Saturday Night in Boston, January 22,2011

We have been wanting to do an overnight in Boston, and so yesterday morning we said..."should we go into Boston tonight?"... why not? Tony has been keeping track of restaurants we want to try in different cities, so he pulled up the Boston list and we decided on a section, South Boston. Of coarse we picked one of the coldest nights to walk around, but it was worth it.

Tony made reservations at Hamersley's Bistro. Gordon Hamersley was friends with Julia Child and Julia encouraged him to open his restaurant in Boston in 1986. We had reservations at 7:00, but there were many other restaurants to try in the same area on Tremont St. so we decided to "restaurant hop". The lady that owns No.9 Park, which we have been to, also owns these other two restaurants that we stumbled upon called The Butcher Shop and B&G Oysters. Both of these restaurants were tiny and right next door to each other. We went into B&G's first and Tony had a sample of 6 oysters (its not my thing), and a couple beers. I had a glass of red wine, I could have gotten something like Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter or a fancy salad or fries, but I thought I would save room in my stomach for more unique things elsewhere. Tony really enjoyed the oysters, he equated them to his favorite oyster place (The Mills Tavern).

We walked about 20 steps to The Butcher Shop and found our seat at the bar (our favorite seat). The funny thing about both of these restaurants owned by Chef Barbara Lynch was there is not a full bar, only wine and beer. I think the reason for that is that they are such small spaces they probably don't have enough room to put all the bottles (maybe!). So this time instead of glasses of wine, we shared a bottle of red. It worked out to be a good idea, we would have spent more if we each had 2 glasses. At The Butcher Shop we decided on the Antipasti platter and the Pate & Terrine platter. Let me say first, they bring out this great bread with some creamy delicious honey and butter. The Pates and Terrines are good but a little gamy for me, I loved all the cornishons and prune relish things that went along with that dish. The antipasto platter was good, they cure all there own salumis and prosciutto and it's very well done, the platter came with 2-3 big hunks of Parmesan Reggiano, which was quite generous we thought. Truth be told we could have called it a night, we were both very satisfied, but we still had reservations at Hamersley's Bisto.

We walked in to Hamersley's at 7:05 and was seated in the dining area. We originally thought we would get a couple small plates and share a dessert. No, we both had and entree , Tony got the Veal Osso Bucco and I got the Salmon, we got a side of roasted broccoli with gremolata and we shared the chocolate cake dessert with 2 cappuccinos. Surprisingly we weren't over stuffed, nothing was heavy and greasy and portions were not too big, so we had a great mix and felt very satisfied, we want to go back for more.