Flatbread Company at Sacco's Bowl Haven -- Somerville, MA

The best thing about The Flatbread Company at Sacco's Bowl Haven is the food.  The pizza has a wonderfully crispy crust and the slightest hint of basil in the cheese and sauce.  The root beer is by Maine Root, and thus is an old fashioned boiled-roots recipe that produces a drink with a lovely bite.  The beer selection is also quite good, I selected a Blueberry Ale that had a wonderful hint of blueberry to it.  The waitstaff was friendly and genuinely wanted to make sure we had a good time.

The worst thing about The Flatbread Company at Sacco's Bowl Haven is the wait for a bowling lane on a Saturday night.  Full disclosure: Eric and I did not make a reservation, and we definitely should have and that was our fault.  However, when we first came in we asked how long the wait might be.  The vaguely annoyed hostess told us it would be about an hour, and so we went off to the bar to wait.   I have to admit, The Flatbread Company is not really my kind of place:  I have had some crappy jobs (farmstand employee, tour guide) in a few well heeled rural towns, so Flatbread's super-organic-expensive crunchy granola ambiance brings back a lot of frustrating memories for me.  Eric observed that we were the only people there not wearing ironic flannel, and he was right, there were few non-hipsters in attendance.  I do have to say that the piped in music was quite good, I'm a fan of early Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye, so it was nice to have some music I liked playing while we waited. And waited. And waited.  I took a nap on Eric's shoulder.  I woke up.  We were still waiting. The people who were ahead of us on the list for a lane left.  I went outside because I felt claustrophobic.  I came back in when I felt better.  We were still waiting. Our one hour wait turned into two hours before we were awarded with a lane.  

Again, these things happen, but the way it was handled left something to be desired: the hostess acted as though she thought we were a declasse nuisance,  we were repeatedly left in the dark as to how long the wait would be, and we couldn't leave the bowling alley to do something else while we waited, so the only entertainment available was drinking their beer (a sneaky trick on their part) and nursing our resentments and various anxiety disorders.  

Eric mentioned to me that they should have a system similar to that at Panera Bread, where the customer on the waiting list is given a beeper and at least allowed to go outside to explore Davis Square.  Failing that, he thought they could text the customers when their lanes were ready.  Instead, it felt like we were trapped in the bowling alley.  The food was good, but the attitude of the hostess and the lack of a system to manage what was obviously a chronic problem means that we will try Jillian's and Lucky Strike or Lanes and Games the next time we go bowling.

Update 8/20/10:  Credit where credit is due: I just got a really nice email from the manager of the Flatbread Company at Sacco's.  He apologized for our experience and offered me a gift card.  I couldn't take the gift card (journalistic ethics still apply to bloggers), but the email itself was very classy.  

Storyboarding and Pizza Tasting: Pino's Pizza, Brighton, and Presto Pizza, also Brighton

Thursday, July 22, 2010:

Eric:  How about using your affection for True Crime as a jumping off point for one of your blogs?

Me:  The only vegetarian criminals who come to mind are the Manson Family and Hitler, and those two subjects are really played out.  A blog about Victorian poisonings would also be unappetizing.  I don't like True Crime because I like glorifying criminals through food blogging.  I like it because I'm fascinated by detectives and lawyers.  Is Vincent Bugliosi a vegetarian?

                        Thanks to http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/bugliosi_stovitz_12-69.jpg

Eric:  What about reviewing those pizza places in Cleveland Circle?

Me:  That's probably a better idea.

Pino's Pizza, Cleveland Circle, Brighton  

Eric and I walked out of the rainy Boston day, and into the relative calm and quiet of Pino's Pizza in Brighton. Although the outside of the restaurant boasted a gloriously tacky and obviously unrestored 1950's beach-boardwalk style sign, the inside of the restaurant was bright, clean and surprisingly contemporary.  We decided to order the 2-slice, 1 drink cheese pizza special.  We grabbed our slices and drink and headed to a booth.

The crust was possibly the crispiest crust I have ever tasted.  (Possibly because, as is standard procedure in most restaurants selling single pizza slices, the slices were taken from a pre-made pie and reheated to order.)  The cheese and sauce were both fresh tasting, but a little on the bland side.  It tasted better than the average Papa Gino's slice, but no flavors particularly stood out.  I took a quick bite, and added Parmesan cheese and pepper to my slice, as is my habit.  The slices were generous, and the pizza folded well, which made for easy eating.  I was also pleased to note the comparative bounty (for an unyuppified Boston-area sub shop) of vegetarian sub and pasta options on the menu. We left feeling relatively full and satisfied.

Presto Pizza, Cleveland Circle, Brighton 

The exterior of Presto Pizza is unremarkable, but the inside of the restaurant, with its gigantic tree, Tiffany lamps, and 1982 World Cup soccer posters, is a little reminiscent of the Regal Beagle.  Once again, we ordered the six dollar double-slice-and-one-drink special, and once again we retired to a booth table with various condiments.  I was impressed by the Parmesan cheese on offer, it was hard to get out of the container, but that was because it was fresh grated.  It had a wonderfully creamy, nutty taste that added to the general garlicy-olive oily*, just-a-hint-of-basilish flavor of the pizza. The slices were so big, they wouldn't fit on their paper plates and ended up touching the table in a way that bothered me a little bit.

Eric and I agreed: if Presto was busy, going to Pino's wouldn't spoil the night.  However, Presto had the better slice by far.



*Presto Pizza is noticably more greasy than its competitor.

A Vegetarian in a Meat Eater's World: Redbones, Davis Square, Somerville

"I see no entrees without meat in them," Eric said, glancing over his menu at me, "except the Portabello Mushroom Sandwich. We can't both eat one thing, should we just order appetizers?"  I glanced at my menu and took a sip of Sam's Summer*,  "I don't see why not, I've never tried succotash."

We had come to Redbones because summer was coming and we wanted to try something different.  Redbones is something of a local favorite with Tufts and Harvard students: the surf shack decor, the cheap booze, the affordable food, the fact that it is one of the few places in the Greater Boston Area where you can get decent barbecue.  Eric and I are past our student days, and barbecue is not really on our radar.  Our visit was made in the spirit of experiment:  what would two vegetarians eat for dinner at a place called Redbones?

"Well," I said, "I call dibs on the mushroom sandwich.  They have a veggie burger option, but I don't know... I've had bad experiences with those.  Does the spelling of chicken as "chik'n" indicate that they're using fake meat?"
"I don't know, we'll ask."
"Mmmmm.  I've always wanted to try hush puppies, ever since the characters ate them in Summer of My German Soldier."
"And the garlic mashed potatoes look good, and maybe succotash? It looks meatless."
"What exactly is succotash?"
"Well, here it's made of lima beans, corn, onions, and peppers."
"Weird. I always pictured it as more of a fried-spinach type thing, like ravis."

The waitress came to our table and took our orders, the "chik'n sandwich," sadly, was made of real chicken, so we pigged out on the cornbread.  The cornbread was made of the fine, white corn meal that is a hallmark of Southern and Midwestern cooking (Sarah Vowell talks about it in her famous Thanksgiving essay), but is relatively hard to get in the Northeast.  I ordered my mushroom sandwich, and Eric got three appetizers: the mashed potatoes, succotash, and hush puppies.

Our food arrived quickly.  My mushroom burger was wonderful, well fried and with a satisfying sense of chewiness.  The "onion merlot jam" was merely a certain type of pickled onion, and was delicious.  It came with an unremarkable side salad that Eric and I shared.  Eric's appetizers were really big, an entire plate of garlic potatoes, a big bowl of succotash, and another plate of hush puppies.  No one was going to go hungry eating any of those dishes.  I asked to try a hush puppy, and Eric graciously let me grab one off his plate and dunk it in the garlic sauce.  It reminded me a bit of the french fries I used to get at chippies in Edinburgh: vaguely oniony, crisply fried starch soaked in vinegar.  Comfort food.  I also cadged a forkful of garlic potatoes (real potatoes, just the right amount of garlic, wonderful), and finished off his succotash when he got full.  (It tasted a little like minestrone, except more bland.)

The results of this experiment: any vegetarian can go to Redbones with his or her meat-eating friends and be assured of something to eat.  However, it would probably not be a good place to regularly go for dinner. Obtaining a pre-date snack, though, should be no trouble at all.






*I have an allergy to some preservatives in alcohol, so you'll find few reviews of local brews (or, for that matter, red or rose wines) on this blog.  I just stick to the boring offerings I know are "safe".

Mr. Crepe, Davis Square, Somerville

My birthday occured a few days before I changed jobs, and we almost scrapped doing anything to celebrate on the day of my birthday because we were worried about spending money.  However, Eric got ahold of a menu for a crepe place I had long been dying to try, and as the prices were exceedingly reasonable I met him up in Davis Square after work, and we gave it a shot. 

We read from a list of savory and sweet crepes, and decided to share the Super Fennel Crepe, which had fennel, tomatoes, mozarella and spinach, and an unnamed crepe with fresh spinach, portabello mushrooms, and basil with a cheese I could choose. (I chose feta.)  I hadn't had a crepe in about five years, and these did not disappoint.  The crepe batter was light and fluffy, and the inner contents were pleasingly crunchy and steam cooked.  The feta was a little salty, but that was my fault, as I chose it.

My only complaint is that Mr. Crepe's tea ordering procedure is a little hard to figure out.  I ordered a cup of tea with my meal, and I was asked to choose the type of tea I would like out of a collection of jars on the counter.   I selected my tea (Jasmine) and then... just stood there while the girl working the counter dealt with several other customers.  I finally put the tea cannister down on the counter in front of the register, and was eventually served a cup of tea, but there seems to have been a lot of unneeded uncertainty involved in this transaction.

A Passage to India, Porter Square, Cambridge Massachusetts

"Their walls are painted with that thrown-sponge technique that was so popular a few years ago," I muttered to Eric as we walked through the door of the Cambridge branch of A Passage to India.  "It looks kind of weird. There aren't many people here," I continued, "is that a bad sign?"

It was the day before Valentine's Day and we had once again ventured into world of mid-priced Cambridge Indian restaurants.  We had considered going back to Desi Dhaba for the holiday, but had decided to go to a place that had repeatedly caught my eye as I got off the 96 bus to go grocery shopping in Porter Square.  Now that I had actually committed to going to the place, however, I was having doubts.  However, we took a seat and started poking at the bottles of San Pellegrino that had been placed on every table.

"Do these come with our meal?" asked Eric, and after a weird interlude where the waiter started writing the cost of the bottle on the bill, and I suddenly reverted into Scotland Me and asked for "still water, not fizzy", we finally sorted out that the San Pellegrino was not intended to be a freebie, and ordered our drinks and appetizers.

I took one bite of my first appetizer, a paneer pakora, and decided my doubts were unfounded.  The cheese was a perfect combination of fluffy and gooey, and the chickpea-and-caraway-seed batter provided a satisfying crunch.  Having the aloo tikka and vegetable pakora on the same platter were redundant -- two mashed potato based snacks got a little dull -- but both were well flavored and just the right amount of spicy.

I had better luck with my wine this time, perhaps because the food at Passage to India was less spicy than that at Desi Dhaba, but for whatever reason the glass of Blue Fish Riesling I ordered held its own against the flavors of my meal: it was light, fruity in a nicely astringent sort of way, and killed exactly enough pepper fire so that my mouth wasn't burned to a cinder when I dumped a little too much hot sauce on my pakora.

We had Kabuli Channa: a chickpea, tomato, and potato based dish that blended well with rice but could have used a little bit more ginger and garlic -- and Vegetable Korma, which was a mix of fresh vegetables in a really wonderful yogurt sauce.  (Even Eric, who hates a couple of the veggies they used, loved it.)

The naan was a little disappointing, a little too heavy, a little too garlicy, but it was still good enough to bother taking the leftovers home for breakfast tomorrow.

All in all, Desi Dhaba was better, but if you live in the Somerville/Cambridge/Medford area, this place is worth a look.