These Are My People

Playska - Somerville, MA
http://playska.com/

The Cvapi and the Balkan Chicken Boudin

     I'll always argue that the best way to get to know a city is by running it. Even when it's the city you live in, you'll see things you've never seen before. This is especially helpful when you're looking for new restaurants to go to. During a run a few weeks ago, I came across a new restaurant near Inman Square called Playska. I had never seen or heard of this place before but was intrigued by the letters on the window that said "Balkan inspired sandwiches." The Balkans consist of a bunch of countries in southeastern Europe including Albania, Croatia, Serbia and a few others, and since I have connections to eastern Europe and the middle east (and because I know it has the same as the German restaurant Bronwyn) I was eager to go. Stumbling across this place happened at the perfect time because Jake was coming in town and he left me with the task of choosing a place for lunch. I obliged... as I always do. To Playska!
     The restaurant was really tiny, hot and full of random antiques and art boasting the eastern European and Russian vibe. It had a relaxed atmosphere, like a small coffee shop, and only a few small tables. We agreed to split two sandwiches because it was far too difficult to pick. I chose the Cvapi, which had Bosnian style pork sausages, challah bread, feta, butter lettuce, red onion, cucumber pickle and yoghurt remoulade. The little pork sausages were my favorite. They weren't like the typical sausages you'd expect with a casing and the feeling of fillers and fat. They were more along the lines of a homemade sausage or ground meat formed into a tubular shape and chocked full of spices. These sausages tasted very clean, and similar to kofta, which is a middle eastern meatball type dish that my great grandma used to make with pepper, mint, allspice and other spices. They were savory but light and had a subtle freshness that went with the yoghurt remoulade that gets its flavor from yogurt, lemon, and dill. The sausages went perfectly with the feta, pickled cucumbers and particularly the thin, and stringy red onion. The bread was the second best part. It was a fat, wide and short challah bread bun with a slightly floury outside and a sprinkle of herbs on top. It was chewy and a tad bit sweet. All the different players in this sandwich were critical, and the added pickled potato wrapped in an aluminum foil ball was an added, peculiar treat.
     Jake's sandwich (that we split) was the Balkan Chicken Boudin, which had lemon and sumac chicken sausage, cucumber pickles, butter lettuce and a yoghurt remoulade. This sandwich had very similar flavors to mine, aside from the meat, which was a bit more mild with more of a lemon flavor. It still was delicious with the feta, but I wished it had the red onions as well.
     I couldn't leave without dessert, so I opted to try their danish-like pastries with tasty toppings on top. The pastry with the peanut butter in the middle was a little odd because the flavor of the peanut butter was different than I anticipated and it was crumbly, like cooked peanut butter. The other pastry was much better, thanks to marzipan, which is almond paste. Topped with little slivers of almonds, this pastry was light and sweet.
     I'd definitely recommend Playska to anyone passing through Inman, as it's quick, delicious, light and different! I've also read that they're considering rolling out a breakfast menu which is thrilling. Ooo!

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Jerk - Dorchester, MA
http://www.jerkdining.com/

Jerk chicken, collards and rice

     After Thanksgiving, I headed straight to school with all my baggage because I needed to get to class. Part of me was annoyed with the situation, but the other half of me was excited because it meant David would pick me up and we would probably go get food. We chose this random Jamaican place down in Dorchester called Jerk. I had been to a Caribbean place once before back in Lansing with Marc and it was delicious, so I was excited about this being similarly good. The restaurant was very plain inside with a handful or two of dark wooden tables, only a few decorations and a playlist that played a mix of Frank Sinatra, Jamaican music and the occasional pop song. The waiter was incredibly sweet, but it was next to impossible to understand what he was saying because his accent was so thick (which is totally fine... I'm not saying that was a bad thing).
     For the meal I got the jerk chicken which was basically 3 or 4 big hunks of chicken that had been completely infused and coated with the caribbean jerk sauce and flavor. So far in my experience with Caribbean food, it seems as though their approach isn't so much about getting the perfect chicken cutlet. Instead it comes off more as a cut the chicken into pieces, bones and all, and cook it as is approach. While I like the simplistic approach, it makes eating it a bit difficult because you're on the continual lookout for bones that'll puncture your gullet. Anyway, the chicken was incredibly tender, fell off the bones and had a delicious and delayed, subtly spicy flavor. As my sides, I got rice and the collard greens, which made the presentation quite lovely. The collard greens were fantastic too, primarily because the chunks of ham were abundant and it wasn't as sweet as some collard greens can be. I'm not a big fan of the sweeter collards. David's stewed chicken was very similar in taste with more bones, and his mac and cheese had an incredible crust. Definitely homemade. I can't say I'm jumping to go back, but it was a fun and delicious experience if you're looking for Jamaican food in Boston.

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Al Wadi - West Roxbury, MA
http://www.alwadiboston.com/

The best dipping oil on the left, grape leaves and hummus with a Lebanese beer that tasted like... beer.

     This was an impulse buy. Admittedly, not a bad impulse buy because food adventures are rarely
bad.  I saw a groupon for a Lebanese restaurant called Al Wadi and had to have it. I generally like to seize any opportunity I can to compare my great grandma and grandma's Lebanese cooking to anyone and everyone else's. Literal years after I purchased the groupon, I finally convinced someone (Jimmy) to come with me, since it was a little bit of a hike down to West Roxbury.
     We went pretty early (like a couple of old people), and we were one of 3 or 4 tables that were seated the whole time we were there. The restaurant was huge and beautifully decorated. There were a lot of reds, oranges, and tan colors, synonymous with desert hues I'd guess. There were also really beautiful, sparkling light fixtures and chandeliers, really putting me back into my great grandma's old house.
     Unfortunately, the food didn't live up to the atmosphere. We ordered the hummus with ground meat on top but the hummus was relatively unflavorful as well as the tablespoon of ground beef on top. It definitely was not as garlicy as grandma's and she uses ground lamb instead of beef, which is much much better. I was hoping for some warm, fresh baked pita, but they served microwaved cut up pita triangles. Yes I can tell.  I'd honestly rather have had them room temperature because then half of them wouldn't be crisp while the other is still soft.
     The grape leaves were probably the closest to grandma's grape leaves out of all other grape leaves I've ever tried (outside of those made by my family members). Generally when you get them from other restaurants. from hot bars in grocery stores, or in a can, they're soaked in oil and there's no meat. It's just rice stuffed in a grape leaf swimming in oil. Ew. My family has always steamed them so I was delighted to discover that Al Wadi had steamed their grape leaves AND stuffed them with ground lamb. Thank you thank you! They were delicious and served with an unnecessary cucumber yogurt sauce.... but still undoubtably delicious.

Kafta and kibbeh

     Strangely, my favorite part of the meal was the dip they served with the bread. It was good olive oil (you can always tell if you've got a high quality olive oil) and just za'atar I think. Za'atar is a middle eastern mix of spices including things like thyme, marjoram, oregano, sesame seeds and the most notable flavor from sumac. The sumac gives it a strong, earthy flavor I think and is unlike any other spice, in my opinion. Dipping the bread into the za'atar and oil was delightful and made me feel at home.
     For the meal I ordered the kafta kabob. Kafta is a meatball/meat log type dish that consists of ground meat (generally lamb, beef, chicken or pork) and mixed with onions and spices. These kafta were beef and lamb and were served on top of rice pilaf. The kafta were pretty tasty, but, as Jimmy pointed out, they were a little more tough and dryer that I think they should've been. I have concluded that Al Wadi wasn't making many things fresh. I understand that can be hard to do, but between the pita, my kafta and Jimmy's baked kibbeh, you could tell a lot of things had been reheated in the microwave or just reheated in an oven and dried out. The rice pilaf was ok, but I'm not a huge fan to begin with. It's just meh. I'd much rather have grandma's Syrian rice with cinnamon (sounds odd but it's fabulous).
     For dessert we ordered the baklava sampler which was decent. Sometimes baklava can be dry, and sometimes it can be too gooey. These were slightly more on the gooey side and shockingly sweet. While tasty, they could've benefited from being a little less soaked and sweet. However, they did offer both a pistachio and a cashew baklava which was different. I liked the pistachio best, but the cashew was still good.
     I think I'd pass up that Al Wadi groupon if I saw it again. It was worth the experience and worth a shot, but, at least in my case, any Lebanese restaurant has some pretty big shoes to fill in order to impress me.

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Cantina la Mexicana - Somerville, MA
http://www.cantinalamexicana.com/

Fajitas, eggs in purgatory, and a gordita from Cantina la Mexicana

     Well... this honestly wasn't the first time I've been to Cantina la Mexicana, and it won't be my last. This past year Gentle Giant did a fundraiser for the Walk for Hunger there, and I sampled their prickly pear margarita which was really unique. Definitely the best margarita I've ever had. Please try it if you can. I had a burrito then as well and was unfortunately not impressed. It's a big place up in Union Square in Somerville, but I've never seen much of a crowd. The waitstaff is super responsive and pleasant and well.... the margaritas.
     This time David, Rachel, Victor and I went after running the Somerville Jingle Bell 5k, and the food was much more exceptional that I anticipated. Admittedly, we were starving, but it was still fabulous. David and I ordered a gordita because I had no idea what that was, and he wanted to introduce me to his friend gordita. It basically came as a cornmeal tortilla (or what they called a pancake) and was topped with refried beans, chicken, melty cheese, lettuce, sour cream and a little dusting of more cheese. It was difficult to eat, but it was so delicious with the two textures of cheeses, sour cream and chicken and splash of cool fresh crunch from the lettuce.
     We also wanted to try one of their breakfast specials which was called... something. I cannot remember, their brunch menu isn't online, and no one else on the internet seems to have documented this incredible experience before. Maybe it was called swimming eggs? Either way, it was similar to eggs in purgatory. By that I mean that there is a tomato based sauce and the eggs are dropped into the sauce and cooked that way rather than frying them in a pan. This was so profoundly flavorful with a slight bit of heat. It was full of spices, peppers, onions, diced tomato and surprising chunks of chorizo while topped with cilantro and a crumbly cheese. It was served with some warm tortillas so you could wrap up some egg, sauce and the sauce treasures. Took Mexican brunch to a whole new level.
     Because 2 dishes were enough, we also got the grilled chicken fajitas. Although they didn't come to the table on one of those sizzling skillets that makes everyone else that didn't get fajitas jealous, they were still great. These fajitas were different in that you were given the grilled meat, grilled peppers and onions but also received fresh tomato, red onions, lettuce, and avocado. The mix of cold and warm fajita fillers was something I hadn't seen before and was super pumped about. Oh! And another cool addition was snap peas. They included snap peas into the vegetable mix that was grilled and they were delicious! What a pleasant surprise.
     Everything here was delicious and surprising in some way making for a really fun food experience. I'd definitely recommend Cantina la Mexicana if you're looking for unique, fresh Mexican food. I can't speak for the authenticity of it, but my taste buds sure don't lie.

Just Do It. Just Lick the Plate.

Flatbread Company - Somerville, MA
http://www.flatbreadcompany.com/

     Sometimes I do things that are fun and realize how much I dislike how busy life is. Doing something fun and enjoyable shouldn't seem like it's a rare occurrence or not the norm. I need to find a way to adjust my life. Find things that I have in excess and cut them off. Rearrange things. Make more time to enjoy things. Anyway... after many many attempts to meet up, Griff and I finally got together for some food at Flatbreads in Davis Square. He had told me eons ago that this place was good, and I have wanted to go ever since. Truth be told, I totally thought Flatbreads was a dive bar with a janky bowling alley or something. It's on a side street and is inside, what I thought was, a small brick building. I had no idea when I walked in that it was going to be so big and open. Directly in front of you as you enter are the bowling lanes. We didn't end up bowling, but the balls you use are really tiny. It looks super fun though and provides a great background noise for your meal.
     The dining area to the left is one huge room with a ton of wooden tables. All the table tops and seats are wood and metal and fit in with the rustic feel of the place. It was also relatively dimly lit, but there were a ton of colors all around that stuck out of the darkness. There were different colored lights that illuminated other objects throughout the room along with many signs painted in bright, vibrant colors. The main feature in the room, however, was the clay wood-fired oven and the stacks of wood next to it. You could see a nice roaring fire in the oven as the pizzas bubbled off to the side. One of the workers was almost always stoking the fire or putting in a pizza that had been prepared right next to the oven in their open kitchen area. It all had a very simplistic feel. My kind of place.

     Onto the food. To start we ordered one of their salads that was on special. It was their normal mesclun
and organic sweet lettuces, shaved roasted beets, and shredded pickled cabbage and carrots. There were supposed to be grape tomatoes in it, but I found zero. It was delicious anyway, so I didn't complain. I also don't recall the waitress saying what the dressing was, so I played my own game of guess the flavors. I definitely got some sesame seeds, and I thought it tasted rather asian. Gingery perhaps? Upon checking their menu out when I got home, I saw on their menu that they add toasted sesame seeds to their other salads and have a homemade ginger-tamari vinaigrette. I win. It was delicous. Truthfully the dressing was my favorite part. It was just so light and refreshing.
     For our first pizza, we ordered a small Somerville Community Flatbread with their wood-fired cauldron tomato sauce, organic caramelized onions, organic mushrooms, whole milk mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. The tomato sauce was the best part of this pizza. You can't often say that about a pizza.  It was perfectly sweet and chunky (another thing you can't often say about pizzas). I also loved that there were a ton of mushrooms all over the pizza.

          The second pizza was their sauce-less Homemade Sausage pizza with their own nitrate-free maple-fennel sausage, organic sulfate-free sundried tomatoes, caramelized organic onions, organic mushrooms, whole milk mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. At first I thought a sauce-free pizza was silly, but oh boy was this pizza delicious. I think not having a sauce allowed me to focus more on the toppings, and it truthfully wasn't necessary. The sausage had the texture more of cooked ground beeg, which I wasn't expecting. But it had this amazing sweet and maple-y flavor. The sweetness of the sausage plus what we believe was a subtle sweetness in the caramelized onions gave this whole pie a completely different flavor than any other sausage pizza I've had before. It wasn't dessert-like though, as you still got the savory flavors from the fennel in the sausage, the mushrooms and the sundried tomatoes. Gosh the flavor that those sun dried tomatoes took on when they roasted a bit and the edges crisped up in the oven was fabulous. Mmmm!

     One thing I really liked about their pizzas is that they let the toppings be the stars of the show. Now don't get me wrong, I love some delicious, melty cheese... but sometimes pizzas can have too much cheese and you may not get to experience what the toppings have to offer as much. You may not agree, but that's ok. But on both of these pizzas, I realized that I was able to notice little things about the flavors that I may not have noticed if it was loaded up with cheese. Like some of the herbs, the fact that the tomato sauce was chunky, or how I never realized I liked smaller pieces of mushrooms on pizza because you get some in every bite. 

     Oh and I didn't even mention the crust! The crust was incredible! They make an organic bread dough that they sprinkle with homemade garlic oil and blend of organic herbs. It was real thin on the bottom and got a little soggy the longer it sat, but it was still delicious. My favorite part was the crust around the edges. It seemed very different than pizza dough in that it was way more flavorful, much softer and more chewy. Almost like a deliciously chewy dinner roll you'd get in a bread basket at a restaurant. I wanted so badly to butter up the crust like my mom and I used to do when I was younger. 

     All in all, a great atmosphere, great company, and delicious food. I'd love to go back and try bowling with those small balls. Ha.


Greek Corner - Cambridge, MA
http://www.greekcorner.us/

     This restaurant adventure was another one of those week long discussions/decisions that Mary and I had.
Mary really wanted some Greek food, and well... it doesn't take much to persuade me. I know this place was on the Food Network at one point, and it was voted as Best of Boston 2008 for Greek Food. One of my old coworkers loves Greek Corner, and I've truthfully had some Greek salad and a grilled cheese from there before, but I've always wanted to go back for the real deal. Today was the day. We went directly after our Saturday workout so we could try all of the things. I was really excited to try some things similar to what Grandma Dini used to make and compare them.

     As an "appetizer" we ordered the Sampler Plate, which had dolmathakia, tsatziki, taramosalata, spinach pie, hommus, tabouleh, feta cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant salad and olives. This plate was presented with a large dollop each of hommus (Greek spelling), tsatziki, and the taramosalata and all the goodies were places on top of each spread. Dolmathakia are grape leaves, and they were pretty good! Even though they didn't have meat like my grandma's do, they were probably the closest I've had to what I consider "real" grape leaves in that they weren't absolutely soaked in olive oil. They were much lighter and very tasty. The tsatziki sauce was incredible! If you're unfamiliar, tsatziki sauce is a creamy sauce made with Greek yogurt, garlic, lemon, dill and cucumber. It's often paired with gyro meat, but truthfully, it's incredible to just dip pita bread or veggies in. The taramosalata was something new to me. It was basically a red paste that was red caviar blended with bread and spices. We couldn't really figure it out because it was such a smooth consistency leaving us to wonder where the "bread" was. It had such a great flavor that wasn't fishy, but more dill-y. The spinach pies were also amazing. They had some sort of a "dark" flavor that Mary pointed out. I noticed it too, but we were unsure what it was. Perhaps it was just a very rich tasting spinach. Man the phyllo dough though was so delicious, golden and flaky. The hommus was very different than I'm used to but still incredible. I can't pinpoint the flavors, but it had much less tahini and garlic kick in it, and it was a little thinner and more gritty than most hommus. The tabouleh was also a much better representation of my family's traditional tabouleh than I'm used to in that there was more of the 70% parsley and veggies to 30% wheat germ ratio. A lot of grocery stores and restaurants make it into more of a grain based salad with waaaaaay too much wheat germ in my opinion. Not Greek Corner though! They had great ratio, making it the light refreshing salad it's supposed to be. The eggplant salad was delicious too and was very light. It was kind of a mushy mix of eggplant, tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and lemon maybe? All of these things were served with pita bread that we dipped in all of the sauces individually, together, and in combination with the tomatoes, cucumbers, and feta. All of the flavors on this plate were phenomenal together. We were literally in shock.
     For the "meal" we split one Corner's Special Gyro with ground beef and lamb. It was served in a hot pita

bread with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, parsley and tsatziki sauce. One bite in, and I never wanted to eat anything else ever again. The meat was out of this world. It was cut in large hunks rather than thinner shavings. It was hot and the edges of the meat crisped up to give it a great flavor. It had some of the most amazing seasonings I've ever had in meat like this. I've always loved lamb thanks to my family, and this really hit home. The intense flavor of the meat went perfectly with the cool tsatziki sauce. Gosh and the pita it was wrapped in was so thick, warm, and grilled, providing the grilled and slightly burned in a few places taste. The whole gyro was the ultimate package. So so so happy with that choice.
 

   Instead of getting regular fries with our gyro we ordered a side of the Greek Fries which are big, thick-cut and long fries with the skins on. They're served with a little oregano, lemon juice and a ton of parmesan cheese practically poured on top. I couldn't really taste the lemon on them, but I was a huge fan of the parmesan that was warmed up by the fries. We dipped those fries in every sauce and dip we had left; the hommus, tsatziki, and the taramosalata. So many great flavors.
     For dessert we split one piece of baklava and one piece of what they call Galaktoboureko. Apparently the Galaktoboureko is a Greek pastry consisting of a semolina based custard that is wrapped in phyllo dough and topped with sweet syrup. This was served to us warm and was absolutely mind blowing. The texture of the insides kind of resembled a combination of bread pudding, custard and thicker tapioca. But it had a lightly sweet, eggy and vanilla flavor. The phyllo dough it was wrapped in was more moist than most phyllo dough you experience on things like baklava. The top and side of the dough was slightly more crisp, but the bottom piece of phyllo dough had soaked up a lot of the moisture from the custard and was much softer itself. Every bite was just as good as the last. We were so happy with this new discovery.

     The baklava was definitely one of the best pieces of baklava I've ever had. Splitting it made our individual pieces pretty small, but it still provided outrageous flavor. A lot of times when you get baklava, they're really
heavy, both physically and in your stomach. Often they can be really soaked top to bottom in thick honey... which is delicious... but after today I discovered that I like it much better when it's less heavy. I'm not exactly sure how they made it, but the top of this baklava had very little honey in it, allowing the phyllo dough to stay light and flakey. The bottom of the baklava was were the honey was, but even then it was much thinner than most honey, making it all a lot lighter and more enjoyable. The top of the baklava was sprinkled with a dash of cinnamon that I'm not sure is commonplace. Either way, I loved the flavor that the cinnamon added. Totally took it to a new level.
     This was such a great meal from start to finish. No complaints whatsoever.