Island Creek Oyster Bar and a Red Sox Game

During my brother's trip we managed to hit some good New England trademarks: lobsters, and Back Bay/Sonsie.  All we needed was a little baseball!  Due to a number of circumstances, my brother and BL ended up with tickets to the afternoon game of a double-header, but since it was a weekday, Nick and I really couldn't cut work and go.  Lucky for us, Nick was able to get four tickets to the evening game as well!  Good thing my brother happens to be the biggest Red Sox fan ever!

Wanting to grab some dinner before the evening game and also wanting a good place to meet, we decided to head to the Island Creek Oyster Bar.  I had been wanting to try this place out for awhile and this proved to be the perfect time!

When I walked in, I was greeted by a light cottage feel that had a modern flair, making me feel far away from downtown.  After checking out the raw bar...

Raw Bar

3 Pound Lobster Dinner at home!

A little apology to my readers - I am sorry for disappearing for a number of days!  I was in Chicago this past weekend for a wedding and was scheduled to return on Sunday night, but thanks to Hurricane Irene, our flight was canceled.  So, we were "stuck" in Chicago for a couple of extra days.  Lucky for Nick and I, we were staying with friends and were able to enjoy the extra long weekend.  Lucky for you, I have a few more restaurants to review in case you visit Chicago anytime soon (but those start next week.)

A must-do when my brother comes to visit is a great New England lobster dinner.  Rather than heading out to do this, we bring the seafood yummyness to us (or, rather, my mom's house!)

Thats a BIG lobster

When you are dealing with cooking three pound lobsters for more than 1 or 2 people that requires a pretty big pot.  Instead, we leave the cooking to the Cherry St. Fish Market - it makes for a much easier dinner!  I mean, look at these guys - they were HUGE and cooked to perfection.

Plum Clafoutis - Difficult to Say, Easy to Make!

For the past couple of CSA weeks we have been getting a handful of small, sweet plums.  Since we had a bunch, I wanted to do something more than just eat them plain, so I started flipping through cookbooks until I found a recipe for Plum Clafoutis.  While I had never heard of it before, the picture in Joanne Chang's Flour cookbook looked delicious, and the all ingredients were something I had on hand - reason enough!

Plum Clafoutis

Traditionally, clafoutis is made with black cherries, but obviously you can use just about any fruit.  The batter is said to be more like a pancake or a flan-like consistency, so I was curious to see the final product.

Sonsie - a Back Bay Go-To

Two weekends ago my brother and his girlfriend came to town - her first time in Boston.  Needless to say we were under some pressure to show her a good time and what an amazing city Boston is!  After a delicious late dinner at Tico, we woke up the next morning ready to explore.  First up: a Duck Tour starting and returning at the Pru.  When the tour wrapped up, we were ready for some food!

Being in the Back Bay, there are so many good places to go.  We decided on Sonsie for a number of reasons - first and foremost, great food, but also this is the restaurant where Nick and I are having our rehearsal dinner.  Nick still hadn't seen the space so we figured better late than never!  Lucky for us, the four of us walked right in and were seated in the cafe area up front.

After getting a lovely tour of the downstairs private wine room, we were ready to eat.  My brother was so ready that he ordered some calamari before we even had time to really look at the drink menu!

Calamari

The calamari is flash fried with zucchini strings, lemon aioli and fried parsley.  It was the perfect, tasty, crunchy food to satisfy us!

A Heathlier Eggplant Parmesan..

More CSA fun!  Another item we've received a lot of recently is eggplant.  Wanting to do something a bit traditional but on the lighter side, Nick found a healthier eggplant Parmesan recipe online that came from Shape magazine. 

Farm Fresh Eggplant

I have always loved eggplant, but somehow when I make it at home it never quite tastes right.  Turns out, there is a method to preparing eggplant properly that I NEVER knew! 

All sliced up

Before you actually start cooking the eggplant, you need to slice is up nicely, put it in a bowl with a bunch of salt and let it sit for about 20 to 30 minutes to take out all the bitterness.  The salt pulls out the moisture, so doing this in a colander in the sink will help.  Once its done sitting, dry the slices off with a paper towel and wipe off some of the salt if you like.  

Frikandel - Another great type of Belgian street food at Saus!

I recently received my first invitation as a Boston Food Blogger!  Needless to say I was more than excited for the invite itself, but also when I saw that I was going to Saus to sample some of their new Frikandel's I couldn't say no!  On my previous visit to Saus, I could not say enough amazing things about their french fries, waffles and poutine.  I mean, the poutine got the approval of two Canadians, which is about as high praise as there is!

While Saus has always had a great menu, people began asking for more substantial food.  In response to this Saus is starting to offer frikandel, which keeps in line with their Belgian street food theme.  Frikandel is like a combination burger/sausage that is typically from processed meat.  However, Saus came up with a method to make the meat fresh, cooking it on a griddle and then deep frying it - quite the combination if you ask me!

Frikandel