Sweet and Sour in Boston

So I've been kicking around this idea for a while about what restaurants/bars would I love to have in my neighborhood. Now I live in the South End, so there are already great restaurants and bars, but I find myself having cravings sometimes that just can't be satisfied with what's around me.

Let's start with the lowest of low end dining to the highest of high end.

There are days when I just need to have one of the following: gyros, hot dogs, shawarma, tacos or fried chicken. While I can get some form of any of those items in my neighborhood now, they just aren't as satisfying.

So from Seattle, I would love it if an Aladdin would open up right on Albany street. Hands down the best gyros ever, and also open until 4 in the morning. So many nights during my college years ended with me passed out on a couch with an empty Aladdin wrapper on me.

For hot dogs, it's gotta be none other than Hot Dougs. Our review can be found here. Hot dogs on the very finest, and on the cheap side.

In NYC, there's some shawarma place I've been to a few times that was knock your socks off delicious. I don't know where it was, or the name of it. However, Brookline's own Shawarma King wouldn't be a bad replacement. (I know there's some pita place opening up on Union Park and Albany, so maybe that will be my local middle eastern eatery.)

And I know many people in the South End will hate me for this, but dammit, I would love it if a Taco Bell/KFC hybrid would open up within walking distance from our condo. And that Taco Bell better serve the Chili Cheese Burrito I love so much.

Now no neighborhood would be complete without the great hamburger joint that all locals know about and tourists hunt down. For me, that has to be the greatest gastropub I've ever been in, The Spotted Pig. (Review here.) Tremont 647 has a good burger already in our neighborhood, but it doesn't quite compare to The Spotted Pig. A nicer bathroom will have to be included though. If I can't have The Spotted Pig, how about a Bukowski's? Not only will that quench my thirst, so to speak, for a great beer bar, but their burgers, especially before 8pm, are cheap and delicious.

Speaking of beers, I would also need a microbrewery in my ideal neighborhood. Once again, Seattle comes through for me: Big Time Brewery can easily be transported from the U-District onto Washington Street right? Their website lists all their different beers, but the best is Old Rip. My personal favorite beer. Add in the awesome shuffleboard table, and I think I've found my McClarens. (That's a How I Met Your Mother reference. And I'm so jealous that those lucky people have such a great bar right below their building.)

When gameday rolls around and I'm too lazy to fry up my own chicken wings, I'd drive myself to Brookline to get Wings Over Brookline. Their boneless wings are the greatest. They need to either widen their delivery area or open one up on Tremont Street.

Steaks...coming from Oklahoma, I know steaks can be big, juicy, tasty, and cheap. In Boston, you are not going to find cheap steak. It's impossible. What we need in the South End is either Cimarron Steakhouse or Cattlemen's Steakhouse. You telling me the people of Boston wouldn't want to go spend $20 and get a 25 oz porterhouse steak with two full sides? On the opposite end, sometimes you do need to go to a fancy steakhouse, and Boston for sure is not missing any of those. However, if you could get a restuarant similar to Peter Lugar on a quiet street like Shawmut, well there's your hidden jewel that is worth driving to.

While I can't see Thomas Keller opening a French Laundry or Per Se up in Boston, I could see him opening a Bouchon. Gaslight is in a similar mold, the warm inviting bistro, and is definitely one of the best restaurants in my neighborhood already...but it does not have the Thomas Keller name associated with it. You talk about economic stimilus right there, what with all those foodies coming in from all over to try out one of the world's greatest chef's newest place. You thought parking was trouble before...

I'm sure I'm leaving off tons of other places, and as you can see, my dream neighborhood would be a foodie mecca. If you lived here and could not find something for dinner that suits your fancy, well you probably are a vegan or vegetarian and I wouldn't want you in my neighborhood anyways. (I kid, I kid...I'm sure you can live off of the bean burrito at Taco Bell.)

Time for me to go off on some rants:

1. Its 9:00AM on a Tuesday and I’m all of a sudden in the mood for a doughnut. Maybe a chocolate one with cream filling, or maybe a chocolate cake style one…who knows. I go downstairs to the cafeteria and THEY ARE OUT OF DOUGHNUTS!!! So I go to the little store down the hall and THEY ARE OUT OF DOUGHNUTS!!!! I have a feeling that even though I’ve already had Nong Shim noodles for breakfast (the breakfast of champions) that the reason I’m craving doughnuts is I heard on the radio that if you wear your “I Voted” sticker at some places, you can get free stuff. Seeing as I’m a convicted felon who lost my vote 7 years ago in what I still claim as an accident and not my fault (Judge Brewer of the 7th district court of Kingstown County, IL didn’t agree obviously) I do not get to participate in getting free coffee or free doughnuts at random places.

Various sites list what freebies there are. You can follow these links for yourself and find out:

http://thebostonfoodie.blogspot.com/2008/11/election-day-freebies.html

http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/5292910.aspx

http://jilliancyork.com/2008/11/03/election-day-freebies/

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the fact that a building that holds nearly 2000 workers would be out of doughnuts at 9am. I spent the last few minutes walking up and down the hallways seeing if anyone brought extra dunkin doughnuts to their morning meetings, but alas, there were none…so now I’m staring at candy that Abby gave me and wondering if it’s too early to have a few pieces.

2. Speaking of office food, why is it that whenever I see a box of pizza left out by the copier at 2pm, knowing that its leftover from a meeting that probably started around 11:30 and the pizza is no more edible than the cardboard that holds it, I’ll still go and grab a slice or two? Yesterday I did this and immediately regretted this decision halfway through the pizza. Yucky…yet, if there’s leftover pizza there today, you know I’ll grab a slice.

3. I have a feeling that the reason I’m so fat and out of shape is probably summed up nicely by the previous two bullets…

4. How I Met Your Mother was horrible last night. Absolutely horrible. If that was my first time to watch an episode, I would have wanted that show to get cancer and get cancelled on the spot. Lets get off this crappy Ted stuff and get back into Barney, Barney, hot ass chicks, Barney and more Barney.

5. Simpsons got its highest ratings in over 5 years for it’s treehouse of horrors special. I watched that episode, first full Simpsons episode I’ve watched in probably 5-7 years…and it sucked. It was horrible. There has not been a good Simpsons episode since 1999. This is horrible crap that should have ended over 5 years ago.

God damn...I really hate Texas...and losing to them really sucks. I told myself after the USC loss in the Orange Bowl for the MNC that I would not get so emotionally involved with my beloved Sooners any more. It's too much. Every time they lose I'm on the brink of tears...which says a lot since I haven't cried in a very, very long time. Serious. (Abby makes fun of me for not crying. At my friend's wedding a couple of weeks ago, my friend's were telling me that I'd cry at my own wedding. I really don't think I would. I mean, I ain't no punk-bitch. I ain't gonna shed no tear. But seriously, I don't cry.) That is not the same as not showing emotions. I showed plenty on Saturday. The entire spectrum : unbelievable joy and happiness to anger and sadness, wondering why God would let such an honorable and noble team like my Sooners lose to such a despicable ass-hat like Mack Brown. At the end of each year or a dissapointing loss, I always say the same thing, "It's only a game, it shouldn't affect my real life." But affect it, it does. Seriously, I won't visit a sports website for at least a week. I won't listen to sports radio for at least a week. This might actually up my productivity at work. My routine this morning at work normally goes like this: log into computer, shoot the shit with my cubemate, open up firefox and go to thebiglead.com, then espn.com, then collegefootballnews.com, etc, etc. Instead today went like this: log into computer, shoot the shit with my cubemate, hold back the tears as I tell him how my Sooners lost, open up firefox and go to boston.com, realize I hate reading the news, and then stare into space for 20 minutes. So maybe my productivity isn't going to improve, but the routine is definitely affected.

Anyway, other things happened this past week. We went to Masa and while I should give a big review on it, we didn't take pictures and since we were catching up with some friends we couldn't get into all the details. The food, as usual, was incredible. Starting from the best bread basket in town, highlighted by the best bread dips in town, to the incredible pork shoulder, to the Banderita shots at the end, everything that went into my mouth was incredible. However, the service was unusually slow. I mean, really slow. Our waiter looked like he'd rather be somewhere else that to serve at Masa. That didn't really affect us too much though, because the atmosphere, the company we were with, and the food made the night.

Friday night, after a very long week at work, we decided to stay in. I made up some flank steak tacos. Recipe and pics will come soon.

We also went to the Courtyard by Marriot on Tremont Street to look at their setup for a wedding reception on Saturday. It was well done. The main ballroom of the Courtyard is a lot nicer than one expects from the way the outside of the hotel looks. We were given a quote that was very reasonable, so this venue is definitely high on our list.

After our quick viewing of the hotel, I had a hankering for some fried shrimp. Not the popcorn variety either. I wanted head-on fried jumbo shrimp. Asian style one might say. Before we left the condo to go to the Courtyard we were watching Simply Ming and he did a dish with some shrimp. I think that got me in the mood for it. Anyway, we walked around Chinatown for a while looking for a place to get a decent meal, but couldn't find what exactly I was looking for. So we ended up at Penang. I'll have a bigger review coming later, but the meal was good, even though I didn't get my head-on shrimp.

More posts will be coming later today.

Ok, I don't want to turn into APR and go off on a rant, but last's night episode of Bones included a misnomer that doesn't really piss me off as much as just annoys me. In that episode they said that the sperm they found on floor of the copy room was from an Asian male. They concluded that there was only one Asian male in the office so he must have been the killer. Um...I'm pretty sure that India is part of Asia, making the Asian office worker count equal to 2. Here is my letter to the Bones creative team that I probably won't ever send them:

Dear Creators of Bones -

First let me say that I enjoy your show. The characters are enjoyable and the show is always good for a few laughs. (One minor suggestion would be to have more boobies!) However, last night's episode, the one with the lady found dead in the elevator, had a line and train of thought that I had an issue with. I wasn't offended by it at all, just more annoyed. After the sperm sample was proven to be from a man of Asian decent, it was immediately said that there was only 1 Asian male working in the office. (Chip I believe his name was.) However, this was false. There was another Asian male working in the office, in fact, he even had a pronounced role in the beginning as the person getting onto the elevator last and also later taking a picture of the "hot chick". Even later, there was a joke about his ethnicity in how it would help him communicate with tech support in a foreign land. From IMDB, this man was Hamid Hirani, an office worker with Asian-Indian decent. Why was he not considered Asian? India is part of Asia the last time I checked.

I'm sure this was a simple overlook in the Bones writing team. Somehow narrowing the field of suspects down to one with only 10 minutes left in the show. I just don't see how this could be such a huge omission though. This is just enforcing the thought the only Asians are Chinese, Koreans, or Japanese. Russians are technically Asian, so are Pakistanis and Indians.

I really have no idea where I'm going with this rant. Maybe I thought that after the success of Harold and Kumar that the obvious stereotypes of all people, not just Asians. Maybe I'm the only one who thought that ignoring the fact that the Indian office dude was Asian was a big deal, who knows... Anyway, keep making an enjoyable show and please, more boobies!