As with Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day is a pretty big deal here. When my friends from Isis asked me "what are you getting Eamon for his first Father's Day?", I shamefully replied "err, a card?". In fact I got him a rare and special treat, namely a visit from his in-laws. I am sure he'll get round to thanking me later.
It was a proper scorcher of a day (naturally, the weather forecast predicted thundery showers and possibly some hail). We walked along the Esplanade (after a slight scuffle between grandparents over who should drive the buggy) and into the Back Bay for lunch at Legal Sea Foods, New England's leading chain of fish-based restaurants.
For those who don't know my Dad, he's been fairly adventurous food-wise in his time. I remember once when I was about 12 he ate a whole, slimy, curly sea-snail (cold, off a bed of mossy bladderwrack), which event caused his entire family to dry-heave in unison. However, when faced with some simple grilled fish he becomes a 13 year old boy who would rather eat his own arm (or a slimy snail) than eat FISH! FISH! THE FODDER OF BEELZEBUB! So, whilst Mum tucked into a lobster salad, I had some grilled prawns and Eamon had scallop ravioli, Dad was happily munching on some gammon, egg and chips. Seriously. Why he didn't go the whole hog and ask for a pineapple ring I have no idea. But it was Fathers' Day so I guess he could have what he damn well liked.
Eamon washed his lunch down with some Guinness, the perfect accompaniment to any seafood dish. As you can see Baby Zoë quite fancied some too (after all, she is half Irish), but had to make do with some SMA. Believe me, post-SMA farts are almost as smelly as post-Guinness farts.
The journée gastronomique did not end there. Deterred by loud but, ultimately, impotent thunder, we scrapped a trip to the Redsox game and headed to the North End for some Italian delights. First there was a stop at Mike's Pastry. I had been "filled in" about cannoli (ho ho, that's a cannoli joke right there) and the queue was only at the door of the shop, so I got a box. Boy, was it worth it. They are f****** AWESOME. You could totally live just on those cannoli - although it would be a life of obesity and heart disease you would probably die happy.
We headed on to Pizzeria Regina, which is a very famous Boston pizza joint*. You have to queue for a table in this slightly shabby but excellent restaurant but, like the cannoli, the wait is worth it. We had a pitcher of Peroni and shared 3 fairly sizeable pizzas. Any thoughts of a doggy bag were premature as we ate pretty much the whole lot, to a soundtrack of Don Maclean (Mum and Dad looked suitably nostalgic) and U2 (Eamon, ditto).
I shudder to think how many calories and grams of fat we consumed over the course of the day. However, Fathers' Day comes but once a year and this year, Eamon's first, I think we did it justice.
* It has now franchised the brand but the original restaurant is totally worth a visit
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