• Boston restaurants offer more than the baked beans dish named after the city.Boston image by Alessandro Lai from Fotolia.com
  
  Restaurants in Boston offer much more to eat than the baked beans dish or brown bread named after it. Like any large city, Boston boasts restaurants offering many international and ethnic cuisines, including those that draw from the city's history, like the "little Italy" section of the North End, and those that make the best of the area's fresh seafood.
  
  

Addis Red Sea

• The savory injera completes, and doesn't just scoop, the meal at Addis Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston's South End district that has been open since 1988. At most Ethiopian restaurants, the slightly spongy flat bread that works as an edible fork complements the food it holds, but here the injera has a remarkably light and almost buttery taste. Addis Red Sea serves meals on large, round plates placed within traditional woven tables for the couple or group dining together to share. The restaurant serves classic Ethiopian meals that come with chicken, beef, lamb or fish, including wot, a red pepper sauce flavored with garlic, ginger root and nutmeg, and alcha, a mild butter and ginger sauce. Vegetarian versions of wot and alcha come without dairy and comprise just two of the nine vegetarian options, which you can order as entrées, as part of vegetarian combination entrées or as side dishes with meat or fish selections. "Boston" magazine recommends the kitfo, or steak tartar, because its spicing takes "the meat from raw to almost-rare." The restaurant's brightly colored interior with rugs, weavings and paintings contrasts with the simple modern building hosting Addis Red Sea.
  
  Addis Red Sea
  
  544 Tremont St.
  
  Boston, MA 02116
  
  617-426-8727
  
  addisredsea.com
  
  

Neptune Oyster

• Naturally, oysters fill Neptune's raw bar menu, but they also top the signature cheeseburger and the Neptunes on Piggyback appetizer, which combines crisp oysters, pork, golden raisin confiture and pistachio aioli. Neptune Oyster's largely Italian take on seafood reflects its North End neighborhood, or the city's "Italian heart," according to "The Boston Globe." Still, Neptune makes room for Asian influences on the menu, like the yellowtail hamachi sashimi with kimchi. Nightly specials include fish tacos and lobster spaghettini. Neptune's tin ceiling, large bar lined with white brick tiles and marble-topped tables give the restaurant a warm, casual feel. "Boston" magazine recommends Neptune Oyster in its "Best Restaurants 2010" and suggests it for a cozy second date, one that should include its "legendary lobster rolls."
  
  Neptune Oyster
  
  63 Salem St.
  
  Boston, MA 02113
  
  617-742-3474
  
  neptuneoyster.com
  
  

Galleria Umberto

• The long lines stretching out of Galleria Umberto are more remarkable than its bare-bones, cafeteria-like inside décor. Those people queue up for the thick, square slices of Sicilian-style pizza that Umberto serves only for lunch until the dough runs out. Other North End pizzerias may serve Neapolitan slices and pies to their devotees, but none can compete with Umberto's pricing: As of 2010, a square cheese slice costs $1.45. Umberto also serves calzone as well as arancini, deep-fried balls of rice coated with breadcrumbs and stuffed with meat and cheese. "The Boston Globe" recommends the panzarotti, a mini calzone stuffed with mashed potatoes, cheese and herbs, because they "are surprisingly light and fluffy."
  
  Galleria Umberto
  
  289 Hanover St.
  
  Boston, MA 02113
  
  617-227-5709