Updated Restaurant Review: The Grasshopper Cafe

I reviewed this place a while ago, however, as I dined here today, I must make an amendment.  The Grasshopper Cafe in Charlestown might be up for an award in my book:

"The Worst Burger in Boston"

Beau and I both got the Angus burger here on the waitress's recommendation:  "It's really good," she said.  "Okay," we said, and ordered them medium-well.

First of all, our "medium-well" burger patties came out looking like charred meatballs.  I know they're supposedly "hand crafted," but is it too much to ask that a burger be flat?  They were served on a toasted bun with two leaves of lettuce and one 1/2" thick slice of Roma* tomato, but not the pickles and onions promised on the menu, and no condiments!  It was very awkward to eat, as you had to get through a few bites of bun and lettuce before actually biting into the oddly-shaped patty.  This wouldn't have been a huge problem had the burger tasted great, however, it had an unidentifiable "additional" bad taste (i.e. it tasted like a not-great burger with a hint of something else unpleasant).  

The burger was served with a side dish.  Beau got fries which were fine, and I got "onion strings" which seemed to be nothing more than onion rings that fell apart when they were being overcooked in the deep-fryer along with something else similarly unpleasant tasting.  

For a place that had treated me well in the past, I felt a little betrayed.  Did the waitress lie when she said the burger was really good?  Or does she legitimately think that the burger actually is good?  In the latter case, that poor girl, and if I were going to be around Boston a little longer, I would take her out to a few other burger places in the area (Flat Patties, UBurger, Boston Burger Company...).

At any rate, if you decide to visit the Grasshopper Cafe, do it for Breakfast, and if you go for lunch, steer clear of the burger.  

*For those not well-versed in tomatoes, a Roma (or plum) tomato is less than 2" in diameter, in other words, not the right size for a hamburger, but then again, the hamburger was not the right size for a hamburger, so I guess it fit.  Or didn't. 

Roma tomatoes:  Good for salads, sauces, basically everything except being sliced on a sandwich.

Musings from the Office: The Final Chapter

My first attempt at the whole webcam picture thing.  Also, for you all to see how much effort I put into my appearance when I go to work (sarcastic face).

It's finally arrived:  my last day at the office!  I can only hope that I will never have to make other people's coffee or take other people's phone calls ever again.  Nor will I have to deal with the lady who's always asking me to fill up the paper trays (as if I'm some negligent oaf who never keeps track of them) or asked me, "you do know how to fill out a check, right?" (no...I've been paying my rent in gold doubloons for the past seven years) and assuming because I'm the receptionist that I have no other skills.  Well, guess what everyone, this grown-up with a Master's Degree in Forensic Anthropology is moving on to a well-paying job in her field in---wait for it---Hawaii!

People at work never believe me when I tell them I'm moving to Hawaii.  Does nobody actually live there?  Is it just a vacation land or a commonly-held fantasy of office drones ("one of these days, Sam, I tell you, I'm just gonna up and move to Honolulu")?  Is it so inconceivable that the barely-visible girl at the front desk who makes the coffee and transfers the calls could actually be getting paid to live there?

Per tradition, here are my final office musings:

• I make it a point to learn something from every job I have, no matter how much the job sucks.  At this job I learned how to talk on the phone without mumbling, stammering, or wanting desperately to hang up and put myself out of the misery of talking to a piece of plastic in my hand.
• Being the "barely visible" receptionist has its perks:  I can be privy to all of the gossip/office chatter that nobody assumes I can hear because it's not the sound of a ringing phone or a fax signal.
• No other receptionist is ever going to be as awesome as I am, whether it be at fixing stuff, hunting down paper clips, or making sure all of the candy in the dish is neatly organized.  Sorry [name of company], I'm the best receptionist you'll never have again.  

I had a dream that they threw a going-away party for me with a cake filled with bacon and topped with sweet and sour sauce.  I'm glad that such a thing did not actually happen, though I did get a $50 Amazon gift card from the office manager, which I'm determined to spend 80% on something useful and probably 20% on music.

Restaurant Review: The Crêperie on Newbury

I'm really thankful for Groupons, because otherwise, I would have never gone to this delicious, delicious place.  I had a $20 for $40 worth of food deal (with a $5 discount, so it was actually $15!), so I took the beau here on a date.  I mentioned before that I would hate to be a guy and the one traditionally in charge of planning the dinner dates, but I pretty much knocked this one out of the park (thanks Groupon!).  We snazzed ourselves up and took the Green Line to Copley Square and walked over to 259 Newbury Street, where this crêperie sits snugly between ritzy shops and restaurants catering to stylish (cough...rich) Bostonians.

The place doesn't take reservations for under six people, but the girl on the phone said they were so busy with the Groupon deal that they'd hold a table for us.  When we walked in at 7:00 on a Wednesday, however, we literally doubled the in-house population.  The restaurant is very clean and simply decorated, with dance music (Disco, Michael Jackson, etc) playing on a Pandora station loudly enough to be lip-synched and silently danced to, but not loud enough to drown out the other two women diners' conversation about just how much alcohol one can actually drink while pregnant anyway* and whether or not the other lady is "putting herself out there" enough.

Now to the food!  I ordered the chicken and goat cheese crêpe ($12--pictured below) and Beau ordered the braised short ribs ($14).  Covered with a roasted tomato sauce, that chicken and goat cheese concoction was perhaps one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth--at first bite.  It was so delicious, but it lacked dimension, something that could possibly be remedied with some more fresh herbs (and possibly by actually caramelizing the "caramelized" onions**).  The braised short ribs crêpe was good, and had a kind of a sweetness to it that I didn't get to explore very much because I only took a small bite because I'm weird about sharing food sometimes.

For dessert we shared the Bananas Foster ($8--pictured below).  Served with ice cream and caramel sauce, it was delicious and just rich and sweet enough.  Dessert sharing often poses Zeno's paradox:  no matter how small of an amount there is left on the plate, you'll only eat half of it.

The service was good:  everything happened quickly and our waiter was polite and attentive (though there were only two tables at the time, so who knows what it's like when they're busy).  I highly, highly recommend this place.  Even without the Groupon or any other discount, it's not unbearably expensive, especially for Newbury Street.  I'm just sad that I probably won't be able to go again before I leave.  I wonder if there are crêperies in Hawaii...

Check out the full menu for The Crêperie on Newbury here.

*Apparently, according to her OB, it's two drinks per day.  Thanks for the fetal alcohol syndrome, doc.

**Caramelization means brown, people!

One Paragraph of Selfishness

Allow me to be selfish and unreasonable for six sentences:

I don't want to sound ungrateful.  I know how incredibly fortunate I am to have gotten this fellowship, but sometimes, I just wonder why I couldn't have just gotten into a PhD program instead so I could stay here and everything could be the same.  I don't want to leave, but I already told them I would, and I'm not stupid enough to turn it down, and it's only for a year, so I'll go.  In that case, I demand that nothing change while I'm gone.  I don't want to come back like an astronaut or Rip Van Winkle and find out that significantly more time has passed for everyone else than for me---that I've been replaced and forgotten---that I no longer fit in anywhere. I want a hiatus, not a cancellation.

There.  Got that out of my system.  Now I can go back to being legitimately excited about moving to Hawaii.  (At least until my next emotional breakdown.)

Progress, Revisited...

They see me rollin', they hatin'...

I'm slowly but surely learning to drive.  The whole moving out of a state where one doesn't need to drive and into a state where driving is kind of necessary is a good impetus, I guess.  I had a momentary* freak-out when I tried to schedule my road test online and there were no available appointment slots before I have to leave for Hawaii.  Turns out, lots of people are taking their tests this summer, but thankfully, lots of people also cancel their tests, you just have to hit "Refresh" a bunch of times.

So I've scheduled my road test:  Thursday, June 14th at 3:00 pm at the Watertown RMV.  I leave for Honolulu on Friday, June 15th at 8:00 am, so I'm basically taking this test at the last possible second.  If it appears that I'm on the borderline between passing and failing I'll just be like, "look, I'm leaving Massachusetts in less than 24 hours, and then I'll be Hawaii's problem, so you should just pass me."  Nobody parallel parks in Honolulu anyway**.

I'll let you know how it goes, at any rate.  Until then...

brake-left, gas-right, brake-left, gas-right, brake-left, gas-right, brake-left....


*and by "momentary" I mean that it lasted hours.
**I don't know if this is true, but neither does the RMV examiner.

Why I'm Moving to Hawaii

I'm moving to Hawaii in less than a month, guys.

For 99% of you reading this blog title, you're probably thinking, Why not move to Hawaii?  Well, I've never been too keen on the whole "fun in the sun" mentality with the sand and the surf and the grass skirts and coconut brassieres.  (I hate fun, okay?  Sue me.)  Also, it's 5848 miles away from Boston and everybody I love/like/tolerate* and it's basically a huge volcano in the middle of the ocean and milk is $8/gallon** and I'm probably going to get skin cancer or eaten by a shark or attacked by a "territorial surfer" or something terrible like that.  So why am I moving to Hawaii?  Here's why:

• I've been offered an amazing job.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be working in a giant forensic anthropology lab identifying remains of unknown Korean War soldiers.  Not only is it the best possible thing I can do for my career as a forensic anthropologist (casework galore and networking like crazy), but it's good and noble "America" work (cue Lee Greenwood).  If there can be one fewer "Unknown" grave because of me, it'll be worth it.
• I have no other job prospects.  What I do have is a terrifying amount of student loans to pay back.  The salary with this job will allow me to take a big chunk out of those so I can become the type of person with a non-risky credit score.
• I've never done anything like this before.  All the people I love/like/tolerate have done all of these amazing studies abroad or "for the heck of it" worldly travels, and I've never done anything or been anywhere.  I've been to Canada once, and that's about it.  Even though I'm going for a job, the idea of moving out in the middle of the Pacific and having all sorts of adventures is kind of exciting and will be a good thing to have on my life resume.
• I'll probably never do anything like this again.  I'm a (relatively) young single adult with no real responsibilities right now.  When I come back, I'll be (hopefully) going to school, and maybe arranging my life in such a fashion that I'll be starting to "settle down."  Can't really up and move to Hawaii for a year then, can I?  Basically, this is my best and last chance.
• I feel okay about it.  This is not to say that I'm not nervous or scared or sad about leaving--there's going to be a lot of "newness" and anxiety associated with my move, and I basically burst into tears at least once a week--but I don't think being nervous/scared/sad about something necessarily makes a thing not the right thing to do (I could explain this in a more "churchy" fashion, but I don't think I will). So I'm going.

In terms of logistics, I fly to Honolulu on June 15th, and I'm slowly working on minimizing my stuff to the point where I don't have to spend all of my "dislocation" allowance on getting stuff across the ocean.  As of right now, I am not having a "going away" party, because frankly, I'm going to be a basketcase for the entire last week I'm in Boston and will not be fit for public viewing.  Also, nothing will have quite the "finale vibe" that I'm looking for or in any way measure up to Kristen Wiig's departure from SNL.***  But if I like you enough, we can do the whole "goodbye" thing.  I've given my roommates permission to throw a party after I'm gone.  You know, like a wake.

Updates to come, I guess.  Until then, Aloha?

*You know where you fall on this spectrum.

**This doesn't really personally affect me since I'm kind of lactose intolerant and wouldn't be buying milk by the gallon anyway.  My point is, stuff is expensive, yo.
***I cried so much when I watched this.  Also, I'm kind of in love with Seth Meyers.  

On Baby Pictures

Dear New Parents,

Congratulations on your brand-new, tiny bundle of joy.  I know you're all euphoric and full of endorphins and crazy hormones and can't see it, but your baby is not cute.  Right now, five minutes after its expulsion from the womb, it looks like a red, shriveled lizard-monster covered in goo.  It's not your fault, they all come out that way.  Give it about two weeks.  Once it's cleaned up, clothed, and out of hospital lighting, people will be lining up to see pictures of your adorable little munchkin.  But for now, put your camera phones away*; just because you can instantly upload photos to the internet doesn't mean you should.

Sincerely,

Alex (on behalf of all of your Facebook friends)

*Also, you're in a hospital, shouldn't your phone be turned off?