Taken from my copy of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List, an old Christmas gift from Selina:

Despite Boston’s recent culinary hype, and despite a new generation of chefs that dismisses the city’s old guard establishments as boring or bland, Bostonians cherish tradition and the tried-and-true, and that’s where Legal Sea Foods comes in.

There’s a bunch of Legal Sea Foods peppered all over Boston. It’s been a culinary cornerstone of Boston since the 1950s. Mary Ellen and her husband took me here as my last meal before I went back to Austin. (This however is not the last food entry from Boston so still stay tuned for more!)

We all started with a cup/bowl of chowder. I got the fish chowder. So damn comforting with the oyster crackers.

I LOVE raw oysters. And I was so happy to be there for Mary Ellen’s first experience. She wasn’t too impressed by them but it was still exciting to be there.

West Coast oysters….

And East Coast oysters!

Have you ever heard of Scrod? Apparently it’s a fish! Never had it so I ordered it.

Mary Ellen’s husband got his usual stuffed lobster which he was willing to share. Mmmmmm. A meal fit for a king. (It came with 2 sides which in his case were polenta and the perfect french fries.) The stuffing was a great complement to the lobster.

Mary Ellen and I were still stuffed from breakfast which we had a mere 3 hours before. So she ordered dinky looking crepes. Hee. Seriously, look it how dinky they were. She said they were good :)

The first time I stepped into Halycon, located on 4th St, downtown, was summer of 2005 with Kym of Je Mange. I think we only had coffee that day and read and journaled, like we did many days that summer. Through the following years, I go occasionally to eat the table top smores. Actually, I remember the last time I went, Chris had accidentally blown a fireball into my face while we were making smores. Anyway, when I went Tuesday night to catch the tail end of Katambra’s birthday celebration downtown, I decided to opt out of my usual table top smores and ordered their banana walnut crepes. Jon and I split it and devoured it. Look at how glorious it is? This makes me excited to experiment further next time I make crepes on my own.

I swiped Halycon’s picture of their smores off their website.

Related Sweet Crepes Blog Entries:

July 12, 2009 – Banana Nutella Crepes
May 12, 2009 – Crepe Cafe in San Fran
May 13, 2009 – Honey Honey Sweet Cafe & Crepery

Hope everyone had a great Friday. I started the day off with an appointment at 11:30 and then off to lunch to celebrate FRYday with Dave. We had lunch at Flip Happy Crepes. He’s never been. I first discovered it in April of 2007. If you click on the link, you’ll see it only had 2 umbrellaed areas and now there’s PLENTY of seating. Bobby Flay did a throwdown with them last year and ever since, their business has exploded. Sadly, this means that they no longer time their sweet crepes to give you a chance to finish your savory crepes. Now they get both at the same time. Also, now there’s a dude with a mic yelling out your name. It used to be a cute girl sweetly calling out your name from the window. That said, I hardly go out there on the weekends anymore because the crowd is crazy! Weekday lunchtimes seems to be the way to go.

I had the Cuban (not my usual pork, Gruyere and caramelized onions). Dave had the Tarragon Mushroom (DIVINE. I’m going to order this next time). You know, Flip Happy is the only crepery I’ve had in Austin but I did notice a late night cart in the Warehouse District the last time we went out that I’m curious about. I think it’s called Crazy Crepes. San Francisco has kind of spoiled me for Flip Happy. I’m really sad to admit that because I was so enamored with Flip Happy before our San Fran trip.

We make do with what we have. I’m happy to come back and order my own Tarragon Mushroom crepe from Flip. The photos are as appetizing as they look.

He looks angry don’t he?

We anxiously stared at that window.

Doesn’t that look divine? Dave makes vegetarianism look tasty.

Then later I had dinner with Si Nae. We had Madam Mams. You know, it’s been about eight years since I’ve found Madam Mams. Things aren’t the same since we broke up. We got back together but the addiction is gone. It’s still very very very tasty to me. Perhaps my dependence on it will grow soon as they’re building a third Madam Mam’s up north!

Surprisingly, this only my second photo of Mams. Here’s my first.

This blog entry is part of a series. Here are the other entries:

- San Francisco Fire Engine Tour
- I stalked a stalker and videotaped him.
- First Day in San Fran
- The Last of our San Fran Trip

Second day there, I picked up breakfast from a cafe called Honey Honey Cafe & Crepery about a 10 to 15 minute walk away my hotel (corner of Taylor and Post). I found this place poking around for breakfast places and the website and reviews won me over. Check it out, you’d be won over too! I ordered crab cake florentine which came with home fries and a strawberry and nutella crepe (my 2nd crepe of the trip) which came with either whipped cream or ice cream. Seeing as I had to walk, I went with the whipped cream and made sure to walk quickly. As I waited for my order, I had some water they had in fountains chilled with strawberries and oranges. I wished more restaurants did that. Pretty clever and refreshing. It was naturally flavored chilled water. I read in reviews sometimes they had chilled cucumbers in the water. I’m curious what that would taste like.

After breakfast, I walked around on my own waiting for Mr. Alan to wake up. Found Ghiradelhi Square.

And Sea lions…

For lunch, Alan joined me for sourdough bread bowls at Boudin Bakery. They do not serve boudin, by the way.Boudin was the baker’s family name. Alan was almost positive they’d have boudin. Inside, there’s a cafe, a museum and a restaurant in the bakery. They supply the bread to many restaurants in SF. Alan and I relaxed in the restaurant. I had the crab and corn chowder and Alan had the traditional clam chowder. So good. We quickly learned the reason why sourdough bread is so delicious in San Francisco is because the fog and the ocean air locks in flavour.

We had dinner in the Italian neighborhood, dubbed North Beach. Alan found Sotto Mare online and was so taken by their reviews and photos he was adamant we’d go even though we were missing out on some basketball games aaanndd it took it us a handful of wrong turns to finally find Sotto Mare. I was so sure he’d give up and just randomly pick one of many restaurants in the neighborhood. I’m so happy he was steadfast. As soon as we walked in, we were pretty enamoured. The owner (the bald man on the website) was loud, pushy, and possibly Italian. He gave us half glasses of wine on the house as we waited. Seating was very limited, reminded me of restaurants in NYC. Maybe 7 tables were available and there was a bar counter (where we sat.) He let 2 more parties wait with us and loudly shooed the third party away.

“We don’t have room for you. Lots of restaurants in North Beach, you won’t go hungry!!”

That made me feel lucky. Hee.

Sipping some wine while we anxiously wait.

I saw oyster shooters with soju on the menu and remembered a blog entry Cindy wrote once about her first experience. We ordered a couple. Pretty weak, hardly any soju. But I’m happy I can cross that off my mental to do list.

Had West Coast oysters for appetizers and ordered our Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Pasta with Chef’s choice of Seafood.

Mussels, Clams, Red Snapper, Shrimp, Squid

Mouth is watering! I still think about the pasta entrees. Mmmm. The red snapper in the second dish was perfect.

This blog entry is first of a series. Here are the other entries:

- Day 2 in San Fran
- I stalked a stalker and videotaped him.
- San Francisco Fire Engine Tour
- The Last of our San Fran Trip

Alan and I set the tone for our trip as we were being shuttled from airport parking to the terminals. When the shuttle driver asked us what airline we’re flying, I promptly answered, “Southwest.”

“No, we’re definitely not Southwest.”

So I checked my email from his phone and we WERE Southwest only, it was too late and shuttle driver already dropped us off. Not a big deal since it wasn’t that far of a walk but that really was the tone of our trip. Sometimes heading off to a restaurant we yelped only to realize we never got the NAME of the restaurant down and I grabbed the wrong address.

The first day we got in, Alan had to recover from an all-nighter he pulled so I did some exploring on my own for a couple of hours before meeting him up for dinner.

I found H&M. Always a mandatory stop for me when I’m in a city lucky enough to have H&M. On my walk back from H&M our hotel. I found a peculiar trio.

Have you seen an odder trio?

I managed to read a map (a feat for me, personally) and found the famed and oldest Chinatown.

I love Chinatowns.

I stopped by Sweetheart Cafe mainly to just get a green tea bubble tea but I also got some fried fish balls to snack on.

I met Alan in Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. We split the best crab of our lives at the Crab House. Alan was reading the directory searching for great accolades. He was won over by “world famous crabs” located at C2 on the map. We wandered around and realized we never got the name of the restaurant so Alan walks to a restaurant and asked the doorman, “Do you know where the world famous crabs are?”

“We have crabs… Dungeness crabs?”

“Are they world famous?”

“No. What’s the name of the restaurant?”

“We don’t know. Are you C2?”

“We’re A2.”

“Oh. Well, thank you!”

“But you haven’t seen our menu!”

Haha. We finally found C2 aka Crab House. It was DELICIOUS. I don’t know if I can have crab again anytime soon. (Maybe I lie a little because I tried a new restaurant today in Austin and had the crab cakes). Seriously, never had such fleshy and tasty crab in my life before. Afterwards, we split a banana and nutella crepe (beats my local Flip Happy Crepes, sadly) and a dessert wine flight. Pictures follow!

At California Wines enjoying some wine dessert

The last one was so fragrant. We bought a bottle and sipped on it at the hotel room throughout the trip.

We went home and had some wine. Then went to our first of two trips to In N’ Out. We love In N’ Out. What a great midnight meal. Drooooool.