Supermeow!

So, The Phantom Gourmet is a local restaurant “review” show on one of the local regular-type-broadcast channels. It’s kind of horrible in that every episode seems to be about where you can go to get the giantest, most fried food in the greatest quantities for the lowest price and the lowest common denominator. To be fair, I’ve discovered some okay restaurants because of them, as they actually pay attention to the suburbs (including the less affluent ones, i.e. where I live) and because of them I know where to get pretty decent Chinese within minutes of home. They have also covered some places that I like a lot, so I can’t knock all of their choices. It would be real nice, though, if they could do a show on places to go eat that aren’t disgustingly excessive fall-of-civilization-type places to eat. Husband and I were talking about this on the drive home a couple weeks ago. On the one hand, the Phantom Gourmet knows their audience, which is to say not people who are really into eating as many different types of food as possible in a fine preparation.  The stuff they air is really the interests of the audience: utter garbage for people who do not need to worry about whether or not they’re considered “foodies” by others. People who like nothing more than the giantest possible serving of fried water are the ones who dig this show. People who do not know or care about the difference between a truly excellent hamburger and garbage are watching this show (and honestly, what makes a hamburger excellent is subjective anyhow). That said, with the epidemic of obesity and obesity-related illnesses, it would be rad if they did a show on healthier options than the ones they typically show that are accessible to people who think the double-beer hat is a fantastic invention. I thought it’d be easy to come up with a list, but it isn’t. I thought about coming up with a list of healthy options at mainstream places, but that can generally be summed up as “salad with no bacon or extra nuts or thousand calorie island dressing.” I think my best bet is to come up with some Mara-centric places where I’ve gone and had a pretty good, healthy meal. So that is what I will do, fully understanding that these may not be places to trap in the quadruple fried cheese-bacon crowd.

I present Healthy Food Destinations!

• Eatin’ Healthy, Quincy was a place my friend Rhonda turned me on to when we’d go to yoga together on Sunday mornings. The food is quite tasty and affordable, and there are burgers, salads, sandwiches, and fries! Everything is fresh and tasty. I had a wonderful chocolate banana shake, and some tasty salads – I must tell you that, as a person who fundamentally despises salad, it was quite good and worth the trip. I wish they were open a little later, but a person needs to have a life.
• Genki-ya Japanese Restaurant is specifically a terrific value at lunchtime. They make wonderful sushi with a lot of great options for vegetarians (the fruit roll is terrific, as is the garden roll, as is the sweet potato tempura roll) and they can make your sushi with brown rice or rice with multigrain mix (which I’ve not had, but their brown rice rolls do not leave anything to be desired, which I feared a little because brown rice can be pretty strong next to delicate flavors – I think they mill their rice a bit, too). The only thing I’ve had that I don’t really like is their miso soup. It’s very bland. I’ve had oyakodon and katsudon that’s been fantastic. They claim to serve organic sushi and I have no idea if that’s true or if that’s marketing, but it’s tasty and certainly a healthy option if you avoid the rolls w/tempura or mayo, or at least ease up on them. Japanese restaurants are pretty easy places to find stuff to eat if you’re doing Weight Watchers, which is another point in their favor, pun intended.
• Grezzo is completely vegan and also specializes in the raw food. I had the chance to go here a couple weeks ago for Prairie’s birthday, and I was delighted to see that they managed to make something very questionable-sounding into a positive experience, and a tasty one at that! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they take care of you here and they will serve you enjoyable things! My only reservation about this place is that it presents things as something other than what they are, yet at the same time I wonder if that’s what gets people in the door and finding this accessible at all (“gnocchi” are made of ground raw cashews and transformed into tasty little lumps of deliciousness with a mysterious and tasty cream sauce that is perhaps made of more ground raw cashews, but sure could’ve fooled me) when I wish they’d just represent things in a straightforward manner – this is a vegetable terrine, not lasagna, this is a vegetable terrine, not lobster thermidor (but uses lobster mushrooms, which are quite tasty), this is a banana mousse, not cheesecake – those aren’t really dealbreakers for me. I just wish they’d be a bit more straightforward. It would be a lovely special evening out, and I’d go again. I did discover that I don’t like sake-based cocktails, though… but they make a fantastic house lemonade. This was a lot more accessible than I thought it would be, but this one is probably going to be a hard or no-sell for unadventurous eaters. Be warned, also, that this is only really a healthy option if you’re a full-time vegetarian or vegan, given how much nut- and coconut-centric things are on the menu. Some nuts are fine. This place involves a lot of nuts. You only need so many nuts if you have an omnivorous diet.
• The motto of ChoCho’s at the Porter Exchange in Cambridge is “Eat better, live better.” They serve a mixture of Korean, Japanese, and Thai dishes (the owners are Korean, I believe) and their menu is full of things that are good to eat and good for you (kimchee is all about the cruciferous veggies, i.e. the cancer-fighting veggies). Again, don’t mess it up by getting the fried stuff on their menu. Try the Soon Duboo, one of the house specialties, or perhaps a big ole’ bowl of bibimbap? Another great place to easily find stuff to eat if you’re doing Weight Watchers.
• Clover Food Lab is one of the many food trucks that hang around MIT, seeking to liberate students from their money and pass off horrible food in its stead, only Clover Food Lab is not at all horrible. It’s all-vegetarian, but don’t let that turn you off, meat-eaters. There are some “sometimes foods” on the menu, like their incredibly tasty rosemary fries (crispy and delicious even when they’ve cooled off significantly, wow, and the fried stalks of rosemary turn these could make an addict out of you) and a deep-fried chickpea fritter sandwich is probably not something you should eat more than once every couple weeks (but you may want to eat it daily, a perfectly-sized pita round with falafel-like patties, picked onions, pickles, and tomaters inside and topped off with tahini), but let’s not split hairs. I tried their egg and eggplant sandwich next week and it was absolutely lovely with silky chunks of eggplant and tasty sliced eggs with hummus on pita. A past menu speaks of fattoush salad, the greatest salad in all of Lebanon. I had some very nice ginger lemonade from these guys, too. This place beats the pants off of every shitty, food-poisoning-giving truck out there. If I sound bitter, I am. I stopped eating anything from a food truck several years ago after I got sick one too many times and either took to getting delivery or going to an actual retail location for food. Or bringing my own. I might actually go out of my way to get lunch here! Zounds!  They can be found next to the main entrance of MIT Medical.

One of my mottos used to be that if you were going to get fat, at least get fat by eating wonderful foods, like great imported prosciutto and fine wine and artisan bread and cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil and avocados versus getting fat from eating a Ho-Ho-based diet with melted butter chasers. Some of these places certainly fall into that category, and some of the claims are a bit misleading (esp. with the raw vegan restaurant, where as I mentioned it’s really only truly “healthy” if that’s all you eat regularly), but overall these are places you needn’t feel too guilty about after you’re done eating.