Friday Faves 8/30: Craigie on Main, Taylor Swift, Serial Killers, and Street Corn Pizza
Best Activity
This past Friday we did something we had been threatening to do for years. We went to Craigie on Main for their burger. It is consistently ranked as one of the best burgers in Boston. The tricky part to acquiring this burger for your belly is you have to get to Craigie on Main at opening, or even before opening, and hustle to the bar once the award winning restaurant opens. We showed up a little after 5PM for a 5:30 opening. We were third and fourth in line, and by the time 5:30 rolled around and they opened the doors I’d say 15 people were on the sidewalk.
Craigie only serves 18 of their burgers a night. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. It is served medium-rare next to some of the best wedges potatoes I’d had in my life. The burger was massive and we had a great little corner of the bar. The bartender was happy and chatty, the couple to our left was visiting from out of town and were curious about some other places to eat in Boston. The bartender was glad to offer his thoughts (Toro, Shojo, Brewer’s Fork for Pizza, and Monica’s in the North End for their Italian sandwich).
When we were done with the meal, it was still early given our 5:30 dining time, so we decided to walk home from Central Square to Charlestown. The Longfellow Bridge offers one of the best views of Boston (pictured above), so we took that route home and stopped at the Liberty Hotel on the way home as a pit stop.
An ideal end of summer evening, for sure.
Best Watch
Hard Knocks: As the NFL season sneaks up on us next weekend (and the college football season in full swing this Labor Day Weekend), if you have HBO this is always a well done show. This year they’re following the Oakland Raiders training camp. There’s plenty of interesting storylines, and John Gruden doesn’t disappoint. And Antonio Brown is a basket case. Catch up this weekend and be ready for the final episode next week.
Mindhunter: If you’re someone that has been sucked into the vortex of true crime TV shows or podcasts, I highly recommend Mindhunter on Netflix. It’s one of the best things on Netflix because it doesn’t feel like a Netflix show. It’s scary and smart and directed by David Fincher, who has a penchant for 8-10 minute scenes with serial killer interviews, just crushes this entire series. The show follows the development of the behavior science department of the FBI.
Watch it, but make sure you have some sort of “palate cleanser” after so you don’t stay up all night.
Best Read
Phone Addiction: This piece in The Guardian is really well done. This is a topic I am very interested in having worked with children and seen the effect social media and technology has had on how kids treat each other and the comfort they feel in using abhorrent language towards one another. It’s way worse than being called a bedbug, I’ll tell you that much.
Best Listen
Taylor Swifts Lover: I wrote about the album earlier this week. Check it out here…. I scored each song as a “0” or “1.” It’s a solid album.
Best Eat
The Craigie Burger: See Best Activity. A delicious burger, a cool experience. Glad I can check it off the list.
Mexican Street Corn Pizza: Brewers Fork opened in Charlestown a few years ago now. It was the first of a few new spots to eat in our neighborhood. It appears on a lot of best pizza lists, after the bartender at Craigie offered it as a pizza recommendation, I decided to head back for the first time in a while this week. This pizza was delicious.
Shameless Plug(s)
The Random Division is new this week with our thoughts on the latest 18 hours of Bachelor in Paradise that aired this week.
You can follow our Random Division Instagram here. You can email us with BiP observations or requests of other things you’d like us to pod about because we’re heading towards the Bachelor offseason and we’d like to keep up our weekly momentum.
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I wrote about Taylor Swift’s album here… and I wrote about my Strange August Restlessness here.
Have a great Labor Day Weekend!