Jef Taylor reprints some tips from a guy who likes driving around town looking for Agaricus bitorquis, an edible mushroom that grows well in curbs that have been raised up a bit by tree roots:
Don't run over a dog or cat or rear end a car. Drive slowly ignoring that half-wit behind you blowing his horn. Hunt one side of the street at a time for safety's sake. Season expires around the end of May. This is a delicious mushroom big time.
The Crimson reports ISD has given Sami's a month to either install plumbing or shut down, because inspectors have determined the stand at Longwood and Avenue Louis Pasteur is not mobile and therefore falls under the city building code, which requires permanent plumbing. Sami's landlord, Harvard, says it has no plans to help Sami's out by running pipes out to the stand, the Crimson reports.
The Boston Licensing Board today granted a license to the Babushka Deli, 62 Washington St., to sell beer and wine.
The deli, which only sells Russian foodstuffs, wanted to better serve the neighborhood's large Russian and Jewish population, many elderly, attorney Carolyn Conway told the board at a hearing yesterday. She said the proposal had received the blessings of local rabbis, the Russian Jewish Community Center and the Brighton Allston Improvement Association. The mayor's office and four city councilors, including district Councilor Mark Ciommo, also gave their nod.
The Boston Licensing Board today took the unusual step of rejecting a proposed takeout place after city officials said its owner has failed to do enough to curb violence in and near the Warren Street block of stores he owns.
Like Durgin-Park, Haymarket has softened over the years - most of the vendors no longer yell at customers daring to turn fruit over. Bob Skole reviews the changes and how the proposed public market nearby could make Haymarket even better.
A Malden woman who says she's been unable to return to work since eating a bacteria-laden sushi roll at a Cambridge restaurant in March has sued the raw-tuna distributor she says is to blame.
Brandy Feeney is seeking more than $75,000 (plus lawyer's fees) from Moon Marine of Cupertino, CA, which on April 13 announced a recall of its "Nakaochi Scrape" product because it was infected with a bad strain of salmonella from yellowfin tuna caught off India. Scrape is the stuff left over on fish bones after the main part of the fish has been processed, and is typically disguised with spices and other things in "spicy" sushi rolls.
The owner of Packy Connors, 203 Blue Hill Ave., wants to sell his liquor license to a proposed Asian restaurant on the South Boston waterfront.
James Cairns goes before the Boston Licensing Board next week for permission for the deal. Coming on the heels of the Breezeway's decision to shut down this would mean Blue Hill Avenue will not have a single bar in Mattapan or Roxbury.
City officials who were quick today to support a waterfront restaurant's plans for a patio open until midnight were equally quick to reject a Boylston Street restaurant's plans for a patio open until midnight - even though another restaurant just a few doors down already has a patio open until midnight.
The mayor's office and city councilors Steve Murphy, Felix Arroyo and Ayanna Pressley all endorsed a proposal by the Boston Harbor Hotel to build a patio for up to 64 patrons on its southern side - its second - with weather-appropriate hours of 11 a.m. to midnight.
The Boston Licensing Board has long acquiesced to a Back Bay neighborhood group's request to only approve new liquor licenses in the neighborhood after an existing license holder shuts down or moves out.
No more, board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer said today.
"That's certainly not a practice I endorse," she said at a hearing on catering company's request to buy a Fairfield Street restaurant's liquor license for the affairs it hosts at the Boston Public Library main branch in Copley Square.
Boston Restaurant Talk reports the Zoning Board of Appeals squashed Villa Mexico's request to move from its current location in a Cambridge Street gas station around the corner. Maybe a bank could move in instead.
On Limeduck, David reports he's a co-founder of a concern called Sprout Lenders, an investment club hoping to support local farms and locavore food concerns in the Boston area:
Neil the roaming UHub photographer was sitting down to dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Pru last night when one of our Sob Story Guys launched into his spiel. "Set up shop in middle of crowd and launched into sob story," he reports, adding, "I tipped off the bartender and he went quietly when the manager bum rushed him."
Roche Bros. is now selling five-liter kegs of root beer - just the thing to go with the three-gallon tubs of ice cream that's the smallest size you can get at Puritan Ice Cream in Roslindale.
Dwelltime on Broadway reports too many people have been using its tables as a cheap coworking space, and that's "run at odds with our aspirations of developing dwelltime as a social hub." So no more WiFi between 11:30 and 3, starting on Friday.
Boston Licensing Director Patricia Malone says she faces a thorny question: Whether to let an upscale waterfront steakhouse turn the sound on on televisions mounted on its outdoor patio.
Smith and Wollensky, on Congress Street on Fort Point Channel, has probationary permission to turn TVs on the patio on - but only with the sound off. Now it wants to be able to turn the sound on, for both select TV shows and for background music.
Van B. Tang goes before the Boston Licensing Board next week for permission to open a Vietnamese sandwich shop in a stretch of Centre Street that has become a culinary mecca for the neighborhood.
Tang's proposed Banh Mi Ngon would open at 1759 Centre St., next to Christo's and down the street from Thai Spice, Los Amigos, Red-Eyed Pig, Himalayan Bistro, West on Centre and the Upper Crust.
Banh Mi Ngon would be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to its license request.
The board's hearings start at 10 a.m. on Wednesday in its eighth-floor hearing room at City Hall.
With new wheels comes great responsibility, or something: Newmarket Square institution Boston Speed Dog reports it rolls out a new truck tomorrow - along with a new side of Grillo's Pickles - and that by the end of the month it will change its name to Boston Super Dog.
Via Grub Street Boston.
A roving UHub photographer snapped this shot this evening and reports Todd English's long shuttered City Square eatery appears to be open for business this evening, even if only of the soft-opening kind.
The Littlest Bar, now on Broad Street, goes before the Boston Licensing Board this Wednesday for permission to add a patio to seat up to 30 patrons through midnight. Board hearings start at 10 a.m. in its eighth-floor hearing room at City Hall.
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