Since 2010, Island Creek Oyster Bar's holding the corner at 500 Commonwealth in Kenmore Square. Any time after four, you'll find 175 of the happiest people in Boston. When I go by on my walk, it's packed and this isn't 7:30. It's five o'clock and it's busy, busy. I call on Monday morning to reserve two seats at the bar. Even for the bar you need a reservation, even on Monday.
Something's happening as soon as you walk in. The host is happy to see you. Island Creek staff gets interesting training: everyone spends a full day working the oyster farm in Duxbury, MA. Yes, they grow their own and most of everyone else's in town too. Later, when I ask what's in the gribiche that comes with the crab cake, the bartender recites the ingredients. So the staff's been to culinary as well as charm school.
Oysters are us. The menu lists not only where they're from but who grew them: Island Creek owner Skip Bennett raises in Duxbury. Cape provenance: Barnstable, Dennis, Eastham, Plymouth, Wellfleet, Chatham. Out of state varieties come from Virginia and Washington State. Everyone at the bar has oysters.
One of the first things you discover early on, dating someone new, is whether your stars align. If you're a serious foodie like me, the key question always involves food. 
has my passion for Chinese soup dumplings. I order rack of those succulent babies just for me. Anyone who encroaches on my share gets stabbed with a chopstick.
I get more excited about a meal at O Ya, Boston’s spectacular little
Japanese restaurant, than just about any restaurant I have ever visited
– which is rare for me, because as much as I love food, I usually save
most of my emotion, as well as the bulk of my appetite, for dessert. O
Ya loosely translates to mean “gee whiz,” a Japanese expression of
curiosity. It is also the expression heard over and over on a given
evening as diners search, but fail, to find just the right words to
describe what is happening in their mouths when they taste chef-owner
Tim Cushman’s beautifully inventive flavor pairings.
It's 100 degrees. There's Dead concert traffic choking the five o'clock crawl. We cross five lanes from Faneuil Hall to the North End to find a bad, as in not good, DJ holding forth at the Hanover Street fountain. Oh, for some peace and wow-ing.
Aquitaine's clever. They've got photographic food diaries on all their front pages. Even Twitter is crowded with savvy bartenders, one of whom reminds me of Ben Affleck in Argo; smart servers, one of whom has cool pink hair; the bar lit in warm golden tones, snazzy cocktails, shrimp with heads, gooey onion soup, bunches of greens and my shrimp sandwich. You can preview nearly everything but where are the waffles?