STIX seems to know what women want
Fellows, if the usual scene at STIX turns out to be anything like it was last Friday night, I urge you to take a few hits of breath spray and head to the new spot on the border between Back Bay and the South End. There were so many women there - almost all with long, straight, salon-fresh hair, tight dresses, and high heels - that one of my dining companions took it upon himself to count: 35 women and 7 men. Not a bad ratio for a guy on the lookout.
You may have to endure ads for Kay Jewelers playing on bathroom TVs and "Deal or No Deal" airing silently behind the bar - not to mention the color-change wall behind the liquor bottles. But at least the drinks are good. We had a fabulously puckery nonalcoholic raspberry lime rickey and several Grey Goose gimlets made with the freshest of lime juice. The bartender's food recommendations were less than inspiring, however. To sum up: Try something on skewers.
Which brings us to STIX's shtick. Two of the owners, who also own 33 Restaurant and Lounge next door, grew up in the Middle East, where a lot of food is served on skewers. So they decided to serve a selection of meat, veggie, and tofu dishes on flavor-infused wooden sticks. Unfortunately, these $9 signature plates were our least favorite part of the meal. The shrimp on the Thai coconut lime skewers was overcooked and accompanied by a cloying lime-pineapple-sesame chutney. The tuna sashimi on ginger mango skewers had an already-been-chewed texture, and the portobello mushrooms on garlic-herb skewers left a bitter, burnt taste in our mouths.
I'm not sure what the sticks add to the food, but don't try gnawing on them: It's quite unpleasant. Maybe at 1 a.m., the hour they stop serving food every night, these would taste better. But I doubt it.
The waiter took our order on a PDA that sent information straight to the kitchen, but this didn't stop confusion from reigning among the staff and one very stressed-out manager. Across the aisle from us, a man and a woman sat opposite each other, heads down, texting. Maybe they were trying to get in touch with the kitchen. Near the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front, as birthday songs and photo-snapping broke out all around, a table of 10 women burst into Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
From the nonstick small-plate part of the menu, we tried a flavorful beet salad with goat cheese, as well as something called a forest mushroom "cappuccino," basically a mug of comforting mushroom soup served with a plain grilled cheese-and-mushroom sandwich. Entree-wise, the pork chop with a Brussels sprout fricassee was tender and juicy; the seared scallops, served with vinegary corn and potatoes, were nice; the Andean hangar steak was frighteningly rare but serviceable for hard-core carnivores.
We should have skipped the rubbery kaffir lime panna cotta, even though the basil seed shooter it came with was surprisingly appealing. Ditto for the flavorless Ten Cane raspberry sashimi - dark pink squares of gelatinized rum displayed like raw tuna and served with sugar for dipping. Fun to look at, and to stab at with chopsticks, but not to taste.
A word of warning about how the place is set up. When you walk in, past the shrubbery and twinkly lights on the patio, the door to the left is to the dining room. The one in front of you is to the neon-infused downstairs lounge - really, it is, despite the long, carpeted airport-like hallway you have to pass through to get there. The staff will tell you it's OK to hang out at the bar, but there are no barstools, and no cocktail list on the night we were there, and if you're anything like us, you'll run back upstairs as fast as you can. Just be careful not to poke your eye out on one of those sticks.
STIX, 35 Stanhope St., 617-456-7849. stixboston.com. Plates: $9-$19. Wine by the glass: $7-$12. 