The remainder of my Yelp Boston pieces

Around the time I was graduating from Emerson, I was lucky enough to talk my way into an opportunity with Yelp Boston, where I’d interview and produce multimedia profiles of some of Boston’s most unsung heroes: the folks behind some of the city’s best businesses. These subsequent profiles were posted to the international Yelp Blog, showcasing some of the city’s proudest institutions and the creative minds responsible for them to the greater world. Below you’ll find some of them. You can find the rest of them in a previous post, which you can easily access here. Plan a trip to Boston. I just went back and these places still hold up.

1. Mei Mei is double awesome

One of Boston’s most iconic food trucks-turned-brick-and-mortar stories, Mei Mei is the brainchild of three siblings, who’d describe their cuisine as being “like Chinese food with cheese”. Their food is increasingly representative of how Americans eat today, from the convenience of the form to the mashup of influences and ingredients, to the social responsibility they feel when sourcing. A read to remember what there is to love about food and eating, when everything seems to be for camera consumption.

2. EHChocolatier Has Rochers For Days

Most people have heard about Taza Chocolate by now, but what if I told you that upstairs from Taza’s bean to bar facility in Somerville lived the workshop of some of the finest chocolatiers in the country? Neither came from a food background, but through their passion and dedication to the craft, the two ladies behind EHChocolatier have risen up the ranks to recognitions from publications like the New York Times and Food & Wine. Here’s their story.

3. GrandTen Distilling Punches With Fire

Schlepping out to Southie to cover a spirits distillery wasn’t the piece I was most excited for, to be candid, as I was not, and still am not, a particularly avid spirits drinker. Especially not around noon, when I was conducting this interview. But it’s precisely because of that, and how well the piece turned out to my mind, that I’m especially lastingly proud of this one. Like the others, it’s a story of entrepreneurship, passion, and craftsmanship, but this one is a truly Boston born story: concocted in a dorm room, turned into an MBA project, and launched in one of the city’s most iconic neighborhoods.

4. One Barber in a Tribe

Y’all know Van by this point if you’ve poked around many other places on this site. He’s awesome. I get my hair cut (and my worldview realigned) by him every time I’m back in Boston. He never disappoints.

5. Urban Grape Wrote The Book On Wine

Urban Grape ended up being my final published piece for Yelp, but I left there with a fantastic story and a budding appreciation for wine that’s only grown since but that I can absolutely trace back to this shop and its easy to understand display system. There are lots of great liquor and bottle shops in Boston, but Urban Grape may be the most effortlessly educational. And isn’t that what you want when you’re a few sample pours deep?