Leisure Station (Boba Tea) + Giveaway!

My friends and I were arguing the other day over what "Taiwanese" food really was. One person tried to suggest typical Taiwanese breakfast items such as sweet soybean milk with deep fried crullers, but then another person (who's from China) said that these types of dishes were all over China. Another tried suggesting shaved ice, but the Chinese friend again pointed out that you could find shaved ice all over China as well.  Finally, there was only on thing that everyone unanimously agreed was totally Taiwanese.

Boba Tea. (also called bubble tea, tapioca milk tea, pearl milk tea)

Boba tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980's and has since gained in popularity, first throughout Asia and now throughout the world. Boba tea is a tea drink that typically consists of sweetened tea, milk, and chewy tapioca balls. The balls come in different sizes, but the classic Pearl Milk Tea usually has the bigger balls (about the size of a large blueberry). The drink comes with its own special over-sized straw, through which you simultaneously slurp tea and tapioca balls.

Boba tea connoisseurs typically consider two things when judging tea: excellent tea flavor (brewed tea is typically better than reconstituted powdered tea); and good boba consistency (soft and chewy with a bit of resistance, otherwise known as "Q" in Taiwanese). The boba chewiness factor can make or break a tea drink.

Two months ago, Leisure Station, a franchise of Easy Way in Taiwan, opened its first tea shop on the East Coast. Lucky for me, it opened right in Kendall Square, a mere T-stop away from my workplace!

I had a chance to visit this place last Wednesday.

Ken Huang, MIT alum, is the entrepreneur behind this new franchise in Boston. He's thought up some pretty cool ideas that makes this place different from most places. The place has free Wi-Fi, the ability to take orders via the internet or text message, a karaoke machine, and delivery via a Smart Car.

Furthermore, the tea menu is HUGE! Of course they have the most popular drinks such as Pearl Milk Tea, Pearl Green Tea, Thai Iced Tea, and Coffee Milk Tea. However, they also have a bunch of more exotic flavors, such as Jasmine Milk Tea, Lavender Milk Tea, Honey Citron Tea, and Winter Gourd Milk Tea.

I attended an Open House of sorts and had a chance to try several different items from the menu. Their philosophy really is the concept of custom-made drinks. You can customize your drink whichever way you want. Once you choose a tea, you then choose a sweetness level, a "topping," and a creamer (e.g., soy milk, skim milk, whole milk, etc). Of course you can mix and match at your whim.

I decided to try both the honey green tea and a mango milkshake. I loved the mango milk shake. They use fresh fruits for most of their fruit shakes, so the flavors are really genuine. This shake was just the right level of sweetness (i.e. not to sweet!) and had a nice, fresh mango flavor. The honey green tea was pretty good, although a bit too sweet for me. Thankfully, all drinks are made to order, so I could always ask them to add less honey, or no sugar at all if that's what I wanted.

There are a myriad of toppings from which to choose. Of course, you can add boba, but you don't have to. You can also choose other toppings such as grass jelly, egg pudding, lychee jelly, wheat germ, and aloe vera (just to name a few!). I tried egg custard, lychee, and aloe vera, and I liked all three.

What would a Boba Connoisseur Say?
At a minimum, a picky boba drinker would evaluate the quality of tea and the texture of the pearls (i.e. the tapioca balls). All of the teas at Leisure Station are freshly brewed. No powdered teas here! Only a few drinks, such as the taro milk tea, are made from re-constituted powders. I thought the teas were quite good. I especially liked the honey citron tea, but even the green tea was pretty good, albeit a bit sweeter than I would have liked.

The pearls are made every two hours. They wouldn't tell us the exact secret recipe (something about lightly coating the pearls with brown sugar), but they assured us that the pearls were freshly made throughout the day. I personally thought the pearls could have had more "Q" or bite to them. They were a bit mushier than I would have liked. Nevertheless, they were tasty, slightly sweet, and still enjoyable to slurp through that over-sized straw!

Lunch
Leisure Station recently started selling a few food items. Ken Huang had this crazy creative idea of taking all sorts of non-traditional ingredients and sticking them into a Maki roll!  He calls them "Fusion Rolls." They even have a "Hot Dog Maki" and a "Hamburger Maki"! Imagine, a maki roll filled with ground beef, ketchup, lettuce, and pickles. Bizarre?

We were able to try two different rolls. Pictured above is the Thai Roll, which has shrimp, carrots, corn, cucumber, and a sweet peanut sauce. Pictured below is the Tuna roll, which has much more traditional sushi ingredients such as cooked tuna, egg, avocado, and spicy mayo.

The rolls are huge. I had trouble fitting it in my mouth!

Flavor-wise, I thought they were fine, though nothing exciting. They taste like something I could easily whip up at home. They're fine for a healthy lunch, but at $10.99 (even if it includes a Boba drink and a side salad), it doesn't quite feel worth it. I would rather buy the tea here and get more traditional sushi elsewhere. Having said that, I did not get to try some of the weirder ones, (hot dog anyone?) and maybe those are actually really good.

Giveaway Details
So that's where this Giveaway comes in. Ken was kind enough to offer a $15 Gift Certificate to Leisure Station so that one of you can try it for yourself and decide. You can spend the $15 any way you want. Try a sandwich, or get a bunch of drinks for your friends.

To enter this Giveaway, please comment and tell me one of the following:

1. Your favorite sushi maki roll ingredients or
2. A wild and crazy roll you want to see Ken make at Leisure Station

You can answer both questions (as separate comments) for two chances to win.

Winner gets the $15 gift card to spend at Leisure Station. Good luck!

Leisure Station
Kendall Square
625 West Kendall Street
Cambridge, MA 02142


Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I was given a chance to attend an Open House sponsored by Leisure Station, which included samples of all the food and drinks mentioned in today's post.

CNN Eatocracy: Featured Blogger

Just wanted to let you know that I was featured in CNN's blogger spotlight yesterday. Click on the image below to see the full article.

All-Clad Pan Review

I've never had a nice pan in my life. As a college graduate, I had a few of those cheap, $10 nonstick pans that gets flaky within a year or two. Even heating? I didn't even know what that meant. Furthermore, I abused my pans, sometimes heating up those nonstick pans to high heat in order to properly stir-fry Chinese food that I was making (note: not safe!).

You would have thought that when I got married, which, not coincidentally, was also when we bought our first property together, I would have finally decided to buy some nice pans for myself. After all, I finally had own kitchen! And I was going to be in a place for more than one year at a time.

Oddly enough, I told Bryan, "I already have pots and pans and most kitchen supplies. We don't need to register for any." Clearly, this sent some sort of unintended message.

I should not have been surprised when we started getting things like an XBOX as a wedding gift. Or when we returned the brand new toaster oven that we had received in exchange for a brand new Tivo.

So it wasn't until this year (yes, it's been how many years since we got married?), that I finally got my hands on my first nice pan ever. The kind folks at Cookware.com were kind enough to send me an All-Clad pan for review.


This particular pan has gotten some stellar reviews from various well known and respected sites. More recently, the pan has been offered all over the internet for a really attractive promotional price ($89.99 instead of the normal $180 retail price). It got to the point that some people got suspicious, alleging that these new "promotional pans" were made in China, not made in the USA like most All-Clad pans. After all, why is it that when you buy the 12-inch pan with lid, it only costs $89.99, whereas when you buy the pan and the lid separately, it costs over $160?

If you look at the specification of both sets of pans, they appear to be identical. Unfortunately, I do not have the same "purchased separately" set to conduct a full comparison.*

Is this pan made in China?
Mostly no. The pan itself is still made in the USA. The lid, which All-Clad says is not instrumental in the performance of the pan, is made in China.

Tri-ply construction seems crucial, and allows for even heating and excellent heat retention. This pan is particularly light, most likely due to the aluminum core. That makes it much easier to pick up with one hand, which is sometimes crucial when you are busy doing 3 things at once in the kitchen!

How does this baby perform?
The nice thing about pan (and probably the reason it's still All-Clad's most popular line), is that not only does it perform beautifully, it's dishwasher safe and oven-safe. Accordingly to Cookware.com's really nice All-Clad comparison chart, Most of All-Clad's lines are not dishwasher-safe or not induction compatible. This more affordable, less-high-maintenance pan is great for the typical home cook who does not really need super finicky temperature control. Best yet, it's got a lifetime warranty. It's built to last you a lifetime!

I've tried stir-frying vegetables, pan frying gnocchi, sautéing other farm share vegetables. So far, I have been very pleased with the pan. I love the flexibility of being able to heat it to high without concern and use metal utensils to my heart's content. Granted, newer nonstick pans can actually withstand metal utensils these days. Nevertheless, I really like the ruggedness, versatility, and quality of this pan. I've run it through the dishwasher multiple times and it's totally fine.

Thanks again to the folks at Cookware.com (CSN) for giving me the opportunity to finally have a high quality pan that will last me a lifetime.

----------------
*I did stop by a Williams Sonoma Outlet store the other day just to pick up the normal stainless steel pan to see what it felt like. Unfortunately, they did not have the 12-inch stainless, but they did have the 10-inch stainless. The 10-inch felt reasonably heavy, possibly heavier even than my 12-inch one I had been testing. Of course, I did not have my 12-inch one around to compare, so this is really just an initial impression. 

Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I received an All-Clad 12-inch plan with lid for reviewing.

Sauteed Beets and Radishes with Dill

I have been receiving quite a bit of root vegetables in my farm share lately - multicolored beets, various types of radishes, turnips, and rainbow carrots. I have also been receiving some beautiful fresh herbs, such as cilantro and dill. Having had almost no experience using dill, and hardly any with radishes and turnips, I had been roasting everything in the oven.

There's nothing wrong with that. Root vegetables always taste delicious roasted, and you can throw any variety of combinations together and it will still taste pretty good.

But what if you don't want to wait 30-60 minutes for your vegetables to be ready? What if you need to get dinner on the table, fast, and all you have is root vegetables?

Applying Chinese Cooking Ideas
Of course! Chinese people stir fry everything. Why not my root vegetables?

I thinly sliced up my beets and my radishes and then I just simply stir-fried them in butter. I finished my tossing them with some fresh dill, salt and pepper. The results were fantastic! I have never loved the harsh spiciness of raw radishes. The stir frying seems to bring out the sweetness of the root vegetables and tame the harsh spiciness.

Sauteed Root Vegetables with Dill
Thinly slice beets, radishes, or whatever root vegetables you have on hand. Try to make them about equally sized so that they will finish cooking at around the same time. Heat up about 1 T of butter over medium heat until melted. Toss in the vegetables and let cook for about 1 minute. Add about 1 T of water and cover, letting it cook for another 3-4 minutes, or until soft.

Season with salt and pepper and toss with dill.

Serve!

Effie's Homemade Oatcakes & Corncakes WINNER

Thanks everyone for participating in this giveaway. It was really fun to read about all of your favorite cookies growing up. I thought it was funny how popular Oreos and Girl Scout cookies were! :)

Congratulations to Cavity Buster!

Cavity Buster's favorite cookies were "thin mints girl scout cookies."

Cavity Buster - please e-mail me at jen[at]tinyurbankitchen[dot]com with your mailing address so that Effie's can ship the cookies out to you!

Thanks all for playing. I have more giveaways coming up soon, so check back often!

Trattoria di Monica

When Bryan and I were planning our honeymoon to Italy, we prepared by learning a few key Italian phrases. Certain phrases became invaluable, such as scuzi (excuse me), grazi (thank you), and, most importantly, quanta costa? (how much does it cost?)

Another nuance we soon picked up was the difference between the words ristorante and trattoria.

Trattorias are typically casual, family-run restaurants that serve an ever-changing menu of seasonal, locally produced dishes. They are more rustic, cozy, and typically much less expensive.

Ristorantes are more prevalent in large cities, and are typically more sophisticated, upscale, and expensive. They often provide dishes with pricier ingredients, like seafood, for example.

After our first dinner at a ristorante in Rome where we spent upwards of $100 USD, we quickly learned that trattorias were the way to go. The rest of our meals in Rome cost, on average, about $25 USD for both of us (and that included gratuity, bottled water, and wine!). Admitted, Italy was still on the lira back then so we took great advantage of the strong exchange rate. The best thing is, there’s so much excellent food in Italy, it’s hard to go wrong, even if you pick the cheaper, more rustic trattorias. Italians are quite serious about their food. Furthermore, they have the added bonus of access to amazing local produce.

In the US, the distinction between the terms ristorante and trattoria seem to have largely evaporated. I’ve seen trattorias that cost an arm and a leg, and places called "ristorantes" that almost look like hole-in-the-walls. There are even restaurants called “Ristorante Trattoria.”

Despite all that, there are still some Italian restaurants in America that stay true to this form. One example would be the Monica restaurants in the North End, Boston.

Monica’s Trattoria is one of our favorite restaurants in the North End. The more casual cousin of its upscale counterpart, Vinoteca di Monica (which, until they remodeled not to long ago, used to be called Monica's Restaurant), Monica’s Trattoria serves up fresh salads, beautifully rustic bruschettas, and fantastic homemade pasta dishes.

Brothers Jorge, Patrick, and Frank Mendoza-Iturralde oversee these three North End businesses, all named after their mother, Monica. There’s the swanky and sophisticated Vinoteca di Monica, a beautiful restaurant on Richmond Street that serves fantastic upscale Italian food. The place is huge, complete with a full bar and tons of wait staff. There’s also the cute and authentic Italian grocery store, Monica’s Mercato, which sells, among other things, fresh homemade pasta, homemade sauces, and other Italian goods.

Finally, there’s Trattoria di Monica. Unlike its sophisticated cousin who has a huge space and sleek décor, Trattoria di Monica has exposed brick walls, only 2 or 3 servers, and at most ten tables, scrunched together so tightly you feel as if you are sitting at the same table as the people next to you.

The atmosphere is loud, lively, and festive. And the food? Fantastic.

Bruschetta all’Italiana $9
Grilled bread, tomatoes, basil, garlic & extra virgin olive oil
I love the bruschettas at all of the Monica establishments. They are all made the same way. The bread is slathered in olive oil and grilled, giving it that beautifully slightly burnt and crunchy edge that I love. They vary in toppings, but I love them all. This particular one, heirloom tomatoes, fresh creamy mozzarella, and a touch of balsamic vinegar, was an absolutely perfect way to start the meal.

Involtini di Prosciutto e Provolone al Forno $10
Baked prosciutto wrapped provolone over tomato slices & roasted red pepper
This is Bryan’s favorite appetizer, and he always orders it whenever he comes here. It’s cheesy, smoky, and rich full of bold flavors.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Broccoli Rabe and Italian Sausage $24
On any given night there will be many specials from which to choose. This squash gnocchi special was perfect. I loved how the sweet butternut squash gnocchi paired with the slightly bitter broccoli rabe and the smoky sausage. In the past I’ve thought that the gnocchi at Monica’s was a little mushy, but this time I thought it was perfect with just the right amount of bite.

Homemade Papardelle with Veal and Spicy Tomato Sauce $25
Oh, did I mentioned that all of their pastas are homemade? Bryan’s homemade parpardelle has excellent texture, with those little nooks and crannies full of sauce. Speaking of which, the spicy tomato sauce was rustic and full of that deep tomato flavor. The veal was tender and well cooked.

If you haven’t figured it out already, we really love this place. Unlike Vinoteca di Monica, whose menu has a variety of appetizers, pastas, salads, and meat dishes, this place is really focused on pasta. As you know, fresh pasta is one of Bryan’s favorite foods, so this works out great for him.

Their pasta menu is actually significantly more extensive than even the pasta selection at Vinoteca di Monica. However, the prices, at least for the pasta dishes, are rather comparable between the two places (low to mid twenties). What ends up making Vinoteca more expensive is that their meat entrée dishes start to approach the $30 range. Here at the trattoria, there are no main meat entrées.

So, if you love fresh homemade pastas made with bold, flavorful, and rustic sauces, definitely check this place out!

-------------------------------------
Reminder, it's still not too late to enter the Effie's Oatcakes and Corncakes Giveaway. "Drawing" will be TONIGHT (Thursday, June 24, 2010) at midnight!

Monica's Trattoria
67 Prince St
Boston, MA 02113

Giveaway! Effie's Homemade Oatcakes and Corncakes

Remember my post a few weeks ago where I raved about these delicious oatcakes made by a local Bostonian company? Oatcakes that sort of reminded me of a less nobby version of Hob Nobs?

The kind folks at Effie's have agreed to give away TWO PACKAGES of their delicious biscuits to one lucky winner! You'll get to try a package of the corn cakes and also a package of the oat cakes.

In order to enter, please comment below telling me your favorite cookie growing up. As a child, my mom never really baked that much at home because she didn't love sweets (most Asian do not!). I did love anything made with Oreos, my favorite being Cookies & Cream ice cream!

For more chances to enter, you can do any of the following:

1. Retweet the Giveaway
2. Become a Facebook Friend of Tiny Urban Kitchen
3. Subscribe via RSS

For each additional entry, please post another comment letting me know which one you did.

Thanks! I will leave this open until Thursday night, MIDNIGHT. Winner will be announced on Friday.

Good luck!

P.S. US addresses only

Gran Gusto

There was a time when Gran Gusto was one of those off-the-beaten-path hidden gems tucked away in a residential neighborhood in North Cambridge. We discovered this authentic Neapolitan restaurant back in 2008 when it had only been open for about nine months. It became our go-to place on a Friday night. We loved how it had ample parking, incredibly delicious  food, and no wait on a Friday night!

Of course, two years later, the secret is now out. You can't necessarily show up on a Friday night during peak time and expect just to get seated. The restaurant's pizza alone has been written up in Serious Eats and named "Best New Pizza" by StuffBoston. Area magazines have written great reviews as well.

It had been awhile since our last visit. When I realized my last review was about two years old and had no pictures (!), I decided it was time for an updated post on one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Cambridge.


Sorrentina – Smoked mozzarella, tomato, eggplant, basil $15

Gran Gusto is known for its pizza, which is very classic Neapolitan. I ordered the Sorrentina pizza because the waiter said it was his favorite (although he did recommend trying the Margherita if it was my first time.  I've had the Margherita, so I opted to try his favorite one instead.  The crust was super thin and nicely charred, with decent leopard spotting. I loved the toppings on this pizza. The mozarella and the grilled eggplant added a nice smoky balance to brighter flavors from the cherry tomatoes and the basil. Better yet, the portion size is generous (you get a whole personal pizza for $15). I only ate half, which means I had enough leftovers for at least another meal.

Sformatino – Cauliflower flan, taleggio sauce, black truffle $11
We have always loved their sformatinos, a baked flan covered with a rich, black truffle sauce. In the past, they used to make a spinach version (which we loved), but I almost want to say that I like the cauliflower one even more. It's no secret that the combination of cauliflower and truffle oil is already heavenly, so it's no surprise that when you make it into a custard-y flan that the final product is . . . .wow.

Here's a second look. Soooo good.

Straciatalli
Gran Gusto imports about 80% of its ingredients from Italy, including olive oil, flour, bufalo mozarella, and specialty cheese, such as the straciatalli. This particular cheese, described as "the inside of burrata," is rich, creamy, and great with the proscuitto. Bryan liked this dish more than I did. I agree that the straciatalli had a beautifully rich and strong cheese flavor. However, I just could not eat too much of it because it was too rich and heavy for me. I tend to like lighter cheeses whereas Bryan likes the stronger cheeses, so that may explain our different reactions to this cheese.

Squid Ink Pasta with cherry tomatoes with 1/2 lobster
Again, this dish was beautifully executed. The fresh pasta had a great al dente texture, and the light tomato sauce was great. The 1/2 lobster was quite messy to eat (seemingly almost inappropriate in such a nice restaurant), but Bryan soldiered on, eventually resorting to eating with his hands, which he hates. Nevertheless, he still thought it was worth it because the dish was really good.

Dessert

Ricotta Pie
I thought this North End establishment's ricotta pie was my favorite in Boston, but now I'm reconsidering. I absolutely loved the ricotta pie at Gran Gusto. I'm not sure if it's as authentic. It's much more eggy, creamy, and less sweet than the ones I've had in the North End, which are sweeter and have a more natural ricotta cheese texture. I mean, both are still good, just in different ways.

Oh, and the espressos (which are from Italy) are excellent as well.

Gran Gusto is still one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Cambridge. Although it's located in an office complex of sorts, once you enter the restaurant, you can almost imagine that you are enjoying a nice meal somewhere in Naples. The ambiance is warm and inviting, the Italian waiters are great, and the food is excellent. As an added bonus, they have an outdoor seating area which is open during the summer.

This place is off the beaten path. It's not really near a subway stop (maybe Alewife or Porter would be the closest), but there is a free parking lot (after 6pm) right across the street from the entrance.

Gran Gusto
90 Sherman St
Cambridge, MA 02140

Tiny Urban Tidbits #9

Lots of Chocolate For Me To Eat . . .
Imagine my shocked response when I saw this tweet from my husband while he was in Switzerland on business.

By the way, 262 CHF is $236 USD.  Things in Switzerland are expensive! For example, a cappuccino and a bottle of water from Starbuck's costs $12 USD.   Anyway, of course I wasn't mad. I mean, how can I be mad when I get to enjoy these?

I fell in love with Sprungli's liquor-filled chocolates the first time he brought them back from Switzerland. I even wrote a whole post about them. This time he brought champagne-filled chocolates too! Can't wait to try them . . .

I'm loving my farm share . . .

I haven't been posting pictures each week about my farm share, but I'm loving it just the same. Compared to a different farm share that I had tried a few years back (where it felt like we just kept getting tons of kale and lettuce each week), Siena Farms' box share is fun because it includes a lot of unique, heirloom varieties of stuff. The program is a bit more expensive (about $30/week), but the quality of the veggies are top notch. This past week, I got rainbow carrots, bok choy, French breakfast radishes, fennel, different colored beets, escarole, purplette onions, shelling peas, and Tuscan kale.

I recently checked out their website and found a list of really nice local restaurants that serve vegetables from Siena Farms. Here's the entire list with hyperlinks to my reviews.

Oleana (updated review with pictures here)
Sofra Bakery and Café
No. 9 Park
The Butcher Shop
B+G Oyster Bar
Sportello
Menton
Henrietta’s Table
Beacon Hill Bistro
Upstairs on the Square
Market by Jean-Georges
Lumiere
Hungry Mother
Erbaluce
Coda Bar and Kitchen
O Ya

These are some really nice restaurants! So happy I get to enjoy the same quality of veggies at home.

Morel Mushroom Giveaway At Marx Foods

I just recently discovered my love for morel mushrooms after trying them at a few local Italian restaurants (Mare and Rialto) and also in my own kitchen. Just the other day Marx Foods contacted me and told me about this cool giveaway that they are doing. 2lbs of free morels! Yummmmmmmm . . .

I just signed up for it! Click on the image below to enter.


Have a great weekend!

Blue Fin

"To everything - turn, turn, turn, There is a season - turn, turn, turn, And a time for every purpose under heaven."

For some odd reason, the lyrics to this song started running through my head as I thought about our recent experience. There was a time when this was one of my favorite sushi restaurants in Boston. The place was so authentic, it had great sushi, and the prices could not be beat.

Situated in Porter Exchange, basically Boston's version of Japantown, you could eat lunch here (paying only $1/piece for sushi), go shopping at the Japanese market, and then pick up some boba tea or Japanese baked good on your way out. I always loved getting some mochi ice cream treats from the ice cream shop.

Unfortunately, many things have changed since those glory days a few years ago.


Admittedly, some of the things are outside of Blue Fin's control. First, Porter Exchange started charging for parking, something they had never done in the past. True, it's only $1, but it's still a deterrent, especially when coupled with a bunch of other reasons, such as . . . .

Lesley College, the university that owns Porter Exchange, decided to kick out the Japanese grocery store Kotobukiya in order to make room for a college bookstore. All of a sudden, one of the best reasons to visit Porter Exchange vanished in thin air overnight.

Furthermore, Blue Fin remodeled, expanded, became fancier, and raised their prices a lot. Our beloved sushi sets that averaged $1/piece were now closer to $1.50/piece. Bryan ordered the salmon ikura don (pictured above) off of the dinner menu. For $17 he got 4 slices of salmon and about a tablespoon or two of roe. It really didn't feel like it was worth the money. My salmon lunch set (lower left corner) was reasonably priced at $9.95, but the quality of the fish suffered.

The best deal seemed to be the Sashimi Lunch Set (pictured above) which was only $15. Compared to Bryan's $17 salmon ikura don, this really looks like a steal. Not only do you get 10 thick slices of quality fish (as opposed to Bryan's four paltry slices), you also get a few nice sides, such as chilled tofu, salad, and shumai. I jealously eyed the thick tuna slices in this set while peering forlornly down at my own limp, artificially bright red tuna nigiri. Why the disparity?

Even though there was a time when we came here almost once a month, I'm sad to say that we hardly ever come here anymore. The higher prices, loss of the Japanese market, and having to pay for parking together are enough to drive us somewhere else for sushi. Our new favorite place to get $1/piece sushi is at Cafe Sushi in Harvard Square, which has this special pricing on Sunday evenings. For lunch, I would pick Fugakyu (which has excellent lunch specials!) any day over Blue Fin. I've also heard amazing things about Toraya in Arlington, which I am dying to try.

I still feel like I'm in mourning, though. Blue Fin is right in Porter, and I still do love how it has so many other tasty dishes such as the beef potato set (yum), the mini house salad, and other authentic dishes. The prices for most of their menu is really quite reasonable. Perhaps I just had a particularly bad experience for one reason or another.

What's your favorite for reasonably priced sushi in Boston?

Blue Fin
Porter Square
1815 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02140