VIEW SLIDESHOW: Best New Italian in Boston Area: Giulia in Cambridge, MA

[Photographs: Elizabeth Bomze]

I remember thinking that Cantabrigians had gotten a great Christmas present when Giulia opened last December. The stylish yet low-key Porter Square space came with the promise of Michael Pagliarini, former executive chef at Back Bay's higher-falutin Italian dining room Via Matta, his Umbrian roots, and his considerable pasta-making skills.

That kind of profile breeds high expectations, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I went into my first meal there with cautious optimism. It's not that I doubted there'd be a few standout dishes, but there are plenty of restaurants—particularly Italian ones—that sound like they'll impress but fall short of truly memorable.

This isn't one of them. I can say that honestly because I haven't stopped thinking about the resilient spring of the bucatini rigate and the smoky char of the grilled radicchio. Just about everyone else I know who's been there (including critics at the Boston Globe and Improper Bostonian) will back me up. In fact, there are very few restaurants I can think of that received such unanimously enthusiastic praise, and that right out of the starting gates. When I go back, it'll be hard not to order the same dishes I had last weekend. Check out all the dishes in the slideshow »

Giulia

1682 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 (map)
617-441-2800; giuliarestaurant.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Just a handful of the salads at YoMa, a Burmese restaurant in Allston. [Photographs: Liz Bomze]

The cherry blossom tree outside my living room window is practically bursting, which officially means it's salad season. Mind you, I've never been the girl who orders a typical lady's lunch, but a good salad is much more satisfying than spa food. And if you're lucky enough to be dining at YoMa, Allston's much-adored Burmese restaurant, make that four really good salads.

Any well executed salad contains a thoughtful mixture of contrasting elements, but I'd argue that traditional Mandalay lahpet, or pickled tea leaf salad ($8.50), is the best example of that. The leaves, which look uninvitingly damp, gray, and muddy, are actually bright and tangy and crucial to the salad's cohesion; they're the slightly adhesive matter that gently binds together clumps of shredded lettuce and cabbage, tomatoes, sesame seeds, puffed peas, fried garlic, and dark roasted peanuts.

Rice noodle salad.

For a long time, that was the only Burmese salad I'd ever had (or heard of), but there are 10 others on that menu, and this past weekend I tried three more. Most of them look similar, and the universal presence of peanuts and shredded cabbage made them slightly redundant to eat as a group. And yet, the defining characteristic of each one made itself well known: sweet, sour, and snappy pickled ginger threads ($8.25); ultra-plush and tender tofu that's made in-house from chickpea flour ($6.95); and a rich carb-centric salad of spicy rice and bean thread noodles that immediately seemed like a Burmese take on rice pilaf ($7.45).

By the way, these salads just happen to be meatless, but if you're a fan of Thai larb, there are a handful of meat-centered versions that revolve around familiar flavors like lime and fish sauce. Adding them to the list for next time.

YoMa

5 North Beacon Street, Boston MA 02134 (map)
617-783-1372; yomaboston.com

Sweet, beefy, refreshing, and punched up with braised mustard seeds, this was borscht at its best. [Photographs: Elizabeth Bomze]

Duck fat-fried fries and doughnut holes. Duck confit. Poutine with duck gravy and, if you want, a fried duck egg. Suffice it to say, Duckfat in Portland, Maine, has become a destination for all things anti-diet. That's not to say fried food is all the Old Port cafe offers, but it's what they take most seriously and what they've always done best. Lately, however, the menu's grown, attracting patrons looking for both guilty and (relatively) guiltless pleasures alike. I went in for the latter.

Duckfat has always offered at least one soup, but last weekend there were three, including a borscht (cup: $6) special. Served tepid, the beet broth was as good as any I've had at a Jewish deli—full-flavored and not just sweet—with pulpy bits of grated beet and a fine-chopped beef. A tiny spoonful of tangy, sharp braised mustard seeds tamped down on the sweetness nicely.

The other soup, lamb and black lentil (cup: $5.50), didn't coat the spoon, but there's something luxurious about the texture of those pearly beluga lentils (the same ones used in decadent Indian dal makhani) and they paired well with the rich lamb. There was a good bit of harissa stirred in as well—maybe too much, since it was hard to detect the mint and cilantro, but there might have been a distracting amount of cumin in there as well.

Salads impressed, too, especially the one with charred broccoli ($7.25). The pieces are left large and on the raw side of al dente, then blackened here and there—a contrast of fresh and smoky flavor I'd never tasted with broccoli. There were minced pieces of dried black olive peppered throughout the spring mix greens—which functioned like pungent flecks of coarse salt—dabs of mild-mannered goat cheese, and a creamy Meyer lemon vinaigrette. All in all, a really well thought-out salad.

The chopped Brussels sprouts salad ($6.75) might have paled in comparison to the broccoli, but it was no slouch. For one thing, the portion was big, and while I wasn't expecting a bowl teeming with mostly torn romaine (I found myself digging around for the crunchy sprouts), the heavy shower of salty-rich Parmesan shavings, apples and tangy dried cranberries, and herb vinaigrette were refreshing and satisfying.

Besides Belgian-style fries, milkshakes ($5-$6) are Duckfat's other biggest draw, and it's hard to leave without one. In fact, I didn't; the special shake that day was roasted banana with nutmeg and local goat's milk—you would have caved, too. But the kitchen is also well known for making its own sodas ($2.50), which are imaginative and well executed. Cider vinegar and maple shrub is tangy but not sharp, clean, and complexly sweet; wish I could buy it by the case.

Duckfat

43 Middle Street, Portland Maine 04101 (map)
207-774-8080; duckfat.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Crispy egg foo yung pancakes with savory gravy. [Photograph: Elizabeth Bomze]

Last week I received the latest issue of Saveur, in which I read a piece referencing two items that have sat on my Chinese food bucket list for years: egg foo yung and Brookline's Golden Temple.

Most of us who ate at Cantonese restaurants in the '80s (or earlier) recognize the name egg foo yung from menus. As the article notes, it falls under the same umbrella as Chinese-American classics like moo goo gai pan and chop suey. And yet, I'd never actually eaten the dish before, my parents' and my Chinese food order rarely diverging from beef with broccoli and pan-fried noodles. I've always been curious, though.

Fast-forward a couple decades: I've been living up the street from Golden Temple for eight years but have never set foot inside. That's because I've gotten pretty uppity about my Chinese food in the past several years—a development I blame partially on my myself and partially on the really excellent options for Sichuan, Taiwanese, and northern-style Chinese food in the Boston area. Golden Temple's also a funny place: between the relatively steep prices, the gaudy ice sculpture they display on the sidewalk on New Year's Eve, and the unlikely meshing of family restaurant and E Room that features a DJ and seductive lighting, the whole thing sounds like a hoity-toity version of Kowloon. On the one hand, why would you want to eat there. On the other, how could you resist?

The Saveur piece was a great excuse to check out the dish and the restaurant, both of which about met my expectations. I learned that the restaurant retains an incredible number of waitstaff, so you're table is practically butler-serviced, and the egg foo yung is basically a deep-fried omelet with a bowl of really savory gravy on the side. The version at Golden Temple (which occupies its own section of the menu) features chopped onions, bean sprouts, and a protein of your choice running through the eggs. I chose shrimp, and they don't skimp on the seafood: each of the three saucer-sized omelets contained a row of whole large shrimp. That said, the crustaceans would have been more evenly distributed if they had been chopped and scattered through the eggs as the vegetables were, but I suppose that would have downgraded the presentation value.

My only real complaint about the dish: the omelets themselves were underseasoned. In fact, the other dishes we tried also lacked salt—odd for a Chinese restaurant, though this one bills itself as healthy (note the restaurant's URL), so maybe that's part of the gig. But the gravy came to the rescue like good brown should. It was the kind of savory, lightly viscous liquid that would make just about anything taste good; hence, I found myself dumping more and more of it on the pancakes like little kids dump maple syrup on pancakes. Had my manners not gotten the better of me, I would have poured the bowl over the omelets and lapped up whatever was left clinging to the container with a spoon.

Golden Temple

1651 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02445 (map)
617-277-9722; healthyfreshfood.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

First-rate, seriously cheap omakase at Suzuki's Sushi Bar. [Photograph: Elizabeth Bomze]

I wasn't expecting much for $32, even if these were mid-coast Maine prices, and even though I'd heard rave reviews about Suzuki. But I could get a spicy salmon roll anywhere, so I figured I'd give the omakase at this cute Rockland sushi joint the benefit of the doubt.

Shocked doesn't cover my reaction. The platter that landed in front of me featured multiple preparations of maki, nigiri, sashimi, all impeccably fresh and much of it pulled from the local water. From left to right:

• Lobster and asparagus maki with lemon wasabi sauce, wasabi tobiko, and sprouts
• Tuna nigiri with quail egg and scallions
• Local crab nigiri
• Hamachi nigiri
• Local halibut nigiri
• Local surf clam sashimi
• Local lobster sashimi with fresh star fruit
• Local diver scallop sashimi
• Maine shrimp hand roll with red onion and cucumbers

I'd gush about each item, but honestly they were all exceptionally good. The standout might have been the shrimp hand roll; the meat was so sweet, and the first few bites when the nori was still crisp and toasty were really tasty. That, plus the bargain price tag, made this worth the four-hour drive from Boston. Even better, if two people order omakase, the price drops to $29 per person. Run.

Suzuki's Sushi Bar

419 Main Street, Rockland ME 04841 (map)
207-596-7447; suzukisushi.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Camden, ME: Incredible Thai Food at Long Grain

[Photographs: Liz Bomze]

Finding a Thai restaurant that serves rice noodles is about as hard as finding a Thai restaurant—period. But finding a Thai restaurant that makes its own fresh rice noodles is another matter. And finding that restaurant on the mid-coast of Maine? Let's just say I planned my entire weekend around eating there.

Long Grain had been on my radar since it opened in 2010, when raves from the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and several Maine-based publications came quickly. This was Pok Pok-caliber street food drawn from various regions of Thailand, plus scattered offerings from around Asia. If that sounds like fusion cooking, rest assured that it's the best kind. Even better, husband-and-wife owners Ravin Nakjaroen and Paula Palakawong have given Long Grain a sense of place in Maine by revising classic preparations with seafood and produce native to the New England coastline.

The accompanying slideshow represents about a third of the menu. Obviously, I'm already planning my next trip north to scope out the rest.

Long Grain

31 Elm Street, Camden, Maine 04843 (map)
207-236-9001; Long Grain on Facebook

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Bagel and lox go fancy. [Photograph: Liz Bomze]

Eventide Oyster Co., the Old Port's hip raw bar that took over the Rabelais bookshop storefront last year, likes to toy with tradition and does it well. Lobster rolls come on housemade steamed buns with dressy fixin's; chowder is brothy, packs serious clam flavor, and arrives with an excellent biscuit; and the Lightly Cured Arctic Char is bagel and lox reimagined as a salad. A really good salad.

Oh, and those bagels are made in-house, which they then tear up and fry. If I audibly scoffed when our server explained this process, I owe the restaurant an apology. Frankly, the idea of making bagels exclusively for this purpose sounded as ironic as making brioche specifically to make bread pudding. (Isn't that what leftovers are for?) But once I started eating the dough's crisp, seed-covered crust and soft-yet-chewy interior, I was ready for an I-told-ya-so. Whatever trouble the kitchen goes to, it's worth it.

And of course, bagel and cured fish are perfect mates. Besides being beautifully fresh and marbled with fat, the char is cured just a little, so its texture is soft and almost creamy, more like sashimi than gravlax. Pickled onions, creme fraiche, and chives are just enough adornment, and nothing more.

I could eat 10 rounds of this. I'd also have to if I wanted to feel full. The portion size is dainty, especially for the double-digit price (it hovers between $9-$12).

Eventide Oyster Co.

86 Middle Street, Portland, ME 04101 (map)
207-774-8538; eventideoysterco.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Pork, smoked tofu, cabbage, leeks, and a tangy, pungent sauce. [Photograph: Liz Bomze]

The soup dumplings (xiao long bao) at Dumpling Cafe are excellent. A steamer basket full of them (plus a plate of the Chinatown restaurant's ultrafresh pea pod stems) makes a perfect meal; in fact, the combination is so satisfying that I rarely order anything else. Until I tried the Twice-Cooked Preserved Pork ($9.95).

The dish is my colleague and fellow Serious Eater, Andrew Janjigian's, find. He shared a container of the leftovers with me one day, and it's messed with my Dumpling Cafe order routine ever since.

I think I assumed it would just be your typical Chinese double-cooked (simmered and then stir-fried) pork belly with some pickle-y "preserved" vegetables like cabbage or mustard greens. But there's more going on in here. For one thing, the meat itself appears to be preserved. It's tighter grained, and has a denser, meatier chew to it—not nearly as much as jerky, but more so than your typical stir-fried belly. The edges of some pieces also have this burnt-end quality to them that's really addictive. There's some speculation on Chowhound that this is a different cut of fatty pork, but it's hard to say. Also, not all of those meaty-tasting slabs are pork; the thinner ones are smoked pressed tofu.

Sharp, grassy leek greens in addition to the ruffly cabbage leaves make a bolder statement than the scallion tops you usually see around here in twice cooked pork dishes, and they're a good match for all that rich, smoky flavor. So is the tangy, glossy bean paste and chile sauce, of which there is plenty for ladling over rice. (If the restaurant has a general flaw, it's that the kitchen is heavy-handed with sauces—order the Taiwan Style Eggplant and you'll see what I mean.)

Dumpling Cafe

695 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111 (map)
617-338-8858; dumplingcafe.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Wontons with Special Hot Sauce—i.e. a chili oil vinaigrette. [Photographs: Liz Bomze]

If there's one takeaway that's stuck with me since my trip to China last spring, it's that vinegar and pickling are fundamental to Sichuan cuisine—at least as fundamental as the chiles and heat that food is so well known for. Some dishes we ate there were predominantly sour, but there were also plenty that weren't, and even these contained bits of pickled vegetables or just a splash of vinegar—often the tangy, faintly sweet inky-black variety called Chiangking. Mixed with rich oils and meats and fiery chiles, its effect was complex, but also clean-tasting. In fact, I've come to prefer vinegar to soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and just about every other classic Chinese condiment I've had.

It wasn't until that trip that I made a connection about a bunch of my favorite dishes at Fuloon, arguably one of the best Chinese restaurants in the Boston area: they've all got a sour component.

The Wontons with Special Hot Sauce ($4.50) might be the best example of how vinegar holds together dishes that are otherwise rich and spicy. This preparation is moderately hot, and I imagine the burn would be considerable and the oil very cloying if the vinegar (and, I think, a touch of sugar) weren't there to even things out. In that sense, the dressing is more or less a vinaigrette, helped out by a handfuls of minced pickled mustard root, peanuts, and scallion greens.

Mung bean starch noodles with pork and julienned vegetables.

The tang is much softer in the Starch Noodles with Pork ($10.95), but so is the flavor of this dish overall. In fact, I'd almost use the word "light" to describe it, partly because the vegetable presence is heavy—the julienned pieces of carrot, cucumber, and celery (not to mention tons of cilantro) distribute themselves nicely throughout the slippery mung bean noodles and slivers of pork—and partly because the vinegar tastes more clean than sour. When the noodles are particularly fresh and springy, it's one of my all-time favorite Chinese dishes.

Kan Shue String Beans.

The vinegar punch in the Kan Shue String Beans ($9.25) is isolated, but incredibly intense. See those wormy strips of turnip? They pack a wallop of sour and salt that's also juicy—basically, it's everything you want a pickle to be. The combination of those pieces with the minced up, fried bits of pork and the wrinkly, deep-fried beans is truly addictive.

Mandarin Cabbage with Spicy and Sour.

It doesn't look impressive. In fact, it's a relatively unattractive dish. But the Mandarin Cabbage with Spicy and Sour ($9.25) is usually the favorite around the table. In fact, we've taken to placing a double order. Despite the name of the dish, the vinegar's punch far outweighs the "spice" of the chiles, but there's a silkiness and fruity sweetness about the dish that really works. I never mind that the cabbage is swimming in the sauce; the extra liquid is perfect for pouring over white rice.

Fuloon

375 Main Street, Malden MA 02148 (map)
781-388-3338; fuloonrestaurant.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Green Bean Tofu with Roasted Chili Vinaigrette. [Photographs: Liz Bomze]

Like anyone who enjoys food a bit too much around the holidays, I pledge to clean up my eating habits every January. Smaller portions, fewer carbs, no more eating peanut butter out of the jar, and the classic dieter's vow: less meat, more veggies.

That all sounds pretty glum until I think about eating Chinese food. Sichuan food at Brookline's Sichuan Garden, specifically. Because as much as I love their Chongqing dry-fried chicken and double-cooked bacon, I'm also very satisfied by the produce-heavy options. These dishes are also just a few of the restaurant's underdogs that didn't get shout outs in Kenji's earlier review.

Tofu seems like a misnomer in the Green Bean Tofu with Roasted Chili Vinaigrette ($6.50), though these mung bean starch noodles (known, I believe, as liang fen) are smooth and slippery like bean curd. Here, they're served cold with mung beans, sharp fresh garlic and scallions, and a chili vinaigrette that looks hotter than it is. In fact, vinegar is the predominant flavor here.

Given the amount of oil involved in the House Special Eggplant ($14.95), this dish doesn't qualify as diet-friendly, but since it's one of my all-time favorite Chinese eggplant dishes, I couldn't leave it out: silky rafts of the purple Chinese fruit laden with finely chopped chicken and a garlicky, gingery, scallion-y, salty-sweet sauce.

At some point recently, the Minced Pork with Long String Beans ($11.95) lost a very important part of its name: pickled. Know that these crisp beans are seriously tangy, but the sourness is great with the bits of pork and the (fairly mild) chiles.

Sautéed Shredded Potatoes with Green Peppers ($9.50) is quite possibly the blandest looking Chinese dish I've ever seen, but it's also one of the tastiest. The subtle savory depth is still a mystery to me—is it the wok? a seasoning?—but that flavor combined with the vegetables' al dente bite is delicious.

Sichuan Garden

295 Washington Street, Brookline MA 02445 (map)
617-734-1870; sichuangardenrestaurant.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Belmont, MA: Taiwanese Dim Sum Brunch at Shangri-La

[Photographs: Liz Bomze]

When people tell me they don't "get" the appeal of brunch, I always ask if they've had dim sum. Because however you feel about corned beef hash and eggs, there's no denying the appeal of dumplings, noodles, and fried turnip cakes—especially as the first meal of the day.

That said, I can almost understand wanting to switch up the typical Cantonese spread from time to time. That's when I skip Chinatown and head for Belmont, home to one of the Hub's best Taiwanese restaurants. You'll know Shangri-La by the line the snakes out the door—a guaranteed sight every Saturday and Sunday between the hours of 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.

It's not a pushcart operation like the grand dim sum halls downtown—arguably a boon, since your food is made to order. And the menu is vast: everything from pig ear salad, to crispy shao bing, to fried chitterlings, to popular xiao long bao (soup dumplings). I just wish the tables were bigger.

Shangri-La

149 Belmont Street, Belmont, MA 02478 (map)
617-489-1488; shangrilachinese.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

The springy Cold Noodles (not to be confused with Chilled Noodles) at Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe are topped with julienned vegetables, bean sprouts, cilantro, a sliced hard-boiled egg that's steeped in tea, chili oil, and load of fresh garlic. [Photographs: Liz Bomze]

Happy Almost Chinese New Year!

Just when I'm coming down off of my December holidays high and think there's nothing exciting on the calendar between now and when rhubarb and ramps come into season in early spring, I remember that Chinese New Year is just around the corner. February 10, 2013, to be exact. As such, I've decided to devote all posts between now and then to some of my favorite Chinese dishes around town, both new and old. First up: the cold noodles ($6.50) at Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe in Chelmsford.

Following my first trip up there last spring, I gushed at length about chef/owner Gene Wu's hand-pulled noodles (biang biang mian) and chilled noodles (liang pi). Since then, he's introduced the cold noodles: long, fresh wheat strands as thin, slurpable, and springy as ramen, topped with expertly julienned carrot and cucumber, bean sprouts, cilantro leaves, a tea-infused hard-boiled egg, and the same generous helpings of mild chili oil and fresh garlic that dress the chilled noodles (a weekend-only special that sells out quick). It's dishes like this that make me think I could survive as a vegan (it'd be plenty tasty without the egg).

If you click on the website's photo of the dish and notice the name tag on your browser's tab, it says liang mian. Most of the information I found about this dish matches up with what Gene is serving—a cold noodle dish with julienned carrots and cucumber. Many references also suggest that the dressing includes Chinese sesame paste, sesame oil, soy sauce, and vinegar, and that (not surprisingly) this dish is a close relative of dan dan mian, minus the meat.

Perhaps to keep the dish more approachable to a range of customers, Gene leaves the paste out of the serving bowl—but there is a small crock of dark, dense paste at the counter. There's a vessel of vinegar, too. Doctor up your noodles with both. You won't be sorry.

Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe

257 Littleton Road, Chelmsford, MA 01824 (map)
978-256-6789; genescafe.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

A loaf of heavy cream shoku pan. [Photograph: Elizabeth Bomze]

This is a post about white bread. The richest, fluffiest, most downy-soft white bread I've ever tasted.

It's a loaf that Japonaise Bakery makes called shoku pan—a traditional Japanese white sandwich bread made with milk. Credit for the discovery actually goes to my America's Test Kitchen colleague and Serious Eats Chip-Faced columnist Dan Souza, who developed a recipe in Cook's Illustrated for Cinnamon-Swirl Bread based on this style of dough. Ever since he brought in a loaf from the bakery during recipe development, I've been hooked.

In the pantheon of white sandwich loaves, this one stands out because it achieves a seemingly impossible textural contrast: a crumb that's light, springy, and sturdy in spite of its high ratio of rich dairy. (Many versions are made with milk; Japonaise makes both a milk and an even more decadent heavy cream version. Guess which one I like best.) As Dan discovered during testing, the key to those competing characteristics is developing tons of gluten, so that the bread can stand strong despite all the structure-weakening fat.

It's terrific eaten straight out of the bag ($4.50 for about eight hearty slices); the crumb has this delicate elasticity that is just fun to tug apart. But it also makes great toast and sturdy bookends for sandwiches (which they serve at the bakery).

Japonaise Bakery

1032 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (map)
617-738-7200; 1020 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02446 (map) 617-566-7730; 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02312 (map) 617-547-5531; japonaisebakery.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Associate Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Crispy chicken dumpings with carrots, shiitakes, cilantro, garlic, and a dipping sauce that I wish Pad Thai would bottle and sell. [Photograph: Elizabeth Bomze]

Like I said in my Colby College Tour post earlier this year, Pad Thai Too fed me more than any other Waterville kitchen during college—maybe even more than the dining hall. Everybody had their go-to dish, be it the drunken noodles, the excellent curries, or the namesake (and really well-executed) pad Thai, but the order that appeared on almost every table was the fried dumplings ($5.25).

The funny thing is, they don't sound exceptional on paper. They're made with chicken, which, in my dumpling world, almost always plays second fiddle to pork. That prejudice led me astray once, when I ordered their pork gyoza instead. Big mistake; they're not even close.

In fact, I've never been able to figure out exactly what it is about these beggar's purses that makes them so addictive. Maybe the other ingredients mixed with the chicken—carrots, shiitakes, cilantro, and garlic—are especially well balanced. Maybe those doing the deep-frying really nail the crisp-chewy bite on the frilly wonton wrappers. And I'm sure the dipping sauce is part of the appeal; it's a thin, salty-sweet syrup that must be built on plenty of soy sauce and sugar, and maybe some vinegar and garlic. (I've asked the owners for the recipe, and for a bottle of it to go, but to no avail.) But good dumplings can't get by on sauce alone.

Whatever the draw, those dumplings have only become more popular since I was in college. Now they're not only an appetizer all their own, but also a component in several other dishes on the menu: soup and several noodle preparations, including three versions of pad Thai where the crispy nuggets are the main attraction. I just wish they delivered to Boston.

Pad Thai Too

400 Kennedy Memorial Drive, Waterville ME 04901 (map)
207-859-8900; padthaitoo.me

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Associate Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

Clockwise from left: Amanouz Cafe's Tagine Fish, Royal Feast, and pita. [Photograph: Elizabeth Bomze]

Every time I visit a college town, I play the same game in my head: If I had been a student here, which of the local restaurants would have been my go-to?

To my mind, the place should have more than one great dish going for it, which might rule out the local house of pizza and the ice cream parlor. It should be on the cheap side—a place where you can afford to be a regular on a student budget. And ideally it should have some local character. That means that even if the Applebee's is a particularly nice one, it doesn't count.

Fresh off my second visit to Northampton, I'm ready to cast my vote for Amanouz Café. The small North African café fits the bill on all counts: The food is flavorful, fresh, and satisfying. I'm hooked on two dishes in particular: the Tagine Fish ($10.50), a conical clay pot of steaming rice topped with three tender, fragrant fish "meatballs" and just as many lemon wedges for squeezing over the stew; and the Royal Feast ($6.95), a really good version of the typical Middle Eastern vegetarian spread with crisp falafel, creamy hummus, tabbouleh that's heavy on the parsley, eggplant salad, and pita. If you're a milkshake fan, the avocado and strawberry versions are both terrific. The Loubia (white bean stew) and Tagiz Fez with lamb and prunes are on my list for next time.

Other bonus points: The prices are right—especially given the generous portions. The menu is very vegetarian-friendly. The vibe is quirky and academic, which suits NoHo very well. It has WiFi. And it's open straight through from breakfast until late snack break time. Think: dining hall convenience, with food that's way better and much more interesting.

Amanouz Cafe

44 Main Street, Northampton, MA 01060 (map)
413-585-9128; amanouzcafe.com

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Associate Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.