Boston

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.

I love the city of Boston. I spent my college years living there and enjoyed myself immensely. My family is from Massachusetts (not Boston, there is a BIG difference) so I get to visit once a year, though my time in the City is usually quite short. This recent trip I had mere hours - after landing and before take-off - to get my food on. I follow as many Beantown restaurants on Twitter as I do LA ones and had hoped to visit a few on my Hit List but timing and opening hours conspired against me. That's how we found Snappy Patty's.

I had wanted to stop in Cambridge at Catalyst for our last East Coast lunch, but driving into and around Cambridge is a nightmare on a good day, even if you know how to navigate the tiny, one-ways streets. I won't even discuss the parking situation. No, we were out of our element, hungry and pressed for time. Getting lost was not an option. (Yes, that's still possible in the Smart-Phone Age.)

So, as we barreled down the highway, I choose a nearby northerly suburb - Medford - guaranteed to have street parking and plugged the town into Yelp. I know, people are hating them right now, but sometimes you just need the best info you can immediately get your hands on. Nothing really stuck out except Snappy Patty's. Clever name, 4 stars, right off the highway? Burgers, beers, a nice little wine selection - we were still on vacation - it was just the type of neighborhood joint I was looking for.

Here's how Dilusha and I decide where to go. She sends a text, "I'm hungry, let's eat," and then I have to find the place. We always get lucky in Cambridge and so we did at Russell House for "classic American fare." Where this tavern is, once sat the Wursthaus. From 1917 to 1996 it catered to the likes of Derek Bok, the Aga Khan and Robert Reich among others. The Cambridge Historical Society also says Wursthaus closed because of "non-bratwurst eating masses of the '90s." True, and even in the unenlightened '80s it was hard sidestepping platters of meat.

We're downstairs in the dark marble bar. Dilusha orders cast iron seared fish of the day, striped bass, and it's plated on grilled bread with heaps of greens. Her salad is slathered with onions and oranges, pickled something we can't identify, and the green aioli doesn't hurt. She is nuts about it. Mine is a fried clam roll, very crispy it turns out, with arugula, bacon and a salad of pickled fennel, greens and onions. (We pick off onions.) This is not your usual clam roll; it's so good we eat it with the roll and we never ever eat the roll.

Things we like about Chinatown: it's close, you can park on the street and there's always adventure. This is one of those days: not only do we park but there's a piano on the sidewalk under the arch at the entrance. The Celebrity Series of Boston's placed 75 of them in Boston and Cambridge with an invite: "Play Me, I'm Yours." In 2006 there were cows everywhere and today it's pianos. No one's paying any attention so we toy with creating our own adventure like putting on a show: some song and dance maybe. Maybe not.

Where should we go? Oh, let's relive the '90s; to be clear, not my nineties and not Julie's either. She has stories about fun times at New Shanghai in the last century and you can never have too many stories when they're about someone else. So New Shanghai it is. Seems like old times with tales of old flames and late nights going way back to when this was the only gig after nine. That was Boston. (It used to be Faneuil Hall had two places and there was the No Name on the Fish Pier. We loved a Mexican bar in Cambridge beside the Orson Welles where someone stole the cash eight of us laid down to pay the check one night.) New Shanghai is still very good.