I was lucky enough to see the Mario Testino exhibit entitled “In Your Face” at the MFA with my friend G this week. Mario Testino, fashion photographer extraordinaire, who’s name became known after he was chosen to photograph Princess Diana for her Vanity Fair shoot in 1997. Photos so good they can be considered art and museum quality, obviously. Continue reading “Mario Testino”
OK, not even a brush, but a brush by. Edward Burns, actor, director and producer. I love his movies; they are small independent films, some better than others, his best being his first, The Brothers McMullen. Anyway, he’s heading up the cast of a new movie about Derek Sanderson. Remember him? Highest paid hockey player in the NFL in the 70’s; bad boy who made a dive bomb and finally lost it all. But now he’s back with an autobiography and a movie called “Turk”. Continue reading “My Brush with Celebrity”
We were 2 at the Bar again this weekend. Hitting two restaurants, one a repeat and one new, very new.
Friday night we made a repeat visit to AKA Bistro in Lincoln, MA. We’d been there before and liked it. It’s in an upscale Boston suburb in an old railroad station. Modern with a communal table and small bar we had a reservation but decided to be 2 at the bar, of course. Continue reading “A Tale of Two Restaurants”
Ian Hunter does – Last night (Saturday) at the Paradise, Ian Hunter and the Rant Band came to play. They didn’t come to mail it in. They came to rock and did just that playing in front of a packed house for almost two hours. Continue reading “Do You Remember Saturday Gigs?”
I must admit, I’ve been preoccupied; haven’t been blogging our comings and going at 2 at the bar. Why? We put a new floor in our “trophy slab” or the “happy house” as my mother-in-law calls it. Yup, from the outside it’s just another house on the street. But inside, it’s got a floor from Italy. And that’s not wood you’re looking at-it’s porcelain. We first it spotted at Kika Tapas and tracked down the distributor. We took a chance and the chance we took turned out to be a slam dunk.
What is 63? It’s how old I am. Yup. Hard to believe-it comes up quick. Just yesterday I was celebrating my 20th birthday at Woodstock. Today I’m 2 years away from Medicare!! No shit!! Luckily I can still rock n’ roll!!
It was an epic birthday week starting with the Springsteen concert on Tuesday night. The events surrounding my birthday, August 17th were shrouded in secrecy. I knew we were going somewhere with our pals J and M but didn’t know where. So, when I got home from work I took Romeo for a swim which is my favorite thing to do and then got ready for the festivities! Continue reading “63”
Peru meets Southern Italy and it works! The name of the restaurant, Taranta. It’s located in Boston’s North End on Hanover Street. It’s owner/chef, Jose Duarte incorporates spices and foods native to Peru into an Italian menu.
We’ve never been and were looking forward to it. Waiting for our friends G and B to arrive we ordered a bottle of Argiolas Costamolino Vermentino from Sardinia. It seems that Vermentino is becoming popular and showing up more and more. I hope so because it’s a perfect summer white and it always reminds us of of our trip to Sardinia!
If you don’t want to hassle with parking or North End prices, go to East Boston – D’Amelio’s Off The Boat Seafood specifically. Up the street from the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel on Porter Street sits a little restaurant that seats about 26 people. It was a take-out but evolved into a restaurant. It’s been around but not on our radar until last weekend. Continue reading “Off The Boat Seafood…”
Fan Pier. Years in development, us skeptial Bostonians never thought it would happen. But it did, it’s spectacular and a great place to be on a summer night in Boston with the skyline as a backdrop. Take a walk along Fan Pier, go to the ICA, have dinner at any number of restaurants ranging from mexican to Legal Seafood, Del Friscos, Strega, Jerry Remy’s and Anthony’s Pier Four. Yes, remember that one? That’s where we started our July 3rd celebration. Continue reading “The Old and the New”
Coppa. Just a sliver of a restaurant on Shawmut Avenue in the South End of Boston. It has a pedigree. Ken Oringer and Jaime Bissonnette own the restaurant and also own Toro together. Hailed by every food critic far and wide I can see why. It’s serious not fussy. Just really great ingredients put together in inventive ways. The people that work at Coppa are artists, committed and proud of what they do and it shows, from the bartender to the sous chef making the Tuna Crudo.
We were on our way to another restaurant but when I mentioned Coppa to Roy on the street, someone passing by said, “you have to go there , it’s the best”. And, so that’s where we ended up. Since it was only 5P we knew we’d get 2 at the bar.
And we did Already, a buzz at 5 o’clock we grabbed a couple of seats and ordered 2 Prosecco to toast the beginning of summer. And then, what to order. Hard to choose, we started with ostriches (2 oysters) with hint of rhubarb verjus, set on a mound of salt, incredible. Then, we ordered the Pizza Pepe Blanco named after Pepe’s in New Haven. We’ve had the pizza blanco at Pepe’s, but Coppa’s is probably the best pizza we’ever had. A white clam pizza with bacon and baby leeks. The crust perfect with not a hint of oil. Made in a wood burning oven. And, an order of arancini with fontina cheese.
I was watching as one of the chefs was preparing the tuna crudo. He did it with such intense attention to detail and it looked so good, I had to order it. A thick slice of the pinkest tuna, radish, sriracha and sweet sicily. Who thinks these concoctions up? That’s why Coppa is what it is!
I had a delicious sparkling Rose which the bartender who looked like Rosaria Dawson recommended, and Roy had a good, old Narragansett beer!
A special shout out to Nicole who was sitting next us. She’s an open water swimmer and going to Istanbul next week to participate in a swim across the Bosporus along with 4,000 other swimmers. Cool right???
It was such a beautiful night we decided to go elsewhere for dessert and ended up at Beehive, at the bar of course, and had a fantastic rhubarb and berry bread pudding with vanilla ice cream.
A good way to start the summer, don’t you think?
See you at the bar….
