Offbeat Eats

There are three food items I always think of when I’m in Maryland for business: Crabs, pit beef sandwiches, and crabcakes. I’ve reviewed a few crabcake places before (like G&M in Linthicum), but on a recent trip to NASA Goddard, several of us wanted crabcakes for lunch, and Lambert’s had be recommended to us by a few NASA folk. Lambert’s Seafood is one of those places you really have to know about by recommendation or reputation, since, aside from one tiny ~4″ tall sign on the front of the strip mall, the place is completely unsigned, and you’d never know this place was there. Even looking at the front door, there’s no clear “Lambert’s” sign or anything.

(Closed) In late June, a friend of mine, Jeff, had come to Boston for an extended weekend of, well, food and beverages. We decided it would be good to drive down and meet up with him for some light tourism (see my previous review on Modern Pastry), some cocktails (at Brick and Mortar, a rather nice speakeasy in Cambridge), and finally dinner. We ended up at Sandrine’s in Cambridge. Located about two blocks from the Harvard Square T station, Sandrine’s is pleasant bistro focusing primarily on French cuisine, but dabbling in a few other European cuisines as well; a good chunk of the menu is Alsatian, giving a nice blend between French and German cooking.

There are all sorts of famous rivalries out there in existence, especially in the food world. Geno’s vs Pat’s in Philly (although I’m more of a Tony Luke’s guy myself). American Coney Island vs Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit. Pepe’s vs Sally’s in New Haven. The rivalries go on everywhere. The Boston equivalent that I run into the most often involves cannoli, with the two most-celebrated places being Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry, located within sight of each other. After my last two visits to the North End involving a stop at Mike’s, I figured it was time to check out Modern as well.

As I’ve mentioned several times, there are several major gaps in culinary coverage up here in Northern New England. One of the major ones is Greek food: there are almost zero Greek places, either fancy or fast food, between my home and Manchester, with suitably few options in the opposite direction, and it’s even rare for a Greek-owned pizza place to over up so much as a gyro. So that’s a gap of almost 100 miles in diameter lacking Greek foodstuffs, so I’m often finding myself craving a gyro. But a trip to Manchester takes you back into the Greek belt, since I can think of at least a dozen places around Manchester that will happily serve you up plates of hummous, tabouleh, and big giant pitas filled with souvlaki or gyros. There’s just one subtle problem here, and I’ll admit it’s a minor one: Most of these places don’t serve up true Greek gyros, but instead serve up Greek-American gyros made with “gyro meat”, that giant cylinder of spiced lamb meatloaf-like mixture toasted up on a spit. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy a good “gyro meat” gyro on occasion, especially with well-crisped meat… but it’s much akin to eating a double-decker taco from Taco Bell when you are really craving proper Mexican-style Tacos al Pastor. You’re in the right ballpark, but not playing the right game. Proper Greek-style Gyros are pork, marinated up nicely and cooked up to a nice crisp on those same vertical spits, and often served to you with Greek-spiced fries jammed into the gyro as well. I’ve had these many places around the world and enjoy them, but hadn’t had any luck finding such in New Hampshire. Until I found the Gyro Spot.

As I mentioned in previous review, I’m regularly visiting MIT’s Technology Square, and that usually gives me a decent opportunity to check out some nicer lunch places I can go with clients and subcontractors. While Area 4 and Legal Sea Foods tend to be the more usual business lunch places, sometimes we mix it up, and this time we ended up at Catalyst.

You’ve probably noticed that my posting rate has slowed down a bit. It’s not that I’ve not been traveling or eating, I’ve just been involved in another project. Specifically, GnomeLand! As part of a very elaborate prank, we made and installed over 500 handpainted concrete lawn gnomes in and around my coworker’s house.

A few weeks ago, I had one of my frequent trips to MIT for work. In addition to my actual work, I look forward to these trips since they give me a good chance to check out places to eat. My actual destination was Brookline Lunch, a nice little diner joint a half block off of Mass Ave in Cambridge with some above-average diner fare. I had eaten there a few years back sans camera, and wanted to go back and try them out for an actual review. Well, Brookline Lunch is closed on Tuesdays, so instead I decided to check out a nice looking place I passed while walking to Brookline, Cafe Luna. Cafe Luna is a modestly-sized joint just a few doors down from Toscanini’s, and they’ve got the basic “breakfast joint” menu down pat, with breakfast all day and a smaller lunch menu (aside from special events, they aren’t open for dinner). But there are two things that really grabbed my attention right away: the iced coffees, and several people ordering up various waffles and French toast covered with fresh berries.

On my last morning in Arlington, I was craving some really good iced coffee, and after doing a quick web search, there was one place that made several recommendation lists: Oby Lee Coffee Roastery. This immediately drew my attention, since it was actually a familiar name that I didn’t think I’d see again. Oby Lee used to be my go-to place for coffee on summertime trips to Rehoboth Beach, DE, but a few years ago, they closed up shop and were replaced by a distinctly less pleasant coffee shop. So it was interesting to see their name pop up in the Arlington area. I’m glad to find that Oby Lee is still in existence, just in a different place (talking to the owner they got frustrated with the seasonal nature of the Delaware beach business, so they "moved to where the people are"). So now they’ve got a coffee shop, creperie, and wine shop in Arlington just south of the Clarendon Metro. So when I was craving a good iced coffee and a light breakfast, Oby Lee was worth checking out.

On our way back from our recent trip to Montreal, we were fairly hungry as we passed through Southern Quebec and Northern Vermont, which don’t have a lot of options (although Chez Ti Polo in Henryville, QC looks quite promising, I think I will have to check them out next time). One of the first towns encountered crossing back in Vermont is Swanton, so we decided to check out the area. Swanton isn’t a particularly large town. In fact, it’s quite a small town. But it has two prominent places to eat coming into town off of the Interstate: McDonalds, and Shaggy’s Snack Bar. Obviously, we opted for the latter.

Seeing that I work as a consulting engineer, with most of my clients being US Government agencies, it seems that every single June I need to go down to the DC area for a business meeting (so far this month, I’ve had 5 DC-area meetings scheduled, although I’ve so far managed to keep them combined into just two trips). Usually I end up staying in either Crystal City or Ballston, but I’ve done it enough times that I’ve got some regular traditions. Two of these involve the efforts of one DC restaurateur: On different visits I tend to alternate between getting a really good burger at Ray’s (you can read my review of the now-closed Ray’s Hell Burger, but their similar Ray’s to the Third restaurant across the street at 1650 Wilson is still alive and well), or going to get a steak at Ray’s The Steaks.