When in Boston: Eat

So, I just came home (well not just, it's been a week) from beautiful, wonderful, fantastic Boston. I've determined that I want to live there at some point, especially if it takes the form of some time learning at Harvard. I have high hopes, oh yes, I do. I love all of the architecture and being surrounded by people, and most of all? FOOD. It is everywhere. All different kinds of food from all different backgrounds, and it's everywhere. Kind of like all of the men, but that's a story for another day and nothing really to write home about. Forewarning: There will be a departure from the normally well-lit, well focused pictures in this post because several of these were taken with one of two blackberry phone cameras usually for the purpose of twitpic and bragging to friends. (Sorry for making you hungry, guys :) )

Anyway: So the food. Boston made a great first

impression with this Reuben sandwich. The sauerkraut tasted really freshly made (that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not, promise)

and I don't know what they did to the meat, but everyone should do that. Why? Because it's

incredible. By the end of the meal, the sandwich won though because if you can't tell from the picture, it was GIGANTIC. And delicious? Have I mentioned that yet?

There's this lovely section of town

known as the North End, which is the home of italian food and BAKERIES. Yum. The first night

there, we met up with one of my mom's high school friends a

nd had delicious pizza. This came in a very close second to New York pizza only due to a matter

of preferences. It was the type of pizza where

everything is just thrown on top haphazardly, without the neat layers of "sauce, cheese,

toppings" which I almost prefer to the cute layered ones.

Afterwards, Danielle and I made our trek to get some cannoli, because that was our goal from

the get-go. Oh goodnesssss. Word from the internet said to get them from Mike's Pastry in the North End, and that was certainly a good suggestion. Even after eating pizza, three cannoli were

devoured between us. One was an original ricotta

that was dipped in chocolate on either side,one had an amaretto flavored filling and the third? I'm not sure but it was awes

ome because the shell was a little bit different.

Can you tell I was excited from this picture? Also, my choice of hair styles for traveling is interesting. Please forgive.

Day two: We headed over to Cambridge, which is the home of Harvard University. I don't think I've ever had my breath taken away by a building until I saw the memorial hall of this place. It's beautiful. Back to food though, since this is a food blog after all. In Cambridge, there is a place

that was highly recommended by urbanspoon.com (If you've never seen that site, it's awesome and you should go check it out

after you finish reading my rambling.) called Russell House Tavern, which is deemed a

"gastropub" by the internet, whatever that means. Good job on the recommendation, internet. SO worth it. It was really cheap, but I

think I would enter a love affair the poached egg I had because it was AWESOME. This was one of my favorite meals of the trip. The egg had some sort of crispiness to the outside and was salted perfectly so that all of the flavors came out but

not so much that it was "salty". It was on top of a bed of greens with some sort of sauce. That guy describes it a lot better than I can. I didn't think I could ever be filled up by one egg dish, but it was so wonderful that it did. Also, it wasn't very expensive at all for such a great place to eat (with great atmosphere -bzzzzzzzzzzz- as people watched the World Cup). Oh Russell House Tavern, please make me poached eggs for the rest of my life.

After that, we wandered around Cambridge some more and found a cupcake store! I asked the

guy for his recommendation as far as their coffee-flavored ones went (since all of you should

know my addiction by now), and his recommendation was spot on. He recommended a cute little cappuccino cupcake

accompanied by a cup of coffee because the cupcake itself was dry and rich. Somehow, they made the cake part so that it wasn't terribly sweet, but it paired perfectly with the sweet icing and cup of coffee. Melody, this one was for you since I couldn't bring one back for you since I'd

devour it.

And of course, we couldn't go to Boston without going to eat LOBSTERS. We went over to a part of town with lots of fishing boats (forgive my lack of Boston geography skills) to a place known as No Name Seafood. I'll put the lobster itself here but go over to my facebook for pictures of us having way too much fun playing with our

food. By the way, eating lobster as a newbie is a barbaric process and I don't recommend it for any time that you want to come off as classy and refined. Also, everything (including my camera,

which is disgusting the next day) smells like

lobsters afterwards. Ew. Great taste, not such a great smell.

The next day we didn't eat much because we were still full from the previous day. Also, it wa

s the 4th of July! So we went on tours of navy boats (Oh hay!) and stood in crowded areas to watch fireworks (and take too

many pictures. I hope you all like the noises that SLR's make on burst mode: tch tch tch tch tch). Oh and to watch people get escorted out of the crowd by the police for being wasted in public. Way to go, sir.

We did a lot of wandering on the last day just because it's such a great city. First off: lunch in

Chinatown. We picked a random restaurant off the street, and figured it must have been good because it was FULL OF ASIANS (kind of like the rest of Boston). Hooray, authenticity, I suppose. I ordered some ginger duck because well, when in Rome... SO worth it. It was tender and falling off the bone. I could eat ducks all day long if they all tasted like this. Quack. Also, it was only like $15 for the both of us to get far more than we could have eaten.

Then we wandered some more until we saw a place called Red Mango. It is a cute place to get

frozen yogurt (that actually tastes like yogurt with the tasty bit of tangy-ness) with really fresh fruit on top. Mine is the one in the back, which was pomegranate yogurt with blueberries on top. (mmm blueberries) while Danielle's is in front with all of the fruit. She had a vanilla yogurt with all of the fruit that you see there. The fruit was so fresh. I could eat there every day (if I was rich and lived in Boston, of course)

Then, unfortunately, we had to return home. However, I think Danielle and I sufficiently ate our way through Boston. Hooray, food! It was seriously some of the best food I have EVER eaten. EVER. I want to live there at some point. Also, sorry for the formatting in this. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm too lazy to fix it.