My Favorite Boston Restaurants

It has been three months since the last time I dined in a restaurant. Massachusetts stay-at-home order happened to be in the middle of the second Boston Restaurant Week (BRW), when we still had a couple of reservations left. My boyfriend and I were so excited to try out several restaurants, which might seem impossible in the near future. I never thought it [the lockdown] could take such a long time and I still don’t know when I would feel comfortable eating in a restaurant again. We had order food a couple of times, but it can be quite different from the dining experience. We took for granted these happy moments when we could just go out and have a nice meal on the weekend.

“What if some of these restaurants that I loved wouldn’t be able to stay in business?” This post is a list of the restaurants that I have loved in the past 5 years living in Boston. I hope they will be able to open after the lockdown, and I will visit them again when it is safe to do so.

Listed in the order that I remember

0. Cafe Luna

Because I am a CS major, it is natural for me to start counting from 0. (And this happens to be the only brunch place in this list? Is that intentional?) To be honest, I am not quite impressed with Boston brunch scene, probably my standard was raised by summer brunches in SF. However, Cafe Luna has the most beautiful (and tastiest) brunch in town. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here it is!

1. Marliave

This is my go-to restaurant in BRW. They always have full-size dishes on that BRW special menu. The restaurant is located down this small alley, which creates a really warm and cozy environment.

2. Spring Shabu-Shabu

This hot pot place is the most … hygiene hot pot place in town!! I always have a bit of a hesistance against having hot pot with many people, but this place solved my problem. You have your own pot and buffet-style veggies and toppings. The price for meat is a bit steep, which is a little bit of a bummer. However, I would be very happy to spend hours there with friends and eat lots of veggies. Oh, the matcha ice cream is a must-have for dessert!

3. Hong Kong Eatery

Next is our comfort food. Hong Kong Eatery has the cheapest and most juicy Chinese BBQ of all kinds. If we don’t really know what to have for lunch or dinner, we will always go with a rice plate of three kinds of meat for less than 10$!!

4. Hokkaido Ramen Santouka

I have probably spent wayyy too much money in this ramen place. A couple of years ago, I even got rewarded for lots of appetizers, and eventually a free bowl of ramen. Crwazy time!

5. Atlantic Fish Co.

My obsession with beer battered cod fish started here. Even though I might have had enough of beer battered cod fish FROZEN, I am still craving for that rich, smooth clam chowder. Oh boyyy…

6. Penang Malaysian Cuisine This is probably Johnny’s obsession rather than mine. This restaurant is a rare find of Malaysian cuisine in the heart of Chinatown. And they definitely have the best steamed chic-kin!!

7. Yamato

All you can eat sushi!!! I couldn't think of a better description so here is my silly face to show you how good the food is 😋 (While doing a bit googling for this blog post, I found that they are temporarily closed 😣 I hope they will stay in business after this lockdown 😣)

8. C Fruit Life

To conclude this post, of course I need to talk about dessert. I love their ice shaves soooo muchhh!! It is such a bummer that I cannot have some ice in the summer 😫

9. Clear Flour Bakery

This is how my boyfriend got me 😝 TLDR: Johnny brought a box of baked goodies to our "second date" in a library and started feeding me. Welp, I fell for it.

Anddddd these are 10 of my favorite restaurants in the Boston area. There are many more of them for which I couldn’t find good photos/ space in this post. I have been experiencing loss of appetite for the past few weeks, but writing about my favorite places to eat gets me craving for good food again. How about you? What are your favorite restaurants?