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I met with some of the Wednesday night dinner crowd at Takemura, before skipping out on the restaurant for the night which was Herrell’s Ice Cream. You see, the group went to Takemura, a sushi and other Japanese fair restaurant in the basement of a building near Harvard Square, on April 4th 2006; so, clearly, that is not the restaurant for tonight. If it were, that would mean we went to the same place twice. The pre-Wednesday-night-dinner snack I had was pretty good, just some steak tips in a yummy teriyaki sauce with rice, which is exactly what I had in mind last night when I voted for it over some pizza/sub place. But that place got a lot of support, so we’re going there next week.

On another note, you know its Christmas time when you can’t walk within a hundred meters of a super market (@ porter square on the way to the T) without thinking for a moment that you are at a train crossing due to the incessant bell ringing of the salvation army.

Pescatore Seafood is a tiny new place in Ball Square. It specializes in Italian Seafood, which probably the most common specialization in the Boston area, ensuring that there is plenty of competition to go around. The big draw here seems to be that the most expensive thing on the menu is ~$15; although, the average bill came out to ~$21, higher than I expected. The place seats about 2.5 people in the front, but there is unmarked back door with seating for maybe 18 people, of which our group constituted 11. I got, much to the not surprise of those who know me, some sort of seafood pasta. It wasn’t up to the quality in the North End, but it sure beat Out of the Blue and Basta Pasta in my book. There were some complains over some squash ravioli, and the fisherman’s platter was piled about 5 inches high with fired sea creatures, which turned out be a little much, but that is hardly a complaint. If this place gets popular, it won’t be worth the huge line that will result due to its size, but its certainly better than the Camberville alternatives I’ve tired.

This week Paul picked Island Hopper, which is, what I would call, some kind of Asian Fusion Restaurant. Its on Mass. Ave. and Newbury St. I had the Mango Chicken, which was served in mango halves, and was yummy. If anything there just wasn’t enough of it. But, apparently, the item to get was Beef Randang, 3 people ordered it and they all liked it, as far as I could tell. Topics of conversation included numerical methods and creative methods for asking girls out on dates as practiced in small town Idaho, near where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed; we had an expert on hand.

After dinner we went to JP Licks, which is a yummy local ice cream place. I always go with the Cake Batter flavor, once I tired to get Oreo Cake Batter, but I screwed up my order and just got Oreo, so now I keep it simple. While eating we noticed this sign for their ice cream cakes, which left us with the intriguing question, “When, exactly, are Oreos in season?” Any ideas?

This week Caroline picked Basta Pasta for Wednesday Night Dinner. It is this tiny Italian place near central square specializing in lots of pasta for not much money. I got there early, as I am prone to do so I walked down to the river and took in the sights. It was a little hard to find, as it is not nearly as well marked underneath that overhanging awning as it is on the pictured side. We had 12 people this time, which is possibly the most since I’ve been with the group. That left exactly 8 seats remaining in the place. I got the Meatballs Pomodoro because home made meatballs sounded good; as it turns out, they weren’t so good, but the pasta was excellent. Everyone seemed to agree about the pasta. And there definitely was enough (Basta) pasta.

There was a bit of drama between a foreign friend of Jed’s and some locals occupying 4 of those seats. This was the kind of place where you stand in line, order, and then wait for your food’s name to be called out by a difficult to understand Italian. I’m not sure what the term is for that kind of restaurant, other than difficult. It seems that Jed’s friend and one of the locals order the same thing, Chicken Cacciatore (if memory serves), and the food did not come out in the same order in which the orders were placed, which is confusing enough. Jed’s friend ended up with what the local thought was his food. However, it took the local about 25 minutes to notice, well, maybe not to notice but to come over and yell at our poor friend. I, at the time, was clueless, and his yelling didn’t clue me in, and I speak English, so I don’t think the local was satisfied with the quite huh, he got, but he went away and continued eating the food he had received.

The last word on this place, and last week’s Italian place is that if you want really good Italian food you should goto the North End, even if it is more expensive.

I picked Out of the Blue for this weeks Wednesday night dinner. This was the first time that I picked a place. Out of the Blue is a little Italian Seafood place in Davis Square. I got pasta and shrimp in a marinara sauce, which is one of my favorite dishes anywhere. It was good, the sauce was really rich and it dominated the flavor. I’m not sure that the place would stack up well against other Italian seafood options in Boston.

Last week we went to Jed’s pick Taqueria La Mexicana in Union Square. I had intended to walk, but I got caught up playing Wii tennis and was late when I left, so I drove. I didn’t take a picture of this place and I didn’t blog about it last week because, well, it is forgettable. What is not forgettable is that they are expanding into the storefront next door and getting a liquor license, which the owner was very excited to tell us many times. The food was the most bland “authentic” Mexican I’ve ever tasted. I got a burrow, which is just a burrito, and I think both Chipotle and Anna’s have better burritos. This place was similar in style, order in line, and such to those places, but did have a much larger menu.

This weeks’ Wednesday Night Dinner was at the Elephant and Castle pub (whats with the craptastic flash websites these places have) in the Financial District. This time I transcribed the address correctly, and stared at a map long enough to get my photographic memory for maps accustomed to the area. I’ve never actually been to the Financial district before. Not 20 steps above ground coming out of Government Center station a couple in an SUV of some kind asked me for directions. I am usually quite happy to provide directions, and I take some pride on being able to provide good, correct ones, but I had just not 1 min before come above ground out of a new subway station for the first time. I hadn’t yet figured out where I was so I was no help to them. It turns out that I was right next to this pipe that had exploded and launched asbestos into the air earlier in the day. I didn’t know that at the time, just saw it today on the web. It certainly explains why there were so many news crews at what looked to be a standard pipe repair job site.

The restaurant was large, much larger than our usual hole in the wall places. It was picked by an actual Englishman in our group, who docked it a fair number of points for not being as authentic as it’s made out to be. Most importantly the flat screen tv with the red sox game on it was highly unauthentic for an English pub in his opinion. I was apparently the only one watching the game though (there goes the theory that I’m an authentic Englishman), because when Ortiz hit a 3 run homer in the 3rd I was the only one who clapped, boy did I look silly. Anyways, the food was good, I got steak tips, and my portions seems kind of on the small side, but everyone else’s portions looked alright. Other than the fact that I am writing home about it, I wouldn’t say its anything to write home about.

So, to quench my thirst and my thirst for exploring Boston area restaurants, I joined a little dinner group a while back. The group mostly consists of Jed’s MIT friends, their friends, and other random people who are about as connected to the hub of the group as I am (not very). We meet on Wednesdays and never goto the same place twice. I’ve gone to 3 places with them, and I only write about it now because I finally remembered to take a picture of the place. Which I decided was a requirement after using an online photo for my dinner in the north end post. This group tends to stick to Cambridge, especially in the winter I hear, since who wants to walk around in the cold unnecessarily.

Last night we went to a Thai place, thats supposed to be quite good, Dokbau, in Brookline. I had this mango fried rice with chicken, possibly not in the mainstream of traditional Thai food, but it was excellent; lots of big chunks of mango, yum. The place is pretty close to where my parents will be staying when they come visit in October, so its on this possible list of places to take them, which needs lots more filling in. But its not as close as I thought it was. Due to their awful flash site complete with annoying whooshing sounds ( I only link so that Google will pick up that comment ), I transcribed the address as 144 Harvard St, which if you check the picture, is not the address. So that was fun, 144 Harvard St. is some sort of nail salon; luckily, 4 blocks isn’t that far off, and Google on the phone came to the rescue yet again.