It’s Reading Period! I granted myself a free day wander down Boston’s beautiful Newbury Street, visit some fabulous friends, and eat some junk food… because I deserve it.

I have a good relationship with gelato. We’ve gotten along thus far – I had some truly makes-your-mouth-sing gelato on my brief stopovers in Rome and Paris. (Not as glam as it sounds, I was on a rowdy Topdeck tour that produced utterly cookie-cutter photo-op travel experieces.) I still fantasize about those heavenly fig and honey concoctions that I ate two years ago. So I was looking forward to some inventive varieties.

I saw recently opened Piattini Gelateria and Cafe and decided to give it a try. The super sweet waiter patiently explained every single flavor on the menu (rosemary honey, turkish coffee, fior de latte, thai coconut milk, chocolato scuro, frutti de bosco. And the sorbets were grape, mojito, limone, and pesca).

I sampled a chocolate with hazelnuts that wasn’t on the menu, which was so intensely rich that I decided on spoonful was enough. Rosemary honey felt like chugging floral-scented lotion, so that was a pass. Fior de latte (Amish milk) had the “lightness of vanilla without the vanilla flavor” – it seemed more like a fluffy absence of flavor than a flavor.

At an impasse, I gave thai coconut milk and mojito sorbet a go.

I think the major weakness of the gelato was that it wasn’t very cold – by the time I ate it, it had become soft and a bit melted. It also had a lot more air that I would normally expect. It seemed that chocolate flavors are you best bet here. I had been hoping for something deliriously coconutty, but rather, it was seemed more like run of the milk coconut ice cream.

The mojito had a nice sour, puckery note and icier, grainier texture of sorbet worked well with the flavors.

The bill for this small dish came out to $4.82. Plus tip, this ended up costing me about $6. My credit card felt a little sad.

I wish you had been a more transcendental $6 spent.

Afterwards, I hopped by Lena’s apartment on Newbury. I ate some of Lena‘s tasty homemade key lime pie while she looked pensively at a barking Hamlet.

“Was that a fart?” I asked when I heard something whiney come out of his furry body.

“It’s very possible,” she replied.

After a bit more chit chat, we hit Match for $1 mini burgers and onion rings. Unfortunately, they make you buy a drink, so I bled $3.50 for a small glass of diet Coke… but I got to sample the lamb and turkey burgers. I think they had a big of a heavy hand on the pepper in the lamb burger, but it was cooked well. Overall, kind of greasy and not too remarkable, but tasty nonetheless.

The onion rings are greasy good (with potent BBQ), but I wish the batter on the onions wouldn’t break apart so easily. A bit of cohesion would make it feel like eating onion rings, rather than your mouth trying to make harmony as the batter portion threatens to abandon onion ship. Ahh! Naked onion center!

You know what I mean?

Related posts:

1. $1 Sliders Night at Match Martinis and Burgers
2. Kickass Cupcakes to add ice cream cupcakes
3. Photo of the Day: Chocolate terrine with thai basil ice cream, sea salt
4. Burgers and Burgundy at Gordon’s Fine Wine & Culinary Center
5. Mini Red Velvet Cupcake