Boston Restaurants

Seafood is a specialty here, and is found on the menu at almost every restaurant. For your information, scrod (or schrod) is a generic term used for white-fleshed fish. Local shellfish includes clams (Essex and Ipswich), Atlantic lobsters, Wellfleet oysters, mussels, scallops and shrimp.

If you order lobster boiled or steamed, you'll be given a plastic bib to protect your clothing, a nutcracker for breaking open the claws and tail, a pick for the legs and drawn butter for dipping the lobster pieces in. If you prefer to have someone else do all the work, lobster is also available in a casserole (pie), in a sandwich (roll), stuffed, with pasta, in salad, and in a creamy bisque.

Local cuisine

New England clam chowder is loaded with fresh clams and thickened with cream but never includes tomatoes. If youre looking for clams but not in soup, steamed clams (steamers) are available often served as an appetiser. More common are hard-shell clams (littlenecks or cherrystones), served raw, like oysters.

Traditional Boston baked beans date from colonial days, and earned Boston the nickname Beantown. Durgin Park Restaurant in the Quincy Market serves an excellent version, along with good cornbread. Brown bread is often served alongside as well which is really a steamed pudding of whole wheat and rye flour, cornmeal, buttermilk, molasses and raisins. A traditional local dessert is called Boston cream pie which in fact is a layer cake filled with custard and topped with a chocolate glaze.

Where to eat

In addition to seafood, which is featured at most eateries, youll find some excellent steakhouses and grills here, such as: Grill 23 & Bar; the Oak Room, in the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel; and Abe & Louie's, on Boylston street. The North End Boston's Italian-American sector boasts dozens of excellent eateries. After your meal, head for the local cafs for an espresso or cappuccino and pastry. If youre in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace area, the well-known McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant has a branch here in the North Market Building. Cambridge has an active dining scene, with many of its restaurants centred around Harvard Square.