went to great bay (from the same people who brought you radius and via matta) last night for andy's birthday. (happy birthday, andy!) the place looks better than i thought it would from the horrible outside. (it's part of the hideous BU hotel in kenmore square. fortunately the city of boston has made them redo their facade. it's currently underway.) the decor was good: good lighting, not too bright, not too dark; nice bar setup; some sort of random orange, salmon, and gray chiffon-y things on the wall; a projected image that was supposed to be fish scales but looked more like a chain link fence; and couches. also had an additional dining room which i didn't check out but which looked a little more formal. patty had the shrimp tacos. she's quite the expert on the place. she eats out pretty much every night of the week, and she said lately she's been going there about 12 times a month. (crazy, i know.) andy got the oysters, the beet salad w/ goat cheese (very attractively presented. in the center were alternating cross sections of red and gold beets with goat cheese spread in between. there were small wedges on the sides along w/ some type of red sauce.), and the scallop ravioli (which turned out to be ravioli w/ scallops as opposed to the ravioli having scallops in them). i had the seaweed salad (with tofu and either dried or cooked bits of portabella mushroom which were, as the teen girl squad would say, so good!) and the pureed potatoes (which was ridiculously huge). everything was uniformly quite good. for dessert we had the warm cookies with milk and the butterscotch pudding. the pudding was the only real disappointment. it was nice and creamy, but otherwise didn't have much personality. definitely one of the best places i've eaten at in boston in a while. (still haven't had dinner at radius ... one of these days when i'm not so poor.)