Recently, Ted Lord schooled Murmur readers on key Jamaica Plain food selections. It's true that Jamaica Plain has some not inconsequential food power. But Ted, my friend, Cambridge is the place for true TFS. You know: a TOTAL FOOD SCORE! As in, score one for you because you just got some slammin' CTM cheeeeeeeepie-cheap! CTM, people-Chicken Tikka Masala!

Now, some of you first-years might have asked, Cambridge? You mean, like, Harvard Square? No. Although I am a recent immigrant to Cambridge, even I know that is not Cambridge, but rather, the theme park best thought of as CambridgeLand, a simulacra of Cambridge-ness, overgrown by retail chains and peppered with a few surviving nostalgic institutions. Not that I don't appreciate CambridgeLand myself; it's got some good points. But the real TFS action in Cambridge is found in the dark and unknown territory of the M2 request stop.

I'm going to keep you in suspense on the CTM until next week, and part 2 of this review. First, some basics on finding your own TFS. Let's say you go into a restaurant where they ask you to sit down before you even order, and then in the place where you sit, there's some kind of thick white curtain draped over a table. Your chances of a TFS are nearly gone. If, on the other hand, you order at the counter, and they've got a special on goat, you're probably golden.

Recently, I went into Izzy's (169 Harvard St.), a Puerto Rican place near my home on Windsor Street, and the guy in front of me ordered some beef thing. The woman at the counter took the order cheerfully, then went back to the kitchen. She returned in a second: "Uh, I'm sorry, we're out of beef. We have goat." The guy showed himself to be a TFS class act by saying, "Oh, yeah, sure!" brightly, like this was his lucky break. Nice flexibility, neighbor.

Now, let me digress for a moment to note that I personally have a no-mammals policy. I eat chickens and other birds, because birds are descended from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs tried to squash our mammalian relatives in past epochs, so basically, chickens have got it coming to them. Fish and non-vertebrates are mostly pretty stupid animals, and so I eat them too. But mammals, bless their four-chambered hearts, have suffered under my hands as part of laboratory experiments, so I'm personally giving them a break for a while. On the other hand, I like a restaurant that serves goat. Why should cows and pigs do all the sacrificing? If there are people out there eating mammals, then goats should shoulder their share of the burden.

So at Izzy's, I didn't order the goat. I ordered the octopus salad, but they were out of that too. Again, flexibility was the key. The nice lady at the counter suggested shrimp, and I got it with beans, rice and plantains. Powerful stuff. If you've got a problem with low blood pressure, Izzy's can take care of you with some good lipid-and-sodium treatment. The plantains were done just right-right to the saturation point of oil, where your nucleus accumbens is chock full o' "yummy fat!" reward signaling, but before your GI tract starts protesting. The beans were actually some super-duper bean-and-a-bit-of-other-stuff concoction that came in a separate bowl. Sadly I scarfed them down happily before realizing that they probably would have gone good with the rice and shrimp. That's OK, though: the shrimp were fried up with nice seasoning, tasted awesome with the lightly-flavored rice, and I was stuffed after my meal.

Alternatively, if your real issues are depression, despair and isolation, Izzy's may be able to help with that too. The folks at Izzy's are super nice, and also there are pictures of Puerto Rican baseball players and other notables all over the walls, not to mention the cheery paintings of Puerto Rico, trophies, mirrors in the shape of machetes, and other good stuff. Also, the good people of Izzy's were playing loud (but not too loud!) Puerto Rican music at the same time that they were watching a Fox "When criminals do dumb stuff in front of TV cameras" reality special. I don't see how a person could leave Izzy's with anything but a warm feeling.