Food Crawl - 30th Birthday in Boston

Yep...I'm 30!  It was my birthday yesterday, so the friends took me out for high tea downtown!  It was a fancy afternoon :)

Before we met up with the gals, I tried to pose real cool in my bday dress.  I'm sure you can imagine how that turned out...

 

posing

falling

Yea. Real cool (see Dave's successful attempt at coolness at the bottom of this post).

After a quick trip to Hotel Chocolat for my favorite salted caramels, we popped over to L'Espalier. 

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Totally fancy-schmancy, with a cool elevator guy.  I was with Theresa, and when we got upstairs, we were greeted by the hostess- she then directed us to the salon to wait for Leah (she got trapped near the Commons because of the Jimmy Fund walk!).

The first tea that we received upon arriving at our table was this hand-tied little ball of tea/flowers:

You plop it into hot water (although I doubt "plop" is the technical term)...

 

...and wait for it to bloom:

Below is the menu for the rest of the teas- they were all included, so we could try each one!

We chose the "Little Red Riding Hood" fantasy tea, which came with a delightful assortment of tea sandwiches and petit fours.

Lobster with herbed cream on a breakfast radish, Roasted guinea hen profiterole with garlic aïoli,

Jonah crab salad with gribiche and American caviar on a deviled egg (the best one!),

Smoked salmon on wheat with yuzu kosho crème, and English cucumber with candied lemon and sorrel creamcheese on citrus bread .

Theresa and Leah being all fancy (pinkies are up, if you can't tell)

When the dessert plate came out, mine had a special birthday treat!

Here is the Pâte à choux swan with espresso Chantilly cream:

...and here are the Almond apricot scone and chocolate cinnamon scone (hanging out with a delectable mango trifle!)

Not pictured is the Greek yogurt panna cotta- which was just heavenly!  It was an unassuming little patty of creamy, rich goodness.  Trust me.

We also got a few amazing accoutrements:

which we ate by the spoonful :)

Here's the view of Boylston street from our table:

I asked the hostess to snap a photo of us on our way out, but I think she didn't understand what I was saying when I explained how to focus on my camera (I think she MUCH preferred the girls who handed her an iPhone to take their picture!)

After we ate, we went out for pedicures. I told you...this was a fancy outing!

Can you tell which color is mine? I'm sure you can, and I'm sure you're not surprised

Post nails, we shopped at a few boutiques on Newbury street, where I picked up a clearance skirt and necklace, Leah got a cute shirt, and Theresa purchased 2 shirts! Success!

It was time to meet up with the boys, and when I was asked what I wanted to do for dinner, I had a hankering for hot dogs.  Ha!  Not as classy as the rest of the day, but boy did they hit the spot!!

Of course, we went to Spikes.


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Matt, Theresa, and Adam

Chili Cheese dog:

Junkyard dog:

And mine, the 57 T Bird (no, that's not grease...the oogy stuff is honey mustard, covering the melted cheese!!)

The boys apparently had a food crawl of their own while we were doing girly stuff- including Tasty Burger, Marliave, Thinking Cup, and a trip to Chinatown for pork buns.

At the beginning of the post I promised you Dave's attempt at cool-ness.  WAY better than mine! (but maybe that's because I captured the radical lens flare! hehe)

The drive home over the Mass Ave bridge

Thanks for making my bday so fun!

Food Crawl 1

Yes, I admit....this is not a recipe.  Dave and I have started a new idea for outings in Boston- Food Crawl!  Basically, we hit up a few different places and order something to split.  By only sampling one or 2 menu items, we will hopefully get a good idea of what that particular restaurant is like, without spending too much money or committing to a whole meal.  We'll be reporting back on the blog...not really for anyone else but ourselves- we want to remember where we ate, so we know where to go back!

 Our inaugural Food Crawl was Saturday, May 12.  To work up an appetite, we skateboarded around near Cambridge, stopping for a few pics along the way.

(btw, I was completely unaware that Dave was snapping these as I childishly walked around the ledge that surrounded the fountain)

It was fun to play with the camera's shutter speed :)

Our first stop?  Area Four 

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We split a scrumptious cheese danish.  For beverages, I went with an unsweetened iced tea, and Dave had an overly saccharine lemonade. (he probably won't be getting that again!)  

hooray for free wi-fi!

As per Leah's recommendation, we stopped by Baraka Cafe.  They specialize in Algerian-Tunisian cuisine.

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It was super tiny, and seemed to be a 2 woman operation (at least, it was when we were there).  One cooking, and one up in the front.  We chose to get our food to go, but hung out at one of the tables while we waited.

There's no way we were going to remember what we ordered if it wasn't for the photo above!

Inside of that bready pocket was a mixture of onions and other veggies in a spiced sauce (although not spicy).

We also got fries :)

My attempt at capturing lens flare.  Look, I got some!!

We skated back around to Boston, and stopped briefly on the Mass Ave bridge to chat with Mom.  It was Mother's Day Eve, after all.

This photo was taken by a man who was carrying a Subway sandwich around the city all day, taking pictures of it next to things.  Weird.  I'm surprised he didn't make us put it in this shot!

 The last stop on our journey was Sweet Cupcakes.

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We went with a Chocolate Covered Pretzel cupcake, and a Chocolate Coconut.

Although good (and pretty!), I'd say they were not good enough to make us want to go back.  I'm sure there must be better cupcakes somewhere in Boston!

Super cute.  I want one!