So, here I was, as many of you good citizens of the Commonwealth of M must have been at one time or another, on a recent Monday, stuck in Middlesex Superior Court on potential jury duty. There are so many questions:
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Why is a court that calls itself “superior,” and has lots of fake wood all over the place (as if to prove that it lives up to its name, despite the low ceilings with fluorescent lights), in an inferior industrial park with sub-superior food (the only two eating options – to stay, not just on thread, but on site – are [everybody seated? Have their smelling salts ready?] Dunkin’ Donuts and Stop&Shop)?
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Why does nothing work in Superior Court? No Wi-Fi. No computer “up” at 8 a.m. No working security gates, thus requiring thorough manual checks. No good food in the vending machines.
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But the biggest question of all is this: why are Gene’s FC and Ritu KR closed on Mondays, when new jurors would most benefit from their food? (Have they no decency?)
I believe that food, like all art, can be transformative – a fellow juror, from the construction industry, said he’d been dragged to NYC twice, once to the 9/11 memorial, and once to the old Yankee Stadium, before they tore it down, but on one of those visits he’d stumbled on the Frick Museum. In his own startled/bewildered words “I’m not a museum guy, but those paintings were frickin’ awesome.”
It’s the obligation of GFC and RKR to provide the food that will transform even more lives.
OK, I jest(ish). Are there other food options in the area? There’s the Sichuan Garden – but I only glimpsed it at the end as I was fleeing the court (feeling, later, like the character in a Naipaul novel, who, after – how to put it? – a premature encounter, mused “too late then, I smelled her sweat”). Is there anything else?
Despite the confidence my wife has in my qualifications – “Nobody would pick somebody with your credentials for jury duty.” – I do worry that I’ll be woefully in Woburn again, and will need to eat. Eating advice in the area would be useful.
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Use the search function on http://thedailylunch-woburn.blogspot.com/. Lunch at Sichuan Garden isn’t very exciting but their H&S soup is good.
Wu Burger is relatively close. It’s nothing super special but they do make a decent burger on a Martin’s potato bun. The Coney Dog is pretty good too. Most of the other stuff I’ve been to in Woburn is a little farther out from the courthouse. Godavari is probably like a ten minute drive.
Hi fooddabbler,
I am a big fan of Pho1 in No. Woburn, but it’s not near the courthouse. Marco’s has good Eggplant Parm subs, if you like them. Other than that, it’s just an ordinary sub shop. Also, don’t know if Cilantro is open for lunch, but their Pho is pretty good. And 3 Country has good sushi and really good drunken/crazy noodles in town. Tuda Na Brasa has a good buffet and rotisserie meats. I don’t frequent it, but The Kitchen has pretty solid Greek food. And lastly, I haven’t been but two places my friends like are Mike’s on Winn street (about a 5 min walk from town) and Sam’s Kitchen down on Main Street, heading toward winchester.
Good luck with the jury duty.
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Thanks, to you and passing_thru above.
I was up north last Saturday and went to a place in Woburn called Olympia Grille which isn’t actually all that close to the courthouse (it’s like ten minute drive away, like Godavari) but I thought I’d stick my mini review here. (I had a note in my Pinboard bookmarks that said that @MC-Slim-JB liked the pork gyro). The place is in a sort of industrial style business complex, and the space has high ceilings and is bright and clean inside. The setup is fairly standard Greek pizza place, your usual subs, kebabs, Greek pizza and gyros and the addition of spinach pie, kotopita and a few other specialties.
The pork gyro at Olympia really was quite good–sliced charred meat on a delicious grilled fresh pita, loaded with onions and tomatoes. The sauce was delicious and there was a bottom layer of Greek yogurt that really made it as the base layer of an ample sandwich. My gf really liked the chicken souvlaki too. The spinach pie was hefty, not really delicately made but more of a sinker that made a great breakfast reheated the next day.
Olympia is not really a destination (esp. 'cause it’s sort of in a weird location) but serves good food if you happen to be out that way. One of the better gyros around, and a quality stop on a Woburn food crawl.
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Can’t picture where they are located… any landmarks around it?
Thanks
Olympia Grille isn’t far from where Washington St meets Olympia Ave., near where you’d get onto 95. It’s in a place that is a fairly generic office park–the most prominent landmark is probably the giant UHaul moving/storage place in the back.
The sign on the place itself actually reads “Olympia Roast Beef” and there’s another small sign for it on the other side that may actually lead one to drive around through the UHaul place–that’s what happened to me!
