Garlic High

It was only a little past five but we were famished. And we knew there wouldn’t be much of a line for dinner at such an early hour. And with just eight tables, there’s always a line. The shoebox of a room has been in the same spot on Hanover Street, the main drag of Boston’s North End, for more than forty-five years. It’s nestled between shit shops blaring accordion music and selling crude Italian tchotchkes, and across the street from St. Leonard’s Roman Catholic Church and Mike’s Pastry, which stuffs a very decent cannoli.

One waiter worked the room, an affable multi-tasker with meaty hands and a thick Boston accent; one cook/chef helmed the eight burner stove, an older bespectacled Asian man who’s been cooking in the tiny open kitchen for years; and one dishwasher, a young Latino who flashed a brilliant smile comprised of a shiny gold grill. One beer and one red or white wine is on offer, each served in plastic cups.

A passing interest was taken in the chalkboard menu, but in truth, the meal had been dreamed about for weeks prior. Squid ink pasta, black as the bottom of the sea and cranked everyday, was boiled to a precise al dente and buried under chopped calamari cooked in olive oil and mounds of spicy garlic. There was a filet of haddock, pulled from nearby waters off Cape Cod, dusted with crumb, fired under the broiler, and served with only a slice of lemon. A platter of steamed broccoli studded with Calabrian pepper and even more garlic provided the table with the proper tricolour of the Italian flag. Even the horribly dull Moretti beer was ice cold and a welcome foil to all of the stinging allium bliss. Bless the hearts and stuff the noses of those sitting around us on the flight home at o-dark-thirty in the morning.