And believe me, I hope for excellence.

The toast and the homefries deserve special mention.  The restaurant is also a bakery, so all the toast they serve is made from their own fresh-baked bread.  They serve it thick, so it's both crunchy and chewy; and the crust is not terribly tough like on French bread.  It's a real treat.  The homefries... all I can say is, I have been searching for these homefries since I first moved to the Boston area over a decade ago, and nobody else has had them like this until now.

During warm months you can sit outside in their arbor-covered outdoor space.  They even have their own grape jelly made from their own grapes.

The bill for the two of us was $20 before the tip.  I deliberately tipped far more than the standard, some 25%, because I was that impressed.  Well, also, it was only a dollar more than 20%.

Still, the place is charming for chowhounds and children alike.  I foresee future visits, and I am looking forward to them.