March 16th 2014: The New England Food Show and Thompson Island

Today, I had plans to go to the New England Food Show at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston.

I headed to the area early in anticipation that it would be hard to find parking. I did not realize that the St. Patrick's Day Parade was on today as well, so I ended up parking pretty far away from the convention center. After parking, I walked to the nearest diner along the way, My Diner, and it already had quite a few people wearing green inside having breakfast.

I decided to try the Hot Chocolate

and the Turkey Hash Benedict,

which was just alright and nothing out of the ordinary.

After breakfast, I walked to the convention center, which already had a traffic jam leading to it. After spending some time trying to find the admissions area into the exhibition hall, even going into the wrong one by mistake, I somehow managed to find my friends, and headed into the giant arena to check out the various booths for free food and even free pandas. One side had only seafood related stuff, and the other side had pretty much everything else that could be remotely related to food. What follows are pictures I took of the interesting stuff I saw here.

I have to say, a lot of the food, especially oysters, weren't really that fresh. I did get 2 free pandas though, not too sure who I will give them to.

After leaving the area, we had a hard time trying to get to my car, getting diverted because of the parade going on. I decided to get out and walk on my own back to my car, and even then had a little trouble doing so. After getting back to my car, it was difficult to get out of South Boston as well, but thankfully I managed to find a way, and decided to head to lunch from the South End, going to Vlora, a Mediterannean restaurant in the Copley Square area.

This place is pretty hard to find, being located in the basement of 545 Boylston Street, the entrance to which is a staircase opening out into the pedestrian walkway. But the decor inside is actually pretty nice.

I had already eaten a lot at the food show, but I was still excited about the food I was to have here. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed at all. The Shrimp and Spicy Couscous (Pearl Couscous, Pepper Flakes, green beans, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, spices) was cooked just right with really fresh shrimp.

As I was really full though, I had to pack it to go so that I could use the rest of my groupon on dessert, getting the Kompekai (albanian style bread pudding, chocolate, walnut, pistachio, caramel, whipped cream)

and the Kasata (frozen parfait with baked almonds, caramel topping). 

Both were really amazing, although if I had to pick one, I would go with the Kasata, with its almonds and caramel. Glad I got to try this place.

From here, it was on to Quincy for the rest of the day, passing by the Supermen on top of Expressway Toyota.

In Quincy, I started off by walking the Salt Marsh Trail, where the path I took is shown below in pink.

There were some good views of the marsh along the way.

After heading back to my car, I realized that it was about to be low tide, so I decided to take this opportunity to explore Thompson Island, as it is only accessible at low tide by a thin strip of land that connects the mainland to the island with the waters down low.

When I finally got there after taking pictures at Nickerson Beach

and Squaw Rock,

it was still a half hour before low tide, but the connector was already exposed by now,

so I headed onto the island.

 The path I took to walk around the island is shown below in pink.

Pictures I took while walking around the island follow.

At one point, I had to cross a shallow stream leading to the ocean in order to get to the other side, and ended up getting my socks wet.

On the other side, I continued my trek to the pier and the Outward Bound school buildings, which were devoid of people this time of year.

Heading away from the pier, the trek became pretty rocky, with views of Spectacle Island and the Long Island bridge across the sea.

I also spotted my first ever snowy owl along the way,

which I could only take distant pictures of as it flew away every time I approached.

However, the cost of this prize was that I would realize that I lost my glove along the way. I had a choice of going back to find it, but that would mean that I would get stranded on the island, and I realized that I almost was, as the water was already creeping up to cover my escape route as I got back to the mainland.

Back on dry land, I decided to call it a day for sightseeing, heading to Canton for dinner at the Canton Junction Sports Pub and Grille. A typical bar restaurant, with a few pool tables and an arcade area, there weren't many people here tonight. Being full from all the food I have had today, I decided to just go with the Cheese Fries (cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon)

and the Spicy Pterodactyl Wings (Buffalo, Teriyaki and BBQ).

Nothing special, really.

With that, another fun filled weekend was at an end. I'm just glad I was able to check out Thompson Island, finally.