Offbeat Eats

(Closed) After I left Natick, I had another meeting at MIT. This time it was a morning meeting, and this time the Gods of Boston traffic were smiling on me, so I got there with surprisingly little in the way of traffic delays. As a result, I had a chance to grab breakfast, and walking around near the MIT/Kendall Square station, I happened across The Friendly Toast. The Friendly Toast is a breakfast diner, with locations in Portsmouth, NH (their original location) and Cambridge, MA (Kendall Square, just north of MIT and Draper Labs). I’ve happened across the Portsmouth location several times while visiting there, and it has remained on my chronic “I should try that place out” hit list…

This week, several different client meeting in Massachusetts resulting in my having a free evening in Natick. Natick is an interesting little town, there’s an old-style downtown that has a few decent restaurants, and then there is the Rt 9 strip. There’s no shortage of places to eat on the strip, but it’s mostly major chains. Oga’s Japanese Cuisine is the sort of place you drive by a lot of times and don’t think of checking out, since it looks little different than, say, a low-grade Chinese place or an office supply sort, at the end of a somewhat dismal strip mall with one of those annoyingly small one-way parking lots. But several online sources gave the place good reviews, and I’ve been in a mood for Japanese food, so I decided to check it out…

Last week I had to have a quick trip down to MIT for work, and have been craving a good burger. Luckily, Cambridge sports several burger joints that all have a good following, including Mr Bartley’s Burger Cottage (near Harvard, still on my hit list), Cambridge Common, Flat Patties, Four Burgers (which I almost went to this time), Craigie on Main, and Miracle of Science. I opted on the last of these, since the location is close to MIT (in the shadow of the Tootsie Roll factory, and kitty-corner from Toscanin’s Ice Cream).

H-Mart, Korean-American Asian supermarket chain, recently opened a location in Burlington, MA. I’m really happy that the region has another Asian grocery store chain (although I’ve long been a fan of the Boston area’s Super 88s). One of the problems of our living in the Upper Valley region of VT/NH is that we don’t really have access to a lot of Asian ingredients (we’ve got two small Asian grocery stores here, but their selection is limited, especially when it comes to produce), which is kind of a shame, since both of us really like Asian cuisines…

Every region of the US has it’s list of specialty foods, and New England is no exception. We all know about the New England style hot dog roll, the Lobster Roll, the clam strip, and Boston baked beans. Slightly less well-known is the area’s love of the roast beef sandwich, with several layers of steaming, rare roast beef piled upon a heavy onion roll, preferably with some sort of horseradish condiment. Think Arby’s, but done with actual meat and decent buns…

You can’t miss it, it’s written right on the window, “The World’s Best Ice Cream,” according to the New York Times. That should impress me, but it really doesn’t. It’s hyperbole, and the NYTimes does it a lot in their food reviews. Many Boston-area friends also have told me it’s “the best in the world”, but Boston folks have a horrible pattern of saying “the world” when they really mean “Boston”. More importantly, however, my friend Eddy (who has impeccable taste when it comes to desserts) also claims it’s best in the world, so, while I’ve had (and enjoyed) Tosci’s ice cream before, I felt obligated to come and review it again…

Every time I find myself driving down to Boston or Rhode Island, I’m usually finding myself looking for a new place to try for breakfast along the way. This time, we decided to take the Everett Turnpike (Rt 3), which takes you through the Nashua and Tyngsborough area. And, in this case, right by Tyngsborough’s Dream Diner. While not being the most attractive of diners, it did have one feature that is always the sign of a good breakfast: a long line out the door. Indeed, we spent our first 10 minutes at the dream diner standing outside, but the waitstaff is friendly and brings you a cup of coffee to drink while you wait.

(Closed) One of my favorite breakfast item is corned beef hash. And, as I mentioned recently in my review of Bode’s, it’s one of those dishes that’s easy to do poorly, but hard to do really well. It’s also one of the food items that I get a lot of recommendations for. I’ve often had people recommend places to me for good CBH, and a majority of the time, I’m disappointed, since I usually end up with something that’s either canned CBH, or a faithfully executed homemade replica of canned CBH. So when one of my homebrewing friends gave a strong recommendation for the Gold Star Restaurant in Worcester having the “best hash ever,” I responded with some skepticism, but put it on my hit list.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I have an odd fascination with hot dogs. The name “hot dog” really spans a huge amount of territory, ranging from cheap generic hot dogs (which really don’t do anything for me), to all sorts of regional specialties like the Chicago Dog and the Coney Island dog. Coney Island dogs, in particular, have always fascinated me since (a) they seem to mostly be clustered in areas that aren’t New York’s Coney Island (although there are many “Coney Islands”, coney is just a name for “rabbit”), and (b) there is something oddly compelling about both the hot dog itself and the places that serve it. George’s Coney Island in Worcestor, MA is definitely one of these places…

Several years ago, when I first starting watching Iron Chef (of which I’ve tired), there were frequent references to serving items shabu shabu style , in which thinly sliced meat and veggies are served along with simmering broth, and you prepare your meal by swishing the meat in the broth. Basically, making your own soup at the table. It sounded intriguing, but, until recently, I didn’t have much of an opportunity to try it out. However, after a recent BeerAdvocate event in Boston, a group of us were looking for some interesting dining in Chinatown, and I recalled hearing of a Shabu-shabu joint that had decent reviews. And, indeed, at 16 Tyler Street (across the parking lot from the Bao Bao Bakery where we always get our post-beer-festival bubble tea), was Shabu Zen.