Best Caffe Menu: Via Matta
Sometimes a table in the dining room — usually packed and punishingly loud — at Via Matta (79 Park Plaza, Boston, 617.422.0008) is not the low-key dinner experience you seek. But you needn’t forgo Michael Schlow and Mike Pagliarini’s cosmopolitan Italian cuisine if you grab a barstool or a table in either of Via Matta’s quieter rooms, the main bar or the enoteca. Get something from the simpler, cheaper caffe menu: a couple of small plates (maybe some salumi and that wonderful vegetable antipasto) or a thin-crust pizza bianco. Add a glass of red. Converse without shouting. Ahhh, that’s more like it.
Most Delicious Dish That Doesn’t Reward Close Scrutiny: Hanmaru’s Gamjatang
At press time, a fire had shuttered Korean storefront Hanmaru (168 Harvard Avenue, Allston, 617.779.7907). We hope it re-opens soon, as it serves the city’s finest gamjatang, an entrée you know you should order because every other customer is eating it, and you’re the only customer who’s not speaking Korean. What arrives is a headily fragrant, transportingly spicy stew of pork, scallions, potatoes, and chilies showered with wild sesame seeds. Damn, it’s good, but the pork looks odd, kinda bony. What is that? (Don’t ask. You insist? Okay.) “Those are pork spines.” (Did I tell you not to ask?)
Most Convenient Spot To Meet Out-Of-Towners: Douzo
The South End and North End may be target-rich restaurant environments, but with scant exceptions, parking there usually involves a $20-plus valet, garage or lot fee, or gambling on a $40 ticket. Rendezvous instead at Douzo (131 Dartmouth Street, Boston, 617.859.8885), happily located right next to Back Bay Station, and let your friends come into town on the MBTA, commuter rail, or Amtrak. It won’t hurt that Douzo has a great little bar, a serene high-ceilinged room, and a broad menu of superb sushi, sashimi, and cooked Japanese dishes.
Irreplaceable Young Genius Award: Deng Laing Of Gitlo’s Dim Sum Bakery
This 24-year-old prodigy, formerly of Hong Kong, turns out the city’s most astonishing dim sum at Gitlo’s Dim Sum Bakery (164 Brighton Avenue, Allston, 617.782.2253), a Spartan 20-seat storefront. Everything is made by hand to order, making a normally loud, hectic meal a leisurely, delectable experience. Given the bracing deliciousness and refinement of his shrimp rolls, pan-fried pork dumplings, steamed chicken dumplings, pork-filled steamed buns, fried rice noodles, and crispy daikon cakes, you’ll never want to order off an overloaded cart in a noisy, cavernous Chinatown dim sum factory again.
Restaurant Name Least Likely to Draw the Uninitiated (Tie): Blunch and T.J. Scallywaggle’s
Blunch (59 E. Springfield Street, Boston, 617.247.8100) is a cute corner joint near Boston Medical Center that serves fresh, delicious breakfasts and lunches but sounds like an emetic reaction to food poisoning. T.J. Scallywaggle’s (487 Cambridge street, Allston, 617.787.9884) is a politically-conscious vegan pizzeria that sounds like the sort of casual-dining hellhole that serves extreme riblet fajitas. Honorable mention goes to Pu Pu Hot Pot (907 main street, Cambridge, 617.491.6616), whose cheap, generic Chinese American is better than it sounds, but how could your food be worse than this place sounds?
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