Eating at or near the Boston Public Library (Copley Square area)

We were at the memorial for Charles Coe today at the BPL, an old friend, and needed food after. Charles was an energetic cook. We’ve eaten his food and he mine. He’d have wanted us to snack after multiple poet laureates – from Somerville to the US – had read from his work. Saltie Girl is two blocks away, but getting in unannounced is tricky. We went to the library tearoom instead. It was terrific.

We split mini lamb gyros ($16 for five small ones), very tasty, very tender meat, sitting on a smearing of tzatziki (my only quibble: wish there was more), with a terrific cucumber-tomato-onion-pomegranateseed salad on the side and sprinkled with cilantro microgreens. Really good, and worth going back for again. “Dessert” was an order of their scone-of-the-day, lemon-ginger today with a whiff of cardamom. Two warm scones with clotted cream, jam and lemon curd on the side – a steal at $8. We had two substantial pots of tea (one would have been enough for the two of us), both wonderfully fragrant, my oolong emerging the winner.

I highly recommend.

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I wasn’t familiar with Charles Coe’s work but I had read his obit because I’ve become of the age where I read them. A life well led.

Coincidentally, we walked past the Providence public library on our way out from the P-Bruins game tonight, which has an appealing-looking space. There was a nice-sized crowd even at nearly 10 pm. I love the re-imaging of space at libraries.

I love the Courtyard tea room. Do they serve a la carte now, or is that in the Map room?