A couple food-related charity events are coming up soon. Enjoy a nice night out at the symphony or a night of food provided by some of Boston's best restaurants, all while helping provide food to others. Here are the details:
Food Drive at the Boston Symphony Orchestra
On April 1-3, the BSO is holding a food drive in conjunction with its performances of Mendelssohn's Elijah. Concert-goers can donate food items at the Mass Ave entrance and the Cohen wing entrance of Symphony Hall before show and during intermission. And even if you don't like classical musical, you can still donate - just drop by between 7 and 8pm on the nights of the show.
Only canned items can be accepted. Baby formula, baby food, and glass containers cannot be accepted due to safety reasons. The food drive is part of the League of American Orchestras' nationwide "Orchestras Feeding America" project. Food donated at Symphony Hall will go to the Greater Boston Food Bank. You can also give a monetary donation online at the BSO website.
Taste of the Nation Boston
Share Our Strength's 22nd annual Taste of the Nation event benefits the fight against childhood hunger. It takes place at Hynes Convention Center on April 8th and features over 65 local restaurants, wineries, bars, and breweries. Through March 31st, you can save 15% on tickets by entering tweettaste15 at checkout. Follow ShareStrengthMA on Twitter for more information. On the night of the event, Citysearch Boston is running a Twitter competition: tweet about the event while you're there to be entered to win a $200 restaurant gift certificate.
One of the great things about this event is that 100% of ticket sales go directly to the cause.
I'll be attending, so stay tuned for a recap and slideshow!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Restaurant Week: Papa Razzi
Note: This post is about the Back Bay location of Papa Razzi.
I've never had a bad meal at Papa Razzi. Although part of a 12-location chain within the larger Back Bay Restaurant Group, Papa Razzi doesn't have a cheesy chain feel. The decor is nice (and a little bit different at each location), the food is consistently high quality, and the service feels genuinely friendly (as opposed to the over-the-top but phony smiles you get at other places.) And the bread is always delicious!
During previous visits, I've enjoyed the blackberry mojito (which is always beautifully presented with a huge sprig of fresh mint), gnocchi di sorrento, and penne all' arrabbiata. Today, I arrived for lunch and was pleasantly surprised to find that Papa Razzi was participating in Restaurant Week. After a late night out at the Dropkick Murphys show at House of Blues and the resulting painful morning at work, I decided to go all out and treat myself to the three-course lunch.
I started out with the beef carpaccio: thinly sliced raw beef with capers, shaved parmigiano, capers, lemon, and arugula. Only...the arugula seemed to be missing. I was expecting a small salad topped with some beef, but as it turned out, it was a full-sized plate completely covered with raw beef, which was in turn covered with shaved cheese and a sprinkling of capers. It all tasted great, but I've had a bit of a stomachache since eating it. Raw beef is probably better eaten in smaller portions.
Next up, I got penne gamberi alla vodka: penne with shrimp and spinach in a pink vodka sauce. I enjoyed it, but I prefer the fiery penne all' arrabbiata that I usually order.
Dessert was fragoline balsamico - strawberries and vanilla gelato topped with sweet balsamic - a great combination! Overall, my dining companions and I really enjoyed our meal, but my non-Restaurant Week meals at Papa Razzi have been even better. That seems to be a fairly common Restaurant Week issue, which is unfortunate for both the consumers and the restaurants. Today's lunch, though, was definitely good, so don't be discouraged from visiting Papa Razzi. I'm consistently impressed by their above-average service and tasty Italian dishes.
I've never had a bad meal at Papa Razzi. Although part of a 12-location chain within the larger Back Bay Restaurant Group, Papa Razzi doesn't have a cheesy chain feel. The decor is nice (and a little bit different at each location), the food is consistently high quality, and the service feels genuinely friendly (as opposed to the over-the-top but phony smiles you get at other places.) And the bread is always delicious!
During previous visits, I've enjoyed the blackberry mojito (which is always beautifully presented with a huge sprig of fresh mint), gnocchi di sorrento, and penne all' arrabbiata. Today, I arrived for lunch and was pleasantly surprised to find that Papa Razzi was participating in Restaurant Week. After a late night out at the Dropkick Murphys show at House of Blues and the resulting painful morning at work, I decided to go all out and treat myself to the three-course lunch.
I started out with the beef carpaccio: thinly sliced raw beef with capers, shaved parmigiano, capers, lemon, and arugula. Only...the arugula seemed to be missing. I was expecting a small salad topped with some beef, but as it turned out, it was a full-sized plate completely covered with raw beef, which was in turn covered with shaved cheese and a sprinkling of capers. It all tasted great, but I've had a bit of a stomachache since eating it. Raw beef is probably better eaten in smaller portions.
Next up, I got penne gamberi alla vodka: penne with shrimp and spinach in a pink vodka sauce. I enjoyed it, but I prefer the fiery penne all' arrabbiata that I usually order.
Dessert was fragoline balsamico - strawberries and vanilla gelato topped with sweet balsamic - a great combination! Overall, my dining companions and I really enjoyed our meal, but my non-Restaurant Week meals at Papa Razzi have been even better. That seems to be a fairly common Restaurant Week issue, which is unfortunate for both the consumers and the restaurants. Today's lunch, though, was definitely good, so don't be discouraged from visiting Papa Razzi. I'm consistently impressed by their above-average service and tasty Italian dishes.
A note on a few previous posts with dead links...
I'll be updating those to include the full text and photos soon. I had a wonderful but very brief job as the A&E editor/writer/photographer for the now-defunct Boston24.com, which sadly shut down very soon after I started working there. I have a few recent posts (Clementines from Spain and Hell Night, for example) that linked to those stories, but since the site has been taken down, those links are now dead. I am rather attached to a few of those stories and slideshows, so I'll migrate them here as soon as I get some free time. Stay tuned!
I also have a bunch of posts about recent dining adventures on the verge of being written. I've been busy with a new job, but check back soon for a whole bunch of new stuff :)
In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter!
I also have a bunch of posts about recent dining adventures on the verge of being written. I've been busy with a new job, but check back soon for a whole bunch of new stuff :)
In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
EventBite: Steak and Martini Night at Daily Grill
...and an evening saved by The Cheesecake Factory. Yes, really.
I was invited to attend Steak and Martini Night at Daily Grill (mainly a California chain with a few other locations across the country) and not one to pass up free steak and martinis, I accepted, figuring it'd probably be like other PR-organized food blogger gatherings that I've attended. Although I always feel a bit uneasy accepting these invitations to be wined and dined, knowing that they expect us all to go home and blog nice things about them, I do enjoy the opportunity to try out new foods and restaurants at no cost. Then, I do sometimes write about the events, but only if they were particularly good or bad. (Although I think I never got around to writing about an event I attended at Fleming's a year or so ago, which was absolutely spectacular. It's a pretty large chain, but the Boston location is a locally owned franchise. I'd definitely recommend trying a steak there if you're in the neighborhood.) Anyway, back to Daily Grill...
I'd never been there before, and since I usually prefer smaller local restaurants to national chains, I'd never really thought to go. Due to the seemingly poor planning of this event, I don't really feel like I can give a fair evaluation of the food - all I had was a small slice of steak (I wasn't even told what cut it was) with some steak sauce. The sauce was pretty good - kind of a sweeter, milder A1. I also had some sort of girly martini, which was a glass of pink grapefruity deliciousness.
But there were way too many guests for the space. The martinis and steak were served buffet-style, and there were not nearly enough tables for even half of the attendees. It's hard to eat steak and drink a martini while standing up. My guest and I (almost literally) battled a not-so-friendly couple for a table and ended up with a pretty bad feeling about the whole evening.
We left fairly soon after arriving and decided to get some actual dinner. Many not-so-exciting ideas later, we finally settled on The Cheesecake Factory right next door. Despite my small bias against big chains, it actually ended up being a really enjoyable meal, starting with great bread and really friendly service. A pomegranate mojito quickly improved my mood. I got potstickers and edamame, which were both satisfying, and Joel got a shrimp gumbo. Bonus points for Cheesecake Factory for the gumbo - they actually listened when Joel requested it to be extra spicy. We've been putting ghost chili sea salt on everything in preparation for the next Hell Night at East Coast Grill, so it didn't measure up to that, but for a chain serving the typical American taste buds, not bad at all.
Sadly, we did not have room for cheesecake.
I was invited to attend Steak and Martini Night at Daily Grill (mainly a California chain with a few other locations across the country) and not one to pass up free steak and martinis, I accepted, figuring it'd probably be like other PR-organized food blogger gatherings that I've attended. Although I always feel a bit uneasy accepting these invitations to be wined and dined, knowing that they expect us all to go home and blog nice things about them, I do enjoy the opportunity to try out new foods and restaurants at no cost. Then, I do sometimes write about the events, but only if they were particularly good or bad. (Although I think I never got around to writing about an event I attended at Fleming's a year or so ago, which was absolutely spectacular. It's a pretty large chain, but the Boston location is a locally owned franchise. I'd definitely recommend trying a steak there if you're in the neighborhood.) Anyway, back to Daily Grill...
I'd never been there before, and since I usually prefer smaller local restaurants to national chains, I'd never really thought to go. Due to the seemingly poor planning of this event, I don't really feel like I can give a fair evaluation of the food - all I had was a small slice of steak (I wasn't even told what cut it was) with some steak sauce. The sauce was pretty good - kind of a sweeter, milder A1. I also had some sort of girly martini, which was a glass of pink grapefruity deliciousness.
But there were way too many guests for the space. The martinis and steak were served buffet-style, and there were not nearly enough tables for even half of the attendees. It's hard to eat steak and drink a martini while standing up. My guest and I (almost literally) battled a not-so-friendly couple for a table and ended up with a pretty bad feeling about the whole evening.
We left fairly soon after arriving and decided to get some actual dinner. Many not-so-exciting ideas later, we finally settled on The Cheesecake Factory right next door. Despite my small bias against big chains, it actually ended up being a really enjoyable meal, starting with great bread and really friendly service. A pomegranate mojito quickly improved my mood. I got potstickers and edamame, which were both satisfying, and Joel got a shrimp gumbo. Bonus points for Cheesecake Factory for the gumbo - they actually listened when Joel requested it to be extra spicy. We've been putting ghost chili sea salt on everything in preparation for the next Hell Night at East Coast Grill, so it didn't measure up to that, but for a chain serving the typical American taste buds, not bad at all.
Sadly, we did not have room for cheesecake.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Caffe Graffiti: Lunch with the Wandering Foodie
I've spent the last couple days lounging around my apartment uselessly. (Well, I haven't been entirely useless - I did some grocery shopping and cleaned up the apartment.) But one job just ended and I start a new one Monday, so this has been a pseudo-relaxing week. I was wasting time on Twitter this morning when I saw that Hagan Blount, the Wandering Foodie, was offering free lunch to someone in Boston who would dine with him at Caffe Graffiti in the North End. I had been disappointingly planning on eating leftovers from yesterday's not-so-wonderful stir fry - and of course, it's hard to pass up free food - so I said yes. And as a relatively new journalist who is still battling a good deal of shyness, I've been pushing myself to take any opportunities possible to meet new people, network, and push myself outside my comfort zone, so this seemed like a good plan. And yeah...free food. (As it turns out, I may be getting too comfortable interacting with strangers, because it seems I've turned into a magnet for creeps. Waiting for the T at Government Square after lunch, I was approached by a guy who actually winked at me, asked where I was going - "Uh...on the T" - and then asked if he could come with me. When I said no, he asked if I had a boyfriend. "Yes." "Not bad, not bad" and another wink. Huh?)
I bundled up, expecting it to be cold and icy from yesterday's "snowpocalypse/snowmageddon/(and my personal favorite) snOMG." I was inside all day and didn't realize that the storm pretty much missed Boston. Off went the hat and gloves. It's beautiful out there today! After about 45 minutes on the Green Line, I arrived at Haymarket, and Caffe Graffiti was just a short walk away, right on the Greenway and near the corner of Hanover. I found Hagan outside, taking photos of the restaurant. After initially trying the wrong door, which led to a disappointing "guess they're closed" moment, we found the right door and headed inside.
I had read some of Hagan's 93 Plates blog posts, as well as some posts - including a few pretty negative ones - by other bloggers who participated in it, but I decided to go in ignoring my preconceived notions as much as possible and just enjoy the opportunity to meet someone new and eat some (hopefully good) food. Since I live all the way out in Brighton, I don't get out to the North End as often as I'd like, so this was a good excuse. 93 Plates is done, and this meal was part of Hagan's audition for Groupon's "Live Off Groupon" contest where the winner will have to spend a year quite literally living off of groupons.
Caffe Graffiti's lunch menu consists of salads (a Caesar and a house) and a variety of pizzas. We split a Caesar salad with grilled chicken ($9) and a Sulmona sausage pizza with roasted red peppers ($11). Sulmona is a city in the Abruzzo region of Italy and also a meat market in the North End, which is where Caffe Graffiti gets the sausage for the pizza. Hagan described the sausage as "porky." It had a different texture than other pork sausage that I've had - not as soft and squishy - but I enjoyed it and thought it worked pretty well on the pizza. Let's back up a second to the salad. We were both happy with it. It was a little better than the average restaurant appetizer salad: the Caesar dressing was creamy and flavorful without being overwhelming, and the chicken was cut thinly and not overdone. It seems like most places that serve salads with grilled chicken totally overdo the chicken; I'm not sure why. Ok, back to the pizza. We agreed that the crust was the best part. It had that delightfully doughy scent that some pizza has, but it didn't taste too doughy or chewy. The cheese and sauce were unobtrusive, and I liked the peppers. (FYI: I'm a pizza purist and will very rarely order pizza with multiple toppings. One meat and that's it. I generally find that adding a veggie topping to a meat pizza is a grave sin.) Yes, I actually liked the peppers. I've been on kind of a veggie kick lately, and you may hear about last night's odd bok choy craving when Hagan posts his video. Hagan wasn't as into the peppers.
We ended with cannoli. I'm hardly a cannoli aficionado; I've had maybe two or three in my life since I'm not really a fan of ricotta. But the filling in this one had a nice liqueur flavor that made the ricotta much more tolerable for me. The chocolate-covered shell was tricky to cut into; it required some careful maneuvering so as not to send shards of cannoli shell over to the neighboring tables. Once we broke up the shell a bit, I found it quite tasty. Our waiter also brought us a couple free cappuccinos - the pride of Caffe Graffiti. I'm also not much of a cappuccino drinker (sorry, I guess this paragraph is pretty useless) but I really enjoyed this one. It was topped with a nice cocoa powder that cut the bitterness a bit. Also, it was very strong caffeine-wise. If only you could see how quickly I'm typing right now!
Some 93 Plates participants have accused Hagan of being a media whore, only being in this for the website traffic and publicity, but since he openly admits that these are his motivations, I didn't have much of a problem with it. Hypocrisy would have been a bigger problem, but he wasn't pretending that food blogging was part of some nobler goal - he was very straightforward about what he wants from this. As such, I feel inspired to share my motivations for going to this particular meal: (1) free lunch, (2) fun adventure on a lazy day/an excuse to get out of the apartment, (3) content for a blog post. As far as this blog goes, I'm still not really sure what my motivation is. I love to eat and I love to write, so there's that. But on some level, I guess it's also been about wanting some attention, finding a way of connecting with people, marketing myself as a writer and photographer, and yes, occasionally accepting free food. That last one troubles me a lot, but one thing I learned in journalism school was that you can do anything you want as long as you tell the reader what you're doing. I feel justified in accepting free food as long as I tell the reader I'm doing it and provide an interesting story that people will enjoy reading. I've been invited to some food blogger dinners at restaurants where they wine and dine you and hope you'll write nice things about them, and though these experiences do seem kind of dirty somehow, it's given me a chance to discover new restaurants that I may not have checked out otherwise, and I've met some interesting people. But the exploration of the ethics and motivations of food blogging is an ongoing and complicated process, so for now, I'll just end by saying that Caffe Graffiti is worth checking out, especially once they have their 40-seat sidewalk area set up in the summer. Prime people-watching!
Check out Hagan's post here.
Full disclosure: Hagan paid for our meal, I left the tip, and the cappuccinos were comped.
I bundled up, expecting it to be cold and icy from yesterday's "snowpocalypse/snowmageddon/(and my personal favorite) snOMG." I was inside all day and didn't realize that the storm pretty much missed Boston. Off went the hat and gloves. It's beautiful out there today! After about 45 minutes on the Green Line, I arrived at Haymarket, and Caffe Graffiti was just a short walk away, right on the Greenway and near the corner of Hanover. I found Hagan outside, taking photos of the restaurant. After initially trying the wrong door, which led to a disappointing "guess they're closed" moment, we found the right door and headed inside.
I had read some of Hagan's 93 Plates blog posts, as well as some posts - including a few pretty negative ones - by other bloggers who participated in it, but I decided to go in ignoring my preconceived notions as much as possible and just enjoy the opportunity to meet someone new and eat some (hopefully good) food. Since I live all the way out in Brighton, I don't get out to the North End as often as I'd like, so this was a good excuse. 93 Plates is done, and this meal was part of Hagan's audition for Groupon's "Live Off Groupon" contest where the winner will have to spend a year quite literally living off of groupons.
We ended with cannoli. I'm hardly a cannoli aficionado; I've had maybe two or three in my life since I'm not really a fan of ricotta. But the filling in this one had a nice liqueur flavor that made the ricotta much more tolerable for me. The chocolate-covered shell was tricky to cut into; it required some careful maneuvering so as not to send shards of cannoli shell over to the neighboring tables. Once we broke up the shell a bit, I found it quite tasty. Our waiter also brought us a couple free cappuccinos - the pride of Caffe Graffiti. I'm also not much of a cappuccino drinker (sorry, I guess this paragraph is pretty useless) but I really enjoyed this one. It was topped with a nice cocoa powder that cut the bitterness a bit. Also, it was very strong caffeine-wise. If only you could see how quickly I'm typing right now!
Some 93 Plates participants have accused Hagan of being a media whore, only being in this for the website traffic and publicity, but since he openly admits that these are his motivations, I didn't have much of a problem with it. Hypocrisy would have been a bigger problem, but he wasn't pretending that food blogging was part of some nobler goal - he was very straightforward about what he wants from this. As such, I feel inspired to share my motivations for going to this particular meal: (1) free lunch, (2) fun adventure on a lazy day/an excuse to get out of the apartment, (3) content for a blog post. As far as this blog goes, I'm still not really sure what my motivation is. I love to eat and I love to write, so there's that. But on some level, I guess it's also been about wanting some attention, finding a way of connecting with people, marketing myself as a writer and photographer, and yes, occasionally accepting free food. That last one troubles me a lot, but one thing I learned in journalism school was that you can do anything you want as long as you tell the reader what you're doing. I feel justified in accepting free food as long as I tell the reader I'm doing it and provide an interesting story that people will enjoy reading. I've been invited to some food blogger dinners at restaurants where they wine and dine you and hope you'll write nice things about them, and though these experiences do seem kind of dirty somehow, it's given me a chance to discover new restaurants that I may not have checked out otherwise, and I've met some interesting people. But the exploration of the ethics and motivations of food blogging is an ongoing and complicated process, so for now, I'll just end by saying that Caffe Graffiti is worth checking out, especially once they have their 40-seat sidewalk area set up in the summer. Prime people-watching!
Check out Hagan's post here.
Full disclosure: Hagan paid for our meal, I left the tip, and the cappuccinos were comped.
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