By Greg B.  As a New Yorker, I’m born and bred to dislike Boston.  NY Yankees vs Boston Red Sox?  That’s a tough rivalry.  Manhattan clam chowder vs New England clam chowder.  And that was just how I was raised.  But a couple of recent positive experiences have begun to shake that ingrained opinion.  So currently I’m in Boston for a science conference, and I figured I’d check out some more of what Boston has to offer.  Food, drink, culture, etc, or at least as much as I can take in while not science-ing and trying to find a job.  Here’s my short review of day 1!

Since I had been in commute most of the day, catching planes, cars, trains and registering for the conference, I didn’t really get out too much.  That being said, I did get two good meals!

For lunch, we dropped into a restaurant called ‘B Good‘.  It’s a small, underground burger joint that’s serving some pretty top notch food.  Featuring freshly ground meats, and offering a variety of meats for the burgers, milkshakes, as well as a a side of steamed vegetables in place of fries should you want them, it’s a good place to grab a quick lunch.  In keeping with my apparently half-hearted attempt at sticking to the paleo diet, I ordered a turkey burger (for it’s lean meaty-ness) as well as a side of steamed veggies rather than fries.  While you can get normal burger toppings, I opted for one of the other sets of options, the ‘west side’ burger, which came with avocado, tomato, cilantro (which I couldn’t taste, due to my cilantro flavor/aroma deficit) served on a wheat bun.  The burger was good, as with a lot of the lean meat options on the paleo diet a few hours post-eating and I’m hungry again.  The steamed vegetables were pretty good.  Lightly salted and with a spice, perhaps garlic, they were well flavored and appropriately cooked.  Not crunchy, not soggy, the mixture of broccoli, red peppers and sliced carrots was a nice addition to the burger.  And this with a bottle of water, for $10, it seems to be a well priced meal for the Boston area.

For dinner, I downloaded the newest version of google earth and checked out what was around this location.  I couldn’t actually make a decision, so I decided to walk around a bit and see what’s up.  I almost dipped into a chophouse, but just a few more feet down the road was a sushi restaurant, Haru Sushi.  Seeing as how I hadn’t had sushi in many months, and remembering the last time I was in Boston I had some excellent sushi, I dropped in.  I managed to just beat the brunt of the dinner rush.  The hostess, a tall thin friendly blonde girl happily showed me to my seat and chatted briefly about the sushi, while my waitress, Jill, quickly arrived with the menus (she was very attentive throughout the next hour long dinner).

I ordered a mostly typical sushi meal.  Miso soup and seaweed salad for an appetizer, a plate of sashimi and one of the sushi entrees.  The miso soup was pretty descent, though it could have used a bit more seasoning.  The seaweed salad was excellent, a large bolus of well spiced salad, surrounded on a plate with shredded carrots, grape tomatoes and a ginger sauce.  I had ordered a glass of Kira sake, which on it’s own was alright, almost a little ‘fishy’, but a fairly well rounded sake.  However, when paired with the sesame seed flavor of the seaweed and especially when paired with the ginger sauce, this sake really complimented the meal extraordinarily well.

The sashimi arrived, as always neatly arranged on the plate.  Since I was in Boston, and fresh seafood is one of the draws of bean town, I had ordered three kinds of fish, two which I have never eaten as sushi previously and one that I love.  I tend to always get one of two types of fish when I get sushi, either eel or mackerel.  This time I had some mackerel, as well as local fish of striped bass and fluke.  The mackerel was delicious, and the sake was very complimentary.  The striped bass was good, but not as great as I had hoped.  Striped bass is rather fatty, but the fish lacked the same flavor power that more oily fish like bluefish or mackerel have.  It was still good though, and had a good juicy texture.  The fluke was another story.  While I’m sure the slice of fish was of the highest quality, fluke just lacked any real flavor. Now, I should mention that I don’t usually eat fluke or flounder even cooked, since I think they’re rather bland fish.  This same statement could be made of the sushi.  And paired with the sake, the sake flavor overpowered the flavor from the fluke.

The main course was something I had decided to splurge on.  Seared scallops with black truffle?  Who could pass that up!?  The plate came, beautifully presented.  I couldn’t smell or taste the truffle in the dish, though it certainly had a lot of other flavors.  Sliced and fried plantains, crisscrossed through a large bowl covered in well seared scallops, topped with a *insert sauce*.  There actually was plenty of scallops, one would not go hungry simply ordering this entree as ther main meal.  The scallops were actually seared more on one side than the other, which added a nice darker complexity to the dish. It was topped with almost a garlic, tomato chutney that kind of stole the show a bit.  The scallops were cooked perfectly.  Not overcooked and chewy, these were very tender and succulent.  I ended up drinking a Harpoon IPA (I am in Boston after all, need to drink the local brew!) which brought more of a bitter pine aroma to the dish.  It was a choice in the right direction, a slightly hoppy beer to pair with seafood and refresh the palate between bites.  The bitters in this beer worked very well for this, though there wasn’t as much citrus quality to the hops as I hoped.  Mind you, this does not reflect upon the quality of the beer, which I actually greatly enjoy, I’m just making a statement about it’s pairing abilities with this scallop dish.  I did wish the rice served with the entree had a bit more flavor, just a splash of rice vinegar or so, and a little stickier of a rice is my preference.

So the first day’s meals were good.  Not astoundingly mind blowing, not a waste of time or money.  B Good seems like just the place you’d want to go to grab a burger for lunch, they really nailed that niche and nailed it well.  Haru sushi produced some great sashimi and had good traditional sushi restaurant dishes.  The entree might have been a bit too ambitious given some of the subtle flavors of the black truffle, however it was still enjoyable.  The recommendation for the sake was a good choice on behalf of my server.  So all around its a good restaurant, though perhaps a little pricey, but again, that could just be the cost of living in Boston!