Royal Roast Beef

One thing that you can do at Royal Roast Beef, at 752 Bennington Street in East Boston, is sit inside during a snow storm. We were at our favorite beef joint on the afternoon of New Year's Eve with the snow swirling outside and enjoying two #2 meals, snug and contented.

You can't do that at Kelly's in Revere.

We overheard a gentleman on his phone, "Hi...I just got my haircut and I'm at Royal....Royal...You know, Royal Roast Beef in Orient Heights, by Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts [some landmarks! ed.]...It's snowing and I'm hungry....I like the chicken fingers here."

While everything on the menu is good and, as the sign says, Royal does offer more than famous roast beef, we were somewhat taken aback by what we overheard. Not wanting to show we had been eavesdropping, we didn't interrupt this gentleman's meal with probing questions. Someone else at an adjoining table was eating a plate overflowing with deep-fried jumbo shrimp. To each his own. Being traditionalists, my companion and I stuck to the beef sandwiches that are worth any Blue Line excursion.

Having finished our meal at 12:24 PM, we crossed Bennington Street to enjoy the snow drifts and direct assault of seaborne, icy wind at Constitution Beach. It was nice to get on board a heated Blue Line train at Orient Heights to ride back to Dorchester (after a few transfers), full as ticks and warm as bugs in a rug.



Postscript: Just as GM and Chrysler will undoubtably finish thier restructuring on time and under budget, Whalehead King did likewise this week. We thank our readers for thier patience and wish everyone the best of fortune this New Year. Now back to our usual shennanigans. Welcome back and enjoy.