Restaurant meals in Boston area and Manhattan

Regional Dining Discussions Boston, New England
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@fooddabbler suggested that I post about the meals my wife and I had on our recent trip to the States. Personally I don’t think that I have that much to say, so anyone who does not wish to be bored to death should stop reading now.
In the Boston area we stayed in Medford because the Hyatt Plaza in Medford has parking. And we ate the majority of our Boston meals in Medford. There were the standards, Real Gusto, Sura BBQ, Tom Yum Koong, Eddy’s Place, Zam Zam.
But we also had a couple terrific meals in Medford. We had a fantastic Japanese lunch at Matsuba Izakaya, newly opened about two months ago. Highly recommended.
We also had some terrific bento boxes at Ebisuya, a Japanese market in Medford. We had eaten there before, and had also had sushi there, but this past lunch (don’t ask, I don’t remember which bento boxes we chose) was really excellent.
We had a meal with cousins at Zhi Wei Cafe, just outside of Chinatown. I think that I read about it on Hungry Onion. Zhi Wei specializes in Lanzhou cuisine, especially a beef noodle soup. Whle we liked the soup, as well as the rest of the dishes we had there (chicken wings, dumplings), it is not a place that I would go back to on our next trip.
We also had a meal with other cousins at Yakitori Totto in Somerville. Yakitori Totto is a branch of Manhattan’s Yakitori Totto. Several years ago we had a fantastic meal at another yakitori restaurant in Manhattan, Torishin. So I was looking forward to eating at Yakitori Totto. Well, my expectations were not met. Nothing was bad, but nothing was special.
There was, of course, the terrific lobster roll at Fresco’s in Malden, but I believe that I mentioned that on another thread.

The places we liked best in Manhattan were Ed’s Lobster Bar, Saigon Banh Mi on Broome Street, Great NY Noodletoen, Jiang Nan, Cha Kee, Tomiño Taberna Gallega, Ping’s, Lena, Joe’s Ginger. We also liked Ernesto’s, but perhaps a bit less than the others.
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@bcc I absolutely disagree with this statement. And I adore reading any and all trip reports, but especially those about Greater Boston, which are far and few between. Is that why you stuffed your report in this obscure place? No matter, the “Bostononions” will find you!

Thanks for the reminder about the Medford places (we live 1 town over, in Arlington). Glad to hear that Sura is still around and Matsuba sounds great. Hope you had a fun trip.

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Tnanks, and we highly recommend Matsuba.

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I meant “ Bostonions!” :laughing:

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I join @digga in disagreeing with that. It was a useful report. Thanks.

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Thanks for the report @bcc! Always good to hear where and what you ate! (Remind me where you visit from?)

Re Manhattan meals, I was pleasantly surprised by your positive report of Ed’s. I would never have recommended it to visitors, as it was a nearby place of last resort at best in my experience. But I haven’t been in many years, so your experience makes me want to check it out again.

Would love to know what you ate and enjoyed at your other stops.

Re Totto - I’ve had lots of good meals at the Manhattan one (also Tori Shin, but that’s a different price point), sorry to hear the Boston branch was a disappointment.

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Hi @Saregama,

We live just outside of Zurich.

As far as Ed’s is concerned, we ate there some 10 or more years ago, when it was still in it’s old location, and I hated it. The reason I hated it, as I recall, was the way the waiter treated us. We went to the new location because I was looking for lobster. It was an entirely different experience from the previous visit.
The staff was friendly and accommodating, the food was good, we’ll go back.

Saigon Banh Mi on Broome Street makes a great banh mi. Several years ago we had one from Banh Mi Saigon on Grand Street. It was terrible.

At Noodletown we had the soft shell crabs, an order of roast baby pig, and a vegetable dish.

I don’t remember everything we had at Jiang Nan, but we did have Peking duck, which was excellent.

Cha Kee didn’t impress us as much as it did a year ago, but we enjoyed it. We had fried soft shell crabs again. They were good, but I think that I enjoyed them more a year ago.

Tomiño Taberna Gallega is a place I had been wanting to try, and we’ll certainly go back on future trips. We started with both kinds of croquetas, neither of which impressed me very much. But then we had langoustines and fried squid. And probably something else, which I have forgotten.

I don’t remember what we had at Ping’s (I wasn’t taking notes). But we certainly had some dim sum and the soft shell crabs.

At Lena’s we’re friendly with the owner, Pierre, because we were among the earliest visitors when he first opened. Now he has two other locations. We often went there just for a glass of wine, but this time we also had dinner: Boquerones, Foie Gras crostinis, and sea scallops with pork belly. The last dish I ordered out of curiosity. I liked it, but I didn’t feel that the components had anything to do with each other.

At Joe’s ginger we had soup buns and lobster. We’ll go back.

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