Before last weekend, I hadn’t been inside the restaurant at the corner of Hertel and Starin since 2008, when it was still Fiamma Steak, and I was still young and idealistic enough to get excited about men who sprung for expensive first dates.*
Fast forward soon-to-be eight years, and both the restaurant and I have undergone some changes. It is now called BOSS Buffalo’s Original Steak and Seafood, and I have grown wiser and practical enough (or haggard and cynical enough, some might say) to know a price tag isn’t necessarily an indication of quality or promise.
So when I read in the Buffalo News in 2014 that BOSS had lowered Fiamma’s notoriously high price points and was turning out “terrific” and “engaging” food, and that most of its standout dishes were not steak, I was intrigued. When I heard from a friend who dined there earlier this year that the food was good enough but not worth, in her opinion, a bill she still considered hefty, I was doubly so.
But I just couldn’t get past the notion that dinners at steakhouses are ostentatious, once-in-awhile events that don’t jive with my millennial eating habits (or wallet size). Like many of my peers, I prefer smaller portions that permit a smorgasbord of tastes, and value factors into my perception of enjoyment. Because I eat out so often, it isn’t often that I feel an occasion warrants dropping three figures on dinner for one (especially given the plethora of quality, moderately price options in Buffalo); rarer still are evenings that I have a desire to consume anywhere close to 10 to 18 ounces of beef in a sitting, given my strong aversion to gustatory monotony.
In essence, I am a steakhouse’s worst nightmare. But that recognition led me to wonder: would it be possible to have a satisfying meal, my way, at BOSS, or would I be shut out from the BOSS experience until I could muster the will for a blowout dinner? That is to say, does the menu, operation, and management there afford diners the flexibility to veer away from the proscribed course of app + meat + sides + dessert and allow them to structure a meal according to their tastes and spending preferences?
It was with this question in mind that I made my way to the corner of Hertel and Starin on a recent Friday night. Upon entering BOSS, I noted a few empty stools at the bar and three empty high-top lounge tables—the ideal seating situation for a diner worried about eliciting the scorn of tip-reliant servers by way of her breach of steakhouse-ordering conventions. In the formal dining room, there would be greater risk of said scorn; in general, bars and lounges are no-holds-barred territory.
We opted for one of the lounge tables and were quickly approached by the bartender, who doubled as our attentive server. Once our drink order was underway, we settled in for the task of designing a menu to our liking and appetite, ultimately landing on four appetizers. Of the dishes we tried that evening, the gnocchetti with wild boar ragu, at a mere $12, was the clear favorite as well as the least expensive. Given the name, I was expecting “little gnocchi,” but was nonetheless happy to receive a dish of ridged, curved pasta that goes by gnocchetti due to its purposeful resemblance to the famed Italian dumplings. The textured exterior of the pasta and small shape was a perfect pairing to the hearty, flavorful meat sauce that left with me the impression it had spent a few loving hours over a low flame. It was the picture of comfort food.
The other three dishes were more of a mixed bag. I enjoyed the caper-punctuated steak tartar, topped with béarnaise, poached egg, and crispy shallots; my quibble was with the sliced, toasted baguette that accompanied it, which suffered from a tight, dense crumb that made biting into it less pleasant than it should have been. For a bread lover like me, a poorly structured baguette is a noticeable flaw. Others would likely judge the indiscretion less harshly.
Yellow fin tuna tartar was less successful, if only because the ponzu sauce it purportedly sat in tasted more like straight soy sauce, rendering the whole dish too salty for my liking. The Spanish-influenced octopus appetizer was the only true disappointment. The romesco sauce that anchored the dish was smoky and flavorful, but the under-salted fingerling potatoes were anything but “crispy,” and the slices of Parma ham that draped the dish seemed like an afterthought. The octopus itself, meanwhile, was tougher and less plump than versions I’ve thoroughly enjoyed elsewhere (I’m looking at you, Marble + Rye). The whole thing presented more like a hodgepodge of parts than a cohesive whole, unfortunately.
All in all, though, I was pleased to know BOSS isn’t just for the expense account set, and I’d be interested to return to delve into other sections of the menu. (Autumn vegetable soup with confit chicken leg and carrot ravioli? Sign me up.) And it is also worth noting that four appetizers was an excessive amount of food for two people; a couple could easily get away with two to three dishes for a light meal and an even lighter bill. Just avoid the octopus.
BOSS Steak & Seafood | 1735 Hertel Avenue | Buffalo, New York | (716) 551-6499