I will spend a night next week at a hotel near the Burlington Mall. I no longer drive and would like to take the opportunity for dinner from somewhere that doesn’t deliver where I live, and preferably not via a delivery service that gouges the restaurant. I’ve heard great things about Viet Citron, but am leaning toward Indian. Seafood or brick oven pizza are also calling to me.
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I can’t vouch for delivery, as I also hate to use most delivery services for their harm to restaurant profits, so I think you’ll have to call around to find places with their own drivers. But here are a few nearby spots I like:
Viet Citron – Indeed very good, if pricey compared to many traditional Vietnamese places. A lot of care and fine ingredients help justify that premium.
Row 34 – Excellent local New England raw bar and other seafood, one of my favorites of this kind of place in Greater Boston. Part of a small local restaurant group.
Sichuan Gourmet – Traditional Sichuan cuisine (and some American-Chinese), very good. Part of a small local restaurant group.
Parm – Pricey but high-quality scratch Italian-American, basically the chain version of the bygone Torrisi Italian Specialties in NYC’s Little Italy. Part of the Major Foods Group that originated with Torrisi’s, expanded to the excellent Carbone in Manhattan, and is now international.
Frank Pepe’s – Don’t expect quality like you’d find in New Haven, but this chain outlet of the famous apizza place is not bad.
H-Mart food court – I favor the purely Korean dishes here (they have Chinese and Vietnamese offerings, too), notably Woojeon for soups and Joy BBQ for skewers.
Gene’s Chinese Flatbread in Woburn for Shaanxi cuisine, notably great hand-pulled noodle soups, very fine lamb skewers and Xi’an hamburgers (flatbread chopped-meat sandwiches).
Spicy Hunan Kitchen in Woburn, just opened with a big menu of Hunanese, Thai, Japanese and American-Chinese dishes. I’ve only had a few Hunanese plates here but thought they were excellent.
Tudo na Brasa, Brazilian weigh-your-plate churrasco in Woburn, really good of its kind.
Jack’s Coal-Fired Pizza – I’m not a huge fan of this place, but it’s nearby and fits your brick-oven request.
You have many options for Indian nearby. My favorites include Ritu ki Rasoi (vegetarian Southern Indian) and Godavari in Woburn (a chain, but a very good one). Tashan in Bedford has gotten recent raves here, but I have not been yet.
Hope that helps!
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Thanks! I live in Billerica so some of these DO deliver in my area, or Ubereats does. And having been the first Chowhound to discover and rave over the original Gene’s, I still feel like its proud mother. Since I’ve never had Frank Pepe’s, that or Jack’s might be a good choice for take-home the next day. Ritu Ki Rasoi doesn’t deliver. They’re a favorite and I’ve begged. I worked in Woburn so know Tudo Na Brasa but the buffet-ish format is iffy. If only I could walk properly, or it was more than one night away from home. Leaning toward Viet Citron or Row 34.
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Choices you are considering look great. I wracked my brain for other good options in the area and came up empty.
Well-earned, too! The Chowdown you organized back in the day—at the original Gene’s—put his food on the word-of-mouth map. After that, people noticed. I was one of the lucky folks to join you that evening so I’ll always remember gratefully.
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Have you ever tried Pintxo Pincho Tapas bar in Woburn? I rarely get that far from Somerville so I haven’t, but always wanted to. Oops, I see that they seem to only offer GrubHub delivery.
Now that I’m here, does anyone have personal experience with Pintxo Pincho?
Would you consider taking an Uber to pick up yourself for takeout? That would avoid the pitfalls of the delivery services and give you a wider range of choice. Or does Uber not allow that because they want to make more $$$ from the restaurants?
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Without too much detail, my chronic mobility difficulties were exacerbated last year by a failed procedure for a different problem. The hotel overnight is so as to access a walk-in shower. In and out of Ubers, which are often too high, and with cramped leg room, needs to be minimized. But I too am curious about Pintxo Pincho and need to see if they deliver where I live.
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My sympathies as I have chronic mobility issues as well (3 joint replacements) and once had to get it the front seat of a cab, which somehow had easier access, because I couldn’t climb into the back. Picked up my husband for a medical procedure as required in an smaller Uber earlier this year and it worked out ok; I got in fine and could lean diagonally in back seat to get the leg room I needed.
Does anybody know if Uber will allow you to book a round trip at a scheduled time to pick up an online delivery order from a restaurant? Do you pay the regular Uber fees for the time demand?
Best wishes to you, GG! Let us know how it works out for you and happy meals.
Both Uber and Lyft have offered multiple-stop trips in the past, although I have found them iffy and have not used that feature in some years. (On one occasion we got to the first destination, where I was to get off, whereupon the app canceled the rest of the trip and gave the driver a new assignment.) It is always possible to pick a larger car, but it costs more.
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The one time I opted for one of the newer, larger cars, what arrived was a very tall new SUV that I couldn’t climb into for love or money. Unless you know what models of car you can manage, it’s a crap-shoot.
You CAN add stops so you could do home to store to home, being charged extra (I don’t know amount per minute) for waiting. By the way, you can now reserve a ride from hours to weeks ahead, and you get extra waiting time at no added charge but what Uber doesn’t tell you is that making the reservation costs more. A 12 mile trip that’s normally $22 is $33 if reserved in advance.
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Totally true.
On reserving rides ahead of time: that has not worked out so well for me. We once reserved a ride to the airport in San Diego for 4 a.m., and, while the app kept saying it was arriving, no car eventually showed. (They charged us for a no-show and it was a huge struggle to get the money back, since you don’t deal with a human anymore at the other end.) We had to scramble to a big hotel around the corner – we’d opted for charm in our choice of sleeping quarters – to get a cab to the airport.
But, of course, things may be better now.
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