Good evening, Kibitzers! This past week was my young nephew’s birthday, so I went on up to the Boston area to put on a family party. While I was there, I had occasion to eat in tons of restaurants, and so I will tell you about them, with links, because I have very little else to say for myself today after driving back and sitting in traffic.
I took roughly zero pictures — that’s what tends to happen when I’m having a good time in the moment. Luckily, my friend TrueBlueMajority was more alert, and it is thanks to her that you see this fabulous strawberry shortcake, adorned with edible flowers and built on a proper homemade biscuit (that’s the “short” part) rather than the slice of poundcake that sadly underlies too many “shortcake” desserts. Also: whipped cream not too sweet! Perfect! More on this later.
My first encounter with good food on this trip was before I’d even really arrived. I stopped at the Natick rest area on the Mass Pike, and there, beside the McDonald’s and the pizza chain, was a stall called Cheesy Street Grill. It sold only variations on grilled cheese sandwiches and mac & cheese. Well, and Tater Tots, a few salads, and of course tomato soup. You can see the menu at the link by scrolling down. I was impressed by my sandwich (Swiss, caramelized onions, fig jam), and decided to look on the internet and find out where the “real” restaurant is so I could take my nephew there — only grilled cheese and mac & cheese is right up his alley. Well, so, that IS the real restaurant. It used to be a food truck, but now it is instead two Mass Pike rest-area stalls, one eastbound in the Natick plaza and one westbound in the Westborough plaza. I am sure my nephew wondered why I was bringing him to a turnpike rest area for lunch, but when he saw the menu, he got it.
We had two nice brunches; one was at a vintage diner called the Deluxe Town Diner. Their menu is not on their website, although there’s a version at dineries, but you can go and see its picture, because who doesn’t love old diners? (Google has more photos.) From Wikipedia (which also has a picture):
The Deluxe Town Diner is an historic diner at 627 Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts.
This diner was manufactured on site, rather than having been prefabricated and shipped to the site from a specific diner manufacturer. In 1947, George Contos and his father built this diner around their earlier Worcester Lunch Car Company diner. The Worcester diner became the kitchen in the current building. The Town Diner's two-tone porcelain siding and its round glass-block corners combine architectural features of the Worcester and Paramount Diner manufacturers, respectively.[2]
The diner was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 as "Town Diner".
On the other hand, The Friendly Toast makes up for the diner’s relatively thin web presence. It’s kind of a hipster-ish giant coffee shop (it’s a small local chain), except with a bar. Their toast is famous because they bake their own bread (six or seven kinds including cinnamon-raisin) and slice it about an inch and a half thick. Also: they make their own corned beef hash, which is a big favorite with me. Oddly, neither of these things is directly mentioned in their online menu.
Then, there was a dinner at Mulan Taiwanese Restaurant. They have a big menu with the sort of standard Chinese-restaurant dishes as well as Taiwanese specialties. (And they have a “traditional menu”, but it’s not in English.) Their stir-fried string beans are spicy and also salty. So good.
But before I spent all this time dining with family, I had lunch with TrueBlueMajority. I asked her to suggest someplace, and she came up with Henrietta’s Table in the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. (Henrietta is the hotel owner’s pig.)
Ask Chef Peter Davis to describe his culinary philosophy, and he’ll tell you “fresh and honest,” or the long version: “fresh from the farm and honest-to-goodness New England cooking.” Davis is an avid conservationist, with close ties to New England’s fishing and farming communities. He is proud about the use of products grown using sustainable agriculture methods and native ingredients when creating dishes at Henrietta’s Table, the restaurant he opened in The Charles Hotel in 1995.
TBM told me in glowing terms about the veggies, but I wasn’t really prepared for the menu’s list of awesome vegetable side dishes. I had rock-crab and corn chowder and a sandwich of grilled ham and smoked cheddar with bourbon BBQ sauce, and we split sides of roasted summer squashes and a spicy roasted cauliflower that was especially tasty. And then, there was that strawberry shortcake.
What a lovely lunch! We went late so we could sit a long time and talk without taking up a table they needed. How lucky I am to have come here to Daily Kos and met some delightful friends! (Who think to take selfies!)
Yet a third hurricane season started June 1, and Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover.
It is Day 692 since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico.
PLEASE FOLLOW Denise Oliver Velez and the SOS Puerto Rico group for the latest news about developments in Puerto Rico and the USVI (diary here regarding the start of another hurricane season). Denise generally collects resonant tweets at the top of her comment threads, as well, and in the APR’s thread most mornings, to make it easy to retweet. If you tweet or FB, please share something about Puerto Rico and USVI regularly.
PUERTO RICO and USVI DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS
The Daily Kos community has its own project: Puerto Rico resident Bobby Neary (newpioneer) leads a small team dedicated to helping a specific rural elder who was left by the storms without power, water, a roof, or any belongings but a moldy mattress. If you like to see concrete results, this is the project for you. See newpioneer’s diaries for ways to help. See this one in particular, and this comment with photos. See also his lovely and heartbreaking poem, and his recent tribute to the island.
(🌅 = most recently recommended by Denise)
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