Newbury Street to Redsox Store then Border Café

Coffee and a pastry was all we had for breakfast today in anticipation of lunch at the Border Cafe. We walked up from the hotel down Boylston past the site of the Boston Marathon bombing earlier in the year. Helen spotted the Crate & Barrel store and started to walk in – my comment along the lines of ‘as long as we don’t dawdle’ was ridiculously naive as we left over an hour later and a heavy shopping bag to our credit. They were able to hold the bag until later in the day.

We continued down the length of Boylston stopping to buy Duck Tour tickets for tomorrow and then made our way past more residential streets to Fenway Park. They were in the early stages of getting ready for today’s 4pm game as we entered the mammoth official store. We all wanted baseball caps and I had my eye on some Nike running gear. Great stuff in there – pretty good quality and reasonably priced compared to the outrageous Chelsea store. Some of the more obscure items were very expensive and rather ridiculous. Two genuine Fenway stadium seats for $1,000; a signed display case with some pitching mound earth for similar; lots of signed match balls; dated bases [the actual rubber bases they step on] – if you’re a dedicated fan though, I can see why you’d do it.

As we made our way to the T stop at Kenmore Square the scalpers were out in force. They were selling general admission 3rd base seats at $100 each – I tried to look unimpressed knowing we’d spent a lot more for ours tomorrow (they had better be much better seats). We took a long T ride to Harvard Square getting best value for our $10 fare.

Fajitas at the Border Café

As predicted we were seated straight away at the Border Cafe and ordered what we knew we would months ago. The layout was exactly as it had been 17 years ago. We ordered Blackened Chicken Fingers (using a time-honored Cajun technique, boneless

chicken tenders are marinated, spiced, seared on a cast-iron skillet and served with a Cajun marmalade sauce) and Cajun Popcorn (shrimp fried, spiced with Cajun seasonings and served golden brown with their own Bayou sauce). I’ve pasted in the menu description because they were unbelievably delicious, every bit as we remembered them. We all had fajitas which I won’t describe because everyone’s had them but they are simply excellent. For 17 years I’ve always been reluctant to order fajitas at home because I know they’ll be a disappointment compared to these. We were all totally stuffed (Helen dangerously so) and we dragged ourselves back via the T to the hotel. Joe & I went to collect the shopping from Crate & Barrel.

We watched the Redsox beat the Yankees 6-1 convincingly,somewhat reassured at our prospects tomorrow – it was a great game. Helen & I took a stroll along the shops of Boylston & Newbury streets while the boys went to the gym (can you believe that one!).