Mills in Mass

It's taken too long for me to write of this, nonetheless, it was one of the best weekends since I've called Boston home. Thanks to D & M for making the trip and to my (awesome) fiancée for doing so much to make the weekend go smoothly.

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I can manage approximately 10 weeks of a standard 15 week semester in conjunction with the day job before it all gets to me. How does it get to me? Foooooood. And this is why meals were the cornerstone of this weekend.

Chinese? Friday dinner. Takeout – although they do have a glorious buffet. Best place in town. UnitedHealth Foundation just released its ranking for healthiest states in these United States. Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were all in the top 5. States don't make it to the top of this list without making some sacrifices. Chinese food from New England has a distinctly lighter taste than most areas. Kudos to both D & M for giving it a chance.

French? Saturday dinner at Pigalle. Getting there was a challenge. More specifically, it was my challenge. Turns out…there's more than one 75 Charles Street in Boston. In such cases, zip code is very important when entering the destination into the GPS. Fortunately, we were still in Boston when I finally admitted that we had driven to the wrong 75 Charles St. We were only 10 minutes late to dinner. Fiancée and I split the Arugula with Prosciutto appetizer and then went our separate ways for the entre. I had the Duck and she had the (not so) petite Beef Tenderloin and Braised Short Ribs. We were forced to cut dinner short because we had to make our way around the block to get to Blueman. We didn't have time for dessert. I'm pretty sure that I have to take fiancée back for dessert in the future.

Philadelphia? Sunday Lunch. Cheese steaks from Carl's. This is a bit of a divergence from the traditional Philly cheese steak. Not being a native Philadelphian, I am comfortable saying that these are way better. My go-to cheese steak is a small Teriyaki with mayo and mushrooms. Phantom ranked Carl's #8 on the list of top 10 cheese steaks in Bostonia. There are 3 critical factors that make Carl's so good.

1. Diced steak
2. Fresh bread
3. Excellent variety
4. The cheese and additional toppings is evenly mixed throughout the steak (not just gobbed on top).
5. LARGE portions. Did you notice that I only get the small?

I couldn't stop at 3.

American? Twice. Thursday dinner and Saturday lunch. On Thursday we took D & M to Mad Raven. This is one of the places that fiancée and I will miss once we move to Somerville. Good atmosphere. Good food. And we even got a good parking space. It was meant to be. On Saturday, I took D & M into deep Boston so that they would have the opportunity to see Fenway. If you haven't been to Fenway, it's a really cool stadium. We walked around the stadium to give them a feel for how small it is and to point out the green monstah, etc. One of the cool things about Fenway is that there are big sports bars tucked underneath of it. Cask 'n Flagon was under construction so we decided to have lunch at Game On. The waiters/waitresses offered terrible service, but the food is worth writing home about. Fiancée and I watched Clay Buchholz throw a no hitter in 2007 at Game On. …it was against the Orioles.

   

 

     
So that's about it for the food. The other attractions for the weekend included a tour of the oldest car collection in New England at Larz Anderson Museum, Blueman Group at the Charles Playhouse, and a the regular weekend dog walk through Catrock (M's shoes will never be the same).

There is a lot more to be said about this weekend but I realize that this blog post is already too long. Be sure to click through the Mills in Mass photo album on the left hand side for some more details and commentary. It was a terribly rainy weekend but the skies cleared up long enough to offer this sunset on Sunday night.