YCGL - October 21 2022 - Happy BurpDay to Me (plus one)

 Hello Bloggeroo's!

I bet you think I've been ignoring you.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I may have been neglecting, but not ignoring.  I'll make it up (no, I won't make it "up", I will tell you the truth) later....

There is so much to talk about, and I'm so tired tonight, as I have been most nights.

Just a list of topics to discuss (as much so I can remember to write about it):
The closet project.
The Hash get together
The stair project.
The MIT museum.
The Boston Fine Arts Museum and subway.
The Tapas Dinner
My Birthday Dinner at the Portuguese Restaurant.
The Hash get-together at the German and Independence Bars
The pickup!
The Boston Symphony and Mahler!!

And I'm so tired now, and good, and happy!  I've been having a great time.  

I'll do one tonight.  As you may have figured out from the title, yesterday (the 20th) was my 73rd birthday.  Yesterday, I put three layers of primer on the walls in the closet (more eventually), Kevin, the contractor, came over and talked about putting a vent in for the microwave oven and the stair project, and then at 8:30, we decided it was time to go to dinner.  We had planned to go to Mexican, but Erik mentioned seafood, and that was the obvious choice. (I mean, who can beat Bernie's in Laramie? Right?)  So I Yelped seafood and there were several four-star seafood places that popped up, close by.  And they all sounded good, but not stimulating.  Then Erik said Portuguese.  

When I came last year, Kim, the next-door neighbor who runs the street (she and her family own four of the six houses on the block) told me that these houses were built by Portuguese fishermen in the 1890s.  I didn't know at the time that Kim, who talks like the classic Boston Irishperson, is of Portuguese extraction.  Knowing the Portuguese history of the area, Portuguese seafood rang the bell.  Erik and I went to Casa Portugal.  If there was any doubt, when we sat down, I saw three of the twelve tables were Portuguese.  I was wrong, It was five of the twelve, and maybe more.  

We first ordered the "Camarao de Aperitivo", the shrimp appetizer.  It was about 15 shrimp in a scampi-like sauce.  It was so good that after we ate the shrimp, Erik and I sopped our rolls in it, and when I ran out of bread, I asked for another order and they baked another basket of bread rolls for us.   They were so hot, I couldn't pick one up, it wasn't pulled out of a batch of ready-made rolls.  I ordered the "Mariscada a Costa do Sol".  It was a boiled combination of half lobster, a crab claw and and some body, six or seven little neck clams, a bunch of shrimp, two small squid and 20 or more mussels in a sauce close to the shrimp sauce.  Friends, it was incredible.

The pot is huge, and full, and full of deliciousness.  It might be the best seafood I've ever had. Everything was cooked just right, the squid was not chewy, the shrimp and crab were tasty and tender.  The things that look like pancakes are actually a lightly fried potato chip, which was a great side dish also.  After splitting a carafe and a glass of Moscato wine, we could not eat desert, which I guess would have been wonderful based on what we had.  

But soon after we got home, Eliza, who had been at another party) had stopped by a deli/bakery and gotten a small cheesecake.  Prefect size for what Erik and I had eaten already.  

So I got my birthday cake in the end.