Boston Massachusetts

Following my stateside trip to San Francisco in December 2011, romantic crooner Tony Bennett's rendition of "I left my heart in San Francisco" struck a myocardial chord with me, that was, until I visited Boston this past US Summer. Bostonians are a resilient and hardy people (that much was evidenced by the recent Boston marathon bombing) and are absolutely die-hard committed sports fans. The weekend I was in Boston there was a NY Yankees and Boston Red Sox game, and 9 out of 10 people milling around the city and surrounds were wearing some form of Red Sox memorabilia. On the way to Fenway Park I even found myself singing along to "...take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd..." and secretly hoped I would find a street stall selling peanuts and cracker jacks. Hey, it's easy to get carried away with the excitement and buzz of a big game weekend.

Aside from being a foodie's mecca, Boston also happens to lay claim to a Goorin Bros hat shop on the hip shopping strip Newbury St, and the company was recently made even more famous for designing the "heisenberg" black hat Walter White wore in Breaking Bad when he was about to...well...break some bad.

  

Being a self-confessed foodie the highlight for me was the pilgrimage to Flour bakery + cafe which has been on my foodie hit-list ever since I saw a photo of owner Joanne Chang's famous sticky buns (not to be confused with buttocks). I will forever be indebted to Silent-diner for indulging me in my Flour bakery fantasy. We walked two hours to get there the first day from our hotel (Hyatt Regency on Avenue de Lafayette). Lucky for me, the sticky buns lived up to expectation and silent-diner agreed to a second visit the following day, where we also indulged in the "craquelin" - not to be confused with krokodil - craquelin is a kind of second cousin to brioche, this one filled with orange marmalade and covered liberally with a mix of flaked almonds and a crispy sugary top. 

 

"Can you spot the Craaaaq...el...in..."

Ready to flip a coin as to who gets what

On my return home, I was so intrigued by the egg sandwich and in trying to aptly describe its magnificence to anyone I possibly could, I decided to Google it in the most random off-the-cuff-strange-foodie-freak-chance that people like me (with nothing better to do than indulge in food porn) were also abnormally curious as to how they got the egg so light and fluffy yet so uniform in shape, and bada bing! Here it is for your sensory pleasure (and mine):

              

But I don't want it to seem like the whole trip was about Flour bakery. There was other stuff too. Like stumbling across an Italian street food festival in the North End on Hanover St where we ate freshly shucked oysters with red sauce, Mike's Pastry who make the meanest Cannoli outside of the motherland and are almost always guaranteed to have a six-deep line at the counter, and finding a "hole-in-the-wall" Vietnamese restaurant Pho Pasteur that won the "Certificate of Excellence 2013" from Trip Advisor (I know this, as the certificate was plastered all over the windows for diners reassurance about being provided excellent service and of course simply for our viewing pleasure).

Americans call them rice balls, the rest of the world calls them "Arancini"

Freshly shucked oysters

The bright lights of Mike's calling all sugar addicts in need of their hit

Mike's Pastry on Hanover St so popular it's always 6-deep at the counter

 

Now I am not afraid of the gratuitous plug, just as long as both of us know what we are getting ourselves into. There is no denying silent diner and I had a few massive (read: bloated) days of dining in Boston. There are just so many foods options, such little time, and we are both quite frankly guzzle-guts. When we were in Hanover St (North Italian area) there were two restaurants that literally had patrons waiting and lined up down the street. We got the feeling both restaurants were definite "local knowledge" hangs - unpretentious food, good flavors, great value, filled primarily with diners in-the-know who live in the area. The kind of place each of us has at least one of, tucked away in our local knowledge bag of tricks. So in order to not risk giving away too many local secrets I won't post the links to either restaurant, although I am sure if you look close enough at the signage in the photos you too will be armed with the right local Boston knowledge on your next visit to satisfy your epicurean senses.

 

The other great thing about Boston is it's such a walkable city - a flat version of San Francisco. We walked everywhere pretty much from exclusive Beacon Hill where we were told a terrace home recently sold for $17 million USD, to the multicultural and perhaps less salubrious South end or Back Bay where they is keepin it real yo, and we did enough walking to almost burn the calories from at least one of four shared Cannoli's from Mike's pastry. One of the things we were advised to do by a Bostonian living in Sydney was to take a Boston Duck tour. We were initially like - "ah, we will just walk and see pretty much what we want to see", but two days wiped us out, and the Boston Duck tours (who use replica amphibious landing vehicles styled on those actually used during WWII) promised a welcome reprieve from pounding the pavement. We took a 6:00pm tour, which is closing in on sunset during the Summer and just a really nice (and cooler) part of the day in Boston, especially as the Duck boats not only drive around Boston city streets past various historical landmarks but also take to the Charles River for some aqua action. The condDUCKtor (sic) we had was Captain Blackeye, supposedly a pirate off the coast of Boston who felt a sudden philanthropic twinge and making the decision he no longer wanted to rape and pillage folk, became a Duck tour guide instead. Yeh, it's a little quirky and whacky - but Captain Blackeye was passionate about Boston history and certainly put an arr me hearty kind of twist to the whole experience. 

Boston overall is such a great city, and as the Boston Red Sox theme song espouses she is the maiden with the sparkling eye. It has so much history being one of the oldest cities in the US, but it also has a great sports vibe and a fantastic foodie culture. On a game weekend head out to Fenway park, it's a great vibe even if you don't have tickets. You can head up to the roof deck of The Baseball Tavern on 1270 Boylston St, for a cold beer and to soak up the pre-game atmosphere. You can see the stadium across the road, and whilst it's not exactly being at the game - after a couple of cold ones and a street-stand hot dog you won't feel the difference.

Fenway Park game day

Soaking up the rays pre-game at Baseball Tavern

Chili Dogs

One thing I was disappointed to find out about after I had left Boston, were that two Boston restaurants were featured on Guy Fieri's "Diners Drive-ins and Dives" (Triple D) series (incidentally one of my favourite shows to watch when I am in the US or Canada) firstly Angela's Cafe in East Boston - a family run authentic Mexican restaurant at 131 Lexington St Boston where all the recipes are "Angela originals", and second Rino's Place an Italian joint at 258 Saratoga St East Boston, where apparently the lobster ravioli is as the Back Bayer's would say "da bomb". So I hope to get to Boston again one day, if not for the Triple D picks, then at least to die a happy sugar death in Mike's pastry.