Finalist for Saveur's Best Food Blog Award!

I got the craziest email last night.

I was quite sleep deprived, actually, so I wasn't even sure whether to believe my tired eyes or not when I received an email from Saveur telling me that I was a finalist for their annual Best Food Blog Awards in the Best Dining/Restaurant Coverage section.

Thanks to whoever out there nominated me, and thanks to those who worked so hard to narrow down such a crazy huge number of nominations (over 40,000 they said??). It's a tremendous honor to be among such a small, talented group of bloggers. Even if I don't win the actual award, in many ways I already feel like I've won.

All final winners will be chosen based on number of votes. To vote, please click here. You will have to sign up for an account with Saveur just so they can keep track of the votes.


For fun, I decided to round up some of my favorite restaurant posts from the past few years. It was hard to narrow it down, but I worked together with Bryan on this, and we tried to pick posts from all different sorts of locations.

Enjoy!


Craigie on Main (Boston)
One of our favorite restaurants in the Boston area, we scored the exclusive "ringside seats" for Bryan's birthday, where we got to watch the kitchen firsthand!

Kyubey (Tokyo, Japan)
The one-on-one interactions with the sushi chef as well as the top-notch sushi makes this one of our most memorable meals in Japan as well as one of our favorite restaurants in the world.

Menton (Boston)
A really unique and educational white truffle tasting meal at the Chef's Table at one of the best restaurants in Boston.

Kago (Tokyo, Japan)
Insanely delicious shabu shabu with kurobuta (Berkshire pork) belly from the Kagoshima region in Japan.

Eating in the Greek Isles (Santorini, Greece)
Pictures and food from one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Joel Robuchon the Mansion (Las Vegas)
The craziest, most over-the-top meal we've ever had (to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary)

Made In China (Beijing, China)
At one time only available in the imperial palace to royalty, this mouthwatering, delicious specialty was finally brought to the masses in the 1800's and is still immensely popular throughout Beijing today. This was one of our favorite restaurants (and yes, we tried several places!)

Jia Jia Tang Bao (Shanghai, China)
The most delicious pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao) that we enjoyed in China, and only $1 US for a dozen!!

Granville Moore's (Washington D.C.)
Lines go out the door at this fascinating, historical moules frites Belgian pub in D.C., which serves fantastic mussels, delicious fries, and has one of the largest selections of Belgian beers in the US.

Peking Restaurant (Los Angeles)
Our favorite "hole-in-the-wall" Chinese place in the Los Angeles area - you must try the "beef and scallion roll" (pictured).

The French Laundry (Napa Valley)
An exquisite meal in a farm house in Napa Valley - our first experience trying Thomas Keller's creations.

Per Se (New York)
Thomas Keller's urban, East Coast flagship, we visited this place just a month after visiting the French Laundry.

Eleven Madison Park (New York)
Having just received three Michelin Stars, Chef Daniel Humm produces dishes that look like works of art and taste like magic.

SAMM (Los Angeles)
Sample Jose Andres's favorite creations (hello molecular gastronomy and various Spanish and French influences!) by trying a multi-course tasting at this restaurant-within-a-restaurant.

Peter Luger Steakhouse (New York)
Insanely amazing steak at this no-nonsense cash-only steak restaurant right across the bridge in Brooklyn.

The Gastronomy Fiesta
Spain's Basque region's most famous chefs (15 total Michelin stars between!) ALL together in the kitchen at once to create a tasting menu of a lifetime at the World Expo in Shanghai.

Cooking for a Cause - East End House

One large ballroom right on the ocean.

Over a dozen well-respected local chefs personally handing you dishes they have designed and cooked for the event.

Mixologists from Boston's best bars stirring up cool drinks for you to sample.

Wines from New England wineries and incredible desserts from the area's well-known bakeries and chocolatiers.

Oh, how could I forget? Absolutely amazing coffee from what has become one of my new favorite coffee shops.

All this to benefit East End House, a Cambridge organization dedicated to serving under-resourced families in Cambridge by providing services such as an emergency food program, a child care program, after school programs, and training workshops for adults.

It takes a lot for all of these chefs to take so many hours out of their busy days to support such a fantastic event. Kudos to all who participated in this event!

Here's my recap!

Jason Santo from Blue Inc served a creative Pastrami Reuben dumpling!
William Kovel from Catalyst in Cambridge served an Aleppo pepper crusted tuna over a coconut rice cake and topped with a mango compote. 
Andy Husbands of Tremont 647 (co-judged with me at the S. Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Regionals Competition) made a lovely pulled pork sandwich.

Tony Maws from Craigie on Main (yes, he brought his son!!) served a delicious homemade beet pasta with boudin noir ragout (read: pig's blood). It was actually fantastic and turned out to be one of my favorite dishes of the night. I was so distracted by how good it was (or was I distracted by trying to photograph the child?) that I totally forgot to take a picture of the pasta!

I did manage to photograph mixologist Ted Gallagher's lovely cocktail made with pisco and rose jam, a lemon thyme cordial, and orange liqueur.

Chef Peter McCarthy from EVOO made a lobster- parsnip bisque with leeks, tarragon, hedgehog mushroom, and butter. 

Chef Dante from Dante made Pork meatballs in a pig head sauce.
Chef Ming Cao from the new sushi restaurant in Kendall called Fuji made assorted sushi.

East Coast Grill made a Cuban style smoked pulled pork shoulder with cilantro, crispy slaw, mango mojo, and tomato salsa.

Grill 23 made a delicious lamb kibbee with tzatziki sauce.
Chef Chris Coombs from Deuxave made a beautiful duck liver mousse with rhubarb mustarda, tarragon, and pickled red onion. This was quite good as well and I came back for seconds!

Post 360 served a delicious Mexican-flavored seafood tortilla soup chock full of shrimp, mussels, squid, and lots of flavor!

Jody Adams from Trade and Rialto served a delicious char crudo topped with ginger pickled rhubarb, parsnip chips, and pea shoots. Jody told me that this crudo dish just started appearing on the menu at Rialto!

Green Street Grill made a beautiful endive cup filled with Rhode Island fluke, splashes of lemon and lime, grape chopped tomatoes, jalapeño, and scallions.  
Mary Dumont from Harvest made a lovely, light and refreshing Jonah crab salad with spring garlic and English peas.

Island Creek Oyster Bar served yet another refreshing asparagus salad with toasted orzo and lobster roe (but no oysters!).

Bistro du Midi served a crostini topped with marinated octopus, sundried tomatoes, eggplant caviar, and pine nuts.

Chef Paul O'Connell from Chez Henri Smoked made a creamy cod and lobster chowder topped with lots of parsley!

Aura, one of the restaurants in the Seaport Hotel, served a tasty honey glazed pork belly with chipotle and a purple carrot and jicama slaw.

Drinks
There were several great mixologists serving up some pretty cool drinks!

Tamo Bar made a rosemary infused Stoli blueberry vodka with lemonade.
The Hawthorne made a twist on a traditional French 75 by using Earl grey tea syrup, fresh lemon, Berkshire Mountain Distillers gin, and sparkling wine. I loved this one and came back for seconds! (I think I have a weakness for any drink made with sparkling wine!)
Eastern Standard made an interesting drink from Kevin Martin Rum, Becherovka (a Czech liqueur), lemon juice, and velvet falernum (anise/clove-like flavored syrup)

Green Street Grill made a Margarita "Bermejo" made with Lunazul blanco, Cointreau, lemon & lime juice, and salt.

Local Massachusetts winery Westport Rivers Vineyard and Winery served some lovely sparkling wine.

The Masciarelli Wine Company served several of their Italian wines.

One of my favorites of the evening! Voltage Coffee made absolutely incredible little cups of cappuccino. I absolutely loved my Burnt Sugar Vanilla cappuccino. Their coffee is from Barismo Coffee Roasters.

Sweets

The Dancing Deer Company provided brownies.
Area Four made super cute Caramel corn cupcakes. When those ran out, they just passed out their homemade caramel corn.
Taza Chocolate gave out little samples of their stone-ground Mexican chocolate.

Kickass Cupcakes had a lot of cupcakes as well, though they were all gone by the time I came back!

It was a great evening, and the auctions raised a ton of money! Here's the auctioneer auctioning off a package that included a 4-person dinner with Tony Maws, 6-person dinner with Andy Husbands, and another 4-person dinner with Jason Santos. This crazy set of three meals sold for $5000!!!

I had a ton of fun. Best of all, I got to take home this humongous loaf of bread from Iggy's! Thanks Craigie on Main!
 
Disclaimer - I came as a press member and did not pay to attend this event.

Super Fusion Sushi (Cambridge)

This is the second restaurant post in the new series, Welcome to My New Hood. Other posts includes Rafiki Bistro.

I am always suspicious when I hear a name like “Fusion” in the name of a restaurant. In my mind, FUSION = NOT AUTHENTIC, which then begs the question of how good can the food be?

Clearly, Super Fusion Sushi is quite popular in Boston. The location that we visited in Cambridge is actually their third location. They started out in Brookline and quickly got the reputation of being a very good, authentic sushi bar with reasonable prices. A second one opened up in Watertown soon afterward. Finally, just about a year ago, this third location in Porter Square opened up.

Considering there is quite a lot of competition in the Porter Exchange Mall (unofficially the “Little Tokyo” of Boston), you figure it has to be decent in order to stay in business, right?

We decided to walk the 10-minute trek from our house to find out.

What immediately caught my eye were the surprisingly reasonable prices. Most normal rolls were $8.50, with some "Chef's Special" ones costing $10.50. There was a healthy variety of nigiri, including toro (fatty tuna belly), uni (sea urchin), and saba (mackerel).

A number of creative, “fusion”-type rolls were prevalent throughout the menu, including classics like Rainbow roll and Caterpillar roll and more creative ones like Cambridge roll (Eel tempura with cucumber, topped with tuna, torched with spciy mayo, eel sauce & tobiko) and Batman roll (Tuna tempura w/ spicy mayo topped w/ grilled eel, avocado & eel sauce).

Toro (fatty tuna belly), Saba (mackerel), and uni (sea urchin).

We decided to try a number of nigiri. I seriously believe Super Fusion Sushi wins the prize for the largest nigiris in Boston. The rice ball was about twice as a large as a normal rice ball, and likewise the fish on top was similarly huge (just look at that toro!). Because we had not expected each nigiri to be so big, we majorly over-ordered and had a really hard time finishing the dinner.
The quality of the sushi reflects the prices. For cheap, take-out sushi, it’s acceptable. However, you can clearly tell that the fish is frozen (not fresh), and some of the pieces were really not that great. I would especially avoid the chutoro (tuna belly), which didn’t have good flavor, tasted frozen, and was still pretty expensive. Certain classics, like the yellowtail and salmon, were decent, but overall, the nigiri was very average.

Maki Rolls


Instead, I would stick with the “fusion” rolls, which don’t rely so much on the inherent quality of the raw fish to taste good. The spicy salmon rolls were reasonably tasty (I do have a weakness for any kind of spicy mayo in general), and some of the rolls were quite creative.

Having said all that, I still think Super Fusion Sushi is definitely a good value for the money. You don’t even have to order as much as you usually do because their portion sizes are so humongous. I think you'll fare much better if you get fun, creative rolls as opposed to simple nigiri.

Free dessert - green tea cream, tapioca, and azuki bean


How does it compete with the nearby sushi places in Porter? Well, it's different. It's less authentic than places like Blue Fin, but you definitely get a lot more food for the same amount of money. I'm not sure if I'd go back for a sit-down dinner. However, I would consider ordering platters of rolls if I were having a party at my house or something. It sure beats a platter from a supermarket!

Super Fusion Sushi (Cambridge)
1759 Massachusetts Avenue
 Cambridge, MA 02140