Archive for the “urbanismo” Category

I’ve mentioned this place in passing before, but after spending a couple of hours there the other night, I felt I really needed to write about it in detail, and declare my belief (and this is bound to generate controversy) that Andala serves up the best hummus in town.

Andala coffee house is at 286 Franklin Street in Central Square, Cambridge, just a block from scenic Cronin Park and within view of limeduck world headquarters. They offer the usual cafe stuff, some fresh-squeezed juices and some Arabic-accented specials such as msabaha and zeit u zaatar. They have no website that I can find, and are generally open until 11pm, which is pretty late for this town. Plus, you can suck on a shisha pipe (outside only) while your laptop sucks down free wifi. Service? Not so hot. But I keep coming back for the hummus plate.

About 20% of the 80+ yelpers who reviewed Andala mentioned the hummus, almost all positively.

It’s $7.95 and comes with a highly random selection of vegetables (I’ve had carrots and cucumbers most of the time, red and green bell peppers often, celery and onions on occasion, almost always olives, and this time, a big fat chili pepper) and some warm pita.

The hummus itself is always a little different, which makes me sure its house-made. Some days its very green, some days less so, but there’s always plenty of olive oil and paprika on it. The texture is not so smooth to as to remind you of store-extruded versions, but not too gritty or chunky either. I have to carefully monitor my pita usage so there’s enough left to mop up the dregs, but none left over. The portion is satisfying and you feel reasonably virtuous for having a vegetarian meal.

I usually get an espresso or some sparkling water, sometimes both. This time, instead of the usual Perrier or Pellegrino, I got a can of Market Basket Seltzer which says on the can, “made with sparkling water.” For some odd reason, that made me smile.

So go to Andala for the hummus and stay for the wifi, or vice versa. You won’t regret it.

It’s been a busy week at limeduck HQ. I will attempt to convey the highlights and then pull myself together to get over to Podcamp Boston, where I’m sure more blogworthy high jinks will ensue.

Fit the First: WIG 18

Webinnovatorsgroup boston (as their typography has it) has the tagline “Promoting Boston’s Web and Mobile Innovation Community.” Their 18th shindig was Tuesday night at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge. It was a large (800 people) networking event with three short pitches and a handful of tabletop exhibits.

It was also the first live event where somebody recognized me as limeduck from my nametag. Scary.

I won’t spend a lot of time picking at the business models or technology of the three pitches, but I will say that the presentation slots were blessedly brief and not all that well-prepared. The crowd was great, however, bellowing out “how are you going to make money?” after each one.

Zeer: Consumer reviews for healthy eating. They won the audience choice award so they must be doing something right, and I do love me a food-related social network. But they do have that annoying way of enforcing first and last name in users. What if Cher wants to join?

Webnotes: Create and manage online annotations. Impressive functionality, but the demo crashed when 500 iphoners in the room tried to follow along. Next time, have a nice whale graphic ready.

Totspot: A place for parents to publish a page about their kids. Two young guys in company t-shirts under blazers kick off the pitch by saying that they’re not parents. If I was their VC, I’d have them grounded.

After the event, I was lucky enough to join a table of the cream of the twitterati at Helmand, one of my favorite places in town. Best Afghan restaurant in Boston sounds like faint praise but this place is special. We enjoyed several plates of delicious pumpkin kaddo and other morsels and pretty much closed the place down.

Fit the Second: Full moon over Scampo; MIA at DeCordova

Thursday, I foolishly accepted a dinner invite with some good people at work, having somehow completely forgotten about the DeCordova Museum’s roofdeck party. I hear the event was fantastic and the view was beautiful. And that somebody there was looking for limeduck. Scary. Since I’ve stopped driving to work, the DeCordova has felt very far away. Must make a visit soon.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, at the bar Clink (it’s a pun, get it?) in the Liberty Hotel, I noticed that Grgich Hills Fume Blanc was on the wine list for $75. Eek. I paid $45 at Casablanca, and a bunch less than that at Sabur. We had some different and delicious wines, but I was glad this one was on the company. We had a pleasant dinner outdoors at Scampo in the same hotel.

From left, risotto with fava beans, fresh mozzarella with carpaccio and smoked sea salt, and gnocchi with swiss chard. All very tasty and well prepared but not quite up to the hype of the setting. The Liberty seems to have become The Place to be seen. As we left, there was some kind of fashion shoot taking place at the valet parking stand. That seems a sign of something just a bit too very very.

On the way home, I spied the thunder moon attended by Jupiter.

Fit the Third: if a tree falls in Cambridge…

As you might have noticed, I’ve been doing some fundraising for the American Heart Association using my birthday as a rallying point.  Last night the fundraising hit double my initial goal, and about 25 of the donors joined me at Sabur for small plates and wine.  I was very pleased with the turnout and amazed at the fundraising total.  Sabur’s team came through with great dishes - cheese burek, potato celery root cakes and balkan sausages were among the favorites - and even managed to get me a good deal on half a case of Grgich.  A grand time was had by all, and I’m very grateful to everybody who came out and donated.  The fundraising goes on, and I’m sure the dining and drinking will resume at some point.

Then the police called.

“Hello, this is the Cambridge police, we’re calling about your vehicle…”  Last time I got a call like that, I was in Hong Kong and somebody had made off with my 18″ TRD wheels, and the police wanted me to move my wheel-less car before they towed it.  Tonight they were calling to tell me that a tree had fallen on my car.

Then they asked me to hold on, had along discussion among themselves, and decided that in fact the tree had fallen on a neighboring car, but that I needed to come down right away to see if there was any damage to my car.  I didn’t really see the urgency in that, so I got back to the party.  When I finally got home, this is what I found.

A large piece of the huge ivy-covered tree had some off and apparently done some damage to whoever was parked behind me, but there wasn’t a (new) scratch on the juice box.  Just lots of pollen, sap and bird poo.

All’s well that ends well.  Off to Podcamp.

I spotted this on West End Avenue between 70th and 71st street.

I have to wonder if the people who installed the plywood illustrated it, or if it was some passing artist.  Either way, I love New York.

Not too long ago, I was craving a good savory scone, and when I couldn’t find any in local shops, a good friend went ahead and made some, which were most excellent. Yesterday, I was at the Wine & Cheese Cask, possibly Somerville’s best wine shop, looking for some crisp whites the fried chicken wine pairing. As it turns out, I purchased the winning wine at the cask. But before I did that, I went across the street to The Biscuit (formerly Toscanini, formerly Panini cafe) for a snack, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a savory scone, three cheese scallion to be precise.

It’s dangerous business to compare a purchased scone, even one from a neighborhood bakery, to one made pretty much on demand by a friend. But since some of you might not be lucky enough to have such a friend, I offer these observations on The Biscuit’s scone.

There’s lots of cheese.  This is a good thing.  You can even see some rivers of molten cheese oozing out of the scone on the right.  On the other hand, there’s no bacon.  A split decision, but vegetarians win.  Take note, A, J and L.

The shape of these scones is blobular, not the more traditional scone wedge.  No real opinion on that, but at $2 a pop, I’m happy to report that they are good-sized without being unpleasantly huge.

They are moist, perhaps moister than I’d expect from a scone.  Perhaps there’s extra egg in the mix, resulting in a shiny exterior and a generally brioche-y demeanor.  Not a bad thing at all, just not quite the same as other scones I’ve seen and sampled.

I’m happy there’s at least one more savory scone out there, and I recommend you check them out.

Well, it’s July again. Definitely summer, no avoiding that anymore. Hot and sticky. Recently, I took refuge from the heat at Cronin Park.

You’ve never been to Cronin Park? I guess I’m not that surprised. It turns out that Cronin Park wasn’t even on Google maps until I added it. Brightkite doesn’t know where it is. Cambridge’s department of Public Works doesn’t list it on their parks page either. Why does Cronin Park get such short shrift?

Perhaps it’s because Cronin Park isn’t much bigger than a small house or large apartment. I count three trees in Cronin Park. There are no benches in Cronin Park, and no water fountains. You can’t let your dog run off-leash in Cronin Park. I suppose you could lie on the grass, but probably only in a long row, not side-by side. I’m pretty sure that if I set up a picnic in Cronin Park, I’d be asked to move along.

I often park next to Cronin Park, but seldom take the time to appreciate it. You can see my car in this satellite pic, not so far from where it’s really parked right this moment.

So what’s so great about Cronin Park? Honestly, not too much, but it’s there and it has a name, and James P. Cronin was somebody’s son, maybe somebody’s father too. It seems a shame that his park is a glorified traffic island. Even the meager bench or two that it could hold would transform Cronin Park into a place worthy of being mapped, a place where you might contrive to meet or hang out. And that, for my tax dollars, would be a better use of the space.