Great Restaurant

It's been a while since I've posted. The move took up most of our time, and then I was out of commission for a few days, after pulling all of my abdominal muscles. Not good times.

I wanted to post about one of my favorite restaurants, though. We went there for dinner this past Friday, and I had steak frites, which came with arugula salad and black truffle vinaigrette. It was wonderful. I love the atmosphere - it's great, inventive food, but it's a casual feel.

My wife had the Moroccan style marinated skirt steak. I love skirt steak. It tastes like no other cut of beef. In this case, it had a nice, cool tzatziki sauce served with it. It was all great. If you live in Metro West, check them out. 51 Lincoln. Yup, that's the name, and the address. Newton Highlands.

Moving, Pizza, and My Brother

A few updates, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The lovely and talented Tracy is away for the week, visiting her family in New York. I'm packing up some of our stuff, in advance of our moving date (in early May). We've done some staging work, so all the books are in one area - I only need to empty a couple of bookcases into boxes. We've also donated some kitchen gear that we haven't used enough to justify moving. I'm going to pack the kitchen next, so that'll be a bunch of stuff ready to go.

We're donating a bunch of books, too. We're both pack-rats, so we had a bunch of old textbooks and paperback novels that we culled. If you have books that you no longer need, try GotBooks.com. They'll even come pick up your books. I'll let you know how it all goes, once they've picked up.

I also found a pizza place I like, called Franco's, on Moody St, in Waltham, MA. It's classic thin-crust bar pie. Crispy and thin, with just a little bit of doughy crust. It's nothing fancy, but they have live music on the weekends, and cold beer. It's pretty cool, and a large pizza is less than $10, which is rare these days. Yeah, it's a dive. But it's a good dive. With good pizza. And that makes up for a lot.

Lastly, my globe-trotting brother is due back in the States early this week. He was, you may recall, working on a freighter that was heading to Bangladesh, where it would be run upon the beach and sold for scrap. I'm not sure how he'll be flying back - the last report was maybe via Bangkok. I was hoping he'd go via London, with a nice, 8-hour layover so he could see the city, but as long as he gets home safely, I'll take it. My fingers are crossed.

Sunny Days and Famous Ray's

The sun is out! And it's actually warm, at the same time! I know!

The apartment hunt continues, with yet another place forgetting to mention the lack of a dishwasher. This time, the person actually said, "all appliances." I realize that a dishwasher is not one of the appliances required by law to rent a place, and thus it was not technically a lie. But seriously, if you reply to a question about a washer and dryer by saying a place has "ALL appliances," and use all caps for the word "ALL," can't I reasonably expect to see a dishwasher? Come on.

We did find a place we like, and we sent in apps today. Hopefully it'll all work out. I just want to be done with the hunt. Such is life, I suppose.

As for the Famous Ray's reference, I've been craving pizza for a few weeks. Unfortunately, most of the pizza near us is, well, not great. Yeah, we'll go with not great. There are three places that are good. All of them are a little bit too trendy to satisfy the craving. I like organic Thai pepper pizza as much as the next guy, but when I'm craving a nice, thin-crust, (dare I say it) New York pizza, there's nowhere convenient to us that does it. I guess a trip to Regina in the North End is in order, and soon. Oh well.

Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, all in Watertown!

I got lunch at Russo's again today. For those who haven't been there, it's a market in Watertown, MA, where you can get all manner of fresh fruits and vegetables. They have a nice cheese counter, and a small but good deli counter. It's one of the few places within an easy drive of my apartment where I can get speck (think prosciutto, but smoked). They also have a great Italian bakery in the corner, and make subs for the lunch crowd. It's a great deal, and there's always some fruit I haven't tried that looks interesting - a great way to increase your fruit and veggie intake, by the way. If you haven't tried it, it's work a look. Be warned, there's no butcher section to speak of, so it may not work as your only grocery store!

Beer of the Week

If anyone is looking for a beer recommendation, Allagash White is a current favorite.  It's a nicely cloudy white ale from Maine, with a little bit of fruit and spice flavor.  It's the perfect beer for a really good burger, or a nice ribeye.

I had one at The Publick House, in Brookline, and it was perfect with the Belgian fries.  I'd give you a link for the Publick House, but, well, their site is currently disabled.  The food's good, though!