Hello.

I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, although you may have heard about me on this blog. I’m Aoife’s friend Matt.* It’s very nice to meet you.

A little while ago, there was an awards ceremony called the Oscars. Turns out it was televised, so Aoife and I watched at her house with copies of our annual pool. Unsurprisingly, she won, and accordingly, I bought her dinner. She picked cafe D from online reviews, and what a pick it was! We both enjoyed it thoroughly.

They don’t take reservations, but we had no problem getting a table at around eight thirtyish. We entered from the back, which is conveniently up against a parking lot, and exited from the front. Both doorways are shrouded in heavy velvet curtains, which were confusing but kind of neat. On our way in, we passed the bar, which had a flatscreen showing a silent movie. Aoife called this “a clever twist on the traditional sports bar,” but I said that was a dumb thing to say. Aoife said that with the curtains, the mirrors on the walls, and the dim lights, the restaurant had a kind of Gothic feel. I don’t usually say things have feels.

Bread is my favorite food. The bread at cafe D was good, I thought, and it came with a tasty red pepper hummus spread. Aoife noticed, though, that the table of four next to us got two types of spread. Apparently this is the rule: one spread for every two people at the table. We decided that we would have rather had half as much of each of the spreads.

We ordered some delicious (but unphotogenic) sangria and some arancini to start.

Arancini are Sicilian risotto fritters, crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside. The risotto had crimini mushrooms in it, but the flavor was light enough that I didn’t mind. They came in a puddle of tomato coulis and topped with crisp fried sage leaves and grated fontina. We liked these a lot.

I ordered the Catalan-style moules frites.

I don’t really know what Catalan-style is, but the mussels were one of the specials you can see on the board behind me in the first picture above. On the menu, there was some mention of chorizo, but there was not enough in my dish. Aside from that, I liked it. I used the thick fries to sop up the mussel sauce.

Aoife ordered the Moroccan spiced lamb.

I actually liked hers a little better than mine. She ordered her lamb rare, and it came cool in the middle with sweet and sour eggplant, toasted Israeli couscous, almonds, and yogurt. The eggplant tasted almost like apples, and Aoife marveled over the couscous, which was about the size of small tapioca pearls. The grains were chewier and more pasta-ish than their smaller cousins. The lamb was a triumph, heavily spiced but not overwhelmingly so. The medallions were rich and tender, from the seared edges to the nearly raw middles.

Our meal was so satisfying that we didn’t have any room for dessert. At cafe D’s prices (entrées less than twenty five dollars), it was also a good deal. We don’t go into Boston proper often and pretty much never to Jamaica Plain, but there’s a very good chance we’ll be back.

*Aoife’s friend Matt is in no way affiliated with the writing of this post.