January 29th 2014: Dinner with a Friend at Salvatore's, Medford

Today after work, I decided to meet up with my friend for dinner at Salvatore's, an Italian restaurant in the town of Medford.

This place is actually pretty upscale, despite being a chain restaurant, with a few locations in Boston.

The food we got was actually pretty good as well. The Polenta "Fries" (white polenta stuffed with sharp provolone, lightly fried and served with house made fig ketchup) went really well with the fig sauce, which I actually thought was Thai Chilli Sauce.

My friend got the Steak Tips (signature marinated steak tips served with house made fries and cole slaw), which were cooked really well,

while my Short Rib Ravioli (in a shitake and oyster mushroom and grape tomato sauce with crème and spinach) were excellent as well.

To think I had thought that this place would just be so-so because it is a chain restaurant.

December 16th 2013: Scavenger Hunt at the Museum of Science, Boston

Today, I had a company event to go scavenger hunting at the Museum of Science in Boston. Arriving a little early, I decided to grab some breakfast inside the Liberty Hotel at a place called Clink. The inside of the hotel, which I have not been inside of before, is actually pretty nice.

The restaurant itself was actually a bit of a downer compared to the rest of the hotel, though still decent.

After looking at the menu, I decided to get the Whole Wheat Pancakes (with lemon, ricotta, strawberries and vermont maple syrup). The presentation was pretty good,

but I was pleasantly surprised when I cut open the pancakes just to find fruit stuffed inside the pancake. Needless to say, my meal was pretty good.

From here, I headed to the Museum of Science. I was really early, so I walked around for a bit in the free section of the museum.

Huge Pendulum

All sorts of bird eggs

Cosmic Light

Desert Tortoise

Chuckwalla

Amazon Milk Frog

Bearded Dragon

European Glass Lizard

Sinaloan Milk Snake

Pacific Type Locomotive

The Polage

The bus carrying my colleagues here was late due to traffic and the snow, but thankfully they all arrived eventually. With that, our hosts from Watson Adventures came to meet us and split us into different teams. Mine ended up consisting of all girls except me. Hence, we ended up calling our team "Allan's Angels".

We were provided with a binder of information, questions and puzzles to solve.

We had to go all over the museum to find the solutions to our questions, and some of them were extremely hard to find. Ingenious questions at that. Thankfully, our teamwork paid off, and with some lucky guessing and spotting of the correct spots, we actually got all the answers correct. Some pictures I took while we were on the hunt, including the T-Rex with a scarf wrapped around its neck, follow.

Thermal images

T-Rex with a scarf

Simulated tornado

My team ended up being tied for first position, and got asked tiebreaker questions about Cluedo. Thankfully, our 2nd answer was closer to the actual answer than the other team, so we ended up winning in the end. Our prize was a bag.

We were allowed to roam around the museum after our lunch at the cafeteria, and I decided to wait until the Lightning! show started, because I wasn't able to do so the last time I was here. The show was pretty cool, though more oriented towards kids. It was interesting to note that songs could actually be played using lightning at different frequencies. Here are pictures I took of the largest Van de Graaf generator in the world in action.




















From here, I headed out of the museum and back to my car, somehow losing the bag I had won along the way. After finally reaching my car, I decided to spend the rest of my daylight hours checking out frozen water bodies in Lexington

Potter Pond

and Woburn

Mishawum Lake, 252 Mishawum Road

before finally heading to Medford for dinner at the Lantana Cafe, a pretty nice looking Italian restaurant.

I decided to get the Ornesto Chicken (Sauteed tender chicken breast with caramelized apples and walnuts in an orange brandy sauce and served with pumpkin raviolis) for my meal.

Unfortunately, the chicken breast was a little dry, and the sweet and sour sauce did not seem to go well with the food either. It was still edible enough for me to finish it all though. Thankfully, the Lemoncello-Mascarpone Cake (served with whipped cream and raspberry sauce) I ordered for dessert was actually pretty decent.

Overall, I will try to give this place the benefit of the doubt, given the other dishes were probably better. With that, I called it a day and headed home. I'm glad my team won the scavenger hunt today. It was a really well organized event.

October 13th 2013: Dinner at Al Wadi, Boston

After a day of doing food truck stuff, I was let off early, and I decided to use this opportunity to go shopping for a Halloween costume. I settled on going to the Party City outlet located at the Meadow Glen Mall in Medford, where I decided to get the outfits to make me look like Zorro. Thankfully, I was able to find all the stuff I needed, and am looking forward to becoming Zorro at parties in the near future.

From here, I decided to get dinner at Al Wadi, a pretty upscale Lebanese restaurant located in the West Roxbury area of Boston.

After looking at the menu, I decided to get the Firri (Exotic free range quail, prepared with a pomegranate glaze) for an appetizer, and the Kibbeh Beseneyah (Baked ground beef and cracked wheat stuffed with minced meat, pine nuts and served with yogurt cucumber sauce) for my main dish. While waiting for my dishes to come, I saw the special, the Kibbe Nayeh (Middle Eastern-style steak tartare carefully prepared with wheat bulgur, onions and mint), and decided to get it as well.

The Fattoush (Romaine, tomato, cucumber, radish, green peppers, toasted pita, sumac served with lemon vinegar oil dressing) side salad came first.

The salad was surprisingly good, especially with the toasted pita and the dressing.

I did not expect 2 birds in my appetizer, 

and though they were pretty bony as quail always is, the pomegranate sauce actually went pretty well with the dish. 

The raw meat came as just that, a pile of it in fact,

and though it did not look like much, it was pretty tasty all the same. 

Finally, my main dish arrived.

the rectangle of meat itself was a little bland, but putting the cucumber sauce on it made the entire dish come together. However, I was so full by the time the dish arrived that I had to take most of it home. I have to say that I enjoyed my dining experience here though. It is definitely the best Mediterranean food I have had in Boston to date.

August 6th 2013: Dinner with a Friend at Pastalina's Restaurant, Medford

Today after work, I met up with my friend to go have dinner at Pastalina's Restaurant, a small Italian place in Medford where I had a groupon to use, as always. This place is always full of people, so much so that I had to make a reservation for a Tuesday night 2 weeks ago.

After picking my friend up and arriving at the restaurant early, which was still a little empty, it was time to order the food, for which I got the Veal Cutlet Special, while my friend got the Veal Braciolettine Alia Marsala (rolled with prosciutto, provolone, and spices, lightly pan-fried and baked, with a mushroom marsala sauce, served with fusili).

Veal Braciolettine Alia Marsala 

Veal Cutlet Special

My veal cutlet was a little salty with the tomato sauce, but still not bad, while my friend's dish was pretty tasty, and my friend thought so himself, although he initially thought it was a little sweet. Overall, the menu was a little lacking in variety, and the decor was just average. Not one of my better Italian meals.

After dinner, we decided to grab some dessert at Molly Moo's in Quincy. This ice cream seriously does not look like much, although they did have a lot of variety in ice cream flavors.  For the 3 ice cream sandwiches that I could get with my Groupon, I decided to go for the Dulce de Leches Ice Cream, with a Peanut Butter Cookie and a Chocolate Chip Cookie serving as the 2 halves of the sandwich. You can't go wrong with that.

With that, I headed to my friend's place to have more food, including a lobster, pig ears and duck necks, the last having really little meat and hence not something that I am a fan of, before finally heading home for the night. I'm so full now, I probably don't need lunch tomorrow.

July 28th 2013: Second Time at Chung Ki Wa, Medford

This morning, on my way to the kitchen in Malden, I passed by the Roosevelt Towers in Cambridge

and the Under the White Big Top tents in Somerville.

Later, after a day of doing food truck stuff, we decided to head to Chung Ki Wa in Medford, which I have been to before, for dinner. This time, we decided to use the grill, getting the Beef Special (Beef Sirloin Marinated in Chef's Special Sauce, with mushrooms), the Samgyub-Sal (Fresh pork belly) and Kalbi (Prime short rib marinaded with special sauce), along with the YookGae-Jang (Spicy shredded beef broth with scallion).

Side Salad

Beef Special

Side Dishes

Samgyub-Sal (top) and Kalbi (bottom)

Yook Gae Jang

The grilled meat was pretty good, though you can't really go wrong with Korean BBQ I guess.  The stew wasn't too bad either.

With that, another week has gone by just like that. Back to work tomorrow. Oh well.