What’s that sound? Aaaaaah it’s the quiet of Kenmore Square. No ticket hawkers yelling in my face, no mobbed trains or sidewalks, no overzealous baseball fans vomiting on the sidewalk. Baseball season is over, and our routines can return to normal. Now, before I get hate mail, I fully appreciate and respect baseball lovers, but I personally loathe baseball season. I have never been a fan, but moving to New England really turned me off of the whole thing. It all started in college, when a croquet match couldn’t happen without Red Sox fans setting something on fire, tearing down a piece of property, punching a police horse in the face (uhh loser!), and chanting “Yankees Suck”. It continued when I turned 21 and was able to go to bars and the entire culture was obsessed and angry. And it only got worse when I moved to Boston, found myself running in road races THAT WERE NOT DURING BASEBALL SEASON and had bystanders chanting “Yankees Suck” at us runners who were just out to run 10 miles. . . and I can bet we were in better shape than their beloved pro athletes. When I lived on the “B” and “C” lines, baseball season meant months of trains crowded with drunk suburban men who had lost sight of where they were going and who refused to hold on to the subway pole, choosing rather to slosh their pockets full of beer all over me, who had just left a 10 hour work day and was now just trying to get home to eat some dinner. Yes, as you can see I do not like baseball season. Sorry if that makes me sound like a grump. . .
One of the other downsides of baseball season is that we rarely get to go to one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Eastern Standard Kitchen. Located in Kenmore Square, Eastern Standard is in the middle of it all only a few blocks from Fenway Park and right at the opening of the Kenmore bus and train stations. Its also at the Citgo sign, the one mile to go marker of the Boston Marathon 🙂 During baseball season it is difficult to get into Eastern Standard if there is a game on, and since I rarely keep track of the Sox schedule, we tend to avoid the area in general in favor of restaurants closer to home. But now that the World Series has started, the Sox are nowhere to be seen, and Kenmore is fairly quiet. I was thrilled to head there for dinner tonight. We bravely sat outside under the cozy heat lamps in their very Parisian outdoor patio.
We were the only ones on the patio, but it was quite warm and nice. We were first brought some bread and menus, which include Eastern Standard’s massive cocktail and wine lists.
I ate the sourdough with butter. The butter is sweet, slightly salty, and super creamy. Truly delicious. For my drink, I ordered a French 75, a mix of gin, champagne, lemon, and sugar. I love this blend!
It was so pretty in a champagne flute with a curly lemon peel! We started out with oysters. Eastern Standard has one of the best raw bars in the city, and tonight we chose Duxbury oysters along with some Cape Cod oysters.
Mmmm. . . For our meals, hubs ordered the daily special, smoked haddock with potatoes and vegetables. I ordered another appetizer, Maine lobster in puff pastry with sherry cream sauce, aka one of the best things I have ever eaten. Huge chunks of perfectly cooked Maine lobster were sandwiched between layers of butter puff pastry with mushrooms, all gently nestled in a bed of sherry cream sauce. In the sauce I could taste sherry, cream, butter, and lobster stock. I asked for a spoon so that I could get every last drop. Holy deliciousness. If it wouldn’t have made me look like a weirdo I would have ordered another, but I was also stuffed. For a $13 appetizer, the portion was quite hefty, and the quality was just divine. I was more than glad I ran AND went to the gym this morning, before the sun was up! The haddock was also spectacular, smoky and flaky, perfectly cooked and on a bed of tender potatoes, mushrooms, and celery.
Lobster to the left, haddock to the right. The service was, as always, polite, attentive, and quick. I always have an incredibly delicious and satisfying experience at Eastern Standard, and I look forward to almost six months of eating there, baseball free. Post dinner, we wandered around Kenmore and visited a book shop, then the Wine Gallery where a tasting of Berkshire Brewing Company beer. I am quite familiar with BBC beer from my college days, but the tasting offered a few that I hadn’t tried including the dark, rich Imperial Stout. It was a lot of fun and a nice random find. Home now, and getting ready for one last day to the week. I have a busy day of website updating tomorrow at work. I will probably be doing nine hours of web updates and content writing. If I can just put my headphones in and work, I will be a happy camper. Tomorrow night I am having dinner with former co-workers, Saturday I have my friend’s birthday dinner, and Sunday the blogger meetup lunch! Busy days ahead. What are your weekend/Halloween plans? We get cleaned out by trick or treaters every year, so I am going to stock up on candy. I love Now & Laters and Sour Patch Kids, but I worry more and more about my teeth every year! Speaking of, don’t forget that the Glo Bakery winner will be announced on Halloween! Have a fantastic night, and I will be back sometime tomorrow.
