One of those nights

10 ways to ease a bad mood (at least for me!):

1. Write it out.

2. Watch your favorite scenes from musicals:

3. Then start researching a trip to Austria. The hills are alive!

4. Watch a terrible, cheesy movie. Like this one.

5. Ice cream. I've been eating a lot of these lately. They are amazing.

6. Look at pictures from college.

7. Sing Landslide at the top of your lungs in the shower.

8. Make a list of all of the fun things you want to do.

9. Re-listen to all the old happy songs. (Kath, remember when I used to listen to this song ALL the time? And "red dress!")

10. Just relax. Everything will work out.

Row 34 - Fort Point

Row 34 has been on my "must visit" restaurant list since it opened in February. Unfortunately, getting a reservation proved more difficult than expected!

Row 34 is a sister restaurant of Island Creek Oyster Bar (one of my favorites) and bills itself as the “workingman’s oyster bar.” As it was Hayley's last weekend in town, we decided to give it one more shot and just showed up at the restaurant around 6 pm on Sunday night. As usual, there was about an hour + wait for a table. However, they had a separate list for the bar seats and there was only one group in front of us! We grabbed some drinks and waited it out for about 15 minutes until two seats opened up. Woo hoo!

Let's talk drinks. Row 34 has a great beer list! I was really excited to try out the uber local Congress Street IPA from Trillium (the brewery is right down the street from Row 34). I loved this beer and have really got to get myself to Trillium for a tasting!

After a long day of hiking, we were pretty hungry and ordered some quick food to start: clam chowder for Hayley and oysters for me.

I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to picking out oysters. I just want to try them all!! I have the Oysterpedia App on my phone to check out oyster descriptions, but the app is pretty lacking. I was stuck on my own and decided to just pick at random.

The Moon Shoal and the Chatham oysters were my favorite. I like them plump and real briny with just a touch of sweetness at the end.

Hayley's clam chowder was amazing...definitely the best I've tried in a long time. It was the perfect texture and you could really taste the bacon mixed in.

When it was time to pick our entrees, I knew I had to go with fried clams. I somehow managed to go all summer without eating fried clams and figured this might be my last opportunity until next year (UGH!!). They did NOT disappoint. The clams were perfectly fried and I loved the batter. The big basket of fries wasn't bad either :)

Hayley ordered the house made bucatini with shrimp. I didn't try this but it looked great!

Our service was a little slow throughout the night, but the bartender totally made up for it with dessert on the house! I was so full at this point, but I think Hayley loved the butterscotch pudding that was brought over.

Overall, a great dinner and worth the wait! I'm not quite sure that this is a "workingman's" oyster bar -- prices were on par with Island Creek Oyster Bar and while the ambiance was slightly more casual, it still felt very modern and refined.

Row 34 is located at:

383 Congress Street

Boston, MA 02210

Weekend Recap

This weekend feels both like it flew by and like it went really slow. How is that possible? In any case, I was NOT ready for it to be Monday. Even though I got plenty of sleep this weekend and could not get out of bed. I'm in this pattern of waking up super early, reading my book for a while until I fall back asleep, and then feeling completely unable to get up and get ready. Grr.

Anyway it was a pretty packed weekend, so this is gonna be a long one!

Friday:

On Friday I attended my very first cooking class at the Boston Center for Adult Education with my roommate. She picked out this class and I get to pick the next -- the class we took was called Nacho, Nacho Man: Mexican Favorites. I really enjoyed the class, but once again I just wish there was more hands on time! The instructor was great, but I really need to find a cooking class where I get to do everything. Orrrrr maybe I should just start cooking again??

The recipe page:

My first job was chopping peppers. You know I couldn't resist touching my eye after chopping those jalapenos. Hooooly crap that hurt. My hands had jalapeno residue on them all weekend. I ended up rubbing them in salt and lemon after a google search and that did the trick.

All the ingredients!

The beginnings of pico de gallo.

Roasted tomatoes.

Finished pico.

Incredible roasted corn and black bean salsa.

Homemade tortilla chips -- there were like 20 more batches of these.

Salsas ready to eat!

Guacamole (looks perfectly shaped because it was covered with plastic wrap)

Best Mexican rice ever.

Why have one queso when you can have two?

Tortilla soup, one of my fave soups of all time.

Time to feast!

My plate...a bit of everything!

Saturday:

On Saturday I dropped my phone and cracked the screen. I had a pretty bad reaction because things like this never happen to me. Gah. Currently working with the broken screen and will eventually get it replaced...

After the phone broke I stopped by the South Boston Street Festival to buy myself something to make me feel better. I got a cute little bracelet and some books for $1 each!

After the festival I went to the Lawn on D for Hayley's going away party (this is my final plea....don't leave me, Hayley!!!)

It's such an awesome space and I wish it had been open all summer!

Sadly, it got pretty chilly out so we moved the party to a nearby bar for some more drinks. An amazing rum based cocktail for me:

Eventually we went home for a little break, before heading back out to the Franklin Cafe for some dinner. I had eaten crap all day so I ordered my first salad in probably 2 months...no photos for the rest of the night!

Sunday:

We woke up to a beautiful Sunday and I knew I wanted to be outside. I also really wanted to get out of the city, so me and Hayley went searching for a good hike in the area. I've always wanted to do the Skyline Trail at Middlesex Fells, so we grabbed a Lyft and made our way over. The trail was awesome -- it was gorgeous and totally felt like we were far more than 20 minutes outside of Boston. It's about 7 miles total. Including lunch it took us about 5 hours to complete. It probably shouldn't have taken that long but we got lost a few times and went pretty off trail. Oops!

Why it's called the Skyline Trail -- great view of Boston:

When we got back to Southie we were pretty hungry, so we decided to make one last attempt to visit a restaurant we've tried to go to every weekend: Row 34! Dinner was amazing and I'll be writing a full review of it soon!

That's about it for the weekend. I spent the rest of the night writing in my journal and watching the Biggest Loser. Not sure how I feel about the new trainers or the fact that it's all former athletes competing. Am I the only one who watches this!?

This was a good week.

It's been an interesting week. That being said, there was still many things that made me happy:

1. Another outdoor Cardio Pilates class on Monday which was great and led to some amazing photos:

Painted sky

Hazy moon

City lights

2. This post on STFU, Parents. This is my favorite blog on the interwebs.

2. I attended a free movie screening on Wednesday with some friends of "This is Where I Leave You"! I read the book in high school (I think) and really enjoyed the movie. It was so funny and all of the actors did a great job, particularly Adam Driver. Watch the trailer!

3. This adorable video:

4.  New things! I got a new duvet comforter and I'm falling in love with it. It is SOOO soft and I love the colors. It looks grey in the picture but it's actually a light blue. My room just feels so calming :)

And a new couch!!! I am sooooo excited about this and can't wait for all the TV/movie watching I'm gonna do on it.

5. This kitty, sleeping in the window of a book store.

6. These incredible pictures from Burning Man. I want to go!

7. The amazing sunsets of late:

Have a nice weekend!

Ward 8 - North End

I've been going out to eat a lot lately. I have a list of about 100 restaurants in Boston to try, so it feels good to be crossing some off!

I went to Ward 8 with a few friends on Saturday night for dinner. The restaurant is located in the North End, but a bit outside of all of the Italian places lining Hanover and Salem Streets (West End?).

We had an 8:45 reservation and were seated by the hostess right away. We started with some drinks -- Spencer Trappist was on tap so I HAD to get it. So tasty.

We also ordered a few appetizers to start. Fried cheese steak dumplings with spicy tomato aioli:

And 5-layer dip:

The dumplings were awesome, especially the tomato aioli. I was a bit underwhelmed by the 5-layer dip -- it seemed like something I could make at home. In fact, I probably have!

For my entree, I couldn't pass up the summer seafood stew. My bowl was filled to the brim with lobster, shrimp, mussles, white fish, calamari, chorizo, rice and a spicy tomato broth. Can't forget the two hunks of grilled, buttery bread on the side! Gotta soak up as much summer seafood as possible in the next few weeks...

This is pretty much my ideal dinner and I was very happy with it. The whole dish was just slightly under seasoned (needed more salt), and I considered asking for some from the waitress. But let's be honest, with all the pickles I eat the last thing I need is additional salt.

I also took a photo of my friend's dinner because I thought the lobster "hole" looked good (it had black truffle mixed in which was an interesting addition).

Ward 8 is a great gastropub and a nice addition to the North End. I definitely plan to return!

Ward 8 is located at:
90 N. Washington Street

Boston, MA 02114