cool, thanks for chiming in! I guess for me the next time I’ll just save up for a special occasion dinner and skip the more pedestrian lunches.
not surprised about you discussing the pickling: the tsukemono there is really great. very delicate and delicious.
Certainly not your every day lunch, but if you’re a big carnivore, Gyu-kaku offers pretty good lunch deals. You just have to be ok smelling like grilled meats afterwards. 
I don’t love the air circulation at the Harvard Square location though (much better with their Beacon St location).
thanks. have not tried this place yet, but it’s now on The List!
I tried Whole Heart Provisions in the Smith Center for lunch recently and really liked it. Their menu is all grain/salad bowls, and the one I had had wonderful roasted eggplant and crispy chickpeas.
Didn’t realize they had a Harvard Square outpost. I do delivery from their Central Square location. Love their food!
Woman, GretchenS, I had the Chef’s Special sashimi for lunch today, and it was very ordinary: although the menu presents both it and the special sushi lunch as a selection of interesting fish with interesting accompaniments, what I got was two slices of tuna, with a dash of wasabi, some of mackerel (one rather chewy) with miso, some seared salmon with a sprinkling of scallion, …
The accompanying rice was very good though: the grains separate and with just the right resistance.
Huh, what a bummer. I have had the Chef’s Special sushi lunch and enjoyed it, sorry your sashimi lunch wasn’t better! I have also enjoyed the chirashi at lunch.
Ok, another summer, another round at the Monday Harvard Science Center Chik Chak food truck. The beef kebabs were as splendid as last year, especially when hot. Really, it’s worth going there just for those, and for their splendidly herbal hot sauce. Everything else there was decent, but not spectacular. (I took two for the team and triple-ordered.) The felafel were crisp, but could use more complexity, even the hint of it that might be provided by parsley. The hummus was creamy, but again a bit flat, as was the baba g (nicely smoky, slightly tangy, but just a little lacking).
The dishes that were slightly lackluster may suffer only by comparison with the lustrousness (lustrosity? lust-inducingness?) of the kebabs. Even without the kebabs they probably represent a better lunch option than most food trucks in the square.
and we are suitably grateful for your sacrifice!! 
the kebabs sound great!
I didn’t think this warranted a separate thread. However, I picked up take out from Dumpling House last night and was quite surprised to find it very quiet (easily less than half full at 6:30p). This is for a place that usually is full and quite often has a line even on typically off nights during the week. I am wondering if their business has taken a temporary hit due to fears about this new Wuhan virus, and if other restaurants frequented by Chinese nationals are seeing similar effects. It could be an anomaly but it is definitely the quietest I have ever seen the restaurant at that time.
Let’s hope it’s just the weather, and maybe this scared a few folks off from venturing out in the evening. If it is, it wouldn’t surprise me given some of the over-reaction from the SARS days. I remember rumors floating around around the various Chinatown restaurants, chefs who may have been infected…it was pretty bad. 
Many of the restaurants are small family owned businesses so a hit like this, even for short-term, can be tough.
Don’t mean to derail but more info that this coronavirus panic is having an impact as reported by WBUR today. Hope they all weather through ok.
https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/02/07/new-coronavirus-slows-chinatown-business
huh, I went to Chilli Garden on Wednesday night and it seemed pretty slow in there too. Just two tables full.
Maybe I’ll do what I can to help counteract this. I see Chinese food in my future…
We really enjoy Chilli Garden, although a lot of the good stuff is too hot for us.
Maybe I’ll do what I can to help counteract this. I see Chinese food in my future…
Me too. I was in Sichuan Cuisine a week ago and it seemed super-slow for a Saturday evening. We were the last folks eating in when they started cleaning up more than half an hour before closing. Coincidentally we were talking about coronavirus and wondering if we’d see a repeat of the SARS Chinese restaurant scare. Sadly, signs point to “yes.”
I think splitting off the recs for GBA Chinese restaurants to support would make an excellent new topic as well as provide an overview for what’s good in the area now; could someone set that up?
not too hot for us, and we live not far away. So, Chilli Garden soon!
Just make sure to stay on the Sichuan side of the menu. The other side is not well thought of.
oh yes, we would only order from the Sichuan side. We were there about 2 pm on Sunday…at first we thought they weren’t open because the window neon light wasn’t on. We were the only people eating…we ordered old favorites appetizers Sichuan style cold noodle, wonton with chile sauce and vinegar, and the cilantro green pepper salad (hot green peppers, not green bell peppers). All very good as we remembered from a few years ago. We forgot to specify “the real thing, we’ve had them before and we want the real spice” but I think we got the real stuff anyway. We will go back and were also glad to hear they deliver to Somerville now after 5 pm…but still don’t deliver to Cambridge.
Is there a way to see the Sichuan side on an online menu? I forsee delivery in our future but the menu I’m finding online appears to be the side @bcc notes is not well thought of.
The online menu includes the Sichuan menu.
https://www.chilligardenmedford.com/menu.aspx
Everything we ordered was from the Sichuan style appetizer section.
The “other side” is the All Day menu.
