And the foodie-fantasticness continues

I am sorry for missing a post last night! It was my family’s last night in town, and we stayed out at dinner until 10, and when we got back home I hung out with mom for a bit. They are back in NJ now, and I miss them so much already! Hubs and I are having a relaxing evening at home.

Overall it was such a fantastic weekend, full of fun and good food. Sunday night’s dinner was at the Legal Seafood’s in Kendall Square. Now, some may think Legal’s is a bit cliche and touristy, but to me, it is consistent, yummy food with a menu large enough to please pretty much any group. The Kendall Square location is a minimally decorated, sleek and chic spot that is super comfortable and family friendly. It is incredibly difficult to choose off of the huge menu, and on Sunday I decided on the Legal Experience, a sampler that combined shrimp dumplings, crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, and tuna sashimi with seaweed salad.

A little bit of everything

 Legal’s sashimi is definitely my favorite thing on the menu. The tuna is always top notch, and they serve it with a nice drizzle of wasabi and seaweed salad that is crunchy and salty with a nice sesame flavor. I could eat this stuff every day; I should really look into making my own!

On Monday, I took my brother in law on the Sam Adams Brewery tour. It is a pretty interesting and entertaining tour that ends with several tastes of Sam Adams’ many beers, and best of all it is free! In lieu of charging, they suggest making a donation, which they in turn give to local charities. I got to try Sam’s new beer, Boston Brick Red, which is only going to be served in Boston. For every beer that is purchased, Sam Adams will make a donation to the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Fund. The beer is worth coming to Boston to try. It is a beautiful deep red color with a caramel-like taste, and for some reason I tasted a hint of red Twizzler, a kind of sweetness that was very good.

For our last dinner together on this trip, I chose Amelia’s Trattoria. Their website is really cute, for starters, and I had heard great things from friends. I can not wait to go back!

Amelia’s is the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, near the fabulous Marriott where my sister and co stayed. It is a tiny place with maybe a dozen tables, and is surrounded by windows that look like they open up out to the street in the nicer weather.

I didn’t order any starters, but our super friendly server brought out bread with a slightly curry flavored chickpea spread. The spread’s flavor reminded me of the Matter Paneer that we get at the Galway Market, so of course I loved it! I also had a couple of bites of my sister’s Ceasar salad which was one of the best I have ever had. It had a delish lemony flavor and very fresh, crisp lettuce.

The hubs ordered the antipasti for one:

This is for one person!

Luckily, I was able to help him eat some of it 🙂 I helped myself to all of the olives, a cornichon, some roasted red peppers, and a bit of peppercorn cheese. I just love the bite that peppercorns have!

For my meal I went simple; I just wanted spaghetti with tomato sauce, and their homemade pasta was cooked to al dente perfection and topped with a roasted tomato ragu and shaved parmesan.

Perfect homemade comfort

Ricotta pie, rich, but not too sweet

Amelia’s was adorable, the service was fantastic, and the menu offered many things that I wanted to try, a surefire trifecta for bringing me back! It was a really wonderful evening.

Today I started a little bit of detox from the weekend. It has been a CRAZY weather day. On my walk in this morning, I could barely breathe due to the heat and humidity. I didn’t get to leave the office all day, and when I stepped outside at 5 for my run, I was chilly in a short sleeved shirt! It is now really dark, super chilly, and foggy out. I love this weather. Its the perfect temp to open all the windows and a bottle of red from our Bin Ends wine sale purchase stash.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, my official half-marathon training starts today. I have been running, walking, and lifting weights fairly consistently for months, so I am hoping that upping my mileage over the next 1.5 months and adding in more hilly runs will get me prepped to have fun in Newport. Today I took a longer route home, running about 4.5 miles in about 38 minutes. Out of that time, I had stop for a few traffic lights, and also walked for about 3 minutes overall to stretch my legs. When I got home, I did 25 squats with 5 lb weights, then walked to the Newmarket produce market to stock up. Dinner is going to be some Legals’ leftovers, fresh carrots, and Dr. Praeger’s broccoli bites, a new product in our house which I will be sure to review.

FINALLY in this neverending post, I wanted to mention that I arrived home from my run to a fabulously big box of samples from Tim at Good Health Natural Products. I am so excited to try all of the snacks and natural soaps that they sent for me to try, and I will be writing about them over the next week or so. Definitely check out their website; it really is full of yummy looking things!

I am off to catch up on the bad tv that I have DVR’ed  over the last few days and to just do some vegging. I LOVE having visitors, but we were busy bees and I am tired.

Buenas noches 🙂