The Elephant Walk In Boston

Today is a special day if you’re from Boston; it’s Patriot’s Day, also known as Marathon Monday. Growing up I always looked forward to having this one day off from school and watching the marathon coverage on every network station. Now that I don’t live in Boston, it makes me sad that I have to go to school and miss all that. But yesterday I was there with some excellent company and excellent food.

I met Matt and his family at The Elephant Walk on Beacon St. for a Sunday brunch. Matt is running the marathon today as his 8th or 9th marathon; he’s just that awesome. He also has a very cute baby who turned one yesterday(happy birthday, Holden!) so we just had to go out and eat grown-up food to celebrate. The great thing about The Elephant Walk was that the menu had lots of gluten-free(me) and vegan(him and his wife) options for us to choose from; eating out with food restrictions sometimes makes it hard to find something on the menu to eat but here we were all struggling to narrow it down to one option.

I got the prix fixe menu which started with a fresh fruit plate. It was a little plain but the pineapple was especially delicious and a good fresh way to start.

For the second course, I tried the S’ngao Mouan described as “Cambodian chicken soup with chicken breast, lemongrass, lime juice, fish sauce, basil and scallion.” I had never had Cambodian food before but really liked how most of the flavors were drawn from citrus and herbs. This tasted especially light and refreshing with Thai basil which has an almost minty tone to it.

For an entrée I chose Poulet a la Citronelle “sliced chicken breasts sauteed with lemongrass, onion, red bell pepper and scallion, sprinkled with freshly roasted crushed peanuts.” This dish has a much richer flavor than the soup but was very good. The peanuts added a strong punch of flavor and the sauce was great, too.

I would definitely eat at The Elephant Walk again, or even any other Cambodian restaurant. I’m very intrigued by their flavors and food after trying them once.

And congrats to Matt and all the other Boston Marathon runners! Go ahead and eat a brownie sundae from J.P. Licks today for me.