36 Hours in Chicago

This weekend's "36 Hours" in the Travel section of the New York Times is Chicago! Here are some of the food-related suggestions:

• Gilt Bar
• Xoco
• Girl & the Goat
• Longman & Eagle
• Terzo Piano

The three I haven't been to (Gilt Bar, Xoco, and Longman & Eagle) are all definitely on my list. My very long list. So much to eat in this city...

This reminds me, there was a "36 Hours" about Boston not long ago, and a short article about Columbus recently. Take a look.

Boston Trip - Oro

So, I've saved the best for last. Or...I've procrastinated and put off the post requiring the most work until now. But really, this is the piece de resistance of all my Boston Trip posts. My cousin Evan has been working for a few months now as the sous-chef at Oro, a new restaurant in Scituate. My family usually doesn't venture out of the house for dinner on our annual Massachusetts vacation, because we're an unwieldy group of about 18 or so. We spent many years doing our week-long vacation on Chappaquiddick, and when people ask me what some of my favorite places to go on Martha's Vineyard are...uhhh...the back deck of our rental house? But we had to make an exception this year and try out Evan's new place of employment.



The restaurant is gorgeous, it has a very clean, simple look and has a lot of natural light. I sound like I'm trying to sell an apartment. That picture above is what you see when you walk in the front door, and this is the main dining room which we had all to ourselves.



Because we had the whole dining room, the restaurant did some special hors d'oeuvres for us. We walked in to find this beautiful cheese plate of parmesan (which I think I ate about half a pound of, it was addictive), goat cheese coated with herbs, some sort of blue, and salami which I overheard came from Paris. And as you can see, two dishes of olives.



The next addition to the table - grilled asparagus with truffle oil and more of that amazing parmesan. Later they brought out some marinated peppers, and bread slices. There was so much food I just couldn't get pictures of all of it!



There were also passed hors d'oeuvres. I only got a photo of the fried artichokes, but there were also chicken skewers with a dipping sauce, thinly-sliced beef tenderloin on little toasts, and some sort of amazing contraption of salty baked potato stuffed with salmon. I hope I'm not leaving any out.



We had a menu set up for us with three choices for the appetizer course, and four for the main course. Ahem, VIPs.





I had the corn chowder, as did everyone I was sitting near, so that's the only appetizer I got a photo of. This was not, as my sister says, "small food stacked high". The bowl of chowder was the size of my head. I so badly wanted to finish it but I knew I would immediately go into a food coma, need to be horizontal, and not be able to eat my main course.




Oh, hello there delicious clam. The soup was amazing. Very creamy, and lots of corn kernels, bacon, and clams. What more could you ask for?

For the main course I had the orechiette. If you know me, you know if orechiette is on the menu that's what I'll always order. Orechiette is my favorite pasta shape, and it's usually served with some kind of sausage or ragu which is perfect because it sticks inside the little "ears".



To my right, my dad had the striped bass:



And to my left, Peter had the steak:



Those fries were so good. Everything was so good. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly take another bite of anything, these guys showed up:




The first one is a goat cheese cheesecake with raspberry sorbet and a strawberry rhubarb compote, and the second is lemon thyme creme brulee with a shortbread cookie. I hope I got all that right. They were both fantastic, nice and light summer desserts.



That's Evan with Robin King, the owner and head chef. Robin and his wife Jill opened Oro together. They made the whole night for my family incredible. The food, the service...everything was perfect. And with that,this is now my longest and best post to date. Whew, I need another vacation!

Oro
162 Front St., Scituate MA 02066

Boston Trip - Smorgasbord

I still have a ridiculous amount of pictures from vacation, I just can't post them all because I would still be writing about my trip for another 2 weeks. And it would get a little boring. So today I give you an assortment of the best ones, and tomorrow I will give you the grand finale. I've been saving the best post for last.

First night of the trip: pizza at Joe V's. Here's the "yoga pizza" which has prosciutto, arugula, parmesan, mushrooms, and truffle oil.




Did you know it's been scientifically proven that sandwiches taste better at the beach? It's true. This is a roast beef sammy with tomatoes, onions, and pickles from Maria's. And of course Cape Cod chips and a Whale's Tale.




Some beautiful fresh berries...



Which my aunt Linda turned into strawberry shortcake with sweetened sour cream.




Ahh, a thing of beauty. A grill full of chourico, and chourico meat.



I actually don't think I had ever had the meat, they're just little pork cutlets with the same spices as chourico. Cut up and dipped in some Dijon mustard...it didn't last long.




At Julie and Lou's wedding, they had a groom's cake at the rehearsal dinner. This one was done by Delicious Desserts in Falmouth, MA.




Back in Boston...more pizza. Shocking, I know. We picked up a few pizzas from Fig's on Charles Street in Beacon Hill. This one has prosciutto and fig balsamic.




And the last meal of the trip - Union, in the South End. Here's the gnocchi, which was a special that night.



And bucatini carbonara. You can never go wrong with carbonara.




So long, Boston. Until next time...

Boston Trip - Sweet Tooth

I don't know who to give credit for Sweet Tooth's first appearance in my life - one of my friends brought some treats from this bakery to a mini bridal shower for me last summer, and I've been craving it ever since. Sweet Tooth is a little off the beaten path from where I usually go in Boston (it's in Southie), but we made a special trip there to pick up an order for Amy's birthday last weekend...and I finally got to go inside.



So, what exactly is inside those cases?

Humongous cookies:



"Cakebites" - a lollipop of cake dipped in chocolate:



Mini pies: blueberry, and I believe that other one is coconut cream:




And of course regular-sized pies and cakes:



Last but not least, whoopie pies. The ones on the left are red velvet.



Here's the spread we got - red velvet cupcakes (the ones with red flowers), carrot cake cupcakes (pink flower), vanilla with lemon curd (pink seashell), chocolate and vanilla marble (with the fortune cookie on top), and a few cookies and red velvet whoopie pies.



We actually had to have a second small platter for a few more cupcakes that wouldn't fit on the big one. Ahh, nothing makes me happier than things that come in pink bakery boxes.



Sweet Tooth Boston
371 W. Broadway, Boston MA 02127

Boston Trip - Harwich Port, Cape Cod

We stayed in Harwich Port for two nights at the end of the week for the wedding of Julie and Lou. I actually hadn't been to the Cape since college a "few" years ago, so I was very happy to return and even visit some of the same places.



The day of the wedding we had some free time and decided to get breakfast at Bonatt's. Most of us had been before on that trip in college, and we all remembered the melt-a-ways. What's a melt-a-way you ask?



If you click on that picture it should get big enough to read the whole story. In short, melt-a-ways are the specialty of Bonatt's and you get them as soon as you sit down to the table. It's basically a sticky bun that's croissant-like on the inside with glaze and some powdered sugar on top.



Now, I have to say that some members of the group didn't like them. It's hard to tell if they're different from when we were there last because it was so long ago, but some people detected an anise flavor, others said it was lemony. I'll admit there was a very, very slight bitter flavor to them. But I thought they were really good. And so did Tim because later that day he informed me what was in his hotel room:



For breakfast I got an egg and cheese sandwich with linguica. I don't pass up a chance to eat linguica.



I didn't get lunch that day, breakfast was pretty big and the wedding was at 4pm...but of course some of the boys needed a second feeding before the ceremony. We stopped at the Mason Jar after spending a couple hours at the beach.



I wanted to take a photo inside but it was pretty crowded and I felt like if I started snapping pictures in there I may as well have been a fanny pack-wearing tourist. But here you can see it looks like a cute little house.



So I didn't get anything, but I had some of Peter's ham and brie sandwich and clam chowder.



We never made it to Sundae School which I am still very sad about. We just didn't have a lot of time with all the wedding festivities. But I had to share this photo...one of the most genius wedding hors d'oeuvres I've ever seen. Grilled cheese and spicy tomato soup. Delicious.

Boston Trip - Barking Crab

I hadn't been to the Barking Crab since college about 6 or 7 years ago (was college really that long ago? Gross.) but when I was driving around Boston with my mom and dad trying to think of somewhere to get a great seafood lunch it was the first place I thought of. It's right on the water with lots of outdoor seating and every variety of New England seafood you could ever want.



4 kinds of crab? Check. Lobster? Obviously, check. Not sure about the whole 10 lb. lobster thing, but they apparently have it.



My mom and I shared some oysters to start. 2 Island Creek, and I forget the other two...but also from Massachusetts.



And my dad got clam chowder, which I sampled and it was very good.



And then, we were a little family of crab cakes. My dad got a crab cake sandwich with onion rings, and my mom and I had mixed green salads with two crab cakes on top. And my sister didn't get anything because she didn't come because I'm the favorite child.




I wish I could have ordered more...peel n eat shrimp, clam roll, lobster BLT, kind crab legs...I guess I'll just have to go back next time I'm in town!

Barking Crab
Fort Point Landing, 88 Sleeper St., Boston MA 02210