The OTHERSIDE Cafe, Boston, MA

We had some shopping to do around Newbury St. It was warm and sunny so we said why not try Stephanie's? We made a reservation through Opentable.com. We thought we would beat the crowds. We were wrong.
It turns out Stephanie's on Newbury does not accept reservations for street-side brunch. This was not pointed out anywhere, either on their site or on Opentable. So, we got there, were treated really badly and were told to put our names down the 45-min waiting list. We had been walking around for an hour already, waiting for our reservation time, and so we were in no mood to wait for another hour. For some reason both Diego and I got in a very bad mood, and we both thought the afternoon would be ruined. Then we had an epiphany.

We suddenly remembered there was this cute little place on the other side of Mass Ave. we'd been meaning to take a shot at. We sat at the OTHERSIDE cafe and our day was automatically fixed. It was perfect; outdoor seating, great smoothies and super relaxed customers and servers. It is on "the other side" in

every aspect. Geographically, it is located on Newbury, but across Massachusetts Ave (facing I-90). Style-wise, it has a bohemian feel in contrast to the posh eateries on the lower numerals. The servers were great, with a big smile on their face, super helpful and down-to-earth. Not like the pretentious bunch on the other side, who feel superior just because they can decide when or where you sit. Granted, if what you want is people-watching, maybe this is not the place (well, it depends on the type of people you want to stare at...). But if you want to have a nice brunch with friends, or maybe a cool beer on a summer evening, you should definitely venture to the Otherside.
We both happened to have the banana, orange and strawberry smoothie (made with non-fat yogurt, ice and honey), but the entire smoothie list sounds delicious. Ours was great. The sweetness of the banana and honey placated the acidity of the strawberries and oranges and the texture was perfect.

I went with my usual. The smoked salmon platter. All I have to say is that the bagel was too big for the amount of salmon. And, I wouldn't call it a "platter". It gives you the idea of a lot of food (and they certainly thought so, as it was the more expensive item on the menu), when in reality it was just ok. Other than that, the fish tasted fresh and the bagels were ok.
Diego had the real treat. A mushroom, bacon and brie omelet. They have an open kitchen and you can actually see the hippie looking servers cook your omelet. It was really enticing; I didn't try it but I was dying to do so! It came with homefries -which I did try. They were ok.

We were so relaxed and the atmosphere was so pleasant that we ended up staying long after we were done with our meal. They even have WiFi available and we were able to surf the Web for a bit. Time seems to fly at the Otherside!

People at the the Otherside really came thru for us last weekend after that failed attempt at Stephanie's. We will definitely be back to repay our debt...