A Weekend in Boston
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If you do, you may recall that I took an extended weekend trip to Boston a couple of weeks ago. Other than passing through back in 2009, I had never been there, but wanted to. The timing was fortuitous – we had some vouchers for tickets on United that were expiring, and our good friends just moved to a town just outside of Boston.
Things add up sometimes.
So, we flew up early one Friday morning and our girlfriend Jill met us at the airport and whisked us into downtown Boston. We parked (good God, y’all, $35 to park a car for a few hours? Really?) and then walked around Boston’s North End. The North End is home to Quincy Market, the harbor (or is it wharf?), the Paul Revere monument and Old North Church, and maybe best of all – Little Italy.
As research, we stopped and loaded up on goodies from two competing bakeries – Mike’s and Modern.
Mike’s Pastry was a little larger, had far more employees, more product, more variety. I can’t even tell you how many types of cannoli they had, but it was a BUNCH. I bought several, as well as a huge slab of cheesecake, and a Lobster Tail (a delicacy I must re-invent) – anyone got a recipe? I was very impressed with their cannoli cream (I think the same cream was in the Lobster Tail), and the cheesecake was ALMOST as good as my own recipe. However, hands down the winner of the buy was the hazelnut Florentine. Oh gosh. Definitely worth the pittance I paid for it.
From Modern, I bought another cannoli – though this one was filled with a custard. Good, but not a cannoli in my opinion. I also bought a small tart, and a pizzelle. All of it was good, don’t get me wrong. It was very good. But Mike’s wins it for me. Not really even a competition.
A walk through Quincy Market and the unbelievable hall of eateries had me in near tears. There was pizza and pasta and sandwiches filled with rare beef. Bagels (got a bakers dozen), cookies, cakes, gelato. It was almost too much to bear. The fact that we escaped with only a huge bag of bagels astounds me. Astounds.
We headed back to Jill’s and dug in to those pastries – good Lord. I was in a sugar coma. Between that ans the early morning flight, I passed out in the living rooms floor and slept the rest of the afternoon. It was insane. But such a GOOD insane!
Later that night we joined Jill’s husband Kevin for a dinner in their town of Marlborough. There were so many restaurants to choose from…so jealous of that! They wisely chose Fish, a classy, sharply furnished seafood restaurant that I really wasn’t expecting. The logo didn’t match the swank. We sat in a giant horseshoe booth in a room with a fireplace, elegant lighting, and well dressed staff. 
Speaking of staff – they are very attentive. The GM even dropped by on several occasions. I had Surf and, well, Surf – huge scallops and stuffed shrimp, paired with amazing asparagus and a delicious orange risotto. (So delicious, in fact, I got a handwritten rough recipe from the chef – and I have recreated it! I can’t wait to share it with you!)
After dinner we headed out to Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, a historic inn, for drinks, followed by a great night’s sleep back at our friends apartment. It was a great first day in Boston, but I have the rest of the weekend to tell you about… another time. Stay tuned!
