Today we had sandwiches from Chacarero. Chacarero is always good. They never waver. Sure, they have like two things on the menu, but they do those two things so well, why should they push their luck? It’s a narrow mountain, but it’s oh so very tall.

I had the original-style chicken sandwich, which was a little less spicy than usual, but still full of flavor and beans.

I decided to try the Yum Nuah from Pah Thai Café today, which is listed as being grilled slices of beef mixed with chili paste, cucumbers, tomatoes,
mushrooms, lemongrass, red onions and scallions with lime 
juice dressing. From all this, they definitely got the spicy beef part down. Scallions and lemongrass too. Beyond that though, it was really just a few soggy chunks of tomoato and then some incredibly dense cuts of lettuce. They must have been running low and served up the last cuts from down by the heart of the thing. That was a little bit of a downer, but I didn’t take it too personally. On the whole though, it just didn’t bring quite the level of satisfaction that the satay salad from the other day did. Lesson learned!

We went to Bottega Fiorentina for lunch today. I’d been having a bit of a craving for spicy mustard, and was disappointed (but not surprised) to not find much of anything on the menu that might satisfy my urges. I resorted to what looked to be a new item on the menu, the chicken Milanese. I either misread the description or it wasn’t entirely thorough, because I was surprised to find that the chicken was breaded, not grilled. Not a bad thing necessarily, but a bit more heavy than I was hoping for. However, back at the ranch I did find that the sandwich accommodated some spicy mustard just fine.

Mom’s in town with some friends for a Sox game, but before that they were gonna take in an IMax showing over at the aquarium so I went to grab lunch with them over on that side of town. They ended up at a place called Durgin Park, which I couldn’t really distinguish from any of the other Faneuil Hall pub/restaurant sorta joints. That whole area is terrifying.

Anyway, I went for the fish sandwich, which I think was either haddock or cod; I can’t remember if they specified. I had the options to either have it broiled or fried, and in an effort to be a bit health-conscious, I went with broiled. Turns out this might have been a mistake. At least I’d like to think so, if for no other reason than it’d mean that the fried fish wouldn’t have been quite so bitter. I have no idea what has to take place to make fish bitter, and for my own edification I’ve decided not to try and find out. The short ribs mom ordered were really tasty though, so I count the failing to be in my selection and not the menu as a whole.

Just for a change of pace, a few of us hit up Bocca Grande today. I always forget why we don’t go there more often until after I’m halfway through my meal. The reason being that the food there is generally pretty bland. I’m not sure how they go about it, but somehow all of the ingredients seem to retain no flavor of their own. I had a grilled steak burrito, in which I definitely tasted steak and a little guacamolé, but nothing of the beans, rice or salsa. My theory is that they realize this, and compensate by giving you an enormous helping.

Jaffa was totally out to get me today. Who has any business putting that much food into such a modestly sized take-out container? No one, that’s who. They’ve always been generous with the amount of meat that they put on top of their chicken shwarma salads, but today the meat was as high as an elephant’s eye. Like a real 1:1 ratio of salad and meat. Too much of a good thing… too much.