Restaurant Reviews & Harvard is big...

...but maybe it just seems that way because of all the buildings being so close together.

We walked around the campus of Harvard tonight. There are some pretty big, old buildings there. The main library looks massive. Turns out the Harvard library system is a collection of 90 different libraries altogether. The main library, even though it looks massive, is half the square footage of the BYU library. (A large chunk of the BYU library is underground.)

There are plenty of big buildings there, and it sounds like Harvard is going to expand soon, but it sure looks big. Their science building is massive. When I got back to the hotel, and found out their total enrollment is something like 20,000 students, I was pretty surprised. Harvard has a long history and lots of famous alumni. It presents itself as large, maybe larger than it really is. It was an interesting campus, looks like they have an old cathedral as a concert hall now. It was certainly a different layout and environment than BYU presents, BYU has tons more open space and is spread a lot more than Harvard.

It was definitely interesting to walk around.

We needed to walk around for a bit after going to Fire and Ice, just a block away from the main Harvard campus. The only way I can describe it is as an "all you can eat fusion Mongolian grill". They have a giant Mongolian grill, with three guys manning the cooking on it, and all kinds of food for you to choose from to cook up. I had a plate with catfish, shrimp, pepperocini, jalapeño peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, and yellow squash with a spicy sauce. Then I had a big hamburger with eggplant, potatoes, jalapeños, mushrooms, bell peppers, and I think a few other things on it. It was a big burger. Then I had something like spaghetti and meatballs, but kind of carried away. (I ate a little too much.) Lots of options, lots of possible combinations. It was certainly good food.

This afternoon for lunch, the conference was offering one step up from vending machine hoagies. We figured we could do better, and hopped on the subway to the North end to find some random restaurant to eat at. This has some inherent risks associated with it, going to some hole in the wall you have never heard of. In our case today, the risk paid off. We found ourselves at a little sandwich shop called Mangia Mangia. I think I could find it again if pressed to it.

Anyhow, I had an Italian sub, which was plenty tasty. The subs that Jess and John got also looked plenty tasty. The place was packed the entire time we where there, and it had a definite Italian-American feel to it. Kind of a fun lunch. At one point, some teenaged kid was being talked to by an older lady, the lady was asking about his family, that sort of thing. At the end, just before the kid left, he said "And remember - I'm not Anthony, Michael, Eddy, or John - I'm Kenny." I thought this was hilarious for some reason. Maybe a touch of 'little brother syndrome' or something.

The place only seats 36 people, it's run by a middle aged Italian man, and had a little old Italian man in the back working. Definitely had some charm. Definitely had good sandwiches. I thought about mine all afternoon..