May 2017: Boston, MA and surrounding areas, openings and closings

OK, new month, new post. What’s new? What’s gone? Last month was tough on Chinatown with a couple closings of some long time spots down there. I hope that’s a trend that doesn’t continue.

sabrosito salvadoreño is opening in the old golden sea bubble tea and juice bar location on north shore road in revere

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Go Chi is now open at 390 Main St in Malden.

I had lunch there this pm - two Dongbei dishes : Spicy Clams $7.95 with FREE white rice (their caps not mine) and Spicy Noodles comes with 1 side appetizer $9.95. Really too much food for one person - 2/3 of the noodles came home with me.

Loved the clams - manila - generous lunch portion. Spicy as advertised with lotsa chili peppers, some scallion and parsley. Put the chilis aside and even with the heat could taste the briny sweetness of the clams.

I chose the steamed eggplant with garlic served cold as my side appetizer. Enjoyed every bite. If you enjoy chinese eggplant and garlic give this a try. Excellent with the spicy noodles swimming in a fiery red broth with chopped chilis. Again, I left the chilis to the side and ate only the noodles and broth .

Service was attentive, very polite. Their English is limited but with smiles and pointing to the menu all was good.

The room is nicely decorated with soft accents and no tv, a plus in my book.

Only the BBQ skewers are not available during lunch, after 5 pm only. Otherwise, I would have tried 3 of the skewers in place of the noodles : beef, lamb and sausage.

Will definitely go back to try pork & sour cabbage stew, sautéed blue crabs with ginger & scallions and their dumplings to compare with Golden Garden.

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I liked this dish a lot too when I went there. Really tasty.

per varied sources, the Num Pang at the Pru opens tomorrow.

Self Portrait is a new French bistro from the TW Food team near Harvard Sq.

Seoul Topokki is serving spicy rice cake in the space that used to be Bibim.

Looks like IQ Kitchen in Newton is serving jian bing I think.

Shaking Crab now has a branch in Quincy.

Laughing Monk Cafe is a new sushi bar near Fenwood Rd. The logo amuses me- a monk holding a beer cup riding a giant koi fish.

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To add to the Self Portrait information: It’s exactly where T.W. Food used to be – on Walden near the intersection with Concord.

Hard to tell in what way it’s different from TWF.

Not a closing but Todd Maul is leaving Cafe Art Science in June (boo), to explore opening his own more casual bar (yay). His departure could be devastating for Cafe Art Science.

The new branch of Foodie’s Market in Belmont is open and will have various grand opening events next week.

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I am not sure if any of these has been mentioned yet:

Baraka Cafe- Moroccan in Porter Square
Reelhouse- waterfront new American
Aqua Pazza- oysters, seafood, pasta in the North End
Mike’s Pastry’s Somerville location is open.
Ice Age- dessert place in Chinatown
Terra, in Eataly

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Just to keep the burbs in the mix …

Tap Tap Station just opened in waltham. Right next to the train stations. I haven’t been but guess it is Haitian food (?). Curious to see. The location was biaggio express for a few months (okay food that took way too long to serve). We will see if the new place can make it work. Glad it seems to be a small owner type place.

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Passed by the old Mandy and Joe’s in Brighton center on my way to the bus this morning. They folks who own Devlin’s and Porter Belly’s own it. It looks like it has a bar within, and new signs outside are proclaiming it the future home of Brighton Bodega.

Also, it seems that Brickhouse Pizza is not going to re-open, which is too bad, as they had very good pizza, and nice salads and subs.

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Qingdao’s “Open” sign was on and the door was open yesterday. I saw this from across the street, so couldn’t look inside, but I assume they have finally reopened.

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probably people have seen this on Hidden Boston, but Golden Garden in Belmont is closing on June 30. Seems like the Malden location is remaining open, but I have to say that the couple times I’ve gone there it was pretty empty, so I hope it’s busier at other times and my visits aren’t indicative of the overall business there.

was going to go to Royal Bengal today, but Google maps told me it was permanently closed! Looked at Yelp later, and there they say it’s only closed until May 23. Does anyone know which of these is true?

Went to Suvaai instead (more on that later) and fwiw it looked like Qingdao Garden was back open.

I called them (617-616-5058) and got a recording that says they are closed May 16–22, and reopening on the 23rd. That’s consistent with Yelp. Whether it’s consistent with reality we’ll know in a few days.

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thanks for the quick reply! and heh, I guess I could have also just called them myself!

I’l probably try and go there next weekend, so we’ll see…

This is ages later, but Qingdao Garden is definitely open; we stopped in for some dumplings.

Also, apparently Golden Garden in Belmont didn’t close after all:
https://bostonrestaurants.blogspot.com/2017/06/golden-garden-in-belmont-is-not-closing.html
(I haven’t been by to confirm that it’s actually still open.)

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