Zoe "Full Sentences" P.'s Profile

For me, this is what a real restaurant should be.

The food is reliable, but sophisticated. I've ordered the hot and spicy Sichuan classics and they're great - no doubt about that. I've ordered the specials, like fish and soft tofu; it is not a spicy dish, it is two perfectly pillowy proteins rich with flavor. In a simple pile of greens or a spicy dish of beans the vegetables are fresh and cooked just enough and no more. The soups are hearty and sweet, especially the pickled pork, which always seems to get the endorsement of the house. I feel confident that I could order anything off the menu and it would both satisfy and surprise me.

It's a pleasure to eat here, and the prices match the strip-mall setting. My husband and I love the big, open dining room. Patrons eye each others food, people bring their kids (it's family-friendly more than kid-centric) and couples of all ages have a romantic night out amid the hubbub. The women who work in the dining room are friendly, the folks who work in the kitchen are fast. If you're a regular they remember you and show it in little ways. There's plenty of tea and water and the place is spotlessly clean.

We usually went for a late lunch* or early dinner, so we'd often watch the place empty out, or fill up but we've never seen them overwhelmed.

*The lunch-time clientele is hilarious - deeply, geekily masculine, ie, lots of guys from the nearby tech parks. Ladies, if you're interested . . .

The weekend buffet was not particularly flavorful. Nothing was spicy, nothing was aromatic or rich or even gingery. The vegetable flavors weren't strong and pungent. It all sort of tasted like Indian dishes you get in the frozen food aisle - not actively bad, but you've likely had much, much better. Or I have. The samosas were pretty generic - it feels as if they come from a giant frozen foods bag full of samosas - and the naan was undercooked.

But if this were a dosa place, it would be a fantastic 5-star dosa place. Hot, crisp, tender, with a complex curry and mustard and onion flavor to the potatoes. I'm baffled. But not necessarily intrigued enough to return.

Interesting breakfast. His - a ton of fresh spinach, ripe tomato and feta cheese wrapped in a fluffy egg. Hers - undercooked pancakes (supposedly pumpkin, supposedly special) with the infamous fake maple syrup and margarine.

Good pancakes don't need anything at all, but she found, to her disappointment, that these weren't that good.

And the menu thwarted her attempts to pair pancakes and eggs - at least, at a reasonable price for a diner breakfast at an unknown diner with mixed reviews where she's not going to let her portion of bill creep over $15. Really, Tewksbury.

Good thing she was there on the early side and didn't wait in the (also) infamous long line, or she'd be writing a pretty ugly review right now.

Coffee was diner-decent, linguica was grilled, hot and snappy, orange juice machine was cute, atmosphere was pleasant. Waitstaff was extremely friendly and obviously working very hard. She respects this, since she can generally do one, or the other, but not both.

So, I'd go again if my car (god forbid) were being worked on at Ira Toyota, but I'd stick to the savory parts of the menu, and I wouldn't wait on line. And I won't write Yelp reviews in third person again - apologies.

I've only been here to pick up a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Wait, no, that's not quite accurate - when we arrived for the bird, they also had some green vegetables we wanted, some Delicata squash and some other item (I forget what) that was on our shopping list. That's pretty impressive for late fall pickins' in New England.

And there was a woman working who could actually confirm which of the squashes was Delicata - a necessary service that had not been available in the Milford Whole Foods.

And then they had been so accommodating about the turkey to begin with. I had contacted them, by email, just prior to Thanksgiving, and they got back to me right away, and had enough turkeys to reserve one for me, and were all-in-all very pleasant and professional. There were a lot of people there on the Wednesday before the holiday, but they managed to get all of us, and our turkeys, in and out rather efficiently, but in a friendly, farm-y way.

I've been here only twice, and both times it happened to be for a very early dinner - like 4-5 PM-ish - and neither time did I order the BBQ, so my experience is . . . unique.

I literally cannot imagine lines or crowds here; for us it was pleasant and even cozy to sit in an empty restaurant, a few tables over from the women who work there, who were busy (both times) prepping stuff, and watching football on the big flat screen TV, and cheering for BU while Christmas music played in the background (well, that was only once) . It was very home-for-the-holidays, a mood that goes well with a nice, spicy, steamy bowl of something.

Like soup. The soups are above-average, and there's a very wide selection of them, and they are not pricey. The bi bim bap, though, is really excellent. Bursting with veggies and flavor and crusty where it should be and soft and comforting where it should be and all around satisfying. The banchan are delightful, and plentiful and the tea is very good too.

I suspect there are better Korean restaurants in Boston, and I'm likely to eat at them sooner or later, since this place is no longer all that convenient for me. But I'll think back on those charming afternoons at New Jang Su rather fondly and I'll resent paying more for less, if that's how happens.

GoBerry will always have a special place in my heart because it was here that I finally made my honey-on-frozen-yogurt fantasy a reality. Since my first ever trip to an LA Pinkberry, I'd been dreaming about what would happen when tart, yogurt-y tasting yogurt would combine with honey, hardened slightly by the cold of the frozen confection. With walnuts, even!! One summer day, GoBerry made it happen.

I don't know if GoBerry was the first fro-yo place ever to offer honey as a topping (it now seems pretty widespread), but it was the first in my heart, and the first in my neighborhood.

This, in addition to the awesome fact that it is local dairy and all.

But I rarely like their flavors, which aim to be too sweet. Madeleine is right, plain is the way to go. And if you haven't tried it with honey, do.

This may be the best Greek pizza I've ever had. Does this mean the food is good? I dunno, but I do know that I've been exposed to some truly lousy Greek pizza over the years - in New Haven, at The Yorkside, and in Philadelphia, generally. And this is not that, exactly.

The ingredients are fresh, and quality - especially the roasted red peppers. The sauce is scant, the cheese is dense and sweet and, as Jennifer E. put it "kind of dry, very light" and it all sits firmly on a fluffy, spongy crust. Like most of the Greek pizza I've had, only tastier.

The salads are no good, but I might try a gyro one day.

I was really not into Tiki-In based on first impressions - peeking in the windows, the reviews here on Yelp. But, you know, it's open relatively late, the sign has vintage appeal (it says, "Open Until Late"), and when it comes to generic Chinese take-out, where are we supposed to draw the line, exactly?

North of Tiki-In, I guess.

The steamed vegetables certainly were fine. I actually thought the Ma-Po Tofu was above average for this kind of place, but I'm not the expert here. My husband, a connoisseur of greasy Hot & Sour soups, didn't finish his and that's pretty decisive. Plus, the noodle soup tasted, objectively, like dishwater. And the whole mess, was, dare I say it, overpriced? You heard it here first.

So, we'll not be making that mistake again.

The pizza is barely edible and only when it's piping hot.

James D's story about the jalapeno pizza? Happened to me too. The mushroom and pepperoni was slightly better. And the best thing about this pizza is the simple, sweet sauce, so I don't see the point in all those sauce-less specials.

We ate in (strange but true) the first time we had Sabatino's pizza, and none of the other customers who visited for take-out got pies. So maybe (maybe) I'll try the subs and pasta dishes someday.

But I'm going to have to explore Arlington's other pizza options, and I'm discouraged, you guys.

The apple cider doughnuts here were so amazing that I had to update my Yelp Profile. In the parking lot of this little cider stand, I discovered that I DO still like doughnuts. But only the very freshest, warmest, simplest of cider doughnuts, which is what they sell here. These things are actually elegant and it occurs to me that the almost-famous Still River Cafe was trying to achieve just this with their beignet type dessert, which I had a while back.

We visited the day before Thanksgiving and the place was bustling, but efficient. I ate 3 of my half-dozen doughnuts while we tooled around doing the rest of our Turkey Day shopping. And then I ate doughnut #4 a few days later, after toasting it in the toaster oven. It held up remarkably well . . .

The actual cider was above average, but didn't blow me away.

We also bought a pecan pie, which I suspect is not really a house specialty of theirs, as the ingredient list contained a lot of junk. Maybe the apple pies are fresh and made with butter and sugar, but this was . . . not. Still, it was a good pecan pie, if you like them, and the proportion of delicate and crispy crust to lusciously nutty filling was perfect. We got a pecan pie because I don't care for apple pie . . . at least, I think I don't. Maybe I just need to try Beardsley's.