My
friend Padma is getting married in a few weeks, so we recently celebrated her
bachelorette weekend in Boston. I was
excited that she picked that city because I’d only visited once before. Last time was December of 2006 with temps in
the single digits, so I spent more time bundled up indoors than seeing the
sites. This time it was gorgeous fall
weather with the leaves just starting to change colors. The
entire trip was pretty much centered around food, so this will be a long post…
I headed
up a day early so I could visit with friends and family in town. After wandering the city a bit, I met up with
my cousin, Chris, and his wife, Marty in the South End. They are big foodies, so I knew they’d have
the best suggestions of places to eat in Boston. We started at a jazz bar called The Beehive for cocktails. They have live music every evening (and
brunch time on the weekends). The drinks were pricey, but really well
crafted.
Afterwards
we walked down the road to Gaslight
Brasserie du Coin, one of several highly-rated restaurants in Boston’s
South End owned by the Aquitaine Group. Gaslight specializes in modern French cuisine
with some New American style dishes.
Everything
on the menu looked amazing, so it was hard to decide. We split a few appetizers to start –
caramelized onion and bacon tart, escargots with toasted garlic and parsley
butter, and tuna tartare with shiitakes, sunchokes, and black garlic
pistou. Of course it was all delicious,
but their escargot was particularly memorable.
I loved
the Moulard duck breast, served over forbidden rice, piopino mushrooms, swiss
chard, and foie gras emulsion (it was their special that night). Chris and Marty’s dishes were impressive as
well – she had the house-made tagliatelle pasta with lamb belly, pear, and macadamias
and he enjoyed the roasted cod poelee – sort of like a French version of paella
with mussels, clams, oysters, and chorizo.
We were stuffed by the end of meal.
Luckily, I did a lot of walking on this trip, which I’m sure didn’t
cancel out the calories, but at least it made up for some of it.
The next
day I entertained myself again while everyone I knew was at work. I crossed the Charles River to the Cambridge
side to explore MIT and Harvard’s campuses.
I started off with breakfast at my new favorite bakery – Flour.
The “apple snacking spice cake” was gooey and coated in a layer of
powdered sugar. It was pretty chilly out
(at least by my Florida standards), so I warmed up with some hot green tea,
served in my own personal little teapot.
It was
so good that I actually ended up returning to a different Flour location with
friends the next day (this time I tried the lemon meringue pie!)
After my
tour of Cambridge, I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Boston Museum of Science, where they had a
special exhibit about the science of Pixar, which I found super interesting. A lot of math and science is involved in
creating those movies – it’s amazing how much work goes into making every
detail perfect.
I headed
back to my friend Juliet’s home in a cute suburb of Boston called Jamaica Plain. She lives within walking distance of the Sam Adams brewery, so of course I wanted
to check it out! It’s a free tour with suggested $2 donation that goes to local
charities. Our guide went through the
process of making beer, passing around samples of the barley and hops to taste
and smell.
I was
actually surprised by how small an operation it was for being one of the most
well-known beer brands. I think some of
our local breweries here in the Tampa Bay area have a bigger production
facility. I found out that the majority
of Sam Adams beer that you purchase actually isn’t brewed at their Boston
location – their main breweries are in Cincinnati, OH and Breinigsville,
PA. The Boston location is where they
come up with recipes and experiment with new flavors.
After
the tour they passed around pitchers of several varieties of their beers and
explained all about their “perfect pint” glass (they really try to sell you on
their signature glass…) They did send us home with our little tasting glasses
for free – but said if we wanted a free pint sized glass, we could go to a
local bar down the street called Doyle’s
and trade in our tour ticket.
We picked
up some pizzas next door from Bella
Luna. We brought them back to Juliet’s
place, where our friends Laura and Carlos met us for dinner. It was so much fun catching up with old
friends!
Padma
got in town late that evening for her bachelorette weekend. We stayed at a modern hotel called The Envoy (which it turns out was designed
by my cousin Chris’ architecture firm just recently!)
We
headed to a bar down the street called Drink. It had a bit of a speakeasy vibe – and was
completely packed with people. We did
get standing room around a small table and ordered some snacks – truffle fries
and grilled cheese. They also served us
some complimentary popcorn. They didn’t
have a menu for the drinks – our bartender just asked us what type of drinks we
normally like, and she created cocktails based on that. I ended up with a refreshing cucumber
concoction.
The next
day we had planned for brunch at Aquitaine
(same owners as Gaslight), but it turns out the power was down on their whole
block, so they were temporarily closed.
They did give us a discount coupon for their sister restaurant, Metropolis, down the road. The food was very good, but the same as any
brunch you’d get elsewhere – pancakes, eggs, mimosas. So it probably didn’t matter that the power
was down at the other place…I’m sure we would have had something similar
there.
We took
a walk through the Boston Public Garden and window shopped through the stores
on Newbury Street. We had planned to have
tea at the Boston Public Library, but they were completely booked. So later that day for lunch we went to Dirty Water Dough Co. Since I’d just had pizza the night before, I had
their Greek salad. It was a pretty small
restaurant with minimal seating, but we managed to get a spot in the window
overlooking Newbury where we could people watch.
That evening
we got all dressed up for dinner at Myers
+ Chang. This was by far my favorite
place I ate in Boston. It is run by
husband and wife team Joanne Chang and Christopher Myers. Joanne actually is the pastry chef and owner
of Flour Bakery as well! Myers + Chang
is an upscale Asian restaurant with a fusion of modern Chinese, Taiwanese,
Thai, and Vietnamese dishes.
Of
course there was a wait with it being a Saturday night, so we had drinks at the
bar (the drinks were as tasty as they looked!)
Our meal
was seriously one of the best I’ve had.
Their flavors are so fresh and they use the perfect blend of
spices. Padma’s sweet & sour Brussels
sprouts were delicious. I started with
the hot & sour soup, which was just the right amount of spicy. If I’m sick, I want this soup shipped to me
in Tampa because it’s so amazing & clears out your sinuses.
For my
main dish I had the Nasi Goreng (Indonesian Fried Rice). It included pork, shrimp, and pineapple
topped with a fried egg. I actually
scooped out a bit of the spicy sauce because I already had my share of spice
from my soup, but wow that fried rice was phenomenal. I’m planning to go back to Myers + Chang any
time I visit Boston.
We ended
the night at Wink & Nod, which was
again super crowded. Our bartender saw
Padma’s bachelorette sash & brought us complimentary champagne which was
nice! But the atmosphere was a bit too
noisy for us to have a conversation, so we called it a night after that and
headed back to our hotel.
Padma
had to drive back to New Jersey the next morning, so we ended the bachelorette weekend
with breakfast at Trident Booksellers
& Café – half bookstore and half restaurant. After a few drinks the night before, none of
us were really in the mood for mimosas that morning. Instead, I had a fresh juice blend with
carrot, apple, and ginger (called the Wake Up Call). It made me want to buy a juicer just to make
this myself at home.
My meal
was the Morning Monte Cristo – two fried eggs, Canadian bacon, raspberry
preserves, and cheddar cheese between Challah bread French toast. It was a really nice blend of sweet and
savory.
My flight
didn’t head out until later that evening, so I spent the afternoon on a free
walking tour of the Freedom Trail learning a bit about Boston history.
One of
my best friends, Thu, lives in Boston, but she was out of town most of that
weekend. She flew in that Sunday afternoon
though, so luckily I got a few hours to spend with her before heading out to
the airport. She took me to Pho Basil for lunch (can’t get enough Asian
food…)
I couldn’t
go to Boston without visiting their “Little Italy” in the North End, known for
their cannolis. I had a long list of
bakeries that my cousin Chris had recommended so it was hard to choose. We decided to go with the one that all the
locals know, Mike’s Pastry. The line was out the door – so you know it
must be good.
After a
long wait, we finally got to the front of the line. They have so many flavors to pick from! I went with pistachio, pumpkin, amaretto, and
espresso. I brought the box home with me
to share with my family. Thu bought some
cookies and this enormous pastry called a “lobster tail”. The cookies were pretty good but the lobster
tail was incredible. We took a few bites
of it – you could seriously split it with a half dozen people. It’s filled with a creamy center with a
crispy outer shell (so like a gigantic cannoli).
So that
wrapped up my food tour around Boston! There
were so many other places I would have liked to try, so I’ll have to go back
again.
The
Beehive is located at 541
Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116. They
are open 5pm – 12am Monday – Wednesday,
5pm – 1am Thursday, 5pm – 2am Friday, 9:30am – 2am Saturday and 9:30am – 12am
on Sunday.
Samuel Adam’s Brewery is located at 30
Germania St, Boston, MA 02130 and is open 10am – 3pm Monday – Thursday and
Saturday, 10am – 5:30pm on Friday, and closed on Sunday.
Bella Luna is located at 284
Amory St, Boston, MA 02130 and is open 5pm – 11pm Sunday – Tuesday, 5pm –
12am Wednesday, 5pm – 1am Thursday and Friday, and 12pm – 1am on Saturday.
Metropolis Café is located at 584
Tremont St, Boston, MA 02118 and is open 5:30pm – 10pm Monday – Wednesday,
5:30pm – 11pm Thursday – Friday, 9am – 11pm on Saturday and 9am – 10pm on
Sunday.
Dirty
Water Dough Company is located at 222
Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116 and is open 11am – 10pm Sunday – Wednesday,
11am – 10:30pm Thursday, and 11am – 11pm Friday – Saturday.
Myers
+ Chang is located at 1145 Washington St, Boston, MA 02118 and is open
11:30am – 10pm Sunday – Thursday and 11:30am – 11pm Friday – Saturday.
Mike’s
Pastry is located at 300
Hanover St, Boston, MA 02113 and is open 8am – 10pm Sunday – Tuesday, 8am –
10:30pm Wednesday – Thursday, and 8am – 11:30pm Friday – Saturday.
