C P.
Yelp
Passim has some great acoustic and folk acts. I was just there this weekend to see Girlyman--a personal favorite.
If you want a good view of the band, you have to buy a table seat. First of all, the tables seat four, so if you only buy two tickets you'll end up seated with two strangers, who may or may not be enjoyable conversationalists or savory dinner companions. Keep in mind the tables are very very small and you will be playing footsy and bumping knees with these people for a couple of hours. After experiencing several stilted conversations with awkward people, I now buy 4 tickets for a show and force my friends to come with me.
Second, if you spring for the close-to-the-stage tables, that also means you have to spend $$ on the food. I can't remember the minimum, I think it is $5 a person. I guess now with the new alcohol license that isn't so bad, but before it pretty much meant you were required to order dinner from the Veggie Planet menu.
So there you are, as close to people as you are on an airplane but with less aisle room, sitting in a folding chair, and forced to order the gag-worthy food from Veggie Planet.
Let me elaborate on the VP food because there seem to be a lot of crazy people out there that love it. I eat vegetarian often, I cook vegetarian often. This is not good vegetarian food. Here are the things I have tried:
The peanut curry over rice. The curry was grainy and dry, the flavor was strange. The broccoli appeared to have been raw broccoli put on top of the sauce and then microwaved--not steamed or sauteed. So the broccoli was both tough, dry, stringy and had that microwaved-burned flavor. Sure enough, if you walk past the kitchen to get to the bathrooms, you see they have a long row of microwaves in action, each one going strong. In my opinion, good cooking does not happen in a microwave.
I've tried to mac and cheese. It is really, really, really greasy and oily. When the lights come on at Passim, and you can really look at your meal, it is gross...like an oil slick on a plate. It's tasty with a beer though.
The pizzas--I've tried the Safe N' Sound and the portabella/pepper. The bread is good, especially the crust part. But again, the toppings are over-oiled, and they sink quickly into the thin crust leaving the entire "pizza" part of the pizza a soggy, oily, slipper mess. I do appreciate that they use plenty of garlic and fresh basil on the Safe N' Sound but other than that, this is not great pizza. Better pizza, made in a similar thin-crust brick-oven style, can be had across the street at Cambridge 1. (Try their portabella pizza...now that is heaven.) I can say the portions are huge, although if you can eat a whole one of these oil-laden bombs, you might be spending some time in the bathroom later.
The brownie is good but the service is so slow, that several times I have tried to order a brownie sundae and when I FINALLY get the waiter's attention (two waiters serving approx 100 people?!?!) they are out. The ice cream is from Christina's so that is always good. And the raspberry lime rickey is quite good and made with real raspberries.
The music: excellent.
The service/ambience: well, at least you are sitting down.
The food: would never ever eat it if I wasn't there for the music.
That's how much I love Girlyman!