Eating In Translation

Con Sõl

Con Sõl's very dark dining room all but concealed some ambitious "Iberian cuisine," including a dense polvo guisada, octopus stewed with potatoes and red wine ($8) and somewhat stringy cordonizes, marinated quail grilled and topped with a red wine gravy ($6). Carne porco alentejana, chunks of pork loin stwered with clams and topped with cubed potatoes and onions ($11), was ample but lacked complexity; paella Valenciana, with clams, shrimp, scallops, chicken, and linguica (shown; $13) seemed busy, and not fully one with itself. Even so, the fact that everything was prepared and served by just one man suggests a lot of promise, once restaurant-permit problems and other growing pains iron themselves out.

Con Sõl
279A Broadway (Elm-Columbia Sts.), Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-868-3111

Flour Bakery and Café

This maple and oatmeal scone ($1.95) had a simple, understated sweetness; it also evokes Flour's blond-wood color scheme, if memory serves.

Flour Bakery and Café
12 Farnsworth St., Boston
(one of two locations)
617-338-4333

Summer Shack

Expansive, upscale picnic-table seafood restaurant, filling a space occupied some years back by a Polynesian establishment; the tiki pole out back now bears the countenance of a contented New England fisherman. Perhaps he'd just polished off a plateful of spicy and slightly greasy Rhode Island style calamari (bottom photo; $16) with fries and slaw.

I always look forward to Summer Shack visits — especially during the cooler months, when Indian pudding is in season — but the Mohegan Sun location turned up both winners and losers. Fried clam bellies (appetizer; $10.50) were very good, and the filling in my strawberry chiffon pie ($5.50) was wonderful, but at first I mistook the bottom crust for cardboard.

Summer Shack
149 Alewife Brook Pkwy., Cambridge, Massachusetts
(one of several locations)
617-520-9500

Deluxe Town Diner

Kid-friendly old-school diner with a scattering of more-ambitious seasonal touches, like squash blossom fritters with maple syrup (shown; $2.95). Many customers leaned toward the burgers; at our table we favored fried chicken (four pieces; $9.95); crispy outside, moist inside, though the pieces themselves were small. Potatoes were sweet; perhaps dipped in sugar water before frying. For dessert, very pretty cupcakes with frosted "spines" from the nearby Cosmic Bakery (under the same ownership, I believe) also made a hit with the kids.

Deluxe Town Diner
627 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, Massachusetts
617-926-8400

Sevan Bakery

 

One of several well-stocked Armenian grocers in a three-block stretch; all prepare fresh lahmejune (a pizza-like flatbread) and other baked goods every day. From Sevan I helped myself to a bagful of dried mulberries ($5.99 per pound); fine as a snack or, as the friendly counterman observed, on breakfast cereal.

Sevan Bakery
599 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, Massachusetts
617-924-9843

S&S Restaurant

 

Longtime restaurant and delicatessen near Inman Square; typically expansive menu is presented with more than the usual care. Grapenut pudding ($3.95) was constructed around a very eggy custard and topped off with whipped cream.

S&S Restaurant
1334 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-354-0777

Tropical Dimension Food Store

 

This small Haitian-owned Caribbean grocer is the first place north of Miami where I've found AK-100 (11 fl. oz.; $1.50), a cooling, soothing corn drink flavored here with vanilla.

Tropical Dimension Food Store
1262 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-868-3161

Superior Market

Sunol brand passion fruit drink (330 ml.; $1), from Portugal, is a little livelier than Kima; can't say the same for the market itself.

Superior Market
1190 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-661-1918

Fernandes Fish Market

 

Seems to be the meeting ground for Portuguese ladies going to market; fair variety of meats, cheeses, and other edibles for such a small store. Kima brand maracujá (passion fruit drink; 330 ml.; $1), hails from Brazil.

Fernandes Fish Market
1097 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-576-1993

MuQueCa

 

The namesake of this cheery Brazilian restaurant is a claypot stew, prepared in homes throughout the state of Espirito Santo, that's brightened by tomato, onion, and cilantro, with annatto for an additional tang. You'll find enough whitefish in moqueca de peixe (moh-Kay-kuh day Peh-shay; $9.95) that a couple of apps and one entrée would make a meal for two. That's especially true if you use a heavy hand with the pirão, a yucca flour porridge you can add as a starchy thickener with the accompanying rice. Though I didn't try one, a handwritten sign at the counter noted that "temos rã frita": fried frog legs were on offer for $3 each.

MuQueCa
1093 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-354-3296

Casal Bakery

 

Brazilian sweets, savories, drinks; interesting if uninspiring selection. Unwrapped from its husk, sal com bacon ($3) presented a cohesive corn-meal mash prepared with sugar, salt, butter, milk, and very little bacon. The Casal Café next door offers many of the same items, plus room to sit and chat.

Casal Bakery
1075 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-576-2171

Cambridge Market

Get your linguiça and eggs on a roll at the sandwich counter in back of this Portuguese-leaning store, or snag a savory pastry from a small selection at the front. This estirra ($1.75) was doughy, and filled with mildly spiced ground beef.

Cambridge Market
1006 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-441-3335

Christina's

The housemade ice cream at Christina's gives you all the typical options, but why pass up a two-scoop combo like fresh mint and ginger molasses (medium cup; $3)? Though ginger ice cream often has a considerable bite and molasses can waver between cloying and overcooked, both showed considerable restraint; the lightly flavored mint held its own yet avoided any suggestion of sharpness.

Though the line wasn't out the door, service was hurried if not brusque; I half-expected an indecisive customer to be told, "No scoop for you."

Christina's
1255 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts
617-492-7021

Chilli Garden

Low-key, pleasant Sichuan restaurant with friendly, informative service. Jesse and I received the customary heads-up that sliced pork belly with fresh garlic ($6.50) would be fatty; if anything, I'd have preferred it cut into bacon-like chunks rather than sliced. Spicy, too, but less so than a surprisingly lively salad of rice noodles, daikon, and carrot ($5.95).

Almost bland by comparison, lamb with Chinese leeks in soy sauce ($12.95) provided a respite from heat of our appetizers, though this entrée it would be tedious on its own. House special chicken with dry pepper (shown; $11.95) — first sautéed, then deep-fried — is more tangy than fearsomely spicy, with an agreeable balance between the crisped coating and the moist meat inside.

Chilli Garden
41 Riverside Ave., Medford, Massachusetts
781-396-8488

Pepper Sky's A Thai Sensation

The "fresh rolls" (special; about $5.95) were nothing special, my friend Jesse and I agreed; the "seafood madness" ($13.95), "famous on Phuket Island" was a timidly seasoned, chewy assortment of squid, shrimp, bay scallops, mussels, and vegetables. Good rendition of drunken noodles ($8.95).

Pepper Sky's A Thai Sensation
20 Pearl St., Cambridge
617-492-2541

Mr. and Mrs. Bartley's Burger Cottage

Lots of character to this place — hand-lettered signs, orders shouted out loud — though too much self-awareness of their reputation for burgers, frappes, and lime rickeys, and a bit too much attitude. I'm don't know just what's in grapenut custard ($2.99) — it might simply be grape seeds, although many recipes call for the cereal of the same name — but I like the pleasant flavor and the scattered, slightly grainy pockets of "nuts," wherever they come from.

Mr. and Mrs. Bartley's Burger Cottage
1246 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
617-354-6559

Toscanini's Ice Cream

Star anise ice cream (one scoop; $3.25) has a very pointed flavor; a second scoop of something plainer would have given my taste buds a chance to recover.

Toscanini's Ice Cream
1310 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
(one of two locations)
617-354-9350

Lu's Sandwich Shop

One of the few items missing from Pho Hoa's menu was banh mi, the Vietnamese hero available here in a half-dozen versions. Lu's also offers a shelf of sweet soupy desserts ($1.50 each), though unhelpfully all are labeled "sugar, bean, coconut milk"; this one is a tide pool of not readily identifiable ingredients plus two types of seaweed. I enjoyed it, but I also enjoy all the sights and smells of beachcombing.

Lu's Sandwich Shop
15 Beach St., Boston

Pho Hoa

Exceptional, extensive Vietnamese menu, even if today I encountered a little misstep in my order. I noted especially the bo la lot, here translated as "grilled mint beef"; lotus rootlet salad; the "beef seven courses" meal for two; small selections of lau (seafood fondue, or hot pot) and tom hum (lobster); 20 varieties of pho with a pictorial guide to the various meats; and the plum, soy, fish, and hot sauces that stood ready at every table. I intended to get the $6.50 lunch special, with rice, of muc rang tien muoi (pan-fried squid with spiced salt); I was billed $9.95 for what I was later told was the full dinner serving. Not perfect tenderness — I couldn't bite cleanly through — but very good, with a good amount of pepper salt, on a spicy salad.

Pho Hoa
17 Beach St., Boston
(one of two locations)
617-423-3934

Truong Thanh Liquors

Nongshim hot and spicy shrimp flavored crackers (75 g.; 59 cents), from Korea, are like skinny Cheetos, but the shrimpy, slightly spicy flavor is less cloying.

Truong Thanh Liquors
65 Beach St., Boston
617-542-9373

Cheng Kwong Market

Or Super 88, depending on which signs you believe. Meat counter, vegetables, desultory selection of seafood, large but generally unexciting selection of groceries. An exception was mut bi dua (melon candy; 6 oz.; 99 cents); it has a tantalizing texture almost like sugary crudités.

Cheng Kwong Market
73 Essex St., Boston
617-482-3231

See Sun Market

Pleasantly jumbled grocery; not large, but it had a few new ones on me, including Lanzhou brand melon seeds (340 g.; $1.95) roasted with liquorice. An amusing nibble, but for me they did little more than whet my appetite. See Sun's idea of a point-of-purchase item is a package of cream prune drops, a poor man's hard candy that quickly goes soft. They are creamy and pruny, however, and just 25 cents.

See Sun Market
25 Harrison Ave., Boston

Chung Wah Hong Market

Chunks of sweet and tangy BBQ fried dough (95 g.; $1.35) are so airy that they're almost all flavor, no substance; even so, you might need two beers to wash 'em all down. Lots more to try, though, in this small but personable market.

Chung Wah Hong Market
55 Beach St., Boston

Eldo Cake House

For breakfast on the first day of my first visit to Singapore, at a coffee shop in International Plaza, I had two pastries: one filled with kaya, or coconut jam, and one with curry beef. Although Eldo's small but lively breakfast crowd seemed to have their own favorites, I can vouch for their version of the curry beef puff (85 cents) — very flaky, with plenty of filling.

Eldo Cake House
36-38 Harrison Ave., Boston
617-350-7977

Mei Sum Bakery

This Vietnamese-Chinese bakery also gives a nod to local favorites, should you want a rectangular slab of Boston cream pie. I chose a café & trung cake (coffee mooncake and egg; $5), which secreted two yolks within a dense beany paste (mung beans, perhaps) that had the barest trace of coffee flavor.

Mei Sum Bakery
36 Beach St., Boston
617-357-4050