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October 16, 2008

If your restaurant only had 10 things on its menu...

TenItems.jpg

 

Jason suggested a Top 10 of menu items, the idea being if he had a small restaurant and were creating a menu of just 10 things, what might they be? It might be more interesting to break the 10 down into, say, bar food, brunch dishes, and comfort food. Or not.

Of course, I'd be tempted to say pick 10 things your chef can cook well and they will come. But maybe you ought to go for what's most popular in the Baltimore area to guarantee success.

I don't think it's really a Top 10 because the lists would be so individual, but I like it as a taking-off point for a discussion.

 

(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:32 AM | | Comments (36)
        

Comments

That's simple!
-Double Double: 2 100% Pure beef patties, hand leafed lettuce, spread, two slices of american cheese, with or without onions, stacked high on a freshly baked bun... cooked animal style, of course!


Some type of really good soup; Rudys 2900 cream of tomato crab comes to mind; crab dip, vegetable samosas, fois gras, spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, lobster and petite filet mignon with baked potato, chocolate mousse and chocolate cheesecake. I think that covers all of my most favorite things!

Only 10 menu items is tough. I had to close the bar.

Bucky’s Place Menu

Breakfast

1. Waffle and bacon, served with black coffee
2. Pigs In A Blanket, served with black coffee
3. Biscuits and Gravy, served with black coffee

Lunch

4. BLT on Texas Toast, served with your choice of chips or fries
5. Classic Cheeseburger, served with classic fries
6. Grilled Cheese Sandwich, served with bowl of tomato soup

Dinner

7. Prime Rib, served with Yorkshire pudding and bacon & garlic-infested green beans
8. Sliced Sirlion, slathered in garlic butter and served with loaded baked potato and bacon & garlic-infested green beans
9. Vegetarian Selection – Yorkshire pudding served with loaded baked potato and bacon & garlic-infested green beans
10. Taco Salad, served in one of those taco-shell bowls that you can eat when you are done with the salad

Dessert

None. Amber, the waitress, is the sweetest thing you're gonna find at Bucky’s Place ;-)

5 first starters

Baked goat cheese with greens dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.
Caesar Salad
Grilled pizza with various topping based on the season.
Oysters when in season, shrimp cocktail the other months.
Soup that varies with the season.

5 main courses

Wild boar ragu with hand made rustic cut pasta.
Lamb chops from a domestic, hopefully local, producer.
Fresh fish depending on what looks good that day. Grilled whole over a wood fire.
Grilled guinea hen.
Slow braised beef short ribs in the fall and winter and grilled bone on ribeye in the spring and summer.

This restaurant is in Baltimore, right? Crab cakes, course!

10 Baconators?

Regina's Place:

Breakfast:
crab meat and boisin omelet
homemade corned beef hash and eggs
French toast with bacon or sausage

Lunch:
Spanikopita and a salad
chili dog with onion and handcut fries
hand formed burger with handcut fries

Dinner:
corn chowder
tenderloin with scalloped potatoes and
caramelized brussel sprouts
fish and chips
cod with a sauce of lemon, butter, garlic, capers and parsley

Sorry, no room for dessert.


The world must be about to end--I actually find myself nodding in agreement with Elite Elephant Lover!

Hot Pockets Beef Taco
Hot Pockets Breakfast Ham, Egg & Cheese
Hot Pockets Calzone Pepperoni & Three Cheese
Hot Pockets Calzone Supreme Pizza
Hot Pockets Cheeseburger
Hot Pockets Chicken & Cheddar with Broccoli
Hot Pockets Chicken Barbecue
Hot Pockets Chicken Quesadilla Three Cheese
Hot Pockets Ham & Cheese
Hot Pockets Meatballs & Mozzarella
Hot Pockets Panini Sandwich Chicken Bruschetta
Hot Pockets Pizza Four Cheese
Hot Pockets Pizza Pepperoni

What kind of wine goes with a Hot Pocket?

I'd eat here:

French onion soup
Mussels Provencal
Croque Monsieur
Omelet Lorraine
Salade Nicoise
Hamburger
Duck confit croissant
Hijiki & Tofu a la Louie's Bookstore
Hot fudge sundae a la Marconi's
Selection of cheeses

Let's see...black bean soup (the recipe swiped from Tio Pepe)...duck confit salad...shrimp cocktail...duck l'orange...porterhouse steak (with baked potato and Brussel sprouts)...roast duckling Bavarian style...Thai drunken noodles...honey glazed duck...broiled rockfish (another burgled recipe, this time from Ikaros)...Szechuan crispy duckling.
Did I mention that I like duck?

garlic-infested green beans?

How about garlic-enhanced green beans. "Infested" sounds like you're putting in something that shouldn't be there.

Wine with Hot Pockets? Either a Cote du Rhone or a Beaujalais. I even drink wine with carryout Taco Bell. Nacho Cheese Steak Gordito and a bottle of Cahors.

hummus with pita
shish tawok
skyr with milk and fresh berries
heart kabab
fresh mango and cream
fattosh
pot roast (with grass fed, naturally raised beef, natch)
french fries made the right way
roasted brussel sprouts with hazelnuts
baked sweet potato

Lissa wrote: shish tawok...fattosh

She could just be making up words and I wouldn't know the difference. Lissa could be Owlie...hmmm...

Owl Meat wrote: What kind of wine goes with a Hot Pocket?

Perhpas Dahlink will have a ready suggestion when she returns from her sister's threatened Two Buck Chuck Thanksgiving dinner in California.

Bucky, you need to get yourself to Detroit, and hit some of the wonderful Lebanese restaurants there (yes, I can make recommendations). Fattosh is a green salad with toasted pita. Sounds mundane, but, done well, with homemade dressing (and, it always is in a Lebanese restaurant), it is summer on a fork.

Shish tawok is a ground lamb sausage, grilled on a stick. Even people who swear they hate lamb love it (although sometimes the lamb is mixed with beef and it can be made with beef only).

So, no, I'm not feathered, although I did have feathered bangs in the 70's. I just love Lebanese food.

Lissa -- at the risk of opening a can of worms (or providing the next big D@L controversy), I have to ask: what exactly do you mean by "french fries done the right way"???

Lissa,

Are there any restaurants in Baltimore that serve heart kabobs? I love chicken hearts and am longing to try beef heart.

Lissa - thanks for the explanation. The fattosh sounds like something I might try. The shish tawok, well, let's just say that I'm from cattle country. Sheep are raised to make sweaters out of, when they are raised at all..

the lazy menu:

10 things that have bacon in them.

I have been mulling this all day but that work thing kept interrupting. I will submit my offerings in the morning. Not that they will be earth-shattering, the previous comments have been most entertaining.

Sleep beckons! Work sux.

R-i-E: Mrs. Bucky says the word I was looking for was "infused." I hate it when I do that.

I liked infested. EL

hmpstd, it'd take a lot of tasting to find the right way to make fries. I'd start with twice frying in a good, real fat.

Got no idea if anyone has heart onna stick in Baltimore. I used to get it at a Chaldean kabab joint outside of Detroit. If you like chicken hearts, you'll probably like beef, although they are a bit stronger. Almost like whale, actually.

Beef heart should be cooked very quickly or very slowly. Which might explain some of my past relationships...

Spinach, roasted garlic, and sundried tomato Frittata
Eggplant panzanella with red-wine vinaigrette
Rabbit Tortellini
Sweetbreads
Garlic-rubbed Ribeye
Slow-braised duck with chestnuts
Monkfish Osso Bucco
Roasted whole branzino
Tiramisu
Port-poached pears with star anise ice cream

Luckily, I GET to have a restaurant with 4 of these on the menu (okay, maybe just for one night.. more info here and at Sotto Sopra)

hmpstd - El Rinconcito Peruano in Butchers Hill/Upper Fells serves beef hearts. They're called anticuchos. Delicious.

Lissa and EEL having a heart-to-heart talk. There is more that unites us than divides us.

Not really, Bucky.

I liked garlic-infested, too. It sounds like there might be *almost* enough garlic for my taste.

Bucky, Garlic-infested green beans would be perfect, especially with the prime rib. But I am wondering about the Yorkshire Pudding you listed with the vegetarian plate. The recipe I make is highly dependent on using the meat drippings from the joint to grease the pudding pan. I suppose one could use vegetable oil (or crisco) but then it would be more of an oversized popover, right?

Bucky - I had bacon-infested green beans today for lunch with some ribs. Is the garlic really necessary? Seems a bit much for the subtle flavor of fresh green beans. Plus, if you have garlic, your honey has to also, or he/she may not want to kiss you. If both have garlic, it's okay, but if only one does, not good.

Laura - I didn't think about what goes into Yorkshire pudding. Bucky's Place probably won't get much repeat business from vegetarains.

Bacon Girl - Garlic probably isn't necessary, in the same way ketchup on scrambled eggs isn't necessary.

My solution to the dating delimma, of course, would be to not date/marry/even become remotely fond of anyone who won't eat garlic when you want to eat garlic.

Sorry Bacon Girl but garlic is always necessary.

Suffice it to say, here's the waitress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zombie37/1807352612/in/set-72157602922105938/

(Bacon Girl, is that you???)

This is a ridiculous sandwich:
a Bacon Burger with Two Bacon-Stuffed Grilled Cheese Sandwiches as Bun

Mmmm...

omg, what's missing is a slice of tomato on each grilled cheese (with bacon!) sandwich. Grilled with the sandwich, of course. Gotta have our veggies.

That "ridiculous sndwich" as OMG calls it makes my socks go up and down.

"Ridiculous" was not quite right, this really deserves to be called redonkulous.

I like that sandwich's nickname:

The Fatty Melt.

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About this blog
Richard Gorelick was appointed The Baltimore Sun's restaurant critic in September 2010. Before joining the paper staff fulltime, he contributed freelance criticism and features articles about food to area and regional publications. Along the way, he dispatched for short-distance trucking companies, shilled for cultural non-profits, and assisted in cognitive neurology research – never the subject, always the control.

He takes restaurants seriously but not himself, and his favorite restaurant is the one you love, too.
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