the latest on the food front (i have some catching up to do i think) ... first off, went to gramercy tavern when i was in new york (for my 24th birthday, heh heh) a month ago. it turns out that we were lucky b/c andy had wanted to go to see a bartender who had left one of his favorite places, hamersley's in boston, and was waitressing there. it turned out that the day we went was the last day she was going to be there, so it was cool that andy got to see her there. i'd been there before w/ winnie and the place has a nice ambience. our waitress (not the one andy know) wasn't particularly helpful, though. andy got a fish ragout which he said was good. i started with a salad with grilled slices of portabello which was quite excellent, but in a misstep i got the same roasted vegetable sandwich i had last time (one of their few vegetarian entrees) which also had portabello mushrooms -- a detail that a more competent waitress would have pointed out i think. this time i had it w/ the tallegio, though, which is a really really stinky italian cheese. as before the sandwich was greasy, heavy, and hard to handle, which in retrospect i shouldn't have gotten but oh well. last night andy and i went to joe v's, a new gourmet pizza place that recently opened on shawmut in the south end, pretty much around the corner from the franklin park cafe. the place was stiflingly straight, and the ambience definitely wasn't helped by the fact their electricity was down. so basically we were stuck in a chilly, acoustically dry, small room with very patchy, too bright emergency lighting. despite these drawbacks the food was quite decent. we started with the bruschetta which was plain but good. the tomatoes were fresh and nice and garlicky. the bread was rather spongy instead of well-toasted which i found to be not to my taste, but this may have been due to the lack of electricity. andy had a caesar salad which he said was quite excellent. he especially appreciated the fact that it had anchovies which i had assumed was requisite for a caesar salad, but he says that 9 out of 10 places don't include them. for my entree i had a mushroom and caramelized onion pizza with a cream sauce. it was quite good, although it was heavy, the small plates they gave us were completely unhelpful, and i prefer my crust to be crispy instead of soft. i'd give them another try i think, but not any time soon. a month or so ago andy and i checked out cambridge, 1, the gourmet pizza place that recently opened near the border cafe in harvard square. this is the place that's owned by the same people who own the miracle of science and audubon circle. (i got tired of not knowing their names, so i found a review from the globe of the pizza place .... their names are chris lutes and matthew curtis.) the decor is definitely very similar to the miracle and audubon, lots of wood and dark walls. this place only had pizza and salads (i.e. no sandwiches or pastas), which i find a drawback although i suppose that's a matter of opinion. andy liked that the back faces a cemetery, although i think that's a little on the weird side. the pizza we got was pretty good but not extraordinary. also, i find it annoying that they have a comma in their name, heh. all in all going to both of these pizza places just reminded me of my preference for a nice greasy slice of american pizza from a place like nicole's on tremont. also, worth mentioning, although i hate bertucci's pizza i have to say their bruschetta is tops and i'd go back there just so i could have it. they put together a plate with six pieces of bread, three different toppings, one eggplant based, one tomato based, and i forget what the third one is. yummmm. whoa this is getting long ... i'll post the rest of this later i guess.