Food Crawl – Catalyst and Area Four

Catalyst Burger

Food crawls (the art of sampling a variety of items at a couple of places within a given period of time) have always been something that we really enjoy doing. I can’t really say when this little tradition of ours started but I can only assume it had to be pretty early on in our relationship. Last night we found ourselves with a rare night off and the desire to try out some of Boston’s, well Cambridge’s actually, most buzzed about spots: Catalyst and Area Four.

Catalyst

Spoiler Picture - That is one toasty burger

Naturally one of our food crawls wouldn’t be complete without a burger destination so Catalyst was our first stop. Burger aside (we’ll leave the formal review up to Burger Boy), we had higher hopes for this newcomer to Technology Square. Aside from the lounge’s blazing fireplace, the atmosphere was stuffy and uncomfortable and right from the start the staff was inattentive and visibly disappointed that we politely declined every attempt made for an up-sale. Isn’t the whole point of an evening out to have fun? Isn’t it the restaurant’s job to make you feel welcome in their establishment? I’d maybe understand some of the treatment had it been a packed bar and we were hogging two prime seats and only ordering a burger and two waters, but this wasn’t the case. The bar was relatively empty. Frustrated, we finished our burgers and moved on to Area Four.