From the Archives: Squeegee Your Anomie with Rye Whiskey

Max Toste of Deep Ellum decants a Rye Manhattan
(photo courtesy of The Boston Herald)

As I rarely have time to create original essays for this blog, I occasionally reprint ancient pieces of mine, including articles I wrote long ago for alt-weekly Boston’s Weekly Dig (now known as Dig Boston), many of which became unavailable online after its mid-2007 website makeover.

Here’s one of a series of cocktail pieces I did for The Dig focusing on little-known and underappreciated spirits, in this case, American straight rye whiskey. Rye was just making its comeback in Boston bars with the help of the scene’s best craft cocktail purveyors; few local food writers seemed to have noticed. I also suspect this is a very early mention in the Boston press of a raw-egg cocktail.

SQUEEGEE YOUR ANOMIE WITH RYE WHISKEY
It’s a film noir world: drop that Technicolor cocktail
First published in Boston’s Weekly Dig, February 21, 2007

Rye commands reverence among booze historians as America’s oldest whiskey, the original base of ancient cocktails like the Manhattan. Yet despite cultish adherents and growing press attention, rye cruises in the blind spot of most Boston bartenders. Order it and you’re liable to get a blank stare, or an unassuming blended Canadian whisky like Crown Royal, a substitute that Americans had to settle for during Prohibition. Repeal came too late to restore American rye’s fortunes: bourbon had usurped the American whiskey throne, relegating the impoverished surviving ryes to the plebian front-end of Boilermakers.

Philip Marlowe, the archetypal private detective of 1940s hardboiled crime fiction, slugged rye from bottles stashed in his desk and glove box. Preferring brash rye to sweeter, mellower bourbon flagged Raymond Chandler’s protagonist as an old-school hard guy. The assertive bite Marlowe favored is distilled from a mash of at least 51% rye grain (where bourbon uses sugar-rich corn) and aged in charred-oak barrels. Respectable ryes under $40 are still produced by venerable brands like Van Winkle and Sazerac, but this roughneck is also getting the super-premium makeover: you can now drop $100 or more on 21-year-old ryes from boutique producers like The Classic Cask.

As for cocktails, rye’s emphatic character is ill-suited to the sickly-sweet concoctions that rookies order when they graduate from Goldschläger shots. Crafting a well-balanced rye cocktail demands a certain scholarly, 19th-century rigor and inventiveness. Such precise bartending chops are cultivated at only a handful of local bars, like Cambridge’s B-Side Lounge, which spearheaded Boston's vintage-cocktail revival and has trained some of our best mixologists. At these elite establishments, rye is one tool in the campaign to hoist Boston drinkers out of the dark age of chocolate “martinis”. When you’re ready for a grown-up drink with some grizzled authenticity, try curling your lip like Bogart and ordering a rye cocktail from one of these expert purveyors.

Green Street. Dylan Black, proprietor of this recently-remade Central Square restaurant that serves robust New England fare, is an accomplished barman and savant of American imbibing history. His long cocktail list prominently features rye. The Daisy Black ($7.50) – named for his great-grandfather, himself a bartender in rye’s original heyday – softens the burred edges of Old Overholt rye with fresh lemon juice and honey syrup. More adventurous tipplers might try the Toronto ($8), a prize fight in a cocktail glass: jangly rye duking it out with blackish, poisonously-bitter Fernet Branca, with simple syrup trodden underfoot. You might flirt with the cross-dressing weirdness of the Double Standard ($8), which drapes rye in fruity, Cosmo-pink togs of Plymouth gin, lime juice, and raspberry syrup. Or you could just savor some Michter’s rye ($6) plain with a bit of water, a better match for this gastro-tavern’s bluff, unaffected charm.

Green Street, 280 Green St, Cambridge. 617.876.1655 www.greenstreetgrill.com/

Deep Ellum. This Allston newcomer serves a creative pub-food menu, but is foremost a connoisseur’s beer bar with 22 drafts, 90+ bottles, a cask unit, and lots of brew-specific glassware. Fortunately, co-owner Max Toste is also a devotee of old-time cocktails like the Sazerac ($7): Old Overholt rye, Peychaud’s bitters and simple syrup stirred with ice, decanted into a cocktail glass rinsed with anise-scented Absente pastis, finished with a lemon twist. After just one, I feel like an honored guest at a particularly well-appointed French Quarter brothel. Less complicated but also delightful is the Rye Sour ($7), rye and a house-made sour mix of fresh citrus juices and sugar. With several brands to choose from, including Old Potrero, a 100%-malt-rye straight whiskey from San Francisco that Max declares “better for sipping”, we’ll return to explore obscure corners of Deep Ellum’s vintage bar guides. Maybe that beer list, too.

Deep Ellum, 477 Cambridge St, Allston. 617-787-2337, www.deepellum-boston.com/

No. 9 Park. The cocktail cheffery practiced at this luxury Italian/French restaurant near the State House may be the best in Boston, worth suffering the obnoxious company of its toffee-nosed Beacon Hill regulars. Occasional twee flourishes of molecular gastronomy, like toppings of nitrous-oxide foams, are forgivable: the bar staff executes the classics with integrity and impeccable ingredients. A Green Point ($11) takes Old Overholt rye and Punt e Mes, an intensely-aromatized Italian sweet vermouth, and adds Green Chartreuse liqueur for herbal complexity and a faint sweetness. The result is a multi-faceted, mahogany-hued riff on the Manhattan, gorgeously trimmed with a fresh cherry steeped in Maraschino liqueur (no horrific candied-clown-nose garnishes here). After dinner, I order a Rye Flip ($10). Heads swivel as Courtney [Hennessey] cracks a raw egg into a dry shaker, agitates it, adds ice, Rittenhouse rye and simple syrup, shakes it again long and hard, strains it into a claret glass, and grinds some fresh nutmeg on top. Half the bar watches my first swallow; the effete blueblood-wannabe on my left cringes with nausea. I grin. This is what real nog is supposed to taste like: rich, potent, just barely sweet. I feel virtuous, vigorous, like a star in my own black-and-white movie. While I agree with Chandler that “It is not a fragrant world,” the right rye cocktail can certainly refresh it for a moment.

No. 9 Park, 9 Park St, Boston. 617.742.9991 www.no9park.com

RIP, Peter O'Toole. Glad I Got to Review You in "Ratatouille"

Image courtesy of Picture Show Pundits

I was saddened to read of the passing of Peter O’Toole, the great British actor I much admired in films like Lawrence of Arabia, The Stunt Man, The Ruling Class and My Favorite Year. But I was especially tickled by one performance that many obituaries omitted: his icy Parisian restaurant critic Anton Ego in Pixar’s 2007 animated feature Ratatouille.

Aside from O’Toole’s vivid voice work, I loved the fact that -- six-year-old-movie spoiler alert -- the chef/hero, a rat from the provinces who improbably ends up running a Parisian restaurant kitchen, manages to win over Ego’s hard-hearted professional spoilsport with a Provençal comfort-food dish that mashes the critic’s nostalgia buttons. (I confess: that same tactic has worked on me.)

When the film debuted, I was writing only restaurant reviews and food/drink features for alt-weekly Dig Boston; doing a film review was a lark. As it happened, I loved the movie, even though its depiction of food critics is a bit problematic.

The Dig redesigned its website in the summer of 2007 and in the process accidentally blew up its online archives, so I’m running it again here. RIP, Mr. O’Toole. It’s not the size of the life, but the size of the liver.


From Boston’s Weekly Dig, 27 June 2007

RATATOUILLE
There’s a rat in me kitchen, thank goodness.
Review by MC Slim JB

When the Dig asked me to provide a Chowhound’s take on Ratatouille – Pixar’s new computer-animated feature about a rat who aspires to be a great chef – I thought, what business does a food writer have reviewing movies? But as a restaurant fanboy and film geek, I’ve noticed the two worlds have much in common. They’re collaborative efforts: a film’s scenarist, director and actors mirror a restaurant’s chef, cooks and servers. Enjoyment of each requires a couple of hours’ time and benefits from comfy seats and boon companions. Whether dining or viewing is the main event, discussing it afterward is part of the fun.

No surprise, I love food-themed movies. I went in prepared to measure Ratatouille against the greats of the genre. My all-time favorite is Tampopo (1985, Japan), in which a trucker helps a young widow save her failing ramen stand by taking her on a quest to uncover the quintessential noodle soup recipe. It both respects and satirizes genre films, movie lovers and food dorks, and features some jaw-dropping scenes that deliriously conflate the pleasures of food and sex.

Another is Big Night (1996), in which two immigrant brothers struggle to keep their traditional Italian restaurant afloat in philistine 1950s New Jersey. The climactic feast, prepared for a VIP who never shows, is one of filmdom's giddiest, most tantalizing dinner parties, while the wordless finale is a lyrical reminder of how cooking and sharing a meal can express love and forgiveness. Does Ratatouille belong in this rarified company?

It has some bona fides. The film got the food-nerd community buzzing by hiring Thomas Keller – chef/owner of The French Laundry and Per Se, two of America’s mostly highly regarded restaurants – as a consultant. Keller guided the filmmakers’ painstaking efforts to realistically recreate the workings of an Escoffier-vintage kitchen brigade and its product. Meanwhile, co-writer/director Brad Bird – of The Iron Giant (1999) and The Incredibles (2004) – has created a hero any food obsessive can identify with.

That would be Remy (ingenuously voiced by alt-comedy genius Patton Oswalt), a rural rat with a hypersensitive nose, refined palate, and dreams of culinary greatness. He covets fresh people-food and emulates its cooking, to the bemusement of his trash-scavenging family. Separated from them during an emergency evacuation of their country nest, he lands in Paris in the kitchen of Gusteau’s, a once-famed, now down-at-the-heels restaurant. The ghost of the late chef Gusteau himself (Brad Garrett, sage and dolorous), whose cookbooks and cooking shows have made him Remy’s hero, pops up periodically as mentor and conscience.

Remy forges a symbiotic relationship with the kitchen’s plongeur Linguini (Lou Romano), a clumsy doofus utterly bereft of cooking skills. Like Cyrano turning an inarticulate hunk into a silver-tongued Romeo, Remy becomes Linguini’s literal puppet master, making him a talented cook by proxy. Thus Linguini earns acclaim for himself and the envious enmity of the gnomish, scheming Skinner (a gleefully wicked Ian Holm), the restaurant’s current chef/owner.

Remy and Linguini’s other antagonist, restaurant critic Anton Ego (imperiously voiced by Peter O’Toole) may cause food writers everywhere to squirm, and not just because he looks like a refugee from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. The real affront is how the film misrepresents their profession. Ego’s a pompous aesthete, insufferably certain of his power and infallible taste. Wait, that’s not the error: it’s his announcement that he’ll dine at Gusteau’s the following evening to review it. I know that every local restaurateur recognizes the critics from Boston Magazine and the Boston Herald, ensuring they get fabulous meals, but some of us still cultivate anonymity, seeking the same treatment as our readers.

That’s a quibble in a film where the food looks so fabulous, the milieu and technique so true to life. Ironically, another false note belongs to Keller with his design of the titular specialty that Remy creates to impress Ego. Unlike most of Remy’s soulful, instinctive cooking, Keller's ratatouille is a fussy, post-modern abstraction of the humble French peasant stew. Looking like a Bundt cake made of poker chips, ringed by a too-careful smear of sauce and crowned with a tiny sliver of basil, it’s the least appetizing dish in the movie.

Mercifully, Ratatouille eschews the obnoxious pop-culture riffing that has plagued recent animated films, which should help it age much better than anything involving Robin Williams. The CG looks gorgeous: wet rat fur is as lovingly rendered as the sleek, Anna Karina-esque bob worn by Colette (a winning smarty-punk performance by Janeane Garofalo), the brigade’s feisty lone female cook. I’m grateful that Remy and his clan aren’t Disney-cute; they look especially glossily, greasily gross when running for their lives, as rats frequently must do.

Ratatouille features thrilling action sequences, abundant slapstick, nefarious intrigue, screwball romance, and lovely Parisian scenery, albeit with some pat homilies about daring to follow your dreams. I particularly enjoyed Colette’s Anthony Bourdain-like description of Skinner’s dubious kitchen crew, as well as Remy’s musings on the ecstasies of well-matched flavors. The kids will love it, but even meat-and-potatoes grownups should find Ratatouille brisk, hilarious and moving. With any luck, it will also inspire them to cook with a bit more passion and joy, and maybe eat a little less garbage.

From the Archives: Five-Drink Minimum at Vinalia

Once again, I'm reprinting an ancient piece of mine from Boston's Weekly Dig that disappeared when its online archive went kablooey sometime in the summer of 2007. Five-Drink Minimum is an annual Dig feature series that sends local writers to one or more Boston bars to document a brief binge. 

My assignment in March, 2006 was to bottom-up five drinks – one of the bartender's choosing, the rest mine – at Vinalia, a bygone, fairly fancy restaurant and wine bar in Downtown Crossing that sat in the spot currently occupied by Petit Robert Central.

I think this piece demonstrates that our drinks scene has made some progress in seven years: few Boston bartenders in 2013 at this price level would have no idea what American straight rye whiskey is, and the Sex and the City-style oversized cocktail glass is thankfully on the wane.

FIVE-DRINK MINIMUM: VINALIA RESTAURANT, LOUNGE & WINE BAR 
By MC Slim JB
101 Arch Street, Downtown Crossing, 617.737.1777, www.vinaliaboston.com 
From the March 15, 2006 issue of Boston's Weekly Dig

Vinalia is determinedly modern, chicly spare and hard-edged, a polished black-granite bartop reflecting a glowing, cobalt-blue wall. Bartender Christine says, “Vinalia gets insanely packed on weeknights with after-work Financial District types. We pour many specialty cocktails, but we’re a serious wine bar. Weekends are calmer, mostly couples on dates and event groups.”

Drink 1, Christine’s choice: dreading the kind of candy-flavored fauxtini they concoct for rookies, I’m relieved instead to get a Sidecar up ($9), a grownup’s drink. Successful Sidecars hinge on fresh lemon juice: fortunately, the centerpiece of Vinalia’s bar is piles of fresh fruit. Yikes, is that a 14-ounce cocktail glass? Five of these will coldcock me.

Drink 2, (the rest are my choices): Manhattan up ($9). At most joints, asking for rye – the original Manhattan base, not bourbon (look it up) – creates confusion. “I don’t think we stock rye,” says Christine. “Canadian whisky* comes close,” I offer. “Use Crown Royal.” The result sports just the right Angostura accent: smooooth.

Drink 3: Time to switch to wine, or I’ll be stumbling into the path of a Silver Line bus. The by-the-glass list is diverse and sensibly priced for a bar this swanky. Feeling magnanimous after two birdbaths of fancy hooch, I order a 2004 Contratto Panta Rei Barbera d’Asti ($11), a complex, hot Piemontese red served in a quality balloon wineglass. Under the eerie blue lighting, it looks like chocolate syrup. Drinking rich sure is easy when the boss is paying.

Drink 4: The bar is full of witty, gorgeous young devotees of Bacchus, or so the knots of friends at the lounge tables appear to my lubricated senses. I’m ready to jet to Tuscany with a 2004 Villa Vignamaggio Chianti ($10), from a winery I once visited on a holiday stopover in Greve, the very spot where Mona Lisa sat for Leonardo. Overcome with nostalgia and the realization that I haven’t had a real vacation in years, I decide this wine is both awesome and a little sad. 

Drink 5: The homestretch calls for something short and sweet, an Austrian dessert wine, a 2005 Weinlaubenhof Alois Kracher Beerenauslese Cuvee ($11), which I mistakenly fancy I can actually pronounce. It’s a viscous, flowery, golden little cup of nectar, and I feel ever-so-worldly for knowing about it. Pretty soon it’s done, and so am I. I grip the handrail tightly on the long escalator ride down and out of the bubble of ease and savoir-faire that Vinalia creates, emerging unsteadily into the windblown trash of Downtown Crossing.

* I included this aside to my editor: “Please note the spelling ‘whisky’ (no ‘e’) for Canadian and Scotch, not ‘whiskey’, the spelling used for the American and Irish spirits.” He ignored me.

What’s up with the odd moniker, MC Slim JB?

Pictured: an actual MC
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I know my pen name is obviously unconventional for a food writer, so I get asked about its origin a lot. It dates back to the days when my friends and I, very young punk-rock kids, became fans of old-school hip-hop: The Sugarhill Gang, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, et. al. We sat around dreaming up stage names: what would your emcee (rapper) or deejay (turntablist) name be? Good for a laugh, but as I was unlikely ever to rap outside of the shower, my microphone controller name “MC Slim JB” went into a drawer alongside my spinner name, “DJ Phattee Phat Phat" or somesuch.

I dredged up the MC moniker sometime around the turn of the century for use as my alias on Chowhound.com, where most posters go by nicknames. As a frequent poster on Chowhound's Boston Board, I came to the attention of two local print-media editors: Scott Kathan of Stuff Magazine, and Eric Solomon of Boston’s Weekly Dig. Both approached me the same week with offers of freelance food writing work. Kathan, my first editor, suggested I write under my Chowhound nickname, saying “MC Slim JB has some credibility with local Chowhounds, and I’d like you to bring that Chowhound sensibility to your food writing here.” Solomon saw similar value in the name for use at The Dig.

After my food writing debut with a Stuff cover story and over 30 pieces for The Dig, I felt the name had brand equity worth preserving, and so pitched it as I went on to write for Boston Magazine (where predictably it made the editors nervous) and The Boston Phoenix (which valued its name recognition). My current gigs at The Phoenix (a cheap-eats review column) and Stuff Magazine (a fine-dining review column) are what I am now best known for, all as MC Slim JB.

So through no real plan, a jokey lark from my youth ended up as my nom de plume. As it happens, choosing an alias for Chowhound instead my real name proved a happy accident, as the anonymity it afforded has made it easier to avoid special treatment, the extra service and kitchen attention that well-known critics get. (The great Ruth Reichl outlines this phenomenon in her excellent, funny restaurant-critic memoir “Garlic and Sapphires”.)

Anonymity is a fragile thing; no critic goes unrecognized forever. But thanks to the MC Slim alias, many restaurants still don’t know me by sight, and I strive to be an unobtrusive, ordinary-Joe diner. This improves the chances that my experience will be the same as that of any diner walking in off the street, not the “as perfect as it can be” version that recognized critics tend to get. With any luck, there will always be restaurants that don’t connect the dots between that person sitting at the counter and the food writer with the odd hip-hop name.

My published articles that are no longer available online

Much of my early professional food writing was for the alt-weekly Boston's Weekly Dig, now known as Dig Boston. The restaurant reviews, food/drink features, and film writing I contributed there are no longer available online, thanks to a summer 2007 website redesign that vaporized its archives. Only my last piece for The Dig, a review of J.J. Foley's Cafe in Boston's South End, written just after the new website went up, is still online. Other pieces you can link to here are ones I have republished on this blog.

Here's a summary of my now-offline work; scans of the print versions of these pieces are available on request:

Coda – 18 Jul 07
A review of a casual bar/restaurant in Boston’s South End
Reviews: Coda Kitchen & Drinks
Mentions: Tim’s Tavern, Franklin Café, Aububon Circle, Charlie’s Kitchen, Rattlesnake, Daisy Buchanan’s, Taberna de Haro
Word count: 850

T.W. Food – 27 Jun 07
A review of an upscale bistro in Cambridge.
Reviews: T.W. Food
Word count: 1222

Ratatouille -- 27 Jun 07
My first professional film review, written from the perspective of a restaurant critic and cinephile. It’s a food-themed movie, Pixar’s computer-animated feature about a rat who dreams of becoming a chef. Oh, and one of the heavies is a restaurant critic.
Reviews: Ratatouille
Mentions: Tampopo, Big Night
Word count: 887

Discovering Another, Better North End at Lunch -- 06 Jun 07
A roundup of worthy North End restaurants serving lunch, with a look at why the neighborhood is often more enjoyable in daylight than at dinner.
Reviews: Volle Nolle, Pizzeria Regina, Massimino’s, Mangia Mangia, Neptune Oyster
Word count: 1313

Build Up Your Bar Bench with a Better Bottle of Vermouth -- 23 May 07
A look at vermouth as an aperitif and cocktail ingredient, with reviews of specific bottlings as well as some vermouth-based cocktails served at my favorite Boston restaurant/bars.
Reviews: Eastern Standard Kitchen, No. 9 Park, B-Side Lounge, Tremont 647
Word count: 851

Wandering Into (and Waddling out of) Roslindale’s Restaurants -- 02 May 07
A roundup of restaurants in Roslindale, an outer borough of Boston.
Reviews: Nuvo Kitchen & Wine Bar, Birch Street Bistro, Romano’s Pizzeria, Delfino
Mentions: The Cheesecake Factory, Fornax Bread Baking Co.
Word count: 1471

Learning to Take the Bitters with the Sweet -- 11 Apr 07
A look at bitters, a rarified corner of the drinking world that I’m fond of. I discuss both the potable kind (the sort you pour) and the non-potable kind (the sort you decant by the drop), both important ingredients of classic cocktails.
Reviews: No. 9 Park, Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks
Mentions: The Rat
Word count: 661

Newton Restaurants in a (Minor) League of Their Own -- 21 Mar 07
A roundup of four restaurants in Newton, a suburb of Boston, done in the manner of a baseball scout evaluating position players.
Reviews: Restaurant Pava, Ariadne, 51 Lincoln, The Biltmore
Mentions: Lumiere, Oishii, Karoun, Aquitaine Bis, Jumbo Seafood, Biba, Pignoli, UpStairs on the Square
Word count: 1445

Squeegee Your Anomie with Rye Whiskey -- 21 Feb 07
My first piece that focuses on a distilled spirit, specifically rye whiskey, and some cocktails made from it. I sample some rye cocktails at a few of my favorite Boston-area bars, part of a small group of establishments that take old-school cocktails seriously.
Reviews: Green Street, Deep Ellum, No. 9 Park
Mentions: The B-Side Lounge
Word count: 896

Relief for the Starving, Stingy Wine-Lover -- 14 Feb 07
A look at three restaurants with excellent mid-priced food and value-priced wines that aren’t marked up too much, a too-rare combination in Boston.
Reviews: Silvertone Bar & Grill, Taberna de Haro, Les Zygomates
Mentions: Toro
Word count: 902

A Beacon of Deliciousness in the Suburban Heart of Darkness -- 10 Jan 07
A roundup of restaurants in Waltham, a small city about 10 miles NW of Boston, and a great dining destination for its size.
Reviews: Beijing Star, Mi Tierra, Domenic’s Italian Bakery, Taqueria El Amigo, La Campania
Word count: 893

Deliverance -- 10 Jan 07
A staff compendium of things you can get delivered to your home in Boston. My four contributions were on Smithfield ham, local real barbecue, wines/spirits, and Thai sukiyaki.
Reviews: Finchville Farms, Redbones, Bauer Wines & Spirits, Chilli Duck
Word count (of my contribution): 168

West Roxbury at the Culinary Crossroads -- 06 Dec 06
A roundup of restaurants in West Roxbury, another outer borough of Boston.
Reviews: Vintage Restaurant, Viva Mi Arepa, West on Centre, Masona Grill
Mentions: Orinoco, The Blarney Stone, Claremont Café, The Nightingale
Word count: 906

Beatitude on a Budget: The Dig Bánh Mì Survey -- 15 Nov 06
A roundup of places in Greater Boston that make bánh mì, the Vietnamese submarine sandwich.
Reviews: Lu’s, Ba Le Bakery, Mei Sum Bakery, Pho Viet
Mentions: L’Espalier, No. 9 Park, Clio, Aujourd’hui, Speed’s Famous Hot Dog Wagon
Word count: 898

A Soupçon of Soul in the Lusophone Bowl -- 18 Oct 06
A look at three East Cambridge restaurants featuring cuisines of Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) countries: two Portuguese places and a Brazilian one.
Reviews: Casa Portugal, Muqueca, O Cantinho,
Word count: 890

Trailing the Cool Kids to Jamaica Plain -- 20 Sep 06
A roundup of restaurants in Jamaica Plain, one of Boston’s more multicultural neighborhoods.
Reviews: La Pupusa Guanaca, Zon’s, Costello’s Tavern, Ten Tables
Word count: 886

La Brace -- 06 Sep 06
A review of an Italian restaurant in Boston's North End.
Reviews: La Brace
Mentions: Mare, Umbria, Prezza, Davio’s
Word count: 874

Dining Out In Style with the Sox -- 12 Jul 06
A review of some places I favor when I want to catch the Red Sox on TV but want better food than is served at most local sports bars.
Reviews: Audobon Circle, Green Street, Pho Lemongrass, Caffe Umbra
Mentions: Union Bar & Grill, Stella, Sibling Rivalry
Word count: 814

Don't Be Balking at Balkan -- 14 Jun 06
A review of such Balkan restaurants as we had in Boston at the time, which included Greek, Turkish, and Albanian places.
Reviews: Brookline Family Restaurant, Café Apollonia, Meze Estiatorio
Word count: 840

Sudsy Grub (with Ruth Tobias) -- 31 May 06
A piece co-bylined with my friend and sometime collaborator Ruth Tobias, on neighborhood places to dine out after drinking. She did her neighborhood (Boston's North End), I did mine (the South End).
Reviews: Anchovies, Picco
Word count (of my contribution): 391

When I Hear the Word "Culture", I Reach For My Fork -- 17 May 06
A look at restaurants in unlikely places (museums, libraries), with a discussion of the untrustworthiness of most public reviews of restaurants.
Reviews: Bravo, Novel, Sebastian’s Map Room Café, Quotes Cafe
Word count: 831

A Jug of "Bull's Blood", a Plate of Pierogi, Und Sie -- 12 Apr 06
A roundup of Central European restaurants in Greater Boston.
Reviews: Oxford Street Grill, Café Polonia, Jacob Wirth, Jasmine Bistro
Restaurants Mentioned: Karl’s Café, Café Budapest
Word count: 874

5-Drink Minimum: Vinalia Restaurant, Lounge, & Wine Bar -- 15 Mar 06
For its periodic Nightlife Issue, The Dig sends its writers out to various bars to have five drinks in a row there and try to capture the atmosphere of the place while getting tipsy. I covered a fancy wine bar and restaurant in downtown Boston.
Reviews: Vinalia
Word count: 436

Eastie Eats -- 01 Mar 06
A roundup of restaurants in East Boston, home of Logan Airport and a mostly working-class neighborhood with a huge Latino population and a longstanding Italian-American community. This piece appeared in the "Fashion Issue", hence its fashion-industry theme.
Reviews: Rincon Limeno, Taqeuria El Rancho Grande, Carmen’s Kitchen, Zafferano, Royal Roast Beef and Seafood, Santarpio’s
Word count: 1564

The New Dorchester Dining Scene: Like the South End, But Fun -- 18 Jan 06
A look at restaurants in Dorchester, Boston's largest residential neighborhood. This got some grateful letters from residents of Dorchester, which is largely ignored by local food writers.
Reviews: 224 Boston Street, The Blarney Stone, Ashmont Grill, dbar
Mentions: The Paramount, Peking Thom’s, Icarus
Word count: 1537

Table for Everyone and Their Brother – 06 Dec 05
Just in time for the holidays, a roundup of good places to dine out with large groups. Its accompanying illustration was a clever parody of DaVinci's "Last Supper".
Reviews: Laurel Grill & Bar, Khao Sarn Cuisine, Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks, The Rendezvous at Central Square, Maggiano’s Little Italy
Mentions: Rod Dee, Dok Bua
Word count: 1525

My Dirty Secret: I Like the New Bar That Killed the Old Man Bar – 16 Nov 05
A roundup of bar/restaurants in spots once occupied by old-time dive bars. The local press had been rife with stories about how gentrification was ruining these beloved places, so I wrote about places I thought were improvements over the "Old Man Bars" they supplanted.
Reviews: B-Side Lounge, Mission Bar & Grill, Franklin Café
Mentions: The Littlest Bar, Alchemist Lounge, Sullivan's Pub (Charlestown), Jack Lynch’s Webster Lounge, Bukowski Tavern, Hammond Lounge, Washington Square Tavern, Windsor Tap, Choppin’ Block Pub, Waltham Tavern
Word count: 1526

Trattoria Toscana -- 26 Oct 05
My first traditional review of a single restaurant. Most of my restaurant reviews to date had been about collections of thematically-linked restaurants.
Reviews: Trattoria Toscana
Word count: 837

Pasta La Vista (with Michael Brodeur) – 26 Oct 05
A mini-review of five regional Italian restaurants, co-bylined with my editor Michael Brodeur, designed to complement my review of Trattoria Toscana. I wrote the first two items (Taranta and Umbria), and suggested the other three places that Michael covered. This piece ran again as the debut entry in a new weekly feature, “Top 5 List”, in the “Eats and Drinks” section, on 26 Jul 06.
Reviews: Taranta, Umbria
Word count (of my contribution): 190

Trading the Cow for the Magic Beans – 21 Sep 05
Reviews: Addis Red Sea, Fasika, Tamarind Bay, Kashmir, Oleana, L’Espalier
Mentions: Julien Room, Mantra
A roundup of vegetarian fine dining restaurants. This got some appreciative letters from the under-served vegetarian/vegan community.
Word count: 1508

Seasonal Comfort Food -- 14 Sep 05
An article on the autumnal changes to local food and drink menus.
Reviews: Tuscan Grill, The Helmand, Sandrine’s, Aquitaine, Brasserie Jo, City-Bar, Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks, Petit Robert Bistro, South End Formaggio
Mentions: Bolton Spring Farm, Cider Hill Farm
Word count: 1278

How Low Can You Go? – 10 Aug 05
A roundup of alternatives to luxury steakhouses. Not yet sold on the name "MC Slim JB", the publisher insisted on a slightly different byline, "JB Slim", for this one piece (he relented afterward). My original title was "Beef! How Low Can You Go!"
Reviews: Aquitaine, Brasserie Jo, Beacon Hill Bistro, Petit Robert Bistro, Midwest Grill, Green Field Churrascaria, Koreana, Apollo Grill, The Good Life, Lucky’s, Frank’s Steakhouse, The Stockyard
Mentions: The Oak Room, Grill 23 & Bar, Capital Grill, Morton’s, Plaza III, The Palm, Fleming’s, The 57, Dakota’s, Smith & Wollensky, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Abe & Louie’s, Bonfire, Davio’s Back Bay, Blackfin Chophouse & Raw Bar, Outback, Bugaboo Creek, Hilltop Steakhouse
Word count: 1480

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FOR STUFF AT NIGHT (later known as STUFF MAGAZINE)

Five Reasons to Dine at the Bar -- 09 Jun 05
My first piece of published food writing was a cover story on why dining at the bar is sometimes a better idea than sitting in the dining room, illustrated with reviews of restaurants where I often do just that.
Reviews: Union Bar & Grill, Dedo, Caffe Umbra, Bonfire
Mentions: Oleana, Olives
Word count : 2088

(Special, undying thanks to Scott Kathan of Stuff At Night and Eric Solomon of Boston's Weekly Dig for plucking me from the ranks of amateur reviewers on Chowhound.com and giving me a shot at writing professionally!)