Portland Beer

High off our Maine Brew Bus tour, we decided to grab a random collection of beer to try back at our hotel. We paired our beer with blue cheese and buffalo wing XX popcorn from Coastal Maine Popcorn Co. 

Ballast Point grapefruit sculpin: Thought it'd be sweet, but it was kind of bitter, and too hoppy. 

Allagash Saison: I do not remember, but I guess it was okay if I made no bad notes about it? 

Hitachino Nest Japanese classic ale: Very woody taste, and enhanced the blue cheese flavoured popcorn greatly. 

Ram Island iced Tea Mead from Maine Mead Works: Sweet, but has that very American iced tea taste. Enhanced the spiciness of the Buffalo XX popcorn. We enjoyed this very much, as we all agreed to buy and share it when we had tried it at the brewery. 

As for the popcorn from Coastal Maine Popcorn Co., it's flavoured popcorn; what can go wrong? It was pretty fun seeing which beers would bring out which popcorn flavour. 

Beer and popcorn time antics with Jo post to come. 

Charlie's Sandwich Shoppe

Charlie's Sandwich Shoppe (429 Columbus Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts)

Before our trip to Boston, I had Googled some local favourites for our crew to visit since I don't like eating crap. Charlie's Sandwich Shoppe was the recipient of a James Beard Award in 2005. That sounded like anti-crap to me!

There weren't any tables when we got there, so we ordered our food to go. Luckily for us, there was a park nearby where we could eat breakfast peacefully and take in the Boston breeze.

The menu advertises their turkey hash specialty, but I really wanted some pancakes that day.

Banana pancakes, to be precise. In the three large flapjacks, there were banana slices lodged inside. I thought this was pretty cool because for some reason I imagined bananas being mashed into the pancake batter instead. My favourite bits were the caramelized brown bits on the banana pieces.

Casey ordered the turkey hash, and it was quite flavourful and filling.

It should also be noted that there are no washrooms at this old school joint.

Total damage: approximately $10 USD.

Boston Backlog

Been a little behind with food posts, so without further ado, here's the best meal I had in Boston:

Atlantic Fish Company (761 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts)
Tel: 617-267-4000
Hours of Operation:
Sunday - Thursday 11:30 AM - 11:00 PM
Friday - Saturday 11:30 AM - 12:00 AM

The four of us walked into this restaurant and were asked if we had a reservation. We did not, and we were told that the restaurant was fully booked for another one to two hours. As we were debating whether or not to wait, the restaurant staff decided to tell us that if the next party didn't claim their reservation, we could have their table in fifteen minutes. It turned out to be less than a five minute wait before they seated us.

Unsure of whether or not to save room for dessert, we decided to ask our waiter for the dessert menu before ordering our main courses. He seemed amused by our request. That's how we roll. And of course, not wanting to waste time, we ordered starters while deliberating over which mains to pick. That is also how we roll.

By this meal, I felt that I had enough clam chowder on the trip. So I went with a cup of crab bisque.

My initial thought was, "It tastes very... crabby." And I meant that in the best possible way. That is good stuff, and I wish I had some now.

My eating buddies went with the tower of seafood for four. They were way more impressed with this seafood than with what they received at the other restaurants we tried in Boston. Though the platter is for four, not everything comes evenly in four equal chunks since the content is measured by weight. Grab the big lobster claw if you can!

Pan-seared Giant Sea Scallops with asparagus and spinach:
Honestly, I was expecting no more than three or four scallops on an empty-looking plate. I was pleasantly surprised with what I got. The scallops were great in terms of texture. Jess ordered her scallops blackened (not really, but our waiter just couldn't remember that hers were also supposed to be pan-seared), and hers had more flavour.

The spinach was simply seasoned with large grain salt. I think it was sea salt. Nothing was really overly complicated on my plate, and I liked that I could really get to taste each individual item. I also liked the shower cap type thing on the lemon. It was pretty novel to me.

Mel ordered the San Francisco Cioppino. It was like a giant seafood stew, and you really have to be a monster to finish it. I found it to be very tasty from the forkfuls that I stole.

From our pre-meal glance at the dessert menu, Jess and I planned to save room for the peanut butter ice cream pie. So pleased with the seafood tower appetizer, Casey and Mel decided that they wanted more raw seafood while the other half of the table went the conventional route and stuck to sweets after the mains. Our waiter mentioned that upon putting our order in, the chef/kitchen staff thought there was a pregnant lady at our table. No pregnant lady, we just eat what we want whenever we want. He also mentioned that he never had to place oyster forks and dessert forks down at the same time before we came along. We're special.
The ice cream pie reminded me a bit of a fancy sundae - one that I had to share. The peanut butter taste wasn't overpowering and I was thrilled that there were no berries involved. Jess really liked this dessert. The weird part was eating this and smelling the raw oysters from Casey and Mel's side.

Damage for our table:

Yup, in that order.

This was my favourite Boston seafood place.

Quincy Market

Quincy Market (Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Massachusetts)

What's there to do in Boston (for non Red Sox and non Harvard/MIT fans) other than eat seafood? Go to Quincy Market, a.k.a. Faneuil Hall Marketplace... to eat more food. And seafood.

From my understanding and mini exploration, there are three long buildings that make up the bulk of Quincy Market. One of them has mostly dine-in restaurants, another has mostly stores with non-edible product, and the middle one is where the cafeteria style food is at. Our intention was to try a bunch of food from different vendors instead of eating at only one restaurant. We didn't really succeed because what we ordered was pretty filling.

The Chipyard

We stopped by a cookie shoppe at the request of Jess's cravings. The Chipyard offers a small variety of cookies that all or almost all have chocolate chips in them.

I'm a fan of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie:

Soft and delicious.

Through the window, we saw a huge mixer that could probably fit Jess in it. It was exciting.

The website offers online ordering. Looking at the available flavours on the site, I wish they offered banana chocolate chip in store.

Boston and Maine Fish Company (200 Faneuil Hall Marketplace)
Phone: 617-723-4111

I got the seasonal special ($17.75 USD) which included a cup of clam chowder and a lobster roll:
While I didn't enjoy the brown edges of the greenery in my sandwich, I did enjoy the large chunks of lobster. The chowder had large chunks of potato. It was okay, but not as good as the one from Legal (see previous post). Jess said it tasted like Campbell's. Yay to those crackers!

One shouldn't dilly-dally if the hallway is relatively clear because it can get pretty crowded.

Chowda!

Legal Sea Foods

Legal Sea Foods (The Prudential Center, 800 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts)
Phone: 617-266-6800

Mon - Thu 11:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Fri - Sat 11:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m.

Sunday 11:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Not wanting to deviate from our itinerary, we decided on a seafood restaurant chain for our first meal in Boston. It was recommended to us by several people.

Mel, Casey, and Jess all thought that our server was a [insert expletive here]. I didn't notice any bad attitude from her, but I might've just been excited about seafood in Boston. They later said that she got better afterwards, thinking that she straightened out after we all ordered our own lobster.

I started off with a New England clam chowder.
It was good and chunky. I liked how the crackers hold up in the soup. Luckily for me, the same crackers are served everywhere else we ate in Boston, too.

Wanting to maximize seafood intake, we split twelve raw clams among the four of us. We ordered six Littlenecks ($6.95 USD) and six Cherrystones ($6.95 USD). The menu is a bit deceiving, since it states that raw clams are six for $6.95 and twelve for $9.95. When we received our bill, we discovered that the price for a dozen only applies if you order all the same kind. D'oh!
I've never had raw clams before, but I think I like them better than oysters. Speaking of which, the oysters that the rest of my table ingested didn't seem too impressive. Mel noted weird aftertastes.

Since it was our only planned activity, I wanted to stuff my face with lobster. I decided to go with the steamed 1.25-1.50 lb lobster. It came with my choice of two sides. I went for mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese. Broccoli tastes much better when it's cut into manageable chunks for me. I had some oversized pieces.

The shell of the lobster was super soft, and I didn't need the cracker. The meat was also curiously easy to pick out of the shells. I didn't notice this on my lobster, but Casey kept mentioning that his had a weird layer of skin in between the meat and the shell that was inedible.

Jess didn't eat the clams in her lobster bake. I tried one, but I was a bit grossed out by the sand in it. I couldn't quite get it all off the meat even with rinsing. I guess the clams were better raw.

As a first meal in Boston, I thought this was pretty good.

This was just the beginning of our high cholesterol weekend!

Total damage: $43 USD for my lobster, chowder and my share of the raw clams.