Globe-trotting menu at Larchmere eatery takes the prize in diners' bellies
The Plain Dealer, Published July 16, 2004
David Farkas

Been to dinner with an engineer lately? My engineer guest, Greg, seemed to know everything about modern-day construction. Good thing, too. Boulevard Blue is in a new building, erected after the original structure on the site collapsed during renovation.

Now I know how to use metal conduit and why you always see so many air-conditioning vents. Pass the blueprints, please.

This, of course, will hardly matter to the average Joe, who will be struck instead by the wall-size photo murals that depict New Orleans' French Quarter and Chicago's skyline. I'm told both are meant to suggest the live jazz and blues offered on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Designers have done well in the boxy space. An atrium skylight gives the ceiling interest and creates the illusion of a bigger dining room. The brick wall below it works both as a textured backdrop for two abstract paintings and as a way to suggest informality. A brightly lit display kitchen furnishes a welcome touch of theater. One minor visual miscue: The exposed shelving outside the open kitchen, which holds linens, plates, silverware and bread baskets, is too much restaurant reality.

That style rules in this bistrolike format is evident from the up-to-date menu, in which Asian, Mexican and American ingredients are fused, mostly to good effect in the dishes I sampled.

For example, I loved the strange but satisfying appetizer that combined crunchy tempura portobellos, green beans and bok choy ($6.50). Only I wished the two dipping sauces had arrived in ramekins large enough to make dipping possible.

Chef Scott Wuennemann, a Columbus transplant, also did something wonderful with a generous helping of steamed mussels, bathing them in a silky saffron-scented broth studded with grape tomatoes ($7.75). But again, a tiny goof - what was described as "flatbread" was a slice of grilled white bread.

Wuennemann's crab cake was well-seasoned, if slightly mushy, and got a nice kick from a splash of ancho-chile "essence" ($8.75). He also was right on track with lobster, encasing chunks in won-ton wrappers and pairing the plump dumplings with cream-based lobster broth ($9.75).

Prices might seem high for appetizers, but portions are big enough for two. The staff apparently is used to people sharing and brings extra plates unbidden. Uh-oh, they're onto me, I thought at first. But no, other diners were passing plates and helping themselves. Wuennemann's food can be like that.

Even when it's not, it merits attention. Consider the chef's Grilled Jumbo Peanut Shrimp ($19), in which long skewers rise tentlike above a welter of competing ingredients: curry, cabbage, cilantro, basmati rice. It's Asian, all right, but grandly unfocused. The chef did a better job highlighting similar flavors with a less expensive bowl of udon noodles, with fresh vegetables, peanuts, shiitakes and chicken breast in a delicious coconut curry sauce ($12.50).

A restaurant such as this needs dishes like the latter to attract a crowd that shows up for live music and good food but balks at paying $30 a visit. You get the sense the owners suspect this. A small menu, billed "On the Boulevard," features four dishes under $16, including a burger. There's a raft of salads, too. My pick: the Blue Cheese Spinach, if only for the beguiling lavender-honey dressing.