Moonlighting
Sampling late-night fare after work
At 2:30 in the morning on the outskirts of Chinatown, an old Jaguar convertible pulls out of a parking lot, drives the wrong way down Kneeland Street and crashes hard into the median. The driver stumbles out, looks around, gets back in, and drives off. Most of the city has been asleep for hours. Right now, it's just the vampires and rock stars , and for that crowd it's still dinnertime. So even in the middle of the night, as long as you're within a few blocks in any direction of that bruised Jaguar, you can still sit down to a real meal -- anything you like: Buffalo wings, black and white milk shakes, Korean bulgogi, beef chow foon.
This is not a late-night town. No matter where you are, last call for drinks is at 2 a.m. and then the whole place shuts down. There are no all-night jazz clubs or endless dance parties. Still, between last call and the first light of dawn there's activity. Enough spots in this concentrated area stay open to host the sleepless or revelers looking for pizza, sushi, or eggs and toast.
On a recent rainy Thursday , we set out to see where they are.
The last order of the night -- veal sirloin with polenta and wild mushrooms -- has left the kitchen of Davio's in Park Square at 10:30 p.m. The cooks clean up, change into civilian clothes, and sit down for drinks at the bar. A few minutes later, the chefs from Avila, Davio's sister restaurant, join them. Just before midnight, they all pile into owner Steve DiFillippo's Mercedes SUV for the short trip into Chinatown and Peach Farm restaurant. "Thank God for Chinatown," says DiFillippo. "It's a freakin' service to the city of Boston."
Peach Farm is a basement hole in the wall. It's the chefs' favorite spot for a late-night meal. DiFillippo orders a round of Tsingtao beer. Eric Swartz, one of Davio's executive chefs, disappears into the kitchen to figure out what everybody is going to eat. He is after the weirdest stuff possible, or whatever is not on the regular menu. DiFillippo is getting restless. "Can I get a spring roll?" he asks. "My plate is empty."
The waiter teeters out of the kitchen with a big platter, which he sets down on a lazy Susan. He tells them what he's got: thinly sliced beef tongues, crispy fried pig intestines, jellyfish salad, and webbed duck feet. DiFillippo gasps. "Where do we go from here?" he asks.
Where they go is to frogs' legs with fried garlic in a clay pot, fried whole shrimp with jalapenos and cilantro, and fish ' ' swim-bladder' ' soup. "The maw soup is like an intermezzo, like instead of sorbet," says Avila chef Rodney Murillo.
DiFillippo still wants a spring roll. More food appears: eel with garlic sauce, salted pork ribs and fried squid, steamed bamboo with spinach and abalone, steamed whole tautog, Chinese clams, and then a big plate of beef lo mein. "We always bring something home for the wives," says Swartz.
"Is that it?" asks DiFillippo. The waiter nods. "Thank God," he says. At 1:45 a.m., a bunch of tables are still full, mostly old men and chummy teenagers. Outside, the chefs say goodbye and disappear into the night.
Around the corner, the clubs on Kneeland Street are just letting out. Dreadlocked and hip-hop kids stand on the corner smoking. New York Pizza on Tremont Street is packed. Owner Mohammed Elshnawy says he stays open until 3.
Outside, girlfriends are screaming at boyfriends. College girls in a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee with New York plates pull up and pick up a big take out order. Jay Green, a 26-year - old construction worker from Dorchester , is eating pizza and drinking pink lemonade. He says that his friends left him for some girls. "I'm [going to] go by South Station and see if I can get a cab back to Dorchester."
By 2:30 a.m., people start to scatter. "Is there a party?" someone asks. " Nah, yo, no party," comes the answer. Chinatown is still happening but everything seems more sinister than it did a few hours earlier. At Apollo Grille and Suishaya (Korean-Japanese places), tables are filled with people , some in business suits and some surprisingly glamorous, who have had too much to drink . All are eating sushi, mandu, and Korean barbecue.
Chau Chow City and Peach Farm are still so busy that you can almost picture the sun coming up, the dim sum carts rolling out, and the waiters whirling into another day.
Thursday through Sunday, News Restaurant & Lounge on Kneeland Street is open until 4 a.m. Inside it looks like someone's idea of a bachelor pad: leather sofas, plasma TVs, muscle - head guys, and tanning salon girls with lots of skin and belly- button rings. Dancers from Centerfolds, the high-end Chinatown club, hang out here after work. In their corner it smells like shampoo and tropical tanning oil. The girls are Barbie doll - ish. "We come here three or four nights a week," says Olivia, one of the dancers who won't give her last name. "I like it when it's quiet like this." She is eating a turkey sandwich with fries. "I don't eat the bread," she says. "My personal trainer says I'm not supposed to."
At 4:30 a.m., manager Janeda Testa sits down and digs into a plate of Buffalo fingers and pounds a Red Bull. "I drink this stuff like it's water," she says. Testa will be on duty at News until 6. Her late - night crowd is mostly "bartenders, cooks, guys from the Patriots and the Celtics, celebrities, band managers," she says. "People who have to be up late."
South Street Diner, with its giant neon cup on top of the entrance, is the last place open. At 5 a.m. most of the booths and stools are still full. The crowd consists of eccentric-looking customers scribbling in notebooks, college kids, and tired after-work restaurant and bar people. A group of bartenders and security guards from Avalon, Axis, Embassy, and The Modern are eating French toast and drinking coffee. South Street waitress Samantha Neill says that in the summer she and other staff walk to Boston Common as the sun is coming up and hang out and take naps. "We would see the fresh and clean morning people jogging and stuff," she says. "We were so not fresh and clean."
George Mitchell, a retired mechanic from Newton, sits at the counter eating steak and eggs. The cooks and waitresses give him a hard time. "This guy is here every night, man," says one of the line cooks. "Ask him to tell a joke." Mitchell steps right up. "I took my wife to the dog show and guess what -- she won," he says. Nobody laughs.
By 5:30 a.m., the night owls mix with the early birds. You can tell who's who by showered hair, briefcases, and construction hard hats. It is still dark. Traffic picks up along Commercial Street. Amtrak trains are boarding at South Station. A guy on the Fish Pier hoses down the sidewalks and stares out at the trawlers idling along the docks waiting to unload their catch. Haymarket vendors set up their stands. Suits and construction workers line up at Dunkin Donuts.
Another day. 