Food: Goodbye to Boston favorites

The food column will forgive you if you have to wipe an errant tear from your cheek. After all, it's the last week of classes, then finals, and then all of a sudden, you're done. The chapter on another school year will be closed, not to be reopened until next September.

But what about guys like your friendly neighborhood food columnist? In less than a month, it'll all be over: graduation. The crème brulée will have been finished. The digestif will have been drunk. The check will have arrived.

Sure, the food column will miss its friends, and all the good times we had at Boston College. The food column will miss things like sleeping until noon and not being labeled a slacker, or going out to the bars on a Wednesday night. Or a Tuesday night, for that matter.

However, comma, who are we kidding? It's the food that will always have a special place in this lonely columnist's heart. So, in honor of the last digestive dissertation of the year, here's a top five list of the things the food column will miss about the BC experience.

5) Harpoon IPA on tap. It'll be like going into battle without my wingman. At almost every bar I've been to (you'll forgive the food column for dropping the third person antics. It's getting a little ridiculous), Harpoon IPA has been my go-to choice. It's my all-time favorite beer, and the plain truth is, it's not nearly as common in Jersey bars as it is in Boston. This loss is going to hit me pretty hard, I can tell.

4) The chowder. I know it may sound clichéd and unoriginal, but can you go anywhere in America where a soup is taken so seriously by so many people? I'll tell you this: In Manhattan, Manhattan clam chowder is a joke. Now, allow me to take this time to give a shout-out to another Boston institution, Modern Pastry, which consistently has better cannolis than Mike's. Yeah, I said it.

3) Roggie's nachos. Maybe I can get nachos anywhere. They're not hard to make. Just a few simple ingredients, slapped together and melted. Here's one ingredient that will be hard to reproduce, though: $6 drafts under my belt, and the company of great friends, in the middle of the day. OK, that may have been three ingredients, but the point is clear. Roggie's nachos aren't about nachos. They're about the experience.

2) Late Night. We're getting into tear-jerker territory here. Late Night is the friend that you can always count on, as long as you're not trying to count on him after midnight on weekdays and after 2 a.m. on the weekend. There are old standbys, like the buffalo chicken wrap, and new favorites, like cheese fries. If sitting down and dipping a chicken finger into that delicious honey mustard sauce doesn't elicit a Proustian remembrance of great times, well, then I feel bad for you.

1) Anna's Taqueria. What can I say about Anna's that hasn't already been said about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, and Doug Flutie? Truly great. Transcendent, even. A super burrito from Anna's is a lot like Voltron. It brings together a collection of relatively simple elements, none too powerful on their own, and turns them into an unstoppable robot fighting machine. Or a delicious burrito. I consider myself a relatively strong person, of rugged constitution, but I can envision myself breaking down into childish weeping the first time I realize that Anna's isn't a short train ride away. I'll say this, in keeping with our Jesuit-Catholic traditions: My taste buds tell me that the holy influence of Divine Providence is made manifest in a super burrito from Anna's.

Thanks for reading, guys. Keep eating, and keep smiling.

Tim Czerwienski is a staff columnist for The Heights. He welcomes comments at czerwienskit@bcheights.com.