🤫🏙️ You don’t know this side of Boston

It’s Tuesday, Boston.

🐈‍⬛ If you’ve been wanting to adopt a furbaby, this is your sign: MSPCA-Angell adoption centers are waiving adoption fees on about 40 black cats, plus older kitties and cats with special needs between now and Oct. 4. Just look at these cuties!

👀 What’s on tap today:

• The Red Line is SO back

• A bump in the road for speed humps

• ISO: The perfect crab rangoon

Up first…

THINGS TO DO

A not-so-typical guide to Boston

When you’re looking for things to do recommendations, asking locals > Google. But what if those locals were … your fave celebrities? 

Thanks to Apple Maps’ “Hyperlocal” series, we can now get hyper-specific, off-the-beaten-path New England recs from the likes of Noah Kahan, Cousin Stizz, Brad Leone, and Elin Hilderbrand. 

So we took a peek into Dorchester-native rapper Cousin Stizz’s Boston list … and spoiler, it’s better than most travel guide’s we’ve seen.

Here are some of his picks: 

🍔 For a burger and fries (named after him!), he loves Dorchester’s BRED Gourmet. This small, low-key burger bar prioritizes fresh ingredients while serving up comfort food classics — including the “official” Cousin Stizz fries (which look beyond). And don’t just take his word for it, the Globe also included BRED on its “Best of the Best” burgers roundup this year.

🥪 Dino’s Cafe in the North End is his sub shop. This neighborhood joint has all the classic Italian vibes minus the stuffy restaurant energy. Stizz highly recommends the steak bomb sandwich, which is also … the only thing he’s tried. “All my peoples tell me everything else is fire too, but I like the steak and cheese so much I get it every trip,” he said.  

🥘 He’s an OG stan of Dorchester’s JP Roti Shop. The praise Stizz has for this Trinidadian spot might be the highest on his list. He’s been going for the “10/10” roti since they were operating “in a backyard” when it was “tough to get your order within an hour.” Thankfully, service is now indoors, not to mention quick and reliable, and the good reviews keep rolling in.

🛹 For skating gear (or new kicks), Stizz likes Orchard Skate Shop in the North End. It’s “the best skate shop in all of Boston,” he said. If you’re cool enough to be an actual skater (we wish), they have “all the supplies.” But if you prefer to just dress like a skater (more our speed), they also have a truly sick assortment of clothes, shoes, and accessories.

🌳 When he wants to clear his head, he goes to the Muddy River dock in the Fenway. We personally co-sign Stizz’s Muddy River dock rec for a spot to read or a cute take-out picnic. But in his case, the dock is “a dreamer’s paradise,” where he went to brainstorm his own big dreams. “If you wanna go look up at the sky and see the city from a different angle, go there.”

📝 Still need more recs? You can find the rest of Cousin Stizz’s local list here, along with Noah Kahan’s list (which includes a Vermont Buffalo Wild Wings …), plus some other celebs’ takes on New England.

TOGETHER WITH ZOO NEW ENGLAND 

Lions and panthers as lanterns — oh my!

🏮✨Experience the Franklin Park Zoo in a new light this fall with Boston Lights, a dazzling lantern display that transforms the zoo into an Insta-worthy wonderland. Explore colorful scenes every night through Nov. 3. Whether you’re planning a memorable date, family outing, or evening hang with friends, get your tickets now with plan-ahead pricing (and if you’re a student, don’t miss College Night specials on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). 

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🚇 The Red Line is SO back. Our jokes about T slow zones may be numbered: The Braintree branch’s month-long closure was a total success. One official described the branch as a “brand new railroad,” with almost 18,000 railroad ties replaced and over 35 slow zones nixed. Plus, they also laid the groundwork to increase top speeds on parts of the branch from 40 to 50 mph. With only five slow zones remaining as of Monday, the ENTIRE Red Line should be slow-zone free by the end of November, assuming all other track work goes to plan. Slay!

🚗 Boston’s new speed humps are hitting a bump in the road. At least with some residents. The city’s plan to install at least 500 speed humps each year is humming along. But some residents who live on streets notorious for speeding complain there isn’t a place to give feedback on which streets get prioritized. For context: The city exclusively uses data to decide where the humps go, arguing that community feedback would slow the project’s pace, ending in fewer speed humps.

🤫 Free speech on some local campuses isn’t feeling very … free. Local college administrators don’t want a repeat of last semester's pro-Palestinian encampments, and they might just be treading on free speech and expression to shut down protests. Some new (or newly enforced) rules at local colleges include restricting chalking, flyers, camping, and in some cases, literally any “expressive” activity during certain times. While the tough enforcement has been a relief to some worried about Jewish safety, many others are worried about how far these rules go to limit free speech and expression.

✈️ You have t-minus two days to book a European vacation. Well, if you want a $99 flight, anyway. The low-cost airline PLAY is currently running a sale now through Oct. 3 where travelers can get a $99 flight as part of a round-trip booking for trips taken between Boston and Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Reykjavik, Liverpool, London, and Paris between this October and March 2025. Bonus: If you sign up for PLAY’s newsletter, you’ll be entered to win a free trip to see the Northern Lights in Iceland. Just promise you won’t love it more than us.

QUICK QUESTION

🤔 What’s your take on some colleges’ new rules about student protests?

GIVEAWAY

Together with Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition

Enter to win two any-day tickets to Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at The Saunders Castle at Park Plaza. To enter, just refer a friend and have them accept your invite by the end of the day on Oct. 1. If you have already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're eligible! Click here to enter the giveaway and for full details. 

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

ONE LAST THING

ISO: The perfect crab rangoon

You might think a truly bad crab rangoon is hard to come by. And we would probably agree. But as Boston.com’s Katelyn Umholtz wrote, there’s also a difference between a good crab rangoon and a truly first-rate one. 

And one Camberville resident is hunting for that elusive first-rate crab rangoon. They’re gathering a list of community suggestions for crab rangoons and will allegedly attempt to try them all in one day as a food crawl, or as one commenter called it, a crab walk. 

It’s still unclear whether the poster is still taking suggestions/will be actually crab walking soon, so if you have crab rangoon recs to add, you can likely still drop them here, or just get some rangoon inspo.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🦀 Thanks for reading! I know this is a hot take, but I’d personally rather have an under-filled crab rangoon than an overfilled one. Roast me over email, I dare you.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, Zoo New England, for supporting local journalism and adding a little more color and light to our city. 

😎 The results are in: 40% of B-Siders agree that Somerville is, in fact, the coolest. But we have to shout out the small but mighty coalitions for Watertown and specifically JP who made their voices heard in the write-ins. One reader, who definitely did not agree with the masses, said: “It’s not shipping up to Somerville. Be serious.”

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