This place is something of an institution in our here parts, and I think deserves a dedicated thread. There have been other thread, but either hyperspecific ones about one experience at one location, such as this
or specific queries such as this
or isolated comments on isolated. threads, too numerous to link to here. I suggest than an umbrella thread is in order.
We’ve eaten almost entirely at the Alewife location, probably over 30 times (maybe pushing 50), It’s been, overall, an uneven experience, but even our worst meals there were only bad at the level of “just OK”, never actively so, and never prohibiting us from returning. The good meals have been excellent.
One such good meal was yesterday: excellent fish and chips, the fish cleanly, greaselessly, and crisply fried, retaining some of its crispness even after being brought home; very good, very garlicky, shrimp scampi, with a discernible bite; decent, and huge, fish tacos; decent clam chowder; quite good rolls (California and avocado-cucumber); a pretty-good Caesar salad; and a pretty good gumbo, with excellent jasmine rice. Overall a very good meal for four.
I hadn’t thought of this before but there;s some overlap beyween what SS does and Blue Ribbon’s sushi bar and grill on the UWS in NYC. In both cases there’s an unlikely range of foods from a range of cuisines (more Japanese inflected in the case of BR) and in both cases the food could be a disaster in the wrong hands. But both restaurants pull it off adequately on average, often well.
