A pretty eventful weekend, filled with new experiences and more eating than was perhaps prudent.

• On Friday, I went down to Boston with Barry to check out Scintus Images: Selections, Jeff’s launch of his fine arts collective. It was at the Locco Rittoro space in the South Washington Street Art District, one of many galleries in the area. Afterwards, we crawled the studio spaces in one of the converted warehouses. Each studio was a tiny room, at most maybe a hundred square feet. As I walked the halls, they called to mind a college dorm having a floor party, except the students were older and of far-more-interesting taste in decor. Not a Lamborghini Countach poster in sight.

• Afterwards, Barry and I walked back to Chinatown and stopped by the Vinh-Sun BBQ & Restaurant on Beach Street. It’s one of the places that has chickens and ducks hanging from hooks in the window…awesome! It’s more Street Chinese, which I tend to prefer. Hong Kong and Cantonese food. I ordered an enormous BBQ Rice Platter, which had Salted Chicken, Roast Pork, and Roast Duck with a side of some kind of crunchy green vegetable that I don’t know the name for. We also ordered a side of U-choy w/ Oyster Sauce and Salty Dry-Fried Savory Pork Chop. The latter is one of my favorite dishes, and whenever I see it I get it. This was probably the best I’ve had in some time; crisply fried, not greasy. Drizzled with the appropriate amount of hot green peppers. And, no holding back on the “savory salt”, AKA my good friend Monosodium Glutamate. Oh, stop complaining…the only reason you get a headache is because you are susceptable to urban legend. You liked it just fine before you knew what it was. Sheesh! Barry, I’m pleased to say, iis an excellent Chinese food compatriot..he’ll try anything. He’s probably more Asian than I am, despite his Brooklyn Jewish roots.

• Then, my sister came up to visit with some of that pizza from Fellini’s from Providence, RI. It was cold by the time she got here, but she likes cold pizza. It was thin crust, with a good cheese and sauce. I can only imagine what it was like hot and bubbling…amazing, I am hoping. She asked me what I thought of the crust, and I mumbled “Goodph!” as I chawed down on a lightly-charred and succulent heel of doughy goodness. She gleefully cried, “It’s WHOLE WHEAT!”. Fighting the urge to automatically spit it out, I realized that I wasn’t getting that “I’m good for you, that’s why I taste like broom dust!” vibe. So I shrugged it off and continued to enjoy my slice. I liked the Fellini’s pizza box also…it features a healthy Italian gal in a modest 50s-style swimmy outfit, holding a pizza aloft like the Torch of Liberty. It’s what our boys fought for in dubya-dubya-two!

• For the rest of the weekend, me and Emily and her boyfriend Robert hung out. We went specifically to Starbucks to have a Chantico “chocolate drink”. A big hit…it had us thinking about trying to create our own killer frankendrink from molten chocolate bars. We had Indian from Mehmann’s…it was pretty good for this area. I’m told the place to go for the authentic stuff is Moody Street in Waltham, so I’ll have to organize a field trip. Then we had Japanese for lunch on Sunday, at Osaka Tea Garden on D.W. Highway. I didn’t really like my sushi that day…kind of mealy. I had also had my heart set on a bento box lunch at You You up on Exit 6 in Nashua, but they’re closed for lunch of Sunday. I keep forgetting this.

• In the evening, Robert donned his Red Sox paraphrenelia and camped out on the TV. We made cheese fondue (from a box, though) and cooked up hot dogs on the grill. Not a great game from the Boston perspective, as the Yankees gave us a good spanking. This was a good time to break out some ice cream, so the sting of defeat didn’t linger long.