We've got some pretty big news around here: New York Media, the parent company of New York Magazine, has bought MenuPages. It's a natural partnership, and we're very excited about the whole deal, as it should give us more resources to better cover our markets. For more information, check out the New York Times article about the deal. We've included the press release after the jump:
Greetings, Bostonians! My name is Megan, and I'm one of the newest members of the MenuPages team. I'll be covering the openings and closings of Boston restaurants every Monday, and posting to you every Thursday on various topics. A little bit about myself: I'm a 20-something girl about town who loves to hit up the city's many restaurants and bars. I'm Connecticut born and bred, but have lived in Boston for the last five years. I'm a grad of Simmons College and currently reside in Beacon Hill, so you'll often be hearing about the restaurants in my neighborhood. I'm particularly fond of all food Japanese, and I'm proud to say I have trekked to the oldest tea shop in Japan for their green tea. I'm thrilled to be a part of the blog. And yes, that is a real deer.
Hi there. My name is Ami Albernaz and I look forward to contributing to the Boston MenuPages. As a freelance writer, my specialty is "cheap eats," but fortunately, there's a lot of variety within that specialty. I live in East Boston, and give lots of business to Angela's Cafe (see my post later today about its burritos). I can also be found at the neighborhood's taquerias, at Santarpio's, and at the window of the talking ice cream trucks that roam the streets here. I grew up in southeastern Mass., and have a distinct fondness for Portuguese food. (If anyone has a favorite kale soup around town, please let me know.)
That's it for now... More from here soon.
Angela's Cafe [Cave Cibum]
Santarpio's [MenuPages]
Santarpio's [Official Site]
Greetings, hungry readers! My name is Brittany, and I'm one of the new fresh faces here at MP Boston. Originally from a small Midwestern town, I've been in Boston for three years to attend grad school, and I love our crazy, complex city. I'll be writing here on Mondays and Fridays, and when I'm not talking food on MP, I'm probably writing for another publication or scrambling to finish my Master's thesis. I'm a vegetarian but engaged to an omnivore, so while my coverage may skew veg, I'm not a hater.
I believe food, what we consume and how we do it, can be revolutionary and employ critical principles of social resistance. I also think iced decaf coffee should be available all year long (organic Fair Trade if possible), and I strongly believe that salsa in the jars on supermarket shelves should taste like the offerings on the Picante Mexican Grill salsa bar.
I'm always on the prowl for Scandinavian food in Boston, as well as the best places open after midnight, so if anyone has any tips, I'm all ears...or eyes.
Picante Mexican Grill [MenuPages]
Picante Mexican Grill [Official Site]
We're very excited to announce that next week, we'll be welcoming a host of new bloggers here at MenuPages: Boston. Repping everywhere from Somerville to Beacon Hill, they'll be bringing hot news, good tips, and big excitement to this here blog. Look for their introductions starting on Monday.
We'd like to deeply thank Jess Mullen, who stepped in to help us out for the past few months. We'll miss her abiding love for Veggie Planet Pizza and her witty remarks, especially about our shared home neighborhood of Roslindale, but we're also thrilled to welcome our new team. Get excited!
[Photo: A fine specimen from St. Paul's Downtowner Woodfire Grill, which we will totally visit when we go to Minnesota next month: Monkey River Town]
It's an exciting time here at MenuPages, and we're gearing up for some big changes. In order to make them, we're looking to hire a few Boston-based stringers to write about everything from the hottest new restaurant openings to the city's best dining deals. Each stringer will write anywhere from 3-10 posts per week and pay will be on a per-post basis.
Interested? Shoot us an email telling us a little bit about who you are and why you'd like to write for the MP Boston blog. Include a short (200 words or so) sample post about the three best meals in your neighborhood. We can't wait to hear from you!
Exactly one year and two hours ago today, this here MenuPages Boston blog went live. Since then, we've written well over a thousand posts, seen the Red Sox win a second World Series, and truly come to appreciate our city's food scene. It's been an honor to spend the year with you, dear readers and we hope you stick with us as this blog heads into its toddler years. For now, just let visions of the below cake dance in your head.
So, What Is This "MenuPages Blog" Anyway? [MP: Boston]
[Photo: Flickr: hfb]
This afternoon marks the start of the first real vacation we've taken since we started at MenuPages way back in March. We're very excited. Our plans don't involve anything much more extravagant than catching up on our sleep and backlog of New Yorkers, but from our glee, you'd think we were headed to some sort of fabulous tropical paradise.
Even though we will emphatically not be working for the next week and a half (!!!), we don't think that's any reason for you to be deprived of MP: Boston, so next Wednesday-Friday and on New Year's Eve, we'll be running some rerun posts from this blog's nascent days. We hope you enjoy them. Please keep in mind that publishing of comments will be delayed until we return from vacation. We'll return with all new posts on Wednesday, January 2.
Merry Christmas, happy Kwanzaa (sorry we didn't do any Kwanzaa posts! We intended to before we got strep and missed two days!), and the very best of wishes for the new year. See you in 2008!
[Photo: Daily Refill]
We don't mean to boast, but did you realize that you are currently on Time Magazine's #6 website of 2007? Yes! It's true! We, like everyone here at MenuPages, are very excited about this development, but we must admit to a curiosity about what else Time thinks is the sixth best thing in its field. We scoured the other 49 of Time's 50 top ten lists and we can now report that according to the magazine, MenuPages is exactly as good as:
•The film version of Persepolis
•The Office
•Martin Amis' novel The House of Meetings
•50 Cent's song I Get Money
•The children's book Diary of a Fly
•The video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warrior
•SNL's Iran So Far video
•Vests
50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 [Time Magazine]
Here's the deal. We seem to have contracted some sort of nasty stomach bug (happy Hanukah to us!), so we're spending today on our couch drinking weak tea. We can't much deal with the thought of any sort of food, so writing posts seems like a poor idea, but we still want you to have something to read because we are unnaturally invested in your ability to procrastinate at work. To this end, we're going to take a page from MP: Chicago's book and throw up (oh God, worst choice of words ever) a few oldies but goodies from the beginning of the year when this blog was just a tiny, unread baby. Enjoy, and hopefully we'll be back tomorrow at full throttle (Charlie's Angels 2. Sorry. We're feverish and loopy).
Oh yeah, and in a winning moment of seeing how your sausage is made, you can now totally tell that we write our daily Amuse Bouche post the night before. Just think of it as another exciting look behind the scenes at MenuPages.
Here at MenuPages, we enjoy making new friends, or at least we do when we're not being totally misanthropic. In that spirit, we've set up a new partnership with Yelp, that fine hub of user reviews on everything from restaurants to neighborhoods. Here's how it works. When you go to a restaurant's site on MenuPages, you'll be able to check out Yelp listings on nearby arts, nightlife, and shopping. This makes it super easy to plan a day exploring a new neighborhood or an excellent date.
For example, let's say that you wanted to take your sweetheart to dinner at Zon's, but wanted to other fun stuff before and afterwards. By harnessing the power of the MP/Yelp collaboration, you could plan an excellent itinerary like taking in a show at Axiom Gallery, popping into Gadgets to find the perfect gift for your boo, eating at Zon's, and finishing the evening at the Brendan Behan. Your boy or girl du jour will be impressed, you'll be happy, and as you fall asleep in the arms of your beloved, you'll quietly utter the words "thank you, MenuPages." You're welcome.
It's a very exciting week here at MenuPages, as we're pleased to welcome a new editor for our San Francisco site. Adam Martin comes to MenuPages from the San Francisco Examiner where he was an ace reporter. He'll be blogging about all the delicacies the city has to offer, so expect a lot of talk about cioppino and burritos. So go ahead! Blast the Full House theme song, eat some sushi, and raise a bottle of Anchor Steam to our new blogger.
We're very pleased to let you know that the MenuPages South Florida blog has launched! Ace writer and native Floridian Carolina Bolado is the editor (yes! Finally we have a sister blog!). The blog covers a truly astonishing area from Palm Beach County to Key West and tackles exciting topics like chowing down on alligator and Colombian hot dogs. We strongly suggest making it a regular read, both because it's chock-full of great writing and because, let's face it, feeling envious of other cities tropical food options and pleasant climates is a little bit fun, in a masochistic sort of way.
We'll see you on Wednesday! Enjoy your Fourth, whether you're making a ridiculous pizza, indulging in a fancy dinner, going to see the fireworks, or just watching some competitive eating. We'll see you on Thursday.
[Photo: Flickr: kahala]
We're very excited to welcome a new member to the MenuPages family. This week, we launched MP: South Florida, run by the very clever and talented Carolina Bolado. This means that in addition to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, MenuPages coverage extends across the southeastern part of Florida from North Palm Beach all the way to the Keys. So go! Tell your bubbe in Boca Raton, your clubgoing cousin with a place in South Beach, your friend who liked spring break in Fort Lauderdale so much she decided to move there! Tell them that now they too can read menus online before they go out! They too can harness the power of the Find-a-Food search to satisfy cravings! Soon, they too will even be able to read a blog about dining in their area. Hurrah!
Alfredo's Margherita Pizza [Flickr: tinymuffins]
Alfredo's [MenuPages]
Alfredo's [Official Site]
Hey there. My name is Leila Cohan and I'm really very excited to welcome you to the MenuPages Blog. As I'm sure you already know, MenuPages is a great resource for, as the name implies, finding menus for restaurants in the Boston area. With the launch of this daily blog, we're entering the exciting new territory of sites that help you procrastinate during your workday. I'll be posting every day (several times, even!) about the Boston food scene. From restaurant openings and closings to chef gossip to information on where you can get an excellent meal for under $10, it'll all be here. I'll also answer reader questions from time to time, let you know about exciting events, and, in all likelihood, draw specious pop-culture analogies.
I absolutely promise that it will be more interesting than The Real World: Boston.
So who am I? I'm a proud Boston native, with all the BPS-attending and Sox fandom that distinction implies. I'm also a freelance writer and unrepentant foodie. When I'm not writing or eating, I enjoy fashion, watching far too much television, and people-watching. My favorite song about Boston is "Roadrunner" by The Modern Lovers. More pertinently, my favorite meals in Boston are the super burrito with carnitas at Anna's Taqueria and the grilled Wolfe's Neck sirloin steak at Rialto.
So welcome, enjoy, and feel free to drop me a line.
