Has pagu gotten better? That place was so mediocre when it opened

While not bad, I have also found MIDA so underwhelming.

ooh rebel rebel natural wine bar never heard of that gonna have to check it out for sure

also this is kind of surprising:

Yahya Noor, Tawakal Halal Cafe, Boston, MA

I haven’t been to the Boston location, but agree about the one in Newton.

PAGU was really just sort of okay. Not sure if they just ran out of ideas or if there's a bias for over-serviced restaurants.

Rebel Rebel is a cool space, but I found their ability to recommend things pretty lacking (experienced staff is hard to come by). Bonde for knowledgeable people, and Koji club for better overall experience.

I was there a couple of months ago and it was pretty good, but yeah I am a bit surprised at this nomination

Weird. I took a sommelier friend from Napa to Rebel Rebel and he loved the staff there. We went in for a glass and ended up staying for a few bottles.

I can only say that I've visited 5+ times including getting bottles to go, and each time the wine, while wasn't bad, was not as described. Not often had this issue with other similarly priced wine shops.

Nightshade is (or maybe now I should saw was) a fantastic hidden gem.

I was very bummed out by a meal there this summer. Subpar service and fine food. Shocking to me that it’s on this list

Also having 4.1 stars after 704 reviews on google is veryy low. Ive found that if a place dips below 4.3 average you should be side eyeing it

Big Giant Yay for Red Rose!!

Agree on Pagu, had much higher expectations. One of the dishes was great, the others not so much, wanted better consistency with the quality given the hype and price.

I've never seen the word Filipinx in print before.

But I thought Boston had no good food!!!

Not at all, Tawakal has been on basically every list for the past year or two. Fantastic food.

I've only had their wraps, they're great, but on par with like a falafel king wrap

I was at Pagu this last weekend. Really awesome!

They turn and burn their guests, and treat their staff like shit too. They’ve got a few new locations and concepts in the works this year, and the only thing they’re good at making, is money. They’re the worst of the worst in the industry for biting the hands that feed them.

Their food is great, but I've known multiple people who've had horrible experiences in the kitchen. The chef really seems to talk the talk about building a positive environment and then used straight-up abuse tactics with a good friend who worked there (e.g. hiring her with a promised salary and then once she'd quit her other job being told, "oh, maybe you'll make that eventually but we're going to start you off at roughly half that" and swearing up and down that she'd "make sure [my friend] never worked in another kitchen again" if she left Nightshade).

Kitchens aren't the friendliest places to work in general, but this shit was beyond the pale. It's so disappointing.