Boston
A love affair with coffee shops – The Biscuit in Somerville
Fruit tart ($3.50) at The Biscuit in Somerville
It was spring, freshman year. By then, the Cambridge frost had receded from the cobblestone, and warm air spilled out from T stop as you walked by. To cheer myself up, I’d appoint myself in a wrap dress and green wedge sandals, the ones my mother bought me from China, and slip on a pair of $10 sunglasses. Then I’d find a coffeeshop.
And I’d sit there, feeling the caffeine ooze into my blood, my fingertips, buzzing in the back of my mouth. There was something nice about being surrounded by people you didn’t feel guilty for not knowing.
As a result, I’m an unapologetic table hog. I’ve planned days where I come in the morning, buy a large cup of joe, stake out a table, and stay for a good 8 hours. I love how coffeeshops occupy a liminal space that is not quite home, school, or work.
You can go by yourself, or with a friend. You can talk, or not talk. You can linger, or you can rush. You can eat, or just drink.
The Biscuit is a favorite of mine that I often forget. They suffer from a few flaws – there’s no wifi, and seating could be more plentiful. Their pastries are enormous – think, biscotti the width of your forearm – and cheap. But you’d probably have better luck, in terms of execution, with their hot sandwiches. You can even get them in halves for $3.25 each. Blissful.
I was seduced by the candy-toned hues of their fruit tart ($3.50), but was a little underwhelmed by the crust, which was more of a brioche than a pastry crust. Maybe a personal preference. Even so, I love the charm of their mismatched wooden chairs, chalkboard menu, and low prices. If you’re looking for a more substantial lunch, Kebab Factory down the street has Cambridge’s best Indian buffet by far. It’s a lovely part of town, and one that Harvard students don’t often discover.
Find it!
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406 Washington St
Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 666-2770
Finding Vietnam in Dorchester: Boston’s Best Banh Mi?
There are some corners of Boston that I don’t often explore – they lie like stark question marks on MBTA maps with line colors and station names that are as exotic as Tosci’s curry apple ice cream.
So when the literal fork in the road came up as Lipoff (of Chowhound contributor fame) steered the wheel of his Peugeot one Saturday afternooon, I decided to go with a bit of gritty urban color over a sweet suburban afternoon. Dorchester it was.
Banh mi is like a cultural and historical study packaged as a sandwich and wrapped in French bread colonialism. It typically contains some kind of protein – cold cuts, pork pate, BBQ beef, sardines, etc. – along with slivered cucumbers, bean sprouts, pickled carrots, daikon, cilantro, fish paste, chili peppers, and mayo, all on a halved crusty French baguette.
It’s also dirt cheap. At New Saigon in Chinatown, I remember they were around $3. At Ban Le in Dorchester, Lipoff’s first stop (after we feverishly consulted our respective smartphones for recs for the best), they were a mere two dollars and three quarters. In deliciousness per dollar terms, that’s a mathematically impossible to reproduce ratio.
Basil seed drink - looks like millions of fish eggs...
There was no seating inside, just a glass-paneled counter, dry goods packed high in cardboard boxes, and a somewhat-suspect looking hot buffet. Lipoff decided to throw in a basil seed drink, and the woman behind the counter composed our meal in slow, deceptively simple strokes – a smear of yellow (butter? mayo?), cilantro, beef, a squirt of sauce, the usual accoutrements. Then she wrapped it in wax paper, secured it in a red rubber band, and sent us on our merry way.
We hunkered down in the car and whipped out our cameras.
Lipoff is as equally excitable as I am about food, and even more enthusiastic. We are equally complementary as dinner partners as cultural self-descriptions: he is an egg, and I am a banana.
The consensus on the Ban Le: friggin’ delicious.
The crusty French bread enveloped fresh, crunchy vegetables, deepened by the slighty-sweet chew of BBQ beef and laced with a zip of spice and cilantro. Warming up the beef and the bread a bit would have made it even better, but even so, orgasmic in how every element and flavor – sweet, salty, savory, crunchy, soft, spicy – worked together.
Ban Le banh mi, sitting pretty
I left a bunch of crumbs in the car.
So how do you get to sandwich nirvana?
If you take the Ashmont-bound Red Line train to Fields Corner, you’ll be dropped off in a neighborhood that seems rather unlikely. Due to a highly concentration of Vietnamese, walk up and down the street to see nothing but restaurants full of pho-slurping locals and groceries stocked with glutinous rice snacks and chili paste.
“How does this place exist?” I asked in awe. My wonder was confirmed when I saw a rare sight: a pay phone in 2010.
Since my iPhone was stolen, I kind of wish these were still around.
geological cross section of sardine banh mi
Then it was off to King Do to try another round of banh mi. We decided to give sardine a try, since it was neither pork nor shellfish (Lipoff is kosher) and it seemed like the most exotic option.
Less success. The sardines were cold, mushy, flat, and tasted like they came straight from the tin. Extra cilantro perked things up a bit, but things just weren’t quite as crunchy or revelatory as our last sandwich. I blame part of it on poor selection – clearly, sardine might not have been the best choice.
Finally, the last stop was a bit of warm liquid to soothe our wind-battered souls. A big bowl of pho had to cure Bostonian ills. Pho 2000 served us a decent, gargantuan bowl of soup that I quickly laced with plenty of Sriracha, basil leaves, and lime juice.
a platter of accessories
surface tension
After toying with the cameras a bit more, I buttoned up my jacket and hit the cold winds again. How had I lived for so long without knowing the wonders of east-meets-west fast food? Hopefully, you don’t do the same.
For students, keep in mind this is truly dirt cheap: two giant sandwiches plus an enormous bowl of pho came out to less than $7 per person.
Where’s your favorite banh mi?
Photos courtesy of Lipoff’s much better camera
Find it!
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Banh Mi Ban Le
1052 Dorchester Ave
(between St William St & Pearl St)
Dorchester, MA 02125
(617) 265-7171
King Do Baguette and Pastry
1225 Dorchester Ave
(between Greenmount St & Dewar St)
Dorchester, MA 02125
Pho 2000
198 Adams Street
Dorchester, MA 02122
(617) 436-1908
Masa’s in Porter Square Exchange Mall serves some really awful sushi
Being the kind-of-poor college student I am, I’m a huge fan of cheap food. Really cheap food. Under ten dollars for dinner, say.
But I am not a fan of really crappy food. Especially not bad sushi. It makes the sushi-lover inside of me cry. My only consolation was that my non-sushi-eating-friend thought it was reasonable, and was not turned off of the concept of sushi altogether. If only he knew the true joys of unagi!
The sushi in question was found at Masa’s Sushi Bar in Porter Square Exchange Mall, replacing the old Kotobukiya Sushi Bar. There used to be a Kotobukiya grocery store here as well, but they were driven out by the university demons that be to make room for a Lesley bookstore.
I think this incident points to the questionable judgments of Yelpers at times. They didn’t mention that the shrimp on my scorpion roll ($7.50) would be like a stringy strip of limp cardboard. Or that the unagi nigiri (eel), normally a no-fail mouthful of melty deliciousness, wouldn’t be heated through, flavorful, or cut from a particularly unchoice part of the fish. Well, it was only $1.50 per piece.
At least it didn’t cost me very much.
Scorpion Roll at Masa's Sushi Bar
Eel nigiri at Masa's
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Find it!
1815 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139
Harlem shot drink – or, why open bars are pointless for me
Shifty eyes.
I recently attended a shot drink tasting for bloggers at Market in Boston. Harlem, launched recently by the makers of Ketel One, is named for a town outside Amsterdam. It’s Kruiden-based – which is a special, mysterious blend of herbs by those crafty Dutch – and well, it’s awfully nice mixed with cola and/or something fruity. I’m a wuss.
I am not the best judge of liquor, but I have to admit, Harlem is actually tasty – and a hell of a lot tastier than its point of comparison, Jagermeister. (What can I say, I’ve never been the biggest fan of licorice.) I liked the orange note in it. Mixed with Coca-Cola, it was almost a revelation. And my two guests, both males in the mid-20′s, were more than pleased.
Harlem!
As a final test, when I went home, I fed some to my roommate who took a liking to what went into her paper cup. “I really needed that,” she declared, then went back to her Greek flash cards.
Since I cannot eat food without writing about it, the vittles at Market were pretty standard fare, although pulled pork on cheesy nachos is kind of awesome, though in practice, it gets cold and soggy. And their Thai lettuce wraps were definitely not what the bartender hyped them up to be. But hey, I still cleaned my plate. And managed to down 1.5 drinks before calling it a night. Being small and Asian can make open bars a moot point.
So if you are interested, I’m posting their drink recipes, which are worth reading because they have strangely detailed instructions for two ingredient drinks.