East Somerville Foodie Crawl gives diners a reason to come back

Though food crawls are often the domain of hipsters trying to boost their foodie cred or underage would-be drinkers looking to enjoy a night out without going to bars, they are also are arguably one of the best ways to get the feel of a neighborhood. Buttoned-up, experimental, familiar or exotic, the food of a neighborhood is able to clearly reflect the area’s character.

Events like the fifth East Somerville Foodie Crawl understand this idea well and have turned their food crawl into a means for engaging the surrounding communities. The Foodie Crawl, held last Tuesday, Sept. 29, was organized by East Somerville Main Streets, a non-profit that looks to boost the profile of local businesses and, in doing so, create a thriving neighborhood.Tickets to the event cost $15 for students, with the proceeds going to East Somerville Main Streets. Each ticket provided its holder with access to more than 15 restaurants along Broadway, just a 10-minute ride from campus on the 89 bus.

Participating restaurants provided a diverse bevy of dishes for culinary adventurers to sample. These pre-set options available meant diners were exposed to dishes they may have otherwise avoided (ordering off the menu was not included in the ticket price). In other words, this food crawl was a high-risk, high-reward venture.

Despite the uncooperative weather -- a light drizzle turned into a tempest before the night was over -- curious diners swarmed the area, sharing experiences with other crawlers. Regular diners -- that is, those not participating in the crawl -- often looked on at the crowds of food crawlers with a combination of curiosity and bemusement.

The food offered spanned a broad section of the globe. Italy, Mexico and Brazil had the highest representation on the route, but the Ethiopian fare at Fasika was some of the evening's best. Fasika is one of those rare places so impressive that it raises eyebrows. The dining room is beautifully decorated without being fussy or overdone, and the food both tastes and feels good. Here, as with the other places on the crawl, diners were treated to a buffet offering a select few items. At Fasika, the options were variations on the same dish: ground beef or vegetables sautéed with spices and eaten not with silverware, but with injera -- a flat, yet bafflingly pillow-like, Ethiopian bread. 

Another standout restaurant was Rincon Mexicano, which served up saffron rice with a chicken and pork stew that hit the spot on the rainy, autumnal evening. The blockbuster dish here, however, was the guacamole, which was better than any avocado has any business being. A mariachi band played in spite of the light rain coming down, keeping wet diners in high spirits as they awkwardly tried to move to the music. Both Rincon Mexicano and Fasika are worth checking out again -- their menus deserve a real sampling beyond the limited offering at the Foodie Crawl.

That’s how the success of the Foodie Crawl should be measured: in how it engages people to come back to the restaurants they sampled. East Somerville is not an area a lot of Tufts students go to for fun, but, based on what the Foodie Crawl had to offer, it definitely should be on more people’s radars. It’s hard to think of better selling points than “good food” and “close to campus.”