I must ruefully report that I took my family back to Anthony's Pier 4 in August on a sort of nostalgia mission... when I was growing up in Boston in the early '70s, Anthony's was the big place for our family to go on special occasions. To a 13-year-old it seemed extremely elegant, with mobs of waitstaff and big tables of well-dressed locals and Mr. Athanas holding court personally.

Fast forward to 2008. The place is virtually unchanged from 1973. They still bring marinated mushrooms and warm popovers to your table automatically; they still have finnan haddie and Indian pudding on the menu. New England soul food. But the fun ended there. The service was surly, grudging and glacially slow. The food was pretty awful (rubbery, spongy calamari appetizer; dry tasteless salmon; my Indian pudding dessert had spent hours, if not days, slow-baking, encrusted, into its bowl). A bottle of Washington state red wine was served COLD. And the bill was eye-popping.

Don't go. You can't go home again. Mr. Athanas, who went to his reward a few years ago, would've cried.