A Raving Review of The Cottage, a place that tries so hard to be a restaurant

The Cottage, in Wellesley, under chef Peter Hansen, has been serving the good people of Swellesley and Swishton for a few years. The chain-let got its start in California, which may be why it describes its cuisine as 'California'. I would describe it as 'overreaching fusion'. Happily for the would-be Social X-rays of MetroWest and the men who serve them, another outlet has opened in the staggeringly pompously-named Chestnut Hill strip mall now known at The Street. (Next to The Mall. Get it?) The Social X-rays of Snewton and Brookline shouldn't have to go too far west on Route 9. I mean, really. Anyhoo, I digress.

Pulling up to The Cottage (which is near the Roche Bros. grocery store, very close to where there was, at one time, a Laundromat that I frequented when I lived in Swellesley), I thought that perhaps my Darling Husband had decided to go furniture shopping, which would have been OK, except that I was starving. It was 7:00PM on a Monday night because that was the earliest available reservation. Hm. Don't these people cook in their gourmet kitchens? The Pottery Barn decor was pervasive. I will say that The Cottage excels at cleanliness: a crumb, stain, or smear wouldn't last a minute there among the white walls, high white ceilings, circular chandeliers, granite-topped tables, and beige-ish upholstery. The Cottage wants to do its 'California-cuisine' on 'Cape Cod', so this is an interior designer's Cape Cod Wet Dream, with glass containers full of blue and green sea glass set on shelves along the wall. My oldest son immediately thought that the hardwood floors and high ceilings would be a great place to install a basketball court and I agree.

We were made to wait for a booth that was being cleaned. On a Monday night, the bar was nearly empty, all the better for us to watch a little football. We were not offered drinks while we waited, nor were we offered a place to sit. I asked the host (because he was NOT a maitre d') how long The Cottage had been ensconced in Swellesley. He said about 3 years, not counting the 6 months that it was closed after a woman drove right through the big glass windows destroying the host stand and some of the bar. She may or may not have been trying to pick up her furniture order. When our booth was ready, we were guided there by the host who took us directly past the door to the kitchen, which must be a big pain-in-the-arse for the servers to contend with. We didn't see any server-staff-patron collisions, but there are collisions in the making.

Our two children were handed cheesy paper menus with cheesy crayons. Very 99. The Kids' Menu was so very predictable that it may actually have come from The 99. The oversized adult menu (food on front and drinks on the back) was organized into sections: appetizers, salads, ranch, farm, ocean, and handhelds. Handhelds? We cannot call them sandwiches, or burgers, or bread stuffies? We must call them 'Handhelds'? And the salads: are they not from the Farm? So confusing. I am digressing again.

The waiter came and took our drink order and disappeared, reappearing to take our dinner order and ask solicitously about allergies after we had placed our order. "No sir, you may not have the shrimp if you are allergic to shrimp because our shrimp contains shrimp, which may cause an allergic reaction," I imagined. The waiter did not offer to read to us the specials, which he did at the tables around us. Sigh.

I had read that the eggplant fries were TDF, and so I ordered a basket as an appetizer. They were excellent: a tempura-like breading and served with what I am guessing was mayo with Old Bay and some chives, which was mighty tasty.

Our dinner came, all at once, which was impressive since younger son had a grilled cheese handheld with fries (white bread and fries served in an adorable little basket), older son had the sliders, which apparently are just 'sliders' and not 'handheld sliders' (cute little cheeseburgers and fries in the same little metal basket), DH got the Mahi Mahi Tacos, and I ordered the Crispy Duck Duo, which sounded like a Batman spoof and wasn't.

The tacos were lovely, although I have to say that, if you're doing Cape Cod on the Pacific, you may want to substitute a fish that is indigenous to North Atlantic waters in your tacos, instead of a fish that flew here from Hawaii. Possibly in first class. As for the duck, there was a confit leg and a breast on cabbage as printed in the menu. Neither was crispy, although the leg was quite good. The breast was poorly trimmed of its fat and was sort of sliced through and plopped on the plate on a bed of red cabbage that hadn't been braised as much as soaked in red wine vinegar. Quack.

The waiter did pop back now and again to ask if we needed drinks or had other allergies that we hadn't chosen to disclose to him. When we agreed that we were "All set" with our dinner plates (and I will definitely go off into another digression bordering on a manifesto if I get into the phrase "All set" so I will stop here), he cleared the plates and dropped the check. Boom. I guess that he's right: if I eat the eggplant fries, I am not deserving of dessert, no matter how many miles I power-walked.

So, The Cottage is a lovely furniture store masquerading as a restaurant. I do think that the menu would benefit from a Tower of Dessert and that the addition of a Water Slide would make things much more lively. We'll never know how World Class the Mac and Cheese is since the youngest cried all the way home because he didn't get dessert and has vowed never to go back.