While in Boston, we were told the sad tale of a place called the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain. Apparently the Milky Way had taken moved into JP in worse times and brought good food, a fun bar and even a bowling alley. The Milky Way paved the way for JP to become a desirable place to live again. Then, an evil landlord decided to raise the rent, essentially pushing the Milky Way out. It didn’t take long for the Milky Way to find a new location, but instant karma hit the landlord, who has since been unable to fill the void left by the Milky Way.

So off we went to try the new place out. The new Milky Way is divided into a restaurant known as Bella Luna and a lounge area called Milky Way. We stuck to Bella Luna, which had a pretty cool and classy astronomical design, for some dinner.

The menu was mostly Italian, with some other random food types thrown in. I decided to get The Goodridge, a pizza with meatballs, parmesan and roasted garlic. It was a great choice. The pizza was nice and greasy, without being dominated by any one ingredient. The only possible complaint I could have had was that I would have liked more meatballs, but that was minor for a pizza that already tasted so good.

It looks like Bela Luna and the Milky Way have rebounded nicely into their new location and it makes the food taste even better knowing the old location sits abandoned with no rent money going to the evil landlord.

While waiting for a tour of the Sam Adams brewery in the Jamaica Plain are of Boston, we took a short walk to Ula Cafe to grab lunch. Both the brewery and Ula Cafe are located in a strange complex that formerly housed some other, now-defunct brewery.

That brewery’s loss was my gain, for as I perused the menu on the wall of Ula Cafe, I came across a sandwich of dreams. No, this wasn’t some meat-filled cardiac-arresting behemoth, but it seemed to good to be true. The name was Roast Turkey, but that didn’t begin to tell the tale of what would lie beneath the slices of bread. This sandwich was composed of turkey, guacamole, bacon and provolone. Not a vegetable in sight. I had to ask the woman at the counter just to be sure that my eyes didn’t deceive me. She told me it came as noted on the menu, with nary a tomato or lettuce leaf thrown in. I ordered it immediately.

Then came the hard part.

Ula Cafe was apparently the type of place that people came with their laptops to camp out for the entire day. This is all good and well in a lot of places, but Ula didn’t exactly have a surplus of seating area. For the next ten minutes, we stood uncomfortably next to people that seemed like they would be leaving soon. It made things pretty awkward, until finally a space opened and we could sit down for a couple minutes before our food arrived.

Upon arrival, my sandwich was just as it had been described on the menu. The turkey was juicy and the bacon crunchy. It felt great to order a sandwich as-is and have it come out perfect. For this reason, Ula Cafe would be a great choice for anyone looking for a good unvegan lunch in Boston, whether they are checking out the Sam Adams brewery or not.