Offbeat Eats

As I mentioned in our review of Sally’s Apizza Woburn, our travels recently have resulted in our having several visits to Woburn, MA, usually trying to get a meal before we head home. There’s an extremely high restaurant density in that part of Woburn, but on our various drive-bys, I had noticed one relative newcomer that looked worth checking out: Saigon Eatery.

As I mentioned in previous reviews, particularly of Pepe’s and Modern Apizza, I was essentially raised on New Haven style pizza (a.k.a. “Apizza”, pronounced more like “A-beetz”). In the world of Italian-American pizza traditions, it is one of the classics, with its faithful adherents, and it’s three major denominations (Pepe’s, Sally’s, and The Modern, all of which have intertwined heritages). To the point where I can mention to peope that I had family in “New Haven” and they would immediate ask “Pepe’s or Sally’s”, waiting with bated breath for my answer, and the ensuing judgement. I’ll have to clearly state that, both through family history and my own preferences, I’m definitely in the Pepe’s faith, but I’ve been known to go to, and enjoy, Sally’s on more than a few occasions, although often having to turn up my coat collar and hope none of the extended family sees me (although the strongest adherents of the Faith in the family have now passed). Well, recent years have seen a lot of change in the New Haven Pizza scene. The biggest change was 2006 when Pepe’s started to become a chain (the adjacent “The Spot” not really counting as a second locaiton) with a location in Fairfield, and eventually growing into a family of locations all over New England. And more recently, Sally’s joined the fray, opening a handful of Connecticut locations starting in 2021, and then their first location outside of Connecticut in Woburn, MA in late 2023. A recent visit of ours to Woburn, MA, finally gave me a chance to see how one of the “New Sally’s” is doing.

Back in January, right before we left for our winter vacation, we met up with friends of ours from the FOM for an outing to a place that’s long been on my radar, Dragon 88 in Boylston, MA. As you can read in my older review of House of Wu in Road Island, I’ve got a soft spot for old-school, New England-style Chinese food, which has had a good century of divergence from the food eaten in China, and even had a fair bit of divergence from West Coast Chinese places as well. Dragon 88 in Boylston is one of the better-regarded “old school” Chinese places, known for good, classic “New England Chinese” food, a reasonably good modern “authentic” menu, and, perhaps most importantly, particularly good (and strong) house Mai Tais. So we decided to meet up and give the place a try.

Shortly before the pandemic (in that era now affectionately known as “the good old days”), on one of our many trips to Northampton, MA, we decided to duck over and check out nearby Easthampton, MA (which, despite the nominally cardinal names, is not east of Northampton, but southwest…), finding a nice little restaurant called Coco that also had an outstanding cocktail bar called The Cellar Bar. I actually quite enjoyed Coco, particularly for their fried chicken dinner, and their creative cocktails (that’s one of the few places I’ve ever encountered Mastika in a cocktail). But that was 2019, and like many, many restaurants, Coco struggled mightily with staffing and finances through 2020 and 2021, eventually announcing abruptly in August 2021 that they were closing permanently. But the underlying demand in Easthampton was strong enough that a handful of employees got together with some other local restaurant owners, and after six months of closure, the restaurant re-opened as Calico.

One of our goals this summer was to head down to Stockbridge, MA, to re-visit the Norman Rockwell Museum to see their Art and Humor of MAD Magazine exhibit (which is on display until October 27th; I really highly recommend it). Stockbridge is about a three hour drive for us, especially if we eschew the particularly boring I-91 drive, so we decided it would be best if we at least got a light meal before heading north. Looking around the greater Stockbridge area, we decided to take a short drive to the south to visit Barrington Brewery & Restaurant.

After a recent hiking trip to Mount Holyoke in Hadley, MA, we were looking for a nice spot for dinner on the way home. Luckily, Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley has quite a few great options for dinner. While normally we’d hit up either one of our favorite spots in Northampton, or potentially visit our old favorite The People’s Pint in Greenfield, this time we decided we’d mix it up a bit, and check out a place that had been one our perennial hit list, Magpie Woodfired Pizzeria in Greenfield.

After our hike up Mount Greylock, we headed off to Northampton for after-hike beers and dinner. As I’ve mentioned in a few other reviews, I really like Northampton as a destination that’s not too far from our home (it’s around an hour and forty if there isn’t traffic), so while it was a slight detour getting home, it’s worth it, getting a chance to revisit one of our favorite breweries (Progression), and look for dinner. There are a lot of great restaurant in town (including favorite Hungry Ghost), but this time, we wanted to revisit a previous spot, Homestead.

When we first moved to New England, we’d occasionally make some road trips down to Western Massachusetts, and we still routinely visit the Pioneer Valley, but for several years the more western reaches of Massachusetts seemed to fall off our radar. But a few recent trips hiking on Mount Greylock (MA’s highest point, and a decent hike) re-introduced us to the area, and have lead us to check out a few of the more interesting destinations. On a recent weekend, we went to The Clark Art Institute to see both their permanent collection, and a visiting Edvard Munch exhibit (pics here, they really do have a great collection), and afterward explored some of the area’s food and drink scene. After a pleasant round of beers at Bright Ideas Brewing in North Adams, my eye landed on a nearby option for dinner: Casita.

The useful thing about catching a flight out of Kona at 10pm is that, after a very short connection in Phoenix, we arrived in Boston mid-afternoon, which actually is nice for a change. Instead of an early-morning or light-night drive back home, this gave us a chance to stop by Byfield, MA and get some barbecue.

One of my annual traditions that I’ve finally been able to resume after several years’ pandemic-related interruption is judging student-built robots for FIRST Robotics, which usually has me traveling a few weekends at the end of each winter to various events in the district. This year, I was judging in Salem, NH, and staying in a relatively nice DoubleTree Hotel over in Andover, MA across the board. While Andover is no culinary slouch (see, for example, my 2019 review of 15SX, which unfortunately burnt down in November 2022), when I’m in the area I’m usually drawn to nearby Lowell, which has a very good selection of restaurants, particularly Southeast Asian ones and old-school American ones (like The Owl. But this time one particular establishment had drawn my attention: The Keep.