A drive-by cupcaking

You know what it's like: you're sitting in your office cell, feeling snacky. It's too cold to walk far, plus your energy is already low, and the only in-house options are the woefully inadequate (and slightly squashed) granola bar in your desk drawer, or the suspiciously non-perishable items in the vending machine.

And you think: Wouldn't it be perfect if a truck selling awesome cupcakes just happened to stop right in front of my office right now???

Something like this, perhaps?





Smarty Diane, who runs the Cupcakory truck, came up with the idea of Request-a-Visit Thursdays, in which interested companies could set up a time for the truck to stop by. So we made it happen for our department (and, by extension, the entire building).

Here's Diane, remaining super-nice and very calm, despite the long line of hungry cupcake fans.



The cakes went fast: red velvet sold out while I was still in line. My haul ended up being salted caramel, birthday cake (with the sprinkles), Almond Joy, Nutella, and peanut butter and chocolate.



I should note that they weren't all for me!

In the end, the Cupcakory truck visit was so popular that Diane sold out and some sad co-workers were left cupcake-less. So we're planning a return visit later this month.



Apparently it can't come soon enough.

Hospital food: the good, the bad, and the cheesy

Wow - first of all, thanks for the fabulous, supportive comments on my previous post! It means so much to know you're out there rootin' for me.

So: hospital food. Is it really so bad?

Well, I've now had seven meals on which to base an opinion. Among the best:

A perfectly acceptable salade Niçoise with everything but the capers. (I'm not sure that tomato is authentic, but we'll let that slide.)



Very juicy baked chicken (though the gravy, which claimed to be "the best!", was not).



Chocolate pudding!



Tapioca pudding!



Lime Jell-O!



The overall theme, if there is one, is New England diner: comforting, under-seasoned dishes. Which makes perfect sense for a Boston hospital — when you're sick, you don't want challenging dishes; you want something homely and recognizable.

But when you're feeling pretty much okay, even after two full days of induction chemo (thanks to powerful anti-nausea drugs), it's hard not to lose your appetite when faced with:

A dry, congealed turkey pot pie, in which only the peas are salvageable:



Turkey dinner with sad cauliflower au gratin and more of that the best turkey gravy:



This morning's Cheesy Scrambled Eggs (American cheese, of course, two corners of the square still resplendently unmelted):



The golden glow on its pasteurized surface came courtesy of the much more natural, glorious, sunrise:



I know I'm coming across as a food snob here (well, that is my role). So I also need to say that I completely understand the scale of the undertaking.

The hospital has one central kitchen, from which meals are shipped to various buildings and reheated at serving time. It's much more cost-effective to use frozen or canned vegetables, and soft, over-cooked food is easier to digest (though of course it loses nutritional value along the way). And the cost for The Boy to have an in-room, three-course meal with me is around $8, which, let's face it, is amazingly cheap for Boston dining.

My awesome nurse has been helpful at pointing out things to straight-up avoid: the burger, and anything fish, are two of her tips.

But I'm now at the point where I can read an item on the menu — Kung Pao Pork, say, or Spaghetti with Meat Sauce — and have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to get.

Which is why The Boy is bringing me something from Anna's Taqueria tonight.

Oh, and in case you're wondering whether sick people are fed the same way everywhere, here's a lovely gallery of international examples of hospital food. Japan looks to be a winner here.

Lansdowne Pub: Magically delicious chips!

Remember how disappointed I was with the uneven, dry chips at the Battery?

It doesn't really matter any more. Because I found a place that does the closest thing to real, proper chips.

Last week, the Lansdowne Pub opened, so I went with lovely co-worker Sarah and new co-worker Eric to check it out.

In its corporate attempt to create the atmosphere of ye olde taverne from scratch, it's everything I dislike: 4,000 cozy square feet of faux-traditional, newly distressed, dark-wood bar room. A Pogues/Van Morrison/Cranberries soundtrack. Walls decorated with carefully distressed tchotchkes and cloth-bound books, Guinness posters and HDTVs showing sports.



I was all ready for a menu of authentic Irish dishes such as nachos and quesdillas and buffalo wings and chili.

But the Lansdowne's options were actually interesting. Yes, there were the usual bangers & mash and shepherd's pie and beef stew, but there were also pork chops, oysters, mussels, salmon—items that could easily appear on a trad/modern Irish menu but, at least in Boston, rarely do.

The Lansdowne also does the ubiquitious full-on fry-up breakfast on weekends, and what may be a proper Sunday roast. I shall investigate further.

But what gave me most hope was that they had chips with a variety of toppings: gravy, curry sauce, mushy peas, baked beans.

So Sarah ordered the grilled cheese sandwich, and was going to order a side of chips until the waitress explained they came with her dish anyway. And then this arrived:



"I thought you said it came with chips," Sarah said to our waitress, who rolled her eyes.

"You know, I keep telling them they should change the wording on the menu," she said. "People are always getting this confused."

Okay, so why didn't you clarify this before we ordered??

Eric went for the fish sandwich, which did really come with chips:



The fish itself was lovely:



And I ordered the ploughman's lunch. This was something of a test: in England, you can tell a lot about a pub from its ploughman's, which is, at its core, bread and a wedge of cheese, but can range from those ingredients alone to a feast of cured meats, pork pie, boiled eggs, salad and fruit.

And it turned out to be better than expected:



The bread was fabulous, light and nutty; the cheddar could have been stronger; the salad was okay (no one expects tomatoes to taste of anything in April anyway); and it came with an interesting tomato chutney, as well as Branston pickle, to which I am addicted.

And then there was the meat:



The camera doesn't lie: that's about how appetizing it was. Basically thin-sliced deli turkey and beef, it was cold, clammy, and completely without flavor. I'd seriously suggest that the Lansdowne ditch it and serve a couple of cold sausages instead.

Oh, and the chips?



As good as it gets without going to a proper chippy. Soft and pliant, not too dry or too greasy, held salt and vinegar well. Better than most late-night post-club takeaways back home, at least. I'm usually able to restrain myself from eating a whole plate of chips, but it took willpower not to finish the lot.

The Lansdowne Pub isn't the cheapest lunch option—my bread and cheese set me back $13—but I'm glad it's there for when I get the insatiable urge for real proper chips.

Chip butties in Brighton!

I'm sure this does nothing to support my argument in favor of British food, but I was delighted to discover this tasty treat in Thrillist today:

From a family of Cork emigrees, The Battery's Boston's first "authentic Irish chipper," serving up homemade battered & fried deliciousness [...] The arterial onslaught starts with hand-cut "chips" in eleven styles (from homemade garlic mayo, to curry/mayo, to cheese/coleslaw) that're also available as a "Chip Butty" [...] old-school fish 'n chips [...] fried potato pies (cheese/onion, or thyme/parsley), battered sausage [...] Lucozade [...] Ribena ...

I am so there.

Cupcakes? Sweet!

I've written before about how the recent explosion of cupcake fanaticism suggests a nostalgic hipster yearning for the carefree days of childhood. But for all my pseudo-ironic swagger, I do love a nice cakey.

So when a sign in a Mass. Ave. storefront heralded the imminent arrival of cupcakery Sweet, I started keeping track of its progress (walls are up ... tables are in ... ooh, there's a display case ...).

When I walked past yesterday, there was a "now open" sign in the window. So today, together with cupcake aficionados Sarah and Dawn, I went to check it out.

It's a tiny store; this is pretty much the whole thing.



(Note the flat-screen TV, here showing the end credits for Sophia Coppola's elegant cupcake Marie Antoinette.)

Humongous carnation cupcake from Winston Flowers:



Gorgeous wallpaper from Studio Printworks:



Coordinating candy:



Nice package:



There's an attention to detail and an eye for design throughout the brand identity that keeps it fun and fresh without teetering into saccharine princess cuteness.

So, that's my report ...

The what?

I forgot what?

Oh, you mean these?







(Check out the finishing touch on this last bunch: gold! Goooold! We're rich, I tells ya!)

It wasn't too hard to figure out which flavors to try, as Sweet's menu only has five choices. A further helpful restriction was the price: full-size cupcakes are $3.25, the mini versions a buck cheaper. Bulk buys are a relative bargain, and four mini cupcakes are $8, which seems more reasonable (and certainly less than the cost of dessert at most decent restaurants).

So I chose lemon, cappuccino, dark chocolate and organic karat (that's the one topped with edible gold leaf).

Somehow I managed to get them back to the office, leave them on my desk all afternoon and carry them home without even "accidentally" dipping a finger in the frosting, much less stuffing all four in my face at once. The Boy was suitably grateful.

First impression: well, they certainly are tiny.



But they're potent little packages. The karat cake (geddit?) was dense and spicy and topped with a thick, chewy cream cheese frosting, which just stopped short of being overwhelmingly sweet and harmonized well with the cake.

The lemon was bright and vibrant and much less sweet--it was restrained, refreshing, and cake and frosting came together as one flavor, rather than playing off each other as the carrot cupcake did. (Update: in the shower this morning, I realized what it reminded me of: Bigelow's lovely line of lemon unguents and ointments.)

Cappuccino was the most "grown-up" cake; more elegant and complex, rich without being ostentatious.

Chocolate was good ol' chocolate, all big friendly round bass notes, satisfyingly chocolate-puddingy.

The only bad thing about Sweet: I walk past it almost every day. Can I possibly restrain myself? Oh, go on, it's only a teeny tiny cupcake ... cheaper than a latte ...

Hey, Finley! Check out this snow!

Finley, your mum told me you're disappointed because your toboggan is just sitting there, waiting for snow, and you don't have any.

Well, I can't send you real snow for Christmas (I think it would melt in the box before it got to your house), so this will have to do for now.

This was the view from our front window last week:



The snow at the end of the street was piled into a big hill:



It was very pretty at first:



But every time it snows, we have to shovel the path and dig out the car. Some people don't bother to do that:



You can see all our snow pictures here.

And here's a cool video someone else made of the snowstorm in Boston last February:



Maybe one day you can come and visit us in winter. Until then, I'll try and wish some snow in your direction!!

A decadent winter afternoon

Tim and Peter mark 15 years of togetherness in April, but have decided, in a fit of brilliance, to spread the celebration out over the next few months. Genius.

For December, that meant a weekend at the Copley Plaza, and they invited us to share their rented luxury, starting with lunch in the Oak Room.

We'd been given a table for 2pm--which turned out to be the same time the kitchen closed--but the staff were very apologetic and kept things running long enough for us to eat. The food was pretty good all round, though Peter made the winning choices. First, fluffy, fist-sized crab cakes on a fresh red-pepper coulis:



And then eggs Benedict topped with caviar, with insanely light roast potatoes:



We were the only people in the room, apart from a table of four black-clad dowagers in fur-covered hats. The walls were paneled in oak (natch), carved with leaves and acorns, decorated with stag heads; the ceiling had plaster cherubs and half-clad reclining women.

And then the waiter brought an extra plate of Boston cream pie.



I like this place.

Other ways the Copley Plaza does customer service well:

Lobby dog!
Catie the black lab hangs out in the hotel's lobby, and is available for walks and snorgling. Sadly, she wasn't around on Saturday (I guess she needs a day off from being fussed over). Still, the concept suggests a friendly, unpretentious, comfortable atmosphere.

Fairmont Fit
Available throughout the Plaza's corporate chain, this program delivers workout gear to your room, to save you traveling with sneakers and yoga mats. Of course, I have no personal interest in, you know, exercise, but it's a nice example of identifying a user need and filling it.

Gold Floor
The hotel's fourth floor, whence we retired after lunch. It feels like a private club; guests staying on that floor have access to large sitting rooms with leather wing chairs and books and board games, and a kitchen regularly replenished with wine, champagne, egg nog, cheeses and fruits and sausage rolls and pretzels and olives and roasted artichokes.

We liked it. A lot.



Just when it seemed things couldn't get any better, halfway through an intense game of Scrabble, the waiter/concierge guy came round with oversized chocolate-chip cookies. Yay!

There were only two downsides to the afternoon: the fact that the piped-in music consisted of exactly one song (something by Enya that just kept going and going and going), and the fact that we had to leave, eventually, and go back out into the freezing night.

We'll always have Pigalle (and so will everyone else)

Last night we ate at Pigalle on Charles Street South, because a) we hadn't eaten there in a while (not since, wow, last May, according to OpenTable, though we did stop in for a cocktail over the summer) and b) chef Marc Orfaly is nominated for a 2007 "best chefs in America" James Beard award, which means chances of a future table may be slim.

As it was, the only available time was 5:30, so we had an early lunch and then took the T into town. By the time we'd wandered down Charles Street (oo, new artisanal chocolate store!), through the Public Gardens, up Boylston for a spot of robo-shopping in Marshalls (The Boy's term: it's where I zip rapidly through the racks, making split-second decisions about each item--no-no-no-yuck-no-maybe-no-orange-no-yes-no-no ...) and back down to the Park Plaza, it was time to eat.

The last couple of times we were at Pigalle, I'd ordered their Garden Party cocktail; Hendrick's gin, lemon juice, muddled cucumber and lavender simple syrup. It was so good, it inspired me to harvest lavender from our front yard, and we spent the summer making our own syrup and experimenting with variations on the theme.

When I went to order it this time--gasp! Not on the menu! That made sense, as it's really a summer drink (crisp and sweet and tart and fragrant all at once), but our waitress offered to check whether the bartender could fix me one anyway. And yay, yes she could. So I had that, while The Boy chose the British Invasion: gin, lemon and Earl Grey tea, with a citrus-sugar rim. Something else we can try at home.

For appetizers, I went with the tuna Martini--melty-fresh sushi in a cocktail glass with tobiko roe, seaweed salad and a creme fraiche that ended on a just-enough wasabi note. The Boy ordered the duck liver terrine, a light and creamy wedge served with toasted brioche, cornichons and harvest berry jam--each ingredient contributing a different note (soft/crunchy/sweet/acidic) that matched the others nicely.

For the entree, I ordered the cassoulet, and it was among the best I've had: fabulous homemade pork sausage, falling-apart braised lamb shank and a confit duck leg nestled together in a fresh, deep, herb-tomato stew with white beans. Usually, servings of cassoulet are ridiculously large and overloaded with beans (cheap and filling!), but everything in this cast-iron serving dish was perfectly proportioned.

The Boy went for the special: halibut en croute with Asian greens, asparagus and coconut rice. And, as it transpired when the dish arrived, a generous garnish of lobster. Uh-oh.

The waitress was very apologetic when The Boy explained his seafood allergy, and promised a non-crustacean version would appear shortly. In the meantime, she brought him a small plate of Greek salad to snack on (or, more importantly, to stop him stealing all my beans).

While we waited for fish 2.0 (and I ate slowly), we remembered that this wasn't the first time The Boy had been ambushed by lobster. Doesn't it seem strange that a menu would neglect to mention it? Wouldn't you think a restaurant could charge a little more by noting the inclusion of the L-word?

When the fish came out (it was also sans croute--perhaps the lobster was a last-minute alternative), accompanied by more apologies from waiters, busboys and anyone else who happened to be passing, it was delicious; firm, flaky meat on a bed of pleasantly bitter greens and sweet rice. The Boy had chosen a Riesling that blended perfectly with the latter, and was more than happy with the outcome.

And then some cheeses (sheep! Goat! Water buffalo!) and 10-year-old tawny port, and then espresso, and then we rolled out, full an' happy.

The place was pretty crowded when we left at around 7:30; these were not pre-theater diners, but rather people who had discovered (like us) that the area's food choices are not limited to Bennigan's, Rustic Kitchen and mammoth fish-steak-pasta places. If Orfaly gets the James Beard nod, it's gonna be even tougher to get a spot.

Wagamama

Exploring the Selfridge's food court made us hungry. Luckily, we were just around the corner from the Wagamama on Wigmore Street.

The look and feel of this Japanese restaurant chain is sleek, clean, modern: open, airy and well-lit, with white walls and beechwood tables and a stainless-steel open kitchen running the length of the space. Dining is communal, which means you're seated family-style wherever there is space at the long tables.

You know, of course, how I feel about being unnecessarily close to my fellow diners; I prefer my food to come without a side-dish of unavoidable eavesdropping. Luckily, the overall noise level in the place is so high that we could hardly hear what our waitron was saying, never mind the people next to us.

As a rule, there's enough space for everyone--unless, as was The Boy's experience, your neighbor decides to dump all her shopping on the bench between you, thereby leaving you with just enough space for half yer bum.

Oh, yeah, the food. The menu (PDF) is big on freshness and value, with interesting choices like duck-and-leek gyoza and grilled asparagus with chili garlic salt. Big bowls of noodles and soup and rice dishes with lots of color and texture.

When I lived in London and was a Wagamama regular, I always went for the cha han (stir-fried rice topped with chicken breast) but this time I eschewed nostalgia for the yasai yaki soba, an oversized helping of wholewheat noodles with crunchy fresh peppers, scallions, beansprouts and butternut squash topped with pickled ginger. The Boy chose the chicken katsu curry, which involved panko-breaded chicken breast with a generous scoop of sticky rice and a sweet, mild curry sauce (plated with the rice on top of the chicken, rather than the other way around).

Wagamama is due to open its first US franchise on April 23 in Faneuil Hall (in the space that used to be Rustic Kitchen), with another branch in Harvard Square later in the year.



I don't doubt they'll do well.

Barely adequate*

We'll be the first to admit, The Boy and I, that we're foodies. (In fact, I was introduced to someone in just that manner yesterday. "This is LimeyG, the foodie"). But we're not food snobs.

We've eaten rellenos de papa from a truck parked around back of warehouses in New Haven. We've had scotch eggs from Greggs in Billingham (where they do an eight-item breakfast, and nine of the items are fried). We've sampled moonshine poured out of a metal can in Hatillo (sipping a little at a time ... not blind yet ... so far so good ... not blind yet ...).

The point is, our palates are not so sensitive, so delicately refined, that we can only truly appreciate haute cuisine.

But that doesn't mean we don't recognize a crap dining experience when it's haphazardly dropped on our table.

Tonight, we went to Bouchee, a self-described "urban brasserie" on Newbury Street in Boston.

The address alone is a toss of the dice: the restaurants on Newbury aim to attract the young, hip and well-heeled who make up much of its traffic. But just because the clientele has disposable income, that doesn't mean it knows what good food is--just where the cool kids hang out.

So while there are standouts like Tapeo and 29 Newbury, there are also way too many locations that surely survive on their looks and personality, because their skills in the kitchen aren't much to write home about.

Bouchee is a perfect example. The design is pure French brasserie: long zinc bar, pressed-tin ceiling, hand-tiled floor, leather booths. The waitrons wear the French-waiter uniform of black pants, white shirt, black vest. The menu offers steak frites, coq au vin, cassoulet.

But.

Well, let's start with the service. We had a waiter, of course, who took our order, topped up our water, brought bread, cleared plates. And then there were the busboys/girls, who topped up our water, brought bread, cleared plates. And then there were the people who brought the food, topped up our water, cleared plates.

It was a little like being served by obsessive-compulsive amnesiacs: every five minutes, someone else was hovering at the table, bringing something or taking it away. Or coming by with water, realizing we hadn't touched our glasses since the last visit, hovering until we drank some.

I haven't spent much more than a couple of weeks in France, but I know that's not the way things are done there. In Paris, you pretty much have to stand on the table and insult the guy's mother before he brings the check; otherwise, you can stay all evening, lingering over coffee, discussing Rimbaud, shrugging your shoulders and pursing your lips and saying "boeuf alors" in a resigned fashion.

At Bouchee, it was as though they were in a hurry to get us out the door so they could re-use the table (not that the place was busy; we arrived before 7, and only five other tables were occupied). And despite the abundance of larger spaces, they sat us at a cosy (in real-estate terms, i.e. cramped and narrow) table for two--and then sat the next incoming couple at the four-top right next to us.

Let me back up to the wine. A pretty good list (nine--count 'em, nine--Rieslings alone) with plenty of good offerings by the glass, though the serving sizes were a little Scrooge McDuck. I had the 2004 Trimbach Riesling; The Boy chose the 2004 Olivier LeFlaive Pinot Noir. His was soft and very cherry: mine had a nice edge of acidity. It was also served at room temperature. Feh.

The food got off to a good start: we shared a plate of melted raclette, studded with chunks of pear poached in wine, served with crusty bread and a simple heap of salted frisee.

But then came my salad. It sounded good on paper: greens, asparagus, haricots verts, lardons, hard-boiled egg, fennel, "blistered tomatoes." But everything was chilled: all of the above, plus the plate. I'm all for freshness, but sometimes cold is not the way to go. Not when it means your romaine is more like iceberg, your lardons are chewy and your tomatoes have no flavor. I mean, not even the Cheesecake Factory gives you salad out of the fridge!

The Boy had the coq au vin (which the waiter rhymed with "tin"). Not hard to get right. This version was okay, though, frankly, The Boy does it better. It's supposed to be a deep, rich, hearty dish (authentic recipes use cockerel and involve its blood, which admittedly is hard to come by) rather than chicken in a light meat-tomato sauce. The lardons made another appearance, adding just enough smokiness to lift the flavor, but the texture was still kinda tough.

And so to espresso and a hasty retreat. We'll keep an eye on the reviews and maybe try again in a few months. But then again, maybe not. We have Brasserie Jo and Sel de la Terre to sate our snails-and-frites needs. Why did we ever stray??

(It turns out Bouchee is managed by the Back Bay Restaurant Group, who also own Abe & Louie's, Joe's American Bar & Grill and Papa Razzi, among others. Which explains a lot--Bouchee is to French as Papa Razzi is to Italian: a reasonable enough Disney-esque approximation, if you squint your eyes and look at it kinda sideways-on and pretend you'e never experienced the real thing ...)


*"Barely adequate" is a trademark of Kyle Pepe Enterprises.