Sunday, September 23, 2012.
New England-Canada Cruise Journal, Day Three: Boston.
We got off to a bad start in Boston. We grabbed a taxi to Faneuil Hall, which is to Boston what the French Market is to New Orleans. I was in the front seat, and when I got out of the cab, I felt as if I were leaving something behind. I looked inside again as I paid the driver but saw nothing. I followed the girls into the market.
There, Mary Ann was sizing up the food offerings. An Italian sausage on a bun appealed. She got it, cut it in half, and handed the other half to me. (I am the garbage disposal for eyes-bigger-than-stomach food orders.) The notion of photographing the sausages occurred. But I didn't have my camera. The next thought was that I indeed had it when we left the ship. The cab. I left it in the cab.
By some miracle, Mary Leigh remembered the license number of the taxi: 79. We called the company, then the taxicab bureau. It turned up nothing. We learned that the many items left in cabs are turned over to an arm of the Boston police. We got that number, called it, and learned it was closed on Sunday. As I write this, the camera is still out there somewhere.
This cast a pall over the morning. We had to get moving on other things. Item one: connecting Mary Leigh with Jeremy, a young man she knew from Tulane. He is from the Boston area and now goes to school at Boston College, and he offered to show our daughter the town. She grabbed that chance to get away from us and the inevitable tension born of the Great Camera Massacree.
The transfer point was Paul Revere's workshop. It's one of many major historical sites in the North End, whose other memorable characteristic is a plethora of Italian restaurants. We began taking notes for dinner, but headed back to Faneuil Hall to. . . well, we didn't exactly know what. MA had no plans. Yet.
I mentioned Durgin Park, one of two restaurants in Boston that claims to be the oldest in America. It dates back to pre-Revolutionary times, and has always been an unfussy vendor of simple meals in an unmistakably Boston home-cooking style. Mary Ann likes such food. I knew it was in the Faneuil Hall complex somewhere, but for some reason our peregrinations--directed by too many different people asked for directions--didn't bring us to the restaurant. MA became testier moment by moment, maddened by seeing her precious time in Boston frittered away by one of my lamebrain schemes. I wasn't in so good a mood, myself. That camera wasn't cheap.
And then there it was, under an enormous banner. We took a table on the sidewalk. The menu offered chicken pot pie, Yankee pot roast, clam chowder, and such like. The pot pie was just her style. For me, a bowl of rich, buttery oyster stew: everything I had been hoping for, with enough pepper not to need Tabasco. We finished with a slice of Boston cream pie--a cake, really, with chocolate frosting on top and a custard between the layers.
We went upstairs to see the main dining rooms, known for their long, shared tables and antique utilitarian setting. I have a soft spot for old restaurants that still do things the old way. Mary Ann has much less tolerance for such places, but even she had to admit that Durgin Park was more than worthwhile.
What now? MA was still semi-lame from the trek across Newport yesterday. She was amenable to the idea of grabbing one of those trolley-like buses that weave through the city and allow you to jump on and off at will. Before we could execute that plan, however, she saw a duck boat. Duck boats (named for their Army code name) are World War II-era amphibious vehicles retrofitted for tourists. They drive around streets showing the sights, then make their way into the Charles River and navigate through the old locks and dams to show off the back side of the city.
Apparently MA and the kids have made fun of these things in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C, wondering what kind of fool would board one. That made our catching a duck boat an irresistible opportunity to get a laugh from the kids. We sent them text messages from aboard the noisy, exhaust-belching vehicles. The driver allowed me to navigate the thing for a few minutes, and we sent a photo of that (taken with the cellphone, of course) to Jude. He called us back screaming with mock astonishment that we would stoop so low as to ride a duck boat.
The main appeal of this smelly vehicle proved to be its novelty. The guide to the sights of the city was less than edifying. The trolley tours included free boat surveys of the city, and would have been more interesting.
Along the way back to the North End, we encountered a couple of Bostonian foodies who had a taste for New Orleans, too. They touted us on a number of trattorias in the Italian district, as well as some interesting salumerias and gelaterias. Checking them out as possible dinner spots, we ran into some of the Eat Clubbers, who were very interested in joining us for dinner.
The restaurant was Artu. The waitress was a diminutive third-generation Sicilian-Bostonian, with a local accent as thick and saucy as the lasagna she served. She recognized a bunch of fun-loving eaters when she saw them, and we all had a lot of laughs eating here.
A platter of prosciutto, olives, and some marinated eggplant antipasto with more red pepper than anything I've had in New Orleans came out with a bottle of wine and baskets of crusty Italian-style bread. Every time we asked to add a few more people to our party, she began shuffling tables and chairs around in a comical way to accommodate us.
We had an assortment of veal, chicken, fish, and pasta. My dish--of which the waitress approved heartily--was bucatini all' amatriciana, a Roman specialty with a little tomato and a lot of olive oil and guanciale (cured hog jowls). I've had better, let's say. But the evening was non-stop fun.
Mary Leigh and her friend Jeremy rejoined us for this dinner. I wondered why a twenty-year-old guy ate as little as he did. Maybe he's not a gourmet. If not, then Mary Leigh picked the right fellow to hang out with.
Of course, Mary Ann wanted to stretch out the evening. I was concerned about getting a cab back to the ship--a real problem last time I was in Boston. But MA wasn't with me then to employ her witchcraft, which this evening produced two cabs for our entourage within five seconds of our stepping outside. Still, we were among the last passengers to reboard the ship. At that, we had to walk about a block through a dark corridor between two deserted wharves. I'm glad I'd taken my blood pressure medicine.
I dressed up for dinner in the dining room, but didn't stay to eat. Just said hello to everyone, then adjourned to the jazz club, where fatigue stole my concentration. I was in bed by ten, already well behind my slumbering beauties.
