I'v been feeling unproductive this beautiful saturday so I decided to do some writing. wasnt sure about what to write about until I remembered some advice I had heard a long time ago to write about what you truly care about. So here comes a critique of some cheap take-out, beer and video games.
Iv been staying in Boston since my girlfriend moved there for school and wev been having a good time looking around for yummy takeout. We walked by a burger joint today called UBurger that we found in Kenmore Square and decided to give it a shot and write up our thoughts afterwards
On the left is a cheeseburger with mushrooms, onions, bacon and cheddar. also a special sauce that is, like all special sauces, mayo based. on the right we have my girlfriends veggie burger with lettuce tomato, onions and cheddar. Right off the bat I was a little disappointed the lack of sesame seeds on my bun. apparently they only come on the whole wheat bun. the onions and mushrooms were cooked with butter but not salt, leaving them quite sweet and with little firmness. they didnt ask me how I wanted my patty cooked and it came out medium-well, not my favorite but they did bother to put some spices on the patty (A dash of Worcestershire sauce maybe?) which is more then can be said for many small burger shops. The bacon was pretty mediocre, iv spoiled myself with thick cut smoked bacon and the stuff on this burger didnt come close to it. still miles ahead of a mcdonalds burger and for about a dollar more i would say its a good stop if your a fan of cheap but filling meals. Paid about $6.50 for the burger, not bad at all id say, considering other shops in the area will charge closer to $10 for the same quality.
I plan to continue my journey to find Bostons perfect takeout joint. the place where you can get a delicious schwarma the size of your head for 5 bucks and still have leftovers to eat at 2 a.m. while your watching [Adult Swim]. the place where the line is always empty because its located in the back of a dive bar in the part of town students don't visit. I dont know how long it will take, but I will find it.
on the walk back we stopped at a liquor store and grabbed some new beer to try. first up is Ballast Point's Sculpin India Pale Ale, 7% ABV yeah yeah it comes in a can but this is a very solid I.P.A. The hue is a nice sediment-y bronze with a pretty solid white head. While cold it smells strongly of piney hops with only little hints of esters and malt to mellow out the bitterness. upfront its pretty indistinguishable from a lot of ipa's, the hoppy bitterness hits strong on the nose with tiny notes of citrus. the strong bitterness of the head is evened out by light malty flavor towards the finish. As the glass warms, the bitterness becomes less prominent and the malt begins to take up more of the taste. A very solid beer, but at the price I bought it I cant say it was worth it. I spent $14 for a sixpack, which could have bought me a twelvepack of Sierra Nevadas Torpedo ipa which I would say is a comparable beer.
Satiated and a little tipsy, we settled into the apartment to play some games If you havnt heard of this little gem, its best described as a 2d skateboard based platforming game. It could almost be mistaken for a browser based flash game if the mechanics and soundtrack wernt so tight. the controls are simplified yet the game remains difficult. all tricks, jumps and grinds are performed with the left analog stick and you use x to stick landings (if your using a ps3 controller ofc). if you want to get fancy you can use the bumpers as well to do special tricks to bring up your score. there are about 100 levels and challenges that will keep you entertained if your a fan of precision games. I had a lot of fun playing with friends although it lacks a multiplayer mode, it's one of those games where you can just try to outdo each others score.
Despite the simple controls there are dozens and dozens of tricks to perform, some of which are pretty demanding to pull off. sticking a gigantic combo feels just as great as it does in the old Tony Hawk games, so if your a fan of those I would definitely check out OlliOlli. Another thing OlliOlli has in common with the Tony Hawk games is an incredibly solid soundtrack. Many of the songs included in the soundtrack come from hip hop oriented musicians like Ackryte and Flako which both blends in well with the Platformer-like gameplay and is good enough to make me occasionally look up the name of a song. They also include a handy button to let you skip to the next track if you arnt digging whats playing. For $12 id say OlliOlli is an excellent buy if your a fan of precision platformers, though for sure it isnt as technically challenging as Super Meat Boy or any of its clones. if you arnt a fan of platformers, id say its still worth it but maybe wait for a holiday sale to bring it down to $5 or $2.50.
Thanks for reading! Feels good to get some dumb writing out
heres some great music as a reward for making it this far! Unless of course you skipped to the bottom. then ur not allowed to listen to this stuff.
The burgers at Uburger are ok, but the real money is in the milkshakes; if they still have the creamsicle shake at the Kenmore location, go for that. Mint choco chip isn't bad either.
Nice blog! If I can make a small plug about a restaurant, then the next time you're looking to treat yourself and your significant other, I'd recommend Gustazo. It's a tiny little 10-seater in Belmont with the most amazing Cuban food you've ever tasted. Not too expensive, very filling, easy to access from Boston Proper. Car makes it easier, but I'm pretty sure there's a bus that goes right by.
If requests can be made can you do a good/cheap burrito? I travel to worcester about once a month and would love to know of a good place for a burrito.
Anna's Taqueria was my go-to for burritos in Boston (I lived near Brookline). One burrito is a solid meal, about 6-7 bucks depending if you want guac or whatever. They are amazing.
Villa Mexico used to be across from Mass General in a gas station and their burritos were the fucking best. I think they may have shut down though.
On August 25 2014 09:13 faiza wrote: Anna's Taqueria was my go-to for burritos in Boston (I lived near Brookline). One burrito is a solid meal, about 6-7 bucks depending if you want guac or whatever. They are amazing.
Villa Mexico used to be across from Mass General in a gas station and their burritos were the fucking best. I think they may have shut down though.
LOL Anna's! We used to go there for lunch when at BHS.
Some good place to try in the area
Sunset Grill in Boston near BU (great beer selection) Yard House near Fenway (best place for vegetarian bar food around) Carlo's in Allston (killer value Italian) Tangerino in Charlestown (great Moroccan food, though it's pretty expensive and I heard the quality has gone down a bit lately) Sichuan Gourmet in brookline (legit Chinese, though more expensive than other locations) Fugakyu in Brookline (one of the better sushi in the area, and great atmosphere for date) There is a Fogo in Copley Square, can't go wrong with endless meat. And the Boston Beer Company has a tour that's worth check out.
On August 27 2014 22:13 PassiveAce wrote: haha I wanted to buy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier but they didnt have any
i salute you good sir. as a gemran its one of my favorite weissbiers. its REALLY REALLY good even for german standards we have a club here im part of, where every year we hold a "weizenbierprobe" where everybody pays 5 euro and can taste 15 different weissbiere/weizenbiere. and then we vote the winner of "weissbier of the year" which gets sold for the rest of the year in our club since we only have 1 weissbier among all the others we sell. weihenstephan won the last 3 years :D
its my favorite beer by a longshot (i guess maybe tied with some lambics, but those are fucking EXPENSIVE here. dunno if their more accessible in germany) Im just grateful they export it :DDDD
but they changed the american packaging this year to make it look more like bud light which kind of annoys me
theres a bar near me that has Duchesse de Bourgogne on tap. have you tried this stuff? also i would love to come to a meeting of that club omg...
desperate move to get a share of the market maybe :D and no i didnt try Duchesse de Bourgogne. where i live you rarley get good blegium beer. i know there is a store about 50 kilometers away who maybe could have it. but thats just a guess :D . but it looks awesome. if i see it somewhere i will definitley give it a shot, thanks for the advice. have you had any czech beer? if you find czech beers you should try them aswell! (original budweiser, pilsner urquell,krušovice).im not really informed on what gets imported to the us or in what meassure, how the spread is. so you maybe already know them all. :D and if you ever have the opportunity to lay hands on "augustiner helles". get that. probably by far the best german beer :D + Show Spoiler +
im not sure if iv had a real czech beer. there are a small number of beer stores that specialize in imports of german beer but they're few and far between. Il keep an eye out for all those names next time im at one!
EPT
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