Take a Break at Jake's

Jake's Falafel Corner

827 Beacon St

Newton MA

617-640-2995

(far left corner inside the Sandwich Works shop)

(Greenline D - Newton Centre Stop)

hummus and falafel wrap

I was on foot, and walked around and around and around Newton Centre looking for Jake's Falafel Corner. I did not find it until I walk into the Sandwich Works deli and I saw Jake's Corner in the far left corner of the Sandwich Works Shop. So, you are warned, there is no sign for Jake's Corner, rather Jake's Corner is literally a corner of the Sandwich Work Shop. If you are walking or driving, look for the Sandwich Works Shop.

Jake's came highly recommended by my Newton's friends for a meal that feels good to eat, and won't weigh you down. I got a falafel wrap with hummus, two of my favorites, and topped with every veggie Jake has. The wrap is huge, and I could not finish it. The falafels were light and crunch on the outside, and smooth on the inside. The hummus was a lovely creamy texture with a nutty and chickpea flavor. It was so good. One falafel wrap was big enough to hold me through a whole day of site seeing in Newton, Brookline and Boston. What a great value.

The Bar dBar

Dorchester, MA has gone through many changes in its 400 year history. In colonial times, Dorchester used to be the original suburb of Boston, has a huge hill called Savin Hill, and has a fabulous view of the south side of the Boston Harbor. This area became popular with the rich sea captains and other wealthy people and they built lovely Victorian homes in the Boston 'burb of Dorchester. Each home on Savin Hill had a 2nd or 3rd story room that had an amazing view of the harbor, and for sea captains' wives, they could watch their husbands' tall ships go in and out of the harbor. Then in the mid- to late-1900's, Dorchester fell from the the rich 'burb of Boston to a depressed ghetto state because all the rich people moved from the ocean view to the revolution 'burbs of Lincoln, Sudbury, Concord, Lexington, etc. It was no longer in vogue to live in the city. The lovely Victorian homes fell into disrepair, and Savin Hill was then commonly known as "Stabbin' Hill". Gangs, hopelessness, and crime took over this area. I will admit, in the 1970s - 1990s, my family did not go into Dorchester because of all the news about "Stabbin' Hill".

Now, things area really turning around for Dorchester as people are renovating the lovely original Victorian homes on Savin Hill. This area has a good mix of ethnic and Bostonian history, so there are old neighborhood hangouts as well as innovative new restaurants and bars. We ended up going to dBar on Dorchester Ave. This place took an old Irish Bar, and rehab-ed it to what it is today. As you can see from the facade, the old Irish Bar feel is still available, but the food and drinks are up-to-date. One thing you must know about Boston is that there seems to be a bar or old Irish pub on every corner, and a church on the opposite corner. The bars and old pubs in Boston are like their kins in Great Britain, just really comfy places for people to gather and chat after work.

That is exactly what we did on a Friday. We met some of our friends after work at the dBar for some drinks, chats and dinner. Some of the food we got were tuna tartare, locally caught bass over lentils, dBar tostadas, and what you see in this blog post. The salad, as seen above is a lychee and goat cheese wrapped in prosciutto with a feta salad. It was good, but a bit overwhelmingly. I think that less goat cheese and prosciutto would have served the lycee better, and there was way too much feta, and the feta just drowned out any of the natural lettuce flavor. It was actually a bit much for me with all the ingredients with high a level of flavor and texture. The hangar steak was really good and straight forward. The steak was made in a way that wasn't tough, and they dish represented the standard meat and potato well.

I am glad that Dorchester, MA is coming back around to its historical splendor, and Savin Hill can regain its rightful name. The dBar, I believe is here to stay for a while, and it is a perfect 21st century place to meet friends after work for a drink, snacks or dinner.

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Boston Eats
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Boston Asian Food Court

Another food I just cannot get in Nashville is Dim Sum. Whenever I am in New York, San Francisco, Boston or Chicago, it is a required meal for me to have Dim Sum. When I was in Boston a couple weeks ago, the only scheduled meal outside of the reunion was with my mom for lunch and we were to get Dim Sum. I had expected to go to one of the Chinese restaurants in the small, but vibrant Chinatown in downtown Boston, but my mom had the hookup that was right on the Green B-line near B.U.s campus, the Super 88 Market and Asian Food Court.

shrimp and spinach dumpling

The Super 88 food court is a bit utilitarian, with the original concrete floor that the former car show room had, each table was like any mall food court, and each booth was about delivering hot food fast. There were all sorts of vendors like Dim Sum, Chinese noodles, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Bubble Tea, Mongolian, Vietnamese, and others. The vendor booths were not about visual aesthetics of the counter, the signs, or the plating. The food court wasn't even about the typical Asian food experience either. It was just about getting food out to business people, students, teachers, and others quickly, so everyone can get on their way and do their thing.

har gau - shrimp dumpling

I will admit, I missed the experience of the the Dim Sum cart wondering the isles of a big Chinese restaurant with a worn and dirty red carpet. I miss the energy of of a packed room of 500+ people who are vying for that last har gau steamer dish in the Dim Sum cart as the Dim Sum cart attendant is making her way back to the kitchen to re-stock the cart. I missed the gaudy gold and red artwork filling the red painted walls of a downtown Chinese Restaurant. I missed seeing familial generations of sitting at a big round table from great grandma to the great grandchildren and watching the great grandchildren fidget in their seats because they had to wear dress shoes and look nice for great grandma. I missed the wait staff walking fast, and slapping a pot of hot tea on the table, spilling a little hot water on the tablecloth because he barely slowed down to place the teapot there. I missed the roar of the chatter that 500+ people can make while parents insist on giving great grandma and the children the best pieces of each dish; the children, stuffed from eating, loudly refusing and fussing, and not understanding the customs and traditions of this act, and they think that the parents are force feeding them, rather than accepting it as a gesture of honoring the children. This time, I missed all this. For me, food is about the whole experience - the visual and audio experiences as well as aroma, taste and texture.

djung - savory sticky rice in lotus leaf

So, we ordered a la carte, many of my favorites from the Dim Sum counter and the Chinese Noodle counter. We waited a short time, and our numbers were called. Everything came in white take-out containers. Each dish tasted just about right, but it wasn't the full-on Dim Sum experience.

beef and Chinese broccoli chung fun - wide rice noodles

I left Super 88 Market and Asian Food Court, stuffed. I did fill up as much as I could because I justs don't know when I will be able to get Dim Sum again. I have no current plans to go to the 4 northern cities that I know have great Dim Sum. Until next time, I will be longing for the full body experience that the weekend Dim Sum restaurant offers.

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Are Lobsters Endangered?

For the first time, I spent a considerable amount of time in the 'burbs of Boston where my uncle's home is because that is where the reunion was. The 'burbs that I spent time in are Concord, Lexington, Sudbury, and Maynard where all the colonial, revolutionary and transcendentalist movments were all the rage many years ago. Now, this area is almost indistinguishable from any other suburb in the USA.

The one thing that distinguishes the Boston 'burbs from other USA 'burbs is that there are still signs of ties to the Atlantic Ocean and cooking up a decent lobster. One dinner I had was at the Quarterdeck Fish Market Restaurant 177 Main St, Maynard, MA. They cooked up a really great lobster. It is just a lobster in a pot of boiling water and then served on a plate. There is no breading, there is no sauce, there are no herbs. It is just the lobster as it is. It was the Perfectly Prepared Lobster.

As the lore goes, there were a lot of lobsters wondering around the shallow waters of Boston, the north shore, the south shore and Cape Cod during the beginning of the colonial movement. During colonial days, the poor, servants, and freemen without land ate lobsters because they were plentiful and they could just pick them up from the beaches. No one owned lobsters, they did not have to be grown on land, and they were there for the picking. The rich did not touch these "beach bugs". Somewhere along the history of lobsters, they became to harder to come by, and then lobsters became food of the rich. Well, I am not rich, but I did budget for a lobster dinner. I enjoy the salty, tender yet firm meat from the lobster when I can get a good one. When I was young, my mother showed me how to eat all the meat from the little straw legs, the honeycomb of the body, the claws and tail. The waitress at the Quarterdeck was impressed that I so thorough with the lobster and not let one morsel go to waste. When it is such a rarity for me to have lobster, I am certainly going to make the best of each lobster I get.

To start my meal, I had some fried oysters. Before I got them, I asked the waitress what kind of oysters they were. She said they were a certain variety (which escapes my memory now) from Prince Edward Island, and she went back to the chef to find out. Yes indeed she was right. I was happy she understood my question. When I asked that in Nashville, a town in a land locked state that should not be serving oysters, the restaurant staff usually says that they are "fried". These fried oysters were fresh oysters lightly breaded and quickly fried to a light perfection. I was in heaven.

So, I finished off my Mystic Pizza movie quote, "I thought the only two things that come through here were lobster and cod." It was delicious and was happy to do it. I could eat lobster and cod more often, but only eating them when I go back to see my family makes the dining experiences special. Until next time Boston, I will think fondly of my cod sandwich and my lobster dinner.

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Happy USA I.D.!

So, was it one or two lanterns? One if by land, two if by sea? Or is that a myth. A shot heard 'round the world. Now that is amazing in a time without cellphones, email, or text messaging. When I was a kid, I thought it was a huge cannon that was shot in Concord, MA that caused a huge sonic boom that was literally heard around the world. Sometime later, I realized it was just a saying. It was really a few colonists, sick and tired of the British occupation, they went out under the cover of darkness, and shot and killed Redcoats off a country road in Concord, MA, then dumped the bodies into the river. There was no sonic boom. Tell your kids it was just a "saying" and it is not really a loud noise, and save them years of revolutionary history confusion.

At any rate, I thought I would blog about Boston, the birthplace of the revolution that gained USA's independence, and one of my favorite meals I recently had while there for a family reunion a couple weeks ago.

Boston Harbor. The multi-million condos were built in old wharf warehouses in the 1980s, and really transformed this area into a tourist destination.

When we landed, it was just past the lunching hour. I had it in my mind that I needed some real New England Clam Chowder. New England Clam Chowder is made by using bacon, fat back or salt pork with cream or whole milk as the base, and then usually clams and potatoes are added to finish off the chowder. I had been thinking about New England Clam Chowder from Durgin Park, the most fabulous chowder in Boston, for weeks before landing in Boston.

Since it was about 2 p.m. by the time we got to Faneuil Hall, Durgin Park was fairly empty, so we got a seat right away. It was my lucky day!

Here is my New England Clam Chowder that I have been thinking about for weeks! I just was rich, creamy, clamy, and perfect with some oyster crackers. There is no other place in the world that can make New England Clam Chowder like Durgin Park. I can't make this good either. I got a huge bowl of this chowder and ate every last drop. The problem now is that I just don't want to eat any soup with the "clam chowder" label in just any restaurant anywhere in the world, now that I the best New England Clam Chowder. I must get back to Boston soon and get some more of this liquid gold.

If the clam chowder wasn't enough, I got myself a broiled cod sandwich. The quote Mystic Pizza that always sticks with me is, "I thought the only two things that come through here are lobster and cod." So, I had my cod sandwich. It was really good with a little tartar sauce. This lunch really hit the spot, and really was as New England - Boston as you can get.

Happy I.D. and remember kids, "heard 'round the world" is just a saying.

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Boston Eats
Durgin Park