The Temple of Omnivory

 

 (this picture of marinated fresh anchovies is a screen shot from a slideshow on Dalí’s website)

My husband and I went to Dalí for dinner last Sunday.  He’d been working late a lot, and the end-of-project crunch was finally over.  And we had a couple of other nice things to celebrate, too.  So we spent the afternoon hiking (walking, really) around Walden Pond and the evening eating and drinking at Dalí.  Dalí is among the places we hold dearest in our hearts.  We got engaged there; we took our officiant and dear friend Liz there for a quiet dinner before the wedding madness started; and we think of it whenever we think of celebrating or treating ourselves.  If you’re in the Boston area, you should check it out.

And, of course, when a friend mentioned that Dalí was the place she most often consumed strange meats, I realized that I could earn some serious omnivory points by going there this month. 

If you’re trying to diversify your diet by consuming meats other than the beef, chicken, pork, and turkey you find in the typical grocery store, if your idea of varying your seafood consumption is trying a different brand of canned tuna, a tapas bar is a great place to try new things without a big commitment.  You can have just a bite or two of rabbit, for example, without committing to preparing and eating the whole thing.  Dalí’s standard menu sports some unusual offerings, including fresh anchovies, octopus, pheasant, duckling, quail, rabbit, and squid; I’ve tried them all at one time or another.  Then there are the sort of medium-strange foods, the things that are mainstream for some people but odd for others, like mussels, scallops, lobster, crab, lamb, prawns, and goat cheese.  For me, one of the great delights of Dalí is its lack of chicken dishes – the tapas menu serves a little plate of chicken in garlic sauce, and that’s it.  (I don’t know about the main courses, never having eaten on there, always preferring to order a lot of tapas instead.)  I have only recently discovered a liking for chicken; for many years, I thought chicken tasted and smelled dead.  While I do like chicken occasionally now, it’s nice to see a restaurant that can get along without it!

If you avoid pork for religious reasons, you should approach a tapas menu with caution – the Spanish love their pork, so it pops up even in dishes where it is not the star.  But there are still many, many choices that are pork-free; in a decent restaurant like Dalí, your server should be able to help you.  (If you avoid pork for health reasons, we need to have a little talk.  Let’s start here, and maybe here as well.)