🤤🚇 The Red Line never tasted this good

It’s Wednesday, Boston.

🚃 The Green Line is a lot of things: Cutesy, screechy, occasionally faulty. But is it … snatched? We’re not so sure, but this TikToker (hilariously) seems to think so. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• State colleges get a glow up

• Mayor Michelle Wu’s got competition

• Last call for typewriters!

Up first…

MBTA FOOD CRAWL

The Red Line’s best eats

What’s better than a slow-zone-free T? A slow-zone-free T food crawl. Duh! If you’ve been following along, you already know we’re on a mission to create curated MBTA food crawls along every line of the T (see: our Blue Line and GLX food crawls). 

We’d like to introduce our latest tour stop: The Red Line’s Braintree branch. 

Here’s what’s worth a trip:

NORTH QUINCY

🍞 Indulge in custardy French toast at Rubato. Just a six-minute walk from the North Quincy T stop separates you from this fast-casual cafe serving Hong Kong comfort food. Rubato’s been buzzing since it opened, making Bon Appetit’s 2023 list of best new restaurants and chef-owner Laurence Louie nabbing a James Beard-semifinalist nod (and an appearance on “Chopped”). The space? Modern with a splash of green. The service? Overwhelmingly helpful and eager to offer a rec. The food? Simply sensational (we would reorder everything). 

👀 Our recs? The crunchy baked bolo bao stuffed with fried chicken and sesame slaw was an innovative riff on a fried chicken sammy, and the curry fishball steamed rice rolls were a chewy umami bomb. But the menu’s pièce de résistance was the lava egg yolk French toast stuffed with custard and laden with condensed milk and cookie crumbs. 12/10. 

WOLLASTON

🍜 Slurp on hand-pulled noodles at Chili Square. Quincy’s food scene is oozing with incredible Asian food, so we kept that train going at Chili Square, a quick, seven-minute walk from the Wollaston T stop. Thick, hand-pulled noodles are the stars of the show at this cash-only, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant. Fun fact: This was one of the most recommended spots we got while crowdsourcing restaurants from Quincy locals.

👀 Our recs? In the spirit of soup season, we’re pro-Lanzhou beef brisket noodle soup or the spicy chicken biang biang noodle soup. But there are plenty of other noodley soups to choose from.

BRAINTREE

🍕 Chow down on authentic South Shore pizza at Bosss Bah. It’d be criminal to go all the way to the South Shore and NOT try a South Shore bar-style pie. Bosss Bah bakes its 10-inch ‘zas in steel pans, giving them crispy bottoms and edges (with no crusts in sight!). And unlike other pizza shops, you won’t find any apps or subs on the menu — just pizza. Thankfully, they’ve got a boatload of fun toppings like Korean chicken and cheeseburger to experiment with.

👀 Our recs? For a classic, go pepperoni. For a specialty pie, go steak bomb. But really, there are no wrong answers.

😋 Eat with your eyes? Watch our full Red Line food crawl featuring an extra, unmentioned spot here.

QUICK QUESTION!

👀 Which line should we try next?

TOGETHER WITH THE GREATER BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Do you know a future leader in the making?

✨Here’s your chance to give their LinkedIn a little boost. The Greater Boston Chamber’s Boston’s Future Leaders program is looking for rising stars (ages 25-50) to join their 2025 cohort. Participants will learn from Harvard Business School faculty, build connections with Boston’s brightest, and level up their leadership game. Nominate your favorite trailblazer by Jan. 31 and help them join a network shaping Boston’s tomorrow — starting today.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

💅 State college campuses might get a $2.5 billion glow up. On Tuesday, Gov. Maura Healey unveiled a plan to fix and decarbonize aging buildings and infrastructure across Mass.’ state college campuses. The proposed improvements will cover everything from (sorely needed) roof and HVAC upkeep to climate-friendly upgrades to constructing new labs and classrooms. To pay for it all, she’ll dip into millionaires tax funds (about $125 million a year over the next decade or so). Now, it’s up to the Legislature to give it a thumbs up.

😮‍💨 President Trump’s executive orders are already seeing local consequences. Spoiler: Mass. is already suing his admin. His EOs ending “birthright citizenship” would impact over 30,000 people in Mass.; stopping new federal leases for wind energy will deal a major blow to Mass.’ climate targets; and his pardon of all Jan. 6 rioters includes three dozen New Englanders. But based on the local lawsuit that’s already popped up — and these fighting words from AG Campbell — he can expect some major pushback.

🗳️ Boston’s next race for mayor just got INTERESTING. Word on the street: Josh Kraft, philanthropist and son of Pats owner-slash-billionaire Robert Kraft, is reportedly running for Mayor of Boston this year. Apparently, now that Councilor Ed Flynn is out, Kraft is in, and he’ll be announcing his candidacy in early February. Boston loves its incumbents, and Mayor Michelle Wu has a laundry list of W’s, so his road won’t be easy, but his strategy is to mobilize the groups that aren’t too happy with Wu, like some developers and anti-White Stadium reno advocates. 

💉 Turns out, Mass. loves its Ozempic. From 2023 to 2024, Mass. residents who qualify as "obese" saw the country’s third-highest spike in GLP-1 usage (think: Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound) despite having one of the lowest obesity rates. Currently, about 7.5% of obese residents in Mass. are on one. Why? Mass. offers really solid insurance coverage of the medications, so many folks who couldn’t afford the $1,200-plus monthly payments are able to swing it here. But as insurance companies have to foot a bigger and bigger bill, it might become harder to get.

GIVEAWAY

Together with Simple Sips

Enter to win a mixer flight of five 16 ounce bottles of our best-selling Simple Sips flavors and three rimming sugars and salts. To enter, just refer a friend and have them accept your invite by the end of the day on Jan. 23. If you have already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're eligible! Full details below*

18+. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Limit one entry per person. See Official Rules & an additional entry option here.

ONE LAST THING

Last call for typewriters!

After 45 years in biz, Cambridge Typewriter is closing up shop. 70-year-old owner Tom Furrier is ready to retire. But despite offering up his beloved company for just $35,000 last year to prospective buyers who have “extensive experience in typewriter repair,” it looks like he’ll be closing up shop for good with his retirement on March 31. 

The good news is that the shop had a great run. It catered to a steady clientele for years, actually managed to increase business during COVID, and even received a gift from Tom Hanks’ personal collection. 

Until then, you can still stop in and get your typewriter fixed. In the final month of business, there will be plenty of sales, plus a “type-in party” to say goodbye.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

💻 Thanks for reading! IDK what a type-in is, but after writing a daily newsletter for over two years, we’re pretty sure we’d crush it.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, for supporting local journalism and empowering the next generation of Boston’s leaders.

🥶 The results are in: 43% of B-Siders say they’ve never cold plunged, and you’ll never catch them trying. But reading this B-Sider’s write-in might change your mind: “Cold plunging in the nude has cleared my skin, raised my confidence, and lit up something (optimism...?) inside me, and I think more people would love it if they tried.” Slay!

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