If you’re searching for a sloppy sandwich that causes sticky barbecue sauce to drip down your beard, the BBQ brisket sandwich at Abigail’s ($11) is not for you. But I’m quite happy with the more refined version here, which fits the warm bistro atmosphere of the Kendall Square spot. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that this sandwich—loaded up with brisket, a runny fried egg, melty American cheese, and sauteed peppers and onions—is a home run in its own right.

The brisket meat is as tender as it gets, methodically chopped instead of sliced, pulled or shredded like one might expect. But this preparation works in its favor, as the chopped meat covers more landscape on the soft sesame seed bun, ensuring a meaty mouthful in every delicious bite. I’m used to being overwhelmed with smoke and sauce when it comes to brisket sandwiches, but in this instance the brisket meat itself is the stud here—I just wish there was a little more meat to play off of the dominant flavor of the sweet peppers. I’m a sucker for a fried egg on top of pretty much anything, and the perfectly-cooked egg atop the brisket oozed into the bun and onto the plate—where it was a great dip of sorts for the well-prepared French fries.

While the BBQ brisket sandwich won’t make you re-think barbecue, everything works; it’s satisfying bite after bite. Enjoy it for what it is, and you’ll be happy. After all, isn’t that what good food is all about?

(Abigail’s, 291 3rd Street, Cambridge,  617-945-9086)

For more online food coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston

Above is the box design for All Star Pizza Bar, which will open next Month. (Photo courtesy of All Star Pizza Bar)

In this month’s Where to Eat in 2012 issue, we told you about All Star Pizza Bar, the latest venture from the team behind Inman Square’s popular All Star Sandwich Bar. The pizza place—located across the street from its sandwich sibling—is gearing up for a mid-March opening. Co-owner Kosta Diamantopoulos sent me the pizza menu recently, which you can check out ahead.

The menu will have three sections. There’s build-your-own pies with toppings like housemade meatballs, roasted cremini mushrooms, pickled Fresno chiles, and white Sicilian anchovies. You’ll also find gourmet standards like the Atomic Meatloaf, topped with meatloaf, spicy hot sauce, mozzarella, and caramelized onions, and the Ms. Piggy’s Fig, topped with vincotto (a wine reduction), goat cheese, Black Mission figs, baby arugula, and a toasted pistachio gremolata.

The third section is still in the works, but it will essentially consist of  rotating pizza specials that allow chef/co-owner Johnny Diamantopoulos and head chef John Hendron (an alum of Chez Henri) to get even more wacky and creative with their toppings. A tight selection of pizzas will be available by the slice during lunchtime, but most pizzas will be available as 16-inch, eight-slice whole pies with prices will ranging from $13 to $22 per pie, depending on the toppings. Check out even more pizza offerings (with toppings including grits!) below.

THE PIZZA MENU:

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Of course, I had to pose behind the headless abbess. Heads up! (Photograph by Tony Porreca).

As we reported yesterday, Pretty Things just launched their newest seasonal beer, St. Winifrede, at Brick & Mortar in Central Square last night. In the name of research, I headed over to check it out.

So how was it? A full goblet’s worth of deliciousness. The new brown lager — fermented for 55 days — is roasty on the nose and both malty and brown sugary on the palate. And even though the brew is named after a headless abbess, the beer itself has a head that’s quite lovely — an effervescent foam that’s neither overbearing nor insignificant: it’s just right. The mouthfeel is also well-rounded: St. Winnie’s robust hoppiness is counterbalanced with a medium body, followed by a lingering, dry finish. The balance between sweet and bitter appeals to my Libran sensibilities of balance, while my beer-schwilling partner-in-crime declared that something about the taste reminded him Dogfish Head’s Ta Henket.

Have you tried St. Winifrede? Tell us what you think in the comments!

For more online food and beer coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston.

Bissonnette works a Berkel slicer, a gift from two of his regulars, in his South End apartment. All photos by Charlotte Wilder for Boston magazine

For our first installment of The Kitchen Spy, I headed over to the South End to check out Toro and Coppa chef/co-owner Jamie Bissonnette’s two-floor pad. “I’ve lived in a lot of tiny apartments with shitty kitchens,” Bissonnette says. Now that he’s in nicer digs, he wanted to create a space that’s meant for socializing and hanging out. “It’s got high ceilings, I can decorate it with cool stuff, and it has a lot of space. If I want to make pasta or say, ‘Hey I want to have friends over and do a cooking class,’ or entertain and cook with other guys, we have plenty of space to set up and do productions,” he says. Ahead, get a peek at the chef’s home bar, Fernet obsession, cookbook collection and more.

Bissonnette has been jotting down recipe ideas in shorthand since he was in culinary school in 1994, and since then has amassed hundreds and hundreds of notebooks. “Some restaurants I staged in [abroad], that was back in the day when there were no cell phones, no cameras, and you weren’t allowed to write notes or take recipes down. So I would bring pieces of paper in and put them in my clogs, and I would go to the bathroom every couple hours to write out what I could remember,” he says.

The requisite refrigerator breakdown of essentials: 1. Pickled dilly beans from his chef pal Will Gilson, whose family runs the Herb Lyceum in Groton. 2. Tahini. 3. Lime pickle, a traditional Indian condiment of limes and spices. 4. More pickles, of course. “We have a community garden plot so we always make our own pickles and have them through the winter,” Bissonnette says. 5. Red miso. 6. A country ham from North Carolina, a gift from his sister-in-law. 7. Fish sauce from Red Boat, which Bissonnette says is the “best in fish sauce the world.” 8. Mazi-brand piri-piri sauce, a spicy Portuguese condiment. 9. Kewpie mayo, a Japanese brand of mayo.

Top: Bissonnette’s spice cabinet, an East-meets-West mix of ingredients like togarashi (a Japanese pepper/spice blend), sesame oil, Chinese black vinegar, calcium carbonate for homemade noodles, turmeric for rice, mustard seeds for curries and pickling, cayenne for spice, and an array of olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Bissonnette also makes his own vinegars from scratch, using a mother starter that he’s has for six years.

Bottom Right: On the left is a antique charcuterie pick, which Bissonnette uses when serving homemade pates. The Coca-Cola mini-motorcycle was a gift. “One of my cooks went to Thailand for a while, and since he knows that I love my scooter he got me this,” Bissonnette says.

Bottom Center: In a drawer of assorted knick knacks, there’s items like a mandoline for slicing (light blue), as well as an old-school ice cream scoop that’s marked with a “31,” the number of scoops it can get from a gallon of ice cream.

Bottom Left: A vintage ice scraper, used to get ice chips from giant blocks.

As many chefs do, Bissonnette has a bit of an obsession with Fernet Branca, which extends to collectibles showcasing the digestif’s logo. Clockwise from top left: Miniature shot glasses scored on eBay (he has a Fernet-specific alert set up), a vintage Fernet poster, special glasses that Bissonnette ordered for Coppa from eBay, and, lastly, a Fernet bicycle. The larger glasses are back in Bissonnette’s kitchen, since 54 of the 60 he originally ordered (at $10-$25 per glass, mind you) were stolen from Coppa.

A hardcore music buff, Bissonnette has an extensive alphabetized vinyl collection (the shelves on the left contain only a fraction of his records). “I wanted to make sure that I had music in the kitchen,” he says. “Up here are the records that I listen to and my more expensive records. The crap jazz stays down there [in storage] and the good jazz and good punk stays up here.”

When he’s off the clock, Bissonnette’s go-to snack is gussied-up packaged ramen. He uses togarashi and spicy sesame oil to perk up the broth, and here finished his with pickled dilly beans, homemade sambal, arugula, and dried shrimp, which he stores in the freezer.

In the upstairs level of the apartment, Bissonnette has a sectioned-off cookbook reading area, stocked with 50s-era retro cookbooks as well as classics from the likes of Jacques Pepin and Michel Guérard. As for the mini bookcase on top of the big one? It’s hollow on the inside, and usually contains a bottle of Fernet.

Bissonnette also stocks a small bar upstairs. He says that he favors booze like Punt e Mes, Campari, and Chartreuse. The mermaid bottle opener was a gift from Bissonnette to his wife, Courtney, who loves mermaids.

Stay tuned for the next installment of The Kitchen Spy, featuring Craigie on Main toque Tony Maws.

For more online food coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston.

While Travel Channel personality Andrew Zimmern is known for dining on roasted raccoon and insects aplenty, the Bizarre Foods host also has an agenda when it comes to raising social awareness about food. The most recent example of this is his new collaboration with Wellesley-based Babson College, a school known for its entrepreneurial prowess. Zimmern will serve as entrepreneur-in-residence and work directly with the school’s Lewis Institute Social Innovation Lab plus the Lab’s ‘Food Sol,’ an ‘action tank’ that’s focused on food-related innovation.

To kick off the collaboration, Zimmern visited the college on Monday afternoon to give a talk in front of several hundred students and faculty. Per The Herald, he used the talk as an opportunity to encourage students to interact more with faculty, and also take the time to travel.

Prior to the lecture, I chatted with Zimmern on the phone to learn about his new responsibilities as entrepreneur-in-residence at the business school, and I was encouraged to learn that he’ll be serving as more than a mere famous figurehead. “I am going to coach food business consulting teams — both undergrad and graduate — support independent studies that are done there, create webinars, do interviews and help to co-author what we are referring to as ‘living cases from the field,’” he says. This means several return visits to campus (and hopefully opportunities to delve further into the Boston dining scene).

Zimmern notes that his rare breadth of both national and international encounters with food makes him an ideal consultant. “There are thousands of farmers markets around the country, and there’s only a handful of people that have visited as many as I have,” he says. “Plus overseas — add that in and I have probably seen more in more countries than anyone in the last five years.”

In addition to serving as a springboard for student ideas, he’ll be assigning his own projects, too. One of these he came across when filming his Boston-themed episode of Bizarre Foods America, which airs on February 13 (learn more that episode here), in which he went fishing for dogfish, an invasive species that comes out of Marblehead. Zimmern wants to find a way to get both local and national restaurants to use this inexpensive fish (which he says is currently popular in Europe and great for breading and frying) in order to support Marblehead fishermen. “What if we could find a way to invest in the system that the dogfish is a part of? What if there was a way to incentivize everyone to fish the dogfish? Maybe having a chef do some demos with it, it could be that simple. I think it is going to take more than that,” Zimmern says. “We can invest our entrepreneurial brainpower, expose more people, and use modern standards to create a managed fishery.”

It’s great to see a celebrity his wield influence in the food world in a positive way (especially in the wake of a certain Southern-fried Food Network star), and it’s also exciting to see Babson join the fold of other local universities like Harvard, MIT, and Tufts who have recognized the power of using food as an educational tool.

For more online food coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston.

Somerville’s omnipresent gypsy brewers Pretty Things are adding a new beer to their roster today: St. Winifrede. The roasty brown lager (which owners Dann and Martha Paquette suspect is the only brown lager on the market) was named after a Welsh lass whose spurned suitor chopped her head off back in the 7th century. Legend has it that after Winifrede’s uncle managed to put her dome piece back onto her body, she came back to life. Huzzah!

The Lovely St. Dannifrede.

According to Wikipedia, these days St. Winnie is the “unofficial patron saint of payrolls and payroll clerks.” Wait, what?!

“The flavor is really amazing on this beer,”says Martha. “It’s malty, but also light and clean like a lager. It’s got bitter dark chocolate, dryish with a firm bitterness.” So tip your hat to the paycheck gods before you leave work today to try the new brew at tonight’s St. Winifrede launch party at Brick & Mortar. But until then, enjoy the lovely video about St. Winifrede below.

5 p.m. ‒ 8 p.m., Brick & Mortar, 569 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-491-5599, prettythingsbeertoday.com.

A peek inside George Howell Coffee Company in Newtonville, which was previously called Taste. (Photo courtesy of George Howell)

When it comes to all things coffee, the local authority is none other than George Howell, whose chainlet of Coffee Connection shops helped shape Boston’s coffee culture in the 90s. Howell sold his shops then to Starbucks, and went into wholesaling—you may recognize his artisan Terrior beans from restaurants and bakeries all over town, which come from his coffee roasting and education center in Acton.

Last year, Howell decided to get back into the retail game and purchased Taste, a casual cafe in Newtonville. The spot has now gotten an entire coffee geek overhaul—complete with a new name, George Howell Coffee—and is currently in its soft opening. In addition to a large range of retail bags of Terrior coffees and special edition roasts, Howell told me recently that there will also be lots of coffee brewed with by-the-cup methods like Chemex, Siphon and Aeropress (unfamiliar? brush up here).

One thing Howell does assert, however, is that drip coffee is just as viable a method for brewing as the fancier versions above. “Some poeple have the perception that urn coffee is not as good as hand drip, and that is hogwash,” Howell says. “When you set the machine properly and you have a good one and the right proportions, a machine drip is extraordinarily consistent and excellent in its ability to extract coffee.” Point taken!

Whether you take your coffee by-the-cup or from an urn, Howell does want emphasis more on the his beans—he’s known for advocating a lighter roast of coffee. As a result, he’ll be periodically offering side-by-side coffee tastings at the coffee shop. While the emphasis at George Howell Coffee is “100% on the coffee,” Howell says, there will still be light fare breakfast panini and crepes stuffed with fillings like figs and brie, pears and goat cheese, and greek yogurt and honey.

As for those who can’t head out to Newtonville anytime soon: Howell says that he’s looking to open more locations, including one in Boston.

(George Howell Coffee, 311 Walnut Street, Newtonville, 617-332-6886)

For more online food coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston.

Try Mare 2.0 this Friday. (Photo courtesy of Mare.)

Over the past few months, upscale North End seafood spot Mare has been closed for a renovation (sound familiar?) that will turn it into a more casual, oyster-bar concept. The revamped Mare opens to the public this Friday, and I got a hold of the the new menu, which you can find ahead.

There’s still Italian-influenced seafood dishes like whole-grilled sea bass and risotto with shrimp, scallops, clams, and squid, but there’s a larger emphasis now on casual items like burgers (here topped with peppadew relish, cheddar, bacon, and Parmesan aioli) and lobster rolls (served on brioche, either cold with lemon mayo or hot with herbed butter).

Six-eight rotating oyster selections will also be available, with toppers like limencello ice and blood orange mignonette. Of course, there will be the inevitable comparisons to nearby Neptune Oyster, which regularly has lines out the door for its own signature hot lobster rolls and impeccable oysters—perhaps Mare is making a play for the bivalve fiends that don’t want to wait an hour to eat.

Overall, the change is yet another by upscale spot looking to stay relevant in an increasingly casual restaurant landscape. It’s a smart business move, and one I think will be well-received by those looking for a laid-back evening in the North End without having to order a red-sauced plate of pasta.

MARE OYSTER BAR’S MENU:

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The revamped space reopens tonight at 5:30 p.m. In addition to wood-paneled walls, a lowered sushi bar, and leather banquettes, the sashimi bar also gained some street food-inspired menu additions, like togarashi-dusted Japanese fried chicken and—oh yes—ramen (!!). Ahead, get a peek at some of Uni’s new dishes, Clio’s bar and bar menu, Uni’s space, and the newest addition to the burgeoning late-night ramen scene.

All food photos by Chelsea Kyle/Boston magazine

First things first, let’s talk about that ramen. There will be two types—Umami and traditional—priced at a reasonable $10 apiece and available after 11 p.m. at Uni from Thursday through Saturday (starting this Thursday).

Pictured above is the umami ramen, which features a broth fortified by pig feet, ten types of mushrooms, caramelized onions, white miso, and carrots. It’s topped with barbecued eel, a 2-hour soft-poached egg, daikon, scallions, enoki mushrooms, and shredded nori. The traditional version will have the same toppings as the umami, with roasted pork in lieu of eel, and feature a more standard broth made with chicken stock and dashi.

Also new to the Uni menu is Japanese-style fried chicken ($10), which will also be available late night and at the Clio bar (in addition to regular Uni dinnertime hours). These aren’t your average chicken nuggets; to make them, sashimi chef Chris Gould compresses multiple layers of chicken thigh meat (using transglutaminase, or meat glue), coats it with rice flour and kudzu, a root-derived starch similar to cornstarch, dunks them in the fryer and then dusts them with togarashi, a type of Japanese chili pepper. The chicken is served with kimchi and Chinese hot mustard.

Clio’s bar menu also gets a boost. Clockwise from top left: bone marrow with candied kumquats and pickled ginger ($9), tamarind-glazed pork belly steam buns with chili aioli and pickled veggies ($7 each; these are different from the ones previously on the bar menu and also available at Uni), petite banh mi stuffed with spicy mapo tofu ($7 each), and perhaps the prettiest fried onion strings I’ve ever encountered ($9), served with an espellette pepper dressing. Also, dishes like Clio’s truffle pot pie ($24) and beet salad with malt and charred onion ($14) have joined the bar menu as well.

Space photos by Leah Mennies.

As for that new bar, it’s pictured above: it’s close to double the size, with backlit, mirrored shelving. In honor of the larger digs, bar manager Todd Maul will now offer a cocktail course starting March 24 called “Todd Maul Teaches…,” where $300 gets you five two-hour hands-on lessons in topics such as “Syrups and Flavor Profiles” and “Fire and Ice,” which teaches the high art of flaming cocktails. There’s 20 spots available for the classes; email mbrafman@eliothotel.com to reserve a spot.

The Uni space is now more modern and casual; there’s a designated entrance, wood-paneled walls, smooth leather banquette seating, and a lowered sashimi bar.

For more online food coverage, find us on Twitter at @ChowderBoston.

From left: North End, Gorgonzola, Buffalo, Korean, and Atomic wings from Vito’s. (Photo by Katie Barszcz.)

Along with nachos, sliders, pizza, and guacamole, chicken wings will always have a place in our Super Bowl hearts. Truthfully I’m normally indifferent to wings; I usually find them over-sauced and overly greasy. But in need of some inspiration for my own Super Bowl party, I ventured to Vito’s Tavern in the North End to sample some traditional (and not-so traditional) versions of chicken wings.

Vito’s Tavern is anything but the typical Italian joint that you’d expect to find in this neighborhood. True, you will find the classics (chicken parm, meatballs, and pasta a-plenty), but when was the last time you saw kimchi or burritos on Salem Street? The flavors of the wings are also all over the map, and being someone who has to try everything, I ordered a round of each: Buffalo, Gorgonzola, North End, Korean, Chipotle, and Atomic.

Coming in at about a dollar a wing, the wings are on the small side, but they pack a punch. With options spanning from sticky, sweet, and pungent to mouth-numbingly hot, there is easily a wing for everyone. Wings are a tricky thing, and it’s hard to say that there is one correct method to cooking them.

I believe that the perfect wings should have crisp skin and meat that has a slight chew;  I like to fight with them just a little as I gnaw my way through every crevice.  The wings at Vito’s Tavern are just that: slightly crispy, but with enough integrity to keep it interesting. The buffalo wings here are top-notch: they’re classically flavored, plump, messy, and have a nice mild heat. The smoky chipotle wings are even better. Due to their hefty spice quotient, it’s a good idea to veer towards the Gorgonzola wings as a chaser; a clever play on the usual blue cheese dip, a creamy cheese sauce is scantily applied to the wing itself, eliminating the need to double-dip.

The North End wings are intriguing.  Reminiscent of roast chicken, they’re dominated by comforting flavors of garlic and butter. The Korean variety, meanwhile, too sweet with a soy and sesame sauce glaze,  proved to be a mostly one-note letdown. If you’re adventurous (or, let’s be real, stupid), try and attempt a batch of the habenero dry-coated, Ghost Chile-sauced atomic wings.  Deceptive at first and containing notes of chocolate, I thought I could be man enough to power through multiple atomic wings. But then the heat came, like a slap in the face, and my mouth burned as I quickly made a move for the aforementioned Gorgonzola wings to cool me down. I didn’t go for a second one.

No matter your preference for spicy, mild or sweet, the wings at Vito’s Tavern are a great option for the big game — just don’t forget about them the rest of the year.

All wings $9.99 for 10, $17.99 for 20, and $32.99 for 40 (takeout only).

(Vito’s Tavern, 54 Salem Street, Boston, 857-277-0229, vitostavern.com)