Boston

bg 3B & G Oysters is one of those places that took off on Day One or at least that's how I remember it. We've had lunch there for years, not years and years, but enough to know that every oyster's hand-picked and polished. You watch chefs pry and fry your oysters, baste salmon, jimmy clams, beer-batter fish, pan-fry fluke, hack your hake and steam mussels. It's like being in someone else's kitchen where you're close enough to inhale but far enough away not to get involved with dishes.

Summers we're partial to oysters, choosing one of each from everywhere. Winters we're into soup and entrées. Like other places with "oyster" in the name, it's fine to pass on raw; that's what the open kitchen's for. This brunch every seat is taken. After a short wait we decide it's not too early for a sparkler. Simonnet-Febvre Cremant de Bourgogne Brut, a chardonnay pinot noir blend, pairs with the spice bomb clam chowder and I get all the floating lardons. Our server, Mark, explains the chowder's not roux-based so clams lead. My Saturday's improving by the minute with chefs who know their way around a cast iron skillet.

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Evoo 3Is everyone at Kendall Square's Evoo and its sister, Za, right next door? It's Evoo for more formal meals like scallops with risotto or fig compote with lamb rillettes. You could chill out with pizza and salad at Za and slide over for dinner all without moving the car. I'll concede that we haven't but we might.

Right off, Evoo changes the menu often; each day but if not, for sure by the week which means they ax a favorite without warning. I just checked: what we had, the Pig Pile, you can't so wait for it. No matter, what you will not be is bored.

While many kitchens call their cuisine eclectic, Evoo has a gift for New American eclectic. And if you're going to write about novel dishes, take notes and get the menu on your way out because by the time you get around to it, they've thrown a curve and moved on.

First, Julie and I come for lunch. She's picked peppery fried eggplant with cucumber salad in minty yogurt and curried tomato sauce. It's all here in a tower of mashed potatoes, pea shoots, corn, grape tomatoes and onion. Eggplant should always be this good. I checked: chefs call eggplant vegetables and to botanists, eggplant's a fruit. She chooses for us the Atalaya garnacha tintorera monastrell that goes down in a swirl of cherry and chocolate. No one's going back to work.

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Via Matta 4Via Matta's got location and style as it dazzles regional flavors of Tuscany. Sitting on prime real estate in Back Bay, Boston, Chef Michael Schlow dishes Italian with flair and a sense of humor. Know what "matta" means? It means "joker." Via Matta is "joker's way" in Italian and I wonder about it but no one's saying, at least not to me. It's nice, not taking yourself too seriously. I mean, his Facebook page says he plays with food for a living.

Schlow gets interviewed a lot. He was on the radio last week and of course, he brings food to the hosts. As you would expect, doughnuts make the guys happy. On his website, he lists places he likes to eat, not just in Boston. I see that he and I agree on the local places. As well, he posts recipes with pictures that make you want to run right over to Via Matta. I ate this calamari as soon as Julie snapped it. (See recipe below.)

It's capered and you taste the squid in its peppery red sauce; no breading. So relieved that it comes with not a single lima bean. For his kitchen mood, Schlow has a list of tunes he likes to cook by. I can picture him on an endless loop of "Grazing in the Grass," "Walking to New Orleans," and "Baby, I'm Yours" leaning over the grill putting together our meal. Well, maybe not him, but still. What are they playing now and have they moved on to Graham Parker's 1976 "Between You and Me" and Cressy St Breakdown's "Cookin' on Three Burners."

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libertyhotel.jpgI resisted checking out the Liberty Hotel when it opened last year in Boston’s former Charles Street Jail, despite rave reviews of its design and the hip scenes at its first restaurant, Clink, and the Alibi bar.

The idea of hanging out in the same place that had held many of the area’s most notorious criminals for as far back as I could remember (and then some) just gave me the creeps.

Then Scampo opened, with chef Lydia Shire in the kitchen, and my conviction started to waver. It’s not so much that I have to run to every new restaurant opened by all of the city’s ‘celebrity’ chefs. But Shire is one of my favorites.

I have been a devoted fan since she started cooking at the restaurant in the former Bostonian Hotel, more than 20 years ago, when I didn’t have a clue who was in the kitchen – just that I loved the food.

Still, I didn’t run to Scampo. I waited a few months. But I was pretty excited by the time I finally got there. And I wasn’t disappointed.

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grill23barBack in 1983, Grill 23 opened with what was, for then, a great deal of fanfare. I don't remember being there in the '80s; to be clear, not my eighties. I mention to my sister-in-law Ellen that I'm writing about it and she recalls working at Harvest, St. Botolph and on to Grill 23. This is what she says: "It was busy from day one. The service was impeccable. We were all so very well trained. It was the first of its kind in Boston: the end."

We like the bar on the second floor. It's friendly and when you come by yourself, chat up the bartenders or watch TV. In a way I can't define, this bar encourages the telling of secrets. I've heard more secrets here than anywhere else and it's unsettling since bar chairs call for balance. At a table you might order a bottle of wine but at the bar we never do because we might, among other things, fall off our chairs. So far, so good.

We're splitters but not tonight. I have my own burrata which they describe as crispy eggplant with stewed tomatoes. The bartender calls it "our version of eggplant Parmesan." Which you could say it is except that it has mozzarella and no Parmesan. It's crisp and topped with fresh tomatoes which make all the difference. We also have fried calamari with pepperoncini cream which is big for a starter but perfect if you need something to go with your sidecar.

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