Boston Notebook

fig. a: You don't know beans...

When M., our friend and Ultimate Boston Authority, titled her extensive run-down of the food scene in Boston "Beans & Tweed," we weren't exactly 100% sure what to make of it.  I mean, yeah, we all know about Boston baked beans, but are they still just as central to the local imagination as they once were to the national imagination?

  fig. b: Uncle Sam + Sitting Bull

And, sure, I guess I can see the tweed connection, but what kind of Boston Tweed are we talking about?

 Ivy League?

fig. c: boss tweed


 fig. d:  bros. tweed

Retrosexual?

   fig. e:  tweed ride

fig. f: tweed rides again

Or this kind?

  fig. g:  Boston tweed cat carrier

Well, in the end, we didn't encounter a whole lot of beans or tweed.  No beans, because we placed our emphasis on scoring some premium seafood.  And no tweed, because it was somewhere close to 85º F when we arrived in Beantown.  But M.'s "Beans & Tweed" guide to Boston was a treasure trove of tasty and tantalizing tips nonetheless.

Unfortunately for us, our trip to Boston (Michelle's first!) was exceedingly short, and the stated purpose of the visit had to do with attending a conference, but we still managed to squeeze in some great outings...

Toro

We were dead set on going to Toro for our first dinner in Boston.  We'd heard great things, we were in the mood for top-notch tapas, we were thirsty for wine, and we were on another one of our crazy cross-border missions.  This time involving a bread delivery (?).

When Michelle's colleague and fellow Twitterer Jeffrey Finkelstein heard that we were heading down to Boston, he asked us if we could do him a favour--drop off a batch of his exceptional Hof Kelsten bread to a friend of his:  Ken Oringer, the owner and one of the co-chefs at Toro.  We told him we'd been thinking about visiting Toro anyway.  He told us that he'd make sure that he got us hooked up if we did.  Right on!

So that's how we wound up hauling an industrial-size bag (literally) of bread from Montreal to Boston.  This time the customs officials didn't even bat an eye.

Dropping off a load of bread didn't help to get us seated at Toro--it was Friday night and that joint was hopping!--but it did score us some attentive service and some lovely extras when we did.

Everything (and I do mean everything) we had was simply outstanding, but the highlights included the cauliflower a la plancha (with pine nuts and golden raisins), the whole salt-encrusted Mediterranean sea bass stuffed with herbs, the griddled garlic shrimp with Romesco, and their house special Latin American-style grilled corn with aioli, aged cheese, and espelette pepper.  I know, I know:  corn in March?  Like Michelle says:  just order it.  It was totally off the hook--the very best grilled corn either of us had ever had.

Verdict:  Olé!

Mr. Bartley's

Mr. Bartley's actually has a rather extensive menu, but their reputation rests on their assortment of "gourmet burgers."  You might think the "gourmet" label might scare some people off, but, no--Mr. Bartley's burgers are unbelievably popular.  The line-up outside stretched down the block at 2:30 in the afternoon.

When we saw the size of this queue, we figured we'd have to come up with a Plan B, but there were only two of us, so we decided to ask how long the wait was anyway.  After all, we were both majorly jonesing for a burger.  When the host told us "about 15 minutes" we thought he was having us on, but we decided to stick around to find out.  Sure enough, 15 minutes later, we were seated, waiting for our gourmet burgers.

Mr. Bartley's isn't exactly a fast food joint--the burgers are much too generous (7 ounces!) for that.  But it's pretty much as fast as it could possibly be, and it's an impressive operation to see in action.  They take your order outside, when you're waiting in line.  When you actually enter the premises, your order is set into motion, and is matched with your seating assignment.  No time is wasted on customers lollygagging over the menu, and the ritual of ordering has been seriously streamlined.  You still have a bit of a wait on your hands after you get seated, because these are big burgers and they're prepared with care, but Mr. Bartley's system allows them to cycle customers through the restaurant highly efficiently (hence, the miraculous "about 15 minutes" wait time).  More importantly, they make a tasty, perfectly cooked burger, and the place has all the character you'd expect of a Harvard Square burger institution of its vintage (since 1960!).  Plus, if it's good enough for the likes of Johnny Cash, Jacqueline Onasis, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bill Belichick, Al Pacino, Adam Sandler, Tom Werner, and Katie Couric, it's good enough for you.  It was definitely good enough for us.

Verdict:  Rah!  Rah!  Rah!

Neptune


 fig. h:  Neptune

Easily the single biggest food highlight of the entire trip.  Neptune was definitely a bit of a splurge, but it was absolutely worth it.  We sat at the raw bar and took our sweet, sweet time, and when everything was said and devoured, Michelle proclaimed the meal one of her Top 5 restaurant meals of all time (!).

One of the reasons the meal was so much fun was because we avoided the main courses, and, instead, placed our focus on the raw bar and on a selection of accompanying appetizers and other side dishes (in retrospect, I guess we were still in tapas mode from the night before).  We ended up doing two platters from the raw bar--both of them à la carte, both of them consisting mainly of New England oysters--and even that wasn't enough:  Michelle ended up having an extra Jonah crab claw "for dessert" at the very end of our meal.

The oysters were simultaneously out of the world, and very much of it.  They were so plump, so juicy, so sweet, and so wonderfully briny.  We ended up having most of Neptune's East Coast offerings, including Cotuits (Cotuit, MA), Island Creeks (Duxbury, MA), and Wellfleets (Wellfleet, MA), but our favourites were the Ninigrets (Ninigret, RI) and the Thatch Islands (Barnstable, MA).  Michelle had never had Jonah crab claws before, so she insisted, and I was all too happy to comply.  I'd never had cracked crab without drawn butter, but those claws were pretty damn fine au naturel, and they were even better with a dab of Neptune's horseradish-laced cocktail sauce.  Finally, I insisted on adding some clams to the mix, and I was pretty glad I did, because their cherrystones were the sweetest, most tender clams I've ever had.

Other delica-seas included the Wellfleet littlenecks steamed in Vermentino wine, with garlic and parsley, the Neptune Caesar, whose combination of lolla rossa lettuce, pecorino, lemon, and boquerones (yes!) may have made it my definitive restaurant Caesar salad, and Neptune's crudo special.  Their crudo-of-the-day was striped bass from Virginia dressed with olive oil, chives, sliced red grapes, and verjus, and it was utterly masterful.  It blew us away, and I'm sure it would have made Dave Pasternack proud.

Next time (and, let me tell you, there will be a next time) we're definitely going to split one of Neptune's lobster rolls, but, otherwise, I'd go about things pretty much exactly the same way.

Verdict:  Ahoy!

Deluxe Town Diner

 fig. g:  deluxe!

Sunday we were in the mood for a deluxe diner breakfast, and a deluxe diner breakfast is what we got. In fact, that was the name of the diner we went to:  Deluxe Town Diner, in nearby Watertown, MA.  New England still has its fair share of authentic early- to mid-20th-century diners, and the Deluxe Town Diner is one of them.  And though the owners are clearly aware of their diner's retro charms, they haven't gone all Wowsville with it.  Instead, the focus is on the food.

We were lured by rumours of honest-to-goodness, homemade Johnny Cakes, and they were truly excellent (especially when drizzled with their 100% pure Vermont maple syrup), but so was everything else:  the corned beef hash, the home fries, the bottomless cups of coffee.

Verdict:  Hubba hubba!

Mystery Train

 fig. h:  all aboard!


On our way back to the Great White North, we made a detour to Cape Anne to eat some more seafood, buy some saltwater taffy, and experience the charms of coastal New England, but the best stop of this jaunt was one of our first:  Mystery Train Records in Gloucester, MA.  (M. didn't steer us wrong [she never does].)  Now that's what I call a record store.  Definitely one of the best I've been to in years. Such a crazy hodge-podge of a collection, such reasonable prices, and such a great shopfront window.  Classic record store dudes, too.

Verdict:  Kick out the jams!




Toro, 1704 Washington St., Boston, MA 02118 (South End), (617) 536-4300


Mr. Bartley's, 1246 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 (Harvard Square), (617) 354-6559


Neptune, 63 Salem St., Boston, MA 02113 (North End), (617) 742-3474


Deluxe Town Diner, 627 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, MA 02472 (617) 926-8400


Mystery Train Records, 21 Main St. Gloucester, MA 01930, (978) 281-8911



aj

Manna from Jersey

...Don't get me wrong. A big, overstuffed, freshly ground "gourmet burger" can be a wonderful thing. The meat might be of a higher quality. The meat/fat ratio and the coarseness of the grind might be carefully calibrated, resulting in a juicier more satisfying burger. The condiments might be more flavorful, possibly more exotic and/or challenging, and they might even be non-industrial. The bun might be homemade or "artisanally produced." The burger might even come with a clever wine/craft beer pairing.  But, more often than not, what distinguishes a so-called gourmet burger is its price tag ($10, $20, $30, $40, $50) and its pretentiousness (Kobe beef? Foie gras? Truffles?). And, if you're like me, sometimes you want something humbler, something that's a whole lot less busy, something that's closer to the burgers that became a popular favorite and swept the continent in the early 20th century. Sometimes you just want your burger smashed, with lots of onions. Sometimes you just want sliders. Sometimes you just want White Manna.*

fig. a: White Manna's cheeseburger

Not only do the good people at White Manna produce truly definitive sliders, but the experience of stepping through that Streamline entrance is a time portal experience that ranks up there with some of our favorites (like Clare & Carl's in Plattsburgh, or Wilensky's here in Montreal).

fig. b: White Manna, diner

There were no vintage hot wheels to be seen when we visited, like there were when Saveur featured White Manna in this collage from their "Burger Bible" issue (#122, September 2009),

fig. c: White Manna, icon

but it didn't matter a whit. The vintage diner interior, the menu ($1.30/cheeseburger), the counter repartee, the sizzle of the ground beef patties, and the sweet smell of the onions were plenty enough to transport us through time. I'm not sure if it took us back to 1946, when it opened, but it definitely took us deep into the 20th century.

What's the secret behind White Manna's sliders? Well, there's the quality of the beef meatball that is its foundation. There's the smashing of the meatball against the griddle, creating the slider patty form. There's the copious amount of thinly slice onions that is then pressed into the patty. There's the pillowy-soft potato bun. And, last, but not least, there are the pickles, which aren't the droopy, day-glo specimens you get at most burger joints--they've actually got snap (!), and flavor (!!)--they actually taste like a pickle (!!!).  But most importantly, there's the technique.  Fast food, this ain't.  It takes a good few minutes to make a White Manna slider.

fig. d: White Manna magic

The beef is given plenty of time to sizzle, the onions are given time to caramelize, and, over time, the two become one (or darned-near close to it), especially if you were wise enough to order a cheeseburger.  And the buns have to be steamed--over the patties (!).  So you've got to be a little patient--this is fast food at its slowest.  But your patience will be rewarded. And White Manna's sliders are so dainty,** so inexpensive, and so totally addictive that you can easily eat a bunch. I'd say two would be a minimum order. Many patrons order 4, 5, even 6 burgers for themselves.

Let's say I was on vacation in New York City. I'm not sure that I'd rent a car just to scour Northern New Jersey for diners, but that certainly wouldn't be the worst idea--especially since these vestiges of early- to mid-century Americana have been disappearing fast.*** If you're already driving to New York, though, White Manna makes for an easy (and particularly tasty) pit stop. You can find a map here.

Want to watch a video of White Manna's magic in action, or, better yet, make your very own White Manna-style sliders in the comfort of your own home? You can find a video + a recipe here, at Beef Aficionado.

While we've yet to give Nick's sliders recipe a whirl (we're still reeling from our visit to White Manna), we have been making a very similar smashed onion burger for a while based on a recipe that appeared in Saveur. The method comes from Sid's Diner in El Reno, Oklahoma. We've never had the pleasure of visiting Sid's, but their signature burger is another classic example of an early-20th-century/Depression-era burger, one that uses a heap of onions to add flavor and make the beef go a little further. The recipe looks like this:

Sid's Onion Burger

4 tbsp canola oil
1 lb ground beef, gently formed into 6 balls
2 medium yellow onions, very thinly sliced, preferably with a mandoline, and divided into 6 equal portions
kosher salt to taste
6 slices American cheese
6 hamburger buns, toasted

Working in two batches, heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a 12" cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot and begins to smoke just slightly add 3 beef balls and, using the back of a spatula, press down on them until they're thin. Cook for 1 minute. Top each patty with a portion of the onions and season with salt. Press the onions into the meat and cook 1 minute more. Flip the burgers; flatten again with the spatula. Place a slice of cheese on each patty and let melt while onions and meat brown (you might want to cover the skillet briefly to speed up the melting of the cheese). Serve on buns. Devour.

As always, we recommend getting the beef (at least 80/20) freshly ground for you by your local butcher, or, better yet, grinding it yourself.

Makes 6 burgers.

[recipe based very, very closely on a recipe that appeared in Saveur #122, September 2009]

Then again, don't you owe yourself a visit to a true burger mecca?

White Manna, 358 River Street, Hackensack, NJ, (201) 342-0914

aj

* Of course, you might also want White Mana, White Manna's Jersey City rival. And you may very well want both.

** Note the size of the burger in relation to the size of the pickle slices. That said, they're only as dainty as a tiny onion burger slathered in melted cheese, ketchup, and hot sauce can be.

fig. e: Little Tavern, Silver Spring, MD

*** A case in point: the Little Tavern chain of hamburger joints, which originated in Louisville, KY, but became a mid-Atlantic institution in the 1930s and 1940s, principally in the Washington-Baltimore metro area (where these green and white cottages were an important part of the cultural landscape of my youth). At one point there were nearly 50 Little Taverns; now they're all gone (although many of the locations live on in other incarnations). They, too, made miniature hamburgers, burgers so small (and so tasty), patrons were encouraged to "buy 'em by the bag" (their tag line). For truly comprehensive coverage of the Little Tavern chain then and now, check out this post from the Diner Hunter blog.