UnleashYourAnger.com

BostonNow newspaper has published Rogue's rant regarding Restaurants on 11/12.  Keep up the great work, fellow Ranters!!  I hope you guys had a chance to pick up a copy around town (T, bus stops, street corners, etc.)

Yes, yours can certainly be next.  Happy Unleashing!!

This rant is motivated by a recent post about how expensive cabs are in Boston.

I live in East Cambridge near Museum of Science.  When I land at Logan Airport and take a taxi home, the ride takes less than 10 minutes.  I love the convenience; however, the fare consistently exceeds $20.  I think this is ridiculous that I couldn't live much closer to Logan, but I am paying 10 times as much as the base rate of $1.75.

Furthermore, when I take a cab to Logan, the cabbies charge me a flat-rate fee of $24.25 or $27.75 (not including tip) depending on the time of day.  Apparently, this is a rate reserved for East Cambridge hotels, but I have to pay it because I live in the area.  Yes, I was skeptical, but I heard the same from multiple taxi drivers.

Can you guys believe this?  ...and yes, I hear they are trying to raise the fare again.   Here are other nutty things:

This seems to happen to me every time I'm on the pike.  The Fung Wah drivers are terrible.  Maybe I've just been beseiged with bad luck but I always seem to get pushed around by them.  Changing lanes into my lane, forcing me to swerve or hit the brakes real fast, etc.  I think they are so concerned about getting down the NY as fast as humanly possible that they'll do anything, even risking the lives of their passengers and fellow drivers on the road, to get there. 

And then there's the cliched occasional sight of the smoking Fung Wah bus on the side of the road with a crowd of angry customers waiting out in the cold...  classic.  but not cool.  You won't catch me taking Fung Wah.  Greyhound is the same price and at least I feel safe on their busses.

What's with people who bring whatever big item they are mailing up to the clerk at the Post Office, and then expect the clerk to find them the right size box, while everyone in line has to wait for them to pack the thing up, write the address on it and pay?  It takes forever!  I just get really annoyed when I'm in a rush at the P.O. and I have to wait for some old lady who is mailing a toy car to her grandkid to figure out how to mail it.  There are stations where you can pick the right box, and pack it all up, around every post office I've been to.  It's not that hard.  Use it!  

People will hate me for posting this, but there is definitely some truth to this. 

Specials at restaurants are either 1) chef's trial, or 2) mix of leftovers.  While Chef trying new things on the menu may not be a bad thing, throwing together either "alomst expired" ingredients or "leftovers from other dishes" is certainly disturbing.

I suspected this when many of the specials that I ordered were often, pasta, soup, risotto -type of foods that seem to mask the old ingredients.  Some are fish or rare meat, but they always seem to overcook it.  Since, I actually spoke to an x-chef friend and read a few articles (one on SmartMoney mag), which back me up on the theory.

I hope I didn't ruin people's appetite, but I just felt the warning was necessary.

I love Italian food.  I really do.  I just love walking over to North End after work with wife and/or friends and hanging out.   Unfortunately, the quality has been declining steadily.

We used to be able to walk on over, and jump into any restaurant and the food and atmosphere to be decent.  Just another flavor of the day.  Recently, however, we can no longer just walk in and expect quality.  Some of these restaurants are just plain crap now, and I mean that for service, price, cleanliness, atmosphere, and the food!

These restaurants are completely spoiled by tourism.  They realized that no matter how poorly they treat customers, how gross the food, how crammed the dining area, how expensive the dishes, they will get more customers.  Well, they may be right, because you don't have to worry about repeaters when it comes to tourists.  This is extremely disappointing to a local like me.  Below are my thoughts.  It's not like I spent a lot of time on this list, but I thought it would spark some feedback from others.  

Worst Offenders IMO:
Strega, Limoncello, Fiore (deck is nice), Dolce Vita

Good, but declining IMO:
Lucca, Bricco, Cibo, Daily Catch

Still Decent IMO:
Pomodoro, Terramia, Mama Maria, Prezza (little overrated), Cantina

Still Strong IMO:
Davide, Giacomo's, Mama Maria, Taranta, Maurizio

The motorcycles are a weird thing in America today. They seem to evade every conceivable road rules and laws out there.   For example, why aren't all the exhaust or noise regulated during inspections? (or are they?)  Why don't they need to wear seatbelts? Why can they drive around with their rims out all over the place?  These are rules for cars, but they don't seem to exist for motorcycles.  Weird!

I hear about all these vehicle recalls and families uprising against car manufacturers about emissions, noise and safety, but I don't see them doing that for motorcycles.  Come on!!  It's so strange that I can get a citation for not wearing a seatbelt, but a biker gets away with sittingon a seat that nees to be plopped at red lights.  Am I the only one who finds this funny?

Oh, my gosh, I can't believe what happened. This is a total outrage.  I park my car on the street, and I have been doing that even before I moved here, so I am well aware of street cleaning rules.  So, last week, I knew my car was on the side of the road about to be swept, so I made sure to go move my car at 8:00 in the morning.  The sign says 8~12 street cleaning.  I was planning to move it to another location, but when I showed up at 8:15, they were about to sweep my street! 

The reason I am mad is not because I was towed.  I successfully got to my car before the cleaning machine, so I moved it, and I went around the block.  When the street cleaners were done, I parked exactly where I was before.  Totally makes sense, right? 

Well, I went to work, and came back later, and I noticed a ticket on my car.  Time?  10:20AM.  WTF?  I know for a fact, and I saw with my very own eyes that the cleaning was done. How in the world did I get a ticket?  Is it because I was parked there from 8~12?