January 11th 2014: 2 Meetup Meals in a Day

Today, I had both a meetup lunch and dinner to go to, so I planned my day around it. I first headed to the Callahan State Park in the town of Framingham to check out Packard Pond and Beebe Pond in the fog.

The path I took to check out Packard Pond is shown below in pink.

There weren't any good views of the pond, being obscured by trees, although I managed to take a picture of the dam area, which is unfortunately on private property.

Heading back to my car, I drove to the parking lot on Edmands Road,  whereupon the path I took to go up Gibbs Mountain and view Beebe Pond is shown below in pink.

There were no views to be had at the top of the "mountain", while the pond wasn't that impressive either, especially with the heavy fog.

I have also realized that I missed out on the water body located in the Baiting Brook Welch Reservation, which can only be accessed from the state park. Guess I need to go back there in the near future.

From here, it was on to the town of Wayland,

Heard Pond, 243 Pelham Island Road

Dudley Pond, 14 Priscilla Path

where I decided to do one last hike for the day at the Hazel Brook Conservation Area. The path I took to visit the water bodies here is shown below in pink.

The paths here were a little slippery with ice on the ground, and the ponds here seemed like they were about to overflow, although they were frozen.

After leaving Wayland, my last stop was at the Stony Brook Basin, which was on private property at the end of Gate House Lane in the town of Weston.

My lunch place was at the Border Cafe, a Mexican bar restaurant located in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge.

After parking in Allston nearby, I walked over to the place, crossing over the Charles River in the process.

Being a little late, almost everyone was seated already by the time I got there. For food, I decided to get the Pastelitos (Flaky pastries filled with a chicken-cilantro mix. Made in-house and served with a Chimi Verde sauce)

and the Shrimp and Crawfish Quesadilla (A fresh flour tortilla is stuffed with shrimp, crawfish, bubbling Monterey Jack cheese, and Cajun chef Floyd's secret sauce).

I wasn't too much of a fan of the pastries, the chicken being a little dry, although the Quesadilla was pretty good. I also got to try my friend's Chimichurri Steak (authentic Argentinean style flank steak grilled over mesquite wood, cooked medium, sliced and served with choice of chimi verde sauce or chimichurra sauce), which was really tasty as well.

After my lunch, I headed back to my car, then went to Boston, where I decided to visit the Museum of African American History. This place is pretty small, and photography is actually not allowed here, but I still managed to sneak in a few pictures.

By now, it had started to rain, so I gave up sightseeing for the day and decided to check if reservations for the meetup dinner at Trattoria di Monica in the North End later had been made. Apparently they had not, and there were no more spots available. Thankfully, I was still able to make a reservation for the same time and number of people at Pomodoro, another good Italian restaurant close by at 319 Hanover Street, and subsequently tried to inform everyone who was coming about the change.

When I got to the place, I realized it was pretty small, and they would not allow me to stand in the doorway while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, so I was forced to stand outside in the rain. Thankfully, one person came soon after. With that, I decided to go to the other place to check if anyone had not read about the change in venue and had gone there instead. Lo and behold, one person had indeed gone to the other restaurant and was standing outside when I arrived. I brought him back to Pomodoro, and we decided to go in and take our seats, even though we were still waiting for one more person. Thankfully, she had read the message and came into the restaurant soon after. We then got down to ordering, with me ordering the Steamed Mussels (In saffron scented fennel stew) for appetizers for everyone to share,

and the Tiger Shrimp and Salt Cod (with artichokes, potatoes, calamata olives and parsley leaves tossed with farfalle) for myself,

while my friend got the Seared Chicken Breast (with a marsala scented wild mushroom ragu, tossed with papardelle noodles).

I did not get to try the chicken, but apparently it was good according to my friends. The mussels did not seem very fresh though, and I wasn't too impressed by my own dish either.

The restaurant did provide complimentary desserts of Tiramisu in the end however, and that was actually pretty good.

Overall, I would say that I have had better food at other similar restaurants in the area.

That wasn't the end of the night though. My friend asked me to hang out for a bit at his place and play video games, and I ended up having a second dinner as well, where my hosts cooked Ma Po Tofu and Stone Crabs for us to eat, as well as shaved ice dessert.

I ended up going home at midnight. Today was a pretty gloomy day in terms of weather, but at least I had a good time eating all day.