The Stuff Magazine 2011 Dining Awards

[Photograph by Conor Doherty]

For the fifth year running, I got to write the annual Stuff Magazine Dining Awards cover feature. Longtime readers (of the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 editions) will remember that my take on this hoary old standby of food journalism aims for irreverence, drawing inspiration from sources like Esquire's bygone "Dubious Achievement Awards". There are no traditional best-of categories, and I assiduously try to avoid self-seriousness as I recognize some of my favorite chefs, venues, dishes, drinks, charities, farmstands, trends and moments from the past twelve months of Boston's ever-evolving dining and drinking scene. (Editorial director Scott Kearnan wrote a funny introduction to the issue here.)

The biweekly Stuff Magazine focuses on Boston nightlife, fashion, food and drink, and is the home of my recurring Food Coma column on Boston fine dining restaurants. I'm grateful it gives me the leeway to recognize both the refinement of a fabulous new chef-owned fine-dining establishment like Bondir, as well as the humble charms of its neighbor Camie's Bakery, a modest Haitian restaurant. I'm pretty sure Stuff will be the only local publication to hand out awards for fried bologna, insects served as food (on purpose), Salvadoran sopa de mariscos, and Australian meat pies this year -- and of course, the annual Biggest Balls Award for a bit of questionable audacity on the part of a local nightlife operator.

The balance this year is more laudatory than critical, but fear not; I save the most antic snark for my annual Devil's Dining Awards (as I did in 2010 and 2009), which I'll publish on this blog in December.

Many thanks to photographer Conor Doherty, who lent me one of the outtakes from his hilarious cover shoot for the issue. Left to right, that's chefs Louis DiBiccari, Will Gilson, and Jamie Bissonnette (in the lucha libre mask), winners of my "Kia Soul Giant Hamsters Award for Funniest Ad" (rendered by my editors as the "Clio-Goes-Culinary Award for Funniest Ad".)

Enjoy!

15 Highlights from My 2010 Fine-Dining Column for Stuff Magazine

The year-end issue of Stuff Magazine just came out, and as such it includes several 2010 retrospectives. One is a look back at my biweekly Food Coma column which reviews fine-dining restaurants in Greater Boston, trying to give readers a broad flavor of the restaurant while highlighting one particularly outstanding dish.

The Ultimate Food Coma: The 25 Best Things We Ate This Year not only includes my best-of picks from my 2010 year of high-end dining out on behalf of Stuff, but also includes Scott Kearnan's ten favorites from his Stuff It column, which tends to focus on more casual venues. Here's a breakdown of our picks.

From MC Slim JB’s Food Coma column:

15. Lobster risotto at Strega Waterfront

14. Crispy soft-poached egg at Russell House Tavern

13. Roasted suckling pig at Troquet

12. Grilled steak frites at Grill 23 & Bar

11. Blackened rare ahi tuna with yellow mole at Masa Boston

10. Peking chicken and pot pie at Towne Stove & Spirits

9. Cod en papillotte at La Voile

8. Codorniz al xocolat at Taberna de Haro

7. Dibi at Teranga

6. Farmer's plate at The Gallows

5. Marinated octopus at Bistro du Midi

4. Salumi at Coppa Enoteca

3. Fried Kumamoto oyster at O Ya

2. Kataifi-wrapped langoustines at Menton

1. Seasonal salad at Journeyman

From Scott Kearnan’s Stuff It column:

10. The mezze platter at Karoun

9. Butternut squash ravioli at Barlow's

8. Deviled eggs at Deep Ellum

7. Croque Dog at Mike & Patty's

6. Pork Milanese at Geoffrey's Cafe

5. Deep-fried lobster legs at The Barking Crab

4. Meat pies at KO Catering and Pies

3. Mac Attack at Boston Burger Company

2. Masala ravioli at Da Vinci Ristorante

1. The All the Way dog at Tasty Burger

The feature reflects my general sentiment that despite the lingering chill of the recession, 2010 was still a great year for restaurants Boston, with operators old and new giving us plenty of good reasons to keep dining out. Here's hoping 2011 represents a broad upswing for all of us.

“That’s Not Poutine!”: Observations on Culinary Authenticity and the Exaltation of Drunk Food

Poutine is very popular in Boston right now, a fact I noted in Stuff Magazine last summer in its trendspotting Hot Issue, with my award for Hot Canadian Import: “…one of the world's great cheap drunk-foods, the mighty poutine (pronounced poo-TEEN*). Quebec City tipplers know no night is complete without hitting some seedy, fluorescent-lit casse-croûte or dumpy food truck after last call for a $5 plate of French fries drenched in gravy and tooth-squeaking cheese curds. Bostonians being more discriminating than the average Québécois**, we sometimes like our poutine fancy, as at Pops (560 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.695.1250), where it's topped with short-rib gravy and house-made sausages of rabbit, duck, and wild boar***, and at Harvest (44 Brattle Street, Cambridge, 617.868.2255), where it comes with chicken velouté and bacon. But the moment's hottest poutine purveyor is undoubtedly The Gallows (1395 Washington Street, Boston, 617.425.0200), which, in true gastropub fashion, labors hard over every humble ingredient and does it four ways: classic (in a dark-chicken or vegetarian-friendly mushroom gravy), topped with local produce, topped with foie gras, and the daily changing ‘out of control’ version (sample toppings: sweetbreads, lardons, English peas, and spring onions). That's a platter even a sober person could love.”

A recent discussion on Chowhound’s Boston board digs deeper into the current poutine phenomenon. I observe there that I enjoy poutine to a point -- the point where I think, "Are gravy fries really such a great idea?" Isn’t crispness part of the fry ideal? Shouldn’t we prefer fries that are sauced on the side instead of in the kitchen, which is necessarily going to make them a bit soggy before they hit the table? But the larger question centers on that ancient food-nerd hobbyhorse: is Restaurant X’s version of Dish Y authentic?

I noted that The Gallows' fries are good, its gravies and optional deluxe add-ons excellent. The bone of contention for most poutine lovers is The Gallows' choice of cheese, which though house-made is more like soft, fresh mozzarella than the fromage beaucronne of the canonical version beloved in Quebec: firm cheddar curds, made fresh every day, that literally squeak on your teeth. Very few restaurants in Boston use cheese curds in their poutine -- Eat at Jumbo's in Somerville and All-Star Sandwich Bar in Inman Square are reportedly two exceptions -- and no one is making their own. Also, technically, the sauce should be a velouté – stock thickened with blond roux to achieve a velvety texture -- not just any old gravy, but I think the use of squeaky curds remains the shibboleth for poutine traditionalists.

Some folks further argue that gussying up poutine with fancy ingredients and charging more than $5 immediately takes it out of the realm of drunk food and makes it something else altogether, something – cue menacing music -- inauthentic. My own feeling is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking humble food upscale, replacing mediocre ingredients with quality ingredients, piling on luxury elements, and so on. Canadians themselves have long been dressing up poutine with a dizzying array of add-ons. And Americans didn’t invent $23 poutine au foie gras, either: that was the brainchild of hallowed Montreal snout-to-tail institution Au Pied de Cochon.

Nowadays, every rough-and-ready dish that was first served at a food truck, carnival stand, or greasy spoon eventually gets a genteel makeover, as anyone who's debated the relative merits of Boston's many $20 hamburgers should understand. It's a process that is ripe for derision as pretentious, ridiculous, as evidenced by the jeers and incredulity that greeted the $16 hot dog at Barbara Lynch's The Butcher Shop. The same people who don't blink at paying $8 for a cask-conditioned ale scoff at the $11 pork dumplings at Myers + Chang, saying, "I could get those in Chinatown for $3." Ken Oringer still gets grief in some quarters for his $4 tacos at La Verdad.

But applying that general aesthetic, in this case to modest tavern fare, is in fact what gastropubs like The Gallows, Russell House Tavern, and Garden at The Cellar are all about. I believe the quality of such dishes, wrapped as they are with good drinks, convivial service and cool atmosphere, more than justifies their prices, despite their inglorious origins. Foie gras poutine sounds crazy, except for the fact that the path from the street cart to the white tablecloth is a well-trodden one.

I also believe that despite its relative youth – most sources agree that poutine first emerged sometime in the 1950s – there is a genuine canon or tradition associated with poutine, a classic recipe, any variance from which will offend purists. (I’ve gotten an earful on the depravity of American poutines from a Québécois in-law of mine.) So I think it's perfectly germane to note a widely-held set of expectations about a dish from the regional or ethnic group that originated or popularized it. I have no problem with chefs breaking from a canon -- our food world would be pretty sad if this never happened -- but I think it's important to understand the tradition as a reference point. Maybe nobody cares that spaghetti and meatballs isn't often served in Italy, but it doesn't help your credibility in a discussion to pretend this isn't so, or to market your version as "just like they do in the Old Country".

Some observers object to discussing poutine seriously in the first place: “It’s just drunk food, after all”, and it is true that a lot of poutine in Quebec gets consumed at about 3am after a night in the bars. Or they dismiss it as “peasant food”: potatoes and gravy and primitive cheese, cheap and unsophisticated. I dislike the pejorative use of these terms: "drunk food" and "peasant food" should be non-judgmental. "Cucina povera", for instance, has positive connotations of applying thrift and creativity to a limited larder in straitened circumstances. Drunk food doesn't say to me, "food for the undiscriminating", but does imply inexpensive, salty/fatty/starchy, and available late. There's good drunk food and bad --think of the varying quality of all-night diners -- and yes, some purveyors are getting away with something because their patrons don't care so much. But I don't consider it necessarily a slur on the food itself. The pad kee mao (“drunken noodles”) at Allston’s S&I Thai is a plate of wonderment, even if one etymology of its name suggests drunk food.

So as Bostonians continue to climb aboard the poutine bandwagon, I will note that: a) there is indeed a canonical version of this dish, and very few restaurants around here serve it; b) there should be as much room for carefully-considered and passionate appreciation of so-called drunk foods and other lowborn fare as for haute cuisine****; and c) chefs in Boston shouldn’t be dismissed for wanting to dress poutine in fancy clothes and take it uptown. In other words, in food, as in life, it helps your appreciation of things to have clear-eyed knowledge of exactly where you came from, but that shouldn’t stop you from moving forward, setting a high standard of quality even for your more humble pursuits, and maybe spinning off in some crazy directions once in a while.

-----

* I have since learned that this Anglicized pronunciation is wrongedty-wrong-wrong. The proper Quebec French pronunciation is more like "poo-tin", with both syllables about equally stressed.

** This is pure pandering to my readers.

*** The excellent riff on poutine served at Pops is currently listed on its menu as "grilled sausage trio".

**** I have a floor for this, e.g., I don't think mega-chain dreck like McDonald's McRib or the KFC Double Down merits serious consideration, what my friend Robert Nadeau calls "the connoisseurship of teenagers." No offense, kids, but I remember what I ate in those days.

The Stuff Magazine 2010 Dining Awards

I don't highlight my professional food writing very often here, as that's what the column on the left of this blog is for, but I'll make an exception for the 2010 edition of Stuff Magazine's annual Dining Awards, which I've been doing by myself or in collaboration with my good friend, the awesome food writer Ruth Tobias, for the last four years.

If you go back and reread the awards from 2007, 2008, or 2009, you'll notice these aren't exactly traditional: we try to avoid hackneyed categories like the "Best Italian Restaurant". We draw more inspiration from Esquire's bygone "Dubious Achievement Awards", and so spend as much time deflating the overhyped and shameless as we do lauding the worthy. (And if an award is too snarky even for my rather-indulgent editors to publish, it ends up here.)

Anyway, the biweekly Stuff Magazine, which focuses on Boston nightlife, fashion, food and drink -- and where I also write the recurring Food Coma column on Boston fine dining restaurants -- is the only publication I know that would let me recognize both the fanciest, most expensive new French restaurant in town and a modest, slightly mysterious, out-of-the-way Haitian restaurant on the same page. Our friends at publications like Boston Magazine ain't doing a Lady Gaga of Plating Award, or a Biggest Balls Award, a rare recurring category of which I'm especially proud.

Ruth and I always have a blast pointing out both the most notable and notorious chefs, bartenders, dining trends, restaurants, dishes and stories from the past year of Boston's great little dining scene. Hope you enjoy it, too!

From the Archives: Five Reasons to Dine at the Bar

I'm republishing a piece here from June 2005 that hasn't been available online for years. This one is special to me: it's the first food/drinks story I ever published professionally, a cover feature for Stuff Magazine (then known as Stuff@Night) on why bar dining is often superior to a table in the dining room. See if you think it still holds up.

FIVE REASONS TO DINE AT THE BAR
by MC Slim JB
[originally published as the cover feature of the June 9, 2005 issue of Stuff@Night]

As a longtime Bostonian who loves to dine out, I struggle with conflicting goals. I want to eat well, but can’t afford to patronize luxury establishments every week. Fast food is cheap and tasty, but I hate the nausea and regret a half-hour later. One of my best strategies is to frequent mid-priced places and dine at the bar. It’s low-fuss, you often get better food and service, and it’s friendly and fun, especially if you’re dining solo.


My Belly Doesn’t Need Ms. Right; It Needs Ms. Right Now

There are few civilized pleasures as sublime as the two-hour-plus weekend prime-time dinner. Consider Union Bar and Grill, one of the South End’s sleeker, more well-oiled dining entertainment machines. Sliding into a glossy banquette for a Friday 8pm reservation, the four of us are a little dressed up and a lot revved up. We kick off with expertly-made cocktails, dulling the keen edge of hunger with the gratis cornbread and excellent butter.

We uncork a Chianti Classico to go with appetizers of short ribs, beet salad, and chorizo-and-corn risotto. Next, we attack entrees of lamb rack, pork tenderloin, roast chicken, and codfish. We pause a bit to take in the scenery before lingering over a five-item cheese plate with perfect accompaniments, washed down with a couple of glasses of port and an espresso or two. By the time 11pm rolls around, we’ve passed an entire languid evening of very pleasant food and solicitous service, amplified by a little hot-spot atmosphere, for a mere $350.

While lovely, this pricey scenario doesn’t quite play on Wednesday night, when it’s just two of us wandering into Union at 9pm, looking not quite daisy-fresh in rumpled work clothes, feeling irritable with stress and hunger. This moment calls for our light, tight, weeknight strategy:

1. Pass on the hosts’ offer of a ready dining room table in favor of bar seats.
2. Get a beer, a glass of wine, and two sandwich plates – a hefty Rueben and an Andouille-flecked hamburger with excellent frites. Appreciate the real care in the preparation (a burger actually cooked medium rare as ordered, and mmm, those frites).
3. Wrap it up in under an hour, for about $50 including tax and tip.
4. Feel good about minding our mid-week budget, avoiding delivery of bad Chinese or pizza, and not dreading the alarm-clock detonation we face in a few hours.
5. Congratulate ourselves on being frugal, canny urban diners-at-the-bar.
   

My Folks Told Me Never to Talk to Strangers

There seems to be an unwritten rule at fine dining establishments in this town: you don’t chat much with nearby tables. Near as I can tell, there are two exceptions: 1) wishing someone a happy birthday or whatever occasion was just signaled by a candle-lit dessert (and hopefully, not a song); and 2) asking them what enticing plate just arrived at their table, so you can order it, too. At best, any other topic is likely to get you a look of polite forbearance that is clearly two seconds from curdling into disdain. We don’t mind looking at the pretty strangers next to us, we just don’t want them talking to us.

If you crave a little bonhomie with your steak-frites, you’ll have to dine at the bar. (This also applies to the comparatively rare communal table, but we’ll save that one for another time.) Maybe it’s that you are sitting close, or have better access to the social lubricant of alcohol, but bar diners converse far more easily than their dining-room counterparts.

Consider my recent visit to Dedo, a year-old little sleeper of a New American restaurant near Park Square. I come looking to sample the cuisine of its new chef, Jason Santos, whose work I admired at Tremont 647. Dedo serves some great-looking small plates in the bar, but not in the dining room. I love the Spanish custom of nibbling tapas early in the evening, so I opt for the bar.

It isn’t long before the parade of little bites I’ve ordered gets my neighbors sharing dining-out stories with me. Everyone oohs at my “cappuccino” of sweetbreads and black truffles in a stiff sauce and a blanket of chestnut foam, served in a china latte cup. Despite the precious presentation, it’s a rocking little stew, a minor symphony of richness and slightly spongy textures. I marvel at the deviled eggs (here, done with tuna sashimi for filling, with nary a hint of mayonnaise), and recall other favorite versions (Mom’s, which hews to the circa-1960 Good Housekeeping canon, and Oleana’s, which adds poached tuna and olives to the filling.) A businessman from L.A. boasts of the dining palaces out West he’s visited while chasing the perfect poke (pronounced “pokey”), a raw tuna salad of Hawaiian origin – he rates Dedo’s very highly.

While we talk mostly of food that night, the scenario echoes a thousand similar moments I’ve enjoyed: a few strangers holding a friendly debate over dinner on the finer points of baseball, movies, music, drinking, and/or the attractiveness of the bar’s other patrons. What’s nearly taboo in the dining room is welcome in the bar. I’ve made many pleasant acquaintances and business connections this way, enjoying what might otherwise have been a dull hour or two. Actually interacting with your fellow man: it’s one of simplest and most accessible pleasures of dining at the bar.


The Best Server in the Room

In a handful of places in Boston, the bartender is such a multi-talented, genial host that you hate to hazard the dining room. Joe Carbonaro at Caffe Umbra is one of these, the rare barman who can deftly juggle responsibilities -- mixologist, wine steward, waiter, busboy, raconteur, and confidante -- and make it look easy, with grace and aplomb, like a professional athlete.

I rate him the best pure bartender in the South End (no faint praise -- there’s a lot of talent with shakers nearby): he just plain pours a beautiful drink. He crafted the restaurant’s signature cocktail menu, placing his own stamp on the classics, like a Negroni punched up with Punt e Mes. He’s on intimate terms with the wine list, quick with thoughtful food-and-wine pairings, slow to push the most expensive stuff, able to hold forth on esoteric dessert wines. That’s in between making drinks for everybody in the place, and serving dinner in the bar.

Joe approaches the food side of the job with similar seriousness and relish. He’s a subtle and effective salesman for Laura Brennan’s innovative rustic Italian and French cuisine, telling you exactly what he loves about each dish. He shows a Sicilian-American’s appreciation of the simple, beautiful ingredients on most plates here, like the asparagus shoots that accompany a torta appetizer. Despite a trim frame, he affects a gourmand’s lust for the pastry chef’s work. “You didn’t order this, but you have to – it’s off the charts”, say Joe of one of several nightly homemade ice creams, a melon-Sambuca number. We trust him, despite the unseemly combination. He’s right: it is spectacular, with a big upfront melon zing that fades almost completely to make way for an extended anise finish. Strange and utterly wonderful. Thanks, Joe!

Not to knock the dining room staff at Caffe Umbra; I’ve eaten in the back many times, and they too are skillful, polished and personable. But they’re not as much fun to watch work, and aren’t in the same position to regale us with stories about neighborhood goings-on. The wait staff doesn’t have the dedication to the art of tippling to solicit patrons’ opinions on the latest crazy super-premium liquor to hit the market (anyone for a sample of the new cherry-flavored rye?). If it’s Joe’s night off, or there are no seats at the bar, we head someplace else. We can barely imagine eating any other way there anymore.


The Food Here Sucks, Let’s Eat at the Bar

My beloved is giggling at a laptop in the next room. “What’s so funny?”, I call out. “Oh. My. God. Have you seen the glamour photos of Todd English on toddenglish.com?” “Yeah,” I reply: “Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful. Hate him because he’s too busy flogging his latest casino venture to stand at a stove in the town that put him on the map.”

Maybe that’s not fair; Todd probably does don a toque occasionally hereabouts, but I know few once-rabid fans like myself who aren’t in mourning for the days, now more than a decade past, when he was the deserving, white-hot focal point of the Boston fine-dining scene. The Charlestown Olives created some of the most exciting food I’d ever seen, and served it up with real verve, the kind of experience for which we’d tolerate a hateful no-reservations policy and two-hour waits in the packed bar. Currently, that kitchen cranks out obviously premade, not-always-fully-reheated appetizers to a crowd of undiscriminating tourists. Latecoming locals must wonder what all the fuss was about.

Worse still are lackluster outliers of the English empire like Bonfire, a steakhouse that has Todd’s brand but none of his formidable virtues (I’m talking about cooking, not marketing.) My several underwhelming meals here have featured grotesquely oversized slabs of over-charred pork and beef, brought by staffers who seem mightily self-impressed for no reason related to their actual service skills. I think the dining room looks fantastic – I’ll admit to a soft spot for that Phillipe Starck-designed bordello vibe -- and I admire the wine list’s South American depth. But the food regularly disappoints, at really high prices. I just kind of hate it.

But I join Bonfire’s often-lively bar scene on occasion, resisting the staff’s insistent promotion of their over-sugared travesty of a Caipirinha. To my bemusement, the same kitchen that fails in the dining room succeeds in the bar, where it serves up lip-smacking tacos and small plates like tempura green beans. Even better, you can get these nice-priced gourmet snacks at an hour when few places in the Back Bay are still hopping (till 1:30am Wednesday through Saturday).

I haven’t forgiven Todd for big-timing his local former devotees. But late-night grazing at Bonfire’s bar does help me to forget for a moment how success spoiled a one-time favorite. “Gimme an El Tesoro Plata margarita straight up, please, and some smoked-duck taquitos -- hold the Vanity Fair spread.”


Don’t Look at the Pitiful Lonely Freak -- Maybe He’ll Go Away

Business travelers, stop me if you’ve heard this one: after a long workday in a strange city, you let your hosts go home to the bosom of their families for dinner. You’ve done enough homework to dodge the room-service turkey club: trusted local sources have pointed you to some worthy restaurants. A quick taxi ride later, and you’re greedily surveying an interesting menu, proud to be an intrepid, globetrotting epicure.

But before the appetizer arrives, you notice the unwelcome glances. That mooning, hand-holding couple across the aisle give you matching tight smiles that say, “Someday, modern medicine will cure your scrofula or whatever it is that keeps you in your sad prison of one.” The wary glares from the next booth’s klatch of sharply-turned-out young professional women send a rather different message: “Look at us again, pervert, and we’ll stone you to death with our teeny cellphones”. Mercifully, you have a paperback to bury your nose in, thus avoiding further eye contact.

Now the weird part: the next time you’re out to dinner in Boston with a group of your attractive friends, you espy some poor benighted soul at a table for one. And despite having walked several miles in those moccasins, your first thought is, “Oh, the poor leper! Why didn’t the maitre’d just lead her quietly out back where she could shoot herself?” Remember this moment the next time you’re out on your own. Preserve your dignity, and avoid harshing the buzz of diners who are trying to share laughter and witty conversation as well as fine food and drink. Eat at the bar. You already have enough other good reasons to do so. FIN

N.B. After this was published, women friends of mine pointed out that solo bar dining doesn't work nearly as well for women as men -- that unwelcome attention from boys on the prowl is often an unfortunate consequence of sitting at the bar without a companion. Shame on me for not considering this issue and mentioning it. (It was my first feature.)

N.B. 2 Special thanks once again to Scott Kathan of Stuff@Night for plucking me from the ranks of amateur reviewers on Chowhound.com and giving me my first shot at writing professionally! I've published hundreds of pieces since, and now write food/drinks features and two Boston restaurant-review columns (On the Cheap and Food Coma) for The Boston Phoenix and Stuff Magazine. See my blog for links to most of my professional work.

Wear Sunscreen in the Restaurant, or, Words of Advice for Hungry Young People

Allston Christmas
Photo courtesy of The Boston Herald

Here are a few dining-out tips for you kids who've just arrived in the Hub of the Universe to start school, from a longtime chaser of the high life who's lived in Boston forever -- like, since before PlayStation II, when the Internets were all 110 baud (don’t Google that now, pay attention):

• Get the hell out. Boston is no New York City, but it’s still a pretty great restaurant town, in part because you students support some excellent cheap-to-moderate places. But you'll still have to duck the many miserable ones aimed at the sorry philistines among you. If you have the iota of adventurousness necessary to rise above a life of mediocre food, you'll have to occasionally get on your bike or the subway or the bus to visit places like Chinatown, East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, East Cambridge, East Somerville, and Allston. If you get off your ass, you can eat fantastic food for your entire four or five or twelve years here. Don’t blow this opportunity by settling for so-so burgers, pizza, and burritos. Example: check out the Super 88 Market at the corner of Commonwealth Ave and Brighton Ave in Allston. Its ten-stall food court offers phenomenal cheap eats from China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and India. It’s a low-risk, incredibly tasty way to start exploring. 

• Don’t overlook old media. While you still can, take advantage of professional restaurant reviews in publications like the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, and The Improper Bostonian, where I currently serve as professional restaurant critic and food/drinks feature writer. 

• Check out local bloggers and social media. In addition to the MC Slim JB blog, Boston has many useful food and drink blogs -- start with my WORTHY BLOGS / LINKS section on the lower left -- and unlike this one, most have attractive photos, video clips, and illustrations. Hundreds of Boston restaurants, bars, food retailers, and the writers who cover them are now on Twitter and Facebook: you'll quickly figure out which ones are worth following/friending and which are annoying, one-note self-promoters. Two helpful primers on my blog include an intro to Boston's craft cocktail scene and a humorous look at the Phantom Gourmet, a cheesy local TV show that reviews Boston restaurants (sort of).

• Consume amateur reviews warily, and be a good critic yourself. I cover this topic extensively in my essay, "11 Reasons Your Yelp Reviews Suck, and 11 Things You Can Do About It." TL;DR: Be careful whom you take dining-out advice from, and recognize that you probably know less about restaurants than you think, so try not to be a prick.

• Try to observe some of our quaint, Colonial-era dining customs. Take off your baseball cap in the dining room, don’t spend the entire meal blabbing or texting on your phone, limit your public drunkenness to the pre-projectile-vomiting stage, learn how to tip properly, curb the public displays of affection, and consider that other patrons might not find your bare armpits, navel, or toes an appetizing sight, especially at swankier venues. I won’t tell you to sit up straight, but you really should do that, too.

So welcome to Boston, kids: it’s a wonderful place to eat, and we’re really glad to have you here. Now get off my lawn.

An encomium for Icarus: a watershed fine-dining experience

“Nostalgia: it's delicate, but potent… in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.” -- Don Draper, “Mad Men” Season 1, Episode 13: “The Wheel”

I had a last meal at Icarus the other night, just before it closed for good after 31 years of operation in three different locations in Boston’s South End. When you spend as much time dining out as I do, you get used to a certain ebb and flow, a sense of the inevitability that most restaurants, even the great ones, don’t last more than a few years. You’re sad when favorites go, but you know it’s the nature of the business. But I felt a sharper-than-usual stab of nostalgia at this particular last meal, as Icarus was a restaurant that changed my life.

Everyone has life-altering moments: the inspirational lecture from a beloved college professor, the high school sports failure that quashes your Hall-of-Fame fantasies, the instant you realize you’ve found someone you could spend your life with. For me, one of those moments was my first dinner at Icarus, many years ago. My culinary experience to that point was meager: my mom’s cooking had made me like a cat, salivating at the sound of the electric can opener. Dinners in the homes of childhood friends with Azorean immigrant parents, communal meals prepared by better-traveled fraternity siblings, urban street food, and cheap Italian, Greek, and Puerto Rican joints: these circumscribed the narrow range of my food world.

That first meal at Icarus really bowled me over, upending everything I knew about fine dining. It wasn’t a posh chophouse or a kitschy upscale Italian-American joint. It sat in the South End, a neighborhood that had hip bona-fides as Boston’s gay ghetto but was still scarily crime-ridden, where the unwary were routinely robbed. Somehow I’d heard that this Icarus was terrific in a new kind of way, so I brought a date I wanted to impress with my sophistication and boldness. We’d risk getting mugged for a great meal together.

I don’t remember the girl, or what I ordered beyond the appetizer including some foie gras (itself shocking to see outside of a luxury French place), but the room certainly impressed me: Old Hollywood, Art Deco glamour. The crowd was young and urbane, gayer than I was used to. Service was attentive but markedly unstuffy. The menu took pains to describe the composition of each dish and the provenance of its ingredients. Here, new to me, was New American cuisine, with its emphasis on fresh local ingredients and globetrotting eclecticism, proffering a new kind of connoisseurship. The chef obviously loved introducing diners to novel ingredients in fresh preparations; he wasn’t showy about his classical French cooking skills, but he could bring them when needed.

That meal put the hook in me the way no swank dinner had ever done. It snapped off and discarded my simple notions of what fine dining should be about. Everything about it excited me. I peppered my server with questions: What’s that ingredient? What does this word mean? How is that prepared again? At the same time, it was relaxed, unpretentious: it expected its customers to take outlandish influences and components in stride. It was a peek into a broader, wilder world of possibilities, and it changed me. I utterly lost interest in Boston’s elite restaurants of the day – the creaky temples to haute cuisine, the sclerotic Continental places, the ostentatiously dull steak and seafood palaces, the suffocating old-boys' dining clubs. I suddenly found myself obsessed with finding restaurants as fresh, entertaining and challenging as Icarus, devoting a huge chunk of my disposable income to their pursuit. In an instant, dining out became my primary hobby.

We've come so far from Icarus’s early heyday that it’s easy to forget how radical it once was. Consider an Icarus appetizer from way back, grilled shrimp with mango/jalapeño sorbet. That would hardly raise an eyebrow today, but every atom of that dish was strange at the time: grilling (not boiling or steaming) shrimp. Sorbet – sorbet?! – of tropical fruit and burning-hot chili on your entrée: it was bizarre, fantastic, crazy! Having summoned your courage, ordered it, and taken your first bite, you were dazzled by its contradictions. East/West! Hot/cold! Sweet/fiery/salty/sour! It kicked old notions of classic European cuisine and heartland American convention in the crotch. It was sassy, it was beautiful, it was sublime. Eating it made you feel brave and cool, like being let in on some outré, slightly dangerous secret.

Times have changed mightily. Our supermarkets now stock an astonishing array of produce, meats, artisanal cheeses, and other groceries from around the world. Americans prepare Peruvian and Vietnamese and Indian food at home. The Food Network fills 24 hours a day with gourmet dining and cooking programming, making national celebrities of local chefs. A plebeian take on the creativity that Icarus and others spearheaded now shows up in casual-dining chains: you can order wasabi-crusted rare ahi with miso beurre blanc at The Cheesecake Factory, and macadamia-crusted tilapia with coconut shrimp and mango puree at the Rainforest Cafe.

In the wake of this evolution, Icarus’s menu no longer wowed -- by 2009, it had come to look sort of tame. Chasers of avant-garde novelty had long since moved on to edgier places like Clio and O Ya. The South End had become a thoroughly gentrified, mostly wealthy neighborhood with dozens of fine-dining restaurants. And Chris Douglass, originally Icarus’s chef, later its chef/owner, had decided that running an upscale restaurant was no longer the fun it once was, especially in a dire economy. Selling Icarus allowed him to focus on his newer, downmarket Ashmont Grill and Tavolo restaurants in the Dorchester neighborhood where he lives. But before Icarus fades from the local dining consciousness, I want to remind Bostonians how thrilling, how pioneering it once was. It helped catalyze an enduring interest in creative cuisine that has enormously enriched my leisure hours since.

I made that last reservation hoping to hear an echo of that first dinner, the genesis of the fixation that ultimately led to my current jobs reviewing restaurants for publications like the Boston Phoenix and Stuff Magazine. I got a little misty as I savored a last Negroni at that cozy bar, luxuriating one final time against that romantic backdrop of Deco luster and live jazz, a trio led by a melancholy baritone sax. Moving to the dining room, I noted many similarly verklempt patrons, mostly older couples, getting in their last licks. I ordered a few favorites: polenta with braised exotic mushrooms and fresh thyme, followed by crisp-grilled local bluefish with smoked mussels and tomato salsa, then a perfect lemon panna cotta with blueberry compote.

As ever, these were meticulously plated, skillfully served, fully delicious. I ate in wistful silence, slowing as the meal went on, reluctant for it to end. Finally, I paid the check, took a last stroll around to admire the gorgeous old art and lamps and statuary, then walked up the stairs and out the door, murmuring my appreciation to Douglass and the staffers who'd given me so much joy over the years. This place, I thought, really left a mark on me. So long, Icarus, and thanks for diverting me down that curious, delectable path, for which I will always be grateful, and always remember you.

Todd English sobs quietly into a big pile of money

In a fascinating and funny article in the April 2009 issue of Boston Magazine, Amy Traverso makes a winking, half-ironic case for reconsidering the reputation of Todd English, Boston's most famous and successful celebrity chef. English is now derided by many locals for reasons Traverso aptly captures: “The English brand has come to eclipse English the chef… These days the high priests of the food bloggerati, in particular, seem to take special pleasure in framing him as the epitome of a sellout celebrity chef. ‘Yeah, Chowhound has beat me up a lot,’ English says. ‘I don't even read it anymore. It probably took me a couple of bad articles to realize that maybe I was misunderstood.’"

Mea culpa: I’m one of those Chowhound.com contributors who excoriates Olives Boston as a pale facsimile of the days when English actually cooked there, and thinks other English outlets like Bonfire are pretty terrible, too. I recently wrote a piece in Stuff Magazine in which I revisited Olives and other former It Places to see if they still deserve the crowds they get. I was relatively kind to Olives, not mentioning the sight of men’s-room partitions falling off the walls, nor how the giant bucket of deep-fried onion strings called to mind The Cheesecake Factory, nor that the tagliatelli Bolognese was the worst fine-dining pasta dish I’d tasted in years: an ugly, gloppy mess grossly overseasoned with cinnamon, frankly disgusting.

But why would English care what Bostonians think at this point, anyway? He’s a multi-millionaire, a national celebrity. As Traverso documents, he has 21 restaurants (including an L.A. joint venture with Eva Longoria), a deal for more restaurants in Thompson hotels, Top Chef appearances, his own TV show Food Trip, and so on and on. English could just say, “Please. My job hasn’t been about being a chef for years. My role is to promote Todd English, The Brand. Expecting the original Olives to maintain its old quality is naïve. Don’t hate the player; hate the game.” That kind of candor and self-awareness would be refreshing, wouldn't it? No such luck -- English actually wishes the masses could appreciate his ambition as something noble. Says English, "Go to Dallas, go to Tampa. I go to Tampa once a month because of my Home Shopping Network gig [where he flogs his own line of cookware]… and it's chain city. I don't eat for three days." Can't you feel his pain? You see, he just wants to help people in culinarily-benighted towns across America.

Look, we all tend to rationalize the compromises we make in life. But I get a little incensed when English's rationalizations extend to why he couldn’t settle for being a one-restaurant, one-town kind of guy: “‘I watched the stars [at NYC's bygone French restaurant La Côte Basque] fade away and the ambition fade away. I learned from a ton of really burned-out chefs at the Culinary Institute. That's what this business will do.’" (Aha: so it wasn't about chasing rock stardom, but running away from burnout.) Traverso continues: “English never wanted to end up in a precious little bistro, recalling his glory days while plating his millionth serving of steak frites.”

To me, this fish story is not only lame, but belittles the dedication and staying power of many talented Boston chef/owners who have chosen to helm a single restaurant precisely because it's so hard to scale up those qualities that make their cooking unique and wonderful. I’m guessing Gordon Hamersley hasn't done a casino or cruise-ship restaurant because he recognizes that if he’s not at the stove, it’s not really his cooking -- and he's too proud to collect a check just for stickering his name over some lieutenant's work. Bostonians know the real deal when they taste it, too, which is why Hamersley’s Bistro landed in the Top 10 of Boston Magazine’s recent ranking of Boston's 50 best restaurants and Olives didn’t even crack the list. That’s a long tumble down for a place that many critics and consumers, myself included, once called the best restaurant in the city.

So when English expresses chagrin at not feeling the hometown love, I have scant sympathy, though I'm kinder than my friends who speak with the bitterness of the jilted: “We loyal fans put Todd on the map, and he never shows up anymore. We're like the first wife who slaved to put her husband through medical school, then got dumped for a young hottie with big fake boobs the minute he finished his residency.” While you can't blame those folks for burning their old snapshots, I think their attitude unfairly discounts English’s net-positive influence here, like his mentoring of some bright young chefs. But it partly explains why many of us who fondly recall Olives' heyday just shake our heads when English cavils about being misunderstood. We understand his real motivations perfectly, and we don't fault him for grabbing the brass ring. But the bottom line for Bostonians is that a chain -- no matter how gifted the man at the top, nor how skillfully and glamorously he markets it -- is still a chain. Maybe you can fool your new fans, but it's tougher to put one over on the old ones.

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.

Trying to dine Chez Ozymandias, or: Seasons Restaurant died and nobody noticed

I recently contributed an article entitled "Leftovers: Testing the enduring appeal of some of Boston's old-school dining favorites" to Stuff Magazine, in which I revisited several Boston restaurants (Olives Charlestown and Anthony’s Pier 4 and Locke-Ober) that were once considered “It Places” but have slipped in the dining public’s consciousness, though they’re still packing in the customers (and still occasionally get my business).

Due to length limitations, the last part of my submitted article, a visit to a fourth former It Place, was cut. But I thought it was a useful cautionary tale about being an It Place -- and being the kind of diner who spends all his or her time in It Places -- so I scooped it off the cutting room floor to post here:

RESTAURANT: SEASONS
PEAK OF IT-NESS: 25 YEARS AGO

My last stop on my tour of former “It Places” was Seasons at the Millennium Bostonian Hotel, which in the early 1980s was an essential station on the Boston fine-dining circuit. The owners had a knack for hiring immensely talented, fast-rising chefs to execute the restaurant’s innovative New American menu, many of whom left to attain local and national stardom on their own. Among its storied alumni are Jasper White (Jasper's, Jasper White's Summer Shack), Lydia Shire (Biba, Pignoli, Locke-Ober, Scampo), Jody Adams (Rialto), Gordon Hamersley (Hamersley's Bistro), Scott Hebert (Troquet), Peter McCarthy (EVOO), Tony Ambrose (Ambrosia, Blackfin), and many others.

As I walked up to the hotel, I thought, “Nobody talks about Seasons anymore, but maybe it’s hiding the next Tony Maws (Craigie on Main) or Barry Maiden (Hungry Mother). Hmm, where did the entrance go?” The doorman ruefully informed me that Seasons had closed nine months ago, converted into a ballroom. I felt a pang: a wellspring of Boston’s culinary renaissance had vanished, unremarked and unlamented. I mentally lit a candle for Seasons, wondering how a former It Place could fade away with most of us not even noticing.

That experience left me hoping that restaurateurs remember to cherish their regulars, the folks who come in on a Tuesday night when it’s snowing, and will still be there when the trend-moths have fluttered along to the newest sparkly light in town. And I reminded myself that it’s never good as a diner to get too wrapped up in the pursuit of novelty – especially when the pressures of the economy now threaten to put many worthy restaurants out of business. While you’re out scrambling for a table at the current Flavor of the Month, you’re neglecting a solid old standby in your back yard that may be dying. And guess which one you’ll miss more if they both disappear?

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!)