Jay On The Go

We are not big meat eaters and that is why even though we had seen this restaurant nestled below PF Chang, we never at there, until yesterday.  We were in the holiday spirit and it seemed like a good idea to try something different in the spirit of the holiday season.  We were seated promptly by a cheerful hostess.  The waiter was a little bit snooty.  Maybe it had something to do with his middle age or he was just overworked on a busy Friday before the long Christmas weekend. I ordered a regular chicken sandwich and my wife wanted the same but with something called Tokyo style (instead of your usual lettuce and tomato they add a few other things).  We both also ordered specialty beers (they have a good selection if you like to try new beers).  The food took longer than usual for lunch but what shocked both of us was that the chicken was not hot.  It was not super cold either but just about room temperature.  At a grill we expected the piece of chicken to be super warm, right off

I was new to Boston in 2002 and when I asked my secretary Bunny to suggest a restaurant to bring my wife to for a meal, she suggested .  We had a great evening and since then we have gone several times over the years for their weekend brunches.  Living in the suburbs, weekend brunch works best for us because the traffic to Boston is light and parking is not a problem. Tonight we were looking for a place to go for dinner and did not think a minute about going to Masa.  As always the service was excellent.  My wife had spinach and artichoke enchilada (listed as an appetizer on the dinner menu but if you are light eater, it has plenty of calories for a meal).  It is made from ancho mole and oaxaca cheese.  A bit hot but hey, worth it. I ate roasted salmon with chipotle and horseradish crust that is placed on top of the fish.  The dish is topped off creme fraiche and salmon caviar.  Finally, warm cucumber and cilantro relish all around the fish.  Yum!

To take advantage of a Black Friday sale on iPad 2 we were going to drive to CT since Massachusetts shops were going to be closed .  Or at least we did not think that it was worth waiting till 1 AM to go shop.  In the meantime, I kept searching online for deals and saw that Best Buy was selling the same iPad not with a $75 Walmart gift certificate but with a straightforward $60 off.  Definitely the right thing to do even with the slightly higher price because for just $15 it is not worth lining up at 10 PM in another state without a guarantee that I will get it and then figuring out how to spend $75 in Walmart.  The big lesson: shop online, avoid the lines, no need to fight for parking spots, and just sit back and smile at all the losers rushing to the shops.

Lorena and I are both addicted to coffee and often wonder what would it take to get European or Japanese or Argentinian style cafes in America, so when WCVB Chronicle featured Render ( 563 Columbus Avenue ), we decided to stop by when we were in the Copley Square area for a laser treatment at the Athena Salon Spa.  It is a cute little place with very attentive and courteous staff (thus, a huge departure from Starbucks where employees really don't care about you and the cafe is almost always dirty and it seems that the company strategy is to employ a business model with an emphasis on take-out rather than encourage a cafe culture).  Lorena tried a cappuccino (it had less foam than she likes) and I had a Colombian pour coffee (not dark enough and not as full bodied as I like).  Overall, a great place to go for a coffee but I need to try other coffees to make sure that I find the coffee I like.

I hate shopping in general and even more so on Black Friday.  I might have shopped maybe once of twice in my life and have not done so since 2005.  I mean who wants to get up early in the cold just to save some money?  Not that I do not like to save money but I think that if you shop smartly there are bargains you can find through other means.  This year, though, Lorena has her eyes on an iPad, but when we started to hear that Walmart and many other stores will open on Thanksgiving Day itself but not in Massachusetts where the law does not allow that, we started to wonder where to go, because Rhode Island is the same as well and we are closer to RI than CT or NH.  Thanks to Google Maps we figured out that the store in Putnam, CT is just 30 miles away for us, and they will have the iPad that she wants at 10 PM.  So that is where we will try to get that and maybe some other products that may be on sale.

Lorena and I have been partial to Oga's in Natick for over ten years whenever we need our Japanese food pick, but driving from the West we had also noticed Aoi.  So even we were surprised that we decided to do lunch there after living in this area for so long.  It is small but decorated more like a real Japanese restaurant in Japan.  The food was also more authentic as you can see from the pictures below of vegetarian udon and tempura udon.  The dishes definitely look beautiful and tasted pretty good as well.  They were not full of fat or strong flavors.  It reminded me of my time living in Japan.  A lot pricier than Oga's but definitely worth going once in a while.

I take my vote seriously and vote even in the primaries.  As emotional as my decision to vote is, my time is precious, and I am not a fan of standing in lines.  Unfortunately the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not have early voting, but you can vote on an absentee ballot.  What I do is to simply drive to the Town Hall and vote on an absentee ballot and hand it over right then and there.  The whole process takes less than five minutes.  I typically do it when I am running an errand around town, so this time I also paid my property bill the same day (saved a stamp), and then brought Lorena for Thai lunch.

One of our favorite restaurants in the Metrowest Boston area, we end up there fairly regularly, and while I sometimes feel that I should try something new, I almost always order my regular: sushi bento.  That is what I did today as well.  It comes with miso soup, several sushis, makimono, salad, and fruit.  I also drink several cups of (free) green tea.  It has a family atmosphere and the fact that I always see a lot of Japanese me keeps reassuring me that the food is as authentic as it can be for the ten years or so that I have been eating there, trying to relive my memories of living in Japan during the 90s.

Because the people in Metrowest Boston area were either too unsophisticated or poor to dress their kids in French kids clothes by Okaidi, after a rather sad existence for some time, they finally left, and in their place, we now have Crumbs.  Considering women and cupcakes have a relationship that men cannot understand, we went there yesterday.  The cupcakes looked more commercial (you feel as if you are in a cheap supermarket bakery) rather than exotic but we tried the carrots cupcake, which was pretty good.  The best part of their shop, though, is Starbucks coffee, something which we did not have in this mall.  So whether we go back for the cupcakes or not depends on Lorena's craving for sugar, but we sure will now be buying our coffee there rather than at the ebar at Nordstrom.

This is an easy to make dish that I had for lunch today.  Basically, it is basmati rice and on top are cooked garbanzo beans in a curry sauce.  Just to add a bit of taste and color, I put some Mexican salsa on it.  Yum.

We took off from Massachusetts on Saturday after breakfast.  Just so as not to put miles on my Toyota RAV-4 lease, and to avoid the dents and scratches while driving/parking in NYC, I rented a car from Enterprise for just $47 for the weekend.  Lorena prepared sandwiches for lunch so we would need to eat junk food.  We arrived around 2 PM and parked for free on the street next to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (yes, it is possible to park for free in New York during the weekends).  We walked around Central Park for a while and then went for coffee at the Bouchon Bakery in Time Warner Center building on Columbus Circle.  Some more people watching on Fifth Avenue and Rockfeller Center area and eventually we ended up in Times Square.  Soon enough it was dinner time and we typically like to eat where New Yorkers eat and one of our favorite places is a Thai Restaurant called Room Service (690 Ninth Ave).  Great food, excellent ambiance, and this is not your corny neighborhood Thai place.

I have been searching for a tool to get my thoughts out quickly and without needing a laptop.  I finally decided to revive my mobile blog that I had not updated for some time, and the new design has come out to be nice.  So expect to hear more from me as I blog more often in real time.