🐀😛 Be an Allston rat for a day

🍣 We have your dinner plans on lock. Brookline’s Maguro is now offering $40 all-you-can-eat sushi on Mondays and Tuesdays, including rolls, apps, sashimi, and nigiri. BOOM.

💡Got a dorm-room startup? Fetch’s Defeat the Odds competition is ready to spotlight the next generation of founders. College students will compete for up to $30,000, gain expert mentorship, and take the stage at The Boston Globe’s Tech Innovation Summit. Submit your application by March 20.

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Hot take: Lower Allston is seriously underrated. Sure, getting there requires a trek across I-90, but with a growing list of small businesses and restaurants, plus that trademark Allston grunge, it’s well worth the trip.

So, to kick off our spring series of budget-friendly neighborhood guides, here’s our perfect day in Lower Allston for under $30:

🥯 Start your day at Park Bagelry (~$6 to ~$9.50). Depending on your choice of shmear, you can get a house-made bagel for around $5, though the salt bagel with maple butter is truly *chef’s kiss*. Feeling spendy? Add a coffee for $3.50.

🌳 And a jaunt through Herter Park. Bonus points if you take your breakfast to-go and eat it on a surprisingly serene dock overlooking the Charles.

🛍️ Hit the Charles River Speedway. A short walk down Western Ave., the Speedway has plenty of fun food and drink vendors to explore. Keep an eye out for the (free!) Brighton Bazaar, which pops up around once a month with dozens of vintage vendors, food trucks, music, and art.

👗 Go on a small business crawl. We’re heading back up Western Ave. and hitting these small businesses along the way:

🍰 Fuel up at Sofra Bakery & Cafe (~$6). End the crawl at this Best of Boston-winning Middle Eastern bakery. You can get a spanakopita, morning bun, or (our pick) a seasonal biscuit, for $6 or less. 

🎨 Tap into Allston’s artsy side. For an evening activity, Zone 3’s events calendar is always popping. This month’s Drinking & Drawing series offers free art-making classes with pizza and drinks. Plus, keep an eye on EXIT Gallery’s Instagram for free drawing and carving clubs with drinks and DJs.

🍕 Grab a slice at FiDO Pizza (~$13). A 10-inch pie at Allston’s trendiest pizza spot will run you $13, but with just a little coordination, you can nab a deal. See: $10 pie and $5 beer at these community nights.

🤑 Total budget: ~$25 or ~$28.50, depending on your order. 

🗺️ Wanna save this itinerary? Here’s a Google Map of this perfect day!

❤️❤️ It may be time to start dropping some hints. Lyrik Back Bay and the late Gaetano Pesce's iconic Double Heart sculpture are teaming up to give one lucky couple a dream proposal experience. We're talking a private time slot beneath the sculpture, a ring consult with Laura Preshong, fresh florals, champagne, a photographer and videographer, a night at citizenM Back Bay, breakfast at George Howell Coffee or Pink Carrot, dinner at Avra Estiatorio, and a custom Double Heart keepsake. 

🚲 Mayor Wu pulled a bike lane Uno reverse. Wu has brought many of her signature road safety projects to a near-standstill with a new policy at City Hall, according to the Globe. After receiving overwhelming backlash against bike lanes last year, Wu started requiring all street projects get her personal stamp of approval, but the change has become a major bottleneck. Since then, current projects, like speed hump installation and major roadway renovations, have been stalled, leaving some advocates wondering if she’s abandoned the cause.

⛈️ Good news for hurricane season? Forecasters are predicting this summer may see a “super El Niño,” which could = a quiet hurricane season for New England. Quick science lesson: El Niño is a natural climate pattern that warms ocean temps in the Equatorial Pacific. Long story short, those temps cause weaker trade winds, making it more difficult for tropical storms to develop in the Atlantic. That said, “could” is the key word: Though El Niño years tend to produce fewer hurricanes, the ones that do hit can still be devastating.

🏘️ The best place to live in Greater Boston … isn’t Boston. Boston magazine’s Top Places to Live in Greater Boston list ranks all the region’s 141 towns and cities based on factors like housing, safety, diversity, and education. Unsurprisingly, bougie areas like Brookline, Newton, and Wellesley came out on top, where the median cost of a single family home is nearly — or north of — $2 million. As for Boston, we came in at 76th with high scores in mobility, diversity, and entertainment, and lows in housing, safety, and education. Here’s the full list.

🤤 Introducing: The Cambridge Recipe Club! Cambridge resident Andrew Little has built a 1,000-person community through his new recipe club. The club launched in September, sending out a new recipe every week focused on local, seasonal ingredients, simple techniques, and quick cook times. Little’s goal isn’t to build community, not clout, which means no cost, no ads, and spreading the word mostly through physical fliers. Starting this month, he’s even incorporating recipes from community members, starting with a chocolate cake from a local pastry chef. You can join here.

🎤 Gather with the gleeks. Glee-lovers can flex their knowledge at this Glee-themed trivia tonight at Dani’s Queer Bar. Winners get a cash prize!

🍵 Try a magically delicious matcha. To celebrate St. Paddy’s Day, George Howell’s Boston Public Market location will be slinging Lucky Charms-flavored matcha on March 17 while supplies last.

😂 Laugh your way through St. Paddy’s Day. This year, trade the bar crawl for a themed night of comedy at the Improv Asylum on March 17. Expect music, mayhem, and a celebration of all things Irish.

🍷 Add some wine to your Wednesday. Friendly reminder that every week, Wednesday = $12 wine flights at Tilde Cafe and Wine Bar, featuring three hand-selected wines. 

📚 Make a dent in your TBR pile. At Boston Figurative Art Center’s BYO(Book) club on March 18, there are no assigned reads. Bring whatever you’re already reading and mingle with fellow book lovers.

🥟 Drown yourself in dumplings. Technically, it’s possible at Mei Mei’s bottomless dumpling night on March 19. $32 will get you all the dumplings you can eat, plus dipping sauce.

📄 Take a trip to Scranton. Test your Dunder Mifflin knowledge at CambridgeSide’s free “The Office”-themed trivia night on March 19.

Like any 150+-year-old school, Boston College has a lot of traditions. But only one of them has racked up over 700,000 likes on TikTok: The Ginger Run.

The Ginger Run is exactly what it sounds like: A foot race for red-headed students, usually on the Friday before St. Patrick’s Day. There are no winners or losers — in fact, most participants are in jeans — and the point is to have fun. Based on this clip, we’d say they’re succeeding.

The run isn’t unique to BC, and only arrived on campus four years ago. But it hasn’t taken long for it to become a beloved tradition. As BC’s student paper put it: “For the runners, the event is more than just cardio — it’s a profound celebration of ginger-hood.” Poetry!

— Written by Gia Orsino

🧑‍🦰 Thanks for reading! Seriously, this may be the happiest group of runners we’ve ever seen. 

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, Lyrik Back Bay, for supporting local journalism and spreading love throughout Boston.

☘️ The results are in: Though 56% of B-Siders say they’d never participate in St. Paddy’s Day tomfoolery, this reader disagrees: “It's the BEST DAY OF THE YeAR how could I not?!” Hope you’re doing OK today!

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].