Date Night in Harvard Square

Andrew and I had a wedding vendor meeting in Cambridge last night, so we decided to make the best of it (after a long work week) and turn it into a date night!

I've always wanted to try Upstairs on the Square so I was pleased to see that it was on the same street as our meeting location with the vendor.

I was pleased to see that the decor lived up to the hype when we walked into the Monday Club Bar on the first floor (note the distinctive chandeliers). What you can't see is the "bad girl" plaid paint job on the walls and the zebra print on the chairs:

This was my favorite chandelier - it looked a flock of light bulb birds flying away from the ceiling:

The waitress caught me taking pictures and graciously offered to take one of me and Andrew. We were seated right next to the fireplace - thankfully, it was turned off at that point. They had turned it on when they seated us and it became uncomfortable in a matter of minutes. I have to say that the service there is excellent and someone came over immediately and shut off the fireplace, rather than have us move to a new table:


I like the small decorative touches that came with the meal, including the decorated lime that accompanied my G&T. I have to mention that their bread basket and dipping sauce were also excellent - it wasn't anything special, just fresh white bread with a chewy crust and a quality olive oil with herbs - but it tasted great!

Instead of going with entrees, Andrew and I decided that the appetizers looked more interesting and decided to choose two each. The first set of dishes that came out were the Brûléed Boucheron (top) with Shaved Butternut, Macintosh, & Cranberry Walnut Kashi and the Oven Roasted Lamb Meatballs en Casserole (bottom) with Slow Cooked Orange Scented Tomato, Sumac & Farm Egg :

We both loved the Brûléed Boucheron, especially the boucheron cheese itself - yummy! Andrew liked the meatballs while I wasn't the biggest fan - maybe because I don't eat lamb often?

There was a long lag before our second set of dishes arrived, and in that time, Andrew and I realized - surprisingly - that we were actually pretty full! Nonetheless, we were committed to try the second set of appetizers -

Roasted Pumpkin Pizetta with Smoky Bacon (left) and Autumn Squash Mezzaluna with Bacon & Pepita Brittle, Sage Brown Butter (right):

The pizetta was amazing - there were crunchy and soft triangles of fried dough covered with pumpkin, creamy chunks of cheese and bits of bacon. The Mezzaluna were just meh - and honestly, as one of our more expensive options, they only gave three? I would definitely save your money for something else.

Next, we had a very pleasant meeting with the vendor, and I'm happy to say that you will be experiencing their work first hand at the ceremony next year!

Finally, since we were in Harvard Square, we had to drop by BerryLine for some froyo:

We both opted for original flavored yogurt, skipping the pumpkin pie and apple cinnamon flavors. As blueberries are only a seasonal topping for them (boo!), Andrew went for chocolate chips to accompany his strawberries and almonds and I went with fresh kiwi.

Full and freezing (as we were dumb enough to be eating frozen yogurt outside on one of the coldest nights we've experienced this fall), we headed back to the car happy with our night out. On the walk to the car, Andrew pointed out that it was funny that we were ready to call it a night at 9:30 p.m. while we were clearly passing people that were about to start their nights. This didn't bother me, as I was content with all that we managed to cram into three hours!

Frozen Yogurt Showdown

As I mentioned earlier, Amanda was a great hostess and made sure we visited a ton of places and as you now realize, a bunch of delicious meals as well.

At the beginning of the weekend, she asked if there was anything in particular that I wanted to do or see. I told her honestly that I had just one simple goal in mind - to finally try Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Luckily, there is a Pinkberry within blocks of her place.

I do have to mention that we had an incredible meal at Uva that night - a charming Italian place known for its wine selection. Sitting in their back garden area, enjoying food recommendations from Amanda (who has lived in Italy) and wine recommendations from Javier (manager of a wine store), we had a simply incredible meal. Even the bread and olive oil tasted above the ordinary. I took it easy and skipped the photo taking, but you can salivate over the menu here.

For dessert, everyone was kind enough to skip the tempting choices at Uva to join me at Pinkberry!

Here's the front of store (this was taken the next morning when we were hoping to get another serving of Pinkberry before leaving New York. Unfortunately, it opened at 11 am and we were on the road at 10 am):


Amanda and Javier opted for a small serving of the coconut flavor with Captain Crunch and chocolate shavings.


I'd like to take credit for introducing Andrew to real frozen yogurt and to the fact that fresh fruit toppings taste the best - so here's Andrew with the natural flavor with strawberries, blueberries and almonds - the same thing I got! He claims it was his idea since he ordered first, conveniently forgetting that this is the combo I always get:


I could barely wait for the picture taking to dive into the frozen yogurt:


Closeup of the long-awaited treat:

I love it when people warn you that these frozen yogurt places serve really "tangy" yogurt, because that's what I really enjoy. And Pinkberry delivered - it was great and totally lived up to the hype. I tend to prefer natural as a flavor, but I wanted to point out that tasting the coconut and passionfruit flavors (I missed out on the pomegranate), each flavor tasted as delicious as the one before it.

On my actual birthday, when we were back in Boston, we headed to BerryLine for dessert - I got the same order of natural yogurt, blueberries, strawberries and almonds as I had gotten at Pinkberry the day before:

The conclusion? Pinkberry wins by a slight margin on the basis of taste. But I'm not going to lie, I'd be happy eating both every day for the rest of my life. And I have to give credit to BerryLine for offering mochi as a topping when we were in Monday.

Berry Delicious

The long gaps between my races on Sunday meant we not only had time to explore the Dragon Boat Festival’s food booths and dance demonstrations along Memorial Drive, but we could make the short walk into Harvard Square

Other than watching Matt’s band play last winter, I haven’t really walked around Harvard Square in years. It’s got a fun mix of eclectic shops and restaurants, but is a pain in the butt to park at if you’re driving and is always crammed with tourists.

Our main motivation for venturing into Harvard Square – other than grabbing “Dunkin’ Doogles” for Amy, Phu and Pete – was to find BerryLine, a purveyor of “real” frozen yogurt that had opened up in early 2008. As my readers know, I’m a strong advocate for frozen yogurt that tastes like yogurt, rather than soft serve ice cream.

After initially walking by BerryLine, as it’s tucked away in a tiny shop on the corner of Arrow Street and Mount Auburn Street, I could tell from its colorful exterior that it was a fun place with a focus on fruit.


Photo courtesy of the BerryLine Facebook page

Alas, it was only 11 am and it didn’t open until Noon, so we trudged back to my company’s tent empty-handed.

After lunch, Amy, Pete, and Jen (who had arrived around Noon just in time to see my team in its second race), went back over the Weeks Footbridge to try again at BerryLine. I was sorely tempted to go, but knew that our next race was only forty minutes away and we were due to line up in twenty minutes. I had just enough time to see the three of them come back with empty containers and smiles on their faces before I was off for my final race.

At around 4 pm, we were sunburned, tired and finally done for the day. But I made Andrew, Jen, and Phu walk back to BerryLine with me to get my much-anticipated cup of frozen yogurt.

The line was out the door but moved quickly, so in ten minutes, I had a medium sized cup (I believe it came in 5 oz, 8 oz, 18 oz and pint sizes) of their natural flavor yogurt with blueberries, strawberries and almonds as my topping. BerryLine offered three frozen yogurt choices when we were there – Natural, Orange and Raspberry – as well as roughly two dozen fruit, nut and candy choices.

It was all that I hoped for, the fruit was very fresh (in fact, we saw one of the employees bringing in a box full of fresh pints of raspberries) and the yogurt was wonderfully tangy. And if I remember correctly, at 25 calories per ounce, the frozen yogurt is a relatively guilt-free treat.

Jen has become one of my resident frozen yogurt experts and so I was pleased when she told me BerryLine is opening a new store in the Fenway area soon which would make it much easier for me to indulge in my frozen yogurt fix.

As this was one of the rare times I didn’t have my camera on me, I didn’t get to grab a picture of my order. So, I'll have to go back soon and order it again!