Scharn's Profile
Maine Shrimp 2012... Can't wait!
thanks for the suggestions, just called island creek and they do NOT have them and say they don't know if they will ever get them...
Maine Shrimp 2012... Can't wait!
thanks! any restaurants that serve them? I'm staying in a hotel.
Maine Shrimp 2012... Can't wait!
any news on where to find them? tried to order at legal some
days back and was told that all their shrimp is frozen and that for some reason basically no restaurant would have local shrimp.
downtown boston would be best, downtown portland a good alternative.
Abalone, sea cucumber etc.
I would like to try out several of the more unusual sea creatures, such as abalone and sea cucumber, given that I like sea urchin a lot.
How do I tell if a sea cucumber is "good"? Which dishes at which restaurants should I try?
Looking for good Ramen in Shibuya
yes.
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130301/13008320/
Looking for good Ramen in Shibuya
Well, a 2/10 chance to go to some shop just to see it closed when you only have a few days in Tokyo is pretty bad, don't you think? And when you're looking at the Tonkotsu-Gyokai shops (I really don't care much for the others) it's ballpark more like 6-7/10. It's probably a good idea to check opening hours in advance.
ps: here's a list. maybe it's even more than 6 or 7 out of the top 10, but I'm simply not bored enough to check it: http://tinyurl.com/7rj5sku
Looking for good Ramen in Shibuya
No, it's actually true.
Of course "most" Ramen shops will be open all the time, but the really good places are often lunch only. Not always, but quite often.
Here are some examples: 麺処 ほん田 is probably almost universally seen as one of the best shops in town and they're open from 11:30--4pm, 麺屋吉左右 is done by 3pm, TETSU closes at around 4pm as does 麺匠 ヒムロク. 中華蕎麦 とみ田 is officially open til 5, but I have been there sometime in the early afternoon and they were sold out.
Looking for good Ramen in Shibuya
well, the OP can probably just paste it into google maps, but your transliteration is of course helping.
Looking for good Ramen in Shibuya
Hand down the best shop is Warito. In fact I would consider it one of the best ramen shops in greater Tokyo and it consistently scores high on ramendb (aka the metacritic of ramen).
Here's a review: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/692641
Warito is basically doing a style called "tonkotsu gyokai" which translates as "pork bones fish broth". That's what people like in Tokyo and most shops have that soup base.
Warito is quite strong, but there is another shop in the area called "Hayashi" 〒150-0043 東京都渋谷区道玄坂1-14-9 and they taste similar to Warito but much lighter. Personally I think too light but tonkotsu gyokai might as well be an acquired taste, so it might be a good idea to first go to Hayashi - especially because it is literally less than 500 ft from your hotel.
Also, you should consider that a) most shops are only open for lunch b) you probably have to stand in line for one hour .
King crab!
Where in New England -- preferably greater Boston area -- can I get crab? I'd prefer a restaurant as it could get difficult to boil one myself using the kettle in my hotel room. Also it should be really good, not frozen.
Cheers!
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - the movie.
PS: Here's a review by an American food blogger who stays in Tokyo:
"Chef Ono’s dishes are simple and straight forward: the freshest fish imaginable, warm carefully selected and cooked rice, deft knife work, and a collection of wise and sarcastic jokes. He is very serious. But unlike Masa, he was faster to crack a smile. He couldn’t stop smirking at how I took a picture of each piece of sushi and even offered to pose; though, his sharp sushi knife was a forceful deterrent. He has a funny sense of humor and is full of clever quips; my limited Japanese only understood the surface."
http://www.alifewortheating.com/tokyo/sukiyabashi-jiro
http://www.alifewortheating.com/tokyo/sukiyabashi-jiro-sushi-revisited
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - the movie.
Jiro has this documentary shot by an American filmmaker which means that probably over months a foreign film crew followed his every move. Hard to believe anyone who had a problem with foreign patrons would allow this.
That being said, if you are 85 yrs old, have 3 michelin stars and are declared a national treasure you probably earned the right to put pretentious patrons in their place, I certainly would.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - the movie.
It makes me want to go. Japanese food writers too really love this guy.
New years eve dinner to wow my girlfriend
Thanks for all the ideas!
With respect to the fireworks, where is the best place to be around midnight? That bar (Top of the Hub?) in Prudential building, or some place near the Harbor, or maybe one of the boats that cruise the harbor?
New years eve dinner to wow my girlfriend
I need ideas =)
ps: we will be staying in the South End.
Yum cha in Boston
thanks for the suggestions!
yes, i have only been once to both places, and I have to admit I might be biased towards carts style or tray style dim sum, maybe because that's how they do it in hong kong at the places i like most.
that being said on the one occasion I was at winsor I ordered some random items (note: you *never* ask for recommendations in a chinese restaurant) and found them simply unimpressive and really not as good as everybody keeps repeating here.
but everyone can have a bad day, so next time I'm in Boston I might check them out again.
Elephant Walk
No, I do separate between food and atmosphere and I found neither especially good and both had a very faux-Asian vibe to me. I didn't criticize the food because I didn't like the decor, but simply because it was not good.
Elephant Walk
Yes, it is fair.
My original post focused on the food and drinks which did not impress at all. Especially that idea to actually recommend Sake with Amok and then to serve -- with a straight face! -- sweet, sparkling Sake was simply bizarre. They even did that little "Here have a tasting sip to see if it's corky."
Why was that wrong?
1. They told me it was "Sake", but Sake is never sparkling. I lived in Japan for a long time, and never was offered nor did I drink sparkling sake. It is basically a novelty-item that does almost not exist in Japan. Sure it's fine to serve it, but please inform me that it is sparkling. That's pretty much like serving a tonic that is non-sparkling when asking for a soft-drink.
2. The Sake arrived in a little bottle with screw top, but still they offered me to test if it was corked. How stupid is that?
3. It does not go well with Amok. The drink was way too sweet, way too sparkling and way to chemical-industrial tasting.
-
To me that drink suggestion really is a good example of the restaurant as a whole: Pick something Asian cause it sounds cool, pretend to be really knowledgeable about it and everything but completely miss the point.
Elephant Walk
Hey, that's a surprise! You're from the Japan board! Nice to hear from you!
B&G Oysters - Are you kidding me!?
As i said in the original post, I cannot judge the Oysters, but the salad was simply BAD and the lobster roll OK, but massively overpriced.
Let me add that I really don't care too much about prices, and *if* their lobster roll was awesome I would not mind to pay even more, but it was not awesome, so charging almost $30 for it feels simply wrong.
-----
B & G Oysters
550 Tremont street, Boston, MA 02118
Lobster by the dock
thanks!
Sure thing: Roy Moore is not doing more than dropping these lobster in boiling water, but I found them really tasty and the atmosphere priceless: you can actually sit at some of these lobster traps while looking at their picture perfect harbor and enjoy really good lobster for like $12 a piece.
Elephant Walk
Well, that's true, but as you say at least noodle soup (which I had) should be served with chopsticks. In any case my point of criticism is not simply chopsticks (in fact I don't care much), but rather that it had a very faux-Asian, vibe -- and did neither feel like French nor Cambodian but rather as a very non-Asian, purely Western commercial operation that would dumb down Cambodian cuisine all the way to make it appealing to almost anybody.
Lobster by the dock
Roy Moore Lobster Co - I loved this place.
It's basically a wooden shack run by a old salt kind of lobsterer that only serves lobsters, which are insanely tasty, and insanely cheap. I think atmosphere-wise you can almost not do better than this place, especially when you sit by the docks.
Is it a restaurant? Well, not really: It's more like a wooden shack with a pot of boiling water, but for what it's worth I found the lobster to be of equal quality to some I had in Tokyo last year which was literally more than ten times the price I paid here.
Go there.
-----
Roy Moore Lobster Co
39 Bearskin Nck, Rockport, MA
Yum cha in Boston
Over the last days I tried several of the Yum cha (dim sum) places in Boston, and I was most impressed with Hei La Moon. Specifically, I found it to be a whole magnitude better than Winsor.
To give you some perspective I like yum cha a lot, and make an effort to try out places every time I am in Hong Kong, so I think I am quite qualified to evaluate that type of food.
Of course Hei La Moon is not as good as the better places in Hong Kong, and was Hei La Moon in Hong Kong I would probably rate it as slightly below 3 stars. But this is not Hong Kong and way too often Yum cha is made terribly wrong in the west. Fortunately, these guys do a pretty good job with all the basics such as har gow, siumai, foong jow which is also indicated by the very large number of Chinese guests.
As a side note, I was sitting at their upper floor which seemed more busy and nice. Next time I'm in Boston and in need of a good Yum Cha fix I will definitely go.
-----
Hei La Moon
88 Beach St, Boston, MA 02111
B&G Oysters - Are you kidding me!?
Caveat: Their oysters might be really good, this review is about their lobster roll.
Some days back I went to B&G Oysters to try out their lobster roll which I ordered together with a salad. 10 minutes and $50 (!) later I am quite sure that this meal could be the worst value for money I ever had.
Let's start with the salad, which cost around $15 and was - not a joke here - roughly 5 or 6 slices of almost tasteless tomato sprinkled with almost tasteless olive oil and topped with a homeopathic amount of basil. I'm guessing this dish literally took less than half a minute to make and its ingredients were almost surely worth less than $0.50.
Now the cold lobster roll was kinda OKish, but tasted more like dressing than lobster, and came with a large amount of lukewarm fries, ketchup, pickles and salad. Don't get me wrong, that lobster roll was not bad, but definitely not good enough for $27. Infact, just for comparison $27 buys me a whole lobster dinner at a place like Yankee lobster which even tough far from perfect definitely tastes better. Add a little drive and $27 buys me 2 small lobsters at Roy Moore's in Rockport which are a whole magnitude more tasty.
Again, if that lobster roll was supreme I would happily pay even more than $27, but for the kind of SUBPAR quality you get, and also the kinda snotty attitude of the waiters paying $50 for a light salad and a below par lobster roll is just stupid and I surely won't do it again.
South End Buttery
I recently happened to stay almost across the street from the South End Buttery. It's probably not a big surprise when I say that this place is awesome.
I have to add that I never went after 10 in the morning, so I cannot comment on anything but their breakfast options and small bakery items which were, with the possible exception of their rather stale croissants, exceptionally tasty. Their coffee is good too, as is the general vibe of the place, which is very warm and welcoming.
The best item on the menu is their Dexter German cupcake, a delicious chocolate cupcake with a honey/walnuts/??? topping. In fact this might have been the best cupcake I ever had.
Pictures (l to r): Pecan Sticky Buns, Buttery Country Biscuit, Oatmeal w/ berries, Dexter German Cupcakes
Bottom line: Highly recommended.
-----
South End Buttery
314 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
Elephant Walk
I'd like to give a quick review of Elephant Walk (Beacon St.). As you may or may not know I had reservation for Bondir, then a work
emergency happened and I had to cancel. By 8:30 it was done, of course bondir was fully booked, and I got somehow tricked into going to Elephant Walk, which was a disaster.
Strictly with respect to food I was not impressed at all. I tried a salad with raw tuna which was OK (4/10), a noodle soup which was bland but also not bad (4/10), and their Amok Royal fish stew which tasted somewhat interesting -- there must be some herb in it I don't know yet -- but other than that really was nothing special. I didn't bother with desserts.
Wity respect to drinks I ordered Sake (their recommendation) and was EXTREMELY surprised when they served a sparkling (!) sweet (!) sake. It tasted like a cheaper Italian prosecco, definitely somewhat industrial and and artificial. While I can't remember the label, it was infact bottled in Nara (Japan), but bottom line is that you don't sell industrial, sweet, sparkling wine as Sake. At least not for $24 for a tiny bottle.
I had a chance to also try my companion's drink (some Martini and pear cocktail) which was comparable artificially, industrial and sweet tasting, read: bad.
I would therefore rate drinks 0/10.
Service was not good, first we had to insist twice to get another table (AC was blowing directly into my neck), then we waited quite a long time.
Decor was tacky, very much geared to an American audience, not original Cambodian at all. Plates were decorated Western style, only fork and knife provided.
So overall "french cambodian in boston" sounded interesting but was a big disappointment. I would rate food and drinks overall a 2/10, service a 3/10 and value a 0/10: We paid around 130 for really not good food.
Verdict: Don't go there. I don't mean to be mean, but sometimes you just need to really warn people.
-----
Elephant Walk
900 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02215
Bondir
279 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
Erbaluce, Bondir or somewhere else for an anniversary?
so bondir it is, i just reserved a table for friday night :)
Breakfast in Boston
whenever i am in boston i go to paramount, might just be that there are other good places but paramount is so good that i never really was motivated enough to look for alternatives
Lots of lobster in Boston?
wow really, i kinda remember it as a very mc donald's-ish chain type of operation, but that was years ago, so maybe they are fancy now, or maybe they are just an overpriced chain
