When Joanne, Patsy and I arrived at our destination on Saturday night, we were on the outskirts of Boston. Like about 5 minutes away. It was after 8 pm and we had just checked in to our hotel. And hadn’t had dinner. After stashing our bags in the room, we headed downstairs to the front desk to ask for recommendations. Because, you know, they’re from the area and should be an excellent resource. Ike at the front desk said “there’s a good seafood restaurant about 5-10 minutes away on foot.”
Seafood? Boston? It was a no brainer.
Our first mistake was asking Ike. Our second was thinking we were on our way to an awesome seafood dinner. We were soon to find out our adventures that evening had just begun.
First, the directions were as hazy as the weather, and after 15 minutes in one direction, in a hundred degree heat, we realized there was no restaurant to be had.
We walked the other way, passing Mystic’s namesake along the way.
Up a residential street. A hill. “We’re walking off our delicious seafood dinner!” we thought.
Passing a pizzeria that smelled of oregano. I half-jokingly suggested grabbing a slice and a Diet Coke and heading back to the room. But how could we pass up seafood?
We passed a group of rowdy bachelors and politely demurred when they waved us over for beer and food.
We finally reached the top of the hill, rounded the corner and saw sparkly lights in the tree. Ah, this must be the place. That walk up hill in the steam bath called Summer in New England was starting to pay off.
It wasn’t especially clear which door was the entrance, but we found it. As soon as we threw it open, the smell of fresh seafood hung in the air. This was looking better and better.
We slid into a booth and were handed menus nearly immediately.
Side bar: If you walk into a restaurant on a Saturday night and there are only a few tables occupied, that would be an important clue.
We all perused the menu, each description sounding better than the last. We all chose seafood. I mean, c’mon, seafood restaurant in Massachusetts, how could we not?
The waitress asked if we wanted popovers or Italian bread with our meal. Joanne and I exchanged looks. Popovers don’t really fit with the seafood theme, but sounded intriguing enough that we took a leap of faith.
Behold the popovers.
Quite overdone, we dove in, broke them open and each took a bite anyway. No flavor. No salt. Just a whole lot of nothingness. We pushed them aside and asked for the Italian bread.
The salad arrived. Standard issue. Iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumber, not-quite-ripe-enough tomatoes. But ok.
Then it started to go rapidly downhill from there.
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