Cider on the Back Porch, a Sushi Dinner in Davis Square, and a Musical in Stoneham on Friday
Dan and I spent our Friday doing three very different things is three very different parts of town. It was a gorgeous early Fall afternoon and evening that made it necessary to spend some of it outside, which we did, before heading indoors for dinner, and later, a show.
We started our weekend by having drinks at the Downeast Cider pop-up bar, the Back Porch, in the Rose Kennedy Greenway near South Station in Boston. I started with the the Original Blend Unfiltered Cider, which is my favorite cider from Downeast. It was a great day to be sitting outside in the shade at the Back Porch enjoying the start of the weekend. Following my Original Blend, Dan and I shared the Pumpkin Blend cider, which, surprising, I liked. While I love the smell of pumpkin this time of the year, I don’t like the taste of it (and yes — I do try it every year to see if my taste buds have changed). Dan said the Pumpkin Blend cider didn’t have a very strong pumpkin flavor to it, and that I should try it. I did and liked it! I would really like to try it with the sugar rim, and hope a restaurant or bar in the area will feature the Pumpkin Blend cider with the rim so I can try it.
After being devastated that our favorite sushi place in Davis Square closed last year, we decided to finally try Sugidama Soba & Izakaya for dinner, which is also located in Davis Square. We started off sharing edamame and seaweed salad, our go-to’s at sushi places, along with Awa Yuki sparking sake. If you’ve never had sparking sake before, you must try it if you like bubbly drinks. It is very light and refreshing, and doesn’t leave a funny aftertaste like some sparking wines do.
We the followed with some Sushi a la cart: salmon, yellowtail, uni, snow crab, and red snapper, all over brown rice. It took me years to get used to eating sushi because of the texture of the raw fish, and I’ve come to really enjoy it — almost more than the rolls. I’ve just started getting into Uni, and while it still has a strange texture, I am learning to enjoy it.
For rolls, we shared the Yuzu Roll, which featured spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, yellowtail, and yuzu sauce; and the Torch Tuna Belly with spicy tuna , cucumber, crunch, torched white tuna belly, sweet miso sauce, and jalapenos. I removed the jalapenos from my roll because that is too much lingering heat for my palate, but I loved the spicy wasabi with its quick hit of heat. I thought both rolls were good. Nothing special, but good.
While I’m yet ready to make Sugidama my new go-to sushi place, it was good and I would try it again. Word to the wise if you ever come here — unless you like people leaning over you while you are eating, don’t sit at the sushi bar. The big fail of this restaurant is to have the sushi chefs place the sushi plates on top of the sushi bar counter where customers are sitting. When we first sat down, a server reached over my head to grab a sushi plate, and we immediately moved to the regular bar, as I knew I would hate having servers constantly coming up behind me through dinner.
Following dinner, we drove North to Stoneham to attend the Greater Boston Stage Company’s presentation of Being Ernest, a musical set in the 1960’s making its debut on the East Coast. I love the story of The Importance of Being Ernest, written by Oscar Wilde, with its hilarious case of two couples suffering from mistaken identity. This production was good, and we liked the show. You could tell that the quality of the set and performance wasn’t what you would see at a large playhouse in Boston or Cambridge, but it was an entertaining show with a good cast. The 1960’s setting was fun, and the songs were well executed and moved the story along at the right pace.
Overall, we kicked off our weekend by having fun in Boston, Somerville, and Stoneham. I plan to check out the Back Porch one more time before it closes for the season in October, and I will give Sugidama another go . I will also consider going to Stoneham for another show at the Great Boston Stage Company’s theatre if there is another show that catches my attention.
(Friday, September 14, 2018 / @julieschultz79 / #mycrazylifeblog)
