I've never had anything on the menu at Mike and Patty's that I haven't loved—and I've had just about everything on the menu. But what I really appreciate is that they do the simplest things so right, like this Breakfast Grilled Cheese—essentially a fried egg suspended in a grilled cheese sandwich. More

“I’ve basically become a corn-averse vegan." Last week, I wrote about my first seven days without corn. Trying to learn more about just how much of the stuff we consume, I swore off all corn-laced foods for a full week. But as I sipped on cow’s milk and scrambled eggs for my omelets, I started to realize that the corn on package labels was only part of the story. More than half the corn produced in the United States isn’t used for human food—it’s fed to our animals. Eating a steak, in a sense, entails far more corn than drinking a soda. If I really wanted to call myself corn-free, I had a long way to go. So this week,... More

There are neighborhood cafés, and then there are neighborhood classics. The kind of local favorites where the staff gets to know your name, and you theirs. Where even though lines snake out the door, every regular considers the place his own unique find. And where the food is both honest and memorable, worth going back to—and not just because it’s around the corner. These institutions often take years to evolve. But Mike and Patty’s, opened eight months ago on a quiet corner in Boston’s Bay Village neighborhood, seems pretty close already. Its storefront may be tiny—an open kitchen behind the counter, one high table for a friendly six, and hardly enough room to turn around. What Mike and Patty’s... More