Beantown Bounty, Chapter 6

Both on the Buffalo/Rochester Roadfood tour last fall and on multiple visits to the Nickel City, we’ve eaten some amazing Buffalo wings at the world-famous Anchor Bar and the equally fabulous Duff’s. With their relative ease of preparation at most restaurants, nowadays it seems that the quality of Buffalo wings has declined beyond the borders of their home state of New York. Not so at Buff’s Pub at 317 Washington Street in Newton, winner of last year’s Best Wings by the Improper Bostonian Magazine. Buff’s wings are meaty, saucy, and sassy, with the Hot flavor being a tad under the normal heat levels that we enjoy tolerating elsewhere. The Spicy BBQ wings, however, were actually hotter than the Hot wings! Paired with passable fries and onion rings, these Buffalo wings are worth a return visit. Special thanks to our friends Frank & Katy for sniffing out this great find!

Beantown Bounty, Chapter 5

There are good Thai restaurants, and there are great Thai restaurants. This year’s Best of Boston winner, S & I Thai Cuisine at 168a Brighton Ave. in Allston is truly great, and that became obvious to us in the first bite of our Fresh Spring Roll appetizer. Our default Thai choices with new-to-us restaurants are noodle dishes (either Pad Thai or Pad See Ew) and curries (either Massaman or Red), and the Spicy Tofu Pad Thai immediately spoke to us. Fresh rice noodles were stir-fried with firm squares of tofu, scallions, bean sprouts, egg, ground peanuts, and hot peppers. Its menu description featured two (of five) pepper icons, and we figured we could handle the heat. The spice snuck up on us both, and after the initial shock—and several slurps of Thai iced tea, super-sweet and cloudy with evaporated milk—we found the palatal pain to be irresistibly addictive.

S & I had the usual curries: Massaman, Panang, and the traffic-light trio of Red, Yellow, and Green. We’ve enjoyed Mango elsewhere but were utterly intrigued by their Lychee Curry. The lychee is a white, fleshy fruit with the texture of a peach or a grape; this, coupled with spicy Thai curry sauce, tofu, vegetables, and brown rice, was indeed a most uniquely delicious dish. For dessert, Mango Sticky Rice on any menu lulls us, and this incarnation was lightly sweet and extinguished the fire on our tongues. We grabbed a box of Thai cookies (flaky dough with a sweet yellow filling) on the way out and reveled in the 126 menu items left to try on future visits.

Beantown Bounty, Chapter 3

The trend of frozen yogurt—the kind that tastes more like cultured yogurt than ice cream—has slowly but surely crept across the country from the West Coast. Akin to the TCBY craze in the early ’80s, the predominant Pinkberry and Red Mango chains are now being challenged by independent makers, and we’ve found a great one just down the street from Amy’s apartment. Located in an internet café, Between Hours at 154 Harvard Ave. in Allston has a wide selection of coffee, tea, espresso, boba drinks, cakes, and ice cream, but the real draw for us is their smooth and creamy frozen yogurt. A mere $3 and some change will net you a small cup of vanilla yogurt with your choice of toppings. We picked plump red raspberries and mochi cubes. We’re absolutely obsessed with these little mochi bites, made from sweetened Japanese rice with the texture of chewy marshmallows. Fortunately for us, Between Hours is open until 1 a.m. every night for all of our fro-yo cravings!

Beantown Bounty, Chapter 2

Moving from Connecticut to Boston was bittersweet from a Roadfood perspective. Although the culinary options in Boston are both more diverse and abundant, increasing the distance between home and the nearest New Haven-style pizzeria took a great deal of emotional strength and will power. Sure, the pizza of Boston’s North End would put many of America’s small-town slices to shame, but I nevertheless feared being left wanting. I am happy to report, however, that there is hope…and it’s name is the Upper Crust. Starting as a single Beacon Hill location in 2001, Upper Crust has expanded to include 14 locations spanning from Newburyport to Plymouth. Although the surface of the specialty pie list has only been scratched, two quickly-established stand-outs have been the Lucky Luciano (a white pizza topped with chorizo sausage, hearts of palm, green onions, and tomatoes) and the Uncommon Pizza (a red pie with the unexpectedly delicious combination of jalapenos, bacon, and fresh pineapple). With two choices of Neapolitan-style crust (white or whole-wheat), 7 types of cheese, and 40 topping options (including obscurities such as breaded veal, lobster, and herb-roasted scallops), the number of pizza possibilities outnumbers days in a year. Luckily, Upper Crust offers a feasible guided tour of their menu by offering a rotating slice of the day in additions to whole pizzas, calzones, and lasagna.

Beantown Bounty, Chapter 1

Since Amy is now living in Allston, one of Boston’s most culturally diverse hamlets, we are taking every opportunity possible to explore the city’s culinary fare in this ongoing series. Allston is an epicenter of global cuisine, with at least a dozen countries represented within a five-block radius. Around the corner and down the hill from Amy’s abode is Gitlo’s Dim Sum Bakery at 164 Brighton Avenue (between Harvard and Parkdale Avenues). Dim sum is the Chinese equivalent of Roadfood in the most literal sense, as it originated as snacks for travelers along the ancient Silk Road. We began lunch with our favorite pork buns, Char Siu Boa (BBQ pork stuffed into buns of fluffy dough and steamed), pictured above. Then came a dish of Chinese Broccoli, sprinkled with Gitlo’s housemade XO spicy sauce:

Mango Ham Rolls (fresh mango strips with mini-slabs of ham folded into spring roll wrappers and fried) were next:

After that, a wicker steaming basket of Taro Shu-Mai (dumplings with chunks of taro root, pork, and shrimp) arrived along with the pièce de résistance, the XO Sauce Pan-Fried Rice Noodle Rolls:

Everything was fabulously delicious and washed down with a pot of Yum Cha drinking tea. But what’s the story behind the XO Sauce? The friendly owner was eager to answer our question. More of a crumbly topping than a liquidy sauce, the “XO” tag is likened to top-shelf cognac and brandy, in that it’s prestigious and usually expensive. Finely made with dried shrimp, scallops, peppers, onions, and garlic, it was added moist and dry to the Chinese broccoli, but fried alongside the Rice Noodle Rolls. We’ll be returning to Gitlo’s Dim Sum Bakery to sample over 50 different dishes!