Dumpling Cafe

The Taiwanese restaurant scene in Boston today is eons better (and continually improving) compared to what it was 15 years ago when I first moved to Boston. Back then, Wisteria House on Newbury Street (now closed) was the only option around. Cantonese dining was the predominant Chinese cuisine, and most of that was in Chinatown.

Fast forward to 2010. Not only do we have a nice variety of excellent Taiwanese-style restaurants from which to choose (e.g., Taiwan Cafe, Shangri La, and Gourmet Dumpling House), we also have upscale Taiwanese inspired restaurants along with Taiwanese restaurants in the suburbs.

So is there room for another Taiwanese restaurant?

Just a few months ago Dumpling Cafe opened in Chinatown. Though its name implies it's merely a dumpling house, Dumpling Cafe actually has quite an extensive menu of authentic Taiwanese dishes, traditional Chinese dishes, and (of course), dumplings.

A couple weeks ago I was in Chinatown with my friends Peter and Chia Chi filming footage for my Hand-Pulled Noodles video (you can see me walking into Dumpling Cafe in the video). Because I had heard initial positive reports about this place, we decided to see what it was all about.

Though "Dumpling Cafe" does not necessarily scream Taiwanese restaurant, once you take a look at the extensive menu it's quite obvious. The menu reminds me of Taiwan Cafe or Gourmet Dumpling House. You see a lot of your classic Taiwanese appetizers such as oyster pancakes, stinky tofu, intestines, duck tongue, and scallion pancakes. There's also a huge assortment of more traditional Chinese dishes, as well as dumplings (jiao zi) and soup dumplings (xiao long bao).

Given the restaurant's name, we knew we had to try their dumplings. We ordered the mini juicy buns with pork and crabmeat ($6.50) and the pork and leek boiled dumplings. My friend Peter got the noodle soup with pork and special mustard greens ($5.95), and we also tried the Taiwan style hot and sour soup ($4.95).

I was actually quite pleased with both the soup dumplings and the handmade boiled dumplings. I tend to like a thinner dumpling skin, and their homemade boiled dumplings had decently thin skin. The flavor was also pretty  enjoyable.

I was even more pleasantly surprised by the soup dumplings. Though they are still a far cry from the best soup dumplings I've had in both California and Asia, they are up there with the best soup dumplings in Boston. I am almost tempted to say they are better than any other soup dumpling in Boston, but I think I should go back and try it a few more times before I make that conclusion.

The soup dumplings have a nice thin skin that is quite strong and does not break (good sign). They are quite juicy and have a pretty pronounced crab flavor. Soup dumplings are best enjoyed fresh, so I would recommend avoiding take-out if you can. Chia Chi ordered take-out soup dumplings a few weeks back and was not that impressed. She confirmed that it tastes much better in the restaurant.

Peter was not that impressed with his noodle soup (he was sick so I didn't try his soup). Though Chia Chi and I thought the hot & soup soup was pretty good (generously full of bamboo, wood ear, tofu, and pork), Peter though it needed more white pepper.

Overall, I was still quite pleased with our first visit to this newcomer to Chinatown. If nothing else, the dumplings are very good and reasonably priced. If I were to go back again, I would be tempted to try their wide array of Taiwanese specialties.

Dumpling Cafe
695 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111

Bao Yuan Dumpling House [宝源饺子屋]

This is part 5 of the China Series detailing my recent trip to Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Other posts in this series include part 1: Wander the Streets of Beijing, part 2: Xian'r Lao Man (Dumplings), part 3: Made in China {Peking Duck}, part 4: Noodle Bar and some other preview posts: China: Lost in Translation, and Happy Birthday Bryan: an Ode to Noodles and Ducks.

Back early in the days when we were still dating, Bryan once asked me,

"If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

The silence lasted only a few moments. "Dumplings!" I blurted out with confidence.

You can imagine his surprise. Not fatty tuna? Not ice cream? Dumplings???

I think dumplings are the perfect food: tiny complete packages with virtually all your food groups tucked inside. An ideal dumpling (in my opinion), has a healthy ratio of vegetables to meat (I prefer about 7:1, but I'm veggie-centric in that way), and is wrapped up in a thin yet strong and wonderfully chewy skin. My favorite dumplings are from Din Tai Fung.*  Their pork vegetable dumplings have the absolutely perfect combination of the three elements I describe above.

So of course while I was in Northern China, which is known for its dumplings, I had to seek out Beijing's local rendition of my favorite food.

Bao Yuan is the perfect place for anyone who likes to try interesting flavor and texture combinations. Their dumpling menu is vast and slightly overwhelming. Thankfully, the menu has tons of pictures, though I can't remember if the menu had English or not - maybe not. They have all sorts of interesting filling options, such as water chestnuts, pumpkin, fennel, various types of greens, corn, etc.  You also have your choice of meat fillings  (chicken, pork, lamb, shrimp, beef, etc).

What's also fun is that you can get the colored dumplings (dyed with vegetable juice) for only a few extra RMB (less than $1 US).

This place is typically very busy, as it is popular with both foreigners and locals. Luckily, since we were catching an early flight that evening, we stopped by Bao Yuan around 5PM, so we did not have to fight any crowds at all.

All dumplings are made to order, so expect to wait around 20-25 minutes before your dumplings are ready. It's worth the wait! If you love vegetables (which I do), you will love the variety of choices that are available . We did not order any vegetarian dumplings, but I'm sure they would be pretty tasty as well given the wide array of vegetables offerings.

The prices are really cheap (about 4-8 RMB for 50g, with a minimum of 100g per order; between $1 and $2 USD). I think our entire bill was around $5 USD and we were stuffed with all the different dumplings we tried (I think we ordered like 30 dumplings!!).

I would highly recommend trying this place. Excellent food, great prices, and a fun experience overall.

Tip: Most Chinese taxi drivers do not speak any English. The best way to tell them how to get somewhere is to print out the name of the place with address in Chinese, ideally with a small map print-out in case they do not know where it is. Your hotel concierge can help you with that, or just come armed with some map printouts!

Bao Yuan Dumpling House
北京朝阳区麦子店街6号楼侧
Běijīng Cháoyángqū Màizi Diàn Jiē 6 Hào Lóu Cè
ChaoYang Park
+86 10 6586 4967

*The Asian branches are my favorites (The Shanghai & Beijing ones are awesome - more on those soon!),  but the one in LA is pretty good too). 

Greetings from Tokyo!

Greetings from Tokyo!

Bryan and I are here because Bryan had a business trip out here, so I decided to tag along. I absolutely love Japan, and what better way to spend my birthday (yes, today's my birthday) than in one of my favorite cities in the world?

This afternoon I trekked out to Kappabashi, Japan's premier destination for restaurant and kitchen supplies. This street is AWESOME! Imagine several city blocks worth of kitchen stores, all selling their own special wares. I saw stores dedicated to miso bowls, knives, fake display food (these were hilarious!), woks, baking supplies, store signs, chairs, and the list goes on and on. The prices were very reasonable (beautiful miso bowls for only a few dollars each!), and the variety of choices was astounding.

It was hard not to buy up the whole street (I have this weakness for pretty Japanese dishware even though my kitchen absolutely cannot fit any more things). I exercised tons of self-restraint and limited myself to buying things I could reasonably carry home.

In other food news, we plan on going back to one of my favorite sushi places as well as checking out a few others. While Bryan's been away during the day, I've been exploring Tokyo's depachika (gloriously diverse and bountiful food stalls in the basements of department stores). There's a ton of amazing food in these basements - definitely something worth checking out!

Anyway, I promise to report back on all the gory details of these food trips soon, complete with tons of photographs (and even video!!!).

Finally, as a reminder, today is the last day to vote for Project Food Blog. Check out my entry here and vote if you are so inclined.

Thanks!

Because I cannot access my photos from my actual camera right now, you are stuck with my iPhone pics!

Domo trying to eat Tokyo while Totoros stare off cluelessly in the distance.

Noodle Bar {Beijing, China}

This is part 4 of the China Series detailing my recent trip to Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Other posts in this series include part 1: Wander the Streets of Beijing, part 2: Xian'r Lao Man (Dumplings), part 3: Made in China {Peking Duck}, and some other preview posts: China: Lost in Translation, and Happy Birthday Bryan: an Ode to Noodles and Ducks.

Welcome to Noodle Bar, a cozy, authentic, and absolutely charming hand-pulled noodle bar in Beijing.

I've realized I love true noodle bars. You know, the kind where the entire restaurant is just one circular bar with a bunch of barstools surrounding the bar. Everyone gets front row seats to the awesome hand-pulling noodle action. It's super fun to watch your noodle dough get pounded, bounced, and then pulled right in front of your eyes. Plus, you get to interact with the chefs a lot more in this setting (ha ha, assuming you are proficient in the language!). It's intimate, relaxing, and really enjoyable.

In view of my current entry in Round 7 of Project Food Blog (how to make hand-pulled noodles), I thought this post would be the perfect segue back into the China series.


Noodle Bar is tucked away behind an unassuming door inside of a courtyard of the 1949 Hidden City Complex. ("Hidden" indeed - this place is difficult to find). Thankfully, directions I found on this site were helpful enough to help me find the place. Yes, you really do walk through an art gallery before entering the courtyard. 

The place is tiny - there probably aren't more than 15 seats in the entire place. Thankfully, the menu is written in both Chinese and English. To order, you simply check off items on a piece of paper indicating which items you wish to order.

It's hard to choose between all the mouthwatering small eats (e.g., various pickled vegetables, soy braised eggs). We settled upon the roasted pork belly (see picture at top of the page), which was succulent, juicy, and crispy all at the same time - in short, it was fantastic. We also got the pickled pumpkin, which was interesting to try, but not something we would get again.

And of course, there are the noodles. The Noodles! The noodles were pulled with expert precision and ease. Look at how evenly thick they are! The menu choices are simple - you choose thick or thin noodles, and then you choose beef brisket, tendon, or tripe (or a combination of the above).

I love thick pieces of tendon, so I was thrilled that I had the option of ordering tendon only. I love tendon!

All in all, this is an excellent place to see and experience hand-pulled noodles in Beijing firsthand. It's a tad pricier than the hand-pulled noodles you'd find on the street ($5 USD versus around $1-2 USD on the street). However, if you like enjoying your noodles in a slightly nicer environment OR you like having the ability to use your credit card OR you want to rest assured that you won't have stomach problems later on, then this just might be the perfect place for you.

:)

Noodle Bar
1949 - The Hidden City
Courtyard 4, Gong Ti Bei Lu
Chaoyang District

Voting for Project Food Blog Round 7 is open!

Hi everyone. I can't believe I am still in the running after so many rounds. Seriously, thank you SO MUCH for all your votes. It goes without saying, but I obviously wouldn't be this far without your support and encouragement.

This round was a new challenge for me. I had never filmed and edited a video before! Bryan ordered some video editing software for me a couple weeks ago (after I found out I had advanced), and it's been a whirlwind learning experience ever since!

I actually had TONS of fun making this video. Please check it out and vote here if you are so inclined.

Thanks so much!

In other news, I am currently in Beijing (AGAIN!) and going to Tokyo today!! Bryan had a last minute business trip to Asia so I decided to come with him. In the brief time I was here, I took a hand-pulled noodle class with an actual Beiing noodle master and also tried a bunch of street foods.

In that spirit, I will be continuing the China Series this week.

Cheers!

Project Food Blog Round 7: Hand Pulled Noodles

There is something elusive and almost magical about hand-pulled noodles.

First off, the texture is out-of-this-world. It's fresh and chewy with a natural resistance that just springs back. In Taiwanese, we call it "Q," similar to al dente in Italian, but with just a tad more "bounce."

The art of hand-pulled noodles is even more elusive. It takes a trained artisan to understand how to work the dough to the right consistency so that it can be successfully stretched, twirled, and pulled. Furthermore, the golden window of opportunity in which the dough can be pulled into noodles is short - act quickly or else start over!

Noodle pullers typically train for at least a year with a Noodle Master before they are even allowed to make noodles for customers. It's tricky to pull out perfectly smooth, even, and chewy noodles without breaking the strands!

It's almost hypnotic to watch a master swinging that rope of dough in front of you - pull, twirl, pull, twirl.

And it's not just for show. In fact, all that pulling and twisting helps align the dough proteins, making it possible to stretch that dough out into such thin strands.

The technique associated with making hand-pulled noodles is virtually impossible to describe or explain without visuals, which is why a video is the perfect tool for introducing you to this art.

For Round 7 of Project Food Blog, we were asked to create a video putting "one of our favorite recipes on film." As you know, Bryan absolutely loves fresh hand-pulled noodles and Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is the ultimate comfort food that reminds me of home.

I could think of no better dish to share with you all than this classic Taiwanese street dish.




Hand Pulled Noodle Dough
adapted from Luke Rymarz's Recipe

156g cake flour
25g all-purpose flour
110 mL warm water
2g salt (1/3 tsp)
1 g baking soda (a little less than 1/4 tsp)
~ 6 g vegetable oil (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a bread machine and knead on the dough cycle for about 15 minutes. Remove the dough from the machine, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest for 1 hour. Put dough back in the bread machine and knead again (dough cycle) for about 15 minutes. If no machine is available, hand knead for about 45 minutes.

Note: You can also use a stand mixer. I have not tried this and thus cannot give detailed instructions, but I have read instructions that say to mix on speed 4 for 15 minutes.

Roll and twist for about 10-15 minutes (see video for details), or until the dough feels soft and pliable like clay. The time can vary a lot depending on the climate, humidity, and elevation! The dough should not spring back if you push it in. It really feels a bit like clay.

Once the dough is ready, pull noodles (see video for details) and cook in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. Eat with your favorite soup (see beef noodle soup recipe below) or stir fry with your favorite ingredients.



Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Not Much to See Here

2 lbs Beef Shank (optionally cut up into chunks)
1 T vegetable oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch chunk of ginger, chopped
2 star anise
2 scallion stalks, chopped
2 T Chili bean sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 carrots, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1/4 cup rice wine
1/4 cup rock sugar
fresh hand-pulled noodles (see above)
hot sauce

Soak beef shank pieces in hot water for about 5 minutes. Drain dirty water, rinse beef shanks, and set aside. Over medium high heat saute garlic, ginger, scallions, and star anise in vegetable oil until fragrant. Add beef shank and chili bean sauce and saute for a few minutes, until the beef is slightly browned. Add soy sauce and cook for 2 minutes. Add carrots, tomatoes, rice wine, and rock sugar. Add water until everything is just covered. Bring to medium high heat and then reduce to a simmer for 2-4 hours, or until the beef is fall-apart tender. Add hot sauce to taste.

Serve with blanched bok choy and fresh hand pulled noodles.

All music in this video is royalty-free and composed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0" except for the Flight of the Bumblebee, which was performed by the US Army Band (public domain).

Wylie Dufresne - "Meat Glue Mania"

“The Turducken lives on thanks to meat glue.”

I had the incredible opportunity to hear Wylie Dufresne talk about meat glue at a lecture at Harvard University on Monday evening. If you don’t know who Wylie Dufresne is, his restaurant WD-50 is probably the closest thing that New York City has to Alinea, the Chicago “king” of molecular gastronomy.

Why did Wylie Dufresne open WD-50?

“I wanted to know more, so, one of my primary goals in creating WD-50 was to create a place where we could continue our culinary education.”

“We’ve only just begun to understand what is going on with food.” “We have been cooking forever but we are not very learned about food.”

How true. Mankind has been cooking food with fire for eons now, but it has only been in the last century or so that we have really begun to understand the science behind food.

As a chemistry major in college and a former synthetic chemist, I couldn’t help but get super excited about this talk. Molecular gastronomy is the marriage of two of my loves – science and food.

Without further ado, here’s a brief summary of Wylie Dufresne’s talk, "Meat Glue Mania."


What Is Meat Glue?

Meat glue is the common name for a protein called transglutaminase. Transglutaminase is naturally occurring, and is an enzyme that causes covalent bonds to form between the free amine group of a lysine residue and the carboxamide group of a glutamine residue.



Covalent bonds are basically the strongest type of bonds out there! Bonding two pieces of meat together with covalent bonds is like forming one single piece of meat.

Meat glue typically comes as a powder. You just brush it onto two pieces of meat, wrap the pieces tightly together, and voila, within 4 hours in the refrigerator (or 5-20 minutes at 50-58 °C), the magic happens and the meat is GLUED together!

Serious, you can’t pull it apart. It’s become one piece of meat.

Of course, you don’t want to go above the temperature at which proteins denature, because then the enzyme will cease to work.

What Are Some Cool Applications of Meat Glue?

Make Noodles
Wylie himself confesses that WD-50 has an unhealthy fascination with noodles, and continues to try making different kinds of “noodles” that don’t require any flour. One person asked about ravioli, and Wylie said that they hadn’t gotten that far yet, being still stuck on trying to make noodles.

Shrimp “spaghetti” is made by adding salt, gelatin, and meat glue to a mixture of pureed shrimp. The entire mixture is then squeezed out into hot water, where it is cooked directly. As an Asian who has enjoyed fish balls and fish paste noodles (both of which use transglutaminase), this type of application is far from new. Nevertheless, it was still cool to see Wylie's interpretation of it.

Make Thick Cuts of Thin Meat
Flap Steak is difficult to cook rare because it is super thin. WD-50 gets around this by gluing two pieces of meat together and then rolling it into a cylinder. This thicker cylinder can be cooked perfectly medium rare. You can't even tell that it was "glued" together when you look at the finished product.

Similarly, he showed how his restaurant glues together strips of cod to make a beautiful cylinder of cod that can be sliced into discs.

Make Interesting Shapes with Non-Meat
Wylie next discussed how they take meat glue and mix it with gelatin and barley to make these interesting barley blocks that they could then char. He also showed us how he mixed meat glue with peanut butter to make these super thin peanut butter sheets, which he then cut up into noodles (yes, it’s that same obsessions with noodles again!).

The resulting dish was a peanut butter noodle and beef dish that sort of resembled pad Thai, with all the same flavors coming from different elements.

He also showed us how he melded together peas and carrots into a curious looking block.

Finally, he discussed fois gras. He talked about how he loved fois gras terrine, but you can’t sear it because the heat would just melt the entire thing. By using meat glue, he has been about to successfully create a fois gras terrine that can be seared and served hot.

His talk has made me really curious about meat glue. Amazon sells a small experimental kit from Spain that includes ten different types of additives for all sorts of molecular gastronomy fun (including meat glue). Or, if you have your heart set on meat glue, you can always buy yourself a 2.2 lb bag of the stuff.

I think I’m tempted to go with the kit and try my hand at molecular gastronomy now!

Wylie Dufresne

There are a few more of these fascinating food lectures left. They are free and open to the public (thanks to sponsors such as Whole Foods and Le Creuset), but there is only limited space, so arrive early! The lectures start at 7PM, but I would say get there by 6:15 if you want to get a seat.

Upcoming lecturers include Dan Barber of Blue Hill and David Chang of Momofuku (full schedule here). I will be attending the Momofuku one, so expect to see a write up of that one too (maybe with a lot of *bleeps!*).

Foodbuzz Festival 2010

It's been a crazy weekend for me! I worked like a madwoman this week so I could finish up my Project Food Blog video by Thursday evening (which turned out to be the wee hour of Friday morning) so that I could hop on an 8 AM flight to San Francisco.

My purposes were twofold. Dear friends of mine from college were getting married in Silicon Valley this weekend. At the same time, the second annual Foodbuzz Festival was going on in San Francisco! I went to the festival last year and had a fantastic time trying out street foods, artisanal products, attending an olive oil tasting, and brunching at Lulu's.

Though I was bummed I would not be able to attend the whole conference this year, I was happy that the wedding was in Northern California so that I could at least attend the Foodbuzz Festival on Friday night.

The festival started out with Ryan The Girl welcoming all food bloggers to this fantastic event.

Escargot lollipop, braised lamb cheek sandwich, and lobster cappuccino from Spencer On the Go. Carnitas taco from Tacolicious.

The setup was similar, with various food trucks serving all sorts of delicious food. Unlike last year, I did not get to try all the trucks. Perhaps it was because the space was too large, or because I was too busy socializing. ;)

Mission Minis, which were also at the Festival last year, were highly showcased this year! There was this HUGE matrix of cupcakes that spelled out FOODBUZZ. They tasted so good I ate FIVE of them!!! The Food Network was also onsite filming for a future cupcake themed show, though I don't think I got on camera.

We had a fun gift exchange. Every blogger brought food representative of his or her own region. I brought with me 5 different flavored Taza Mexican chocolate discs, which I gave to Mariko of The Little Foodie. Mariko is super sweet and hails from Hawaii!  She's also still in the running for Project Food Blog!

I received a cool bag full of treats from Andy at the Wind Attack.  Andy is an LA-based food blogger who works by day at the Cartoon Network's show, Robot Chicken (how cool is that??).

Andy went to school in Ann Arbor, Michigan (so close to my hometown), so we had this instant Midwest connection. His gift bag was full of cool stuff like avocado honey, caneles (I was soooo thrilled to see these - check out the recipe on his blog), and chocolate from Zingerman's, one of his favorite stores.

I reconnected with with some old friends, such as Andrea of High Low Food Drink,

Lindsay of Life with Lindsay,

Hong and Kim of Ravenous Couple,

Matt from Mattatouille, Michael from South Bay Foodies, and Josh from Food GPS.

I also met some new friends, such as Liren from Kitchen Confidante (who is still in the Project Food Blog with me!), along with many others, such as Cooking By the Seat of My Pants (who I've seen on twitter a lot!), Kitchen Corners, and The Second Lunch.

Of course, it was great to see some local Boston bloggers, such as Chels and Sues from We Are Not Martha and Elina from Healthy and Sane (who both did so well in Project Food Blog), along with others such as Elizabeth from Free Food Boston and Meghan from Travel Wine and Dine.

And finally, the SWAG BAG, which has a lot of interesting stuff in it. I have yet to try any out, but if I find anything blog-worthy, I'll definitely let you know!

I had a great time, even though it was so short! I am looking forward to checking out new blogs from new bloggers I have met.

Coming up next, the video that I've been working on all last week!

Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCk66hZrtFw&feature=player_embedded

Pho 'N Rice

Pho is one of those dishes that is a royal pain to make at home and is also ridiculously inexpensive at a restaurant - which could just very well explain why I don't know a single person who makes it at home. The one bowl of pho I tried making once still paled in comparison to the real thing.

For us, the old standby is Le's (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Havard Square. They have a few locations around the city, all of which are located in difficult-to-park places. They are cheap, fast, and offer up a solid bowl of hot, steaming pho.

So when we discovered that there was a new pho place just a few minutes drive away in Somerville (with plenty of parking), we knew we had to try it.


Pho 'N Rice took over the old Zoe's location on Beacon Street. The space is small, bright, and clean. The menu is surprisingly extensive, and has a full range of both Vietnamese and Thai dishes. In fact, the restaurant seems to be more of a Southeast Asian restaurant than just a pho place.

Bryan ordered the pho (pictured above) and thought that it was not bad, but definitely a few steps below Le's. He was unhappy that the thin slices of beef were cooked all the way through (instead of rare). Furthermore, he thought the fresh bean sprouts that came with the soup were just a bit tired looking.

Bun Bo Hue ($7.95)

My friend got the lemongrass noodle soup, which consists of.rice vermicelli in a beef lemongrass broth with flank steak and tendon. The soup had a nice deep rich flavor, although it was a bit greasy.

Drunken Noodle

I ordered one of my favorite Thai dishes, drunken noodle with tofu. I thought it was only OK. Nothing in this dish particularly stood out to me. I mean, the flavors were fine enough and were definitely characteristic of the dish. However, I've had much better versions of this dish elsewhere.

Another friend ordered the duck noodle soup and seemed to enjoy it, although I can't comment firsthand on the dish since I did not try it.

These are only first impressions
I think it's too early at this stage to give a firm overall review of the place. I definitely was quite excited at the diversity of the menu. Overall, our first meal there was decent. They know how to make all your classic Thai and Vietnamese favorites. The few that we tried may not have been the best we've had in Boston, but they were definitely acceptable and still enjoyable.

It's nice to have a place where you know you can find parking, seating, friendly service, and reasonably good food. For us, Le's is still our first choice for Vietnamese food. However, if we're ever craving Southeast Asian food in general, and we really don't feel like walking in the cold to Harvard Square or looking for parking, Pho 'N Rice is a perfectly acceptable alternative.

Pho 'n Rice
296 Beacon Street
Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 864-8888

Boston Magazine {Top 50 Restaurants for 2010}

photo courtesy of Boston Magazine

Boston Magazine's  "The 50 Best Restaurants" edition hits the newsstands today.  It's self titled "An unapologetic totally subjective guide to dining out right now."

I guess in some sense all food opinions are subjective, since you have to personally like the food in order to rate it highly, right? Still, diners tend to trust "experts" when it comes to rating food, and lists like these can largely affect the success of a small business.

Anyway, the list and my thoughts about this list are below. I was surprised to note that I had written posts for 17 of these restaurants. Not too bad considering how old this blog is.

My Thoughts On the List
I am not as familiar with Boston restaurants (versus Cambridge), but I can tentatively say I generally agree with the list. I would have loved to see more "ethnic finds" in the list (like Muqueca or The Helmand). Two of my other favorites (Garden at the Cellar and Hungry Mother) also did not make the list.

Other "Winners"
I was pleased to see Bergamot under their short list of newcomers that have really great promise, and I wholeheartedly agree with the choices of Mamma Maria, Upstairs on the Square, Tupelo, Oleana, and The Blue Room as "Staff Picks." All of these are great restaurants, and I would happily visit them over and over and over.

Boston Magazine's 50 Best Restaurants
Jen and/or Bryan's favorites on this list are starred with an asterisks

The Butcher Shop
Oishii*
Toro
Dante
Salts
Neptune Oyster
Menton*
No. 9 Park
O Ya (photos only)*
Radius
51 Lincoln
Troquet
Bin 26 Enoteca
Rendezvous
Bistro 5
Eastern Standard
Pigalle
L'Espalier
Blue Ginger
Parsons Table
Hungry Mother*
Prezza*
Scampo
Il Capriccio
L'Andana
Bistro du Midi
Rocca
Beacon Hill Bistro
Clio
Rialto*
Abe & Louie's
Il Casale
Ten Tables Cambridge
Coppa
Market by Jean-Georges
Harvest
Ten Tables Jamaica Plain
Sorellina
Erbaluce
Via Matta
Craigie on Main*
Sensing
Lineage
Uni
Sportello
Myers + Chang
Grill 23
Hamersley's
Lumiere
T.W. Food