North End-Italian Style

Maria's Pastry: This shop was a great find in the big city of Boston. As soon as we walked through the door the whole area smelled of wonderful Italian pastries. The vendor was very friendly and talked to us about traditional Italian cooking and how Marzipan played a big roll in her business. There were no imported foods or ingredients, but the wonderful cooking made up for it. An awesome place!

Samples: cannoli, marzipan fruits, tiramasu, pasticiotti, totos, cream puffs.



Polcari's Coffee: This coffee shop was filled with great smells of different coffees and spices from all over the world. There was a great selection of dried fruit, meats, cheeses, coffee, spices, and other fantastic items. The owners were very friendly and the business had been in business for 75 years.



Alba's Produce Mart: This was a fresh produce shop in the north end. the shop is small and full of fresh fruit from different regions. The fruit is imported from Florida and Peru with Italian pasta and home made pickled peppers. While we were there we got cactus fruit and Asian pears (later stolen at Mike's pastries :( ). Alba's was a family owned business owned by the Albas a new Hampton family, in a act of serendipity we walked in to the unsigned shop.



Salumeria Italiana: This was a great hit for everyone in the group. It was mostly made up of imported Italian cheeses. One cheese that he introduced to us was Drunken Goat cheese, none of us ever heard of it before. The Italians eat very healthy with lots of vegetables and cheese like olive salads and mozzarella salads with lots of oils.