The wearing of the red, white and blue. Or not.

April 23 was St. George's Day. But I don't need to tell you that, right? Unless you celebrated so heavily that you're only just waking up. Woo! A crazy time, what with everyone wearing "Kiss me, I'm English" shirts and the Chicago River dyed red, white and blue, and local politicians mentioning ancestors who fought at the Battle of Hastings, and all the bars offering half-price pints of sausage rolls?

Oh, right, that didn't happen.

You'd think the pubs, at least, would jump on the bandwagon, given that there are few other promotional excuses between St Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. Though perhaps the day's timing isn't great in Massachusetts, following as it does on the heels of Patriots' Day.

In England, until recently, patriotism and nationalism were a little too closely intertwined; for some, the Union flag had symbolism similar to the Confederate flag over here. But the tide is turning, largely because English pubs have realized there might be a bob or two in it.

At LimeyG headquarters, of course, we were already prepared.

Breakfast: Heinz baked beans on toast (topped with my new obsession, Seaside cheddar).



Lunch: cheese and pickle sandwiches. Has to be Branston Pickle.



Dinner: shepherd's pie.



We'd planned to crack open a tin of Heinz treacle sponge pudding, but the temperature had been in the very un-English high seventies all day, and somehow a bowl of dense, sweet cake topped with hot custard just wasn't as appealing.

Oh well, I guess we can always save that for next year's debauched festivities.

Airline food is food too!

The Boy is now more or less resigned to the fact that I bring my camera to every restaurant, food court and taco stand.

He almost never rolls his eyes any more when I take pictures of my food, his food and the food of anyone else at the table before we eat (I like to think of it as my own particular form of saying grace).

But I'm pretty sure even he would have something to say if I insisted on photographing every inflight meal I'd ever experienced.

Which leads me to assume that the Osaka businessman who maintains this collection of images of airline food is not married.

The site is hard to follow for gaijin; all you need to know is that since at least 1991, this guy has flown with 84 airlines from Bangkok to Singapore, from London to Helsinki, from Atlanta to LaGuardia.

And if he had a cheese-and-fruit plate on Air Kenya, or a sushi box in the jump-seat on FedEx, or Häagen-Dazs Cookies & Cream on Cathay Pacific, or unidentifiable orange lumps on Valuair, he made sure to record it for posterity.

Why did I never think of doing this? Oh, The Boy's eyes are going to roll right out of his head ...

(Big thanks to Mike for recognizing, and feeding, my obsession!)

OpenTable to hoi polloi: How was your meal?

Some time back, I ranted about calmly discussed my opposition to OpenTable's move to include user comments in restaurant listings.

A pointless act, I argued. Dining out is such a subjective experience; one man's delicious pasta feast is another man's nightmare of gluey fettucine, diluted pomodoro sauce and recycled salad. Which diner do you trust?

OpenTable's restaurant pages already include reviews from Gayot, Zagat's and BoMag, which between them provide a reasonable cross-section of review experiences, both customer-generated and editorial.

So there's really no reason to ask OpenTable users to chime in with their opinions (other than corporate haste to echo the current marketers' mantra that social media is the shiny new way to engage customers).

Nevertheless, today I had two emails from OpenTable asking me to provide feedback on recent resto visits. Here's the first part of their survey form:



I like some of the adjectives they chose to define the star rating: "memorable," "enjoyable" and "needs work" are pretty distinct. But "a rare find" is ambiguous; is it a "rare find" if you go every month? Is it a "rare find" if the place is always busy, or only if no-one knows about it?

What about its rarity in the market? Is Elephant Walk "rare" by default, because it's the only French-Cambodian restaurant in Boston?

The second subjective section looks like this:



The problem here (apart from the dubiousness of phrases like "Hot Spot") is that some of these options only apply to specific diners. Would you check off "Good for Groups" unless you dined with a group? Or "Kid-Friendly" unless you'd had first-hand experience of the waitstaff's attitude toward your rugrats?

Does that mean that a place that actively welcomes families, but doesn't get as much feedback from them, will appear not to be kid-friendly?

(And you know me: I prefer not to have people talking near my food, so I'm more likely not to encourage group dining, especially at places I enjoy. Keep 'em away, I say.)

Is "Neighborhood Gem" only valid if it's in your neighborhood (as Tu y Yo is to us), or does it refer to any place within a clearly defined section of town? And if the latter, isn't every restaurant eligible for that category, regardless of location?
Is L'Espalier a "Neighborhood Gem"? When it reopens in the new Mandarin Oriental hotel this fall, will it still be a "Neighborhood Gem"? (Word on the street is No, but we can hope.)

Back to "Hot Spot." Their translation (I assume): "New place getting a ton of attention."

My translation: "New place getting a ton of attention. I give it six months."

The main issue with these classifications is their ambiguity, of which the first item, "Fit for Foodies," is a prime example. Does it mean the restaurant has unusual ingredients and dishes for the culinarily curious? Or that the menu choices are not so inventive but use organic or locally sourced ingredients? Or that the portions are gargantuan? Not everyone defines "foodie" in the same way. So how useful a classification is this?

Similarly, "Notable Wine List" could mean an impressive selection of wines by the glass. Or it could mean a wide variety of prices. Or it could mean rare vintages only recognizable to dedicated oenophiles. Different customers, with different expectations, will make their own assumptions about the definition. And someone's likely to be disappointed with the restaurant and dubious of OpenTable's credibility.

So what descriptions would be more useful (read: useful to me)? How about:

• Great for people-watching


• Cute waitstaff


• Hip, eclectic playlist


• Has boudin


• Serves random amuse-bouches


• Tables not squished together


• Barstaff understand that a true Martini is served really really cold

How about you? What categories would you find useful?

Walking to Mexico

I know, I know. I've already waxed rhapsodic about Somerville Mexican restaurant Tu y Yo on many occasions. Oh, their frogs' legs! Oh, their annual Festival of Gastronomy! Blah blah blah.

Usually, our visits there begin and end with an entree; the servings aren't ridiculously huge, but for me they're generous enough that I often just eat the main dish (pork in a garlic-orange sauce; chicken in red mole; the always-fabulous pibil) and take the rice and beans home for breakfast. Which gives the added benefit of starting the day with this:



Last night, however, I walked from my office to the Central Square T stop—a good two-mile walk—and by the time I arrived in Davis, I was ravenous. I called The Boy, who was just getting home, and we organized a rendezvouz at what we refer to as "the Mexican place."

He ordered the nopales en salsa verde.



How much more green could it be? (The answer, of course, is none more green.) The sauce is bright, with a vinegary edge; the sesame seeds add a note of nutty sweetness.

I had tinga poblana, a dish of shredded chicken stewed with sweet onions, peppers and tomatoes:



(Hmm ... it looked much better than that. Apologies for my weak PhotoShop abilities.)

I ate the whole thing, reflecting only briefly that it meant we'd be having cereal for breakfast.

And then, still hungry, we ordered (gasp!) dessert.

The Boy had flan. Why? Because he always has flan if there's flan to be had. It was light and delicate and sat in a cinnamon cream sauce. He was happy.

I'd hoped to try the avocado napoleon, because I'd always cast envious glances when other diners ordered it: layers of mille-feuille stacked with vibrant green sauce. But when you're not up to date on the latest dessert news, you fall victim to the ancient adage regarding somnolence and associated loss.

(You snooze, you lose.)

Napoleon had been exiled from the menu. Instead, there was an avocado cheesecake and a cactus-nut bread. After much prolonged weighing of the pros and cons, I went with the former.



It was creamy but not too dense; the avocado gave it a light, fresh flavor. It was much like a desserty guacamole, which probably makes sense. The crushed pistachios on top added a nice crunch, and the drizzle of condensed-milk sauce added a boost of sweetness. The Boy said it reminded him of a Vietnamese avocado milkshake.

Next, time, I'll try the cactus bread. Just have to go for a good long walk first.

An evening with Dr. Katz

On Thursday, we went to the Somerville Theater to see Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, live. Given that the original eponymous TV show was animated, this may seem like an exceptional challenge.



However, as the show consisted largely of conversations like the above, it translated quite easily to a stage setting. As with the TV version, there were a couple of loose storylines, involving Katz and his son, Ben (H. Jon Benjamin), and Katz and his therapist, played by show co-creator Tom Snyder:



The rest of the action (as it were) consisted of local comedians sitting in the patient's chair: Matt Siegel, Bill Braudis, Will LeBow and Eugene Mirman (here on Snyder's lap):



The format was perfect for standup comedians to do their thing sitting down. The Boy was pleased to hear his all-time favorite moment from Dr. Katz, when Bill Braudis talked about his father's attempts to quit smoking: "He's tried gum, he's tried ... what do you call that thing with the needles? Heroin! He loves that stuff!"

There was also inspired improv banter between seasoned comics, including a few lovely old chestnuts, some revamped (the joke about Pia Zadora's stage turn as Anne Frank, in which the audience yells to the Nazis, "She's in the attic!" has now been updated to Paris Hilton), and some classic ("I meant to ask my father to pass the salt, and instead I said, 'You ruined my life, you son of a bitch'").

And there was discussion of Katz's life since his 1997 diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis. As in this Boston Globe interview, he moved so quickly between humor and raw honesty that it was something hard to tell whether a punchline was coming or not.

''My first neurologist was very holistic. He said no alcohol, no red meat, no salt. I said, 'What about sex?' He said, 'I'm seeing someone.' "

India with passion (without leaving the kitchen)

This may seem strange, coming from a Limey like myself, but I didn't begin to appreciate Indian food until I moved to the US. My experience with the cuisine growing up was that it was a test of endurance best exemplified by the seven-alarm vindaloo at the end of a lager-fueled night.

(The ne plus ultra of insanely hot curry is Curry Hell, created by the late Abdul Latif, Lord of Harpole, who is best known for holding the Guinness World Record for long-distance takeout delivery from Newcastle, UK, to Sydney, Australia. If you finish the dish, it's free.)

I'd probably still harbor suspicions about Indian cuisine, were it not for the existence of such places as Diva in Davis Square, which goes beyond curry and rice to such yummy dishes as tandoor-baked salmon, fried okra, and coconut-cardamom soup. They also have a fabulous cocktail of ginger-infused rum with mango juice and fresh lime, finished with a dash of cayenne pepper. Gives one's tongue a fruity tingle, it does.

While The Boy has become quite adept at throwing together a curry, he's been working from the same recipe for a while. So we picked up India with Passion by Manju Malhi. The book splits the cuisine up by region and hits the high points of each. The recipes are reasonably straightforward (few are longer than this post so far).

As we'd pledged to eat healthily this week, we decided to try something veggie, so made both dal makhani and aloo gobhi. The former is a dish of black lentils simmered with kidney beans and spices; the latter involves cubed potatoes and cauliflower fried with onions and finished with fresh ginger. There was a small amount of prep for both (the fine chopping of pungent ingredients), and the lentils needed to soak for eight hours in advance, but everything came together pretty quickly.

The kitchen smelled wonderful: onions and garlic and chilis and ginger; turmeric and coriander and cumin and garam masala.



India with Passion is also edumacational: I learned that the vicious vindaloo of my youth came to India by way of Portugal--the name is a variation on vinh d'alho (i.e. garlic vinegar), a leftover from Portuguese colonization of the island of Goa.

The book also has chutney recipes (fig, apple, tamarind, garlic), as well as instructions for drinks such as mango lassi and a ginger lemonade with peppercorns and cumin.

Now, I don't want to promise anything, but if we try out a few more dishes, we might need some volunteer tasters ...

Sausagefest at Café Polonia

As I write, The Boy is making dinner: dandelion greens, leeks, hedgehog mushrooms and red peppers over brown rice. Why such spartan fare on a Sunday night? Because we capped off the week's dining indulgence with a trip to Café Polonia for Huge's birthday. And now we're feeling ... well, a little meated out.

Don't get me wrong; the food was great. It just that the meal began with bread and lard.



Depending on your philosophy, it went either uphill or downhill from there. Oh, the lard was lovely, salty, with tiny studs of bacon. I had to hold back from absconding with the whole thing. But that was just the start.

Huge counseled soup all round, and as there were a dozen of us, we ended up with a good variety.

Sour pickle soup:



I'm not a pickle connoisseur, but I could see how those who are would appreciate this; it's light and creamy, with a tangy, pickly edge.

Wild mushroom soup:



I'm also not a mushroom lover, but this was almost enough to make me a convert: a deep, meaty, earthy flavor.

Beef tripe soup:



Rich and fantastically peppery, with slices of surprisingly tender tripe.

And there was also borsch, which I'd never tried before. But given my recent beet obsession, it seemed only right to have it in an authentic setting. It was everything I'd hoped: a deep-red broth that captured both the sweetness of the beets and the underlying meatiness of beef stock. At the bottom of the bowl were fat dumplings stuffed with mushrooms that, once again, tempted me toward conversion. (No pictures, sadly; my best attempts to capture the rich color failed miserably.)

The soup would probably have been enough, but there was more food to come, including blood sausage, which arrived in a wonderfully greasy pile, along with pickled beets, mustard and slices of raw red pepper:



The Boy also ordered a sampler platter of kielbasa, pierogi and stuffed cabbage:



And that's without mentioning Christine's dish of pyzy, meat-filled potato dumplings that were like a steamed version of Puerto Rican rellenos de papa. I expected heavy starch-bombs, but they were light and lovely.



I didn't get to try John's potato pancake, stuffed with cheese, ham and bacon and topped with a fried egg:



In retrospect, that's probably just as well.

Health food this is not; it's great winter nosh, rib-sticking and dense, but on a mild April night in a tiny, warm restaurant (our group alone half-filled the place), it quickly leads to the glazed expressions and reddened faces that signify food coma.

We made half-hearted attempts at dessert--chocolate-stuffed crepes and cheesecake--but everyone was really too full for more than a cursory forkful.

A fun, fun time, with lovely people. And now, a week of veggies, grains and green tea. Totally worth it, though.

Meat and vegetables

On Wednesday, I had a post-work hair appointment on Newbury Street, so The Boy decided to meet me afterward for dinner. When I mentioned to my lovely and talented stylist, Kristen Lee, that we were thinking of eating across the street at Tapeo, she reached into her purse and pulled out a coupon for a free tapa. I emerged from Emerge with fantastically shiny hair, found The Boy, and we went to eat.

We always over-order at Tapeo. It's unavoidable. First, there are the must-haves:

• Boquerones, white anchovies marinated in olive oil


• Goat cheese baked with fresh tomato and basil


• The absolutely necessary pork sausage, served in a deep, intense fig reduction

Then we need to try a couple of new items:

• A mini shepherd's pie topped with mashed sweet potato


• Fabada asturiana, a rustic, cassoulet-like stew of beans and sausage, slow-cooked until eveything started to dissolve together

And then, because veggies are important:

• Bunuelos: fluffy, deep-fried battered cauliflower puffs

For dessert, The Boy ordered ubiquitous flan and I had the special: a compote of dried fruit (apricots, plums, dates) in a red wine sauce. The sauce was very similar to one I've used for poached pears a few times, with notes of orange and cinnamon; it made me think of Christmas. It was also slightly more than I could manage, so we brought the remainder home and stirred it into our breakfast oatmeal the next day. Now that was a smart idea.

On Thursday, we did the usual Thursday thing, topped off with overloaded plates of pizza and pasta and parmo (of sorts) at Bertucci's.

On Friday, we met up with Jerry and Heidi and Ethan and managed to snag a table at Redbones, which was loud and lively and crowded, as usual, for pulled pork and rosemary sausage and succotash and corn fritters in maple syrup.

Tonight, we're headed to Café Polonia to celebrate Huge's birthday with traditional Polish food.

All of which explains why today's lunch was grilled vegetable tacos from Anna's Taqueria.



Today's words of wisdom: avoid eating at one of Davis Square's healthier fast-food restaurants just as the kid-friendly (and apparently hunger-inducing) Dan Zanes show is finishing up at the Somerville theater. Bedlam and guacamole do not mix.