Boston Bar Hopping

My husband and I went on a quick trip out to his home town last weekend for some family obligations. I don't know why I agreed to leave the 80 degree weather to hang out where the night time low was 8.

We did get some time away from the 'family obligations' to hangout in Boston on Friday night. We left Foxboro for the City around 7 o'clock and drove to the South End. We started our night off in The Beehive, a bar that was voted "Best of the New: Diversions" by Boston Globes Visitor's Guide.


The place used to be the old flower market, where flower wholesalers would sell their stuff. It was pretty cool, with the brick walls, the art hanging on the walls, the exposed beams and venting above and lots of place to hang your jackets. Hahah! You'd never find that in a Scottsdale bar.

After a cape cod and a couple raspberry madras (and bribing the bartender to let us bring the food away from the bar and to our counter - Thanks Greg ;) !), the rest of the crew that we were going to meet were finally allowed to go downstairs. I guess fire code only allowed a certain number of people below. It's so typical of Boston bars to be downstairs, sorta like the bar in Cheers.

We didn't stick around for the live jazz that was setting up on the stage next to us. We hopped into the car and headed to our next stop, the Union Bar and Grille. I ordered another Raspberry Madras from the bartender. My sister-in-law had to correct my pronunciation so the bartender could understand my thick Arizona accent. I guess it's pronounced 'mad', not 'maude'. What do I know?



Here, I got to talk to my brother-in-law's friends, Tom and Chris, some more. Tom swears he met me ten years ago in San Francisco when my husband let him stay at his place as he was on his way to Hawaii. I kept telling him it wasn't me!

"No, it had to be one of his exes," I said, " I don't remember meeting you."

"No, it was you!" Tom insisted.

Then I explained, "All my husbands exes are asian and we all look alike. Really. You know how girlfriends go through all the old pictures of their boyfriend's exes and rip 'em up? I don't have to do that. I look at 'em and say, 'Yeah, that looks like me.' even hang 'em on the wall if 'I' look good in it"

Yup, those Madras were getting to me...

We crawled next door to the BanQ Restaurant and Bar. The restaurant is housed in the old renovated Penny Savings Bank building. I loved the interesting design they created on the ceiling with these hanging sheets of maple colored wood. The food and beverage had an asian flair and I tried out one of the japanese side cars, a martini made with sake and an apricot liqueor.

As we left the BanQ that night, it was just beginning to snow outside. My first snow since I left California three years ago. Wow! We got a little camera happy outside the bar...