Two of my best friends had birthdays last weekend. To commemorate their survival into adulthood, and their newfound dipsomaniacal legality, we headed out for a night of bars in Harvard Square. First stop on our slightly ironic alcoholic celebration was Shilla for dinner and bombs.
For the uninitiated: a sake bomb is a shot of sake, Japanese rice wine, in a glass of beer. The bomber places her chopsticks on the mouth of the glass like a rickety little alcohol bridge and sets a shot of warm sake on top. On a good night, when your concern for normative social standards is safe at home in bed, this is how the bomb drops: you and your friends line up your shots, someone counts off, and in unison you pound the table. The shot of sake falls into your cup of beer and together you chug.
Now, our usual haunting ground is Porter Square. Kaya serves a mean hand roll, and an even meaner bomb, plus you can get private tatami room. It's because of our unadulterated freshman joy at discovering the art of the sake bomb that Blue Fin, in Porter Mall, now checks IDs.
Tonight, though, we wanted to go classy. We'd been to Shilla before and fell in love with its owner, an unbelievably energetic Japanese woman. On our first visit, she actually came out and chanted "sake sake SAKE" when we were feeling slightly self-conscious about being those loud drunk college kids and considering simply pouring our sake into our beer. Anyone who nurtures my tipsy spectacle-making instincts is OK by me. Plus, she gave us a pot of sake, on the house.
Alas, our service experience last weekend was not nearly so magical. It was a Friday night, and while we didn't have to wait for a table, the restaurant was crowded, and service was inexcusably slow. We waited over 20 minutes for our first beers, and much longer to place and receive our food order. They forgot some of our food, too. The owner was obviously overwhelmed - there were two other tables of kids eating and drinking, and she was too busy taking care of them to consider joining in our revelry, let alone bring our spicy salmon sushi over in a timely manner.
Shilla is a small restaurant in the basement of the Staples building on Winthrop St. When we'd gone before, it hadn't been peak time. The food is great, and when the restaurant isn't full, the service is too. I'm inclined to stick to Kaya though, if I just want a good bomb with a little raw fish on the side.
The good thing about Shilla, though, is its proximity to all of the other bars that Harvard Square has to offer. Keeping with the pseudo-classy theme, we headed over to Daedalus, an upscale, glossy, very-Harvard spot on Mt. Auburn. Its literary Irish/Cambridge pretensions show in the decor and in the drink menu, although we went with tequila. There are two floors, with seating both downstairs and in the lounge upstairs, and plenty of space to chill with your friends or to cozy up to any of the preppies who frequent the bar.
Daedalus, like all Boston bars, closes early. But the service there had no problem waiting around while we made our last toasts. To birthdays, to our senior year, to Boston, baby, and to the night. May you too have many like it.
