Urban Eatery

Rating:

I have to admit: It was a new line, even for a jaded diner like yours truly.

"Are you enjoying the moment?" asked our eager-to-please server as he approached our table, mere moments after our first course arrived. Hey, it was preferable to the nauseating "And how are our first tastes?"

That's when it hit me: Subverting clichés is the order of the day at Urban Eatery. Its slick corporate feel is no accident. The gastropub/restaurant is the work of the powers behind turbo-powered Crave, and the menu springs from the creative mind of Crave culinary director Jim Kyndberg. If that name rings a bell, it's because Kyndberg was longtime chef/owner of the former Bayport Cookery, and he has spent the past year applying his considerable skills to Crave's wider demographic.

Kyndberg isn't exactly shifting the tectonic plates of gastropub geology, although he's clearly nudging diners in a different direction. Urban Eatery aims to be a contemporary reinterpretation of the Applebee's/T.G.I. Friday's/Bennigan's trifecta, minus the jalapeño poppers and potato skins. Here's the nice part: When it works, it can be awfully satisfying.

The Urban Eatery kitchen crew is clearly having a great time. Their sense of fun is summed up in a single dish called "Pork n' Beans," but no Van Camp's cans were opened in this production. Instead, three thick-cut squares of deliriously fatty, maple-glazed pork belly are cleverly paired with crunchy, bright-green edamame, and the marriage really works.

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