THE BEST DISHES EATER BOSTON’S EDITOR ATE IN JUNE

Welcome to Eater Boston’s best dishes column, where we share the dishes we couldn’t stop thinking about each month. See past installments here.

Hiramasa crudo at Haley.Henry

Every year, as soon as the heat cranks up outside, something shifts in my brain and I start slurping down crudos. Given the weather, I’ve had a lot of raw fish recently, but the best preparation in recent memory came from Haley.Henry. The hiramasa (yellowtail) is thinly sliced and prepared with pickled mango, bits of red bell pepper, and Thai basil that all come together to produce a gentle kick in the mouth on each bite. If you like your crudo on the zingier side, this one’s a keeper. (Pictured above.) 45 Province Street, Downtown Crossing

Tamales at Abuela’s Table

Tamales are kind of a compulsory order for me whenever I see them on a menu. But it can be a finicky food to get right; often just a bit too dry, or the ratio between masa and filling is just a little bit off. So, I am very excited to report that at JP newcomer Abuela’s Table, the tamales are running into no such issues. I ordered the traditional tamale plate that came with chicken, corn, coconut, and pork to split with my husband, and ended up fighting for the last bites on the plate. Also, a cautionary note: the house hot sauce that comes on the side means business. 416 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain

The sando at Nautilus Pier 4

During one of the brief periods in June where I didn’t feel like my eyeballs were sweating out of their sockets, I had lunch on the breezy waterfront patio at Nautilus Pier 4 in the Seaport. Among the group, we ordered a good deal of the menu from Nautilus’s new lunchtime snack shack, open for the summer season. The sando, with its layers of crispy fried eggplant katsu and crunchy cabbage, piled high on soft, fluffy milk bread, was deeply, delightfully good. I thought I’d be just grazing through plates to get a sense of the menu but I ended up unexpectedly polishing off that sando, full stop. Whenever I’m back in the Seaport, I’ll be ordering it again. 300 Pier 4 Boulevard, Seaport

SweetBoy chocolate chip cookie at Saltie Girl

SweetBoy (a.k.a Ben Sidell, the son of Saltie Girl proprietor Kathy Sidell) recently packed up his pastry pop-up talents in Los Angeles and moved operations to Boston, which means his viral chocolate chip cookies are now on the menu at Saltie Girl. The cookie is thick, chock-full of Valrhona chocolate, and sprinkled with a finisher of flaky sea salt. Oh, and it arrives on a baby blue pedestal. In the competitive realm of fancy chocolate chip cookies, this scores high marks. 279 Dartmouth Street, Back Bay

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