bostonian71

My brother lives here, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen him. We hope to visit him in late February.

The wife and I went to Fenway on Labor Day for a game against the White Sox. It was a good game—a pitcher’s duel, which I thought I’d never see with Tavarez on the mound. Was definitely worth being up late for, even though I had to be up early for work the next day.

... for one of my wife’s other college reunions. We also hope to spend time with some relatives while we’re in the area.

It’s my wife’s 20th college reunion (well, one of them), so we’ll be driving down with one of her fellow grads and her wife.

All Lakota makes is cookies. Let me correct that—absolutely scrumptious cookies. It’s a small place, so they don’t have all the varieties available on any given day, but I find they’re usually worth waiting for. (The wife and I are partial to the Mint Cream Sandwich.)

We like coming here for brunch on the weekends—the staff’s really nice, and you get quite a bit of good food for a decent price. If they used real Hollandaise sauce for the eggs Benedict, they’d be perfect.

The wife and I stayed here over a long weekend, and had a very good time. The room was comfortable, the food was good and the innkeepers were helpful and funny, with lots of advice and anecdotes (especially when it came to any of their cats or dogs). Our only caveats were that the shower was on the small side and the continental breakfast didn’t include any protein, which meant we ended up craving eggs and sausage later on in the day. We’d definitely consider a return visit!

Even though I lived in PA, I’ve never been to the Bryn Mawr campus. My wife did go here for part of college, though, so maybe we’ll go to a reunion at some point.

Dear Renee’s in Somerville,

Some small requests for the next time I come for brunch:

1. When I sit down, please come take my beverage order within five minutes. If you can’t do that, please don’t come to the table, ask for my meal order, then tell me that you can’t take my meal order unless I’ve ordered a beverage first from someone else. If you make me order my beverage from someone else, please don’t let me see you pouring coffee for another party.

2. If you have eggs Benedict on the menu, please use real hollandaise sauce.

3. If you can’t avoid using fake hollandaise sauce on your eggs Benedict, please at least bring the food within an hour of my sitting down.

4. If you absolutely must take an hour to bring our order, please make sure the food’s hot when it gets there.

5. If you can’t conceive of any way to deliver hot, reasonably tasty food in a reasonable amount of time, please expect to get an unreasonably small tip—and do not expect a return visit.

Regards,

An unhappy customer

The food’s so-so, but the service is way below average. On one trip, the staff performed a whole series of blunders: losing our friend’s reservation, taking forever to find us a table, messing up orders, and ignoring us whenever possible. Definitely not worth a return trip.