Myers + Chang [Boston, MA]

Regional Dining Discussions Boston, New England
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Enjoyed an excellent and fun meal with a friend at Myers + Chang last night, first visit for both of us. As usual we ordered far too much and I am the recipient of the leftovers. In order of preference:

Braised pork belly buns – bao, brandy hoisin, house pickle. Recommended by our wonderful waitress and the consensus best dish of the night. Really wonderful combination of flavors and textures.

Cod + Chorizo Fried Rice – black kale, dancing bonito. The bonito flakes really were dancing on the top and added terrific umami to the spicy fried rice. I would be totally happy with a big bowl of this with a fried egg on top for dinner.

Korean Steak Tartare – quail egg, shiso, umami aioli. Very good but for me the meat was minced too large (about the size of the edamame in the dish) to cohere properly, making it awkward to eat. We wrapped the toasts and the tartare in the large lettuce leaves provided and enjoyed it very much although not as much as the one we had at Townsman last week.

Ming’s Market Greens. We think this was what our local Chinese restaurant calls AA vegetable – as always, we loved it, very umami sauce and a nice palate cleanser.

Tea-Smoked Pork Spare Ribs. Oddly these needed salt (nothing else did) although they were otherwise terrific.

Twice-Cooked Lamb Belly Stir-fry – green beans, hot mustard, slippery noodles. This was the one item we did not care for, the texture was kind of sludgy and the flavors muted and one note. The lovely host cleared our table, noticed how little we’d eaten of it and insisted on taking it off the check which we assured him he did not have to do but which he insisted on. That is great hospitality!

We are not normally dessert eaters but were tempted by the lemon-ginger mousse coupe with homemade fortune cookie and were so glad we ordered it! Soft not very sweet lemon mousse with small chunks of crystalized ginger accompanied by a gigantic fortune cookie that was super crisp and had light gingery notes. Delicious.

To drink we had a sparkling pinot noir (cava), Juvé y Camps Brut, that was absolutely perfect with the food.

We will be back!

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My wife and I went with some Boston cousins a few years ago, and we attempted to order too much food. The thought was, our cousins could take the rest home. As it turned out, there were no leftovers. One of my favorite dishes was the fried dumplings. In those days I used to eat the fried dumplings from Prosperity Dumpling for breakfast everyday during visits to Manhattan. I thought that Prosperity’s were great. The fried dumplings at Myers + Chang were 5 times the price. And they were 5 times as good.

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Update: the leftover tea-smoked ribs, reheated in a slow oven and sprinkled with some much-needed salt, were truly spectacular. Other leftovers have all been great too. The meal that keeps on giving!

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On a return visit with a different friend the pork belly buns were again spectacular. The spicy tuna poke was lovely with a sneaky cumulative heat that somehow did not overwhelm the lovely fish. The ginger bok choy was the best rendition of bok choy I have ever had, just wonderful. The cod-chorizo fried rice was just as good as last time and there was some left for my friend to take home. My friend got some chocolate and ice cream dessert that disappeared very quickly. I attempted the lemon ginger mousse with giant fortune cookie on my own and loved it again but prefer to share. :slight_smile:

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5

Between the Summer Of Love exhibit at the MFA and visit to the JFK Library (both of which I would highly recommend) we stopped at Myers and Chang for lunch yesterday.

It was very good, pork dumplings, crispy spring rolls, grilled asparagus and the surf & turf black pepper shanghai noodles. We really enjoyed the noodles, and it was plenty of food for us, but we did manage to share a coconut cream pie.

I am very glad we did! Not too sweet, beautifully toasted coconut.
Its probably good I am not too close to any of the Flour shops.

We decided we needed to visit more often.

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6

I love Myers and Chang. An issue I have run into there more than once is the cadence at which food comes out of the kitchen. I generally order a lot of dishes, probably more than I need. I don’t necessarily care what comes when, but I do want them just course it out to some extent. When trying to order just a few dishes and hold onto the menu to order more later they often employ the “the kitchen really prefers to get the entire ticket at once”. I have gone as far to tell them of the troubles I’ve had in the past with everything coming out at once, however it still seems to happen. I don’t need 10 dishes in the rapidfire succession that don’t fit on the table and don’t give me time to enjoy previous dishes. We are due for another visit to Myers and Chang what has actually been a bit because of this issue. Last time they were literally stacking dishes of hot food on top of one another and offering to take things that clearly were not finished.

Also, it would be nice if they had a full liquor license.

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I do agree, and the wait staff warned us that food would be out as soon as the dish was ready.
We were fine with that, based on what were ordered but if it were dinner and we wanted a more leisurely pace I wouldn’t like it.

There was a cocktail menu, wine beer and hard liquor. We didn’t really peruse it, I would never of made the JFK visit!

http://www.myersandchang.com/

8

Their beer selection is decent enough for me. The last time I was in the alcohol available was subject to one of Boston’s silly cordial liquor licenses, meaning that even the cocktails that sound like they aren’t based on liqueurs have a base alcohol with a high sugar content. They do their best to be creative and hide this, but you can’t order a traditional cocktail. Coppa, around the corner, has the same kind of license. Boston should just convert them all to full licenses.

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We had that issue the first time I went there, literally more food coming out at once than there was room for on the table. I am not sure why I failed to mention it in my original review, I guess I was just so happy about the food that that was what was front of mind. The second time we did just order a few things and then a few more things and that worked better for us. I guess that is the way to go.

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Looks like they may have changed the liquor license? We didn’t see many bar drinks go by, but it was a weekday work crowd for the most part.

COCKTAILS
Castle Island Iced Tea 10
introducing…summer in boston!
whisky, apricot brandy, lemon

Pineapple Express 11
a tiny tropical vacation
housemade pineapple vodka, thai basil

Smoky Sunrise 12
juicy + savory as good gossip
crema de mezcal, aperol, yuzu

Bloodlust 11
an M+C classic: sweet, sour, spicy
blood orange margarita + sriracha salt rim

Wonky Donky 12
a seasonal twist on the classic mule
vodka, muddled strawberries, mint, ginger beer

Black Yukon Sucker-Punch 12
“fernet walk with me”
slow + low rye, fernet, real city soda

Ginger Mirin Sangria 10
cozier than your last tinder date
ginger mirin, asian pear, persimmon, bubbles
carafe (serves 4) 34

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11

It’s hard to tell but from those descriptions it looks like the alcohol in those drinks are infusions that would qualify under a Boston cordials permit. A general rule of thumb is that the product must contain 2.5% sugar (by weight). It makes little sense, but that can be said for many of our antiquated laws. There is a good deal of ambiguity in the law, and different establishments push the limits. You couldn’t go into a place operating on a cordials license and order a pure distilled spirit or a typical call drink (e.g. Hendricks Martini; Maker’s Manhattan; Lagavulin neat). The only alcohol they have available are these sweet infusions, whether house made or bottled. For me, sugary drinks are what I try to avoid at all costs so these cordials and infusions are a non starter.

Sorry for going so off topic with this. The food at M&C is excellent and Boston’s blue laws certainly aren’t their fault.

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12

Yep, those look like cordial cocktails. As uni points out, it’s the sugar content, so they can have whiskey, but it’s a sugared whiskey, like it has maple, for example. They can have vodka, but it has to be a sugary flavored vodka, etc.