January 31st 2013: Dinner at The Broadway in Worcester

Today after work, I decided to get out midway to get some dinner at The Broadway along Water Street in Worcester.

This place is more of a breakfast diner than a restaurant, and there weren't many people here this cold evening when I arrived. The owners had never heard of groupons before, so I had to educate them a little on how my $20 coupon would work. Of course, I had to order first that amount of food, which came to a short stack of Potato Pancakes, served with sour cream and applesauce,

a plate of chicken marsala pasta,

and finally for dessert, the Baked Alaska with Strawberries.

The pancakes weren't too bad, although I had to use a little ketchup to wash it down, while the pasta was just average. The dessert though, was interesting, being ice cream placed on a pie crust, topped with meringue and baked. It was delicious as well, though sinful I guess. Whatever, I enjoyed it all the same. 

January 30th 2013: Painting Pottery at the Clayroom in Brookline

Today after work, I had a meetup event in Brookline to paint pottery at the Clayroom, so I decided to use my Groupon at Mexicali Burrito Co. in Cambridge for some quick Mexican dinner before heading for the event.

Having already seen the menu online before coming into this fast food like place in the middle of the MIT campus,

I got to ordering quickly, getting a large cup of Horchata, a Mexican Vanilla Milkshake with a touch of cinnamon, their soup special of their famous Squash soup, and a Big Sur, a large burrito made of two tortillas, rice, beans, spicy rojo chicken and spicy mushrooms, salsa and all other toppings you can find in a typical burrito.

I wasn't a fan of the cinammon in the horchata drink, and I need to stop ordering squash soup as its sweet taste does not goes down well with me either. The Burrito was ok, thankfully. Overall, not a big fan.

Heading into Brookline, I went into the Clayroom to meet up with old and new friends. This place has a Wine and Cheese night every Wednesday, so we snacked on some while waiting for others to arrive.

When we finally decided to start, we had to choose from a whole selection of pre-made pottery.

I decided to go with a piggy bank for my first try.

After looking at it for a bit, I finally decided to not paint it pink like most people would, but try to make it look like a panda instead. Given my lack of painting skills, this is how it turned out in the end.

How I managed to make it look like different animals from different angles, I honestly don't know, but that's the genius in art isn't it? I did another plate to make up for the $24 of pottery we could paint, with a much simpler design this time.

My other friends did better at their works of art for sure. Take a look at the pictures taken of them. My friend even painted one of the logo for my upcoming food truck.

We left only when the place closed for the night, leaving behind our artwork, which will be covered in a lacquer film and burned in a kiln to produce the final product. Hope my panda pig will turn out as well as the finished products along the wall.

January 28th 2013: Breakfast at The Looking Glass Cafe, Wrentham

For the third day in a row, my friends and I got up really early today, this time to get our food truck back from Plainville to Everett. When we got to Plainville, we found out that although the truck was ready, the person we had to pay the money was away and would not be back for another 1.5 hours, so we decided to head out to Wrentham for breakfast at the Looking Glass Cafe.

This place is pretty small, but situated in the town center of Wrentham, like any typical breakfast place in a small town. I had a hard time deciding what to get from the menu which was pretty much standard breakfast fare, finally settling for the Looking Glass Benedict, consisting of homemade corned beef and eggs on English muffin topped with Hollandaise,

while my friends got the Italian Omelette, with sweet italian sausage, onions, peppers and provolone cheese, which came with raisin toast on the side,

and the 56 South Street Special, consisting of three eggs, homefries, bacon, pancakes, toast, sausage.

I have to say the corned beef was actually pretty good, while the sausage from my friend's special plate was not as salty as most other sausage I have had. Not a bad choice for breakfast.

After breakfast, we walked around town a bit to allow my photographer friend to take some pictures of the churches in Wrentham, and then headed back to Plainville. Thankfully, we did not have to wait long to get our truck back and drive slowly back to Everett to get more work done on it.

After safely leading the food truck there, it was finally time for me to head back to work, as I was already late. Traffic at this time of day did not help either. Thankfully, my fun weekend with my food truck business partners and friends ended well.

January 27th 2013: Filming in the Freezing Cold

My friends and I got up really early today to head into Cambridge to start filming for our food truck's promotional video on Memorial Drive alongside the Charles River,where there is an excellent view of the Boston skyline across the river.

By the time we got there though, the sun was shining from the Boston side, making it extremely hard to get good footage. Thankfully, we had a very skilled photographer with us calling the shots, with adequate equipment to get the right amount of lighting in the shots. What made it even tougher was the freezing cold weather today, and we had to constantly run back to our cars to get warm and rehearse between takes.

It was a little bit better at Liberty Square in Boston, although it was harder to find parking for our cars near the statue there, but we managed to make do.

Finally, we decided enough was enough, heading to the Prudential Center to try to shoot something inside for once. Once we got there, however, we realized that there were too many people walking around, and so we finally decided to head back outside to the Copley Square area nearby to film in front of the Boston Public Library.

When we were finally done, we headed back into the Prudential Center to grab some quick food from the food court there, as my NYC friends had to leave for home soon after. After looking at the food options, I decided to go with the Bacon Pesto Melt, made with Italian Bread, Light Swiss, Hickory Bacon, Baby Spinach, and Tomato Pesto and a cup of Broccoli Cheddar soup from Cheese Boy.

I enjoyed my sandwich, although it was not filling enough, but there was more food to come soon anyway.

After my NYC friends left, it was time to head to my chef friend's place in Malden to do some cooking of food truck food for the purpose of picture taking.

As always, my friend made several delectable dishes, including steamed and grilled pork belly buns, beef scallion pancakes, and horseradish mustard salad. Pictures of the food made follow.

After the phototaking, I was already very full, so we decided to do away with dinner, and after shopping for groceries for more food photo taking tomorrow, we went back to crash at my friend's place in Malden, as we had more food truck stuff to do tomorrow.

January 26th 2013: Volunteering at the American Red Cross Food Pantry in Boston

Early this morning, my friends arrived from NYC at my place for a weekend of doing food truck business together. After sleeping only a few hours, we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed to Boston to do some community service at the American Red Cross Food Pantry.

We had a fun time packing food into bags and handing them out to the poor who came by the droves for the free food, but I have to say that I am disgusted with the people who simply take advantage of the welfare system, driving up to the place in Lexus cars and Hummers, still expecting us to carry the food to their cars.

After doing our part for the community, we headed to Oishii Boston for some lunch. The lunch menu is pretty different, being a kind of sampler dish, of which there are 4 different choices. All the girls in our group decided to go with Set A, consisting of Soba noodles, Steam Broccolini Sesame Dressing, Salmon Avocado Maki, Spicy Tuna Tempura Maki, Agedashi Tofu, Shrimp and Asparagus Tempura, Seaweed Salad and Grilled Miso Black Cod,

while the guys went with Set D, consisting of Fresh Lobster Wild Mushroom risotto, Crispy Rock Shrimp Lemon Aioli, Oishii Crabcake, Seared Wild King Salmon Sweet Soy, Spicy Tuna Salad Handroll, Maguro Sashimi, Hamachi Sashimi, Sake Sushi, Rocky Sushi and Grilled Miso Black Cod.

As always, our chef friend kept serving us complementary stuff as well, including a new Buri (wild yellowtail) sashimi dish,

and bonbon desserts.

As always, an exquisite experience for all of us, and this time round we did not spend an arm or a leg.

After lunch, I decided to show everyone the various sites where our food truck would be operating, like at the junction of Milk Street and Kilby Street in the Financial District, at the junction of Stuart Street and Trinity Place near Copley Square, at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Opera Place in the middle of Northeastern University, and beside the Prudential Center at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Belvidere Street.

Finally, we headed into Cambridge along Memorial Drive, which has an excellent view of the Boston skyline from across the Charles River. This is where we decided to film most of our promotional video tomorrow.

Finally done for the day, we decided to head nearby to Zagat rated Basta Pasta for a cheap dinner after an expensive lunch at Oishii. This place is actually just like any pizza takeout place, and I felt that the dishes we ordered, which included Homemade Meatball Pomodoro with wheat Radiatore,

and my Calamari Basil and Tomato Risotto,

were just okay.

With that, we headed all the way back to my place for the night. We got to get up early tomorrow again for more action in the freezing cold.

January 24th 2013: Dinner at YaMon Jamaican Jerk Hut, Worcester

Today after work, I decided to get some Jamaican cuisine from YaMon Jamaican Jerk Hut in Worcester.

This place is another hole in the wall place, though much bigger than One Love Cafe in the same city, which also serves up Jamaican food, and they have a big stereo system belting out Jamaican music as well.

I had wanted to have some Goat Head Soup, but apparently he had not much stuff left, so I settled for the Curry Goat, which came with a salad and rice with peas on the side.

The dish was actually pretty good, with the goat being really tender but ambience wise, not as cosy as One Love Cafe.

January 23rd 2013: Dinner at Piccolo's, Worcester

Today after work, I decided to try out Piccolo's, an Italian restaurant in Worcester. This place has a 1920s saloon like atmosphere, with wooden furnishings and old speakeasy pictures on the walls.

I decided to order the Asparagi “Milanese Style” (Asparagus, farm fresh sunnyside egg, cracked black pepper & parmigian) appetizer,

and the Paglia e Fieno (fresh-cut spinach and egg fettuccine, Italian ham, sweet peas, parmigian and cream) for my entree.

It is interesting to note that the asparagus dish was very simple, and is a pretty popular Italian dish. I do not think it was worth the 9 bucks I paid for it though. The spinach fettucine was pretty good though, although that dish was $18 bucks and a little on the oily side.

Although I could not finish my noodles, I decided to see what they had for dessert. I went with the Turtle Cake, which was okay, though a little too chocolatey for me.

Overall, my experience here was okay, but a little too expensive in my opinion.

January 20th 2013: Meeting an Old Friend for Lunch in Arlington

Today, I had a lunch appointment with an old friend who I have not seen for a long time at Thai Moon restaurant in Arlington.

Before that, the day was still young, so I first visited more areas in the towns of Southborough,

First Community Church of Southborough

St. Matthews Church

Pilgrim Congregational Church

St. Anne Church

Old Firehouse Plaza, 5 Main Street

Sudbury Reservoir

which I was surprised had a private school St. Mark's School, which has a pretty nice campus.

Leaving Southborough, I headed to Framingham next.

Catedral de Adoracao

Philadelphia Baptist Church

St. Stephen's Church

Gleason Pond at Gallagher Park,

~390 Concord Street

Wesley United Methodist Church

First Church of Christ, Scientist

Saxonville Fire Station,

End of Watson Place

Edwards Church

Next up, Natick,

Riverbend School

Eliot Church

Weston,

St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church

Congregational Church of Weston

and finally Waltham before I headed into Arlington.

St. Charles Borromeo Church

Community Church of the Nazarene,

1450 Trapelo Road

Finally in Arlington, I visited the Church of Our Saviour before going for lunch in Arlington town center area.

I arrived a little late for lunch, and my friend was already waiting for me there. We got down to ordering, deciding to get the Steamed Shrimp Bags for appetizers on my friend's recommendation,

with her getting the Garlic Squid (Sauteed squid in shrimp paste with minced garlic and white peppers) for her entree,

while I decided to go with the Siam Garden (sauteed marinated chicken in light curry powder, topped with peanut sauce) dish.

The Shrimp Bags were excellent, especially with the chilli dipping sauce, and I actually liked her squid, which tasted really good, while the curry powder in my dish gave the peanut sauce extra kick.

Overall, a really good culinary experience at Thai Moon at low cost. And it was really good to be able to catch up with my old friend, whom I had not seen since university.

After bidding her adieu, I continued my sightseeing, heading to South Boston to explore the Marine Industrial Park area.

Hyatt Harborside in the distance

At the Legal Seafoods Quality Control Center at the end of Seafood Way, there is a nice big sculpture of a fish at the top of the building, and beautiful views of the Boston harbor area.

Another place with great views was the International Cargo Port at 88 Black Falcon Avenue.

Boston Logan Airport in the distance

Long Island Head Light

in the distance

Heading away from the area, I decided to check out the South Boston Maritime Park, which is on the other side of D Street from the Eastport Park which I visited yesterday.

As the sun started to set, I decided to head to Cambridge to have dinner at the Spirit Bar, passing by a few places along the way.

Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Art

2nd Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,

65 Binney Street

River Court

The small bar was already pretty full of people waiting to watch the New England Patriots-Baltimore Ravens football playoff game.

I decided to get the Smokey Hot Chipotle Wings, the Poutine Fries with Beef gravy and Mexican Cheese crumbles,

and finally 3 BBQ Pulled Pork Carnitas Tacos.

They were just okay, as can be expected of typical bar food, and I could not finish it as always after using a Groupon.

The Patriots were not doing well, so I decided to call it a day and head home. By then the Patriots were well on their way to losing, although they had a slim lead when I left the bar. Yet another year with no Superbowl win for the Patriots.