Summer Culinary Outings--Part 2

Instead of making plans to attend a food festival, maybe you want something a little more spontaneous. What you could do then is to visit certain streets, squares or neighborhoods and check out their restaurants, food markets, wine stores, bakeries and more. In certain areas, you could easily spend several hours just eating, drinking and shopping for culinary finds.

So, what are some of the best areas to visit?

Charles Street in Boston, Harvard Square in Cambridge, Porter Square in Cambridge, and Beacon Street in Brookline are all excellent choices. The South End in Boston has also become a culinary mecca and I will go into more detail about the choices available there.

For a culinary tour of the South End, to maximize your possibilities, you will want to drive there. But, if you don't have a car, you can still visit many of the places. You can use the subway to access the area. You can start your visit at either end of the South End: Washington St. at the intersection with Massachusetts Ave. or Tremont St. at the intersection with East Berkeley St.

Let us first touch on some of the sights of Washington St. Note that this is just a sampling of the possible places you can visit.

Flour Bakery & Cafe: A famed and excellent bakery. They serve breakfast and lunch, and also have many different pastries, cookies, breads and other baked goods.

Seiyo: A combination wine store and Japanese restaurant. Excellent sushi and a good selection of wines. Also have a number of Japanese sakes. Have bento boxes for lunch.

Toro: A Spanish tapas restaurant, only open for dinner. Located at 1704 Washington St.

Stella’s: Fine Italian food as well as Sunday brunch.

Brix: Small wine store but with an excellent and diverse selection.

You can then cut over to Shawmut Avenue to check out a couple other places.

South End Buttery: Another fine bakery.

South End Formaggio: An excellent shop for fine cheeses and gourmet foods.

Then you can move onto Tremont Street, which has many possible places to check out.

Garden of Eden Café & Lionette’s Market: Organic cafe and food market.

Wine Emporium: A large wine store with wines from all over the world, including more unusual regions.

Acquitaine: A French bistro with brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

B&G Oysters: Oyster bar. Part of Barbara Lynch's culinary empire.

Butcher Shop: Restaurant and butcher shop. Also part of Barbara Lynch's culinary empire.

Sibling Rivalry: Superb restaurant with an excellent brunch.

South End Open Market: On Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., except on holiday weekends, you can visit this market. This market has numerous food vendors as well as non-food vendors, such as antique dealers, jewelers and more.

There are plenty of other culinary places in the South End. New restaurants are opening all the time. You can find a list of many others on UrbanSpoon.