The oddest suggestion we got for places to eat for our Boston trip was definitely this one. We decided to try it out, because it would be a unique experience. Where do you go get Brazilian seafood stew anywhere, let alone New England?
Rapscallion Honey Wheat.
Caipirinha.
Fried frog legs.
Seafood stew.
They have this hot sauce on the side that is fantastic.
Plantains.
Two of my cousins went to MIT, and the third one is currently still enrolled there. When I asked about things to do in Boston, I got very mixed suggestions. One of the suggestions was pretty solid all across the board, Italian food at Giacomo’s on the North End.
The place is small like most places on the North End, so there’s a wait. A line forms outside the restaurant and people are willing to stand for up to a couple hours just to get into this restaurant. I wonder what happens when it starts to snow.
caprese salad-bufala mozarella,fresh tomato,basil and virgin oil
fried calamari
shrimp and lobster pasta.
half lobster & mussels pasta.
Giacomo’s is worth waiting for, because the wait isn’t about just standing around. You can have someone in your party walk half a block to Mike’s Pastry to pick up some treats.
They bake quite a few different treats in their shop.
This, however, is what they are known for, cannolis.
Delicious, cream-filled treats.
Here Michelle enjoys a cannoli with the line to Giacomo’s in the background.
While Mike’s Pastry makes a great pre dinner snack, just up the street past Mike’s is Modern Pastry. They are famous for their sfogliatelle. It’s a flaky, light pastry with filled witha creamy filling. Unfortunately with as full as we were, these were readily handled before we could get any photos.
So if you’re ever in Boston, make this Italian meal tour on the North End. You won’t regret it.
Remember when we planned our Freedom Trail tour around an eating spot? Most of my idea seem good up front, but then they tend to unravel as the lack of planning becomes apparently. Not this one. It was absolutely a brilliant plan, even in hindsight.
We found it. A little store front on a small street houses one of the best known seafood joints in the city.
Peering through the window. Oh, this is going to be good.
The raw bar menu on display on the mirror.
These little things are like oyster crackers. They’re hard in texture, probably great for clam chowder.
A great selection of beers.
Ordering from the raw bar.
Some oysters and clams from various local waterways.
A lobster roll. This is freaking incredible. The meat is in huge chunks, not shredded little bits mixed with imitation crab like you might find on the west coast.
I feel like I could spend a week in Boston just trying the different lobster rolls and clam chowder. Next time I may just do that.
I feel like making a hook with my pointer finger and saying, “Arrrrrrrr!” It’s something about the ocean.
When you drive down to the Ports O’Call in San Pedro, you start to smell the fresh ocean air. As you walk into the fish market, you’re greeted by the lobster claw machine. Be honest. Everyone has tried to win a lobster while drinking at a bar before, right? Just me?
What most people eat is from the made-to-order section of the market. There is a huge display case showing off many different varieties of seafood. You can add on corn, potatoes, vegetables, and garlic bread. They really need to add the option of sausage. It would be a less expensive protein source in the meal that would work well with the way they serve it up.
You can also select whole fish including grouper, salmon, tuna, and flounder. They fried up these fish, and I have to say they looked really good.
The view was pretty nice. You get to watch the harbor, smell the clean air, and watch the seagulls fight over scraps left by other eaters.
Of course you can’t enjoy a nice meal by the water without a pitcher of beer. The hot sauce is optional, but that’s how we roll.
Shrimp, vegetables, potatoes, and somewhere buried in there are scallops.
It definitely wasn’t a small meal. They must have a tendency to overcook everything here, because the shrimp were soggy, and the scallops got absolutely pulverized, leaving us to hunt for them.
There is another place in the market that was open at the time that was serving food. Pretty much everything was fried. We decided to try out the fried calamari. It was terrible. It was soggy and oily.
Currently I am on the fence about whether I would like to return here. If I were to come back to the San Pedro Fish Market, I would definitely get a whole fried fish and also steer clear of the calamari. Maybe I’d try to win a lobster and eat that as well.
Michelle’s been pretty busy with her new job and trying to balance her schedule, so we weren’t even going to have dinner together. Fortunately she got to finish up and come home earlier than she thought, so I made her some dinner. That’s really not picture worthy though, so instead we will go on to last night’s dinner with some friends at Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale in Costa Mesa.
I enjoy a good fry, and they cook up some nice fries here.
Their Kobe Sliders are well put together as well. They don’t try to get too fancy with sauces or glazes. It’s just a good piece of meat.
Bacon wrapped dates with bleu cheese.
Mussels. It tastes like the ocean in a good way, not the BP oil spill way.
Sweet bread. Doesn’t look like bread? Google it.
Pork belly.
Ice cream and something.
Happy birthday, Michelle! Creme Brulee in vanilla, salted caramel, and tres leches.
Tagged burger, costa mesa, french fries, pork, seafood
“Lion’s Head.”
Pork so fatty and awesome that you can cut it with a spoon.
This was a bad idea after the drinking done beforehand. 2/3 people at the table woke up drunk.
It’s good but the line at this place is ridiculous. They’re just baked goods!
Mom’s osso bucco.
Don’t forget the steak.
King’s Hawaiian birthday cake.
With a root beer float and some hot sauce.
Oysters.
Many pounds of shrimp, crawfish, corn, and sausage. There’s a very excited person in top right of this picture.
And the celebration continues on into this week. Happy birthday, Michelle!
One of Michelle’s friends from college was in town from Alaska, so we decided that a dinner was in order. Boiling Crab in Rowland Heights was the spot chosen. The rain made traffic terrible, but it also removed the wait that normally exists at this place.
Let me start off by saying that Asians do not know how to make money off of alcohol. I was early so I grabbed a beer at a bar in the same plaza as Boiling Crab, and the glass wasn’t a pint. It looked like it was 24 ounces. Back at Boiling Crab the beers were $3/bottle, way under what a restaurant normally charges for beer. While the businessman in me says this is poor business, the alcoholic inside of me nods in satisfaction.
I’ve said multiple times that I don’t like sweet potato fries. For some reason these are not as sweet as other places, and I like them. They’re like a hybrid between regular fries and sweet potato fries.
Fried oysters.
Hot wings. Michelle said these were hot. When she says something is hot, you steer clear of it.
Shrimp and crawfish. The main event.
Not to be stopped after a single meal, we headed to Class 302 across the street for dessert.
I always watched friends pour on condensed milk onto shaved ice in high school, like it was the antidote to the poison they took. I told them that they should just freeze the condensed milk and shave that. I think that’s what they do here.
As my regular readers know, I can’t stand the way Asians do dessert. This is not dessert!
I went ahead and ordered Railroad Style Noodles. This was very tasty. Can anyone recommend a place to eat something like this that’s not so far east?
On a last note, Class 302 was awesome except for the smell of stinky tofu that wafted through the restaurant for a short while. Seriously, how do people eat that shit? It smells like feet! You are an asshole if you order this stuff in a restaurant. People are trying to enjoy other foods and not lose their meal. So to all people that order stinky tofu, fuck you.
When we were getting recommendations for places to eat in Palm Springs, Roy’s came up. I really didn’t want to check out a restaurant that is part of a chain, but after striking out at so many other places that were closed for the summer, I figured it was a safe bet. Plus Michelle loves seafood and had never been to Roy’s before.
So familiar. I wonder how seafood handles 115 degree weather.
When making reservations there’s a drop down box to select the occasion for the meal. It’s just enough to make your wife think you actually planned something special.
Roy’s Canoe Appetizer for Two. Hey, there are two of us in this marriage. That’s perfect. Before I’d just have to go ahead and eat two portions.
Michelle, doing everything in her power not to swallow the plate whole.
My Shellfish Sampler.
Yes, dear. I planned the whole thing!
So when you’re stuck in the middle of a sweltering desert and all the locals have gone to cooler places, seafood is an okay choice as long as it’s from Roy’s. The flavors aren’t always my favorite there, but the food is always fresh and cooked perfectly.
Tagged fusion, hawaiian, rancho mirage, roys, seafood
Yes, I love to take photos of food. I love the angry comments about how lunch is still hours away and my blog has made them hungry. Here we go again.
My $3.00 breakfast at Tokyo 7-7 the morning after my birthday.
Homemade corned beef hash at S & W Country Diner. Really good.
Chicken melt, also at S & W.
Michelle’s mushrooms stuffed with brie, via The Pioneer Woman.
Fresh shrimp platter made for a Fathers’ Day BBQ at Michelle’s parent’s place.
That something is your spelling. Michelle and I went to Fraiche in Culver City last week. How that is pronounced “fresh” is beyond me. Fraiche was one of the places within two blocks of our place that we hadn’t checked out yet, because it looked expensive, beyond our normal casual dining standard. Taco trucks are right in our dollar to flavor ratio. We decided to try it out because we had a Groupon.
People watching while we sip on our beers.
Steak Frites. Cooked perfectly and not drowned out by the sauce. I want to taste the meat.
Monkfish “Francaise”, poor man’s lobster. Say what you want about the socioeconomic status of those who eat this dish, but I love it.
The dishes were well balanced without one flavor overpowering any other. I don’t think that I will be eating here regularly without some money saving coupon in the mix, because I don’t think I could take a hit in the wallet from this place regularly.
Hello, there. My name is Matt, but on this website I just refer to myself as m@. I love all things Star Wars, food, beer, and music, especially The Beatles. I'm one who likes to be noticed and will sometimes say or do inappropriate things to get your attention. I'm perfectly complimented by my online and real life partner Michelle.