Written by Catzie Vilayphonh: Sometimes the journey to the restaurant is half the adventure of enjoying a great meal. Breakfast at Boston’s Scup’s in the Harbour is exactly that. Tucked away in the cut of East Boston’s harbor, behind a Coast Guard gate, is a little breakfast and lunch joint owned by Wendy Saver and Dave Rockwood.

Named after a dog they rescued in the marina, to get to Scup’s involves walking through a shipyard, which was foreign even to my Bostonian eating partner. When you walk into the restaurant, it feels like being at a friend’s indoor barbeque. The ordering system is really personable. For example you select from the chalkboard menu then stand by a little door opening at the kitchen, where Wendy takes your order while also suggesting other notable additions. There are a handful of breakfast specials to choose from, but the standout items are the BLT Breakfast sandwich and the Millionaire’s Bacon. I especially like Scup’s BLT with a fried egg. Unlike other morning sandwiches that use some form of scrambled patty, Scup’s fries their egg with a semi-runny yolk! Whether sunny-side up or over medium, I have always loved the rich runny yellow that mixes into whatever condiment (in this case, Scup’s homemade smoked tomato ketchup) to make an even more buttery sauce – but having it in a perfectly proportioned sandwich was heaven in my mouth.ut having it in a perfectly proportioned sandwich was heaven in my mouth.

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In our upcoming edition of City Notes Print (coming out soon), we traveled to Amsterdam to interview hip hop duo La Melodia. In our conversation we discuss their sound, history and the city they call home. Recently, they released a fantastic limited edition record on one of our favorite music labels, Record Breakin Music – founded by our resident music writer, Bruce Campbell. So, it’s only natural that we have him pen a few words about the project.

Written by Bruce Campbell: La Melodia consists of female MC Melodee and producer/DJ I.N.T. The duo stand for warm, soulful yet raw hip-hop music from Amsterdam. Their latest gem Chemistry / Working on It is a limited edition vinyl release (remember them). Chemistry is a return to the boom-bap style of hip hop with Melodee talking about relationships that we can all relate to. While Working on It introduces soulful newcomer, Steve Hartley. This instant classic has the perfect vibe that La Melodia is known for. As summer approaches, these songs are fitting – reminiscent of our youth when there wasn’t a care in the world. Click Read More for a sample of their sound and for additional information.

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Written by Elsa Brown: It took 25 days for Mumbai designers The Busride to create their interior for Smoke House Deli, a recently opened eatery in New Dehli, India. The space is now complete with fireplace, framed artwork, bookshelves and even a grandfather clock—yet no bricklaying, hammering or hanging was involved. Instead, each of these elements were hand-illustrated in detail along the restaurant walls. Essentially the entire space is illustrated, excluding 3D necessities like tables, lighting and dishware. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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Written by Elsa Brown: New Songdo City, South Korea is described as a “futuristic master-plan city being built on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land.” As such, it was the ideal spot for European media performance group AntiVJ to install a massive audiovisual event. Their work went up on the facade of a recently constructed building in the seaside city last August. Mesmerizing even on the small scale of a computer screen, it explores the, “importance of technology, the coexistence of the ancient and the new, and the presence of the sea as both a calming and a menacing element.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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Written by Elsa Brown: Walk down the right street in Malmö, Sweden and you will find the motif of repeating brick architecture interrupted by a bright orange block. This perforated cube is the facade and outer shell of the new Moderna Museet contemporary art museum, designed by Tham & Videgard Arkitekter. The museum was installed in a defunct electric factory, and adapting the building to an exhibition space came with a set of strict requirements to meet climate and security standards for storing and displaying art. The architects’ solution was to create, “a building within a building, a contemporary addition within the existing shell.”

The orange extension holds a reception area, cafeteria and new upper gallery. Inside the museum is entirely white, including the floor on the entry level, which has been glazed to catch sunlight screened through the perforated front. View City Note.

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Written by Elsa Brown: Polish artist Nespoon is decorating cities with ceramic street art in lacy patterns, many inspired by old textile finds from flea markets. The mission is simple: “Jewelry makes people look pretty, my public jewelry has the same goal, make public places look better. I would like people who discover here and there my small applications, to smile and just simply feel better.” Nespoon’s blog features photos of work in cities around Poland, and other places in the world, as well as documentation of the artist’s process. Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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Written by Elsa Brown: A noisy room can spoil a meal, and the owners of the Cave Restaurant in Sydney, Australia understand this. They hired Koichi Takada Architects to design a dining room that would keep acoustics low-profile for their patrons, and construction on the project was recently completed. The interior’s ceiling is an undulating cavern of timber planks that resemble the underside of a massive ribcage, but besides just looking cool, the design has been optimized to deliver a dining experience delicious for your ears.

The architects write: “The timber profiles generate a sound studio atmosphere, and a pleasant ‘noise’ of dining conversation, offering a more intimate experience as well as a visually interesting and complex surrounding….The series of acoustic curvatures were tested and developed with computer modeling and each ‘timber grain’ profile has been translated and cut from computer-generated 3-D data, using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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