Saltie Girl — Restaurant in Boston

DINNER REVIEW

Living in Back Bay for over a year now, I have probably passed this tiny restaurant on Dartmouth street hundreds of times but never gone in. Until this fateful night. With a girlfriend out of town who's not too fond of fish, I figured it would be a good time to check this place out. Knowing that a popular and tiny restaurant means a long wait (especially on a Friday), I went at 6 PM to put our name in (for a group of 4) and went to a friend's nearby to have some wine. At 7:35, we get a call that our table is ready. Always budget this wait time in and have a plan for what to do in the meantime. It's a good way to manage your expectations.

The interior is small but festive...if you were at a nautical themed party. Everything from the wooden booths to the scale tiles on the bar screams the ocean which really fits in with the theme of the whole restaurant.

DRINKS: Now I am not a big drinker so read another review if you really want to know about the drinks but I had a delicious Grapefruit cocktail and my friends seemed to enjoy theirs as well. They have some larger cocktails (one served in a large metal pineapple cocktail and another in a ceramic boot) that are meant to be shared.

FOOD: What we ordered (in order of how likely I would be to order it again):

Day Boat Scallop Crudo - the flavor of the jalapeno, lime, avocado, and scallop was so vibrant and this was definitely the best thing we had.

Fried Lobster & Waffles - Wish it had more lobster but the lobster we did get was so delicious and the corn butter/spicy maple syrup combo on the waffle was amazing too.

Warm Butter Lobster Roll - you just gotta get it...full of 1.5 lobsters (which is really not as much as you think it is).

Hand-Chopped Dry-Aged Steak Tartare - you wouldn't think to get steak tartare at a seafood place but I had this recommended by several people (including the waitress) and I was pleasantly surprised. The truffle aioli on it made it addicting.

Fried & Roasted Cauliflower - a really delicious side on top of burrata (how could you not like that) but I just wish there was more!

Snow Crab Toast - with elements like avocado and pistachios, you can't go wrong.

Bonita in Olive Oil Tinned Fish - They are well-known for their tinned fish so I knew we had to get some. I am not a fan of canned tuna but know that this would be much better than that. We took this recommendation from the waitress and the tinned fish came on a board with bread, peppers, house cultured butter (which was delicious), and three different types of salts. The fish was oddly hard which I'm sure is how it's supposed to be but maybe it's just because I'm not used to it. I thought it was fine but just not for me. I like the idea of the board though. If you are more into canned fish, definitely get one.

Here's what I'll conclude with...I really wanted to love Saltie Girl. I definitely liked it! With all the hype around it and the unique decor and size of the restaurant, I expected this to be a meal that I would sit back and say "wow" after eating. Each element was good, some better than others, but for a group of 4, I feel like I didn't get much food for the hefty price we paid ($68/person before tip including 2 drinks each). For $30+ each, we got two lobster entrees that had not too much lobster. I know that's what you get when you get lobster but still, I struggle to give it 5 stars when I leave hungry. Maybe that's on us for not ordering enough. I feel like I might have enjoyed this more if I went with 2 people only and we could share more of each dish. So I think it probably warrants a trip back with only one person...

Unique, Delicious and Entertaining - fantastic experience on my trip to Boston!

I love that I travel for my job because I get to experience new things often. There is a level of nervousness I feel about picking the “wrong” place when I visit an area so I spend way too long reading menus, scanning websites, looking at photos - all to try to make the “best” decision. It’s still not 100% of course. But this selection was. I chose wisely…

One of the articles I perused prior to picking listed the Top 15 seafood places in Boston listed Saltie Girl down the list a few - I think number 6 - but reading the descriptions and viewing photos led me to think fresh, bright, eclectic and fun were part of Saltie Girl’s identity so I ended up choosing it. And it was a hard choice since I flew into Boston Logan close to rush hour - I could’ve just moved on to my job in NH instead of choosing to battle traffic (45 minutes from the airport!). I’m so glad I chose to fight traffic and parking …

Sallie Girl has ambiance. It’s modern in an historic locale with a speakeasy vibe - even the staff uniforms are a nod to prohibition times. The staff was stellar with great recommendations and winning smiles.

The food… the FOOD! Spectacular!!! I’ll fail on words several times so bear with me. First, I scanned the fresh oyster menu and was overwhelmed so I just went with the “one of each” approach then discovered taste surprises that led me to hone in on one oyster that I reordered (x3). I had originally decided to get lobster here but didn’t expect to get a lobster roll as I’ve had lobster rolls before. But, when talking to David, he strongly suggested a lobster roll. I typically get a cold lobster roll but David doubled down with decisive direction: “Get the warm. It’s stellar.”

David was correct - the sublimeness of this warm lobster roll cannot be overstated - the bread was perfect - and what does that mean? The bread part had a perfect caramel toast to it that was not too crunchy but had a proper firmness and yet condensed down the way we all want. The crust did not get crunchy or too dense. Butter was appropriately proportionate (rare in my experience) and these were just a supporting role to the lobster.

The lobsta! Oh wow - claw meat soft and tender, middle meat firm but not chewy - perfectly cooked. The way all the textures and flavors came together blew my socks off. And I was wearing pretty long socks.

I haven’t mentioned yet but Saltie Girl has a deep and interesting Tinned Menu that I didn’t have the chance to explore. Very interested in it so wanted to throw out a mention.

The people I engaged with on this trip were David and Sydney behind the bar and the GM who chatted with me a bit. I want to say Chad? Darn it I should’ve written it down - but he...

What we liked: crab toast - generous amount of crab meat, well toasted bread, well seasoned.

ok: linguine (a bit too oily/buttery and too salty) and octopus app (octopus was a bit overcooked, so it had the texture of juicy chicken and what in the world was empanada doing in there? so random and not at all tasty) service was alright, felt like our waiter was trying a bit too hard and the food came at random times, especially when you say I'd like to start with A and then have B, and then you get A and B 5 min from each other.

What missed the spot completely: steak tartare - I'm pretty sure there's a french chef rolling over in his grave at the sight of this travesty. It was completely covered by a mountain of shredded cheese with rolling "hills" of bread around it ... had to dig in to find it. I'm not even sure what the thought process was when creating this dish, let's waste as much cheese as possible (because no normal person is going to just eat all this shredded cheese straight up) and in addition overwhelm the delicate taste of beef :( So sad. This is a dish we order often and in many different places around the world, and I have to say this "presentation" was by far the worst. See picture attached, whatever that thing is, it should not be called steak tartare. Cocktails - tried grapefruit, passion fruit and sour melon - all missed the spot. Grapefruit tasted like fake orange flavor, sour melon was completely tasteless, passionfruit was ok, but mostly just passionfruit pure and ice. From a funky seafood restaurant, I was really expecting to get a well balanced, interesting and strong flavors in their cocktails, but what we got was more like a watered down version of the stuff you can buy in cans at the liquor store. 3% separate charge for the kitchen - what a pity ... really? Just price your food accordingly, so that you can afford to pay your workers.

And since our dinner was so so, some otherwise ok things that hit the nerve: tinned fish - a bit absurd to go to a restaurant and have them open up a tin of fish for you, put some bread on the side and call it a meal. What's next? Chef Boyardee? :) Some things were priced well, some were priced like "touristy spot on Newbury street" and some were just way out of the ballpark (like wine list - it would be nice to see a light white...