Wagamama in Boston, MA (by Gourmandette T)

It’s special celebration time. Where do you go when you’re celebrating an asiaphile who is scared of food that is different –even though you, as a foodie, know he’ll love it if he tries it (but try convincing him of that)—and who has only ever chosen teriyaki chicken from a Japanese menu? You take him to Wagamama. There is no teriyaki chicken.

Wagamama is a Japanese noodle restaurant chain that started in 1992 in London. It immediately became a phenomenon beating such restaurants as Gordon Ramsay and Nobu out of Zagat’s most popular restaurant award in 2005 and 2006. This past year it finally branched out across the pond in, of all places, Harvard Square in Cambridge and Fahnieul Hall in Boston (where it’s taken place of one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Rustic Kitchen). I guess someone realized that Bostonians desperately need some more food culture.

When I first walked in to Wagamama I sorta rolled my eyes and thought, “Great, another place trying to be nouveaux yuppy.” On one side of the slim restaurant there were rows of long tables, much like a high school cafeteria or summer camp mess hall, the open kitchen lining the other wall in its confidence. Unlike in movie theaters, eating to me is a social but also private affair between whomever I’ve willfully chosen to be social with. I get uncomfortable in restaurants that seat me too close to other people, but have been known to turn the other cheek if the food is excellent. As the hostess led us to a bench-style seat beside two Spanish guys, who promptly scooted over in discomfort as we shoved in beside them, as she told us that we could place our things on a shelf underneath the table (as there’s no back to your bench or room on the floor for your things), and when a loud Sex in the City wannabe double-date appeared beside us, I realized the food better be pretty damned good. It was.

Not feeling up to noodles or soup –of which they have much and all of which look tasty—I set my sights on the four rice dishes they have. For every meat dish Wagamama has, it offers a vegetarian version, which as a lover of meaty protein, was a little frustrating because it seemed to limit the menu for me. I love my veggies, don’t get me wrong, I just like to eat them with meat whenever I get the chance. So, with two very delicious-sounding vegetarian rice dish options, there were only two meat dishes I could choose from. I landed on Chicken Katsu Curry, because when you mix curry and panko, delight usually follows. The plate was $11, but there was a lot of food on the plate and it was all incredibly delicious. Even my asiaphile boyfriend had to admit several times, “This is so good.” Almost every bite I took I wanted to announce it. It came in a beautiful curry-colorful display of crispy panko and a plentiful scoop of Japanese white rice shaped like a lobster tail. The chicken was butterflied around and beneath it and there was a tasty garnish of mixed greens and red pickles tossed with a sweet vinaigrette. Yummo.

For dessert, I really wanted to try their Baked Stem Ginger Cheesecake (a baked ginger cheesecake on a crunchy biscuit base served with white chocolate sauce) or the Coconut Reika (three scoops of coconut ice cream topped with fresh mango sauce and toasted coconut flakes), but we got so much food for our $11, it was impossible to stomach more. I’d try their plum wine while you’re there. It’s served with sparkling water and ice, and it comes like a cocktail, to your table and your taste buds. It was a perfect accent to the meal.

Wagamama, in spite of all my wishes to judge it, was a place I would go again. It’s great if you have a group or a family, but probably not the best place to go with only two people. From the looks of other people’s dishes and the descriptions on the menu, no matter what you order is going to be high quality, full of a creative combination of flavors, and utterly delicious. Odd thing, though…there was not a single Asian person in the entire restaurant, including on staff.

THE PLACE: ****
THE FOOD: *****
THE PEOPLE: ***
OVERALL: ****

You can check out their menu at http://www.wagamama.us/food_menus.php

To get there, take the Green Line to Government Center or North Station and walk to Fahnieul Hall. It’s at the end of Quincy Market towards the water. Or, for the Cambridge location, take the Red Line to Harvard Square. Turn left down JFK Street. Continue two blocks, and it’s on your right-hand side next to the Staples.

Mars Bars Gone Too Far(s)

So, it appears our favorite M&M characters have blood on their hands. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is a ferocious not-so-little group that brings awareness to the public on the mistreatment of animals, and aims at helping said animals. One of their current endeavors is to let people know that Mars Candy is brutally killing rodents (mostly cute little itty bitty mice) in an attempt to discover the various effects of ingredients in their candies.

The site claims that Hershey’s Corporation has stopped all animal testing, and makes a plea for Hershey’s competitor, Mars, to do the same. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are other companies listed as having taken PETA’s lead and stopped their animal testing.

You can take a look at all the gruesome experiments they’re doing on gerbils and mice of all kind, mostly at UC San Francisco and UC Davis, both heavy-hitters in their medical research, at the website: http://www.marscandykills.com/

The site’s well-made, and has a sort of morbid humor to its design. The M&M characters snarl at you from the homepage with blood on their hands, and the Mars logo is punctuated with a dead and bleeding cartoon mouse. But the site IS informative, and offers an easy form for you to fill out to send a petition letter to Mars to stop their animal testing. So, if you’re passionate about things like stopping large corporations from giving mice sugar highs then setting them adrift in tanks of water and paint then killing them, check the site out and send Mars a hate letter (or, for more efficacy, a respectful and educated plea), depending on your mood.

Eat Breakfast, Have a Son?

NEW YORK TIMES
April 23, 2008, 12:59 pm
Boy or Girl? The Answer May Depend on Mom’s Eating Habits

How much a mother eats at the time of conception may influence whether she gives birth to a boy or a girl, a new report shows.
The sex of a child may depend on a mother’s eating habits.

The report, from researchers at Oxford and the University of Exeter in England, is said to be the first evidence that a child’s sex is associated with a mother’s diet. Although sex is genetically determined by whether sperm from the father supplies an X or Y chromosome, it appears that a mother’s body can favor the successful development of a male or female embryo.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, shows a link between higher energy intake around the time of conception and the birth of sons. The difference is not huge, but it may be enough to help explain the falling birthrate of boys in industrialized countries, including the United States and Britain.

The reason food intake may influence the development of one sex of infant rather than another isn’t fully understood. However, in vitro fertilization studies show that high levels of glucose encourage the growth of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.

It may be that male embryos are less viable in women who regularly limit food intake, such as skipping breakfast, which is known to depress glucose levels. A low glucose level may be interpreted by the body as indicating poor environmental conditions and low food availability, the researchers said.

The data is based on a study of 740 first-time pregnant mothers in Britain who didn’t know the sex of their fetus. They provided records of their eating habits before and during the early stages of pregnancy, and researchers analyzed the data based on estimated calorie intake at the time of conception. Among women who ate the most, 56 percent had sons, compared with 45 percent among women who ate the least. As well as consuming more calories, women who had sons were more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12. There was also a strong correlation between women eating breakfast cereals and producing sons.

The data are limited by the fact that they are based on self-reported food intake, which can be unreliable. However, the consistency of the trend offers an explanation for the small but consistent decline in the proportion of boys born in industrialized countries over the last 40 years, where even though women in general appear to be consuming more, eating habits have changed.

In the United States, for instance, the proportion of adults eating breakfast fell from 86 percent to 75 percent between 1965 and 1991. And although women may be be eating more overall, a nutrient-poor diet could be less favorable to a male embryo. Glucose levels may also fluctuate in women who are dieting and trying to lose weight prior to pregnancy. In animals, more sons are produced when a mother ranks high in the group or has plentiful food resources.

50 Best Restaurants in the World

S.Pellegrino puts out a list of best restaurants. The list actually includes 100 top restaurants across the planet, but only the top 50 have spreads on it. I’ve eaten at one of them. Sadly, just one. Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s restaurant, which was of course very very good.

It’s not surprising that nearly all the American restaurants on the list are in New York City, but it was that there were none in New Orleans or Los Angeles. If it’s not in New York, it’s in Chicago. Nor was Talula’s Table on the list, that suburban treasure in rural Pennsylvania that’s ranked the most difficult restaurant to get into in the world!

Anyway, without further ado…

http://www.theworlds50best.com/2008_list.html

Emperor’s Garden in Boston, MA (by Gourmandette T)

Boston’s Chinatown is an underrated Beantown treasure. Perhaps it’s because middle-class, white-collar Americans feel safer in the Italian North End, with its quaint narrow streets and old brick buildings. How can you not feel safe with Paul Revere’s house just around the corner, and jovial old men speaking in their Boston twang Italian on outdoor café tables? Chinatown offers a different sensation.

First, to get there, you leave the bright theater lights of Tremont Street and enter a (literally) darker world. Every single time I have walked to Chinatown, I have seen a homeless man passed out in a doorway, oftentimes he’s surrounded by police officers and his drugs are scattered on the sidewalk. But you just buck up, turn your iPod a little louder, and keep on trucking into the depths. You’ll pass the Liberty Tree on your right, where American Revolutionaries protested British tyranny. (Well, you’ll see a plaque where it once stood. It’s just across from the CVS.) Then you turn into Chinatown. Suddenly, the smells and the lack of sidewalk manners, the mahjong tables, and street vendors lead you to feel a different kind of safe. The sensation of safe that comes from being transported to another world, blocked off from the largely Anglo ways of doing things, and surrounded instead by a place that doesn’t quite fit into New England sensibilities. It is the very definition of treasure.

Turn right onto Washington Street and a couple blocks ahead you’ll notice a theater sign, tri-angled and large white bulbs. No show is advertised. Instead, “Exotic cocktails” and “Dim Sum”. Enter here. Go up the carpeted steps, which once must’ve been an elegant entrance filled with eager theater goers clad in their gowns and suits. And once you get to the top you will see a huge expanse of space. Where once used to be theater seats now sit maybe a hundred tables. The glow of the theater lights is still exhilarating as you’re led to your table. Mixed in with the classical architecture and design, are paintings of Chinese landscapes and Chinese dragons. The acoustics are incredible, so that the ruffle of a paper bag can sound like crackling thunder overhead.

The waiter may laugh at you for ordering typically white dishes, like “Chicken and Broccoli” or “Sweet and Sour Chicken”. Do yourself a favor and don’t order “General Gau’s Chicken” if you want to save face. Of course, eating family style is the best way to go here. The portions are too much for one person, and getting different flavors are always a plus anyway. Unfortunately, their claim to “exotic cocktails” did not include an otherwise fuller bar. They only had two wines, a Chardonnay and a Burgundy.

As for the food itself. Our Sweet and Sour Chicken came as large, plump chicken tenders breaded in a kind of beer batter that kept the chicken still very tender and, most importantly, visible. Usually in Chinese breaded chicken dishes, the nublets of chicken are lost beneath the blanket of breading. There was, I admit, too large a puddle of sweet and sour sauce on the chicken, drowning out at points the wonderful taste of the chicken itself. And the green peppers, onions and pineapple that usually accompany the dish were sparse.

The Chicken and Broccoli dish was appropriately bland with a salty brown sauce flavoring that was neither overpowering or worthy of writing home about, but again the chicken was tender and well-cooked. Overall, a satisfying meal in spite of the outrageous $10.40 per dish. I suppose, like in any theater, you’re paying for the view.

THE PLACE: *****
THE FOOD: ***
THE PEOPLE: ***
OVERALL: ****

How to get there: Take the B Line to Boylston. Cross Tremont St. and walk down Boylston St. (i.e. away from Boston Common). The next block is Washington St. Hang a right and you’ll see the bright lights of the “theater”.

Lucille’s BBQ in Lake Forest, CA (by Gourmandette T)

Dining at Lucille’s BBQ is like approaching a hot guy just to find a single digit IQ and bad halitosis. The setting is quaint and appealing, a Southern Smokehouse feel, whatever that is. From the looks of it, it means a lot of wood, great hospitality, and a 19th-century flourish to all the furnishings and designs. The fatal flaw of Lucille’s –and the only one that matters—is that their menu writer is an artist while their executive chef is not.

If the website isn’t tellin’ fibs, Lucille’s recipes started with a Southern girl who moved to Long Beach with her veteran husband after WWII where they found no good BBQ. Lucille then started her own restaurant, basing her recipes off of her ol’ granny’s back home. People had a hankering for it and it flourished from there. The current owner, though, is a private company, which either means lil’ Lucille was bought out and consumerfied, or she’s a figment of the marketing department’s imagination. Either way, the end result is once again that big business can’t cook a decent meal to save their lives.

We started our meal with the Dixie Egg Rolls, which are exactly like the Cheesecake Factory’s Tex-Mex Egg Rolls, only with a Southern twist with its andouille sausage and braised greens, both of which have great and unique flavors, neither of which seem other than visually present in these egg rolls. It’s served with a “fruit dip”, which I think was just watery mango chutney with such a strong sweet taste that it overwhelmed the small flavors in the egg rolls. A horrible combination. The mustard-based BBQ sauce that comes as part of the table setting worked much better with the subtle flavors. And at $9.50, not getting them would have worked much better for all of us.

I then went on to order the Po’ Boy Sandwich with fried catfish and a side of macaroni and cheese. For $11.95 I was duped. The menu read: Your choice of fried catfish, fried shrimp, or fried chicken strips served on a fresh baked sourdough baguette with shredded lettuce, vine-ripened tomatoes, smoked jalapeno tartar sauce and spicy remoulade. Sounds mouthwatering. In truth, the fried catfish was served in mini-shrimp-shaped balls of crispy breading, which of course left no room for the taste of the catfish. The remoulade was sparse, the “smoked jalapeno” tartar sauce the identical twin of nothing more exciting than mayonnaise, and the “fresh baked” sourdough bread was freshly baked yesterday because it was difficult to saw through with a steak knife. More than that, it was served open-faced with no possibility of either eating it open-faced (because of the plastic bread) or correcting the mistake and eating it like a hand-held sandwich. At least, I thought, I can find solace in my mac and cheese, good ol’ mac and cheese. But instead the mac and cheese was much like Velveeta mac and cheese, certainly not homemade with real cheese. (It couldn’t even be saved with ketchup.)

My lasting impression of Lucille’s was “woe is me”; while it’s got a Southernly hospitable wait staff, if you must go, just eat the biscuits. Those are amazing.

THE PLACE: *****

THE FOOD: *

THE PEOPLE: ****

OVERALL: **

You can find locations near you here, unless you live outside Southern California and Tempe, Arizona, in which case…you’re a lucky diner.