Touring Boston + Red Lantern Dinner

Oh my gosh. I seriously LOVE Boston. What a great place to be!

Our train arrived into town yesterday afternoon around 1:30, so after dropping all of our luggage off at Sarah’s apartment, we headed out for a little tour of the town.

The skies were looking a little scary for a while, but we managed to get away with just a few sprinkles. Thank goodness for that…I definitely did not want to have to worry about two days of walking around cities in the rain. Nooo thank you.

Some of the different neighborhoods were so stinkin’ adorable. They reminded me a lot of the brownstones that are close to me in Albany, which I’ve always adored. I just think they have so much character and charm to them.

We needed a bit of fuel for the start of our tour, so we headed to berry line…a local frozen yogurt place. Good lord. Are you surprised?

Guys, I’m almost (*almost*) sort of embarrassed to even share this. I mean, twice this past weekend, and now again yesterday? I may have a problem.

Berry Line was a pretty cute little place though. They only had about four flavors of fro yo, but they had a pretty unique toppings bar. There were many of your typical fruit and chocolate toppings…

…but they also had a variety of homemade baked goods that were broken up and available for toppings. Fresh chocolate chip cookies on my fro yo? Yes, please!

I got a small cup of tart + peanut butter fro yo (both amazing, btw) and topped them with some peanut butter cups, chocolate chip cookies, and their homemade granola.

The stuff was good. REAL good.

We then spent a good few hours walking the streets of Boston, checking out some of the cute, local boutiques.

I also had my first experience in Lululemon which was, well, I guess humbling would be a good word for it. I fell in love with basically all of it. My wallet though? Not so much. Ahh well.

A little while later, another pit stop was in order for a beverage.

Iced green tea for me, which is surprising, since I’m not usually a big green tea lover. Unless, of course, it’s this one. (<—that’s for you, Anne!)

Our travels then brought us through a super-cute park which, unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of off the top of my head. I do remember it was really nice, had the smallest-ever suspension bridge (I think? Right, Sarah?), and had swan boats floating in the pond.

Anne, Sarah, Julie, Maria, & Me (aka, the one who needs a haircut desperately)

Anne, by the way, is a rockstar at taking self-portrait pics. She puts me to shame.

On our way back to Sarah’s apartment to get ready for dinner, we also happened to walk by the real Cheers bar, which I thought was pretty cool.

I can still totally remember watching that with my mom when I was little, wondering what the heck she found to be so funny.

We also walked along the Charles River, which was beautiful.

Eventually, we made it back, quickly freshened up, then headed BACK out for our dinner reservation at Red Lantern.

Red Lantern is a super chic, Asian-fusion restaurant that, apparently, is quite a popular spot here in Boston. I immediately fell in love with its décor and open kitchen concept.

I ordered a glass of Chardonnay to start, which was good but not great.

We were told that many of the items on Red Lantern’s menu are good for sharing, so we decided to just go ahead and get a bunch of different things to share at the table. For appetizers, we ordered the Tuna Tartare and the Wood Fired Skewers.

The tuna was delicious and had just the slightest bit of kick to it.

The wood fired skewers, however, were probably my favorite…especially the beef. That dish definitely wowed me.

We also got three different entrees to share amongst the six of us:

Tik Tok Chicken – similar to orange chicken, which was delicious, but not what we were expecting. We didn’t realize it was fried, but hey, when in Rome…

Sea Bass – unfortunately, this dish wasn’t the best for sharing so we didn’t really get much of a portion, but the flavor was really good.

Drunken Noodles – I’ve never had them anyway, but apparently these were different from what a few of the other girls were expecting. These babies were definitely on the spicy side, but they had really great flavor.

Overall, it was definitely a really fun, unique dinner, all in great company.

Once we finished dinner, we decided to call it a night. We were seriously all pooped. Well, at least I know I was. A few of us grabbed a cab back up to our hotel where I promptly dropped my bags and literally face planted into my big, beautiful bed.

I didn’t stay there too long though…I had a very important video chat session with my two favorite boys back at home.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them again tonight.

But there’s still LOTS of fun to be had…I’m on my way to Reebok, baby!

Looks like it’s time to get my Crossfit on (eek!).

Tagged as: asian-fusion restaurant, berry line, boston, fro yo, lululemon, red lantern, reebok, video chat