🤑🍽️ It’s a good day to be a cheap date

🏃 Race ya from BC to Park Street?? Enter: The Charlie Card Challenge. A.k.a. the annual (unofficial) ~6-mile race to see whether you can beat the T. Sign up here!

🦪 We can’t shucking wait for this. Enter: Our next B-Side Supper Club at Margeaux Supper Parlour! This one comes with a hands-on oyster shucking class (!) with wine pairings. Plus, the usual intimate dinner with fellow B-Side Members.

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Two weeks. ~200 restaurants. TONS of good deals. Dine Out Boston is BACK from Aug. 1-15, where you’ll have your choice of prix fixes all around the city — $27-$36 for lunch; $38-$55 for dinner — plus some add-ons if you want something a little *extra*. 

But not all Dine Out deals are created equally … So here are the places we actually think are worth a bite:

🥒 Need some greens? Fallow Kin is THE spot. A.k.a. the best new restaurant according to Boston mag. This Dine Out newb lets you pick four ~fancy~ plates for $55. Think: Fennel hearts with a miso-garlicky sauce, pork belly with a rhubarb salsa, and tomatoey gemelli with eggplant and summer squash *chef’s kiss*.

🍔 Want one of the Boston’s best burgers? Run to Hojoko. This was one of Globe reporter Alexa Gagosz’s fav post-shift spots back in her bartending days. Good food, a high-energy vibe, and a soundtrack that makes you want to jam out. This year’s $46 Dine Out menu looks particularly tasty, with Brussels sprouts in Karashi mustard-soy vinaigrette, and stir-fried noodles with mushrooms, pea shoots, and ao nori. 

🤑 Can’t justify a $195 tasting menu? Now’s your opening at Bistro du Midi. Enter: Their $55 prix fixe dinner with dishes like beet gnocchi with pine nuts and goat cheese, pan-roasted hake with pattypan squash; and desserts like a flourless chocolate sponge cake with caramel ice cream. An extra $25 to upgrade your starter to some foie gras? Alexa says: Yes, please.

🍚 Craving a comfort meal? Get a table at Sumiao. While this Michelin Bib Gourmand also has a $46 dinner option, we’d instead opt for the $32 lunch, which comes with soup, an app, an entree, AND an N/A bev. The five-spiced braised beef is calling our name ... 

🍄‍🟫 Feeling Italian? Bar Volpe’s your girl. Mushroom chickpea fritters?? Say less. But if we had to decide on this $55 dinner deal, we wouldn’t think twice about this Michelin-approved spot’s farro arancini and the truffled rotisserie chicken. Then with the tiramisu finale … you’ll have to roll us home, for sure.

😛 More in a tapas mood? Book a res at Estragon. For just $38, you’ve got *lots* of options here for three plates and dessert. Pro tip: Opt for plates like the beef meatballs or lamb and sofrito empanadas to get the most bang for your buck. Bonus: You can also get a $39 wine bottle for the table.

🍸 Pour it out at Mecha Noodle Bar. Their $38 dinner deal comes with the Lotus Flower Bomb, a citrusy shochu and wine cocktail, or a pineapple-ginger mocktail. Use it to wash down the KFC bao buns, spicy beef ramen, and banana pudding. 

😋 Not full yet? See the whole Dine Out list.

✈️ Logan’s remote terminal is changing the TSA game. ICYMI: Massport recently launched a first-of-its-kind remote terminal in Framingham to help reduce airport traffic, and it’s apparently working really well (they just hit 10K users!). It’s working so well, in fact, it’ll continue to operate through at least March 2027, hopefully extending hours, trips, and airlines. Massport also plans to start creating another remote terminal in Braintree this fall and is trying to get one at Hynes Convention Center. 

🚗 Think twice before you floor it. ‘Cause Mass. might see a whole lotta speed cams soon. With the spotlight on street safety and collisions, state senators just passed a big bill that includes a policy to allow speed cameras in areas like school zones and highway construction sites. Ex: If you’re >11 mph over the limit, you’d be hit with a fine between $25-$100. Note: To avoid privacy invasions and disproportionate impacts on communities of color, this measure wouldn’t take front photos of drivers, and bans facial recognition. 

🎰 Now arriving: Online lotto games. Now, anyone 21+ can play games like Mega Millions, Powerball, and slot-esque machines online or in the Mass. lottery app. (Keno is still only available in-person at retail locations.) The protections in place? Multifactor authentication, session timers, play limits, cool-off period options, and more for responsible gambling. One green flag: Profits will actually go back to the state to support an early childhood education and care program. 

🪦 RIP to our fave burrito bowls … and bar. After ~30 years, the last remaining Boloco on Congress Street is shutting its doors on Sept. 25 — its building was just sold, with plans to convert the space into a residential building (our desk mate Sandra is devastated…). And another ~30-year institution, Hennessy’s — yes, that college bar you used to stumble through — just closed on Tuesday. The bar petitioned to give its liquor license to Bar 23, a.k.a. Grill 23’s smaller sister restaurant that will open in Seaport next year.

Was that Kelsey and Jo-Ellen outside Deluca’s??? Yup, your eyes are not deceiving you — “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island” cast members were spotted filming on Newbury Street on Tuesday. 

We guess they're already hitting the ground running on season two, just a month out of the season one finale. And FYI, it looks like Victoria Baker-Harber may not actually be moving forward with season two since she was not present for this Newbury Street outing … Tea!

And this won’t be the last time we’ll have celeb sightings in Boston: The Fan Expo is coming to town next weekend, Aug. 7-9, ft. stars like Chris Evans, Mel Gibson, Orlando Bloom, and even some faces from “Twilight” (hello, Alice and Jasper!).

— Written by Kelly Chan, Emily Schario, and Alexa Gagosz

🎥 Thanks for reading! Stars, they’re just like us (gossiping with our besties on Newbury).

🧽 The results are in: 33% of B-Siders are lovin’ the Red Sox Spongebob Squarepants bucket hat. But one reader told us their own giveaway chronicles: “Last week the hot dog fanny pack game got rained out and rescheduled for 1:35 the next day, at which time I did send my remote-working fiance to collect my hot dog fanny pack on my behalf.” That’s what we call a keeper. <3

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