Our plan for Saturday night was to get a drink at the Prudential Tower, watch the sunset, and then get dinner in Little Italy. But as we were headed out, H realized he lost his jacket and went back to the conference to look for it. When he came back (still without his jacket), we didn’t have time to go to the Prudential Tower and make our 9:30 reservation at Taranta, so we just headed to Little Italy. We walked around for a while looking in all the cute restaurants and being amazed at the long line outside Modern Pastry. We popped into Caffe Vittoria for a drink. The cappuccinos looked amazing and they do offer soymilk, but I couldn’t say no to the North End Express: vodka, Kahlua, and espresso.
We had a short wait for a table before being offered one in the basement. I was a bit skeptical, but the corner table we were offered was cozy and separated from the other tables.
Across from our table was a cigarette vending machine. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those. Maybe it was just decoration.
After we paid the bill (cash only at Caffe Vittoria), we walked down to Taranta, which offers Southern Italian and Peruvian Cuisine. It’s a certified green restaurant; it’s not vegan, but at least they know what “vegan” means.
The Pappardelle con funghi porcini (wild mushrooms, porcini and white truffle oil) with Orecchiette and no parmesan is vegan. There were a lot of mushrooms, which is generally the problem I have with restaurant pasta dishes: a gigantic plate of pasta with a couple pieces of vegetable. The pictures are bad, but at least you can see how generous they are with the mushrooms. The bottom layer of mushrooms and pasta was soaking in the truffle oil, so the end of the meal actually tasted better than the first few bites.
H had to get up early for his conference and I had a two hour run, so we never made it to the Prudential Tower. But here is my one night shot of Boston.
On Sunday morning, I woke up earlier, finished the Boston creme pie from Veggie Galaxy and went out for a run. It was a beautiful morning for a run. Running along the Charles River made me miss Chicago and DC. Running in Woodstock isn’t very scenic.
The afternoon portion of H’s conference was not relevant to his practice, so he skipped it to hang out with me. We were going to go to The Other Side for lunch, but when we got there it was closed. For good. Apparently, we missed it by three weeks. So we walked down Newbury Street for an outside cafe with a vegan option and Cafeteria Boston was the first acceptable option. I ordered the gazpacho, which was by far the best part of the meal. And very pretty.
I ordered the white wine sangria to drink; it was fine.
H ordered the cherry coke cocktail, which was just as gross as a real cherry coke.
For my entree, I ordered the hummus sandwich (Kalamata olive hummus, roasted red peppers, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes) with a salad. It was huge, but I was able to take half of it with me for dinner on the plane. United was serving dinner, but there were no special meal options.
After lunch, we walked down Newbury Street (window shopping only) to the public garden.
I convinced H to go on a swan boat ride, which at $2.75 per person is totally worth it.
Look how much fun he is having!
We wandered through Boston Commons and back to our hotel via Faneuil Hall. We watched some street performers and looked for a replacement jacket for H. Our flight was two hours delayed, but eventually we had to accept that our trip was over and we would have a long wait at the airport. This was a last minute flight, so it was very expensive (the hospital paid for H’s ticket though), but I didn’t realize when I bought the tickets that our return trip was in first class. It’s really not worth the price, but flying first class is much more enjoyable. We sat on the runway for a while before the pilot announced that weather in Chicago meant an additional 58 minute delay. We eventually got a new route and were able to leave before that 58 minutes was up, but we still landed in Chicago three hours late. At least it was the return trip with comfy seats, wine and hot stale nuts that was delayed and not the flight into Boston where we were not even seated together in the back middle seats of the plane.
