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Who You Callin’ Chicken?

18 Jul

I like an awful lot of things about my new apartment, but if I had to pick one thing I definitely do not like, it’s my local food options.

I think I’ve now tried every pizza and sandwich shop in Cleveland Circle — Pino’s, Presto, Eagle’s Deli, Roggies, etc. — and I’ve basically had the same thing at every one of them: a chicken cutlet sub. (Often it’s parmigiana.) I have to say, not a one of them has left me feeling satisfied. I mean, how hard is it to put a couple pieces of chicken on a toasted roll, and add mayo and lettuce.

It’s simple, right?

Well, Thursday night I tried Eagle’s Deli for the first time, and that may have been the worst one of all. Continue reading →

Bowled Over

11 Jun

Yes, this is another post about how much I ate.

I don’t mind paying $8 for ice cream when it’s all for charity, and as donations go, you could do a lot worse than the Scooper Bowl. Here’s how it works: The Jimmy Fund gets my money, and I get to fill up on all-you-can eat ice cream. Everyone wins! A host of vendors large and small serve up samples of about four flavors each, and if you don’t mind the huge crowd, you could try a whole bunch of flavors in a few short minutes. Me? I tried Edy’s new Take the Cake and Cold Stone Creamery’s Shock-A-Cone, among other flavors. They were good, but the best thing I tried was Ben & Jerry’s new Cake Batter. Sadly, I was also really disappointed by B&J’s ONE Cheesecake Brownie. I bumped into Liz on the way over, so I didn’t have to pig out on my own, and in the end, a good time was had by all. The weather’s going to be hot again today and thankfully the Scooper Bowl lasts for three days. But you’d better hurry; after 7 p.m. Thursday, it’s all over. So if you’re in Boston, head on over to City Hall Plaza, grab a spoon, and dig in.

Birthday Beefy Goodness

7 Jun

NEWS FLASH: Ruth’s Chris Steak House no longer has the Chocolate Explosion cake on its menu.

Apparently, it came off six months ago (and may become a seasonal item).

After a pretty excellent birthday meal Saturday night, this had the makings of a disaster.

Thankfully, my beloved dessert has been replaced by a chocolate mousse cheesecake that, let me tell you, is so so so so sooooo good.

Sooooo, Birthday Meal 2008 was saved. Hooray! Continue reading →

Semi-Sweet

22 May

A quick update on Sweet, the new cupcake store I wrote about on Tuesday. I stopped in Wednesday night to check it out, and despite a steep price of $3.25 each (whoa!), I bought a Sweet Cake and a Dark Chocolate, both with chocolate frosting. I’m no culinary expert, but I’d like to think I know my cake. And I have to say, I was not blown away. The cupcakes were good — better than those at Kickass Cupcakes in Somerville for sure — but they were not as moist and good and, ahem, sweet as those at Shaw’s (yes, I really just said that). And I liked the vanilla one more than the chocolate one too.

I’ll be honest: because they’re so pricey and so small, I expected a higher quality ‘cake. But I’m a generous soul and I’ll allow that I had high expectations. So this will not be the last time I go to Sweet for cupcakes. I just won’t be rushing back.

Mmmmmmm …

23 Mar

Farry and Barrah took me to a new brunch place this morning (at least, a new one to me), and all I can say is “mmmmmmm…” Mel’s Commonwealth Cafe is located on Rte. 30 as you’re going from Waltham to Natick, and man, is it ever worth the drive. It’s a nice place, and sure, it was Easter, but it wasn’t overly crowded at 11:30 on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t able to have what I wanted — Fried Dough French Toast, which sounded so good, because they’d just run out minutes earlier — so Plan B was a dish called Country Inn French Toast, which was a moist, sweet French Toast made with a cinnamon swirl bread. Mmmmmmm … I’d have shared it, but I just couldn’t bear to part with a single piece. Barry had a Philly Cheese Steak Omelette, and that too looked good, as did the Yogurt Waffle that Farrah had. (I mention what we all had not to rat anyone out, but to show some of the yummy options because two of these three are not on the online menu.) I’m definitely going back to Mel’s, and I hope I do so soon. It’s nice to have another great brunch option besides Johnny’s. Mmmmmmm …!!

Prime Time

24 Feb

If I could eat every single meal — alright, fine, every single dinner — at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, I would be a very happy man.

(I’d probably also be really fat.)

Iceberg wedge salad with lemon basil dressing. (Mmmmmm.)

Filet mignon, medium, served on a sizzling-hot plate, with a dollop of butter to make it extra juicy. (Oh-my-God-beefy-goodness.)

Shoestring potatoes, seasoned just right. (Yum.)

Chocolate explosion cake. (So good.)

I love love love love love this restaurant. Just thinking about my meal Saturday night makes my mouth water.

When can I go back?

Trying Some New Places

13 Jan

I guess I’d like to make a belated New Year’s Resolution: to try new things. And specifically, new restaurants and new foods. Already this year I’ve been to two new restaurants. Well, not new, per se, but they’re new to me. Today I went with Sarah, Amy and Sherri to Victoria’s Diner. Way out of nowhere location aside, this was a real nice surprise of a brunch place. The interior is much nicer than the exterior would lead one to believe, and the food was real tasty. I had the Nutella Smothered French Toast. It’s not quite what the menu promises, but yummmmm. Three slices of french toast covered in Nutella, with strawberries (which I didn’t eat). I highly recommend it, and hope to go back and have this again soon.

Last week after the movie, Nina and I decided to have dinner at Stephanie’s on Newbury, a place that amazingly, I had never been to before. The Mac ‘n’ Cheese wasn’t as good as the stuff at, say, Silvertone, but it was good and worth going back for. And it’s nice to go somewhere nicer and know there’s something on the menu I can eat. I was also impressed with how big the place was. I mean, not that it looks small from the outside, but I didn’t realize it was so deep inside.

Alright, fine. I know what you’re saying: You went to two new places and you had food you knew you already liked. True. But it’s still good to broaden my horizons beyond the normal places I go. And I hope to do more of that as 2008 continues.

Huh??

7 Oct

I had a weird thing happen last night when I got takeout from Bertucci’s. I ordered the rigatoni, broccoli and chicken, went to Kenmore Square to pick it up, got some fresh and hot rolls, etc. Then I got home, put on my “hanging out in the apartment” attire, poured myself a beverage, set the table, and got out the food. It was then that I discovered I had been given not rigatoni, broccoli and chicken but fettucini, asparagus and chicken. Huh?? Thinking I had just picked up someone else’s order, I called it in, and decided I would go back to pick up what I had actually ordered. When I got there, I asked the hostess if I had picked up someone else’s order. She said no, no one had ordered that. The kitchen was just really busy and they messed up. Now I ask you, dear readers: how busy did the kitchen have to be for them to switch two of the three ingredients in this dish and have no one notice?

Yummmmm

29 Sep

Didn’t have much to do today, and I was still in a celebratory mood after last night’s Sox clinching of the A.L. East title, so I decided to spend the day wandering the city. After lunch in the waaaaaay too crowded Faneuil Hall, I walked to the North End and finally went to Trani, the unfortunately-named store where you can get baked goods injected with ice cream. (It’s right next to my favorite Italian restaurant, Al Dente.) I had what is called a “Bust-Out,” i.e.: a cupcake stuffed with ice cream and covered in fudge. Actually I had two: a yellow cupcake stuffed with chocolate ice cream, and a chocolate cupcake stuffed with vanilla ice cream. (What?! The cupcakes were really small.)

Can I just tell you how good these were? I mean, how could they not be? It was my two great loves — cupcakes and ice cream — in one delicious snack, with chocolate fudge on top. The cake was moist and tasty, the ice cream was really good, and the fudge, although it was the kind that hardens in seconds, was also good. Best of all, believe it or not, these were not heavy, filling snacks. If I was feeling truly gluttonous, I could probably have eaten two more. But I refrained. So next time I go back, I’ll have to try a brownie or a canoli, or any of the other yummy-looking things on the menu.

Don’t have much exciting to tell you about the rest of the walk, although I did find a nice park I never knew existed and that was pretty cool. Oh, and I checked out the new Hard Rock Cafe, now located where The Rack used to be. They did a nice job renovating that place. But anyway, lotsa people were out and about today. It was a great day to be in Boston.

A Fast Fast

23 Sep

It surprises me to say, but I think Yom Kippur may actually be one of my favorite holidays.

How can anyone like a holiday that features as its main selling points a day-long fast and a whole lot of praying? Well, I don’t know.

But this year, despite going 27-and-a-half hours without eating (yes, really), and doing so easily without even a headache after my mid-afternoon nap, I have to say, it really isn’t so bad.

But why does it rank as one of my favorite? Well, it’s odd considering the solemn tone and the heavy subject matter and all, but Yom Kippur features some of my favorite prayers, ones we only say on that day. Stuff like the Vidui, the Covenant, all that good stuff.

The tunes are catchy, the melodies are nice, and they’ve got some great harmonies.

And we may go a while between meals, but the dinners before and after are some of the biggest, best meals all year. What could be bad about that?

So, this is just my way of marking that the High Holidays have passed (at least the major ones have), and they were good.

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