Philadelphia might claim Benjamin Franklin as its own, but I can think of two ways he's more closely tied to Boston. First, he grew up there. Second, I just spent a weekend in Boston for the value of the bill that bears his portrait.
For the latest in my series of $100 weekends, I darted from fancy food trucks to old-school pizza joints, took in a morning church service and an evening of neighborhood storytelling, held the Freedom Trail true to its first syllable and connected all the dots via the early-to-bed transit system known as the T. (There's even an upside to that: in a city where the subway nods off shortly after midnight, entertainment budgets shrink accordingly.)
Friday
Starving after a late-afternoon bus ride from New York, I took the subway to Copley Square in search of one of Boston's most popular food trucks, Mei Mei Street Kitchen. Fridays from 4 to 7:30 you'll find the Chinese-American-themed truck on Clarendon Street near Boylston, almost in the shadow of the John Hancock Tower. I tried the Double Awesome ($7), a messy semi-sandwich of poached eggs, pesto and Vermont Cheddar wrapped in a scallion pancake; not bad, but a bit over the top for me. I'd rate it a Single Awesome.
After wandering the just-look-don't-buy boutiques of Newbury Street, I hiked a mile over to the South End, home to Wally's Café, a narrow, no-cover decades-old staple of the jazz scene that still packs in one of the more diverse crowds (by race and age) you'll see at a Boston bar. A $5 beer (and $1 tip) buys you an evening of energetic jazz bands battling an equally energetic crowd. (Arrive before 9 and you'll probably get a seat.)
At first glance, my final stop for the night would seem an unlikely one: Clio, a French restaurant where entrees start around $30. But after 11 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, the space also hosts Uni Sashimi bar, a sort of restaurant-within-a-restaurant with several varieties of "late night ramen" for $10. I ordered the luscious short-rib kimchi version, sipped water and chatted with the friendly crowd, whose bills were much higher than mine.
Friday total: $28.50
Saturday
Just two subway stops under the harbor from downtown, East Boston is virtually ignored by tourists (though a controversial proposal to build a casino and resort at a local racetrack might change that). Yet the working-class neighborhood has two real attractions: Piers Park's brilliant skyline views across the harbor, and a cluster of cheap Latin American restaurants near the T stop at Maverick Square. I had a $4 breakfast of pupusas at Taco Mex, where the cooks, unlike the décor, are Salvadoran. The pupusas, thick corn tortillas with a variety of stuffings including pork and cheese with loroco (an edible flower), were served hot off the grill and accompanied by curtido, a chilled slaw, just like in El Salvador. I had two and was stuffed.
Boston is often criticized for its outsize feeling of self-importance — a recent Onion headline read "Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game of 'Big City.' " But back in the era of the founding fathers, Boston was indeed all that, as you'll realize if you do even a portion of the Freedom Trail, best tackled in D.I.Y. fashion.
Walking the 2.5-mile trail is free and easy, though some of the historic buildings along the way charge admission. I skipped those, but made the very good decision to shell out $6.95 for Charles Bahne's "Complete Guide to Boston's Freedom Trail." The 80-page booklet is as lighthearted and riveting as a live guide, with fascinating who-knew historic tidbits.
My favorite site was the Granary Burying Ground, full of crooked 18th-century gravestones with macabre carvings and "Here Lyeth the Body" inscriptions. The early-18th-century brick building that once housed the publishers of "Walden" and "The Scarlet Letter" was my least favorite — it is now, depressingly, a Chipotle.
I was thankful that I didn't need the Chipotle to eat cheaply and well along the way. At open-air Haymarket, I picked up fresh fruit. Crossing the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, I picked up some sweet potato soup ($3) from the Clover food truck. In the Italian North End, I stopped at cavernous Galleria Umberto for a sauce-slathered slice of Sicilian pizza ($1.55) and a paper cup of Carlo Rossi Burgundy chilled to within an inch of its life ($2).
From Charlestown, I took a bus to the next town over, Somerville, where I spent the early evening at Storied Nights, a jam-packed storytelling event run by the Somerville Arts Council at a local cafe. (Cost: $2.95 for a "red Zen" tea.) From there, a 15-minute walk across the Cambridge border led me to my dinner at Punjabi Dhaba, where filling, authentic Indian meals (served on mess-hall-like metal trays) start at $5.95 and don't go much higher.
Saturday total: $39.25
Sunday
My plan for my final day involved an unusual combination: a church service followed by a hot dog brunch in far-flung Mattapan, accessible by taking the Red Line to Ashmont and transferring to the charming and ancient orange trolleys whose last stop is in Boston's most heavily African-American neighborhood.
My friend Jon joined me from Cambridge, bringing along delicious jelly doughnuts from Verna's. We attended a welcoming, overflowing and music-filled service at Jubilee Christian Church, then crossed the street to Simco's, an 80-year-old hot dog stand outfitted with a sign that looks precisely that old. Since Jon had covered the doughnuts, I paid for footlong chili dogs ($3.75) and a spicy sausage with mustard (also $3.75), all made to order and served on buttered, toasted buns. They were so good, I questioned my lifelong loyalty to the hamburger side of America's great cookout divide.
I had just enough left to cover the $15 entrance fee at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in a 2006 cantilevered building that stretches to the water's edge on a South Boston pier. The institute is just my style. Particularly appealing was Cornelia Parker's "Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson)," a mesmerizing installation of spinning charcoal fragments collected from a suspicious fire (part of the permanent collection). What does it say about me that I loved that piece as much as I loved the creepy 18th-century headstones the day before? Maybe that I love Boston.
Sunday total: $31
Weekend total: $98.75
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