Bean Town

How I love this town! There always seems to be a soft spot in my heart for Boston. I won't bore you with the work details of the week other than to say that there were some long, and very productive working meetings. Of course the down side of these trips is the eating and sitting and eating. (as I continue to wage war on my health!) Now there was some really good food involved though. I got to some of my favorite digs and discover some new ones.

• Shabu Zen (Japanese hot pots) It's in chinatown, and I highly recommend it. Get the spicy soup, rather than the regular stock. Much better!
• Dali (Spanish Tapas) If you go here, you have to try the Pescado a la Sal. It's amazing. The whole fish is baked in coarse salt. Fabulous!
• Thai - Nothing overly special here, though I did venture on a new sauce - the choo chee curry. I give it a 7/10. We found this place on Moody Street in Waltham, which everyone recommended. I'm not sure why it comes recommended other than proximity and the fact that there are several places that serve food. (Some seemed far better than others.) Otherwise, you have a great collection of really random stores, of varying styles. There's everything from the dollar-store types to more "funky" stores.
• The North End (the BEST Italian around) It doesn't really matter where you eat here, but I really like Giacamos. (We didn't eat here because they only take cash, and we wanted to more easily expense our meals!) You have to stop by Mike's Pastries too if you're gonna come this far. Everyone will rave about the cannolis, but I think there are some other really good options. Note: exercise caution here, because you can gain weight just staring at these artery clogging joys!
  

Since things were so busy, I didn't get as much time as I wanted to go explore. We did get out a bit on Thursday though to see some of the freedom trail. I found some places I'd never seen in Boston before- like the Custom House. Who'd of thought this was a Marriott hotel!?

I also got a chance to drive by the old Longfellow Park chapel, which burned almost to the ground during a stake conference a few weeks back. It was really tragic, but no one was injured. The walls are still standing, and apparently, it'll be rebuilt with the same walls. Kind of hard to imagine though that it's gone as I knew it. My parents and I went to church here when I was just a little guy, and then I went to church here when I lived in Boston. There's lots of great memories that I have from here. I guess the good thing is that we all still have those memories; no one was hurt, and these things can be rebuilt. I'm just grateful that no one was hurt in the fire.


To cap off the weekend, I got home just in time to join some friends to see Night at the Museum, in the Smithsonian. How can you say no to that? I laughed my head off, and loved the movie. While sequels really never seem to be much different from the original, this one is at least funny. And no, it's not that different from the original. I'll definitely see this one again! Maybe it'll still be in theaters in July...