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Shrewsbury St. Swordfish

Shrewsbury Street Swordfish from Flying Rhino on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, Massachusetts

Shrewsbury Street Swordfish from Flying Rhino on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester, Massachusetts

The Flying Rhino is an eclectic restaurant with a nice variety of options. They offer many selections that are healthy choices to go along with a great mix of more standard fare, most prepared with a little twist.

I started with the Chicken Lettuce Wraps, which comes with a decent sized portion of skillet fried ground chicken, shredded carrots and cabbage, whole leaf lettuce and two sauces, peanut and soy. While a little messy to eat (it is finger food after all) the lettuce wraps were fantastic.  They soy based sauce quite good, but the peanut sauce was ‘out of this world’ good. There was just enough to share amongst two people and still feel like you had enough to get a good feel for the taste. Overall, one of the best appetizers around.

Next came a Caesar salad which was small, but I find that be refreshing because it wasn’t so large that it left you feeling full before your meal comes out. This salad was also very tasty and fresh.

For dinner I had the Shrewsbury St. Swordfish, which is a pesto grilled swordfish steak over black rice with roasted cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, baby spinach and pine nuts topped with a slight balsamic glaze. The fish was a perfect size again, large enough to be filling but not so large you feel guilty eating the whole thing, and was cooked perfectly with a very nice flavor. I found the black rice by itself to be a little bland, but eaten with the tomato, mozzarella and baby spinach it was an excellent combination with a light, refreshing taste and great texture. The lightness of the sides played perfectly with the fish for an overall excellent dinner.

Overall, the Flying Rhino is a keeper and will be a place I revisit often! -DL

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Eggplant Lasagna

Eggplant Lasagna from Le Mirage on June Street in Worcester, MA

Eggplant Lasagna from Le Mirage on June Street in Worcester, MA

If you are wondering what Lebanese/Mediterranean food is like, save yourself the plane ticket and eat at Le Mirage on June Street. If you don’t like the food here, you may as well write off all Lebanese/Mediterranean food for the rest of your life because this is as good as it gets. It is family owned and managed so you will feel every bit of that family style of cooking that has undoubtedly been passed down through generations.

Everything on the menu looked good, and I was having a difficult time trying to decide on what to order. I changed my mind about two or three times before our extremely attentive and friendly waitress came over and helped me decide. She told us that she had tried everything on the menu herself and loved it all, but that one of the biggest sellers was the Eggplant Lasagna. Sold. Now you think since we went during restaurant week I would have had taken that awesome deal, but the prices on everything at Le Mirage were so good it was hard to not to go straight from the menu to try something different.

My meal came with complimentary side garden salad that had the oil/lemon and mint dressing that was refreshing. Kudos to them for this because not many places do the complimentary side salad with your meal anymore and I miss that! My homemade eggplant Lasagna came and I was not disappointed. Layers of fresh eggplant and the perfect amount of ricotta and mozzarella cheese were between each layer and topped with a tomato marinara sauce that obviously had been simmering to perfection for hours. It was delicate I could have eaten it with a spoon (which I did towards the end to scoop up that marinara!). Simple, clean, and delicious; I cannot sing the praises of this restaurant loudly enough. I will definitely be heading back there soon to try some of the other dishes they had to offer. The atmosphere was charming and warm and the food was beautifully presented and delicious. The portions were generous. All in all a very relaxed and yummy fine dining experience. -SB