One of the perks of working in Chinatown is that it is really easy to get a great quantity of cheap Chinese food.  Potluck Cafe is one establishments that provides voluminous quantities of food for very little.  Located in a dingy alley in Chinatown, you get what you’d expect from their lunch combination of 3 dishes + rice + soup for $5.50.  This works out great for meat eaters, as you can pick any three dishes from their assortment of entrees under heat lamps.  However, for a vegetarian, there is a limited selection, as almost everything either has chicken, beef or pork in it.  Fortunately, there are usually 2-3 entrees that are exclusively vegetarian, so you too can partake of this bargain.

On my excursion over to Potluck Cafe, I was only able to find two entrees that didn’t have meat.  One tofu dish, and a garlicky spinach dish.  I was unaware of an eggplant dish on the far side of the register, beyond the fried octopus and chicken legs.  It would seem more logical to me to put all the dishes that are vegetarian in one place, especially considering how intimidating Potluck Cafe is.  Asking whether there is meat in something and getting an understanding response is almost impossible in Chinatown, (as I’ve said a hundred times before - “Chinatown doesn’t give a f*** about you”).  So, it is somewhat disheartening and discouraging to try and figure out which seemingly interesting dish doesn’t have chicken in it.  After eating the tofu and spinach, I understand why everything has meat in it, the food is so tasteless and bland, that you have to add meat to flavor it.

I didn’t eat the soup, but I thought I’d take a picture just to show how disgustingly inedible it looks.  If the pond water appearance was not off-putting enough, the chicken broth that was used to make it (confirmed by helpful and adventurous Vernon) sealed the deal.

I understand why my meat-eating colleagues go to Potluck Cafe - you can get really cheap food and in large quantities.  Some of it actually might taste mediocre.  However, I’d rather spend a little more for food that I like that doesn’t require me haggling with people to figure out a way to not get meat in my food.  So, for this hassle and the fact that the food is not very good, I’ll give Potluck Cafe one cheese sandwich.

Potluck Cafe
7 Knapp Street
Boston, MA 02111-1601 
(617) 482-1188

Whenever I walk through Chinatown, I always think to myself, “What this place needs is another Taiwanese-style restaurant!”  I mean sure, there is already Gourmet Dumpling House and Taiwan Cafe, but how can you call a place “Chinatown” and only have 2 Taiwanese restaurants and five banh mi places?*  Well, fortunately, the bastard love child of Gourmet Dumpling House and Taiwan Cafe (in name only, I don’t think restaurants are capable of procreation, let alone extra-marital procreation), Dumpling Cafe, has arrived.

I initially went to Dumpling Cafe to get some vegetable raviolis (similar to the kind you would get in Gourmet Dumpling House and Taiwan Cafe).  Of course, I got it fried instead of steamed, because everyone knows fried food is the best food, and I’ll just work of the calories dominating in frisbee.  The raviolis were actually pretty good, although there was a fishy aftertaste (likely fish).  Of course, I couldn’t get a straight answer from the hostess whether there was actually fish (or fish stock) used to make the raviolis.  So, I’ll just assume there was fish in them.

The safe bet in any Taiwanese restaurant is the Taiwan style braised eggplant dish.  Fortunately, for the lunch special, you have the option of having plain rice or fried rice.  Guess what I got?  No.  Fried rice!  What the heck is wrong with you?  Did you not read the earlier paragraph?  While this braised eggplant is more tender and spicy than Gourmet Dumpling House’s variant, it is not as tender or spicy as Taiwan Cafe’s version. 

I guess it turns out it is good to have more variety in Chinatown, even if the variety creates more redundancies.  But if I’ve learned anything from studying biological signaling networks, it’s that redundancy can be a good thing, unless you’re studying biological signaling networks, in which case it complicates all your data.  That is why I don’t actually study biological signaling networks.  Outside of the braised eggplant, there are quite a few vegetarian options, a few of which are not available at Taiwan Cafe (though most are available at Gourmet Dumpling House).  But redundancy is good, I suppose.  So, since I gave the other two three and a half cheese sandwiches, I’ll give Dumpling Cafe the same.

*Apparently my sarcasm has gotten away with itself to the point that I appear to be making sincere statements.

Dumpling Cafe
695 Washington St
Boston, MA 02111 
(617) 338-8858

Gourmet Dumpling House (GDH) and Taiwan Café are two of the premier Chinese eateries in Chinatown. Supposedly they share the same kitchen staff (or kitchen – details on what goes on behind the scenes in Chinatown is quite shady), so you would think that the food would be exactly the same. For the most part the menus are VERY similar. However, there are subtle differences between the two establishments. In order to seek out these differences, I ordered the same dish that I always get at Taiwan Café – braised eggplant in basil.

When tasting the braised eggplant, I tried with great difficulty to notice differences. For the most part, the dishes were exactly the same, but subtle variations existed between this version and the Taiwan Café version. For one, the GDH version is somewhat spicier and less oily than the Taiwan Café version. Also, I believe the eggplant is more tender at Taiwan Café, so depending on your taste you may prefer one establishment over another. As far as I’m concerned, it is a pick ‘em (if you don’t gamble, that’s slang for a “push”).

I also tried their veggie dumplings (technically, their vegetable raviolis). They are listed as being steamed, but you can request them fried, which of course I did, and was thoroughly pleased. The dumplings were probably one of the best dumplings I have ever had (out of the six times I’ve had dumplings). It is a close tie with these dumplings and dumplings I had at a dumpling party at my friend Vernon’s house. Probably the difference is that these dumplings were made by a professional, and I made my own dumplings at Vernon’s house.

Since my palate is not sensitive enough to taste the difference between Taiwan Café and Gourmet Dumpling House, I will just give them both the same rating – four cheese sandwiches. If you can taste the difference, let me know!

Gourmet Dumpling House
52 Beach Street
Boston, MA 02111-2020 
(617) 338-6223

In the great debate that I have had with my colleagues at work, we often discuss which has better food between Pho Xinh Xinh and Pho Pasteur (of the Pho restaurants in Chinatown). I was aware of other Pho restaurants in Chinatown, though I naturally assumed that since no other person mentioned them at work, they were of inferior quality. I recently decided to take matters into my own hands and try out an underdescribed Pho restaurant – Pho Hoa. I tried to see on their website if they had anything good that I could eat, but discovered that they actually didn’t (on their website). Upon arrival to Pho Hoa, I discovered that their menu is completely different from what is available online, and in fact, there is a wide selection of vegetarian dishes available. Many of them are cheaper than Pho Xinh Xinh, which is an added bonus.

I decided to order the spicy lemongrass tofu curry, which, considering my recently acquired cold, was a phenomenal decision. This dish is not dissimilar to the tofu in ginger scallion sauce that you could get at Pho Xinh Xinh, though it is considerably cheaper. Likely this is because of the inclusion of baby corn – which makes the meal subsidized by the Government. Normally baby corn is the bane of any Asian dish, however, the flavors of the sauce are such that even a noxious compound such as baby corn cannot ruin its taste. Furthermore, this tofu curry is comparable in price to Pho Pasteur, but is 100 times better. So, while many do not put Pho Hoa in the discussion of great Vietnamese restaurants in Chinatown, I think they should.

If it were college football season, I would suggest that Pho Pasteur and Pho Xinh Xinh are the Texas and USC of Vietnamese restaurants, while Pho Hoa is the unfortunate Boise St. If you don’t follow college football, I am saying that Pho Hua is ignored because none of the subway rags (Phoenix, Weekly Dig, Improper Bostonian, etc.) dare mention it because it is a national chain. Though it is a national chain, it is no P.F. Chang’s, so it should be mentioned in the discussion of great Vietnamese restaurants. Therefore, I will give it four cheese sandwiches for providing a wide variety of vegetarian options (as well as Banh Mi!), and a solid tofu curry dish at a reasonable price.

Pho Hoa
17 Beach Street
Boston, MA 02111-1630 
(617) 423-3934

My first exposure to Thai food came quite late in life, in fact it was only a few years ago. There was a Thai restaurant across the street from where I worked in graduate school called Mai Thai. I first had their Pad Thai, followed by the Pad Wun Sen, and Mussuman curry – leading me to becoming an acolyte of Thai cuisine. My almost bi-weekly excursions to Mai Thai became a high point in my graduate career, and I was excited to discover that there was a Thai restaurant near where I worked in Chinatown, called Montien. I was even more excited by the fact that Montien is the first Thai restaurant that I had been to that doesn’t have the word Thai or something referencing Thailand in its name (such restaurants include 3 Mai Thais (or My Thai), 2 Pad Thai, a Planet Thai, a Bangkok Cuisine, and a Bangkok House), showing that Montien is the first Thai restaurant to be secure enough to not insist that it is a Thai restaurant to draw business.  I am ignoring the fact that it’s officially called Montien Thai Restaurant, as the Thai Restaurant part is subtitular.

I was with Kenny and Sam one night, and we decided to get some food in Chinatown before heading out to meet Vernon to play trivia. I hadn’t been to Montien in over three months, and thought this would be a good opportunity to get some Thai food. I have frequented Montien for lunch previously, if only to satiate my enjoyment of lunchtime Thai excursions. Unfortunately, compared to the rest of Chinatown, Montien is far too expensive to frequent on a weekly (or bi-weekly) basis. You can get a 9 or 10-dollar lunch special, which is filling, but quite scandalous considering you can get equal quality meals elsewhere for 6 or 7 dollars. While Montien is slightly expensive for a lunch time meal, it is VERY expensive for dinner. The atmosphere is quite nice, so you might consider taking a date there for a pre-theatre meal (or post-theatre), but 13-15 dollars a plate is quite steep for Chinatown.

I decided to get the Mussuman curry which can come with brown rice (at extra cost over white) under the notion that I wanted to eat something healthy before downing the offal from Razzy’s during trivia (it’s not real offal, just metaphorical). The Mussuman curry is a good blend of sweet and spicy with the chilies and peanut sauce pleasantly melding together. I would say that the quality of the food at Montien offsets the expensiveness of their dishes. In fact, I would argue that Montien is probably the best Thai restaurant in Boston, and comparable to Planet Thai (the best Thai restaurant in Lexington, KY). There are a wide variety of vegetarian options as many of the sauces are interchangeable between being a meat dish or tofu. Their tofu is the fried firm type that I always rave about, and makes every meal amazing.

When discussing the price of food at Montien, one must consider that most Chinatown restaurants attempt to recreate the bleakness of a Southeast Asian road stand. However, Montien attempts to recreate the atmosphere of a five star hotel in a Green Zone. So, I would argue that the cost of the food is acceptable, and since there is a wide range of vegetarian food available at Montien, I will give it four cheese sandwiches. It would get more if it made a better attempt to delineate what is vegetarian and what is not on the menu (as many sauces have fish stock as their base, and it is unclear if Montien uses fish stock as their base or not).

Montien Thai Restaurant
63 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116-4723 
(617) 338-5600