Latest news with #SoupClub
Boston Globe
20-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
A mother-son team spice up Boston Public Market with mole and tamales
Why did you start Mr. Tamole? Coming to Boston, there was Mexican food, but it was always tacos, burritos, right? There were no tamales. So we decided to bring tamales to the Boston area, and then we also decided to include our mole. It's from Puebla, Mexico, so it's a mole poblano. This is a recipe passed down through families, to my grandmother and then to my mother. It's very dear to us. We've now made it so that it has no major allergens, and we're able to serve it at the Boston Public Market. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up What brought you to Boston? Advertisement I came [to the United States] with my family when I was 7, because my dad had some type of scientific project with UMass Amherst, building a telescope. He was a computer scientist. This was a government project between the United States and Mexico, and it ran through the University of Massachusetts. Advertisement After being here for more than four years, we kind of just got adapted to this area, and so we decided to stay in Amherst. That's Bueno Y Sano territory. Yes. There's good Mexican food around Amherst. We actually get tortillas from a store that I just recently found out is no longer active, but they're selling their tortillas: Mi Tierra. How did your business with your mom come together? I went to Roxbury Community College for one year before finishing up at UMass Amherst. I wanted to come back [to Boston]. I worked a little bit at odd jobs and also sold life insurance. I got bored of that; I've always wanted to own my own business. I saw the Boston area didn't have as good Mexican food as some other places — and no tamales. I thought the easiest way for someone young and with little capital was to get a food cart. We did a lot of farmers' markets and events, testing out our tamales to the public, and everyone loved them. We got our LLC. We got a lot of help from JPNDC (Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp.), and then from CommonWealth Kitchen, and Lawyers for Civil Rights. They all helped us out incorporating our business and getting everything ready to go. Tacos from Mr. Tamole. Handout It was a group effort. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful. And at Boston Public Market, all the employees, all the business owners, all the customers, everyone's just welcoming. It's a very nice community. It's been a great change from being outdoors to being inside. What's it like to work with your mom? At first it was very hectic, getting started and doing the farmers' markets and learning from mistakes. She says that we can fight, but we can't get divorced. Advertisement Does she boss you around? She's the boss. She's my mom at the end of the day. She likes to take control and make sure everything is done how she likes it — not in an authoritative way. She's a perfectionist. What makes your recipes special? They're passed down from family members. I wish I would have known the story of how the [mole] recipe was passed down from my great-grandmother. My grandmother is kind of in her last days, but I wish I would have talked to her more about the recipe. My grandmother brought it down from 32 ingredients to 26, and I believe she brought it down to make it easier on the stomach. It's interesting. And now we make it with 22 ingredients, so from 26 to 22, but it still has the same taste. What makes the taste distinctive? How do we know we're eating Mr. Tamole mole? We tell the customers all the time — and we have it written down on the chalkboard — sweet, spicy, and salty, everything in between. Nothing overtakes it; it's hard to explain. What are the key ingredients? Peanuts, almonds, sesame seeds, chocolate, lard, plantains, sugar, black pepper, four different types of chilies — some you roast, some you boil. … I probably should have asked my mother before doing this interview! Where do you eat when you're not working? When I'm not working, I'm usually around the Jamaica Plain area. Sweet Rice in Jamaica Plain is good, and Purple Cactus and Chilacates. And my mother does love Chinatown. Advertisement Do you cook at home? It's kind of tough. I usually go to Costco, and I have Costco food. At one point, I was really into Caesar salads. But currently, right now, I'm just eating lazily, which is not good. What's your favorite snack? Cape Cod potato chips. And I also like ice pops, the lemon flavor. That might be my favorite snack. What do you wish the Boston food scene had more of? More Mexican food. What do you think Boston does really well? Brazilian food. We have a lot of everything: Chinese food, Italian. The Mexican food is good, too — it's just kind of repetitive, with burritos. But I love burritos. We didn't ever eat burritos until we came to the United States. But I love them; the Mexican scene just needs a little bit more of what Mexico has to offer, like Mexican street corn. Now, there are vendors here doing Mexican street corn, and people love Mexican street corn. What do you put in your burrito? Steak is always good, or pork, even though I try to eat healthy as I get older. Chicken is good, but steak is better. Pork is as good as steak, in moderation. And I do it with rice and beans. You know, one company that's really good — I actually worked there for a little bit — was Chipotle. I worked there in college, when I was at UMass. I wouldn't say it's authentic, but it's good. Any inside secrets? Why don't they give me enough guacamole? The manager had his little book of what he had to do when onboarding someone. It was just structured. I guess there are little touches that you do to make it authentic; I guess Chipotle misses or doesn't include some of those. But they're also [making food] for customers in the United States. Advertisement Us, too. We don't make our food spicy. People are always asking about our mole: Is it spicy? So that's why we say it's sweet, spicy, and salty. I will say, though, the red Chipotle salsa is pretty spicy. What's the best piece of advice your mom has given you about cooking? It's somewhat of a little secret, but making enchiladas: A lot of people, when making enchiladas, just start rolling up the tortilla. We tell them to first get a little bit of oil, put it in a pan, warm it up a little bit, and then get the tortilla in the oil warmed up so when you roll it up, it doesn't break. It rolls up a lot better and has a lot more flavor. Things like that. But growing up eating our food on the daily, when you're a little kid, you sometimes get sick of it. Sometimes I would go to school and trade my plate for a pizza. Growing up in Amherst, what was your favorite place to eat? Bueno Y Sano. La Veracruzana. My grandmother's from Veracruz. They have good food. But, also, Antonio's is a really good pizzeria. The food scene in Amherst is actually pretty good. Last but not least: What's one food that you absolutely cannot stand? Mushrooms and raisins. My cousin would tell me that they're dead flies. Interview was edited and condensed. Kara Baskin can be reached at
Boston Globe
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
The Michelin Guide is a game changer for Boston
Oh wait, we This, to me, was the rub: To get Michelin to come to a region, local tourism boards pony up substantial sums. Visit California Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up A pay-to-play system can feel morally icky, favoring those with deep pockets (as the restaurant business Advertisement I've still changed my mind. A Michelin Guide is good for Boston. It will boost the profile of the local restaurant scene. It might bring in more tourism dollars. It could lead to sharper, more consistent, more fully realized restaurants for people to enjoy. Diners will surely benefit. Cheers to all that. But mostly I think it's excellent for morale. Ambitious chefs need goals and challenges in order to keep growing. Without that, talent gets restless and moves on. Earning a Michelin star would be nice; having Michelin stars to work toward matters more. Food media has changed. The country used to have restaurant critics funded by publications working in every market. Boston alone had multiple reviewers. If you didn't like the Globe's, you could look to the Herald, Boston magazine, the Phoenix, the Improper, and so on. Social media is now the most accessible place to locate assessments of restaurants, often coming from influencers, many of whom are astute, clever, honest, and smart, and some of whom dine for free in exchange for coverage. Restaurant-going is expensive, and someone needs to fund it. We live in a system that's sometimes pay-to-play already. Let's be transparent about it. Advertisement To put the Michelin fee in perspective, this is a city where a liquor license can cost up to $600,000. Paying for Michelin to come check us out is the restaurant world equivalent of SAT prep: Is it gross that the system has evolved to favor students who can afford to take a course that gives them an advantage? Yes. Are you going to shoot your own child in the foot by not enrolling them if you are able? The guides' reach is In a recent Advertisement Michelin stars, shining in the distance, add a new dimension to conversations like this. They open up possibility for chefs with big ideas and dreams. They are ammunition for those chefs when they seek investment for concepts that push the envelope. And for those who do receive Michelin recognition, it will be a valuable jumping-off point for that next project — tangible proof that this small, yet high-cost market can and will support and reward risk. Tangible proof that Boston is anything but a bad restaurant town. Devra First can be reached at
Boston Globe
25-02-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
From law school to lo mein: Ted Woo launches Mimi's Chūka Diner in Somerville
My first job ever was washing dishes at my uncle's restaurant. It was a way to keep me [busy] when I visited my family in Japan during the summertime. I'm originally from the West Coast, from the San Francisco Bay Area, and my mom's family lives in Japan. I'm mostly Chinese, although there's a little bit of Japanese heritage on my mom's side. My uncle actually owns Chinese restaurants over there now; my cousin runs them. Food's always been a big part of that side of the family. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up But then you went to law school at BU. What drew you back into restaurants? Advertisement It was your typical story of needing to do the 'right' thing and choosing a more professional career path. My friends from law school knew that I loved food and restaurants. Long story short, a friend of a friend from law school wanted to open up a fast-casual concept in New York City and [put us in touch]. I made plans to partner with them in the future. To get experience — because I didn't have any experience managing restaurants, other than serving and washing dishes — I got a job with the Barbara Lynch Gruppo as a very junior manager at B&G Oysters. I was working for the chief justice of Massachusetts Land Court at the time. Toward the end of my term, I started to apply for clerkships elsewhere — but, when I was approached about the fast-casual concept, it swirled into my leaving the law. Advertisement The fast-casual plans fell through, but I was already working for the Barbara Lynch Gruppo. I dove deeper into working my way up, and that's where I met my business partner, Jon. Barbara Lynch: What was that like? There's been a lot written about her. There certainly has. I mean, honestly, it went amazingly at B&G. It was kind of unique because it was really busy and a pretty dynamic place already when I got there. All we really had to do was either sustain or grow what was going on there. We had a lot of autonomy. As a junior manager, I was pretty hungry to do a lot. I grew quickly there and became the general manager after about two years. Jon and I helped to resurrect the Oyster Invitational, a block party in the South End with about 350 people and 20 different restaurant vendors. We did a Halloween Haunted House fund-raiser on the patio at B&G. Our staff at the time was just so good — both back and front of house — and they all got along amazingly. For us, it was a golden age of … doing fun things at work that were just beyond food and cooking, and really more about the community. Let's talk about Mimi's. How did that start? Our first pop-ups were in January and February 2020 at Stir in the South Ed. We're all pretty familiar with what happened after that. The pandemic hit, I got furloughed, and it's now April or May. One of my fatal flaws is not being able to sit still. The unemployment checks were enough to live on. We were like: 'Why don't we pour this energy into something?' So we started folding dumplings by hand, freezing them, and delivering them around metro Boston. That summer was a pretty good time for us, in terms of getting some attention from the press and getting our dumplings in the hands of a lot of people in the South End. We did that, chugged through until restaurants finally reopened, and then we started doing pop-ups again. Advertisement Who's Mimi? Mimi is my mom's name, actually. I don't recall exactly how we landed on it. We both agreed that it's a nice-sounding name. It sounds like a warm person. How did you land a permanent home at Aeronaut? During that pop-up period, I was basically taking any opportunity we were offered to get exposure in different neighborhoods. We were popping up everywhere. We would put together something that was essentially 90 percent prepped, write some fun instructions and how to cook it, basically like those Blue Apron boxes. We did that with Aeronaut a couple times, and I had a connection with one of the owners. We were the food partners at Artifact Cider Project, and we had about 180 square feet of kitchen space, including storage and one little convection oven, where we were pushing out as much food as we could. Unfortunately, Artifact closed in May 2023. That was one month after we learned of the Aeronaut space opening through a chef friend of ours — it was a little bit of insider info through an industry connection and then basically cold-calling them before the space went on the market. For the uninitiated, what's the concept of chūka? The way I like to analogize it is basically: Chinese food is adapted to whatever locality it gets brought to. In New England, there are some pretty staunch supporters of New England-style Chinese food: lobster sauce and crab rangoons, and certain things that are a lot more popular here than, for example, on the West Coast — dinner rolls and chicken fingers at a Chinese restaurant, which I had never heard of coming over here. Advertisement Chūka is Japanese-adapted Chinese food. There's not a lot of spicy food in Japanese cuisine. And so certain dishes that had Sichuan origins were mellowed out and not as spicy, not as numbing, a little sweeter, using Japanese ingredients like mirin or miso. It's still evolving. It's probably one of the more popular, if not the most popular, casual cuisine in Japan. Where do you like to eat when you're not working? That depends on the occasion. If it's something quick, Tsurumen in Davis Square. It's fantastic. For a fancy occasion, I love Pammy's. Everything's great: the food, the cocktail program, the ambiance. It's so cozy and warm and inviting inside, especially with the fireplace right in the middle. I always try to sit at the a bar whenever I go. How would you describe the food scene here versus the West Coast? The food scene here right now is really exciting because there's a lot of growth. There's a lot of previously — I don't know if untapped is the right word — but definitely previously unexplored cuisines that are popping up and getting a lot of recognition. I feel like Thai food in the Boston area is having a huge boom, and more regional Chinese cuisines, as well as more specific Japanese cuisines and Greek food, too. A ton of new Greek restaurants have opened, and they're not just gyros. Advertisement Working at B&G, we had a nice early introduction to Kava; they were really friendly and would come to B&G a lot. I haven't tried it yet, but Kaia over in the South End looks beautiful inside. I love large-format foods, so whole fish and stuff like that. It's exciting. I feel like there was a time just before the pandemic when every single restaurant that was opening was either tacos, a steakhouse, seafood, or pasta. And I love all those foods, but there's definitely more than that. Would you ever encourage anyone to go to law school? Anyone? Yes. Everyone? No. Everybody's personal journey is very different. If you're going to go to law school because you think it's a good paycheck, absolutely not. I don't recommend going to law school. Law school's expensive. And then you went into restaurants. Was that a financial conundrum? I mean, I still owe a lot of money to my law school loan servicers. But, at the end of the day, my debt is just a responsibility that I have to fulfill. It's not the end of the world. I feel blessed that I found something that I love to do and that I can do it well enough to make a living. My thoughts were, if I'm going to work hard doing something for however many years, then I should do something I love. Not everybody gets to do that. Last but not least: What's your favorite snack? There's a reason why French fries are on our menu. I like McDonald's fries. I like Red Robin's fries. I like seasoned curlies; I like waffle-cut fries. Craigie on Main's fries were amazing. I never get tired of fries. Interview was edited and condensed. Kara Baskin can be reached at
Boston Globe
19-02-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Restaurants, diners scrambling to deal with eye-popping egg prices
The 24-hour eatery, which prides itself on its old-school atmosphere and menu, goes through roughly 400 dozen eggs every weekend. Like most classic breakfast places, eggs — poached, fried, and everything in between — are a central part of its business. When prices began to tick up toward the end of last year, Sidell hoped they'd come down by January. Then he was assured the bird flu outbreaks would abate by February and supply would return to normal. Now he's not sure how much longer it will last, or how much longer he can take it. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up 'Our next big weekend is St Patrick's Day,' Sidell said. 'So we're hoping this is resolved by then.' Advertisement The nationwide wholesale price for loose eggs rose to $7.74 per dozen, up about 68 percent already this year, according to the latest data from the Department of Agriculture. The price for loose eggs designated 'California-compliant,' Related : So far, the South Street Diner has managed to avoid the same markups as other restaurants such as Waffle House, to his customers. But if the price hikes reach the point 'when I can't bring home a paycheck and make sure my wife is happy,' he said — price increases would have to be on the table, he said. 'We want to make sure that everybody has a reasonable price, but we want to make sure that we can make a living,' Sidell said. It's not just sky-high prices that are squeezing breakfast eateries. As bird flu decimates flocks in California, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest, wholesalers are reporting chronic supply shortages, forcing diners to stretch their supplies. Advertisement Rob Doucette, owner of Liberty Diner on the Roxbury-South Boston line, said his kitchen goes through a case of 30 dozen eggs about every other day. But earlier this month, his regular supplier called and said the usual order of eggs wasn't available. They assured him they would let him know when the order was ready, but that call still hasn't come. Luckily, Doucette said he managed to stop by on the supplier's restocking day. Posted in the back of the warehouse, he said, was a sign limiting purchases to five cases of 15 dozen eggs. The cases of 30 dozen, which he normally buys, were nowhere to be seen. 'I'm going to stop by again today to see if I can purchase any more,' Doucette said last week. 'But I'm not expecting it.' Wholesalers said they are rationing cases to make sure all of their accounts are able to receive at least part of their regular order, with the hope of backfilling it later. But that poses a challenge for smaller wholesalers like Shirazi Distributing, based in Newmarket Square, which turns over its warehouse inventory two to three times a week. 'We're not sitting on product, which means anything we bring in is going to be sold within the next couple of days,' said Josh Shirazi. 'So if we're getting a delivery of eggs twice a week, and we order 10 pallets and only two or three come in, that means we're running out of eggs.' Shirazi said the fluctuations of supply and demand are 'day to day,' making it impossible to plan ahead. Advertisement 'We're not bracing for it to get worse — we are braced,' he said. 'We're at the mercy of what the farms will send us." Kay Masterson, owner of Johnny's Luncheonette in Newton, orders anywhere between 15 and 20 cases of eggs a week. The diner tries to stay ahead of potential price shocks with small, incremental increases throughout the year, she said. For now, that means she hasn't had to raise prices on her 'Jordan Marsh' skillets and other egg-centric dishes. 'You want to keep your doors open for as many people as possible,' Masterson said. 'So we are price-sensitive. We try and do our best. And it's a tricky balance.' Masterson said it would be a painful decision to hike prices dramatically, especially since many of its customers are students and seniors who don't have a lot of money to spare. 'I know some people who are in almost every day, and I know what an integral part we are in their lives,' she said. 'I never want to get to a point where they couldn't come in and enjoy their time with us.' Sidell said he was optimistic South Street would be able to weather the price increase without passing the costs along, adding that if the pandemic taught him anything, it was that 'there's always a new curve in the restaurant business.' Doucette said Liberty has increased the price of its breakfast items. His customers, he said, need only go to the grocery store to know why. 'Seeing how the market has changed and the price has risen so drastically, so quickly, people kind of understand,' he said. 'We can't help it, but if we want to continue to sell eggs and get eggs, we have to change our price accordingly.' Advertisement But with the end of high prices nowhere in sight — according to the USDA, there is 'little chance for improvement in the near-term' — Doucette said he might have to take more serious measures. 'I don't know what the turnaround is for buying chickens and having them reproduce,' he said. 'That would be somewhere down the road. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point.' Waitress Leighann Weston with customers at the South Street Diner in Boston. South Street Diner serves roughly 400 dozen eggs every weekend. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Camilo Fonseca can be reached at
