Boston Happy Hour: Ivy Restaurant

Posted by Katie

What: Ivy Restaurant
Where: 49 Temple Place, Downtown Crossing
When: Thursdays from 5-7pm
Honeys Heart: $5 paninis and $5 prosecco

I walk through Downtown Crossing every other day on my way to work. And it smells horrible. Especially in the summer. And so, I don't really associate that area of Boston with delicious food.

But I should. Because Downtown Crossing is where Ivy is, and Ivy has darn good paninis, at the very least. 

Ivy thinks of itself as a very classy place, as it should. The lighting is low and the atmosphere is elegant. There's also a beautiful 22-foot marble bar, which is good because you can only get happy hour while sitting there and its length means there are plenty of seats to go around.

Happy hour at Ivy is from 5-7pm every Thursday. It includes two different choices of paninis for $5 each and glasses of prosecco, also for $5 each.

On the night I went, the choices were pulled pork with bbq sauce and muenster cheese or grilled cheese with cheddar, mozzarella & fontina. Here's a picture of my pulled pork. Very tasty.

Don't have a picture of the grilled cheese...whoops. But that's the one that Anna got and she said it was very good too.

And since Ivy is so good at posting their weekly panini offerings on Twitter, I can give you more of a taste of what they serve, because it changes each week.

Aug 19
cured local tomato with fresh mozzarella
Italiano with soppressata

Aug 5
smoked gouda & meatball 
grilled asparagus, roasted pepper & feta

July 29
classic BLT
roasted pepper w/ gouda

July 22
Chicken Milanese w/ fresh arugula
grilled summer veggies with goat cheese spread 

July 15
short rib
classic caprese

July 1
chicken meatball sliders
grilled cheese with tomato
   
Sounds delicious, no?

Boston Restaurant/Happy Hour: Church

posted by Katie

What: Church of Boston
Where: 69 Kilmarnock Street, near Fenway
When: Free chips and salsa and $5 margaritas on Thursdays
Honeys Heart: The 7 Deadly Sin martinis

Last Thursday, Shannon, Anna, and I met up at Church in the Fenway for dinner.

Church is owned by the same folks who own The Regal Beagle, and the restaurants share a head chef, Laura Henry-Zoubir, which explains why some of the menu items looked familiar to me.

Both restaurants focus on high-quality comfort food, but when it comes to drinks, I think Church comes out on top with its fun and creative "7 Deadly Sin" martinis and "4 Horsemen" drinks.

Now, I'm sure Kel and I have mentioned our love of Gluttony martinis from Vault in Portland, and I have to admit that I was at first a little disappointed to see that Church's take on the 7 Deadly Sins is quite different than Vault's. But then I got over that real fast.

That's because I was drinking this:

The Lust martini ($10) "is a floral, gin-based drink made with purple flowers picked from the base of the Austrian Alps, accented with ginger." You can't really tell in this picture, but it was a very pretty purple color, as you might expect. Shannon and Anna both thought that it tasted too strongly of gin, but I thought the combination of gin and ginger was well-balanced and refreshing. A very good start to my visit to Church.

Anna went with Vanity.

Vanity ($10) is "a vodka based cocktail made with fresh squeezed, sweetened, ruby red grapefruits." Very fruity and very sweet. Anna has a predilection toward the saccharine, so it was perfect for her.

I'll send you over to Church's online menu to read about all the other specialty drinks they feature, including Gluttony, which is made with rum, thai coconut milk, and mint chocolate, and Conquest, which is made with rhubarb tequila, agave nectar and strawberries.Yum.

Shannon ordered the house margarita. Decent, but nothing to get too excited about really. Not when you can drink the 7 Deadly Sins or the 4 Horsemen instead. 

As an appetizer, Shannon and I shared the flatbread special of the day ($6) which was piled high with ham, arugula, caramelized onions (my new favorite), roasted red peppers, cheddar cheese and wasabi-garlic aioli.

There was more than enough for two people to share and I thought the flavors of the ham, the sweet caramelized onions, the bitter arugula, and the unexpected wasabi aioli came together perfectly. Too bad they don't have this particular flatbread every night...

For dinner, I ordered the buttermilk fried chicken with smashed Yukon gold potatoes and green bean and red onion salad with buttermilk dressing ($16).

 It was quite a decadent dish. The fried chicken was crispy and very flavorful and I'm always a sucker for smashed potatoes. The green bean and red onion salad rounded out the plate nicely by bringing in some crisp freshness. Definitely not something you would want to eat all the time, but a great treat once in awhile.

Shannon had the baked mac & cheese with truffle oil, Ritz crackers and sea salt ($12).

Talk about comfort food. The mac was cheesy and delicious and I loved the little bit of crunch from the Ritz crackers on top. My only complaint is that I would have liked to taste more of the truffle oil because I love the stuff. Probably I'm just being greedy though...

Anna went with the pan seared crab cakes with gazpacho, roasted corn salad, and garlic aioli ($10) and a side order of truffle french fries.

I was glad that the crab cakes had a bit of kick to them and the fries were heavenly. No lack of truffle oil there. Loved them.

In addition to the restaurant where we ate, Church also has an adjacent club which serves food from the restaurant until 11pm and has live music every night. Sounds like fun!

Two caveats about Church though:
1) Make sure you plan to spend a good amount of time in the restaurant if you have drinks, an appetizer, and dinner as we did. We arrived a little after 6:30pm and didn't get our bill until around 8:30pm.

2) Be sure to confirm with your server that he or she knows that you would like the Thursday $5 margarita special when you order. Shannon didn't mention that when she ordered and when the bill came, she had been charged the regular $7.50 price. I'm sure our server would have gladly fixed the bill, but by that time we were tired and full and quite ready to head home so we just let it go.

Overall, however, we had a great time and a delicious meal and I plan to go back to try another of the 7 Deadly Sins or maybe one of the 4 Horsemen in the near future.

Also, you should probably follow @ChurchBoston on Twitter so you can know about all their special deals including their Twitter Tuesday specials.

Thanks to Church for their generosity in comping my meal. It was a pleasure to review your restaurant!

Boston Happy Hour: Cafeteria

posted by Katie

What: Cafeteria
Where: Newbury St. (Copley is closest)
Honeys Heart: $5 burgers at the bar

The roomie and I recently met up for a quick dinner at Cafeteria. Cafeteria serves gussied up versions of American classics (their slogan is "tray chic") and they offer $5 burgers at the bar all day long.

Cafeteria is all about using high-quality ingredients and they state proudly that their burgers are made from grass-fed beef. The $5 burgers come with cheddar cheese and Cafeteria sauce, and while they were on the small size, Shannon and I both thought they were quite tasty.

We also tried out the parmesan fries ($5ish). These were good too but there wasn't really enough parmesan sprinkled on the fries to actually taste the cheese. 

Overall, a good place for a quick meal, as long as you are not super hungry.

Portlanders, if Cafeteria sounds good, you might want to try The Original, which takes the concept of upscale cafeteria/diner food one step further. Read our post here.

Boston Happy Hour: Noir at the Charles Hotel

posted by Katie

What: Noir's 5-4-3-2-1-0 menu
Where: The Charles Hotel in Harvard Square
When: 5-7pm Mon-Thurs

During my first few months in Boston I had a problem. There were so many places that I wanted to explore, things I wanted to do, restaurants I wanted to try, but the few people that I knew always seemed to be busy. So I sat at home and felt sorry for myself. But then after awhile I had this epiphany: I could go by myself.

After years of running around in a pack of close girlfriends, venturing out on my own was scary at first, but I soon found out that it could also be fun. I get to do what I want to do, go where I want to go, and not have worry about anyone else. I like it.

But there's one solo activity I still haven't mastered: the art of dining out alone.

This past Wednesday was the last day of my internship and I wanted to celebrate. My internship shuttle drops everybody off right in front of the Charles Hotel and so I thought that my last day would be the perfect excuse to finally check out Noir's version of happy hour (which I've been wanting to do for months.) I hadn't managed to scrounge up anyone to go with me so I sucked it up and bellied up to the bar alone.

Monday through Thursday Noir offers their 5-4-3-2-1-0 menu. The selections include $5 flatbreads, $4 sandwiches, $3 snacks, $2 salads, $1 sweets and free nuts. In order to get the 5-4-3-2-1-0 prices, diners must order at least a $6 drink.

Since I was feeling stingy (enjoy my money, Vegas), I decided to opt out of the $10-$13 cocktails and went instead with the $8 Sangria made with syrah, ruby port, apricot brandy, peachtree schnapps, peach puree, and a splash of oj and soda.

Kind of a lot of ingredients, and it was good, but not the best I've had. Next time I'll probably just spring for one of the cocktails instead.

As far as food, the flatbread with dried peaches, goat cheese, prosciutto, and balsamic reduction with arugula (usually $10) jumped out at me right away so I went with it without really looking over any of the other choices.

It smelled AMAZING and was bigger than I expected, but I was disappointed with the prosciutto. From my previous experience, prosciutto should be thinly sliced and cured. This prosciutto came in thick clumps and was rather crispy. It reminded me more of bacon or pancetta. It was not bad, but also was not what I was expecting.

Sitting next to me was a fellow solo happy hour-goer who appeared to be a regular. He ordered the flatbread with four cheeses, spiced tomato sauce and crispy basil. All the bartenders raved about it when they saw his choice, which made me think that I might have picked the wrong flatbread.

That's ok though, because I loved the vibe at Noir. Nice and dark with a good afterwork crowd. Friendly bartenders too. While I chatted a bit with the four cheese flatbread guy, I was glad that I brought my book with me (still working on dining alone without any distractions) and I didn't feel out-of-place reading at the bar, which was nice.

I plan to return again soon...and this time with someone else in tow so that I can try more than one thing off their menu!

Boston Happy Hour: KO Prime

Posted by Katie 

What: KO Prime
Where: 90 Tremont Street 
When: 5-7pm and 9-11pm everyday
Honeys Heart: $5 drinks!

One of my favorite weekend pastimes has essentially become wandering around Boston, and while I could lie and say that my walks are spent admiring architecture and the like, really, it's all about the food. I generally come home from my explorations with at least a few ideas of places I'd like to try when I have the time, but my favorite types of finds are, you guessed it, happy hours.

A couple of weekends ago I happened past KO Prime and just about stopped in my tracks when I saw their sandwich board sign proclaiming "$5 drink of the day!" Now, I'd never been to KO Prime but it's one of the those places that you can tell thinks of itself as pretty ritzy, so I was surprised to see that they were offering such a low-priced cocktail. My delight doubled when I saw that the other side of the sign read "$2 and $5 KO Prime Time Bites." Nice!

When my book publicity class was canceled a week or so ago, the roomie and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to meet for happy hour after work.

This was our server. His name is Asher. 

At first I think he was a little miffed because Shannon forgot her wallet at work and had to run back and get it. But he perked up when I mentioned the blog and volunteered to pose for pictures. Now that's some good customer service...

Shannon and I both ordered the drink of the day, a raspberry Tom Collins. I liked the sound of it more than I liked the taste of it since it reminded me a little too much of raspberry jello. Also I was expecting it to be pink.

As far as food, Shannon went with the calamari ($5), which she said was good.

I asked Asher which of the other $5 bites he would recommend and he said the pulled chicken slider with crunchy onions, housemade pickles and BBQ sauce was good. He was right.

The chicken with BBQ sauce by itself was not too exciting, but with the addition of the crunchy and flavorful onions and pickles, the chicken slider makes for a tasty sandwich.

A warning though, the slider is pretty darn small for $5, as are the other bites. That means that KO Prime Time is more of a snacking happy hour and not so much a dinner option.

Boston Happy Hour: Kickass Cupcakes

Posted by Katie

What: Kickass Cupcakes
Where: Near Davis Square in Somerville
When: 5-7pm the last Monday of every month
Honeys Heart: free samples!

I missed Kickass Cupcakes' last two monthly happy hours so I was determined to finally make it this month.

Kickass holds a free sampling of 3 mini cocktail-inspired cupcakes from 5-7pm on the last Monday of every month. The flavors are always different which is pretty impressive considering that they've been creating 3 new flavors every month since they began this tradition last spring.

This month's featured flavors were:

The Strawberry Jello Shot: pink vanilla cake with a strawberry jello shot center and whipped cream topping

Chartwoozy: gin-soaked cupcake with Chartreuse frosting and lemon sugar

Chocolate Hot Toddy: chocolate cake, brandied chocolate ganache center and chocolate frosting dusted with nutmeg.

The Strawberry Jello Shot was my favorite. The jello shot center was a fun touch which brought me back to my days in the dorms (heart you Kenna!) and I liked that the whipped cream cut down on the sweetness factor. I loved the look of the Chartwoozy and the gin-soaked cupcake was delicious. The frosting was good too but super sweet. Definitely don't think I could have finished the regular-sized version of that one. Since I'm not a big chocolate person, the Hot Toddy was a little overwhelming for me, but I did appreciate the brandied chocolate ganache center because it helped balance the extreme chocolateness that was going on with this cupcake.


I felt weird sampling and then bouncing, so I decided to purchase a cupcake to take with me. Kickass offers regular-sized versions of all its happy hour cupcakes but I thought it would be fun to try a fourth flavor. Keeping with the alcohol theme, I went with the Limited Edition Bubbly: vanilla cupcake with a champagne soaked strawberry center and pink champagne icing. Yum.

In addition to their cocktail cupcakes, Kickass Cupcakes also has lots of other inventive flavors. You can check out their menu here.

While these cupcakes are obviously pretty decedent, as Kickass's site points out, a cupcake is generally smaller than the average piece of cake and you can feel good knowing that Kickass only uses all natural ingredients. That means no hydrogenated oils, no trans fats, no artificial flavors or preservatives. Probably that means it's ok to have more than one...right?

Boston: Daisy Buchanan's

posted by Katie

When we first moved to Boston, my roommate Shannon and I saw a lot of each other, but now that she's busy working two jobs and I have school, my internship, and work, we can sometimes go days without catching up or even seeing each other.

These last couple of weeks have been crazy, especially for Shannon, so we decided to take advantage of her Monday night off and meet up for happy hour after I was done with work.

One of our favorite places to go is Newbury Street, which I like to think of as a mix of NW 23rd St. in Portland and Santana Row in San Jose. Think tree-lined streets with restaurants, some cute and affordable stores, and then some super expensive ones too.

Daisy Buchanan's is located on the corner of Newbury and Fairfield and though I hear it's pretty poppin' on Thursdays and during the weekend, it was nearly empty when we got there around 6pm. The place definitely has a dive-y vibe complete with a funky smell, but hey, that's part of it's charm right?


The food at Daisy's is pretty cheap anyway so that makes the happy hour prices even better. Shannon and I decided to go with the bruschetta di pomadori ($2), the onion rings ($2) (which are quickly rising to the top of my list of favorite guilty pleasures...shoot), and the hamburger ($4.50). Since Shannon's a beer drinker, I decided to follow her lead. She ordered a bud ($4) and I went with a PBR ($3).




Shannon and I were expecting the bruschetta to be small pieces of baguette topped with some tomatoes and instead we got two huge slices of bread heaped with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. Good, but I probably wouldn't order it again. The hamburger was tasty, and the onion rings, while a bit on the salty side, were nice and crispy.

I think my favorite part of our Daisy's experience, however, was our waitress. She reminded me of my friend Emi: cute and sweet, but a little spacey. When she came to get our dishes she asked how the food was and I answered that it was good. She replied "Oh really? I've never had it. But that's good. I'm glad you liked it." Um, okay....

Daisy's happy hour is one of the longest I've seen: 3:30-7pm Mon-Fri. Not fine dining but as long as you know that going in, you'll be fine.

Sip on This!: Literary Edition
(sorry, it's the English major in me)
I think it's safe to say that whoever named Daisy Buchanan's was most likely a fan of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald relied heavily on his own life experiences to create his characters and Daisy Buchanan is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald's own youthful romance with Chicago heiress Ginevra King.

Boston: Grendel's Den

posted by Katie
photos by Nico

The few times I’ve talked happy hour with people in Boston, Grendel’s Den in Cambridge always comes up as a recommendation. Last week, for some reason, my Wednesday night class was switched to Tuesday night, so Katie H., Nico and I took advantage of the situation and headed out for Grendel’s 9-11:30pm late night happy hour.

As per the law, there are no discounted drinks at Grendel’s but all the food is half-off. That’s right, ALL the food. We’re not talkin some whimpy little appetizer menu, we’re talkin the whole thing.

Grendel’s menu includes soups, salads, sandwiches, heartier entrees and, of course, the obligatory appetizer menu. Katie H. had already eaten but Nico and I were hungry so he went for the California Burger with jack cheese and guacamole ($3.35) and I tried the Barley Risotto with butternut squash, arugula, rosemary, parmesan & feta cheese ($3.35). The risotto was a special and they took some liberties with it, adding peas (which I like) and mushrooms (which Nico took care of), but the peas at least were a welcome addition and the risotto itself was very creamy and delicious, pretty much the perfect fall dinner.

Since we were celebrating the fact that our class was over and done with earlier in the week than usual, we decided to have some drinks too. Katie H. went with a Hurricane ($5.50) and Nico ordered the French 47 ($6.50), which is named after a hard-hitting WWI artillery piece and consists of Beefeater Gin, lemon, simple syrup & a float of champagne. Fancy. I decided to go with the Cucumber Lime Vesper ($8) which seemed a little over-priced until it came with its own miniature shaker which allowed me to refill my martini glass two times after the waiter’s initial pour. Nice.

Around the time Nico and I were finishing up with our meals, Bryan joined us and he decided to try the spicy shrimp appetizer ($4), and really, they’re not kidding around when it comes to the kick those puppies have. Luckily, Bryan had his pitcher of Grendel’s delicious sangria ($10) to help cool things down. Never one to turn down the opportunity to try more food, I convinced everyone that we should get an appetizer for the rest of us too so Bryan wouldn’t feel alone eating his shrimp. We decided on the Spinach, Artichoke and Snow Crab Dip for ($3.50). Maybe I was fuller from the risotto than I thought, but the dip was way too rich for me. All cheese and not much spinach or artichoke (which I think is the best part).

We all agreed we need to go back to Grendel’s soon not only for the cheap and (mostly) delicious food, but also for the laid back atmosphere, the novelty of being out and about in Cambridge and, in Nico's words, the "particularly enjoyable" sangria. Plus, after a good hour of running around the Harvard area looking for our bus, we finally figured out where to pick it up. Definitely a “know we’ll know for next time” experience….

Grendel's Half-Price hours are from 5-7:30pm every evening and from 9-11:30 pm Sun-Thurs. You must purchase a minimum of $3 per person to qualify for half price food. And be sure to get there earlier rather than later; the bar is small and tends to fill up quickly when there's half-price food going on.

Sip on This!

The sign outside of Grendel's says "Est. 1271". They explain on their site that "people frequently wonder why this seemingly impossible date is posted. The truth is that we were established in 1971, and there was an error in printing. We decided to run with it, since the medieval date actually evokes the period during which "Beowulf" was written, the classic of early modern English literature from which our name was taken. Beowulf is a hero who slays an ogre named Grendel, who terrorized a great mead hall. We figured, Grendel may have been an hideous ogre, but he knew a good mead hall when he saw one."