Birthday Week: Tealuxe, Boston

Boston & I have a very terse relationship.  I don’t like Boston.

Boston doesn’t care.

Despite knowing that, I decided to give Boston one more chance.  So when I decided to take a last minute birthday trip, Boston was still on the list of possibilities; I had my eye on trying Toscanini’s since reading about their burnt caramel ice cream on Serious Eats.  (I was in the midst of this caramel kick; salted caramel hot chocolates, salted caramel ice cream, …) 

Boston won out over Philly (where I’ve been about a million times – it’s really rather close to NYC) and DC (where I’ve only been once) quite easily; HB had recently been to Philly, and DC was ruled out because we thought it would be easier to get around Boston without a car than DC. 

Neither HB nor I were interested in sightseeing; there was one goal and one goal alone to this trip, and we both knew it.

To eat well. 

Do you like my life?  Because honestly, it’s quite a lovely life, isn’t it?  🙂

So early Tuesday morning, we hopped on the 9 am Bolt Bus to Boston ($15 one way, nice!!!), which put us in just around 1 pm, perfect time for lunch.

Luckily, HB’s friend gave us a list of places to try, and we wound up hitting most of the places on her list. 

First stop: Tealuxe.

Described to us as a cute little tea shop with great sandwiches, we were much enthused to start the eating.  We were surprised by the sheer heft of the tea menu itself, and spent our time picking what teas we should sample. 

Our teas arrived and were adorably set up – HB’s tea was meant to steep for “one go-round” on the egg timer they gave us; mine was meant to steep for two.  I ordered the silver needle tea, which had a clean, familiar taste that I couldn’t identify.  HB had the pear green tea; it had fruit overtones, and she liked it enough, though it wouldn’t be on her list to try again. 

HB’s Sonoma.  I know she enjoyed it, but did say she wished the sandwich selection was lighter – perhaps some tea sandwiches thrown in, since most of the sandwiches had cheese or heavy meats…

I ordered the BLT; I found the bread itself was very yummy, and there was no lack of STUFF between the slices, while not overwhelming.

Yummm!  The creamy potato salad on the side was a hit, too; HB had considered ordering it but was trying to be a little healthy, so opted for the salad.  I had gone on this trip fully expecting – wanting, even – to gorge myself silly – so I had no such concerns. 

Also, notice – no silly mayo on the side for the BLT.  This was served how God intended BLTs to be served – with its own schmear of mayo on the bread.  Yay! 

After all was said and done, I desperately wanted to try a crumpet, since they sounded absolutely scrumptious, but I was way too stuffed and HB said she would only eat a small bite if I got one (and when she says that, she usually means it… well, I’d find out later this wasn’t true, but at this point, I thought it was). 

Yvo says: The place was super casual and laidback, with a very liberal artsy air about (our waitress was wearing an OBAMA ’08 t-shirt – this was a week before the election; a nearby table had two mid 30s yuppie types loudly discoursing on the proper temperature at which to serve various red wines; a few tables away was a college student, bent over laptop with just a frothy drink in a tall cup in front of her).  I really liked the sprawling layout -though there were a lot of tables around, there was still a lot of room to spread out and feel comfortable chatting with your friend without feeling like you were on top of someone next to you.  Our waitress was excellent, friendly and attentive, and the price, while not cheap, wasn’t that bad – $30 for everything we got, including a nice tip.  And upstairs is a cute shop filled with tea drinking paraphernalia, with a counter to buy any of their baked goods to go.  If I lived in the area, I could definitely see this becoming a regular stop for me.
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