Boston, 7pm

Let me tell you about Boston. I love it. It’s a city that has character, history, and a great food scene. It’s relatively clean for a city, there’s interesting people there, and you can find interesting places tucked around every corner.

We went down last weekend for a little getaway. Crisi had a baby shower to go to Sunday so we decided to make the most of it.

Our first stop after checking into the hotel when we arrived on Friday was Fenway Park. Now I say this as a lifelong Yankee fan, but I love Fenway. It’s a great place to watch a game (I’ve seen some concerts there as well, and can confirm it’s also a great concert venue) and it makes you feel like you stepped back in time to that golden age of baseball spectatorship and you feel like you should’ve worn a suit and have to resist the urge to light up a cigarette. I also respect the hell out of Red Sox fans. The energy in that ballpark from pitch one was electric. I think the Red Sox were up 8 or 9 to 1 in the 7th inning and any other place, that stadium is clearing out to beat the traffic home, but not Fenway. They were full on tarps off, swinging their shirts in the air, and no one left until the game was over. Fucking amazing.

Also don’t sleep on a Fenway Frank. I’ve had ice cold $14 hot dogs wrapped in foil from a number of major league stadiums, but not the Fenway Frank. Still hot, delicious, and added to the whole experience.

We bopped around to a couple bars after that which was fun, met a dog named Foxy Lady, then it was off to bed.

We had all these designs to get up early Saturday to prepare ourselves to hit Neptune Oyster in the North End as soon as they opened at 11 to beat the line, but between the long drive and the long fun night the two of us were comatose until about 10:45 so we weren’t going to make it. But ever determined and encouraged by my lovely wife, we set out to brave the heat and the line. She popped her headphones in to listen to a podcast, I took the camera around the North End and took some pictures to kill time, we also got a ginger shot from the juice place across the street, which made us almost throw up but I digress…

I don’t stand in line for anything. I just can’t do it, the buildup of anticipation never quite seems to payoff at the end. Neptune Oyster made me rethink that philosophy. They don’t take reservations so you need to stay on line to get a seat. It took us about 45 minutes to get a seat, which really isn’t THAT bad all things considered and the food was phenomenal. We got a couple bar seats, the service was excellent and we got a few things like fried clams, bay scallops crudo, razor clam casino, but the real star was the Johnnycake. It was a pancake topped with smoked bluefish, honey butter and caviar. It was insane. Just an absolutely perfect bite.

Later on that night a friend got us some reservations at the Zebra Room. It’s in the basement of another restaurant and the staircase is hidden behind a bookshelf that the hostess had to pull a book out from to open it up. Right out of the gate, the first cocktail I had was the “Champagne of Highballs” which was Toki Japanese whiskey, a Miller High Life reduction, and sparkling water. Off the charts, so interesting and cool. Every bite was off the charts, the onion beignets, the crab louie deviled eggs, the wagyu beef dumplings, the french dip, the crab crusted halibut, the baked potato flattie, even just typing out what we ate is bringing me back. The space was incredible, the service off the charts, truly one of the best dining experiences we’ve ever had.

That was pretty much the trip. It took us 5 hours to get home with all the traffic and I didn’t stop one time which was a point of pride for me once we hit a certain point in our journey.

Can’t wait to go back.