Cambridge, MA
Location
If you like a delicious homemade veggie burger, you must go check out Rivergods. Just outside of Central Square on River Street, this small, charming Irish pub has an amazing, rotating thematic decor and incredible food. Surprisingly, the restaurant has a fabulous vegetarian/vegan menu. The wonderful, homemade, “baked herb crusted” veggie burger is a great value at $9 — you can order it with french fries, mashed potatoes or a mixed baby greens salad. For $1 extra, the garlic aioli is the perfect complement to the savory burger and fries. Not in the mood for a burger? The God Salad is a delicious combination of mixed greens, fresh herbs, herb tomato, grapes, wine - braised onions, julienne carrot, beetroot, avocado & egg, served with toast points and a choice of housemade dressings: herb creme fraiche, balsamic or peanut chilli dressing. We found it to be a great dinner choice! The menu also offers a kimchee sushi roll and vegetable tofu skewers which, we have been told are excellent.
If you want to share some hors d’oeuvres with a friend, try the Cheese Plate. Served with warm molten honeyed brie that melts in your mouth, smoked gouda, roasted garlic cloves, housemade spicy chipotle sauce & warm crusty bread, it’s a great choice. One other thing to note, all the vegetarian options can be made vegan by a few simple changes. Just be sure to stay away from the cheese plate though!
The downside is that being seated at a table can be challenging. I would not recommend going there with a big party. As we mentioned, it is quite small, so be prepared to have a drink beforehand and don’t be surprised if you end up with some of it on you due to people squeezing by. However, it is totally worth it because the food is fantastic!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Wagamama
Harvard Square, Cambridge,MA
Location
David and I were excited to hear that a London based Japanese noodle house, Wagamama opened in Harvard Sq. The concept, their website states, is modeled on popular ramen shops in Japan. I have not been to Japan, so I am not sure if their food is indeed, Japanese style. However, they certainly offer a variety of dishes with several types of noodles or rice to choose from. Just remember: everything is made fresh to order, meaning things come out as they are ready— not all at once. The servers tend to reiterate this point, which I suppose helps keep the tips coming in.
We have dined at this noodle house twice. On our first visit, we tried a few different dishes. As an appetizer, we tried the steamed Edamame sprinkled with a chili garlic salt, which makes it a little savory than a typical edamame dish. We also tried the Yasai Gyoza— they tasted like how most veggie dumplings taste, but without tofu. For entrées, we started with the Yasai Itame, this dish reminded me of a Thai style soup because it is coconut based and served with lime— spicy and tasty! Next, we had the Yasai Chili Men, it is described as, "stir-fried courgettes, white and mushrooms, mangetout, green and red peppers and fried tofu in a sauce made from chillies, ginger, garlic, onion, tomatoes, lemongrass and sweet red peppers, served with whole wheat noodles." The only thing that is puzzling to me is why they do not mention that it has a char-grilled flavor, when that seemed to be the predominant flavor of the dish. The rest of the described dish had very little taste.
On our second visit, we tried the Yasai Katsu Curry and the Yasai Yaki Soba. The Yasai Katsu Curry is deep-fried eggplant and butternut squash coated with panko bread crumbs, served with white rice and curry sauce— the curry sauce was great, but we would have liked a little more of it! Overall, it was delicious! The Yasai Yaki Soba dish was tasty, but needed chili oil and spices to complete it. The dish lists butternut squash as one of the main ingredients, but sadly there were only tiny shreds of squash that were undercooked and barely noticeable— except for the undesirable texture. The egg in the dish was not hearty enough to make this a complete vegetarian meal.
For dessert, we tried the citrus lime mousse. It was pretty good, but paled in comparison to the baked stem ginger cheesecake. I have never tried ginger cheesecake before— unique and delicious. Should you want to have some drinks with your meal, I recommend the Cono Sur Sauvignon Blanc, a Chilean light, crisp white wine — you can order a 6 oz pour for $6 or an 8 oz pour for $7, an unusually reasonable price for a decent glass of wine. They also serve different types and sizes of beer.
I am glad that they have dishes with whole wheat noodles but my biggest complaint— you cannot order tofu on the side or in addition to any meal! To sum up— decent Asian style food at a reasonable price, but I am not entirely sold on it. I might prefer to head over to the Porter Exchange Mall instead.
Location
David and I were excited to hear that a London based Japanese noodle house, Wagamama opened in Harvard Sq. The concept, their website states, is modeled on popular ramen shops in Japan. I have not been to Japan, so I am not sure if their food is indeed, Japanese style. However, they certainly offer a variety of dishes with several types of noodles or rice to choose from. Just remember: everything is made fresh to order, meaning things come out as they are ready— not all at once. The servers tend to reiterate this point, which I suppose helps keep the tips coming in.
We have dined at this noodle house twice. On our first visit, we tried a few different dishes. As an appetizer, we tried the steamed Edamame sprinkled with a chili garlic salt, which makes it a little savory than a typical edamame dish. We also tried the Yasai Gyoza— they tasted like how most veggie dumplings taste, but without tofu. For entrées, we started with the Yasai Itame, this dish reminded me of a Thai style soup because it is coconut based and served with lime— spicy and tasty! Next, we had the Yasai Chili Men, it is described as, "stir-fried courgettes, white and mushrooms, mangetout, green and red peppers and fried tofu in a sauce made from chillies, ginger, garlic, onion, tomatoes, lemongrass and sweet red peppers, served with whole wheat noodles." The only thing that is puzzling to me is why they do not mention that it has a char-grilled flavor, when that seemed to be the predominant flavor of the dish. The rest of the described dish had very little taste.
On our second visit, we tried the Yasai Katsu Curry and the Yasai Yaki Soba. The Yasai Katsu Curry is deep-fried eggplant and butternut squash coated with panko bread crumbs, served with white rice and curry sauce— the curry sauce was great, but we would have liked a little more of it! Overall, it was delicious! The Yasai Yaki Soba dish was tasty, but needed chili oil and spices to complete it. The dish lists butternut squash as one of the main ingredients, but sadly there were only tiny shreds of squash that were undercooked and barely noticeable— except for the undesirable texture. The egg in the dish was not hearty enough to make this a complete vegetarian meal.
For dessert, we tried the citrus lime mousse. It was pretty good, but paled in comparison to the baked stem ginger cheesecake. I have never tried ginger cheesecake before— unique and delicious. Should you want to have some drinks with your meal, I recommend the Cono Sur Sauvignon Blanc, a Chilean light, crisp white wine — you can order a 6 oz pour for $6 or an 8 oz pour for $7, an unusually reasonable price for a decent glass of wine. They also serve different types and sizes of beer.
I am glad that they have dishes with whole wheat noodles but my biggest complaint— you cannot order tofu on the side or in addition to any meal! To sum up— decent Asian style food at a reasonable price, but I am not entirely sold on it. I might prefer to head over to the Porter Exchange Mall instead.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
All Star Sandwich Bar
Inman Square, Cambridge, MA
Location
How delicious does a sandwich and a beer sound? Great, right? All Star Sandwich Bar takes this simple concept, which for some reason is hard to find in Boston, and fails. The sandwiches are overpriced and they tend to be bland. The Veggie Cuban, at $7 sounds interesting with its grilled veggies and Mango Mojo Mayo dressing, but sadly lacked flavor— we needed to add salt, pepper and condiments to it. The fries are not included with your sandwich and they only offer one huge size at $3.75, which seems strange since they offer 5 different types of fries! The side of Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese is overpriced (although it looks like on their new menu they have brought the price down to $2.00), very small, and has a weird sweetness to it. To be fair, the french fries are fantastic and the Brooklyn Brewery ‘bucket ‘o’ beer’ is tasty. Also, the Deviled eggs for $ 0.99 are pretty good. But, the slogan states, “Home of the Sandwich Hall of Fame” which implies they would serve superior sandwiches —and they simply do not deliver.
We have given the restaurant several chances as it is in our neighborhood, but we have finally given up on it. Each visit has left us feeling ripped off and disappointed! That being said, the one time we enjoyed our meal is when we tried a special Buffalo Tofu sandwich which was pretty decent —why is this not a selection on their permanent menu?
This restaurant has bright and appealing decor, but frankly, it is boring, as far as vegetarian food goes. Maybe the meat sandwiches are incredible? David happened to notice that the acronym is appropriate for the restaurant experience — ASS Bar.
Location
How delicious does a sandwich and a beer sound? Great, right? All Star Sandwich Bar takes this simple concept, which for some reason is hard to find in Boston, and fails. The sandwiches are overpriced and they tend to be bland. The Veggie Cuban, at $7 sounds interesting with its grilled veggies and Mango Mojo Mayo dressing, but sadly lacked flavor— we needed to add salt, pepper and condiments to it. The fries are not included with your sandwich and they only offer one huge size at $3.75, which seems strange since they offer 5 different types of fries! The side of Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese is overpriced (although it looks like on their new menu they have brought the price down to $2.00), very small, and has a weird sweetness to it. To be fair, the french fries are fantastic and the Brooklyn Brewery ‘bucket ‘o’ beer’ is tasty. Also, the Deviled eggs for $ 0.99 are pretty good. But, the slogan states, “Home of the Sandwich Hall of Fame” which implies they would serve superior sandwiches —and they simply do not deliver.
We have given the restaurant several chances as it is in our neighborhood, but we have finally given up on it. Each visit has left us feeling ripped off and disappointed! That being said, the one time we enjoyed our meal is when we tried a special Buffalo Tofu sandwich which was pretty decent —why is this not a selection on their permanent menu?
This restaurant has bright and appealing decor, but frankly, it is boring, as far as vegetarian food goes. Maybe the meat sandwiches are incredible? David happened to notice that the acronym is appropriate for the restaurant experience — ASS Bar.
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