Our Long Day in Boston

Originally we planned on seeing a 1 o'clock Boston Red Sox game, however due to the Boston Bruin's winning the Stanley Cup the game got pushed back to a 7pm.  This gave us the opportunity to not only see a Red Sox game but see a championship parade as well.  So we got up early and drove to the nearest train station to get into Boston.  But as soon as Chris drove the car to the entrance it was clear that the station was already shut down to the amount of people going to the parade.  With some quick driving and google map action we got to the next train station with enough time to make it downtown before the parade started.  But as you can imagine, everyone had the same thought and the same plan and the train was packed!

But we did get to see the parade!

And the Trophy! 

 Next up was looking for some food to get us through the rest of the day.  So we took a small trek to find one of the most famous mexican restaurants in the city, called Anna's.  The best thing about the lunch was not the food, but that Christie was too scared to try the cheese.  They put slices of american cheese into the burritos then warm the cheese up till it melted.  What was weird about it?  Nothing, but the day after convincing Laura to be brave during dinner, she couldn't eat melted cheese because it was sliced not grated.

The next few hours we spent walk (from one end to the other) of Boston, window shopping and quenching our thirst along the way.

But after a very long day we finally made it to Fenway Park!

Around the stadium just buzzes before games.  With people converging to the park well before the game started to get a hotdog, grab a bear, or just hang out with all the other fans waiting to get in.

We were 2 hours early, so we hung out a bar across the street.  We had some beverages and got ready to get inside the most famous and historic ballpark in baseball.

We had great seats in the center field bleachers.

Christie and Laura were supposed to go down to grab some food and beer for Chris and I, and about an hour later I caught them under the bleachers talking with no feed or beer in hand! 

 The Red Sox ended up losing that game, however it was an amazing experience.  AT&T park is always going to be my favorite ballpark, but Fenway park has the history, energy, and atmosphere that can't be duplicated.  I mean anywhere they play Sweat Caroline every game between innings is always gonna be a favorite of mine.

The game ended past 10, and we finally got home around 1... A very long day in Boston and a special thanks to the Andersons for a great weekend!

The Ultimate Craigie Experience!

Last weekend we packed up a rental car with Chester in hand and jumped into traffic heading north!  Norton, Mass here we come!  After driving straight through two states (which is amazing in itself (CT & RI) we arrived at the Anderson's in about 5 hours and were off straight to Cambridge for dinner.

Dinner on Friday is hard to explain as anything but the Ultimate Craigie Experience.......  Now you might ask what does that mean...  To start Chris had gotten some recommendations for foodie dinners out in the Boston/Cambridge area and so we booked a table for 4 at 9:30pm on Friday night for Craigie on the Main. Near MIT, we ventured in at 930 and sat for a dinner experience that we never expected!

As a table, we decided to get the 10 course tasting menu, which Chef Tom Maws creates on the fly each time a table orders it.  the 1st few courses consisted of primarily seafood (squid noodles, sashimi, soft shell crab, and a delicious stripped bass tail).

Before

After:

The next dishes included pork belly, lamb three ways (including the tongue) and bone marrow:

All delicious!!!!  Dessert was the last dishes and we ended dinner around 1am....  so almost 4 hours later, we were stuffed, happy, and ready for a great night's sleep.

We can now say we understand what the Ultimate Craigie Experience is.  Thanks Chef Tom Maws!

Commuting - The train....

I know everyone is wondering - how's the commute going?  Well.......  commuting is...... Commuting.  It's like it sounds.  In an ideal world, commuting would be like the 5th element.  You go into a pod - and when you wake up you're where you need to be!

But it's not like the 5th element - There is an hour and ten minute commute in the morning and afternoon - walk to the station, train to Darien, car to the office then car to the train, train to Grand Central, and walk home.  2 hours and 20 minutes of the day are now dedicated to commuting.  

Now, i do have to comment that for commuting, I have to be one of the luckiest since i get to go Grand Central Terminal twice a day!  People travel the world to see GCT and I'm lucky enough to get to go there twice a day!

The morning starts off around 7ish with a short walk to the station where I get to board the 734 New Haven line:

The next hour, i get to read (already completed the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and half way through the Girl who Played with Fire!)  The Ipad was a genius invention!  It's so easy to get lost in a good book and to end up an hour later at the office.

Similar route home - more reading and winding down for the day:

So all and all... commuting doesn't have to be that bad and it's not!  I've enjoyed reading a ton and really can't complain!

This makes me nervous riding my bike or walking across the street!

http://vimeo.com/24572222

Brooklyn's Finest

Manhattan is great, but Brooklyn is just as large, dynamic, and unique in its own way. During our first week here we did some minor exploring of Brooklyn, but we planned on many trips back in the coming months.  So Saturday we decided to wake up early and take our talents to Brooklyn.

We started with a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.

There were a lot more people on the bridge than I expected.  But I guess I should have expected at least as many people as The Golden Gate Bridge would get on a nice day in SF.

So from there we wandered down to the Dumbo district of Brooklyn which has a ton of new shops, restaurants, and views of the city skyline and bridges.

From there we went over to the Williamsburg district and had a great dinner at Dumont.  Started off with some delicious cocktails.  Christie had a very large plate of Mac-N-Cheese and I had a really really good bacon cheese burger.

After dinner was done, we went over to one of Christie's co-workers places for a post test celebration.  It was a small but fun get together, but some of the biggest highlights were the views of the skyline.

Life would be good if the night ended then.  However, the "L" Train wasn't running (we didn't know this because we walked over there).  So instead of taking a direct route back to the island, we had to head through Brooklyn to get the J train.  I can write it down now, but at the time we had no idea how to get home...  So as usual we head to google maps and type in a J station name that was nearby, and we find a cab to take us there.  Instead of waiting to make sure we were at the right spot, we got off when we got to the intersection.  And we had that, "WE are not in Kansas anymore".  I guess we have been getting the gentrified, hipster, up and coming version of Brooklyn and not some of the less "pretty" versions of it.  But there we were almost midnight walking through a part of town we shouldn't have been.  We kept walking, not listening to the consistent howling and chatter coming our way from people in the neighborhood.  We eventually made it to a subway stop, and took 2 trains to get home.  We got home safe, but with a few good nuggets for next time.  Subways are constantly off line due to maintenance or something else and we should always make sure we are at our destination before getting out of our cab.

Tom Colicchio vs Mario Batali

I don't know when Chef's became celebrities (I think Emril is the pioneer), but since then shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef have given everyone a glimpse of how much of an art cooking is.  In NY, 2 Chefs have started to build a food empire based on their celebrity and the culinary chops.


In the first of a multi part series we are going to go head to head in comparing 2 chef's restaurants (I am still looking for a name and would love suggestions).

This week we have Tom Colicchio vs Mario Batali!

We have been to a few of these Chef's places before... Colocchio's CraftSteak in Vegas and Batali's Pizzaria Mozza in LA.  In our minds those were both amazing culinary and dining experiences and left very happy, full, and excited to try their next restaurant.

So first up is Batali's La Pizza & Pasta, situated in the middle of Batali's culinary Mecca, Eataly.  It's hard to separate the dining experience from the rest of Eataly so it will play a part in how I judge the final.

So first off Eataly was busy as usual... It was around a 15 minute wait for out seat at one of their many dining experiences inside.  Christie and I shared a shaved asparagus salad which was really good.  In addition they had some amazing fresh bread accompanied by some evoo.  But that was sadly the apex of the dining experience.  Even though I was smiling here, the pizza really wasn't all that special.  It was a traditional "wet" pizza with house made sausage and basil.  Christie got a pesto lasagna which was underwhelming as well.  But instead of leaving on a sour note, we (Christie) wanted to do some shopping.

A look at some of the mini stores within a store...

Overall the first dining experience we had was subpar (there will be going to many more of the other "restaurants" within the store).  But the overall energy and selection of food at Eataly makes us want to go back for more.  There is even a new beer garden opening up in the upcoming weeks which will take this place to the next level.  It's really hard to explain the overall environment of Eataly, other than to say think of the Ferry Building in SF, and if everything restaurants and food vendors owned by one company, and all of the "stalls" and restaurants flowed together very seamlessly that there was no clear break between focuses.

Yes, it's hard to compare Eataly to anything because its so different, but I am going to try.

As a fan of Top Chef, Tom has set the bar high in terms of expectations of any place he puts his name behind.  One of his newer places if called Riverpark.  Situated on the bank of the East River, riverpark has a great setting in an area of NYC that is still being developed.  It's on the ground floor of a new condo complex that is anchoring a new biotech and innovation center of the city.
We got to the restaurant a little early, so we grabbed a drink at the bar.  I got a Rodenbach beer and Christie a cocktail.  Both delicious it was a good start to the night.  We split an oxtail cappelletti appetizer which was good but not memorable.    For our main course we split the diver scallops and flat iron steak.  If you didn't know, anytime there are seared scallops on the menu I am a sucker for them.  It's my absolute favorite.  But Tom's didn't measure up to what I expected.  There was no "sear", but a general browning... So it lacked a little of the crust that packs flavor and texture.  The steak was solid and larger portions than I would have expected.  Overall a solid meal it didn't wow me (which I was hoping/expecting).  I would easily rank craftsteak in Vegas higher than riverpark, but that's not what I am comparing.

Who wins?  It was tough comparing two drastically different experiences, but at the end of the day Eataly wins because we are going to keep going back.  Riverpark is crossed off the list and never visited again. Yes, is it hard to compete against all of Eataly?  But sometimes an 8th seed has to play a 1 seed, and there could be upsets (My GSW Warriors moment).  Both of these chef's have additional entries that we are checking out in the coming months so there will be a rematch coming to a blog near you.