This weekend I left Pat in Philly and headed to Boston to enjoy a weekend with my college roommates! We did more than eat, but really … let’s just talk about the food.

Streetcar Wine & Beer – 488 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
Just our luck! Friday evening on a neighborhood stroll, and we’re in time for a free wine tasting! I am not a wine aficionado, nor do I remember the names of the wines I tasted; nevertheless, I loved visiting this shop. Excellent ambience, yummy snacks including Spanish cheeses and roasted salted marcona almonds, a chance to meet the proprietor, watching neighborhood folks walk in and out enjoying their neighborhood amenity. Living in a neighborhood where you can enjoy treats is truly bliss. We bought a bottle of red for later.

FoMu “alternative ice cream + cafe” – 617 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
The girls and I needed something sweet after drinking wine and nibbling on salty treats so what better than to walk down the street to a place promising to give unlimited free samples of ice cream.

FoMu was oddly reminiscent of Philadelphia-based Little Baby’s nondairy ice creams. FoMu also uses coconut milk as a base, and they one-up Little Baby with nut-based selections too. Now, usually a coconut-based ice cream tastes wholly like coconut. It’s a flavor which is hard to mask. And with the masking of coconut and creation of flavors, FoMu has mixed results. I sampled galore and found that strawberry, the chocolates, and banofee pie did not have any coconut flavor; however, salted caramel should have really been called coconut salted caramel. It was completely off.

Umi’s cardamon pistachio was great – filled with cardamon flavor and rich pistachio. Tyeise’s dark mocha chip and Charlene’s dark chocolate and strawberry combo were good. My banofee pie was of course my favorite – a mixture of banana, toffee, and graham cracker crust.

Overall the textures were satisfactorily creamy given these are non-dairy bases. The flavors were not too sweet. We all appreciated the kid size cups except for Charlene who tends to indulge in chocolate to the max.

Umi’s Pistachio Cardamon and Banofee combo.

Tres Gatos – 470 Centre St, Jamaica Plain, MA
I still felt light after all that sampling. We walked down the street to Tres Gatos for some more wine and some tapas. The flavors were on par with any other tapas restaurant I’ve enjoyed – Bar Ferdinand in Philly comes to mind. The portions, on the other hand, were scant. I did not have any time to take pictures. We were four ravenous women politely diving after tasty scraps – using a fork and knife to cut a peanut. The trout and the patatas bravas were our only dishes respectably portioned. The beet salad, lamb bocadillo, pickled jalapeños were delicious. A bottle of wine. $25 per person tip included. I’m sure we could have all used more nutrients but oh well.

Brunch
Saturday morning I told Pat we had enjoyed FoMu and his response was, “You didn’t go to JP’s did you?” To which I responded, “Umm, no we went to FoMu.” Turns out that we ended up at JP Licks after a filling delicious homemade brunch. Thanks to Umi for pulling together a lovely meal.

Banana Almond Milk Smoothie

Banana Pancakes and Spicy Egg Scramble

JP Licks – 659 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
The first thing Pat told me about JP Licks was that they had a number of Oreo flavors – coffee Oreo, Oreo cookie batter, plain Oreo, mint Oreo, peanut butter Oreo. Charlene enjoyed Oreo cookie batter, and I enjoyed plain Oreo. I’m sure they were all lovely, but I did not want to try more.

Oreo. Perfect texture. It just sits perfectly on the sample spoon. The flavor doesn’t beat Pat’s, but it is close.

No matter how old you get, selecting an ice cream flavor is hard work …

Serious decision making.

Taste-testing Sangria Sorbet

Umi and me with her peach milkshake

Selected flavors included: Sangria Sorbet/Peach, Sangria Sorbet, FTO (fair trade organic) White Coffee Chunk/Sangria Sorbet. Sangria Sorbet was deliciously refreshing and tasted like … a cup of iced sangria! The FTO flavor was surprising. The chocolate chunks were large and creamy. The coffee bright and sweet.

When Pigs Fly Bakery

Because Charlene was inexplicably hungry and I just felt like eating some more, we stepped into When Pigs Fly Bakery … orange toasted walnut and cranberry free samples. Charlene bought us this huge salted caramel, chocolate chunk, white chocolate chunk hunk of a cookie.

The rest of the weekend included marathon conversations and laughs. Thanks for a good time Village A G201.