Howard D.'s Profile

Armando's is a fixture in West Cambridge (John B. has spent the better part of his adulthood in San Francisco, so he can be excused a little confusion on Cambridge geography--it's a small city, only six square miles, so it's easy to imagine that one part is really close to another part--but Mid-Cambridge is actually I'd say 1.75 to 1.8 miles, on foot, from Armando's, which is, strictly speaking in West Cambridge), and has been for years.

The people who run it and prepare the food are salt of the earth.

To my mind, the pizzas are good, but only just, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to order the subs, as there has never been a reason to believe that they are beyond some median standard of submarine sandwich quality. It's not exactly nuclear science, but there is also not a great deal of nuance here. Either a sub is good, to start with, or it isn't and then, as Mies van der Rohe (who was at Harvard, just down the road apiece) said, "God is in the details."

And my sub sandwich details, mutatis mutandis, are no doubt different from every other judge of these things for whom these matters are of great moment--think about it. What could be more important? The little things that added together make up your idea of a great sub, at a cost of about six bucks. Or how a white cloth restaurant prepares an entree that they present and then persuade you to ease 30, 35 bucks out of your wallet to pay for?

I'll go for the submarine sandwich every time as a criterion for testing one's mettle as a judge of what makes this one great, and that one only good.

But, as I said, I don't know the subs at Armando's and so I am not qualified to say anything about Jack's remarks, except that he is a little confused on the question of location.

In my estimation, the really strong suit at Armando's lies in the calzones. The pizza is a good effort, but timid, as if not to offend. The ingredients are all fresh and wholesome, and they will cook a pizza to order (why it never occurs to more people, for example to order a pizza well done is beyond me... the Maillard effect on even the most pedestrian of pizza dough is an astonishing thing, and ordering a pizza well-done, especially at Armando's, is one step to significant improvement; and of course it also helps the other ingredients, especially the toppings if they endure a little bit more of the process of caramelization). But the calzones are uniformly quite quite good, and I endorse the high rating of Armando's merely for these.

I'll revisit the pizza and try the subs, on the strength of Jack's recommendation, but first I have to survive the next two months in the south of France, at my house in the deep rural areas of wine growing country for AOC Cotes de Provence and Coteaux Varois appellations, too little appreciated, because too little known, in any part of Cambridge, never mind West Cambridge, where they should know better.

For my money, for what it's worth, the much better submarine sandwiches (on a speculative basis, as I've never honestly compared them) and pizza comes from a place called Village Kitchen (the name derives from the fact that it is the heart of Huron Village) just a few more blocks further west on Huron Avenue, and likely unknown to a San Franciscan out on a Cantabrigian spree, because it's best known to too small a number of natives, who cherish the knowledge.

The meatball sub, and the eggplant parmigian, which are my varietal touchstones for submarine sandwich quality, are ne plus ultra. They're also reasonably sized, as I don't think being gigando is a measure of quality, or even, possibly, food value. But then I'm always mindful of my caloric intake.

Probably already on here at Yelp and if so, I'll add a more direct review, but maybe not till I've had my fill of wood-fired oven Provencal pizza, which is another matter entirely.

I'm loathe to write anything less than an enthusiastic and largely positive review, but I feel something should be said to neutralize the clearly biased reviews here from the homies. The dearth of competition, except for the likes of Denny's and iHop, can make you think that a true lack of inspiration and the lowest acceptable standards of quality look a lot better than they are.

This is a wholly pedestrian place. Nothing remotely like eating in the dining room of someone's home (unless they live in a home, as in old-age or nursing...) Sterile and, at best neutral. One of those places you encounter on the road and it happens to be breakfast time, and sure enough you spot it, and you're thankful because the food is decent, and there's nothing bizarre on the menu, and there are no visible cockroaches.

The place is clean. The decor is out of a catalog of restaurant supplies. And the help is from hunger: inattentive, unresponsive, mainly lacking in that air of minimal hospitality you expect, but somewhere short of surly. Indifference at best, and quotes from Thoreau ("The mass of men [though it seems to be mainly young women on the wait staff] lead lives of quiet desperation...") come to mind. The manner is perfunctory, if not curt.

Only once I heard sounds of cheerfulness. They emitted from another waitress than ours yesterday (a Sunday), and she was delivering the receipt of the paid check of the last party, save us, to leave, before the place closed for the day (they only serve breakfast and lunch). I inferred this sudden ray of sunlight was more relief that the odious tasks of doing one's duty for one's pay were done for the day. But who knows?

The menu is equally uninspired and spiritless. There is a strange decoction they call a Scramble Wrap, or something like that. Another reviewer, rendering a pig's ear into a silk purse, erroneously refers to this as a "breakfast quesadilla," an insult both to breakfast and to Mexican cuisine. It's scrambled eggs, with a variety of fillings of your choosing, wrapped in some kind of flat bread (whether it's lavasch, or pita, or what, I can't say... neither of us ordered it) and somehow offered in your choice of colors: white, red, or green. Why or how the wraps are colored are apparently a local knowledge; there's no explanation, and I didn't ask, more from trepidation than being incurious. I've never seen green flatbread, but I'm sure Irish vegans contrive to have it on St. Patrick's day.

I wanted an omelette, and, in the U.S., outside my own kitchen, I much prefer egg-white omelettes (I've been spoiled by the superb grill men at Henrietta's Table at the Charles Hotel in Harvard^2, who in 20 years have never failed me in this difficult to master, if ordinary, breakfast choice). I was informed summarily and perfunctorily by the second-runner up for Miss Non-Congeniality, that "we serve Egg Beaters." And she said nothing else, pencil poised above her order pad. That's like asking for fresh black mission figs, and being told they serve the last of the winter keeper Golden Delicious crop they've been storing in the basement since November--and here it's April.

So I had the bagel and "lox" (though it does state on the menu, and it's what was served, that this choice comes with smoked salmon--I wouldn't suspect a surfeit of Jews in North Andover; I think the concentration of the Jewish population north of Boston congregates closer to Marblehead, Swampscott, and Lynn, so this kind of ignorance is perfectly understandable). I didn't disabuse the young woman, as I was more interested in smoked salmon than lox, which, in my approaching dotage, is to me a way of treating the fish that should be outlawed, save for genuine gravlax of course.

The bagel was toasted (without asking) within an inch of its life, and fortunately I like my toast "well." The cream cheese was, well, commercial cream cheese, bland and tasteless (none of your cold set fresh-made variety, absent stabilizers or other adulterants). The smoked salmon, in an ample portion, seemed to be what arrives pre-sliced in hermetically sealed bags from the packer, from farmed salmon. A far cry from Daniel Boulud cold-smoked Scottish salmon, wild-caught, and sliced by hand to order, but what do you want for $8.95 in the middle of North Andover, an  out-of-the-way, nondescript town, that is convenient really to nothing, except downtown Lawrence, Massachusetts?

The other accoutrements, sloppily sliced red onion (a little bitter; better a "sweet" white onion variety), and capers, with slices of tomato (that almost had taste) were ample in quantity.

The coffee was OK. But Miss N-C failed, even after three reminders, to bring us more, as requested.

It's a breakfast "joint" all right. But great? Nah.

What needs study is the dearth of decent places to eat in the triangle northwest of Medford, northeast of Billerica, and all the way up to the Canadian border.

The preponderance of the reviews appear to be by transients. Not surprising as the neighborhood immediately around The Biscuit is a haven for graduate students mainly from Harvard and Tufts. Though they're smart enough, God knows, they make up for abundance of brains by a deficit of taste. Since the days it opened, as Panini -- a reference to being primarily a bakery, and not to the more recent sandwich modality -- the place quickly became popular, especially in the morning. It is patronized mainly by students, office workers, especially from the nearby Cambridge Hospital and a large branch of the Cambridge Health Alliance offices across the street.

Comments on Yelp, many of them ill-informed, are not generally helpful.

It's a very homey place. The counter folk are exceptional, or always have been, and were, until recently, quite stable. Immensely friendly and, if you're a regular, they'll certainly learn your name within several visits, know your preferences within a few more. Even on your first visit will engage you in a warm conversation, however brief, whoever you are. Music, "programmed" by the bakers, is wildly, wonderfully eclectic; it rarely seems to disturb the many "keyboard" warriors.

The owners, Greta and her husband, are invariably on premise, unless  tending to the school needs of their two young children. He is usually ensconced in the rear bakery, which runs from extremely early morning to mid-day--they are also a supplier of bread to other outlets, including restaurants--and the most visible part of their business is the retail trade which streams in throughout the day. It can get busy enough, especially on "non-school" days--weekends, academic breaks or holidays, that every table is full, or partially so, and people are encouraged to, and do, share tables.

There is a huge crowd of regulars, single people, couples, & groups of four or more who have regular dates to meet on weekend mornings. There is a strange air of quiet liveliness. The place is relaxed for the most part, well lived-in in feeling.

The association with Gus Rancatore of Toscanini ice cream was terminal. He had and has no interest financially in the bakery, and for the use of the name, and his supplying coffee and ice cream on some variant of a  license basis, the new owners who bought the original Panini, had a recognized identity. This briefly caused great consternation among the Cambridge and Somerville regulars who made use of the limited offerings, mainly bread, coffee, and breakfast pastry items. Panini at one time only offered the now well-loved savory scones--a genuine signature item of this little place--as a single flavor, the original cheddar and onion, and ONLY if the baker on duty felt like making them; they even threatened once to discontinue making them, which elicited stern protests from regulars.

The Biscuit still uses many of the original bread and pastry recipes instituted by the original owners of Panini. They have also added  items of their own devising, and instituted the sandwich, soup, and broadened the sheet goods (what they call frittata, baked on a croissant dough base, like pizza, plus actual yeast-based pizza) selections, added some very much sweeter items than the usual selection of muffins and scones, including bread pudding, brioche-based items, like a new chocolate brioche, a cinnamon coffee roll, which they call a pecan strudel... There are a number of other excellent choices, all mis-named slightly, but descriptively enough.

All in all, offerings seem to cater to more adult tastes, which may account for some Yelp complaints about items not being sweet enough. In fact, sugar as an ingredient is kept to a minimum, and there are more than the usual number of choices of savory items, including a broadening of the savory scone varieties now on offer every day of the week and among the most popular.

The sandwiches are made fresh and continually through the day and wrapped and kept on ice right on the counter. What people seem to miss is that this ensures that there is NO WAIT for almost any item on offer. Fast food indeed. And there is none of the arrogant, snotty, indifferent, or pea-pod-people behavior at Darwin's, where you must wait for what are the sometimes inept ministrations of the sandwich makers.

The soups are fresh and there is usually a choice of at least two and sometimes four soups daily, changed daily, made from choice ingredients.

The coffee has returned to excellence after the present owners allowed the relationship with Toscanini to lapse. Gus's coffee is horrendous. There is the noted expansion into the making of other beverages, including chais, and a broad various "steamed" selection.

The pastries, and the breads, for that matter, are well differentiated offerings from other shops. Other coffee purveyors do not make their own baked goods (1369, Bloc 11, etc.), and Hi-Rise and Carberry's are too far to be real competition, though they are real alternatives.

Harvest, a haunt of mine since the days it started as Ben Thompson's 'house' restaurant in what was then the spectacular, and quintessentially Cantabrigian design of his office complex for his storied architectural firm. Along with Design Research, a furniture/textiles/housewares store significantly ahead of its time, Harvest, possibly as much as the influence of Julia Child -- a Cambridge neighbor -- was likely one of a small number of significant drivers of the emergence of Boston/Cambridge as a serious food destination. Before Harvest, and a handful of other less ambitious (in size and unstinting quality) places scattered around Boston, essentially on the new waterfront in the North End and in the Back Bay, 'fine dining' in Boston meant the dining room at the Ritz, Café Budapest, or, if you were a man, Locke-Ober. The original Harvest has among its stellar history of chefs 'making their bones' (each of whom has gone on to a national reputation as the first generation of stars to emerge in the last 1/3 of the 20th century): Lydia Shire, Chris Schlesinger, Barbara Lynch, Frank McClelland, Sara Moulton, and Bob Kinkead -- a roster of names to be reckoned with, and still the active elders to whom two generations of much younger, equally talented, chefs look up. Many of today's stars themselves started as protegés. Ben Thompson's esthetic included picking the cream of the crop.

The original Harvest had a good run, of almost 22 years. Many great moments, mainly culinary of course, occurred in the confines of Harvest, which was the paramount meeting place of Cambridge's cognoscenti. The signature style of the place -- with its combination of Marimekko fabrics, stoneware and earthenware and heavy stainless flatware, and the exposed concrete and heavy, heavily patinated oak -- quickly became a model of hipness, that just as quickly, elsewhere, became a stereotype. When Thompson sold the restaurant it was time, as it was tired, and had outlived its influence. Harvest closed and was mourned because in its last days, it served mainly as the favorite hang of Harvard Square locals who actually live here.

Fortunately, Thompson sold to a man who, if anything, surpassed him in a demand for excellence. Ken Himmel and his partners kept not only the name (with the attached caché and 22 years of legendary culinary magic), but kept the place shuttered while they re-thought the concept. They spent millions: an unusual venture in Cambridge, which exercises a little noticed Yankee thriftiness in the majority of its establishments; even in the top tier. Himmel's group has been matched perhaps only by Rialto and Om and, of course, the eccentric Upstairs on the Square, in costly grandiosity. With the exception of the latter, the others have tempered that thrust with thoughtful, understated elegance.

However, it has been Harvest that led the pack with its single-mindedness in terms of its culinary stake, and the theme of American Haute, which it pursues in all aspects of the place, starting with the décor, and continuing with the quirky, chipper floor staff, the quietly (sometimes verging on earnestly) professional front room management. It is most pronounced, and most readily to be judged in the main raison-d'etre of the place however: the cuisine, which is as it should be.

Until a very recent few years ago, when Himmel forced out his founding partners, by buying them out, and asserted his singular, forceful influence, Harvest had its ups and downs in terms of what it delivered. The place re-opened with a quiet explosion of meals masterfully designed and executed to highlight the excellence of local products: our produce and seafood, of course, but a long tradition (for the center of New England) of a preference for certain preparations of red meat, with the usual sop to preferences for the milder components of the culinary palette: fowl and vegetables. The restaurant flirted with another New Engliand tradition, and that is, game, which met with a variable reception to the variable results.

The restaurant aspires to be the premier exponent of a cuisine, if it should be called that, native to New England -- there is always the danger with such a positioning and strategy, however, of devolving into an inevitable pot-pourri of clichéd dishes that are supposed to be 'classic New England.' We all know the usual constituents (cod, boiled meat, beans, etc.). A succession of chefs at the new Harvest have been variously successful at elevating these clichés to the reaches of art.

Mary Damon, the current executive chef, has brought Harvest back to its objectives: unquestioned excellence of preparation. Flair and imagination in rendering classic ingredients into new, but not bizarre combinations. Portions are masterfully proportioned. Sides, with the seafood or with meats and fowl, are well paired and complementary. And every plate has a healthy glow. Excellent value, and always a good meal