😵‍💫🍹 This bar is NOT for lightweights

It’s Thursday, Boston.

🍼 Has Boston’s affordability (or, uh, lack of it) affected your decision to have children? The Globe might want to chat with you for an upcoming story! If you’re interested, share your thoughts in this survey.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Harvard v. Trump just got SPICY

• We <3 PP

• The last to cross the line

Up first…

B-SIDE CERTIFIED

This bar is EXTRA dirty

We hope you can hold your liquor. Because for this month’s B-Side Certified, we visited The Extra Dirty Cocktail Club, a new secret bar in the North End’s hottest restaurant serving up inventive cocktail tasting menus.

Here’s what we thought: 

FIRST IMPRESSION

❤️‍🔥 The vibes: Sexy dungeon. Not to be confused with sex dungeon. The speakeasy-style bar is a secret within a secret, tucked behind a velvet curtain in the back of The Red Fox restaurant (whose location is equally discrete). The combo of its intimate 20-person capacity and brick walls give it a cave-like feel that’s dressed up with a flamboyant (or tacky, depending on your taste) mix of animal print carpet, moody tassel lamps, and ornate wallpaper. 

DRINKS (AND SNACKS)

🍸 Imagine a dinner tasting menu … but it’s just cocktails. Within your seating, you’re promised multiple courses of curated sips paired with anywhere from “just a couple bites to a full dinner party” of food. We tried the “Act 1: A Taste of Italy” menu, which, you guessed it, highlighted Italian flavors and culinary traditions. 

🥃 TL;DR: The cocktails are some of the best we’ve had in town. The blood orange-infused spritz was refreshingly zingy; the pomodoro e funghi somehow made mezcal, roasted tomato syrup, and mushroom-infused sherry go together; and the espresso martini tasted like it was concocted by a Brooklyn coffee snob. 

🧀 But the real star of the show? Parmesan foam. The gin-based uva e parmigiano drink with notes of grape and thyme was topped with a milk mustache-inducing layer of parmesan foam (see gif above). Yes, LIKE THE CHEESE. We’re not sure whether it was the salty-sweet combo or its perfectly fluffy texture, but either way, we’re still under its spell. 

🍝 The food took a page out of The Red Fox’s Italian hits. Each course came with a sharable plate on-theme with the Italy vibes. Think: A giant meatball and pesto pasta with burrata. Tasty? Yes. Memorable? … Maybe? After all, you’re really there for the drinks. 

⚠️ LIGHTWEIGHTS BEWARE! From one girl who can’t hang to another: Please eat a full, protein-rich meal before this tasting. While delish, the food pairings are snacks at best. Don’t be like Emily, who found herself three sheets to the wind in The Red Fox’s bathroom telling herself in the mirror to pull it together.

VALUE

😬 The upfront cost is giving “I live in Newton.” A $90 ticket, plus a required 20% gratuity, an order fee, and tax clock in around $230 for two people. Yikes! But the intimacy, exclusivity, overall uniqueness, and attention to detail from the staff are hard to match at any old “special occasion” restaurant IMO. 

✅ The verdict? B-Side Certified. Is it going in our date-night rotation? Not in this economy. However … It’s def a worthy special occasion splurge. You can book your reservation here. Just please remember to eat first … 

QUICK QUESTION!

🥴 How many drinks does it take to make you three sheets to the wind?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🔥 The Harvard/President Trump feud is getting SPICY. The school just filed a lawsuit against the federal government arguing that its decision to freeze $2.2 billion of its federal funding was unconstitutional. ICYMI: Trump’s admin threatened the freeze unless Harvard agreed to a sweeping list of demands to crack down on campus activism (it didn’t). But now, the university is suffering the consequences, including tons of ongoing research being put in jeopardy, which Harvard says is an illogical (also, illegal) punishment considering Trump’s admin says its main concern is eliminating antisemitism. Your move, Trump admin.

🏀 The NBA is giving PP his flowers. The Celtics’ Payton Pritchard (a.k.a. PP) was just named the league’s Sixth Man of the Year — the best non-starting player — cementing his status as one of its rising stars. And we’re not just talking about his LEGENDARY 50-foot buzzer-beaters. Pritchard is an all-around sharp-shooter: In his fifth NBA season, he scored 1,079 points off the bench, the most in the league, and he’s ranked fifth among all NBA players in three-pointers. Now let’s hope he lives up to the title this postseason.

🌎 Boston’s urban hiking scene just got 100% better. The Walking City Trail officially has a new sibling just in time for Earth Day. Meet: The City on the Hills Trail. It's a legit 31-mile walking trail split into 6-ish mile segments that weaves its way through Boston, from West Roxbury to Southie, hitting little-known wetlands, reservoirs, parks, and beaches. Check it out. While we’re talking Earth Day, we should also mention CargoB’s two new stations in Allston and Arlington (that’s the country’s first cargo e-bike share, BTW — which we tried!).

🍝 Does Boston *need* more Italian food? Who cares! Because we’re getting it. Florence’s mega viral sandwich shop All’Antico Vinaio appears to be opening a Copley outpost sometime this year. Think: homemade bread, piles of meat. In other Italian food news, this week marked the opening of Bertucci’s Pronto on Tremont Street, a new fast-casual Bertucci’s concept made for city living. On the menu: Slices, pies, salads, and sandwiches, plus a few breakfast options (including bacon, egg, and cheese pizza??).

ONE LAST THING

The last to cross the line

You hear a lot about the first folks to cross the Boston Marathon finish line … But what about the last? 

This year, the B.A.A. instituted a new 5:30 p.m. cutoff time for runners. Meaning, if a runner doesn’t cross the line by then, they don’t get an official finishing time (though they do get a medal). After over six hours of running, Boston native Rayna Burke was the very last runner to finish before the cutoff this year, at 5:29 p.m.

Burke told Runner’s World that she didn’t expect to cut her race that close, but once she realized the cutoff was closing in, getting an official time became her goal. As for why her race took longer than expected: She was having too much fun. “I was high-fiving every single cute kid. I had probably five run clubs I stopped to say hi to,” Burke said.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🤸  Thanks for reading! Chalk this up to the first time anyone’s missed their marathon goal time because things were going TOO well. 

📦 The results are in: 49% of B-Siders say they’re not doing a 9/1 move in this year, but they have before, and MANY of you wrote in to encourage folks to get on a non-9/1 move-in cycle. One reader said: “6/1 leases are the only reason I survive in this city.”

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