Porte de Elephant

BOSTON - A circuitous weekend trip means I'm back in Boston for a few hours, and I decided to see some friends I missed last week. Wanting to maximize my time, and having temporarily "misplaced" my cell phone, I sent out a mass e-mail:

"Enormous Room, 9-9:15. The Enormous Room is in Central, next to the T stop, in the same building as the Central Kitchen. It's upstairs. Look for the door with the Elephant."

Boarding the T (subway) for the restaurant, I explained to my friend Jill that I couldn't be more specific in my directions. The Enormous Room has no sign.

"I'm going to be honest, Jon," she said. "This doesn't sound like the place I'm going to like."

Me either, but the Enormous Room is probably my favorite bar in Boston. Location is a key part. It's in Central Square, a neighborhood equidistant from Harvard and MIT, which guarantees an audience of hyper-smart graduate students and young professors. They don't want dirty, dank clubs, this crowd demands funky, moderately-priced spots. Central Square provides, with venues like Boston's best performing venue, the Middle East, and a bar with a chemistry/test tube scene.

The Room flirts with the tag of pretentious hipster den. When the Enormous Room opened two years ago, it served just one dish, the Enormous Platter, which consists of "many little tastes on an enormous plate ... choose either a Moroccan spiced beef skewer, harissa chicken skewer, or a herb rubbed salmon skewer and it will be served with a variety of north African style accompaniments such as couscous & baba ganoush & picked beets & pickled turmeric cauliflower & lamb briouats & potato date briouats & marinated feta & tabouli & mixed olives & kefir sauce & harissa, etc ... etc ... creative license is involved in the platters. most things, but not always everything will appear. trust us."

The menu now has six items, but the We-Don't-Give-A-Shit vibe is still in place. Our waitress, a young woman with thick, hay bale dreads, stops over with the regularly of the hour clock. When we first arrive near the end of the dinner crowd, she advises to sit a couple of stairs and watch out for a table. She didn't plan on helping us with tables. We, of course, did decide to come through the unmarked door.

Eventually a couple of men - chemists, perhaps - leave and we inherit their place. Seating is on one of several soft mats. Most people sit Indian-style (or as my sister informs me, it is now supposed to be called "pretzel-style") lie against the wall pillows. The low-lighting, Persian style wall murals and hints of insence encourage the kinds of meaningful conversations that old friends have after a time apart.

After a round of drinks, the bar's oddities - only bottled beer, a speaker placed right next to my head - become charms. At the end of the night, the crowd's won over. They will come through the unmarked door again.