But New England Style is revolting. Just the smell of it makes me want to puke.
Eating in Boston
- Thread starter Finn
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^ Only bad chowder I ever had was, ironically, at Fenway. Very watery. Not much actual chowderian material. More like broth.
Hotdogs were pretty good though.
Hotdogs were pretty good though.
The cream and seafood mix of New England Style just seems so fundamentally wrong to me.
For the prices they charge at most venues they had better be.
I did drink a Budwiser at Coor Field however.
^That reminds me. Years ago..and years ago at Fenway, I had awesome Pretzels, one of those huge bloated pretzels with perfect seasoning, with sesame seeds and a dash of butter. I went back and couldn't find themHopefully, I'll find one on my honeymoon.
Meh. Not a big pretzel fan, meself. Too much salt. I do like the pretzel stix at Auntie Anne's though.
A trendy part of Cambridge that you can get to easily on the Red Line subway. Wki describes it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Square_%28Cambridge%29
Trendy though should be taken with some caution, it has its share of trouble and is much more an urban neighborhood than Harvard Square which caters to the university and Brattle Street crowd.
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While I can't fault them for wanting to serve their fans better beer, there's something wrong about serving Budweiser at Coors Field.
I disagree with you on the New England Clam Chowder. It's fine. However, Manhattan Clam Chowder is heaven in a bowl. Seafood in a proper tomato sauce is awesome.
They don't sell Coke at the Pepsi Center, but the actual better beer at Coors field comes from the on sight brewpub. I only drank the Bud because it is Coors biggest rival.
Nothing wrong with that. Coors is watered down, crap beer anyway.
Harvard Square is a much better place to hang out, in my opinion. Not as cool as it was back in the 70s, but still very nice.
It's been a long time since I've been in either so I was unsure how they may have changed. I always thought of Central as more of a blue collar kind of area while Harvard as catering to a more poncy crowd for want of a word. I would suggest Harvard sq over Central for travellers though.
You think you'd know the difference, but I staged a contest recently as part of a larger thing I'm doing, and pretty much proved that people can't tell the difference. They THINK they can, but really, no.
10 guys, all mid-20s and regular drinkers. There were 10 beer samples poured into shot glasses labeled 1-10, and then they had to write down which ones were which. I think the best person there got maybe 4 out of 10 right, and there were 1 or 2 gimmes in the list.
Here's what we used:
Budweiser
Coors Light
Miller High Life
Corona Light
Heineken
Amstel Light
Sam Adams Light
PBR
Steel Reserve (Malt Liquor 40 oz)
O'Doul's (non-alcoholic)
Piece of cake, right? You could definitely tell the difference between a Corona and a PBR, right? Bud is good, while Coors is crap? Other than Sam Light being a slightly different color, and Steel Reserve tasting like crap, it was basically dumb luck if you got any of them right. And shockingly, O'Doul's is pretty good, and can't tell it apart. Only way to tell there is to drink a 6-pack and see if you feel anything...
If you don't believe me, try it yourself. I consider myself a fairly experienced drinker, and struggled with this. Got 4, but a lot of that was luck and guessing. If you had just 2 beers, you could have a shot at telling them apart, but in a group, there's really not that much difference. The biggest drinker in our group was raving about how much he liked beer 8, how he knew that one, it was his favorite (which for him was Corona), but the beer he was talking about was actually O'Douls
Say you have a favorite beer if you want, but not as much difference as you think there is.
Thank you for the link. I know where Central Square is; I lived in Cambridge and Somerville for several years. I've just never heard people refer to "downtown" with respect to Cambridge, as one might with Boston. I guess it depends on whom you ask: students might think Harvard Square or Kendall Square is "downtown." Townies might consider Riverside or Cambridgeport. I was just trying to get a sense of whether Central Square was the area the OP was referring to as "downtown."
Sorry, I forgot about the Manhattan/New England thing.
I do recommend LSF though. Its 'chowdah' is delicious. Costco used to sell it but they don't anymore.
We went to Legals for a friend's surprise 50th birthday party. Gotta say, I was underwhelmed. Modest portions, seemed like the stuff had been sitting around a while, and the flavor was meh. Not worth the high prices.
The places I've been to that I liked are Minerva's (Indian) in Natick and Chef Orient (Chinese/Japanese) in Framingham. But that's 20 miles away from the city.
Back around '73 when I started hanging out there, it was very counterculture (and quite accepting of an underage acolyte); over the course of the 80s it became more Yuppie. I still love it, though, but that may be part nostalgia on my part.
Heh. To me it's just a "checkmark" on the Red Line.
You think you'd know the difference, but I staged a contest recently as part of a larger thing I'm doing, and pretty much proved that people can't tell the difference. They THINK they can, but really, no.
10 guys, all mid-20s and regular drinkers. There were 10 beer samples poured into shot glasses labeled 1-10, and then they had to write down which ones were which. I think the best person there got maybe 4 out of 10 right, and there were 1 or 2 gimmes in the list.
Here's what we used:
Budweiser
Coors Light
Miller High Life
Corona Light
Heineken
Amstel Light
Sam Adams Light
PBR
Steel Reserve (Malt Liquor 40 oz)
O'Doul's (non-alcoholic)
Piece of cake, right? You could definitely tell the difference between a Corona and a PBR, right? Bud is good, while Coors is crap? Other than Sam Light being a slightly different color, and Steel Reserve tasting like crap, it was basically dumb luck if you got any of them right. And shockingly, O'Doul's is pretty good, and can't tell it apart. Only way to tell there is to drink a 6-pack and see if you feel anything...
If you don't believe me, try it yourself. I consider myself a fairly experienced drinker, and struggled with this. Got 4, but a lot of that was luck and guessing. If you had just 2 beers, you could have a shot at telling them apart, but in a group, there's really not that much difference. The biggest drinker in our group was raving about how much he liked beer 8, how he knew that one, it was his favorite (which for him was Corona), but the beer he was talking about was actually O'Douls
Say you have a favorite beer if you want, but not as much difference as you think there is.
Thing is, all those beers are watery crap. How could anyone be expected to tell difference?
Try it again with some micro-brews and some beers darker than piss and you might have a different result.
Of this I have zero doubt as I can't tell most beers apart. Coors is an easy one for me to tell though. To me it tastes like water. Keystone is about the same taste as Coors. They are the only two that are like this.
FYI, my favorite beer is Newcastle, and it's coloring makes it pretty easy to find in a crowd. I don't care for Bud. I'd just rather drink it than Coors. Bud's quaffable in draft form or from a bottle, but otherwise it's pretty blah.
Thing is, all those beers are watery crap. How could anyone be expected to tell difference?
Try it again with some micro-brews and some beers darker than piss and you might have a different result.
I agree, but that was the whole POINT of the contest. People say they like Bud, but Coors is watery. Or love Heineken, but Corona is piss. Or just hate PBR because they think they should. But when put to the test, it's all bullshit, and no one could tell the difference, except for the Malt Liquor and the Sam Adams (and mostly just because of the color there)
See, that's what we thought, but it doesn't hold true when tested. I'd swear I know what Corona tastes like, it's pretty unique, right? Forced to pick between that and one other similar beer, I could probably get it. Hand me 10 beers from large, popular breweries, and I couldn't identify which one it was. Your head says it should be a piece of cake, but it's not.
Oh, none of those beers were 'favorites' of mine. Just picked the big ones everyone has had, and thought they could identify. You actually end by kinda proving why we did this: You say you'd rather have Bud, and Coors isn't as good, but if given both and blind taste tested, I'm not sure you could say which is which. More likely, you'd pick the one you thought tasted better, and identify it as Bud. A lot of people identified O'Doul's as Bud, or Coors, or Miller under that assumption
Bump: I am going to Boston next week for the Redsox/Yankees series so if anyone has any suggestions for reasonably priced, non-chain, casual places to eat lunch (ideally near the Sheraton, but I am willing to travel the T if need be), I welcome any and all suggestions.