The results of this year’s Boston Area Kosher Community Survey are now available! Three hundred individuals took the time to share their opinions and suggestions. To get a copy of the survey results, visit kosher-community-surveys.com.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Neil Rosenbaum at boston@kosher-community-surveys.com

Every week for the last four months, all we’d hear about Taam China II is that would open in two weeks. Well, the wait is over — the spacious suburban satellite of Brookline’s esteemed Chinese restaurant is set to open its doors tomorrow at 11AM.

Taam China II
108 Oak Street
Newton Upper Falls, MA 02464
(map)

(If I make it over there, I’ll try to post the menu, if different from the original.)

From Wednesday’s Herald:

The owners of the kosher Bodavi Bakers and nearly century-old Gordon & Alperin meat market are expanding their Commonwealth Avenue businesses. They’re bringing a new deli, larger meat market and pizzeria - each of them kosher - into the neighborhood.

Full article

(P.S. Had a lovely time in Paris, thanks for all the advice! Spending Shabbat in London… back Sunday.)

What Boston may lack in upscale restaurants, Efraim Krug is making up for in ingenuity. He’s been working in food service for over 25 years, serving as mashgiach to Boston’s most impressive establishments, and now offers his expertise as a personal chef.

In particular, he’s launched the EMK Muffin Club. It’s based on a simple premise: he makes delicious kosher muffins every Sunday morning with the freshest seasonal (kosher dairy) ingredients, and then delivers a warm baker’s dozen of them to your home before 8:30AM. Right now, he’s charging $18 for the dozen (delivered within the Boston eruv) and I can personally attest that they are excellent. We’ve enjoyed the following varieties: apple spice, wild blueberry, pineapple ginger, carrot raisin cinnamon, mocha chocolate chunk, and banana chocolate chunk.

Creative flavors, quality ingredients, just the right level of sweetness … a great, new reason to wake up early on Sunday. Just contact Efraim before Shabbat, and say the magic words, “I need muffins!”

After many weeks of preparation, the Kosher Blog is happy to announce the Massachusetts Kosher Community Survey, presented in coordination with the inimitable Neil Rosenbaum of DC Kosher Survey fame.

Share your opinions about local kosher restaurants, grocery stores, and bakeries by visiting survey.kosherblog.net. A summary of the results will be distributed to the community — check here for updates.

Questions and comments should be directed to Neil at koshersurvey@gmail.com.

A wine and cheese tasting has been planned at the Young Israel of Brookline in honor of Tu B’Shevat. Here’s the official announcement:

Spring is coming! Sample fruits of the earth and fruits of the vine as you celebrate Tu B’Shevat at a Wine and Cheese Tasting

This Sunday, February 12, 2006
6:00 - 8:00 P.M.
Young Israel of Brookline

To reserve your glass by February 10:
Email wine@frumgeek.com or call 617-738-6131
$5 YIB member / $7 non-member

Without reservation:
$10 YIB member / $12 non-member

UPDATE: Event’s been postponed due to snow. I’ll repost when it’s been formally rescheduled.

For quite some time now, GourmetFoodStore.com has offered a decent selection of French kosher cheeses. However, most of the time, they’re only available by the case (10-24 cut pieces per case), which has kept them, in my opinion, largely inaccessible to the casual buyer, and the next-day shipping charge can be an obstacle, too. As such, I’d like to initiate, on a trial basis, a cooperative effort to buy four cases and split them up among other kosher cheese afficionados in the Boston area.

Here’s how I envision it. Their Gruyere and Morbier come 10 to a case; the Brie St. Benoit and Roquefort come 16 to a case. We find 10 people to commit to the Gruyere/Morbier purchase at $25/person and 16 people to commit to the Brie/Roquefort purchase at $22/person (both prices include one piece of each cheese in the combo and 1/26th of the overnight shipping charge). Alternatively, participants can buy more than one share and reduce the number of folks required for the purchase.

Would anyone be interested?

UPDATE: Interested parties from the New York City area are also invited to express their interest; we’ll see if we can get two groups going.

Quick update: Starting in February, Rubin’s (500 Harvard St., Brookline, MA) will feature an expanded menu with “gourmet fish entrees, steak entrees, duck, lamb, and veal,” plus a new breakfast Menu and $6.99 lunch specials. New wines, too.

Here’s a scan of Shalom Beijing’s new menu.

Cover	Appetizers, Soup, Veal	Specials, Poultry
Beef, Fish, Rice and Noodles	Sushi Bar	Lunch Specials, Vegetarian

This just came across the wire:

Grand Opening
Shalom Beijing (previously Shalom Hunan)
92 Harvard St, Brookline (617-731-9778)

What: They will have a special grand opening with various foods and new menu!

When: This Sunday, December 18, between 12-1

For more information, call:
Jack at 731-9778 or 731-9760 (at the restaurant)
Stanley Rabinowitz 734-2255

A lot’s been going on in the Boston kosher scene lately, so here’s a rundown. I can’t guarantee the authenticity of any of this information, but it’s exciting nonetheless.

Shalom Hunan changes ownership this week. The “new” restaurant will be called “Beijing”-something, will have a new menu, new staff, and new chef.

Handler Brothers of Newton Centre appears to have closed. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, its doors were shut to the bewilderment of area turkey buyers.

In that very shopping area, the owners of Gordon & Alperin and Bodavi Bakery will be opening a pizza shop — perhaps in the abandoned Handler Brothers spot? — to extend their Commonwealth Avenue kosher empire to three stores.

The new Ta’am China “steakhouse” that was previously reported seems to have been downgraded to “Ta’am China 2,” a Chinese restaurant that may have an expanded menu with Asian-inspired steaks and sushi. It may also be just another Chinese restaurant, conveniently located in a western suburb. In any case, I drove down Oak Street a few weeks ago to scope out the scene and found a closed-down Chinese restaurant that may be TC2’s new home:

Feel free to share any more restaurant hearsay in the comments.

Temple Beth Abraham of Canton, MA is offering for sale “gourmet kosher dinners” and various a la carte items this week to folks in the South Shore area, prepared fresh in their new synagogue kitchen. It might be too late to get in on the action this week, but they hope to make it a monthly event. Call Rick Gomolka, president of TBA Brotherhood, for details — 617-594-9447 — there may still be time to make an order!

Download flier (PDF)

Whereas most every other kosher product is readily available here, it has become clear to me that liqueurs are in fact hard to come by in metropolitan Boston. Thankfully, a quick e-mail to the Wine Gallery (at the corner of Cypress and Boylston Streets) requesting kosher coffee liqueur brought it to their shelves within a week — in plenty of time for my upcoming “Big Lebowski” party. The Carmel Azmara Coffee Liqueur was $13.99, a few dollars more expensive that what Kosher.com charges — but with shipping and handling, it’s actually more expensive online.

Their everyday selection of kosher spirits is nothing to sneeze at, but if something’s absent, just speak up — they seem enthusiastic to fulfill special requests.

This just in: the owner of Ta’am China will indeed be opening a steakhouse, but it will be located on Needham Street in Newton. It will feature steaks, chops, and sushi, and should be quite expansive compared to their current digs on Harvard Street. Lease has been signed, will open in six to eight weeks.

The big question on my mind is if this’ll feel like a Chinese restaurant that serves steak, or like an honest to goodness steakhouse? I’m certainly rooting for their success; let’s hope the stars align.

Word on the street is that local ice cream chain J. P. Licks is considering disassociating from the Va’ad (i.e. they would no longer be certified kosher). I don’t know the reasoning, but we speculate they they want to expand their offerings of non-ice-cream foodstuffs (pastries, breakfast foods, hot drinks, etc.) and limiting themselves to kosher products and ingredients has been a financial and gustatoy hurdle for them. If you have any interest in having the chain maintain its certification - even if you yourself don’t keep kosher, have you ever chosen this as a meeting place with your kosher friends? even if you don’t live in town, do you appreciate having the store available when you are here? - please visit your local J. P. Licks in the near future and, as you pay, let them know your opinion. Also, please spread the word.

Cross-posted to Devarim.

It’s been over two years since I went whole-hog kosher (hmm, maybe that should be ‘cold-turkey kosher’ instead…) and after buying a fair share of kosher meat during that span, I’d had enough with retail prices, especially on cuts of meat that are traditionally supposed to be cheap.

Thankfully, I was introduced to Specialty Provisions of Chelsea, MA, purveyor of quality wholesale kosher meats, when I first helped organize the annual BBQ at my shul last year. SP’s prices for our uncomplicated order of preformed burgers and Rubashkin franks were drastically lower than anyone else’s in town and helped us keep our event within budget.

Next, some months later, I made a personal order in advance of Passover. Delivered directly into my kitchen was:

• a 15 lb. whole beef rib eye
• 15 lbs. of beef short ribs
• a 26 lb. case of retail-packed Empire turkey legs
• a 50 lb. case of roasting chickens
• 40 lbs. of “Nature’s Best” boneless/skinless chicken breasts
• a 15 lb. whole brisket
• 4.5 lb. of hanging tenderloins (”hangers”)

All were lower than the retail prices at my preferred local butcher — see SP’s price list for yourself. A few key examples: I spent under $6/lb on brisket, which, around holiday time, is $11/lb or more at our Boston-area butchers; chicken breasts more than a dollar cheaper per pound than average Empire or Rubashkin prices; bigger roasting chickens at lower prices than retail… and the hanger steaks were just plain awesome.

Now, not everything was perfect. As I looked over my meat, I noticed an “off” odor coming from the wholesale box of fresh chicken breasts, and after discovery of some strange opaqueness on the surface of the chicken, I promptly spoke to Maier Cywiak, who runs Specialty Provisions, to rectify the situation. His handling of the matter was exemplary — no charge for the rotten Nature’s Best chicken (which I hastily tossed into the dumpster) and quick delivery of a pristine box of fresh Empire cutlets packed in ice.

Otherwise, quality was excellent. My in-laws thoroughly enjoyed their bounty of turkey thighs and rib eye steaks, my braised short ribs generated rave reviews, and the hangers have been great on the grill.

My latest order was similar, only this time I threw in several tasty skirt steaks (practically $10/lb cheaper than the butcher), some Texas ribs, and a case of Empire chicken thighs.

So, Maier and Specialty Provisions were keeping up their end of the bargain, and I had to prepare on my end. You see, buying wholesale is not for the uninitiated. First, how would I assure that a zillion pounds of delicious, kosher meat would last several months? Only some of the meat was vacuum-sealed in manageable quantities, so I sharpened my trusty chef’s knife and read the manual for my new FoodSaver vacuum sealer. As I sliced up my whole rib eye into individual steaks, each one went into a vacuum bag and got thoroughly sucked of air by the sealer. I first cut my 15 lb. brisket horizontally, along the fat, into two flat pieces, and then bisected the bigger slab into a 5 lb. brisket and a 3 lb. deckel (the triangular tip)… trimmed away some fat, and sealed those, too. More sealing ensued, with convenient numbers of chicken breasts or thighs in large and small bags.

Second, what to do with all this impermeably sealed food? Well, we reshuffled our extra bedroom and installed a 5-cubic-foot chest freezer (now we keep it in our laundry alcove). This sub-$200 bad boy keeps our food safely below freezing and ready for action as the months roll by.

There are a few other things to remember. There’s a $300 minimum order, which you can easily spread among family and friends, and a modest delivery charge. (Of course, with a freezer and some foresight, splitting the order may not even be necessary!) Next, most everything comes in wholesale sizes/quantities, so you can’t do onesy-twosy orders. My strategy is to try a particular brand or cut of meat from my butcher, and if I like it, order it in bulk. Lastly, wholesale cuts aren’t always nicely trimmed. Find a good knife and a big cutting board to trim fat from beef or cut off extra skin from chicken pieces… then, if you’re really savvy, render the chicken skin for shmaltz and save the beef scraps for homemade sausages.

Luckily, Maier is a mensch, and always tries to find what you’re looking for. Says Maier, “I hate to say ‘No’ or, ‘I’m sorry it’s not in stock’ to anyone.” To that end, after the holidays, he’ll be expanding his inventory to include different brands like Vineland Poultry and different shechitas like Debretzin/International Glatt, and adding freezer space to his warehouse.

For normal inquiries, contact Specialty Provisions at spboston@hotmail.com. For rush orders, contact Maier directly at 617-966-1299. And tell him the Kosher Blog sent you.

It’s Tisha B’Av, so obviously the we’re all thinking about food, especially all that meat we’ve been abstaining from over the last nine days. Well, if you want to start your meat-eating week with a bang, do it with the newest, beefiest addition at Milk Street Cafe’s fleishig sandwich cart, the Marika Explosion:

One large wrap, stuffed with BBQ roast beef, pastrami, shaved steak, chili, and meat balls.

Mmmm…

The glass front of Ruth’s Kitchen (401 Harvard St., Brookline) has been completely torn away and boarded up a couple feet back. Has anyone heard about what they’re up to? Almost looks like they’re creating a cafe area outside the store.

We received word last week (sorry for the delay) that Sweet Satisfaction (318 Harvard St., Brookline) will be closing at the end of the month. Starting tomorrow, all products (including fixtures and equipment) will be going on sale.

Emily, the owner, hopes to “get a website up and running within the next year that will focus on specialty products.”

I’ve just been informed that Boston University Hillel offers “excellent” meals for lunch and dinner during Passover — you know, if you can’t make the hike to NYC for restaurant dining. Their daily menu is available online.

Update: Harvard Hillel also provides Passover meals through tonight. Sorry for the late notice; let’s remember for next year.