Food For Thought

For those of you who have never had a monkfish liver, I’m about to take you on a wild ride. PREFACE: I ate at Basho, and then at Douzo the next day. These are not the same restaurant, just two semi-fancy Japanese restaurants who share an owner (or something like that. In actuality their “Apply to work with us!” forms feature both restaurants’ logos at the top and have very similar vibes so I decided to review both in one post) They hid the TVs!!! Atmosphere: With ceilings chilling at a calm ~14 feet, this place is made for giants. That space is also empty in Douzo, which lets you know the restaurant is kinda expensive (Emptiness is expensive, after all). The same overhead space in Basho had weird barrel frames surrounding lightbulbs. Both restaurants had muted lighting, and allowed in a minimal influx of sunlight from their glass front doors. This place did a lot of things right that most restaurants don’t. Though they had TVs, they were small, and perfectly angled behind ...

I’ll be upfront with you. I don’t remember this restaurant. Me and my squad arrived in Boston, MA on below freezing night and, being used to Alabama weather, our brains immediately kicked into survival mode. There was no time to notice the hypnotically large Citgo sign, nor to appreciate the extensive, heated bus and train system that saved us from death and allowed us to find the nearest restaurant that was A. heated and B. not sketchy. Welcome to the neighborhood pub of Brighton, Devlin’s Restaurant. Atmosphere: Cozy. Pretty dim lighting with fake candles that were actually LEDs. I don’t mean like “look into your date’s eyes and feel time slip away” dim, I mean “I cannot see my date’s eyes” dim. They do have some nice fire-pillar-tornado things from the indoor pictures on their websites, but I can’t confirm that personally. Their tables were wooden, I think, and were easily forgettable. Their cups were kinda funny, like stout wine glasses. They had a thick stem and were stret...

Chinese food in an area surprisingly sparse in good Chinese food, MDM Noodles offers good seating and a calm environment to recover from tiring events with a nice steaming bowl of wontons. And noodles, of course. Atmosphere: The first thing you see is an ice cream cart modified to hold boba tea additives. Boba pearls take about an hour to cook, and must be done before the customers arrive or they will just have the tea that the pearls belong in. Past the protective wall of boba are the seats. On the right is a mix of booths and chairs, which is standard enough. But in the middle is an elevated counter top like the one McDonald’s usually has. Love me some elevated seating. Everything is wood and fantastic, doesn’t feel like its faking anything. There is a huge Chinese quote on the right wall behind the booths along with a picture of some noodles. Sadly, I cannot read Chinese, but I am sure it is deep and poetic in ways untranslateable. It is cold outside this time of year, a...

Lemon on the left, 2 color on the left Athan’s Bakery is a quaint and teensy storefront that hides a large amount of beautiful pastries and cream and anything else you’d expect out of a bakery and more. Their old-fashiony open-air space make me realize I’ve used the phrase open-air too much for it to mean anything, but they beat their nearby competitor Daniel’s Bakery by being open on Sundays and being cozier. Atmosphere: Huge space above the tables. Yea I think I just failed to come up with a synonym for open-air. The storefront itself is plain glass, and my group actually passed by it without noticing that we had passed it the first time, even though I had noticed it before. In the mornings it is hard to find. Once in, there is a loooong glass display of pastries and chocolates and a big blackboard with prices for other things like coffee. On the left wall there is a big table with glass cake dishes that aren’t filled with cake. I wasn’t sure if they were sample plates or ...