Travel Tales

Boston, beef, baseball and breakfast

  Capital Grill is a steak lover paradise

 In case you've heard that beef is passe, you will discover how untrue that is when you visit the Capital Grille in Boston where the sight of a Kona Steak like this will set your digestive juice churning.

 Especially when you add the Red Sox and the Lansdowne Pub

By Walter and Pat Brooks

Looking out our window of the Howard Johnson hotel on Boylston Street we could almost touch Fenway Park.

The Landsdowne Pub is in the shadow of Fenway's serves and authenic Irish Breakfast $13.

And the Sliders were absolutely indescribably marvelous and all three for $9.

Lansdowne's entrees are great, the top on is Sherald's Pie $12 and below the Fish Pot Pie $14.

Dinner at Capital Grill included a dynamite Porterhouse Steak of Herculean proportions.

The Capital Grille is at 359 Newbury Street.

I'm sure that there is a recession somewhere, but there were no signs of one evident in Boston last weekend when we dined at The Capital Grille on Newbury Street, in Boston and stayed at a sold-out and very affordable hotel on Boylston Street literally a few feet from Fenway Park.

After two Red Sox games and another dinner and breakfast at a great new restaurant named the Landsdowne Pub in the shadow of "the Green Monster" in left field, we were sure that the economy is on the up-swing because everyone of these places was teeming with customers.

The best beef this side of Texas

The Capital Grille may be relatively new to Boston, but not to steak lovers. My wife and I both had excellent steaks shown above and on right below, and we especially liked the Pan Sautéed Calamari with Cherry Peppers.

The calamari is sautéed in garlic butter until golden crisp, then tossed with a house blend of peppers and scallions for a fiery finish.

It's always a special treat when you run into a favorite food prepared this differently. We fought over the last morsals.

The grille is at the head of Newbury Street a few feet from Massachusetts Avenue.

From July 13 to August 23, The Capital Grille is launching an exclusive Master Wine Tasting Event, offering guests the rare opportunity to enjoy generous pours of extraordinary wines with their meals. Hand-selected by The Capital Grille's Master Sommelier George Miliotes, the sampling ($10 at lunch and $25 at dinner) features four of the world's most renowned wine regions: Argentina, South Africa, Spain and the Napa Valley.

Patrons will also have the rare opportunity to win one of two week-long voyages to world-class wineries, personally guided by Miliotes.

See The Capital Grille menu.

See Fenway from your hotel room

Can you believe there is a very affordable hotel literally steps away from Fenway Park?

The Howard Johnson Boston on Boylston Street behind Fenway Park offers rates at just $129 a night, and it is so close to Fenway that guests can watch the Red Sox players as they enter the field for batting practice.

It's perfect for out of town fans, who can celebrate a Red Sox victory with out breaking the bank or having to worry about traveling home.

And with parking costing $40 near the park, you save that much off your hotel bill, and when night games end around 10 pm you can be in bed before the rest of the fans has gotten to their cars for that hour and a half drive back to the Cape around midnight.

15 minute stroll to Newbury Street

The hotel is opposite the Fenway public gardens  and its beautiful flowers. It took us fifteen minutes to stroll from the hotel to the Capital Grille on Newbury Street for dinner before the game.

The Fenway gardens are Boston's equivalent to our "Victory Gardens" full of vegetables, but here the gardens are exclusively floral and there must be a hundred separate private plots across from the hotel.

Pat and I have stayed at 5-star hotels in over 200 countries, and we no longer need the posh and expensive surroundings inherent in a $00 a night bedroom.

We have discovered a new truism; all hotels rooms are the same when you are asleep.

Dinner and breakfast in the shadow of the "Green Monster"

We discovered a new restaurant on the other side of Fenway Park on Lansdowne Street called the Landsdowne Pub.

Until our visit to this new bistro we always had dinner when we went to Sox games over in Kendall Square, but this place is several times better.

The menu at The Lansdowne Pub offers something for every taste, with an emphasis on authentic Irish fare.

Starters include Potato Skins, Oysters, Irish Sliders, and Salmon Cakes, while salad and sandwich options range from Greens and Bacon to Ploughman's Lunch to a Portobello Burger.

Entrees include Fish & Chips, Shepard's Pie, Irish Stew, and Gaelic Steak. Ireland enthusiasts will certainly appreciate the venue's list of traditional side dishes, such as Mushy Peas, Irish Bacon, and Boxty Potato Cakes, along with nightly specials like Traditional Irish Roast, Bangers & Mash, Baked Irish Ham, and Oyster Dinner with Guinness Sausage.

The Lansdowne's signature menu items are its selection of Pot Pies, which come in Chicken, Fish, and Beef Guinness varieties, as well as Deep Fried Mars Bars, a dessert not for the faint of heart.

Along with a full bar, there are 35 bottled and 11 draft beers - including a perfectly poured Guinness - with which to wash down all that Irish goodness.

See the complete Landsdowne menu here.