I went out with Sharon and her friends Julie and Dean this past Friday and had an excellent time. We met up at Latino Restaurant on Centre street to eat at a place that was found on Yelp. The place was packed with people mostly locals I suspect and everything was in spanish. The waitress we had helped us out but it was touch and go for awhile. The good news is they have much of the food already prepared and you can see what it is you are ordering.
I had a steak combination plate that came with a steak, Salad rice and beans all for 10.50 which was pretty reasonable. Yelp said it got crowded which it did, and that the food was inexpensive which it was. The crowd was a bit loud but most were guys unwinding over Carona’s after a long work week.
If you can get past the noise you well receive a good dinner value with plenty of food. You can see Yelp reviews @ http://www.yelp.com/biz/latino-restaurant-jamaica-plain .
After we finished all our food we were all off to the Milky way bar and lounge. This is a old school basement bar also on Centre street with a very nice bar, pool tables, food live music and 10 lanes of yes Candlepin bowling. There was also an ethiopian band featured on this night and there was an 8.00 cover. We had a few wines at the bar after putting our names in for bowling.
We listened to a few warm up bands both were rather bad but thats ok, it was still live music. Dean said the first band was the equivalent of musical sominex or something like that. They all seemed stoned but then I was drinking wine so who knows.
Midway through the second band, a large group of people dressed in S shirts. The Bowling buzzer interrupted our listening of music and we went off to bowl Candle pins for about an hour. I had to relearn scoring Candle Pins ( I grew up on big balls) but Dean had an idea and He Sharon and Julie all did our best to have fun and not hurt ourselves or others surrounding us.
We were finishing up our one game when the Ethiopian band went on. And we danced to their funky Ska-esque beat. The band had a singer, trombone, C flat sousaphone, accordion and guitarist I think. The place was packed around the stage and everyone was grooving.
We left around 12:30am I think and headed out into the cold for home. It was the first time I had been up in JP in a long time and it was definitely worth the trip. Thanks to Julie and Dean for inviting Sharon and I. For more on Milky way lounge see their website at http://www.milkywayjp.com.
I hope to get the name of the Ethiopian band later today.
The Bensleygram 