Open for a year, The Haven (2 Perkins Street, Jamaica Plain, MA (617) 524-2836, located in Jamaica Plain’s Hyde Square, has been bringing Caledonian food at this gastropub in a city overrun by Irish pubs. The simple menu does consist of a lot of fried items, but it varies every so often. This hotspot serves Scottish craft beers, house made cuisine by Chef Wax and has live music!
First off is oat cakes (delicious bread with hints of honey) served with butter and house made pickled vegetables to nibble on. The appetizer portion of the famous Haggis and Neeps $9 (sausage with offal (entrails and innards), spices, and oats) has a distinctive nutty flavor that is not for the faint hearted. It is served over a tasty honey, truffle mashed rutabaga (Swedish yellow turnip) and Drambuie (malt whiskey flavored with honey and herbs) butter. Haggis is always served every January 25th on a Scottish Holiday to celebrate Scotland’s favorite son and national Poet Robert Burns (aka Rabbie Burns), who also wrote “Auld Lang Syne”
Next came the Scotch Deviled Egg $8 (commonly served with salad and pickles) which consisted of one egg, deep fried and cut in half, wrapped with ground sausage meat and filled with deviled egg accompanied by a simple, lightly dressed arugula salad served with a lovely spicy yellow mustard for a nice kick.
The main entrée was the Sassitch and Mash $18: a Hunter’s Sausage and Yukon potato mash with bits of skin, herbs along with roasted celeriac (root vegetable) and onion jus. The sausage was not overly salty and tasted delicious with the lovely green celeriac (celery root) and potato mash.
A very non Scottish dessert is the chocolate bread pudding served with an original flair topped with coconut curry ice cream. Surprisingly, the coconut curry ice cream served as a lovely contrast to the balanced bread pudding which was not overly dry but moist. If you want to try haggis without traveling to Scotland, The Haven is the place to go!
Haggis and Neep. (Photo by Anna Ing)
Scotch Deviled Egg. (Photo by Anna Ing)
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