Faithful First Printer – Cambridge

I like First Printer, but I object to its name. The website marks it as the former site of the first printer in America, but thanks to the ambiguous name, I passed it by for months thinking it was a bookstore. Further research reveals that America’s first printer was a man by the name of Stephen Daye. Deskjet is a terrible name for a restaurant, so I’d call it Daye’s Inn…and pass it by for years thinking it’s a hotel.

We started our meal at this historically reliable establishment with a good ole order of Hush Puppies of the Day. I’m not sure how these relate to the printing industry, but each dense, fried, golden-brown mouthful of tender crab and flaky cod is an exact, awesome duplicate of the one before.

The best thing about a printer is the consistency. As long as you have ink, every printout is as consistently accurate as the original. The thing is, consistency is rarely noticed until it’s no longer there, and that’s how I noticed the Shrimp & Grits. The grits were pretty perfect, but merely topping grits with shrimp does NOT make shrimp & grits. Bring that dish down south, and you’ll be as popular as evolution.

I wasn’t impressed by the southern cuisine, but the French Onion Bison Burger was like upgrading from a basic printer to laser. Any printer can spit out the black-and-white copies of hush puppies and grits, but this meaty French onion soup is photo quality all the way. A thick, gamier version of the classic burger, the gravy and gruyere soak into the bun, which quickly becomes a toasted bread bowl. The French onion has all the sophistication of a lady, but the bison puts a little hair on your chest.

The bison burger was awesome, but every meal improves with a good drink to wash it down. The Godfather is an ideal mix of scotch and amaretto for a man with a burger (or a girl with a burger who drinks like a man…), and the hard cider is a sweet choice for festive fall.

When you go to Kinko’s, you pay a little more than you want to for a consistent print job that will faithfully produce those flyers for your bake sale. When you go to First Printer, you pay a little more than you want to for a solid high-end meal that will faithfully fill your belly by the end of the night. The thing is, no one is ever excited about a trip to Kinko’s, and First Printer was more like a culinary errand. The menu is as diverse as America itself; a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Yet it dabbles but does not invest. There are southern dishes interspersed among the dishes that look like they were fished fresh from the harbor. But everything’s been done and I see no inspiration or thought. The menu looks like it’s trying to marry north and south, but even that’s been done. Go see Lincoln in theatres if you don’t know what I’m talking about.