Morning stroll through down town Boston

I realized that I have not posted anything in a while. Work is keeping me pretty busy. Whoever thinks that architects don't work for their money, they are insane. I say that if you are an architect and have been practicing for a while you must really love what you do. You don't find many architects out there that say that they are in it for the money. Its a hard occupation. I'm not looking for pity, I signed up for it. I was just realizing that the picture that I took the other day was a shot that I took on my way into the office at 7 am and that day I did not leave work until a little after 7 pm. Where does the time go? There are a few perks to working long hours, one of which is to experience spaces at times most people don't even think about being around. I have to say that being down town early in the morning on a crisp spring day is a great experiecne. This mornining there was a cool breeze and a hint of salt air dancing around my nose. With not many people out, I truly felt how behemoth the city really is. As I walked down Boylston I came upon a sight that just made me feel so insignificant and small. I turned the corner near the library and there was the Hancock tower doing just that, towering over the landscape, wonderfully back lit by the morning sun. With the sun at the angle that it was it created this strong profile of the skyline and the tower just erupted out of the city. I am not normally a morning person but i have to say that when your out and about in a city if you want to feel like the whole town is meant only for you, take a stroll at dawn, you will see a side of the city you would never expect.

Chicken Souvlaki Gyro Style

The other night I was planning on going out for a movie with my friends and made a meal at their house ahead of time. I have always like Chicken Souvlaki but it has always been too messy for me whenever I eat it out. The nice thing about making it at home is that you control the portion thus controlling how sloppy the sandwich is. We did not have to much time before the movie so I grilled up something quick. I love the grill, it is one of the easiest thing to do and the cleanup is pretty simple. I started out grilling the bread, it was a pizza dough that I picked up at the supermarket. I have to say that dough is one of those things that I really don't mind cheating on because of the time it takes to properly make it. It is a great way to get something really fresh with little effort. padding out the dough as if I was going to make a pizza but smaller pieces allowed for great sandwich bread.

We marinated the chicken in a lemon and Orange juice mix with a little olive oil,salt, and pepper. It also went on the grill (as if that was not going to happen). If i could cook everything on a grill I think that my life would be complete. Hmmmm someday ill have to try cookies.. (thoughts of messy disaster running through my mind). Topped the chicken with fresh spinach and some home made Tzatziki sauce (see below). Damn it was a good sandwich and combined with Jalapeno corn chips from "food that should taste good" the meal was perfect for great grilling day.

The Tzatziki Sauce was the only thing that I prepared ahead of time, it tastes better if it has some time to sit. For those of you who may not know Tzatziki Sauce is a cucumber yogurt sauce. It is what ties the whole sandwich together.

Tzatziki Sauce:

1 cup of cucumber puree without skins (seeds are fine) and keep it a little chunky.
1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 a lemon
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced (OK you may not want to put that much in but I love Garlic)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
kosher salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine the cucumber puree and the salt and let it sit for 5-10 min.

Then just whack the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and put in the refrigerator for later. The flavor really started to get better after an hour in the fridge. Its pretty darn good right away but letting it sit is like letting chili sit for a while, it just makes it better.

IVY

We went to go see Eddie Izzard the other day and man it was a great show. They man is an epileptic seizure of comedic prowess. He was all over the place which kind of fit for the entire night. Before the show we ate at the IVY restaurant in downtown Boston. The meals were hit or miss for the entire group. The wine on the other hand was pretty good. They do have a good selection of wines by the glass only costing $9. I ordered the scallops for myself and shared a basket of herb fries. The scallops were grilled, the unfortunate thing about them was that they were not really cleaned well, about 1/2 the bites contained grains of sand in them. They sat on a bed of what they called potato risotto but was nothing more than a finely cubed potatoes in a cream sauce. It was tasty, I just did not understand the word "risotto" The fries were tasty although there was not much herb in the herb fries and they were extremely salty. After brushing off a little of the salt they were good.

The ambiance of the restaurant was pleasant overall. The contemporary style mixed with wrought iron made it feel like you were dining in an outdoor terrace in a modern villa. As you look around the space you can see that they took extra care to pick out some great accessories and materials for the space. From the wrought iron fence mounted on the exposed brick to the dark stained wood tiled wall at the entrance. Then you look up, the first chandelier was a nice drum contemporary piece and then next is "the want a be wrought iron" (but not really, it was a poor fake) and then a crystal chandler. Coming from a design profession I understand how hard it is to make sure that the people that you are designing for select nice fixtures that go with the scheme of the space. I am hoping that this was the case because the light fixtures just baffled me. The vinyl high back benches with integrated planters at the top, planted with a semi realistic fake ivy, were pretty comfortable. Not really sure that you needed to literally smack the people over the head with the use of ivy in the restaurant named IVY.

So here is my review.
Food: better than decent but needs to be refined.
Portions: nice but priced a little on the high size for what you get.
Wine selection: good and pretty diverse.
Atmosphere: pleasant and only people who care about consistency in design will have a problem with it.
Service: has a long way to come (actually it was pretty poor) but that is a rant of another day.

You may ask would you go back? Well I would go back if a friend who liked wine wanted to grab a drink after work but to go and sit down and eat, probably not.