Steamed Local Hake at Vee Vee

This year was a surprisingly robust one for fine dining in Boston: the Seaport and Area IV emerged as sizzling destinations with a score of brand-new restaurants. We visited all and reviewed many of them. But we're not exclusively devoted to shiny hotspots charging $18 for two tacos or $88 for Peking duck. We frankly get more excited about great little storefront venues, the kind that emphasize well-crafted food over tourist-magnet atmosphere, indies with fairer prices and owners who work there every night. Such is Vee Vee (763 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, 617.522.0145), a cozy spot that knows its neighborhood clientele well, and so tilts its New American menu gently but not exclusively toward seafood and vegetarian options.

The tone is immediately set by charmingly spare atmosphere: a wee six-seat curved granite bar, an intimate dining room with tall walls in tones of pumpkin and black, a back-lit former transom used to list the rotating craft brews on tap. You might start with one of those - say, Baby Tree ($7) from Somerville's own Pretty Things, a high-ABV Belgian-style quadrupel ale, ruddy and complex and fruity. A quick scan of the menu might have you noticing the local and seasonal emphasis, evident in a salad of local apples and pears ($9) gently crimson-tinged with cranberry vinaigrette, cleverly offset with ginger-pumpkin yogurt, and prettily topped with crisp-fried sage leaves. You might be warmed inwardly by the heartiness of a warm salad of fingerling potatoes and braised endive ($10) flecked with chunks of fine smoky bacon and crowned with gorgeously thick, tangy goat cheese. A wave of nostalgia might wash over you as you devour a slab of pork/turkey meatloaf ($19) flanked with house-made cranberry sauce and creamy/chunky smashed potatoes and topped with tender buttered escarole - except Mom's was obviously never this good.

But the story you'd be telling your friends afterward would be of the steamed local hake ($24), a pristinely white oblong fillet colorfully adorned with matchsticks of apple and ginger, stems of watercress, and chunks of butternut squash. You'd speak dreamily of how this perfectly cooked fish rested in a pool of broth given color from the golden-orange squash, a head-clearing zip from ginger and white pepper, and vibrancy from a superb vegetable stock, of which you spooned up every drop. And you might contemplate the fact that in a year of headline-grabbing new places with waterfront views, you're grateful that the foundation of the Boston restaurant scene is made up of modest, high-value neighborhood joints like Vee Vee, where the money goes into a talented kitchen, not a PR firm, and shows up convincingly on the plate.