This Is Framingham

According to the building permit I found on the town website, the old Honey Dew Donuts on 135 is going to be a drug store.  I think this will be interesting seeing that CVS is right downtown and a Walgreen’s will be moving in a little further down 135. 
I think those are really the only drugstores I see around outside of pharmacies in supermarkets (besides the occasional Osco Drug) and since it’s such a small building I wonder if this is a small business that will try to compete with the major chain drugstores. 
If it is, good luck little guy! : )

This Bed Bath and Beyond used to be the Marshall’s Mall.  I forget if that was the official name of it, but that’s what we called it.

In the late 90’s it was turned into the BB&B that it is today.  It’s an ok store, I don’t really have anything against it besides the fact that it’s there instead of the mall. It’s kind of an overkill too.  Since when did we need a store the size of a small mall for bed and bath products?  Ok, I know it’s goes “beyond” to kitchen stuff but still, it just seems like there should be room to share the space with some other shops. 

Although I didn’t have the foresight to take pictures when it was there, I’ve wasted about a half hour on the computer creating what I remember the mall looking like (and this was the best I could do):

 The Marshall’s Mall was great because it was small enough that it wasn’t super hectic, parking was easy and was it well lit (I think they had sky lights).  Plus it had a nice variety of stores.  Along with Marshalls, some of the tenants were a card store, shoe shop, hit or miss and Bop City comics had lived there for a while at one point too.
Even though I never made it into either of these, I distinctly remember the Pewter Pot restaurant and the Big and Tall men’s store that got street exposure.  I also remember in the late 70’s/early 80’s there was some sort of health food cart in the middle of the mall and they had soft serve frozen yogurt.  My mom asked me if I wanted some and I said ok because it was in a cone and looked just like ice cream but this was before frozen yogurt tasted like it does today.  I took one lick and was disgusted/shocked that it was so sour.  That turned me off of health food for a while.

It’s too bad a lot of the small malls have been turned into mega-stores, it’s nice to have a little variety. 

For me, anyway.  I was at the Asinayo Market downtown getting some soy sauce and sauce and shiritaki noodles when I came across these tiramisu snack cakes. 

I though it was odd to find them in an Asian grocery store, even more odd that next to English, most of the words on the package were in Russian, on the back there is a drawing of people sitting outside an Italian cafe but all the signs are in Russian.

Also intriguing was the “It’s NOW” statement/label, along with a nice diagram to show you what part is the cake and what part is the “cheese cream”. 

The company name is Orion, I don’t know what “It’s NOW” means (maybe It’s NOW that I will I give in to an impulse purchase).  The curiosity took over and I just had to try one!
I got home and opened the box to find it full of 12 little packages of individual cakes. 

 I split one in half to see if it resembled the drawing on the box and sure enough it did.

Now for the taste test.  I love tiramisu but wasn’t expecting much from this packaged, Russian/Asian(?) mock Italian snack cake that didn’t resemble the dessert at all, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The cake was moist and flavorful and the “cheese cream” was a lot lighter than I thought it would be.  It actually wasn’t half bad.  Obviously this is not a substitute for the real thing but for only 100 calories it was a nice little treat.  
 Ethan even tried one and said he liked it, and he doesn’t like too many experimental foods I’ve brought home over the years, so it must be good 🙂

Another grocery adventure at Asiyano!

I had heard for a while that the J&M Diner was worth checking out so this weekend we finally did.  J&M is at 969 Concord St. in that little plaza next to Stop &Shop and Firefly’s.
We went a little before noon and it was packed but we only had a 10 minute wait,in the meantime we watched the waitresses run around in their pajamas.

The hostess was really nice, I’m guessing she was also the manager for some reason.  She asked us if we had even been there before and took our drink order.  The menu was mainly breakfast with a couple of burger specials on the board.
Ethan got a huge pancake with bacon and we split some home fries.

I got the cinnamon french toast.  It doesn’t look like french toast, at first I thought maybe it was pancakes they gave me but after a bite into them I realised it was infact what I ordered. I guess someone walking by thought it looked odd and stopped to ask me if it was french toast, and that it looked “mushy”.  Kind of odd but this is the kind of place where something like walking up to someone’s table and asking them what they got and making a comment about it was ok.

The home fries were really good, plenty of both crunchy and soft potatoes.  Ethan liked his pancake and bacon and I really liked the french toast.  I haven’t had french toast in years so it was nice that it wasn’t disappointing.

The service was ok, our waitress just took our order and left the check on the table when she brought out our food and we never saw her again.  That is typical of breakfast places so it’s fine, but I guess if we had needed something after we took a bite we’d have to flag her down.  Also, a little weird was when Ethan ordered a grapefruit juice, it was over $2 for a bottle of Minute Maid that was only 30% juice (70% corn syrup?).  We thought that was a little pricey for not real juice but it’s not enough to make us never come back, just an observation.

I would definitely go to J&M again since good breakfast places are hard to come by and I liked the feel of this place and the hostess/manager was so nice. 
It was kind of funny, after we left Ethan asked me if I noticed a strong pro-woman theme in there. I didn’t but he said he noticed that everyone working there were all female.  Also, everything hanging on the walls were of women including the old Rosie the Riveter “We can do it!” poster and a version of Charles Ebbets’ “lunch atop a skyscraper” with all women.  It’s funny I didn’t notice the female-strong theme at all but I’d be curious to know if there is a story behind that.  Little breakfast places are not as common as they used to be and the food is good so I’ll be back.

Just looking at http://www.massachusettsgasprices.com/ usually the cheapest gas prices are always not too local or even some town I’ve never even heard of.  If I do see Framingham on there, it’s so far down on the list it’s not really worth noting because it’s not a bargain, but today I saw someone reported gas so cheap it’s in the top 7.  Nothing really worth celebrating but I just happened to see it and thought I’d share : )

 

I was going to wait longer between posts about the new 400 Plus (on Franklin St.) but I just really wanted to post about it and there’s not much else going on so here it is:

Anyone that has been to the old 400 Club can see that the interior has changed quite a bit. I kind of like the outdated red and black of the old place but since this is 2007 I can see why they wanted to update and they did a great job. chickens ivermectin per gallon
When we sat down we were given fresh focaccia bread that they make there, served with olive oil that was seasoned and had a clove of garlic in it.

We got a couple of appetizers, one being the antipasto which was a nice assortment of meats, cheese and marinated mushrooms, peppers, olives and pepperoncinis. ivermectina 6mg para cães posologia

We also got the fried mozzarella. They use fresh mozzarella and bread it by hand, it’s not the typical previously frozen sticks like some other places serve.

We also got a salad that comes with the house dressing:

Ethan got the baked scrod that he said was awesome, very fresh and flakey.

I got the eggplant parm, which I find hard to make bad anyway but like everything else, it was very good.

With these entrees came a choice of double mashed, roasted potatoes or pasta, we each got a potato. ivermectin safe for pregnancy
The double mashed are so good but you have to throw caloric caution to the wind as I can’t even guess how much butter and cheese are in them but they were REALLY good.

We split a massive hot chocolate at the end and left with several to-go boxes that supplied us with dinner for the next night all over again.

The service could not have been nicer and like I said in the pizza post, this place is so great to have in this part of town and especially that the food is fantastic. I love Italian food and I have to say this is some of the best I’ve had, people applauded when the chef came out to the dining room! Framingham is lucky to have such a place I think it will bring people back to this area and possibly rejuvenate the mostly vacant sad plaza.

Over the weekend we finally got to James Place at 69 Waverly Street.

The inside is painted with bright cheery colors and they display artwork from students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School.  They have regular sodas and also a variety of soda from the Mercury Brewing Company of Ipswich that make interesting flavors like coconut, watermelon and kiwi-berry.

James Place advertises selling hot dogs and ice cream but they also sell Cuban sandwiches and chocolates.  The hot dog menu has a list of names after different dog breeds.  I believe they have just one kind of hotdog but with different toppings, they have an extensive variety though.  I got “the mutt” which is ketchup, mustard, onions and relish.  It was pretty good, no surprises or disappointments.

Ethan got the Cuban sandwich which is sliced ham and pulled pork that the owner told us he marinates for 12 hours and then cooks for another few hours and makes it every 2 to 3 days.  The sandwich also has cheese, pickles & mustard and is then put in a heated sandwich press.  Ethan said it was really good and said the bread was great too.

After that we split a very creamy Toll House cookie ice cream.  All the ice cream there is from Christina’s homemade ice cream of Cambridge.

The owner is such a nice a guy, we ended up talking to him for a few minutes as we were paying.  He is actually excited to be in Framingham and likes using local products like the ice cream and sodas and cares to recycle.  He will also be adding more products as the summer approaches.

I only wish that this place was a half mile west so it would actually be in downtown since we really need something like this downtown but it’s close enough and it’s great to have a fun small business run by a sincerely nice guy in town.