The Boston Restaurants Guide for a Chef's Perfect Day.

I know it's weird to eat at your own restaurant, but this is really good. Sawasdee krap. Hi, my name is Boong Boonnak. I'm a co-owner of Mahaniyom and Mirai Bar in Boston. Today, I'm going to show you what I eat when I have a perfect day in Boston. So the first stop, we're going to go to Rubato in Quincy. This is where I start my day. So I always grab the breakfast after I drop my kids from school. Let's check out inside. Hey man, how you doing? How are you? Yeah, good, good. What are we having? Well, let's start with the char siu bao, fried chicken bolo bao, the lava egg yolk Hong Kong French toast, that's my favorite. Okay. Yep. And let's throw in the pork and century egg congee. All right, that's a good one. That's the traditional route. Can I get a yoonjang? Of course. Hot or cold? Hot with milk and sugar. All right, man. Here is the order. We got your faves, man. We got the fried chicken bolo bao. We do a kind of unique marinated mix, tofu marinated, our slaw, tasty sauce, classic bolo bao, French toast. This is the lava egg yolk with the molten custard inside. It kind of oozes out as you go. Condensed milk and cookie crumbs on top. Your favorite, the char siu bao, kind of a twist on a classic. We have some caramelized onions in there and everything. And then the congee with the century egg and pork. That's like the classic Cantonese Chinese dish. It's yummy. Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you started? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This space here was my mom's bakery for 20 years before I took over. I was doing the chef thing thing for a while and then it was about how do we kind of take my experience as a chef and my identity as a Chinese American and put it into a menu. And this is kind of what came out of it. You know, it's really meant to be kind of undeniably delicious, but also representative of, you know, I think who I am as a chef, but also as a person. The name actually came from, so my mom had a rock band. It was named Contempo. Then when she came to this bakery and she opened, she named it Contempo Bakery, but it's for contemporary tempo. So rubato is the musical term for change of tempo. Okay. So we wanted to kind of honor the legacy of my mom, but also, you know, I think put something new into the world. Man, I'm hungry now. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. You enjoy. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have a lot of stuff here. So let's start with the bolo bao. The pork is so good. The bao is so fluffy, so soft. And the char siu inside is like really, really like tasty. So the next one, I have the pork and century egg congee. And I always put everything on top. So like a scallion, cilantro and white pepper. So the first thing you gotta mix is all up. It's just like so good because like it's so easy to eat. And the century egg, it's like a preserved egg. Some people call a thousand years old egg. And this one is when you need some sweet, this is it. This is it. It's a lava egg yolk French toast. The egg custard is like delicious. The condensed milk on top, the crunchy of the toast. Very, very good. And this is the yun yan. It's a Hong Kong style drink. That is a mix between the black tea and the coffee. It's like a boba tea and then you get a coffee too. So it's get me going in the morning. The last but not least, really, really good fried chicken sandwich. What I like to do is I always like squeeze in a little bit, you know, try to get it all in one bite. The sweet on top is so good. The crumb, the crunchy of the chicken, the sauce, the sauce. Very, very good. All right. I have a lot of things to finish here. I'll see you at my next spot for lunch. We are here in so far in Austin location. This is the second stop that I always come and grab lunch. Let's go check inside. Hello. Hi. I'm good. How are you? Thank you for having me. Can I start with a morning blunt, the cornbread and tahini brown butter croissant. For lunch, can I get two of the sausage pita and chai tea hot, please? Yeah. I'm so excited. I got an opportunity to meet Chef Amber over here. She's going to show us how she makes the sausage pita and show us a little bit inside on the kitchen. All right. So we have our house-made yufka here. We make this every day. And then this is our feta butter. That's the base of the sandwich here. And it's butter, feta, a little bit of Hungarian wax peppers that have been roasted and pureed and a little bit of smoked salt. And then our sausage meat, which is a mix of beef and pork, tomato, oregano, coriander, and a little bit of orange. And then it kind of gets cooked way down until it's nice and soft. Looks so good already. Yes. So this is like a Turkish flatbread. So it's supposed to be really, really thin. And when you fold it up, you get like a little bit of these layers, chopped pepperoncinis and kalamata olive. Every time I come in, I order five of them because they got to get it, eat it over here and then bring it home and eat for the next day. So this is one of the best. Oh, this is so exciting. So it's a lot of food, but I'm going to start with my favorite. It's a sausage pita. Beef and pork, the meat, the olive, and a little spicy. And the pita, this is hands down my favorite. It's so good. And this is also the drink, just a regular chai latte, but they blend the spice, the chai themselves. So it's like, it's so good. This morning bun, so what they do is they use like a croissant dough and just like put in the tin, topped with the spice and the orange. The crunch is so good. I have a lot of stuff to finish, but we're going to save some for my team. And next we're going to go to my restaurant, Mahanio. Hi guys. So this is a very exciting one because you are at my place, called Mahanio Thai Tapas Bar in Buklai. You want to come to check it out? Let's go. So I'm going to make today, it's called Mekhala Martini. It's basically like a dirty martini. I'm going to start off with a saline solution, dry vermouth, pineapple-infused condenser gin, and this is my martini. So I want to show you a fan favorite from Mahanio. Okay. I'm going to start with a crab curry. So this is a Southern Thai style curry. So we have like a vermicelli with the bean sprout, like Thai basil, and with the curry that we make in-house. I know it's weird when you eat at your own restaurant, but this is really good. Always when you come to Mahanio, you got to order Nang Kai Tod, which is like a fried chicken skin. Next one, we have pomelo salad or Yum Sum O. It's a fruit salad that's still spicy and super tasty. So refreshing. And then we have here is a Pla Hed, which is like a classic mushroom salad. It's always so good that we smoke the mushroom. And then my last one, we have Pla Lui Suan, which is a fan favorite. It's a whole Francino, topped with all the herbs. Perfect with my martini. Well, we got a little bit of the taste of my restaurant, and now we're going to go to the last stop. That's where I always go eat after work. Guys, here we are at the last stop at J.M. Curry. You know, I'm usually not here when the sun is out, but we're going to check them out. This is the stop that I always come after work. Hello. How are you doing? Good to see you, man. Good to see you. You got a good burger today? Yes. Can you help a little bit? Okay. Table right there, if you want to sit down. Thank you so much, man. Let's do it. We're going to have what, the burger today? You sure that's what you get? This is the always, I always come here for the late night burger, a shot and a beer. Today is no shot. No shot, not yet. It's a little early, but we got you. Yes. I did actually took the liberty to get a couple more items. I know usually you guys, with a big crew, you get a little more, you know, family style set up. So we're going to do the crunch wrap, the wings, and a side fried pickles. Usually that's how we accommodate the whole, your whole crew. Cheers. Cheers, bud. Well, I will have Oscar talk about what's inside the burger because it's so good. I'm going to eat while you're talking about it. Perfect. Well, the way we're doing it, it's been like the same, same recipe for the past 15 years now. We do the Russian dressing, pickle, brine, caramelized onions, white mustard cheese, and I don't want to give away the recipe of the blend of the jug, but there's no trimmings on it, so. And what do we have over here? Our beautiful beer mac and cheese, fried pickles is a great setting, and our bedded buffalo wings, which are fantastic. Yes. You know I love the chicken. And my fan favorite, or my favorite, is the crunch wrap. Crunch wrap is absolutely the best, sir. It's an awesome, awesome setup. Why is it called J.M. Curley? J.M. Curley, well, he was named after a very famous politician in Boston. He is one of the pioneers on like pushing like the after-provision laws and like get rid of liquor laws and stuff like that. Even though we still have a lot of regulations, you know this, there's so many rules. No happy hours still. No happy hours. We deal, like we don't have happy hours. And if you want to know about the how much the liquor license. My name is Oscar and I'm running for office. Salute to that. Salute to that. Yes. Thank you so much for hanging out with me at What I Eat when I have a perfect day in Boston. And come check out my restaurant Mahanayom in Buckeye and also Merai in Buckeye. Thank you.