PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

Tiny and cramped, with a red-leather banquette and a marble-topped bar down either side of a narrow room, Neptune feels like one of those off-the-radar places out-of-towners fantasize about -- or it would, if it weren't so crowded. Super-fresh, inventively prepared seafood keeps this restaurant busy and loud almost all the time, and not just with North Enders sick of chicken parm; even in the winter, I suggest planning for lunch or an early dinner on a weekday if you don't enjoy waiting. Check out the daily specials listed on the chalkboard and mirrors, then start with oysters, comparing specimens from both coasts (Pacific Northwest Kumamotos, which taste the way the ocean smells, are my favorite). Main courses include some menu standards, at least two of which aren't seafood, and dishes that make good use of whatever's fresh that day. You might find something unfamiliar like cod cheeks, exotic like sea urchin, or even familiar, like a lobster roll (cold with mayonnaise or hot with butter -- quite the dilemma). Neptune is a few steps off the Freedom Trail and easy to find: Look for the eye-catching display of ice, lemons, and oysters in the front window and the crowd inside.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Boston 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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