re: Boston MA suggestions

quote:

---

so was planning on finding a garage and plan to pay, which as I have heard can be expensive, but that's ok.

---

I'd also encourage you to drive closer to the city, park at one of the commuter rail stations, and just take the commuter rail right into the city. It'll likely end up being cheaper, and you don't have to deal with the insane drivers of Boston/parking issues.

Driving in the city is a pretty unique animal and if you're not used to it, it can be pretty stress-inducing.

I second Neptune Oyster. Lobster roll was great

quote:

---

THe two most memorable meals were the raw oysters from Row 34 (great flavor compared to gulf oysters)

---

I have a friend who thinks I'm lying when I say the oysters in Massachusetts are far better than Gulf Oysters (at least raw, they wouldn't fry or chargrill as well as gulf)

quote:

---

Now, they were small a $3 a piece so that sucks

---

Yeah I pretty much only get oysters during happy hour (which is still $1/each) for that reason. I do miss 10 cent oysters at The Chimes (if that's still a thing).

The oysters at Eataly during happy hour are a staple in my diet.

I use the app SpotHero to manage parking as best as I can, but it’s gonna suck regardless. I personally love walking Boston. It really is a beautiful city, and you’ll be here with some nice weather. I’d totally ditch the vehicle and hoof it.

I've honestly never even heard of Saltie Girl. I'll have to check it out.

So as I type this I am sitting in my hotel room eating my 2nd Bova cannoli (chocolate/peanut butter chip). We are about 75% on target for what we wanted to accomplish, which is pretty damn good to be honest. We were able to hit Neptune and Bova, both worth the praise. We also hit a couple more places. I am not a food critic, so all I can tell you is what we had and our thoughts which was all positive.
At Neptune, my daughter's friend made it a point to have clam chowder 3x during the trip, and Neptune ranked the highest. I also had some chowder thinking I was not going to like it, but was impressed. My daughter and I ended up sharing a lobster roll and scallops. Lobster roll was the best out of the two we had. I really only picked at the scallops but based on my daughter who had never had it before, it was great. Neptune was on the bucket list for sure, and I am glad we fought the traffic (more on that later) and the wait.
I was more excited about Bova than anything, the cannoli did not disappoint. We walked into Modern Pastry, but did not end up getting anything. There is a small cafe' two doors down from Modern, (forgot the name) that we went in to have coffee. It was a nice experience just to kick back and enjoy. Got to walk around North End for a bit.
Saturday night we went to Sail Loft, after a long day in the sun watching 2 lacrosse games (the reason we came) I was not ready to deal with anything difficult. The best I can tell it was in the "Back Bay" area?, we found it through some searches and plugged it into GPS. I had the sauteed seafood portofino, which had lobster, scallops and shrimp, I enjoyed it. This place was a small little place on the docks, it was very foggy, but the views look to be great.
Friday was a bust, because we were thrown completly for a loop on the amount of traffic we hit when we got here about mid-day. Having 2 teenagers, they wanted to go to Wahlburgers when we got in, we went to the location near Fenway. We all had burgers, I have had better, but I have had worse. I was somewhat surprised that overall it wasn't really over priced being as "famous". From there we drove to our hotel headed towards Foxboro. Relying solely on GPS, it took us what I still feel one of the worst routes possible, we never hit a major highway, it took us over an hour to go 15 or so miles mostly through round abouts. By the time we got settled, we just wanted dinner late that night and found some family style, everyone will find something on the menu type of place.
Lastly, including in this thread, everything I read and heard warned of traffic, despite all of that, and my experience Friday, I decided to drive into Boston on both Saturday and Sunday. The North End was most definitely a challenge, but I was able to find some parking relatively close. Overall, I knew what I was getting into, and it did stress me out a little bit, but I made a decision on this trip to just go with whatever came and enjoy myself and daughter and her friend. They will both be off in college in a couple months and this trip was about them and spending time with them. In a way it's bitter sweet, I have thought several times how much I have enjoyed the past few days, but soon after realize how much I am going to miss my daughter when she is away. To be honest, that's about as deep as I feel like I can get into it right now. The plan it to try to make a tour of Fenway tomorrow
Thanks to AbitaFan08 for the suggestions and the other thread, Also thanks to all of the ones who offered some advice too. I was able to put together a game plan based on what was offered here.

Glad to hear y'all are having a great trip so far. You've definitely been able to hit a lot of highlights considering the commute from Foxboro to Boston each time.

Today is a beautiful day out so I hope y'all enjoy the tour of Fenway and whatever else you end up doing before heading home.

Regina Pizzeria