Weekend Eats

After last weekend's near-biblical rain, we were rewarded with several days of truly wonderful early spring weather. (Of course, it's back down in the 40s today and we're going to get another bucket of rain dumped on us tonight, but that's how it goes around here.) The pleasant weather encouraged us to get out and do stuff over the weekend, and by "stuff" I mean stuff ourselves.

On Friday night our friend Dave's band The Rationales played at Precinct in Union Square, Somerville, so we went over early to eat there first. It's a nice, cozy little place, oddly shaped because it's in a basement. It's a bit on the dark side, which might be good for a date, but there's enough light to see your food, and they have a very good beer selection. The menu runs toward simple food, but it's tasty, well prepared, and everything is very reasonably priced. And if you're just looking for a local to hang out in, you could do far worse.

Saturday found us doing our usual weekend runaround, which often includes a stop at Lyndell's in Ball Square for their famous moon cakes, fruit pastries, or turnovers (I've been on a raspberry turnover kick lately; the Mrs. always gets apple). And for you locals, Lyndell's is about to open their third location in Cambridge, on Prospect Street where Carberry's used to be.

On Saturday evening we had plans to meet a friend in the North End for dinner. We managed to find a parking space on Atlantic Avenue with very little effort, and walked over to Hanover Street, which was teeming with people as if it was a Saturday night in the middle of July, not March. (If you judged by how people were dressed, you would also have thought it was July: we saw plenty of shorts and flip-flops, so  people are clearly ready to shake off the winter and dive right into their warm-weather wardrobes.) Everyone was out enjoying the evening, and it was another reminder of why we love living here so much.

Our dinner destination was Il Villaggio, a small place toward the Greenway end of Hanover. We had been there once before, a couple of years ago, and while we enjoyed it, I didn't recall much about my meal. I thought we should revisit it and see how things were. There are, by my rough count, about 30 seats in the place, and because it's small, it doesn't get too noisy. The staff were very pleasant and attentive, and made us feel like they genuinely appreciated our visit. All of our meals were excellent. Most of the entrees are in the $15 to $20 range, which is a nice sweet spot for dining out.

Il Villaggio does not serve dessert, but in the North End that isn't a problem. On a night like Saturday you can stand in line at Mike's for 20 or 30 minutes, or you can always wander over to Bova's on Salem Street for cannoli. There was also a line for Modern Pastry, but a short way up the block, diagonally across from Il Villaggio, is the second location of Lyndell's, which opened last year. There were a couple of people ahead of us at the counter, but no line. Prices are higher at this location, but that's not exactly a surprise. And we've now visited, and snacked at, two Lyndell's locations in one day, an "accomplishment" we are peculiarly proud of.