A Chowhound In Boston

Today's Boston Globe runs a nice profile of Chowhound's Alpha Dog, Jim Leff, on a holiday trip to the Boston 'burbs (Framingham and Worcester), where he samples more ethnic cuisines than you can shake a stick at: Brazilian, Jamaican, South Indian...

I've been on a couple of restaurant crawls with Jim (though not recently... and, full disclosure, I used to volunteer a few hours a week working on the Chowhound site newsletters) and this article does a pretty accurate job of capturing the Jim Leff Full-Contact Chowhounding Experience:

As a fan of Brazilian food, [Leff is] enraptured by Framingham. ''Cidade maravilhosa -- that's what they call Rio, city of wonder. But that's what I call Framingham."

[Accompanying Chowhounder] Chris, 36, chuckles: ''He's kind of a zealot, but in a good way."

Sure enough, when Leff asks what I think of a baton-shaped, coconut-flavored sweet and I say it's fine but not that interesting, he rushes to correct me. ''Have you given it enough of a chance? Take another bite. Things will start to happen."

I do. Nothing happens. I'm sure it's perfectly made -- not stale or dry -- but does that mean I have to love it? Apparently so. ''Some things hit you over the head with flavor right out of the gate," he says. ''Some things build. This is a builder."

Chris is smiling. ''This is where the word 'zealot' starts to make sense," she says.

Chowing down with the hound - The Boston Globe

Related: Chowhound.com