City Girl Cafe and Paint Night Boston

The end of the school year ran me over like a Mack Truck.  I had been suffering with a lingering ear infection and to top it off I caught an awful spring cold, or a plague as I called it.  The last day of school was a blur to me.  It was so hot and I was so sick.  When the day was over I was thankful to still be standing.  I cranked the AC in our living room and passed out on the couch.  JO and I usually go out for dinner on the last day of school to celebrate but not this year.  I was pretty much out of commission for four days.

By Thursday I was feeling slightly better but it was raining so we decided to hit up City Girl Cafe.  We don't come here enough.  It's a two minute walk from our house and a cute little cafe with a very friendly waitstaff.  My current favorite dish is the fettacuni with a lemon, shallot cream sauce with pancetta.  It's the perfect bite!  Although it wasn't the celebration I was planning on and it worked.  We had fun reminiscing about our dinner there during the blizzard.

While I was sick I spent a lot of time surfing the internet and I stumbled upon Paint Night Boston.  Basically, it's like the Paint Bar or Urban Art Bar but literally at a bar.  There was a Groupon for admission so I decided to buy one and check it out.  I signed up for the fireworks painting at Yoshi, a sushi bar in Central Square.  I had a lot of fun at this event and even bought another Groupon to go again.

Starting out

Evening sky in place

Water

And now we have buildings

Fireworks!

The final product

The best part, I could walk home with my painting!  No cab or car for me!

A Perfect City Night

It was the next to the last week of school and I had just stayed at school until 5:30 on a Friday night so when there happened to be a reservation at one of my favorite restaurants, Teatro, I snatched it right up.  
Our perfect city evening began with dinner at Teatro.  I had my heart set on my standard meal here- truffled deviled eggs and the mushroom risotto.  To my shock and disappointment neither of these items are still on the menu.  We were able to get deviled eggs by pleading with the waiter, but they were truffleless.  Despite the missing menu items we all enjoyed our meals and the service is never anything less than perfect here.

After dinner we decided to find a place to grab a drink and extend the evening.  We were headed over to J.J. Foley's when we stumbled upon an outdoor table just waiting for us at Sip Wine Bar.  As a general city rule, if you find an outdoor table on a Friday night in the city you take it.  I really liked this place.  The staff was friendly and helpful and we were all really pleased with our wines.  Our view wasn't too shabby either.

Once again I had to pinch myself and say, "Is this really your life?" 

The patio closes at 10:30 due to the Ritz Carlton hotel next door so we settled up and headed back towards the T, but none of us wanted the evening to end so we decided to hit up the Avery Bar at the Ritz.  It must have been our lucky night since we walked right in and found three seats together at the bar.  When the waiter poured my prosecco I could hear it bubbling.  My drink was actually kind of loud and delicious!  We all talked about things to do this summer (little did we know about the epic heat waves to hit in July.)

It was one of those perfect city nights where everything goes your way!  It was much needed after a long, long day of school!

May Fair 2013

 One of my favorite annual events in Harvard Square is May Fair.  Back in 2006 I trekked into the Square from the South Shore and discovered my favorite band State Radio on the main music stage.  That trip to the May Fair also inspired me the next day when I was unexpectedly pink slipped at work to chase a job closer to the city.  Seven years later I'm living the city life and loving the new people the change brought into my life.

This year's May Fair was exactly what I needed after spending the previous day getting rid of 30 years worth of hazardous materials that had accumulated in my dad's house (although drying out latex paint was kind of pretty.)

I was feeling pretty stressed at the prospect of having to get the house ready for the looming closing date and still having not found an apartment for my dad and his dog.




The weather was perfect, not too hot not too cold, so we were really able to enjoy all the Fair has to offer.  We even met up with our wedding photographer, the fabulous Ria MacKenzie, who was in the area.  I always love the Chalk on the Block area.

We ended the day with a drink at Sinclair.  Being on their roof deck would've been perfection but the inside was pretty nice.  They definitely went with the rustic modern look and they did a pretty nice job with it.  We really enjoyed spending the day with good friends and not stressing about my dad's house!


In perfect May Fair luck that night we ended up finding the perfect apartment for my dad and signed the lease a few days later.

Toscano- Harvard Square

Wow!  I can't believe it's July and school is over.  I have no idea how I survived the end of the school year.  From the end of April straight through the middle of May all of my free time was dedicated to emptying and cleaning my dad's house and finding him a new place to live and moving him in.  Actually, I was so busy with school and baton that JO and our good friend Ernie took care of most of this for which I am eternally grateful.

In late April JO, Ernie, and I headed down to my dad's and spent the day filling a huge dumpster right to the very top.  We wanted to celebrate this feat with a delightful night out in Harvard Square.  Luckily we were able to get a last minute reservation at the newly opened Toscano.  We'd been following the opening of the Cambridge version of the Charles Street Italian restaurant for several months.  There isn't too much lacking on the Cambridge restaurant scene, but a really good Italian restaurant is actually hard to find in Cambridge.  Plus we're big fans of the Charles Street Toscano so we were really looking forward to this meal.

The restaurant is beautiful with lots of deeply colored and engraved wood, a white granite bar area, and beautiful soft lighting.  It features full length windows that can be opened on nice days to bring the outside in.  The food was delicious and the service was great.  It's definitely not a restaurant you can go to every weekend but when you want a special meal in the Square it's certainly a perfect spot.  The bar area looked really nice and I envision us grabbing a drink there sometime in the near future.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that when Mother's Day rolled around it was the logical pick for lunch with JO's family.  Unfortunately I was away for the weekend but from what I heard the restaurant was a big hit with JO's family, and I'm not going to lie, I was a bit jealous that I missed out on another trip to this fantastic addition to the Square!