RE: Please Come To Boston...
Fri, 07/23/04 1:50 AM
(
permalink)
Every weekend in the North End is a street feast. Every weekday as well. Essential North End stops: Modern Pastry for cannoli and ricotta pie (ignore the wildly overpraised Mike's a block or two up the street) and Galleria Umberto for a calzone and a couple of arancini (rice balls stuffed with meat and peas, rolled in bread crumbs and cheese, then fried).
Other good choices, by neighborhood:
Back Bay: Newbury Pizza,, J.P. Licks ice cream (also in Coolidge Corner and the original on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, hence the name), Wisteria House (Taiwanese-style Asian) and Steve's (a neighborhood Greek institution) on Newbury Street.
Chinatown: Jumbo Seafood or King Fung Garden. I would give the edge to the latter for its scallion pancake and Shanghai noodles, not to mention the outstanding, achingly wonderful, hon sue lamb, which is lamb chunks braised in a savory sauce until they practically fall apart at the approach of a chopstick. However, Jumbo Seafood has some of the best Cantonese-style Chinese I've ever had; it's just that I can't eat a lot of their menu because I'm allergic to shrimp. But if you want some fun and you've got an hour or two, order a bowl of periwinkles, which are basically what would happen if French chefs started cooking escargot in black bean and garlic sauce. You grab one in one hand and use a toothpick to prise out first this little thing that looks like a fish scale made out of plastic, which you discard, and then a tasty little morsel of meat. Much like how escargot are an excuse to eat garlic butter, periwinkles are an excuse to suck black bean and garlic sauce off your fingers.
(Hint: if you have a map or a guide who knows the way, the best thing to do is to eat dinner in Chinatown and then walk over to the North End for dessert at Caffe Victoria or Caffe Pompeii or a box of pastries at Modern, ignoring the nothing-special chains in Quincy Market as you pass by, unless you need to run into their basement to use the public washrooms. It's a little bit of a schlep, but by the time you're done, you'll have walked off that feeling of about-to-vomit fullness that accompanies a truly successful Chinatown meal.)
Best dim sum in Chinatown: China Pearl. No contest. Weekends only, and if you're not there by 11 a.m., be prepared to wait, even though the place is two stories high and consists of two enormous, cavernous rooms. If there's a table of six to ten gwailo about evenly split between men and women, all of whom are talking about MIT gossip, movies and/or pop music at very high volume while scarfing down basket after basket of shumai and char siu bao, stop by and say hi.
Central Square, Cambridge: Rangzen, a Tibetan restaurant on Pearl Street. As you would expect from a Tibetan restaurant, imagine Chinese food with a heavy northern Indian influence. I don't know if all Tibetan restaurants are this good, but this one is terrific.
Harvard Square, Cambridge: Bartley's Burger Cottage, by far the best of a mediocre lot when it comes to burgers in Massachusetts. Also Johnny's, on Mass Ave heading towards Central Square just outside of Harvard Square, which I particularly recommend for breakfast.
Other breakfast options: Centre Street Cafe on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain (weekends only and expect a line), Zaftig's on Harvard Ave, Coolidge Corner, Brookline (I particularly recommend the salami and eggs).
The seafood issue: See, the thing is, there's not really a lot of mindblowing seafood in Boston proper. (Lots that's very good, don't get me wrong, but the best stuff is all out of town.) If you've got a car, just go up Route 1 to Ipswich and spend the day at Crane beach, followed by dinner at the Clam Box, or otherwise take the high-speed ferry to Provincetown and go to Clem and Ursie's. Otherwise, you'll just end up at Legal Seafood and wonder what the big fuss is.
