MY LAST POST AS A RESIDENT OF BOSTON

My last post from Boston is dedicated to my favorite eating buddy, Leah. (Sorry Tom, Leah’s favorite food of the year so far was not Brooklyn pizza.) I’m actually typing this from the airport while waiting for my plane to depart. FYI- Logan does have wifi, but you gotta pay $7.95 for a day pass, which is why I’m typing this on Word.

Leah and I have had some great meals together over the past few years, whether it’s been an ice cream cake for four (which was consumed by the two of us- hey it was hot out!) or French fries and mac and cheese at ES. And though we’ll be having many meals again in the future, it’ll be a lot harder now that there’s a continent between us.

So before I left Boston, Leah insisted that I try Picco, the pizza place in the South End.

She loves the pizza there, and though I’d wanted to go for some time, somehow, I never made my way over there. (I’m much more likely to have brunch than dinner in the South End.) Finally, early on a summer evening, we headed over there. When we arrived, they had the outdoor seating set up, and since it was pretty early, we had our pick of seats. We peeked inside, and I was immediately captivated by a large black chalk board listing all the homemade ice creams that were available. We chose to sit outside, and looked over the menu, but as the sun started to set, it really started cooling down, and we retreated inside. (The waitress didn’t seem too thrilled, since she’d already taken our orders, but whatever).

And on the subject of service, when we arrived, it seemed rather confusing and lacksadiscal. The restaurant wasn’t busy, but it was hard to be sure who was going to seat us, who was going to take our order, etc., and not one of the staff members really stepped up- Leah had to ask someone if we could sit outside. Leah said this was basically normal for Picco, so don’t be too surprised if the staff members are inattentive.

Ok, but onto the fun stuff- the pizza. Leah always orders the veggie pizza here. She also got a Caesar salad because she loves that the lay white anchovies on top of the salad. The Caesar actually did look pretty good, but I wanted to save room for the ice cream, so I ordered a pizza margherita and I also ordered Tom a steak and cheese pizza to go. (He was working at home and couldn’t join us.)

We’d moved inside, and the restaurant was empty, but slowly starting to fill up (it’d be mostly full by the time we left). Here’s a shot of the interior- lots of red and polished wood.

It’s actually smaller than you’d expect, but that’s another reason why it gets so crowded later on. Another waiter had taken over indoors and we were served our pizzas. Here’s mine:

And here’s Leah’s:

And the verdict: It was actually quite excellent pizza. The crust was well charred and the interesting thing was that it was almost like eating bread. The crust was similar to a bread from Clear Flour- with its texture, crackle and the large bubbles inside. I really enjoyed my pizza, and I think it’s far better than anything else we’ve got in Boston.

I also tried a slice of Leah’s pizza and I was surprised by the fact that I really enjoyed that, also. I didn’t think I would since among other things, the veggie toppings included eggplant and fennel, neither or which I like, but it worked and I would actually order this pizza in the future. As we ate, the restaurant started to fill up, and the staff seemed to snap to attention and started being much more speedy than before.

After pizza, it was time for some ice cream. I had been staring at the big black board for quite some time, so I’d decided I’d be getting 3 scoops. I got chocolate, caramel and espresso. Meanwhile, Leah also got three scoops, but they were the polar opposites. She got peach, peanut butter fudge and I currently forget the other flavor. Oh, and the came with free sprinkles. I got chocolate, and Leah got rainbow.

The ice cream is all excellent, but it’s grown up ice cream. The flavors are so deep and intense that it’s hard to eat a lot of it. It’s like really good dark chocolate, you can eat a square and be happy, rather than eating the whole thing. The espresso was my favorite, and the chocolate had the lovely nuances of whatever chocolate they had used (as in, it didn’t just taste like chocolate, you could get other flavors from it). I managed to finish a few spoonfuls of each, but was done for the night.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the table switch, they had forgotten my pizza to go. The waiter rushed over and offered a discount, but we didn’t feel like waiting for it- I just gave Tom the slices I had left (which he quickly polished off when I got home). I was really glad I tried Picco, but I was even happier with the company. It’ll be hard to find another eating buddy like Leah, who will agree to eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets because there’s a buy one get one free deal or someone just as enthusiastic about fried chicken. I guess I’ll just have to scope out some places to take her out West- like Betsy’s Bakehouse, with its fried chicken sandwich and spicy coleslaw.

As for the rest of you, I’ll soon be adding posts about my dining adventures from the East Bay. I hope you’ll all come out and visit us, so we can have some more great meals in CA.