Today was my final full day in Boston. I have some miscellaneous photographs from attending PAX East and exploring the city, but I have so many food pictures that I figured it would be worth doing a blog post dedicated strictly to some of what I ate while traveling.

I landed in Boston at 9:16 PM EDT, and by the time I had made it to my hotel and got unpacked and washed up after my flight, it was already really late. I didn’t want to walk in the cold, so I checked some food delivery apps and found Lucky’s Lounge open late. I ordered salmon with roasted potatoes, as­par­a­gus, and salad. The salmon was underwhelming, the salad was way too sour, and the vegetables were passable.

My friends arrived in Boston the following night, and funny enough, the restaurant they picked to meet up… was Lucky’s Lounge again. This time I went in-person.

My dine-in order was a triple smash burger. It was strange, because smash burgers are usually supposed to be wide and thin, but this one was ag­gres­sive­ly tall. The burger lacked juiciness and tenderness and was overall underwhelming. The French fries were passable.

For one of the meals I had delivered to my hotel room after one of the convention days, I ordered a sashimi bowl and a sushi roll from Tora Japanese Res­tau­rant. It was pricey, but the fish variety and quality made it worth it. This was also the best shrimp head I’ve ever had.

Prior to my friends Dan and Jay’s first panel at PAX East, we went to Gyu-Kaku. Gyu-Kaku is a chain and has been a hit-or-miss in the Southern Cali­for­nia area, but this one near Boston was great. We all got the premium all-you-can-eat option and were very satisfied.

Beef tongue is one of my favorite cuts of meat at grill-your-own BBQ restaurants. Gyu-Kaku limits the number of orders of beef tongue you can put in because they label it as an extra premium dish, but luckily for me, none of my three friends I went with were a fan of beef tongue, so I got eat everyone’s portion on my own.

I got matcha ice cream for my dessert. This was the greenest and roundest scoop of green tea ice cream I’d ever seen.

Here is a takeout order of fish and chips from Stubbys that I got as a late night snack after one of the convention days.

After Dan and Jay’s second panel at PAX East, they had a meet-and-greet; while they were occupied, my friend Aidan (who runs the Skip the Tutorial You­Tube channel) and I left to get some lunch. I didn’t notice this until after I ordered, but coincidentally, the restaurant that Aidan picked was the same one from which I had ordered sushi a few nights prior—Tora.

I got a salmon bowl with three variants of salmon—regular, belly, and minced. The quality of the fish was fantastic. Considering that salmon belly is my second favorite type of sushi, I enjoyed it a lot.

Aidan is not a big fan of fish, so he got one pork and one beef dish.

I wasn’t too hungry so I didn’t get any dessert, but Aidan got some green tea ice cream.

For another one of my late night snacks near the end of my trip, I ordered a lengua burrito bowl from Chilacates Mexican Street Food. The portion size of meat was extremely small, which detracted from the overall flavor balance of the dish.

And for my final meal of Boston, and upon recommendation of one of my foodie friends, I ordered braised beef noodle soup, signature pork soup dump­lings, crispy-bottom pork buns, and iced soy milk from Nan Xiang Express. This tasted great, and eating it gave me a warm, cozy, homey feel.

When people online found out I was going to PAX East, I got a lot of recommendations of places to try out. Unfortunately, my breadth of exposure to res­tau­rants ended up being fairly limited, not only because I did not rent a vehicle, but also because it was very cold outside and it sapped away a lot of my motivation for going out.

I heard that PAX East 2025 is going to take place during the summer, so I’m guessing I’m going to end up checking out a lot more restaurants next year.

I just arrived in Boston, Massachusetts for PAX East.

This is my first time in Boston since before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the last time I was in Boston was basically immediately before the pan­dem­ic—I attended PAX East 2020 as a panelist, and during the convention, news was breaking about the coronavirus having moved from China to the United States. We know a lot about COVID-19 now, but back then, the virus was new and information about it was scarce. In response, I basically didn’t do anything in Boston except for show up to speak at my panel, then immediately left the convention center to limit my exposure to other people.

Now that it’s been a couple years since a majority of the world has deemed the COVID-19 pandemic to no longer be a threat, I figured 2024 would be a good year to head back to PAX East to enjoy a convention pre-pandemic-style. A few of my friends are panelists this year, and I’m also looking forward to checking out other parts of Boston.

On my way to Boston, I flew JetBlue flight 188 from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). I decided to fly out of Los Angeles instead of my home airport in Las Vegas because flights out of LAX were cheaper, and it was easy for me to coordinate some other things to take care of in LA to fall shortly prior to my departure.

There was a wom­an seated across the aisle from me with a baby that cried for about a fifth of the duration of the flight, but otherwise, everything else went fairly smooth­ly and uneventfully.

Meal service started with a welcome pastry. I’m not sure what exactly they were, but they tasted like a combination of very nutty cookies and crackers.

My first entrée was shrimp atop broasted fennel in saffron broth and topped with potato crumble. It was mediocre, but was still my favorite dish of the meal.

Next was roasted chicken with almond romesco topped with rosemary breadcrumbs. The chicken was extremely dry and the sauce tasted a bit in­com­plete, as if it was missing an aspect of richness to it.

Finally, the last dish was lasagna with fonduta, wild mushrooms, and fontina. It was extremely cheesy, even after scraping off the excess cheese topping. It sort of tasted like I was eating a little block of cheese, and couldn’t really tell if it even had any pasta sheets inside of it.

The three small plates came with a side of bread and extra virgin olive oil.

For my beverage, I ordered a non-alcoholic Mint Condition made from seltzer, ginger, lime, cucumber, and mint. It was clean and refreshing.

For dessert, I was served vanilla gelato topped with strawberry jam and sprinkled with devil’s food cake crumble. It was an interesting combination of fla­vors, and I liked the texture better after I mixed it up to a smoother ice cream consistency.

After about five hours, we began our descent and approach to Boston.

We touched down in Boston to a nice and chilly 40°F, or just over 4°C—quite the difference from a Los Angeles departing temperature of 68°F, or 20°C.

Like usual, I like to travel with an extra buffer day so I have an opportunity to recover before heading into the convention and socializing with friends. PAX East is taking place from the 21st until the 24th, then I’ll be headed back to Los Angeles on the 26th.