The Florida Foodie
Great Dining is right at “Home” at Living Room
By Saucy Sarah
Living Room
1709 N. Congress Avenue (inside Catalina Plaza)
Boynton Beach, FL 33426. Phone: (561) 742-4399
Tucked away at the far end of the Catalina Center, in up-and-coming Boynton Beach, you will find the unassuming store front of Living Room. Don’t be dissuaded, go inside and find yourself in a seductively sensual realm of food and drink. I had passed by this restaurant so many times, being a Boynton native, and never thought of going in. A few friends who had gone told me if I wanted to 
understand what Living Room was all about, I would have to go and discover it for myself. So off we went on a Friday night to find out just what Living Room had in store for us.
You enter into a dark, rich, cool environment that I can only call a luxurious tangle of Far-East import combined with feminine boudoir. The place has a powerful female vibe; Tiffany lighting, feathers, and beaded table clothes. There are intimate alcoves that house tables for two and eclectic gatherings of couches and chairs for lounge-loving groups. The impressive and thoughtful wine list comes housed in a binder covered with dazzling pin-up girls. The female powered staff is there to dote on you and make you feel welcome. Warning: Living Room is small and fills up fast, so do make a reservation before coming to dine.
The menu is not extensive, but boasts a collection of inspired small plates, flat breads, and entrees that the proprietor lovingly calls, “exotic comfort food”. Sharing is encouraged and I for one was refreshed to learn this. Nowadays, we live in a world where everyone is charging a sharing fee. Food is meant to be celebrated and shared amongst those we love and it is nice to know Living Room speaks this sacred foodie language. 
We ordered several dishes to taste. For starters, we chose the soup du jour, a shrimp and crab soup that arrived as a hybrid delight with the creaminess of a bisque and the texture of a chowder from potatoes and peas. We also ordered the pretzel bread sticks ($2.95). The bread came piping hot, fresh and chewy with perfect pretzel flavor and served with decadent European style butter. Heaven: dipping chunks of the bread into the soup.
Next, we had the duck drummettes with sweet & spicy sauce ($8.95). The duck was a marvel. All of the typical fat that keeps you from ordering duck was nonexistent, just lush hunks of perfectly cooked duck meat with a crispy outer coating that was crunchy and not greasy at all. I was just utterly impressed by the thought and care that was taken with this dish. The duck alone is worth a trip to Living Room.
For our final dish, we chose the Steak and Mushroom Pie ($14.95). We had mentioned to our server that we
would share the dish. As a testament to Living Room’s “open-sharing” policy, the single entrée came out present on two separate plates for us. Both dishes were beautifully arranged with half the pie and a pile of perfectly cooked green beans and carrots. We were extremely impressed and pleased that they had gone out of the way to accommodate us. The steak and mushroom pie is a slow-cooked conglomeration of tender steak chunks and mushrooms in a deep and rich sauce from the braising liquid, spooned into a lighter-than-air puff pastry shell and then placed on a mound of dreamy mashed potatoes. Reminiscent of Julia Child’s beloved 
Beef Bourguignon, it is a decadent and hearty meal and easily enough for two.
Living Room offers a small but exciting array of desserts worthy of a visit alone. In fact, this is just the kind of place to go for just dessert. There are several “deserts of the day” and you can order the “make-
your-own-S’mores” where you actually cook the marshmallows over a small hibachi right at your table. How fun is that? It is a great place for a romantic rendezvous or a night out with the girls. A place for indulgence at very reasonable prices. My only suggestion is that they get some better music that matches the sexy atmosphere and decadent food.
Yes, Living Room is a bit of a drive, but it is worth the journey. The beach is just two miles down Boynton Beach Blvd. Have an exquisite meal and then take a walk by the sea and make a fantastic adventure of the night. Food should be about exploration and adventure. A good meal is worth the travels, so get in your car and come to Boynton Beach and make yourself at home at Living Room.
In her previous life, Sarah, a Palm Beach County Native, spent ten years working in various high-end eating establishments around South Florida. She is currently a fiction thesis candidate in the MFA program at Florida International University where she also teaches creative writing and rhetoric. If that is not enough, Sarah is also the owner of Cakes by Sarah, a local custom cake shop. Sarah lives in Lake Worth with her husband and two beautiful boys. “Food, fiction, and family are my life.”