What are your favorite restaurants in Cambridge?

What are the best restaurants in Cambridge/Boston area?

• I will be in Cambridge in a couple weeks for one night. I'm looking for the best restaurant in the Kendall Square area. I'm trying to limit it to $75 (I'll be dining alone).

• Answer:

  Oh, are you in luck!!! Lots of Boston people will recommend different places, especially fish or Italian or other specific places but I always tell people who are looking for the best Boston and Cambridge restaurants to go Portuguese. There is no Portuguese restaurant in the Kendall Square area (or for that matter, from our experience anywhere in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, home to the USA's largest concentration of heritage Portuguese) - that does not combine absolutely great food at relatively inexpensive prices, wonderful ambiance, incredible wine lists at ridiculously low prices! Just up the street from Kendall Square is the Atasca (50 Hampshire Street - a bit pricier than most) but most of them are concentrated along Cambridge Street, about a 10-15 minute walk. Of these our favorites are Casa Portugal and ESPECIALLY The Sunset Cafe. You can have at the Sunset a more than filling fantastic cloth tablecloth slow-food meal, with enough left over to doggie bag back to your hotel, just by ordering the mussels appetizer and a crisp half bottle of vinho verde because a wonderful variety of breads and pickled olives and vegetables are served on the house, and there is at least a pound of mussels simmered in a hearty herbed tomato broth that itself is equal to a double-sized luncheon serving of soup. The total cost? About $ 15, including the wine! (I remember when it was less than $ 10!). Unfortunately, other than a Brazilian BBQ (the Midwest Grill - very popular) there are no restaurants in the area serving cuisines from the Portuguese-speaking ex-colonies, but if you have a chance or rental car you might consider what I feel is currently the most outstanding fine restaurant value and experience in Boston/Cambridge: Restaurant Laura, which is Portuguese/Cape Verdean, located near the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Columbia Road in Boston's Dorchester section. If you are a member of any of the RewardsNetwork dining clubs (which include almost all the restaurant clubs associated with airlines) it is currently a participant. When last I looked it was the only restaurant I had ever noted at the restaurant clubs' website rated by diners at 5.0 - the absolutely perfect score given by every Club diner that cared to rate it! (I would not go that far - I'd call it a 4.7 or 4.8, but even that score is extraordinary).