Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

I’m not sure where the sudden obsession originated. Probably one of my flippant cockamamie comments on a Peking duck dinner I’d had years ago, or maybe it was something Skip came up with on his own after we toyed with the idea of dinner in Chinatown a while back. Whatever sparked it, the seeds of a proper duck dinner had been planted, and there was no uprooting the stranglehold that the notion had on both our heads, so Peking duck it would have to be. Skip consulted Yelp for a nearby option, and Chef Chang’s came up with a decent body of reviews. It was nearby too, just down the street from Deuxave. I couldn’t even picture a Chinese restaurant there, and I remained skeptical as we walked through the Mall in the middle of Commonwealth, posing for pictures with statues.

A right onto Massachusetts, and suddenly we were there, stepping down into a semi-hidden and completely empty Chinese restaurant that smelled of many good things. Our server spoke little to no English, but we were only there for one dish so it didn’t much matter. Of course, they didn’t have it. Despite what Yelp said, there was not a bit of duck to be had there. We settled for an appetizer of beef tendon, which didn’t sound appealing, but there was beer, and a promise to find a place that had the suddenly-elusive dish. (We tried ordering the beer, but the server didn’t understand, so he ended up taking a photo of menu with his cel phone. That would totally be me as a server. He brought out the wrong beer anyway, so maybe it wasn’t the best method after all.) It turned out that the tendon was actually quite good – and I made a mental note to return at some point to try it out properly. On this particular night, we wanted the duck so we made a hasty exit and hopped on the T to Chinatown.

I knew where the restaurant was, and we were early enough that it was still open, unlike the previous evening when we couldn’t find our way out of a paper bag. (Whatever happened to Chinatown being where all the after-hour eats were available? My how that has changed. Shit was shut down by midnight!) On this evening, however, it was only about 8 PM – plenty of time for a Peking duck sit-down.

This is a dish I’ve only shared with a few special people in my life: my family at the first wedding I ever attended, my Uncle Roberto while visiting him in Washington, DC, and Kira after we were reunited following her decade in Florida. Now a new memory with Skip was being made, and he is a worthy addition to the vaunted folks who have joined me on the ducky adventure. It wasn’t what he was expecting – which is the same reaction I had the first time I tried it. One envisions an extravagant sort of stuffed duck on an elaborate plate that needs to be painstakingly carved in just such a way –which is completely at odds with the simplicity and eat-it-like-a-wrap-in-your-hands method to how it’s served. I think/hope it won Skip over. We took our time, rounding out the meal with a couple of other dishes, downing some Kirin Ichiban beer and happily realizing our ducking goal.

Returning to the condo stoop for a final close-out of the weekend, we looked back on our five previous Red Sox adventures. Each one had its memorable highlights, and we made note of what happened on this trip to add to that memory room. We also looked ahead to next year, making loose plans for what we might do and where we might go, because that’s the best way to alleviate the sadness of bringing such a good weekend to an end.

The top of the Prudential Center was lit in the colors of the rainbow – a nod to Pride Weekend in Boston and a happy illumination of hope. The fountain was in its summer splendor, dripping its tranquil cadence of water, bracketed by a lush carpet of ivy leaves. Braddock Park glowed as part of this enchanting Gatsby-like metropolitan twilight, and this brief sparkling jewel of a weekend lowered its curtain for another year.

On certain days, when the sky is clear and the breeze is both cool and warm, the best place to sit is on the steps of a Boston brownstone, watching the world walk by. It was at such a place that Skip and I found ourselves closing out the last afternoon of this BroSox Adventure, drinking a cocktail and the last couple of beers while shooting the shit and recounting the memorable “moments of demarcation” for this trip. 

Carrying a pair of cocktails outside, not even bothering to slip on any shoes, we began a round of stoop gazing. I used to do this all the time, and I don’t know how or why I’ve neglected it for the past few years. (Well, part of it was the weather – we haven’t had any that would comfortably allow for us to stay out on the front steps until now.) This entire weekend was ripe for the gazing. You see a lot of humanity – the best and worst of it (such as the ridiculously obnoxious, over-the-top guy on his cel phone screaming ‘Copley Square’ over and over to some hapless friend, and the super-friendly woman who lived around the corner, opining these crazy bike groups that always gathered at the end of Braddock Park) while staring out from the stoop.

It’s one of the nicest places to be people watching, because you can quickly step into the comfort of your own home at a moment’s notice. It was also one of the first things that I loved about the South End: on any given summer night you could find at least a few people mingling on their front steps, sharing a bottle of wine, engaging in casual conversation with all who passed. How strange that such neighborly friendliness was easier found in the city than certain suburban neighborhoods I’ve frequented.

A woman who would pass by numerous times smiled up at us. “Morning!” I said brightly, forgetting it was already 5 PM. She laughed. “Merry Christmas!” Skip shouted. (I got body-bagged, as the stupid say.) None of these jokes will land with as much laughter as when it happened, but this is less for everyone and more for my own memory. Fitting, as it was about this time when Skip explained how Jack would sometimes get upset when he neared the end of a vacation weekend or an event that he had looked forward to for a while, even before it was over. I understood the feeling, as this BroSox Adventure is always a highlight of the year, and it always flies by too quickly.

We stayed on the stoop a little while longer. The fountain sprinkled sounds of falling water in the middle of the street. The Chinese dogwood swayed slightly in the flimsiest of breezes. An idyllic afternoon seamlessly shifted into an idyllic evening. In the near distance, the top of the Marriott Hotel and the Hancock Tower still gleamed in the sunlight.

“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” ~ Ogden Nash

Our days and nights of staying out until the wee hours of the morning are somewhat behind us, so anything beyond midnight is a late night. I think we went a bit after that for our first night, but promptly crashed as soon as we got back to the condo. The night breeze, coupled with the air conditioner and fan, kept things comfortably cool, and we vowed to sleep in as long as possible. 

That means different things to parents, and as a non-parent I was happy to sleep a little longer than Skip’s internal alarm clock allowed. He had had the foresight to load some YouTube shows to watch while I slumbered, and once I managed to rouse myself at around 9:30, we were heading out for breakfast and a Newbury shopping expedition for his son Jack. While we struck out on finding Jack’s request from Newbury Comics, we found a decent-enough breakfast at Cafeteria as the rainbow-clad populace of Boston made its way toward the behemoth of its Gay Pride Parade. Having sat for a few hours of the parade with Skip a few years ago, we were happy to side-step it and all the accompanying crowd and noise, staying on its edge along Newbury. We wound our way through the Boston Public Garden before ducking into the relatively quiet corridors of Beacon Hill. 

We walked all the way to the river, which was only moderately populated with sun-worshippers and bikers and joggers on such a fine day. Avoiding the parade allowed us to keep relatively clear of the crowds, and the riverfront was too pretty to ignore. We re-traced the steps we had taken in the dark of night last year– seeing them in the light of day which is far prettier. This is one of the rather hidden parts of Boston that the tourists don’t bother to traverse, and I love it all the more for that. We took our time walking back, passing geese and water iris and kayakers, and making loose plans for an afternoon siesta – the highlight of any proper middle-aged guy at the start of summer. 

Despite its stature as a city, Boston has a few pockets of peace that make one feel far removed from the hustle and bustle one usually attributes to a cityscape. Along the Charles, below the leafy canopy of mottle sunlight, we walked parallel to the insanity of Boylston Street as if in an entirely-other world. Walking across the overpass brought us back into the cobblestone jungle, where we clung to the brick buildings and the shade they afforded from the afternoon sun.

We had a good hour or two for an afternoon siesta. After that, one final chance for a Peking duck dinner, bookended by sessions of stoop gazing…

After a springtime of teasing and crushing our weather dreams, the atmosphere finally conspired to give us the perfect weekend for our fifth annual BroSox Adventure. Skip and I tore out of Albany into a sun-drenched day, timing our arrival for maximum parking options along with enough time to decompress before the game. Despite such planning, not all goes according to plan, and about halfway there the traffic suddenly slowed to a standstill. There are always little pockets of that on a Friday afternoon, but this looked different. According to Skip’s handy Google maps app, we discovered a long delay because of an accident, and Google was advising to get off and re-enter the Mass Pike right before the location of the accident. It said it would save an hour and twenty minutes, and we needed that time, so off the road we went. A couple of sketchy and rather bumpy roads later, we were back on the Pike with no harm done and no time lost. The universe will always help those who need it, especially if you have a good friend navigating in the passenger seat. 

We arrived in perfect time for a visitor’s parking space to opened up right on Braddock Park. As we get older, and our various and often disparate responsibilities become more important and pronounced, a weekend like this is a Godsend. We eased into it quietly and happily, embracing the slower pace, cradled in the air-conditioned hum of the condo. There is something wonderful about stillness and slowing things down. Just one day out of life… we needed a holiday. 

A grapefruit aperol gin concoction and a MacCallan on one big rock later, we were setting about to do the single handy-man task that needed doing. A throwback to the much-more-intensive AC-unit installation from a few years ago, we were going to put up a new mirror in the bathroom. Nothing too major, but major enough that Skip insisted on measuring shit, at one point requesting a level that simply didn’t exist in the condo’s drawer of sorely-limited tools. Of course he put it up in professional fashion, making the right design and placement choices when my own questioning indecision had me briefly wondering about various things. 

That done, we sat down at the table overlooking Braddock Park, finished our cocktails, and decompressed before getting an Uber to the game. We’re still refining the best schedule to keep when it comes to game day/night, but we have honed it down to a night game, preferably on day one, which is what we did this year, and it worked out brilliantly. 

Changing things up was part of the plan. That began with our seats. For the first time, we opted to try out the bleachers. We’d been up close and personal with the players on all of our previous trips. This time we were going to be far out, where Skip assured me there was a more fun scene, with possibly more rowdy fans and a camaraderie that may have gone missing from former locations. Given the Red Sox record this year (and later that night) I wasn’t as keen to see the game all that close-up anyway, so we saved some money and got the cheap seats in the back. They were fine – and the night was glorious weather-wise, so we got a fine view, if from a bit far away.

At one point, a group of four ladies came and sat in the row in front of us. I was only half-listening when I heard Skip say something along the lines of how much they reminded him of the movie ‘Set It Off.’ I promptly excused myself, because that could have gone very, very wrong, so I fled for a couple of draft beers. I returned to find Skip scrolling through the selfies he took with them. Crisis averted. We later ran into them outside the stadium after the game was over and they posed for another picture, which is the featured one that also gives title to this post. Leave it to Skip and the Red Sox to bring the people together. 

We’d not had much to eat, other than a few snacks and a Boursin spread at the condo, so Skip returned with two Fenway franks. Part of our whole Cheap Change Boston experience the time around. Despite much spilled mustard – on my bracelets, on my jeans, on my arm – we survived, and were ready for another round of draft beer. Which is utterly ridiculous, but when in Rome…

Skip had received a text to head toward home plate or something, so we headed in that direction thinking there was some connection he had that would suddenly let us into a glass-fronted box seat or free-champagne-land, but after worming our way through Fenway, and popping back in to sing ‘Sweet Caroline’, we realized with the sudden mass-exodus that the Red Sox had already lost the game. We joined the dejected masses departing and ran in to the ‘Set It Off’ gang, took a quick photo, then doubled back to the condo and a long-promised Peking duck dinner. 

Various stories have circulated over whose idea this was, but somewhere over the years the notion of a Peking duck dinner was a bucket-list item for Skip. I’d had it a number of times and was game to make it happen for him, so after one more cocktail for the road, we took the T into Chinatown, hoping to find either the 24-hour magical diner that is only there sporadically, or the Chinatown restaurant I knew served the dish. 

To be fair, I was not in a totally cognizant state of being able to find much of anything, certainly not an elusive enchanted diner that could disappear at will, nor the Chinatown restaurant that was already closed by the time we got there. I told Skip to pose in front of the entrance to Chinatown, at which point this stranger decided to get in on the act and photobomb the shit out of our night. He appears here because he earned it, and it’s indicative of how our meal went for that night. 

We were left with the last dredges of Chinatown restaurants, so we just took the first thing that said they were open. The entire staff seemed to be sitting at the main table, so if we’d had any sense we might have figured out it was closing time. We didn’t. So we ordered. Some lo mein, some fried rice, some beef satay, and some orange chicken. They didn’t do orange chicken, which we found out after waiting for it after finishing the rest of the dishes. A disappointing attempt at Peking duck. Luckily it was only the first night. Skip would get his Peking duck, eve if we had to leave yet another restaurant to do so. But that’s a story for the next post…

We walked back to the condo as Boston Pride swirled around us. We would skirt the main festivities and parade for most of the weekend, which is exactly how I liked it.