Giacomo's Ristorante

 This is one of the restaurants on my Boston Bucket List. I really wanted to take my friend from HK here since she was visiting for a only few days. It is one of the best restaurants in Boston so I was really excited to try it.

Giacomo's is in North End. We arrived roughly around 6pm on a Tuesday night. A small line of about five people had formed. I was worried because I heard that the line is notoriously long since they don't take reservations. I guess because of the cold and the fact that it was election night kept most people away. Lucky for us!

The interior is cozy and small. Brick walls, art-deco fixtures. I like the fact that they had an open kitchen.

The dishes are listed on the wall. Our waiter told us the three most popular dishes were the butternut squash ravioli with asparagus, the lobster ravioli, and homemade fusilli with lobster meat and shrimp. To start off, we ordered fried calamari. For entrees we ordered the half lobster, clams, mussel linguine with Giacomo sauce and the butternut squash ravioli. Giacomo sauce is a lobster based sauce with cream.

I made my friend promise not to eat without me until I came back from the bathroom. First, being Asian, we had to take pictures of our food. We took so many pictures that our food became cold. It certainly would have tasted better had we eaten the food piping hot.

The fried calamari was good though I wish it was more crispy.  I was surprised by how tangy and spicy it was. Red hot peppers were also dipped in batter and deep fried.

Next came the butternut squash ravioli. The diced asparagus was cooked really well. It was tender. I could barely taste the butternut squash filling of the ravioli. The ravioli was overpowered by the richness of the sauce.

The dish that I was disappointed with the most was the seafood linguine. While the seafood was cooked well, I did not like the overall composition of the dish. I also felt the portions were too generous. While I'm not one to complain about more bang for your buck, the excessive pasta detracted from the dish. After spoonfuls of pasta and more pasta, I quickly became sick of it. The sauce was too thick and creamy. The lobster sauce coupled with lobster was a bit too much.

While Giacomo's is definitely affordable for some quality Italian food, I wouldn't go so far as to call it the best Italian food in Boston.

The Meatball Shop

If you want Italian food and are under a budget, The Meatball Shop is a good place to go. Expect to wait around 40 minutes for a table if you are going for dinner. After 40 minutes, I received a text from them and we headed inside for dinner. I was surprised at how technologically advanced they were. The place itself is small and crowded. We were seated in the middle of the restaurant with a long table meant for multiple groups to be seated next to each other. We were all unoriginal and ordered the same thing, spicy pork meatballs under a side of spaghetti with meat sauce. The menu is limited and you are given a marker to check off what you want to order. The pork meatballs were very tender and delicious. Since I also had meat sauce with the spaghetti, it was slightly salty and the spaghetti was unremarkable. I was still hungry after finishing my plate so I ordered a peanut butter cookie for dessert.

Spicy Pork Meatballs

Baked by Melissa

Given the little options we had on Thanksgiving, we stumbled upon Baked by Melissa. A few of my New York friends had raved to me about Baked by Melissa so I bought into the hype and I got some miniature cupcakes. We got 6 cupcakes for 5.50. Long story short, these were so over hyped. I really don't understand why anyone would want to eat such small cupcakes. If you want a cupcake, do it the right way and get big cupcake. We chose red velvet, smores, chocolate pancake, and the mini of the month, the chocolate graham. My favorite was the red velvet. My friend's favorite was the chocolate graham.

They sure are cute

Momofuku Noodle Bar

This place was rather hard to find. It was packed with people on the eve of Thanksgiving. We waited for about 5 minutes before we were seated. We were seated at the bar facing the open kitchen and while we waited we watched the chefs prepare dishes. We ordered two momfuku ramen bowls and one dish of pork buns. The pork buns came promptly though the portions were definitely on the scant side. It came with two pork buns marinated with duck seasoning, a small stalk of celery, and pork belly. The pork belly was very succulent and tender, very juicy. I've have Ippudo before so I was not sure if Momofuku would meet the standard that Ippudo had set. The portions were generous. It came with pork round, pork belly, raw egg, dried seaweed and some lettuce. The noodles had a slippery kind of texture while I prefer a more grainy kind of texture that has that homemade feel to it. The noodles were infused with a smokey taste. I found the broth to be too salty and the smokey taste of the noodles was overall too overpowering. The broth was too seasoned and had so many flavors jumbled together. I didn't end up finishing my bowl. I left disappointed and not completely satisfied.

Clinton St. Baking Company

While searching for good brunch places to eat, this place popped up on several best brunch places of New York lists. My friend was sold on the pictures that people submitted of their food on Yelp. Clinton St. Baking Company is located on the Lower East Side between Ave B and Houston St. Getting there was a bit of hassle since I asked about five people where Clinton St. was and they all did not know. Eventually we got there and stood in a long line of well-dressed posh New Yorkers waiting patiently to be called. About two hours later, we finally were finally seated. When we walked in, we were greeted by the scent of freshly made buttermilk pancakes.

We ordered the spanish scramble, eggs benedict, and the grilled chicken sandwich. I was bummed that I couldn't get the southern fried chicken sandwich since that was only a dinner special. The spanish scramble comes with three eggs, chorizo, tomatoes, caramelized onions, scallions, melted monterey jack, with hash browns and sourdough toast. It was delicious and it didn't taste too heavy or greasy.  The two hour wait was well worth it. For drinks my friend and I shared the vanilla classic thick shake which is made with locally made ice cream. It was really rich, topped with whipped scream and some chocolate sprinkles. A little indulgence never hurt anyone.

Eggs Benedict

Spanish Scramble

Grilled Chicken Sandwich

my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...

Blue 9 Burger

A friend recommended this place to me once claiming that this was better than Shake Shack. It's been so long since I've had a burger so I wanted to try this place yesterday. I ordered the Blue 9 burger with caramelized onions topped with the mango sauce, an extra 50 cents. The burger itself is only $5.30. The burger was juicy but the portions were too small for me. I was left wanting more after devouring the burger in a few bites. Though it was a good burger, I don't think it surpasses Shake Shack's burgers.

Blue 9 Burger with Mango Sauce

Takemura, Harvard Square

I've been awfully neglectful of my food blog but I was recently so inspired by a couple of newfound food blogs that I decided to post after my 3 month hiatus. When a dear friend came to visit me, naturally I took her to Harvard Square since she's never been to Boston before. We ate dinner at Takemura, a small Japanese restaurant located near IHOP at Harvard Square. The atmosphere was low key and I thought the walls were really cool since they were rice paper with Chinese calligraphy. I rarely have udon. I've only had it once in New York at St. Mark's Place but I remember that it was really good. I ordered the Nabeyaki Udon which are udon noodles with shrimp tempura, egg shrimp and vegetable served in a hot pot. Overall, I was disappointed. The shrimp tempura was not that crispy or fresh. The udon noodles were over cooked so they were too soft. The soup itself was bland so I had to add a lot of hot sauce. I think the next time I come here, I will try the sushi instead.

Heated hand towels

Nabeyaki Udon 

I like the walls