Jay About Beantown

My brother recently got married and this weekend we headed down to Mass to celebrate the occasion. I lived in Boston for a few years and always enjoy hitting some of my old haunts. First and foremost let me say, I love Boston but I HATE the traffic. The party was south of the city, trying to get back into town from what should be about 30 minutes south took almost 2hours. Saturday at 5:30PM we ran into stop and go traffic for miles and miles. Where are people going at 5:30 on Saturday night? What I recall about Boston though was that there is always traffic, during the day, during the night, when it rains, when it shines... apparently nobody works or eats or sleeps in Boston... they just drive around??!?!? To further enrage me I missed the exit to Kendall Square (trying to find our hotel) and had to drive to Mass Ave and then back track. Not knowing the exact location I called to hotel, of course they were only able to give me directions from the T (subway) which was tremendously helpful... as I was DRIVING! So I (followed by buddy) found myself on a 1 way street w/out an exit and drove back over the bridge to Boston from Cambridge. Take 2. We call again and I dumb down my question, luckily the crack staff was able to direct me to the hotel, they were not able to tell me where to park. Why would they? Whoever drives to a hotel? Doesn't everyone take the local service subway? So my wife went in to ask... of course we were in the bus loading zone and were honked at by a line of buses until we got ourselves back on the 1 way exit-less bridge to Boston!!! At this point I wanted to punch Mayor Menino in the face. Take 3! We finally parked and unloaded at the lovely Kendall Hotel. It is an old converted firehouse and was really quite nice. Clean, reasonably priced, comfortable (don't expect much from the free breakfast though). Cleaned up and hungry we headed out. Our destination? Thai Basil on Newbury Street! Thai Basil looked like a college cafeteria but my pal Joe was able to give it the smell test... approved! Let me say this, the food is tasty, cheap, and the beer was cold. Now the good part. There was an app. on the menu called treasure bags. Needless to say, combined w/ the phuket noodles we had jokes, and jokes, and jokes... Phuket, I would love to get my treasure bags on the table! Boy, you have some tasty treasure bags! Phuket, maybe we just had too many beers and this isn't funny at all? Next stop, VOX an Boylston Street. Pretty ladies (according to Joe!), excellent martinis, cool atmosphere. Big fan. Last stop... as always, the BHP! The Beacon Hill Pub is something special. The beer is cheap and cold. There are older weirdos, tons of college kids, some folks are dressed up, some are slobs, and everyone is DRUNK! Try the $2.25 Brubaker and then your luck w/ the punching bag game. You might even get in a fight?! YAAAAYYYYY!!!!! So if you are scoring at home, that is 1 1/2 thumbs up for The Kendall Hotel, 1 3/4 thumbs up for Thai Basil, 2 thumbs up for VOX, and 2 HUGE thumbs up for the BHP!!!! 1 thumb downs for the hangover on Sunday, I broke a plate at breakfast. But a fun weekend. BTW, my brother's party was fun too.

As a little extra, I went out on a bit of a ledge today. It is pretty cold here in VT so I was taking the short walk to The Mad Hatter for lunch. Unfortunately I was distracted and drawn to the Phillie cheese steak vendor across the street. What can I say, I get drawn to shiny items?! Here is a quick review... don't walk, run from that disaster! I usually enjoy local vendors, but man... the quality was lacking and it didn't even have that delicious gross greasy cheese steak thing going for it. Sorry but I was not a fan. So there you have it!