Published Monday, September 6, 2004
Getting Your Grub On (...On the Go)!
A Student-Friendly Guide to Cambridge-Area Restaurants
By Alozie F. Nwosu

You've got 15 minutes to spare before your next class.  You are a semester's tuition in-the-hole (at least).  And your belly's growling like a pack of Baskervillian hounds.  You're a HGSE student, and you need FOOD!

Search no more friends.  I, your intrepid reporter, that doth return from the barren desert of famine, the woeful plains of achy feet, and the bowels that are Harvard Square, bring you a list of fast, cheap and yummy beacons of hope (hold the mayo).  By no means a complete list of Harvard Square eateries, I, your humble guide, seek only to present those establishments truly unique in character and unrivaled in speedy dispensation of delectable goods.  For a thoroughgoing selection of fast food fare near HGSE, see the Restaurant Table below, as well as any of the restaurant guides listed under the Online Resources.

Also, please note that distances to each are provided as the time it took for yours truly to walk at a moderate pace to the given destination from the front door of Gutman Library. For the record, I'm 6'1”, have gangly legs, and have been told more than once that my loping gait resembles “Shaggy” from Scooby-Doo. That said, my mother is  5'4”, 60 years old, and still leaves me in her dust when we go walking together.

Here are my chosen six:

1. Au Bon Pain – Brattle Square (27 Brattle Street, 3m15s): There's little about this ABP to distinguish it from the umpteen-thousand others spread across the eastern seaboard and points beyond.  Moderate to pricey sandwiches, salads, soups, and pastries are the mark of this franchise patisserie.  Tasty and fast, but your inner miser can't help but wonder if it should be at the airport awaiting a flight for these prices.  Official Website: http://www.aubonpain.com/

2. Cardullo's Gourmet Foods and Sandwiches (6 Brattle Street, 4m15s): A foodies paradise.  A Harvard Square institution.  What more can one ask.  And just because these classy guys sell caviar and beef tongue, don't think their sandwiches can't hit the spot.  Fresh cut turkey, roast beef, and ham, along with gourmet offerings will be stacked high to order served along with one helluva sour giant pickle.  Even if you're like me and bring your own lunch from home, this treat is not to be missed!  Official Website:  http://www.cardullos.com/cardullos_deli.htm

3. Greenhouse Restaurant and Coffee Shop (3 Brattle Street, 4m20s): I have an abiding fondness for greasy spoons.  Perhaps because such luminary institutions as The Tasty and The Wursthaus and their memories of a simpler Harvard Square have been rendered dust by the wrecking ball.  Perhaps that their smoky, hazy, late-night comforts were forsaken in deference to pristine SunGlasses Huts and Abercrombies that have long since been no more.  Perhaps I'm just a dreamer, for whom a coffee with a side of toast, and a window seat with a plastic fern, can slow time's heartless progression, if only for a moment...That'll be $2.50.

4. The Garage (36 Dunster Street, 5m15s +/-30s): In addition to all the fake piercings, truckers' caps, role playing games, and anime action figurines that money can buy, some of your nicest spots to nosh and dash lie in The Garage.  Just as it boasts John Harvard's and Pho Pasteur for the casual sit-down affairs, the 1^st floor stands like Formaggio Deli, Boston Chowda Co., and The Doghouse, furnish quick eats that are pretty fairly priced.

5. Charlie's Kitchen (10 Eliot Street, 4m30s): Perhaps the Square's last true greasy spoon.  Charlie's adherents were among the Square's civilly disobedient hold-outs against the Cambridge-wide smoking ban.  Maybe it's the salt in their veins that makes the food taste better there.  Or is it the other way around?

6. Veggie Planet (47 Palmer Street, 4m30s) : Don't worry, veggies and vegans.  I didn't forget about you, what with all your heavy sighs and fidgeting.  While a number of spots in the square -- Cafe Algiers, Au Bon Pain and Greek Corner among them -- offer vegetarian options, Veggie Planet's raison d'etre is to bring you vegetarian and vegan delights.  Pizzas, rice meals, soups, and salads.  This is no vegetarian lip service, but the real deal.  And not too shabby on the price for all that healthy goodness.  Omnivores should try the “Portobello Redhead."  Mmmm, mmm!  Pass the patchouli!  Official Website: http://www.veggieplanet.net/veggieplanet.htm

Gotta Go (...On the Go)!

If you've ever been on the move and found that various other things were on the move too, then the Wicked Good Guide to Boston's Public Restrooms is just your thing.  Let the tyrannies of bathroom keys, stall tokens, and “customer only” brow-beating befuddle you no more!  You have a choice, and that, my friend, is wicked good!