Steak Houses

Steak Houses and places to get good steak around Boston

Actually, I may not have the most typical view of this. I tend to go to one extreme or the other: I tend to eat either hamburger or filet, and try to avoid the standard non-filet steaks. To me, whenever I eat a steak, say a sirloin, it feels like a pale imitation of filet. On the other extreme, hamburger doesn't feel like it's trying to be filet. That said, filet is the best form of steak and many steak houses also serve outstanding burgers.

Casual Dining Restaurants

There's a bunch of chain steak houses in the Boston area, including Lone Star, Outback, 99 Restaurant (sort of), Joe's American, and Bugaboo Creek. In my opinion, the best is actually Bugaboo Creek, if you can put up with (or even enjoy) the animated talking animal heads on the wall and the family atmosphere. Outback is consistently good as well. Joe's has been on occasion quite good. My experiences with 99 and Lone Star have been more mixed. 99 has a decent burger though.

Additionally, there's the reasonably famous Hilltop Steakhouse, which despite a very good reputation, altogether failed to impress me. I'll go to Bugaboo Creek anyday over Hilltop. Hilltop is huge and probably an experience worth doing once, but the steak was nothing special.

For good burgers, there's a bunch of good choices, including the chain Fuddrucker's, and a couple of good places in Back Bay: Pour House has good greasy burgers. Bukowski's Tavern has some very weird (but very good) burgers including a burger with peanut butter slathered on it, which works quite well.

Fancier Restaurants

On the somewhat more upscale side, there's Morton's of Chicago and Abe & Louie's.
Morton's is up to their usual standards (quite high), and you can sure get a big steak if that's what you want. I haven't actually yet had the filet at Abe & Louie's, but they make a rather good burger at lunchtime.

One of the best filet's I've had in Boston was at Maison Robert, but sadly the owners have retired and the restaurant has closed. Also highly recommended is the "Top of the Hub", whose food is much better than it was before 1994. Neither of these are "steak houses" by any stretch though.

If you have questions or would like to recommend a steak place for me to try, please ContactMe.

At most, 3

Anthony noted to me today that he owned no game that supports at most
3 players. Looking at my own games, I could only find one, unless you
count games that really should only be played with three (like San
Marco). A couple games I've played, but don't own, such as Warp 6 and Triangle
Game support at most 3, but
the only one in my collection is
Constellation.

Yinsh

I didn't used to be a big fan of abstract games, and to a substantial extent, I still prefer themed games, even if the theme is rather weak. Lately though, I have enjoyed abstract games somewhat more. Yinsh, the newest in the Gipf series is one such game. I like it a great deal and based on only a couple playings I like it about as much as Dvonn and somewhat more than Zertz.

January2004 Games

January, 2004

52 games played, 38 titles (11 new to me) over 14 sessions with 34 different people.

Hot Games for January, 2004

• 10 Days in Africa (6 plays)
  I've commented before that I like this even better than Europa Tour, which I like. Plus, it pleases me that I now at least have a basic idea as to where Burkina Faso is.
  
  
• Fish Eat Fish (2 plays)
  While I'm not the biggest fan of the art here, and it's a bit random, the bits are great and the gameplay is fun.
  
  
• Adam & Eva (2 plays)
  See my detailed comments on AdamAndEva
  
  
• Crocodile Pool Party (3 plays)
  I heard this was bad. It's not bad. See QuickGameThoughts.
  
  
• Split Second (2 plays)
  Super fast, easy trivia. The mechanism here is clever and fun.
  
  
• Fist of Dragonstones (1 play)
  I like closed fist auctions. All the same, this one is good but sometimes outlasts its welcome.
  
  
• Wildlife Adventure (1 play)
  This is a very different experience with gamers than with more casual participants. This months play with gamers led to several dead ends. Interesting.
  
  
• Tonga Bonga (1 play)
  The character of this changes a lot depending on the "bidding" of other players.
  
  
• Industrial Waste (1 play)
  Debt hurts.
  
  
• Zirkus Flohcati (2 plays)
  An all time great