Blue Salt Restaurant — Restaurant in Newton

Hurrah! Restaurants are back in West Newton. We had dinner tonight at Blue Salt on Washington St just outside of West Newton Square.

An intimate space painted a deep, beautiful blue, it has good, elegant lighting and a pleasant feel. There are several deuces and a few sixes and outside high-top, umbrellaed tables. Go.

For starters we had the soup special--Shi (sp?)--a wonderfully fresh, hot vegetable medley in a chicken stock base and a lilting fennel essence. Our other starter was the Savory Mushroom Blintz, a soft delight with crispy edges and a mushroom filling. It is served with just the right amount of sour cream.

Our mains were the Brazilian Seafood Stew and the Chicken (Cornish game hen) Tabaka. Each of good portions, the stew or moqueca was served with rice and had perfect scallops, shrimp, fish, and lots of mussels. Nothing was overcooked as can happen in fish stews.

The game hen had to have been the largest in the coop. It was flattened or bricked and cooked just right. It was served over roasted parsnips and carrot and with two crisply roasted moist potatoes. Took home what we just could not finish.

We had the dessert special, a Triple Creme Brûlée; triple b/c we got one vanilla, one chocolate and one coconut. All good. All finished.

The restaurant has a full bar and a full wine list. Service was attentive, efficient and friendly. Welcome to the...

Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover it. After doing a little research about the area, this seemed like a solid choice for my colleague and I to stop for a meal before a work event. Boy were we mistaken. The first red flag should have been that there were not any other diners in the restaurant. We ordered the baked Brie as an appetizer- that was ok. Nothing to write home about. Mostly just crostinis drenched in balsamic vinegar with a wedge of Brie cheese. Next we ordered the pesto linguine and chicken kebabs to share. Linguine was pretty stander. The chicken kebabs were RAW - and I mean RAW - not cooked whatsoever in the middle. The waitress comes over and asks if we want them to be cooked longer - we say yes and assume that they’ll send out new chicken and probably discount our bill. Nope. They send back out the same chicken skewers - including the little crumbs we had cut off - and did not discount the bill. It was very odd. and we were totally grossed out. Especially after watching one employee leave the bathroom and immediately pick his nose. Do not recommend. There seemed to be way better options in that general area that sadly did not come up on Google in our search...

Before I go into any detail about the food, let me say that my rating of it (2 stars) is partially in relation to the cost. I certainly expected more for the price.

The restaurant bills itself as "fusion" but the menu is less fusion of cuisines than a jumble of dishes from different parts of the world. The atmosphere is equally confusing. One wall inexplicably had changing interior and exterior images of a fake Vermont country store (or something like that?) being projected on it despite the fact that there were framed pictures hanging there too. The windows conspicuously need cleaning.

Our server was pleasant but not attentive. She had the unenviable job of informing us that they were out of multiple items we attempted to order.

We split a salad which turned out to be missing some of the ingredients that had led us to choose it. The dressing was bland, and that descriptor was peculiarly true of nearly every dish that followed.

Maybe, given the glowing reviews that some have written, we just caught the food on an off night (it was a Saturday evening and not particularly busy... no obvious excuse for it to be so). But I'm not inclined to give it that benefit...