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I hope you'll tell us about here.
Robert of Cross Keys sent me a photo. I'm posting it, but it's so dark that even when I blew it up on my handy dandy iMac I could hardly make anything out. I've lightened it some and hope that will help.
A couple of people wore masks on the left (not that they needed to for this photo) and, hey, someone there looks like Kiefer Sutherland on one of his better days. Who would that be?
Awhile back when I asked for reviews of restaurants you felt the Sun had neglected, it didn't occur to me that someone would submit a post about a private eating club.
It reminds me of early on in my career when I was told to do a series of reviews of Baltimore's private clubs. As I said in my 30th anniversary story, "Someone at the paper got the bright idea of sneaking me into the city's private eating clubs as a guest and having me do a series reviewing them. (The ethics of this didn't seem to worry anyone.) It would have been a better idea if most of the clubs' memberships hadn't been closed to women, African-Americans and Jews."
Times have changed, though, and this is a look at the Center Club by a member, Kirstie: ...
"As a new member of the Center Club, Baltimore’s private business dining club, I have to say it is one of Baltimore’s best kept secrets. Working in Baltimore’s business community, I find the Center Club to be a great place -- not only for fine food at lunch, dinner and special events but also to network with other area professionals.
"The new renovation is magnificent, with views overlooking the inner harbor, a great wine room with a fantastic selection and numerous rooms for private events. The Club’s new bar, Bar100, has a menu featuring crab and corn hush puppies (to die for) and a smoked salmon pizza that packs a lot of flavor. Great Happy Hour specials too!
"If you come for either lunch or dinner you have to try the crabcakes. I swear they are the best in town. Also, if you like cold soup, the Chilled Supreme of Tomato & Blue Crab Soup is definitely worth it. I like the fact that there are a lot of delicious light fare options on both the lunch and dinner menus.
"So far, each time I’ve been to the cub, I’ve seen the familiar faces of Baltimore’s business community, from college and university presidents to hospital CEOs to a host of other people that I look forward to getting to know as a new member. It feels like the heart of the city – where decisions are made and deals are cut."
(Photo by Kirstie)
I haven't heard anything about local restaurants doing something special for the Chinese New Year, which coincides this year with Valentine's Day.
I can tell you that Zhongshan Restaurant, which Other Reviewer Richard reviewed, now offers a Chinese hot pot, the Asian fondue-like dish with stock, meats, seafood dumplings and vegetables. I'm not sure if this is the only restaurant in the area that has it or not. ...
Oddly, Zhongshan also has a three-course menu for $20 for Valentine's Day, but isn't promoting anything for Chinese New Year. We used to regularly get a group together and go to Chinese restaurants for their elaborate New Year's specials, but maybe that's fallen out of style.
I guess you could combine the two holidays and go for a romantic New Year's dinner at a Chinese restaurant around here on Feb. 14. I just don't know which one that would be.
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
I was home sick this week, with one of those viruses that feature a low-grade fever and aching sinuses that aren't bad enough to get you much sympathy but always strike when it's gray and cold and last forever...you get the idea.
I thought I would never laugh again, and then this comment popped up under Whoa, That Is Expensive. Thanks, potpie: ...
Posted by: potpie |January 26, 2010 3:29 PM
Crime Beat's Peter Hermann sent me the following e-mail yesterday. He's tough; it seemed like a forgivable oversight to me, especially as the restaurant ended up honoring the deal. But I thought his e-mail would make for an good discussion. I was also interested in the point he brought up in his final paragraph. Here's Peter. EL
Living in South Baltimore, I routinely hang out at several bars and restaurants and I've gotten to know owners and bartenders. Residents are typically treated well, giving many spots the feel of your own living room. Specials abound for neighborhood folks, including discounts when it snows. ...
I had been meaning to get into a new establishment near my home, Ullswater Restaurant and Wine Bar, and this past weekend I spotted a special on the menu posted in the window. It offered $10 takeout pasta dishes on Mondays, in a bid to go green by saving on washing dishes and linens. So Monday after work, I called to order and was promptly told the special had been discontinued during Restaurant Week. I protested that the special was on the menu in the window, and the person told me that he would immediately take it off.
After speaking to the manager, she agreed to honor the deal (it amounted to $2 off a $12 item), but that wasn't the point. It was my first trip to a new neighborhood spot and my first impression was that they were not honoring their own advertising. Not a good move for a place on a busy street with no parking that's going to have to rely on neighborhood foot traffic. The promotion for take-out seemed like a good way of drawing in the very people who I think will make up a bulk of their business. The pasta was very good and I'll go back, but there are plenty of other spots on Fort Avenue that treat their customers better, and where I feel more comfortable giving my money.
And as an aside to Restaurant Week, I stopped in Rafters on Thursday to find the bar empty. Spots like this, I'm told, don't do well during Restaurant Week, which takes many of their regulars and others away. I had a nice meal and a good Lancaster Porter (well, two Lancaster Porters), and by the time I left three other customers had come in. I hadn't thought of how the restaurant promotion can impact some of the local bars.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
OK, news is a little strong, but no one was at the Giant in spite of the weather forecast. I was floored.
Has anyone else noticed that the self-checkout thieves are getting bolder? You walk up to the lane with your groceries and the machine asks you to hit finish-and-pay if you're finished, which means someone walked off (in this case with eclairs for $1.99) without finishing and paying. Last time I went, all three self-checkout lanes had been walked out on.
I guess it's still cheaper for the store than using human cashiers.
This week I haven't been able to be on the phone much to talk to people because of a tickly cough, the dregs of my head cold. So I don't know as much about the following restaurant openings and closings as I'd like to. But I'll throw out what I have and if you know more, please post below.
Apparently the space at Hanover and Fort Avenue that was the Vine is coming along. I hear that there's now a sign up that says "Blue Grass."...
I thought this was where the Federal Hill Hospitality Group was going to open Avery's Pearl; but I know there have been complications in that partnership and Brian McComas, the owner who told me about it, hasn't returned my several calls.
Jeff sent me this news:
I've heard that the Brass Elephant (business and building) has been sold and that the new owner intends to remodel to include the third and fourth floors as dining areas (and installing an elevator).
Several people noticed that Poe Boys Oyster Bar & Grill in Fells Point looked closed, with a sign on the door saying that private parties had been moved to the Waterfront Hotel. This was a shock because it just opened in December, in the space where the short-lived Miss Irene's had been. In fact, if you look at Poe Boys' Web site, it still says "opening soon."
I called the Waterfront Hotel, and was told that the closing was temporary, for remodeling. That must be the most remodeled space ever.
The Northstar Bistro in Fells Point, however, is closed for good. It was the joint venture of Dimitri Spiliatis, owner of the Black Olive, and Ellis Marsalis III. Not sure what happened there.
I got an e-mail about the relatively new Rooster House in Owings Mills, not to be confused with the now-closed Rooster Cafe. It specializes in "healthy comfort food." I hadn't heard about it before, but it looks like a nice, casual place. Anybody eaten there?
Finally, former deskmate Scott Calvert tells me that the Grill Art in Hampden is closed for good.
That's all for now, but I'll continue with the updates later today. Yes, there's more. But now I have to go to the Giant for milk and Kleenex before the White Death arrives.
Clearly I need to post this quickly, before lunch.
Pei Wei Asian Diner is giving out a coupon (today only) for a free entree, Vietnamese caramel chicken, a new dish wok-tossed in a caramel-chile sauce and topped with an Asian slaw of cucumber, red bell pepper, carrots, red onion and chile peppers marinated in a black pepper Asian vinaigrette.
Whew. ...
The coupon can only be redeemed next week during Pei Wei’s Vietnamese Lantern Festival from Feb. 1 to Feb. 7.
Looking at the press release, I don't see any conditions attached, such as having to order a second entree -- or having to order anything to get the coupon in the first place.
One of my favorite parts of Robert of Cross Keys' fine Free Market Friday guest post today is that he felt he had to include the word "accidentally" in the last sentence. Here's RoCK. EL
On a recent trip to Portalli’s in Ellicott City, I step out of my normal menu routine and order a whole fish. ...
In the interest of fairness, I thought I would post a couple of comments that were made under an earlier post in which a reader complained about unruly kids at Langermann's in Canton.
They were far enough down that I'm afraid some readers would miss them: ....
This conversation was brought to my attention and I felt compelled to answer some of these frustrations. I was at Langermann's on the day in question when the kids were running around and I admit one of them was in my care. The writers are correct there were times when the kids were running around in a frenzy something that would certainly be disturbing. So please accept my apology. I totally agree and we all recognized we could have done better. Especially in light of the fact the owners are taking the heat I agree this is about the parents. But one fact I want people to know is that day the electricity went out on Boston Street and a number of families, thanks to the owners of Langerman's, camped out in the restaurant for many, many hours while waiting for the fix. It was not an ideal situation at all and the kids did the best they could and the parents maybe not such a good job. But the people that own that restaurant did a nice thing that day and I would hate for this to be a reflection on them. Langermann's is a great place and they are bringing jobs and a new place to eat in what was a long time vacant space in Canton.
Posted by: Matt Goddard | January 28, 2010 5:39 PM
I also was dining at Langermanns on that cold, rainy day in Canton with our kids. We also had no power at our home and hoped it would be a quick trip to eat. I agree with Matt Goddard's comments. It was an isolated incident and Langermanns was nothing but hospitable. As parents, we are usually more keen to our surroundings as to where it might make sense for our children to dine as we probably out stayed our welcome. Langermanns never made us feel that way. On an adult note, the next weekend we took 20 adults into Langermanns for a birthday celebration and the service, food and staff are nothing but exceptional! I would highly recommend the restaurant as it is a great location and wonderful venue for all city dwellers who are single, married or who have kids!
Posted by: Jody Stoehr | January 29, 2010 7:48 AM
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Most of us were surprised when Michael Marx, former owner of Blue Agave in Federal Hill, sold his Mexican restaurant and tequileria because he was tired of the grind and then a little more than a year later was back, opening Rub, a Texas barbecue place in South Baltimore. That was three or four years ago.
I guess Mexican food is in Marx's blood, because a couple of weeks ago he opened Miguel's Cocina y Cantina in Silo Point. ...
I talked to Marx about the project last May, and at that time he told me it would feature regional Mexican dishes and tapas-style plates. Of course, he also thought it would open in August, which is par for the course.
Here's what the press release says: "With its high ceilings and encased in concrete, steel and glass, Miguel's serves up a delicious array of small plates along with eclectic Mexican entrees in an atmosphere that is both playful and dramatic."
One of my favorite things is that you can take the water taxi to get to Miguel's.
If anyone has eaten there, I hope you'll let us know and tell us what you thought about it. Please post below.
And what do you think of the Web site welcome page?
One of Other Reviewer Richard's strengths as a restaurant critic is to make an interesting read out of a review of a place that could be described in a word or two. (Shades of the four-word restaurant reviews.)
Today he did that with Max's Empanadas in Little Italy.
Of course, I had a personal interest in reading about it because of our trip to Argentina two Christmases ago. ...
There were some notable exceptions, of course, and I detailed them in my travel posts. (I can't link to them all, but if you're interested, go to December 2008 under the Monthly Archives on the right of the page.)
Richard's review made me feel like maybe I should give Argentina's cuisine another chance.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
One of the occupational hazards of being a food critic, I suppose, is food poisoning.
I've never gotten seriously ill from a restaurant meal, but there have been times when I definitely felt that -- how shall I put this delicately because it's just about lunchtime? -- my gastrointestinal symptoms, mild or not so mild, were related to a meal I had eaten out.
It is, of course, hard to prove. Maybe it was just a stomach bug. ...
What got me thinking about this was an e-mail from Deanna with the enticing subject line "Food Poisoning!" (Which I stole for my headline, obviously.)
I recently contracted a miserable bout of food poisoning from some deli meat from [name deleted; sorry, folks. EL] and thought that would be an interesting topic. Just what does one do in the event of it? Do you even bother contacting the restaurant (or in this case, deli.) I can see them saying “prove it”. Can you hold them responsible at all without some sort of CSI-type resources?
I've never figured out anything to do about it, unless you want to let them know there's a problem in the kitchen but you are only telling them so they can clean it up, not because you want anything from them. And even then the restaurant is bound to be very defensive.
Maybe some of our restaurant owner/commenters would weigh in, with the understanding, of course, that no customer has ever accused them of food poisoning. Or if you've had an experience and decided to confront the restaurant, that would be interesting to hear about.
Deli meat isn't the first thing I would think of giving someone food poisoning (because of all the preservatives). Now if it had been the chicken salad. ...
(Los Angeles Times photo -- so you won't think I'm accusing a Baltimore restaurant)
I don't feel comfortable using restaurant coupons as the Sun's restaurant critic. It somehow doesn't seem quite right, even if I'm spending my own money.
I know, I know. It doesn't make much sense. I'd certainly take advantage of a happy hour half-price special. But in that case it would look weird to say, "Sorry, you're going to have to charge me full price."
Anyway, this means I haven't been tracking whether places around here are offering more and generous coupons, as this Slashfood item suggests is the case nationally. (Thanks, Cosmos Girl l>--l for sending me the link.)
I never hear any of you mentioning coupons, the ones that can be found in newspaper circulars. (You can also find them online at various sites if you type -- duh -- "restaurant coupons" in the search engine.) ...
Is it only something down-home restaurants and chains do? I wonder if the phenomenon is sort of working its way up, so it no longer seems declasse to pull out a coupon at the end of the meal.
Do you use coupons? Do you feel awkward using them? Do you tip according to what your bill is or what your bill would be if you it hadn't been discounted?
I've heard that people are using coupons more in supermarkets than they did before the recession, and that's probably true with restaurant coupons as well. But I don't hear anything about them around here. Maybe local restaurants are simply offering more deals without the paper.
I'm not sure what the advantage is of offering something your customer has to clip out and bring in as opposed to just having, say, two-for-one appetizers. But it must be the result of some marketing study.
I do use supermarket coupons. Or rather, I cut them out and put them in an envelope where they sit until they expire. Same thing. However, put this in your Great Moments in Clipping Coupons file: Once when I was into eating cereal for breakfast, I opened a box (I think it was Kellogg's 19) and instead of cereal, it was filled with coupons for Kellogg's 19. If that wouldn't make your day, I don't know what would.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
I've been putting it off, but really the time has come to settle on a Valentine's Day Top 10 topic.
After all, eating out is a Valentine's tradition these days. (I don't think it used to be.) And if I'm going to do a list, I almost have to do it next Tuesday so readers will have time to get a reservation.
Even though I know better, I, too, have started going out with my husband on Valentine's. My solution to the crowds is to pick a place that works for me but isn't a traditionally romantic/expensive restaurant. ...
Sure, the Milton Inn in Sparks has great atmosphere and a fireplace. And nothing says "I love you" like a hunk o' beef at the Prime Rib. But I'm looking for more obscure suggestions from you.
And you have to be able to justify those suggestions. You can't just say Chuck E. Cheese is a good choice because no one will be there for Valentine's Day.
These have to be restaurants that are romantic in some way or doing something nice for the occasion, but maybe haven't been around long enough to get a romantic reputation so they won't be booked on Feb. 2.
I'll give you an example. I just got an e-mail from B & O American Brasserie saying it will have a three-course prix fixe menu for $36 and a five-course menu for $52 on Saturday and Sunday evenings of Valentine’s Day weekend. (The regular menu is also available.)
The idea is to come up with nine more like this that readers might not think of without our list.Here are the B & O's menus. I hope you like lamb:
Starter
B & O Crab Bisque
Main Course
A choice of Mustard Crusted Lamb Loin with Beluga Lentils or Braised Shank and Red Pepper Reduction
Dessert
Sugar Doughnut Holes with White Chocolate Cream
or
First Course
B & O Crab Bisque
Second Course
Grilled Boneless Quail with Chipotle BBQ and Jicama Slaw
Third Course
Crispy Skinned Barramundi with Roasted Beets, Grilled Scallion and a Port Wine Reduction
Main Course
A choice of either the Mustard Crusted Lamb Loin with Beluga Lentils or Braised Shank and Red Pepper Reduction
Dessert
Sugar Doughnut Holes
Another idea: In the same press release was this sentence:
In addition to the prix fixe menus created by Chef Reidt, B&O American Brasserie’s Head Bartender Brendan Dorr has created Love Potion #42, an elixir of passion with 42 Below Vodka that will work magic from Feb. 13-14 for $10.
I suppose I could make a list of the Top 10 Love Potions. Suggestions, Sam?
(AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)
Getting art for this provocative Shallow Thought Wednesday was difficult. One thing I can promise you. No flirting is going on in this photo. Here's guest poster John Lindner. EL
We’ve covered the touching servers/customers thing. Have we discussed flirting? ...
Further consideration made us wonder if we’d ever encountered flirting among staff and customers in Asian restaurants. Servers in these restaurants always seem to treat us with, at minimum, the respect and detached professionalism you’d show a well-trained dog. I always feel rather honored.
And now for the winners in last week’s desperately shallow Meat Week Haiku Invitational [If you remember, John promised as a prize to write a customized haiku for each. EL]:
For monosyllabic concision, rayray gets this:
rayray rayray ray
rayray rayray rayray ray
rayray rayray ray
The first Anonymous, for being first:
Oh vegetables!
Fruit sans the flavor spectrum
Please pass me the dip
(Note: I also liked the “counting” Anonymous entry)
For the steak lyrics, et al, Unbelievaboh:
Abattoir poesy
The knackerman’s lullaby
Unbelievabold
And for Laura Lee’s heartwarming trisyllabic diamond:
Divination rites
Guess what cancelled them this week:
Acute cirrhosis
Is there another group of experts that annoy the people they are trying to help more than wine experts?
As expert tasters struggle to describe what they experience with phrases like "ripe, round finish" and "notes of cherry with undertones of leather," consumers roll their eyes and try to find wines in their price range that taste good to them.
This irritation at what is perceived to be wine snobbery isn't new. A Thurber cartoon, I think published in the New Yorker in the '40s, showed two men drinking at a table. One said to the other: "It's a naive domestic burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption." ...
Anyway, finally someone has gotten around to deciding to do something about wine verbiage and how wines are tested, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal that Dan D brought to my attention.
The story is about the first annual Consumer Wine Awards in Lodi, Calif.
The idea behind this and some other recent wine competitions is to judge wines the way consumers drink them -- without slurping, gurgling, spitting, taking notes, or conferring with other judges. (Of course, I'm a little worried that the Web site I linked to describes it as "our already paradigm-shifting tasting methodology," but I shouldn't get too picky here.)
One interesting thing that the WSJ article brings up, but is much too vague about, is "a study" that shows that ordinary wine drinkers tend not to like the wines experts prefer, raising the question of whether their opinions should even be of concern to amateur drinkers just looking for a nice bottle of wine to take home.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Robert of Cross Keys asked me to post the final details of the Sunday supper. I was going to say, "Why don't you just e-mail the folks who said they were coming?" but I didn't because a) I thought the rest of you would enjoy hearing about it, and b) if anyone has been left off by my not fowarding e-mail addresses or whatever, this way you'll know and we can fix it. Here's RoCK. EL
I'm still at home today getting farther and farther behind in my e-mail. But I'm trying!
Here's an interesting one from Rodney. At first I wrote it off as just another hand-wringing about how much everything costs these days; but the more I thought about it, the more I think he's onto something. One sentence in particular in his e-mail struck me:
There is a huge attitude in this country even now that to even be concerned about the cost of something is beneath one.
The subject line was "A $10 Mulled Cider!" inspired by Midnight Sam's recent story for the Taste section on winter warmers.
I have the same reaction every time I see a drink menu with $12 margaritas and specialty martinis.
I'm luckier than most because the Sun is paying for me to eat out once a week. But when I do go out on my own, the moderately priced restaurants I frequent no longer seem so moderately priced to me. ...
I'm not making a judgment about this -- I'm sure restaurateurs' expenses are up, etc. etc. -- just that it's a change. It's the equivalent of 20 percent tipping becoming the norm so nobody thinks about it. Mixed drinks for $10 and more, and entrees priced accordingly, are fast becoming something we just have to get used to:
Hi Elizabeth; I just can't believe the prices! I'm at a total loss. A $10 cup of cider! I have a great imagination, but this is beyond me. How do people afford or even support these prices? There is a huge attitude in this country even now that to even be concerned about the cost of something, is beneath one. Wow. This is scary.
I was planning to go to Henninger's recently with a friend, hoping for a nice time for her. It was another fiasco for me as they were closed Sunday night! But... I checked their menu on the website and apparently there is not an entree less than $20. I knew Chuck back in the old days and with a few friends we sang "Never Ending Love for You" together by Delaney and Bonnie.
Back in the old days, you could go to Henningers, or Fraziers, or Mee Jun Lows and not even have to consider the cost for one second. Heck, I even took a girlfriend to Tio Pepe's without a thought. I don't get it. Now it's either a fortune or a small fortune. I do love hearing about people's love for their food though. Best wishes for a tasty new year.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
It looks like it's time to create an entry where folks can tell us about their Restaurant Week experiences. Some have already posted under earlier entries, and I'm also getting e-mails (blaming me if the experience wasn't good, of course).
I hope people will post positive mini-reviews as well as complaints. Because readers often don't bother to comment unless they're angry about something, we're sometimes left with the impression here that Restaurant Week is a failure, and I don't think that's true at all.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
When I asked for a guest Top 10 list to post while I was on vacation, I got not one, but two: Bucky's, which I used last week, and this mouth-watering list of places to get hot chocolate from Catherinette Singleton. I've linked to her blog, because it was kind of her to make up this list for us, but I need to add that the language on her blog is adults only. Here's Catherinette. EL
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the last month you’ve probably noticed that the temperatures outside have been well below what they should be. Christmas and New Year's have come and gone; but, baby, it’s still cold outside. ...
There’s only so much coffee and/or tea one can drink to keep warm. What’s left? The standard, always classic, always comforting, usually underrated hot chocolate.
You would think finding good hot chocolate would be easy, and you would be wrong. Many places claiming to have a decent version are simply using syrup or cheap powder. Frankly, I can make that kind of nonsense at home.1) Zachi Cafe in Mount Vernon tops the list with a not-too-sweet, beautifully hand-crafted hot chocolate made from real chocolate. Hoda Kader, the owner, has her hot chocolate down to an art form.
2) Stone Mill Bakery in Lutherville has a fantastic hot chocolate made with Valrohna chocolate from France. Trust me when I tell you that you want to get the homemade marshmallow on top.
3) Woodberry Kitchen in Clipper Mill offers another delicious option, using local ingredients. This pairs really nicely with any dessert being offered.
4) Red Emma’s in Mount Vernon has a spicy hot chocolate with just the right amount of kick. Not too sweet, not too spicy, this is for grownups.
5) Puffs & Pastries, the Hampden bakery, has an artisanal hot chocolate that can be made to order.
6) Teavolve in Harbor East is known for its teas; however, missing the hot chocolate would be a mistake. With or without the whipped cream, its version of hot chocolate stands up to any tea drink offered.
7) Sofi’s Crepes in Station North makes a divine drink that partners very nicely with fresh cream. Order it with the Nutella crepe.
8) Starbucks (various locations) has a pretty tasty Signature Hot Chocolate. It’s rich and creamy, better than you might think you would get from a chain.
9) Meli Patisserie & Bakery in Fells Point is another good choice. Its hot chocolate was the sweetest of the bunch. If you have a real sweet tooth, this is the one for you.
10) Daily Grind in Fells Point also makes its hot chocolate from real chocolate. You can get it with soy milk for a nuttier flavor.
You may have noticed that I didn't have a Monday Morning Quarterbacking this morning. That's because I didn't have a review in the paper. I was on vacation.
But next Sunday I will have a review. I decided (with a little prompting from a reader) that it was time to revisit a classic, Linwoods in Owings Mills.
Note to self: Put in a photo assignment tomorrow if I get into work so there will be up-to-date pictures to go with the review. The ones we have on file, like the one to the right, are from when I last reviewed Linwoods eight years ago, before the restaurant was renovated.
(Amy Davis/Sun photographer)
I love the conversation hearts that appear around Valentine's Day.
I can't stand the taste of most of the flavors so I never eat them, and I haven't given one to another human being since Rufus King when I was nine (but that's another story).
Still, I like knowing they exist in much the same form year after year. ...
I don't even mind when they get updated, although I don't much like the idea that they now come in bright colors. (The "new fruity flavors" don't bother me since I never eat them.)
This year's conversation hearts have also been updated with new sweet nothings. I missed the online contest that allowed you to vote on what you wanted those expressions of love to be, or I would have linked to it here. But -- no surprise -- the top vote-getters were "Tweet me" and "Text me."
Anyway, Sarah KK took a photo of the new Sweethearts and kindly sent it to me. (I'm home sick today.)
I have a new Baltimore trendlet for you: Asian restaurants with style. It's been one of the things I've missed about LA now that I no longer visit my daughter there.
Until fairly recently Baltimore's Asian restaurants seemed to fall into two categories: Little places done on a shoestring (either hole-in-the-walls or not) and restaurants where a lot of money had been spent on the decor, but, well, "style" wouldn't be the word that came to mind.
Can we count Red Maple in Mount Vernon? In spite of the Asian tapas, I don't think of it as an Asian restaurant. I think the first of our Asian restaurants where I walked in and said, "Wow. Cool!" was Minato Sushi Bar in Mount Vernon after it moved a couple of years ago. ...
Here's how I described it in my review:
There's a glittery retro chandelier. Light is also provided by the huge rainbow wave fixture, almost a sculpture, overhead. The fluorescent lemon-lime chairs are so bright they practically light up the place by themselves.The decor is kept from being garish by the soft blue wavelike pattern on the walls and the polished hardwood floors. It's fun and funky, and it works in a wacky sort of way within the structure of the once-elegant Charles Street townhouse with its ornate, partially gilded mantel.
Sam's Kid in Fells Point has that same sort of intriguing decor, and I'm pretty sure there are others. I just can't think of them now.
I think the following goes along with the decor: If you order wine, you don't get generic red or white in a discount store wine glass filled to the brim, once a hallmark of Asian restaurants around here. And more thought goes into the presentation of plates that aren't sushi.
(Christopher C. Assaf/Sun photographer)
I really feel that we haven't discussed unruly kids in restaurants enough so I want to share Richard's e-mail with you. Ha ha. Just kidding.
If you can control yourself -- whichever side you're on -- enough to get to the end of this e-mail, which I couldn't resist publishing in its entirety, you'll find the real reason: We need to go over what I do in spare time at work (that is, when I'm not working on Dining@Large) one more time. ...
First, once a week I write a review of a restaurant that I've visited and can speak from first-hand experience about: the food, service, atmosphere, ladies room, whatever. My review appears in the Sunday A & E section -- and online, of course.
Second, I write a restaurant news column called Table Talk for the Wednesday food section. This is where I report openings and closings and other newsy items. Unfortunately I can't go to a new restaurant (like Langermann's in Canton) to check it out for the column. I have to stay anonymous for the review.
This second is what I imagine Richard was talking about when he told me I need to amend my review. (And I was right with him until he said that.)
Last week my lady and I ventured out to Langermann's in Canton. I knew one of the new bartenders there from Sasha's - and I had dropped in for a bite of lunch just after the restaurant opened. The food was fine and the renovated space quite nice.
Now, Langermanns is far from the most expensive restaurant in town. However, there is a $95 bottle of wine on their list - and a couple more at $60 plus. So, what I did not expect when I walked in that evening was a dozen "rug rats" running and screaming throughout the restaurant. I meaning SCREAMING.
My lady and I barely touched our drinks before we left. Another couple entered, saw the commotion, turned right around and retreated as quickly as they could.
More amazing, the bar and wait staff seeing this happen in front of their eyes did - nothing.
I'm not going back.
An establishment near where I live (shameless plug, Captain Larry's) is an unassuming neighborhood bar w/food that encourages locals to bring their kids. Parents need a night out, too. I can live with that.
But I ain't living with it when a place wants to charge $50 for a bottle of Le Crema (not a particularly good Chard, anyway) - and the kids are auditioning for a new production of Lord of the Flies.
Parents: If you have small fries - please go to Chucky Cheese until your kids can control themselves - or you learn to control them. Bar and wait staff - it's your job to make sure customers act appropriately. Owners: If you're gonna charge for a nice meal - deliver an atmosphere commensurate with that price tag.
EL, you need to amend your review.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Chowsearch sent me an e-mail saying that Milton Lentz, owner of the nice little Grill Art Cafe in Hampden, died Wednesday.
Lentz, who lived above the restaurant, had been sick a very long time. He and Rick Roberts, formerly of Roland Park's Stone Mill Bakery, opened the restaurant seven years ago. ...
Basically that's all I know. I called just now, supposedly when the cafe would be open, but just got a voicemail message.
If anyone knows any more, please post below.
When I got home last night, my husband and I ate out; and the subject of booths vs. tables came up.
We've discussed the joy of booths in an earlier post, but my husband and I starting talking about why any restaurant would have anything but booths.
Is it because diners have only booths? Are booths considered a socially inferior form of eating surface? ...
Do any upscale restaurants not have tables?
You know how when you walk into a half-empty restaurant and look around, all the booths are taken before the tables. That tells you something. Does anyone here prefer tables, and if so why?
Also we talked about the weather in Florida.
(Amy Davis/Sun photographer)
It's good to be home. Except for the 36 degrees part, of course.
Anyway, I'm fresh off the plane and ready to give the Comment of the Week to Bill in Columbia under the discussion of what a "suburban" restaurant is:
The Suburban Dining Experience includes no pot holes, no panhandlers, very little gun fire and plenty o' free parking, right in front of the restaurant.. At places like Aida, Victoria, El Azteca, Cafe de Paris, Pho Nam and Ironbridge the chow's pretty good too.
Posted by: Bill in Columbia | January 22, 2010 4:52 PM
Here's an e-mail from John with a question I should have thought of answering before:
My issue is that I had open-heart surgery last fall and need to keep my intake of saturated fats and sodium at a minimum. I am not a vegetarian, however--and hope I never am. <grin> Have you run across any restaurants in and around Baltimore that offer a good variety of foods that are suitable for my diet? I'm OK for breakfast as I can get Egg Beaters and finesse the meats and items likely to be made with saturated fats, but lunch and dinner are a problem. Google seems to think that "vegetarian" is the only variety of healthy restaurant food.
I wonder also if it would seem presumptuous to ask for my food to be prepared without salting, to inquire what shortening is used to make pastries, etc. If you have any tips or thoughts I'd appreciate getting them. Thanks!
First of all, John, in your situation I'd skip the pastries altogether. But that's just me. ...
Your best bet in general for eating out healthfully is Asian restaurants; but if you go to most Chinese restaurants you're probably going to have to avoid more than if you do Thai, Vietnamese or Japanese.
Sodium, of course, will be a problem at these, especially, I've found, in Japanese dishes.
With these you'll get a more healthful ratio of meat to vegetables, and you won't have to worry so much about animal fat. But, of course, skip the fried foods.
Mediterranean restaurants would be my next choice, and after that seafood restaurants that don't specialize in fried fish or rich sauces.
I know some restaurateurs are quite concerned about healthful foods even if their restaurants aren't vegetarian. I'm going to use Donna Crivello as an example, but the disclaimer is that I know her personally. If anyone wants to post others below, I'd appreciate it. Some places, like Dalesio's in Little Italy, have "spa cuisine" dishes. Here's a link to an earlier post that mentions Gayot.com's list of heart-healthy restaurants in Baltimore.
Most restaurants these days are quite respectful of customers' health needs. You should never feel uncomfortable asking the server to have the kitchen prepare your food without extra salt.
I also think restaurants that stress organic ingredients and say things like "farm to table" and "everything prepared in house" are more likely to meet your needs. But, of course, these places will also be more expensive.
If I can come up with enough healthy non-vegetarian restaurants, I'll do a Top 10 Tuesday on them.
If you nominate one, please be specific in saying why.
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
Under the post about DuClaw Brewing Co. in Fells Point closing, LL made this comment that I've been meaning to follow up on:
In the Midnight Sun post, one reason given for their closure is that DuClaw is a "suburban concept" - any insight on what that means? Is this an actual marketing or development term or just a flimsy excuse?
Are there other restaurants that could only ever really work in the 'burbs and not the city (or supposedly the rural counties), or vice versa? This sounds like it might have been a Top 10, and if so then I apologize! ...
It's a good question. And until he or she asked it I hadn't given it much thought. I think many of us are snobs about the suburbs, if only because so many uninteresting chains seem to flourish there.
But there are also some excellent restaurants.
Now that I've made that disclaimer, what do you think the person meant by "suburban concept"?
My first thought would be kid-friendly, but that's clearly not the case with DuClaw. The second is that no matter how fascinating the restaurant itself, it's usually not in an interesting building. Hence the wonderful parking lot cafes post by HowChowBlog. I know there are exceptions, such as restaurants in Historic Ellicott City.
But other than those, nothing much comes to mind.
(Larry C. Price/Sun photographer)
I've lost weight just reading Robert of Cross Key's Free Market Friday guest post. EL
This week the wife takes me to Ruth’s Chris in Pikesville. The last time she took me here was when we were shopping for engagement rings at J. Brown across the street. I figure she thought some prime meats in my stomach would fill the void in my wallet. This time she brought me along on a dinner to try some of the specials on the winter menu along with some classics.
I realize that I’m not likely to win the Presidential Fitness Award this month. Between the bourbon, the country ham and the Lexington Market feast, I have been running my liver, kidneys and heart through the gauntlet. ...
I just got this e-mail from Milan's PR person. The new Little Italy restaurant isn't backing down on its euro position. Good for them:
According to GM Peter Mooradian, as of Wednesday night, Milan has the capability to accept euros as a form of payment on checks. Every day the system will be updated to reflect the current exchange rate.
The US dollar rate on the menu will remain the same but the euro rate may fluctuate (i.e., the Risotto Capsanta will remain $22, but it may not always be the €14.68).
I got an e-mail recently from Greg, who had just visited Sam's Kid in Fells Point after I gave it a positive review.
He had a very different experience from mine because, he said, the kitchen and wait staff seemed overwhelmed although the food was very good. ...
I wrote back saying, "You know, I worried about that when I gave it such a good review. It seemed as if an influx of people might really be a problem for them. It’s hard to know what to do in that situation as a reviewer. Some places just can’t handle success, but I can’t ignore them. It’s a real dilemma."
If I find a small, excellent restaurant I almost hate to give it a glowing review. I know it's likely to hurt it in the short run, and my readers who immediately go to eat there will get frustrated.
On the other hand, if I say in the review what I want to -- "Don't everyone go at once" -- it sounds a little stuck up, as though I think thousands of diners will rush there on my say so.
I want everyone reading this to promise me that if I give a restaurant a good review, they will ignore it for at least a month, and then go on an off night or an off time.
And meanwhile, if you went to Sam's Kid and had a bad experience, give it a second chance when it isn't so busy.
(Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
Today Other Reviewer Richard reviewed Hunan Taste in Catonsville, which fans of Chinese food are comparing in authenticity to the beloved Grace Garden in Odenton. Others, not so much.
Let the wrangling begin.
While I'm at it, I'm going to link to my review of Ullswater in south Baltimore because I was feeling too sickly on Monday to do it. ...
Of course, reviews tend to generate e-mails like this one:
"May I begin by telling you that I am not now a Baltimore resident. However, I was born and raised in Towson during the '40s-50s. I've dined in many, many off Baltimore's best restaurants and could not possibly name all of them here and would not want to bore you by listing them all.... but here are some, just between us, so you can have fun recalling them too... (not in any particular order) Haussners, Miller Brothers, Prime Rib, Maria's 300, Phillips (everywhere), Alonso's (I was a regular), The Greenspring Inn during its peak, with my parents, of course, Danny's, Milton Inn (my all-time favorite.. I first dined there in 1969)... Attman's deli (the best... I first visited the Lombard streeet neighborhood when vendors were selling live chickens to be killed, plucked and sold to customers on a daily basis), Bernie Lee's Hotel (in Towson), Peerce's, most of the Italians in Little Italy and all of the Italian's in Towson.... actually every restaurant in Towson up to and including Paolo's as I have visited frequently, even the crab houses... spread over the city.... my nephew who now owns his own restaurant (Jack's Bistro) was executive chef at Gibby's... OHHHH!!! I really want to go on because the memories are so pleasant. But the only point I wish to make now, which is connected to the subject above, is mostly a pet peeve that I have developed recently. So here it is: why are modern chefs so committed to causing their plated presentations to look so artistic yet still more like what the plate looks like if a lizard with Diarrhea ran around the plate a few times. That's what the photo attached to your review of this restaurant llooks like. Sorry if I'm sounding gross, but I think the plate looks gross, Consider this too: even trying to catch a bit of the spread-out sauce would be difficult being so thin and spread-out thus less flavovr of the sauce transmitted to the diner. Makes no sense and in this case it's not equivalent to "less is more". I'll keep it simple and end here. I look forward to your reply?"
I've bought some time with my automatic out-of-the-office tool, but sooner or later I'll have to deal with it. Anyone want to take a whack?
I've told you about a lot of happy hour deals before, but when happy hour is free, that's a little more than a deal.
Tonight Milton's Grill is having a free happy hour for downtown employees from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., with a limited number (that's a surprise) of drinks and appetizers.
"Sample an array of delicious Cabot Cheeses paired with Stella Artois beer," the promotion says. ...
Downtown restaurants have been hurting with the double whammy of the recession and all the Charles Street construction, so they have been running several surprising specials lately for people who work downtown. I wonder how the restaurants check if you really are a downtown employee, or if they even care.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
I got this e-mail recently from Bubbles when I asked for a guest Top 10 to use while I was on vacation.
I like both these ideas. The first in particular interests me. The second would be one each of you would have to do on your own.
Glad to hear you are taking a vacation! I still think a top 10 on restaurants in interesting/historical buildings would be fun. I try to find 10. I doubt I will have it together in time, but you could add it to the archive. I like "repurposed" buildings so ones that are restaurants would be fun. Also, how about a Top 10 of places you meant to visit, but never made it. I've still never been to Salt! I'm not savvy enough for this but maybe Robert could take a swing at this. ...
As for the buildings, B & O American Brasserie comes to mind immediately, and Woodberry Kitchen. I bet we could easily come up with 10.
should ask our architecture expert Ed Gunts for his input. It would be nice to have a little more than just the names to flesh out the list.
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
I've just gotten e-mails from three restaurants that won't be pricing their Restaurant Week menus at $35.10 this year. It makes sense because none of them is a high-end restaurant; $35 would get you a pretty good meal at them any time.
Regi's in Federal Hill will be keeping its price at $30.10 (actually a one cent increase because of the year change, as owner Alan M., who sometimes comments here, points out). ...
Donna's is charging $25.10 for dinner (which consists of your choice of any entree on the menu -- with no reduced portions -- plus any appetizer, salad, or soup and a special dessert), and $10.10 for lunch, which consists of a cup of soup, sandwich and a soft drink.
The Melting Pot in Towson's Restaurant Week menu will cost $30.10 and consists of a cheese course or chocolate fondue for dessert, salad, and entree .
I'm sure there are other restaurants that have decided to break ranks and charge just a penny more than last year -- which has been the traditional increase -- or even less. If so, I hope their owners will post below. Or if you know of any, please share with us.
(John Makely/Sun photographer)
I couldn't believe when I got this query from Sarah that it's been more than two years since we did a Top 10 on Thai restaurants:
I would love to hear the collective wisdom of your community on good Thai restaurants in Baltimore.
Is The Thai Restaurant on Greenmount still excellent?
Other options? ...
The old list is obviously outdated now. Even Thai food doesn't seem as hot (no pun intended) as when I made up the list. So many other Asian cuisines are jockeying for position in our affections these days.
OK, that's not a good metaphor.
Anyway, what would your Top 10 list of Thai restaurants be these days? And if you can't come up with 10, which ones would you add or subtract from the old list?
I'm hoping I haven't already used Sarah's e-mail after the Steve debacle Tuesday. It's too time-consuming to search all the entries where I've mentioned Thai restaurants, so I'm taking a chance here.
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
In today's Table Talk I tell you about Milan, the restaurant/lounge that gives its prices in euros as well as dollars.
This gives me the opportunity to mention the comment Danielle made under the post I did on the euro pricing.
She pointed out that the new Grano in Hampden did the same thing when it first opened. ...
I was struck by that when I reviewed it months ago and promptly forgot about it until she mentioned it, although I can't remember whether the euros were on the paper menu or only on the blackboard.
I think Grano could get away with it because a) Gino Troia is a respected restaurateur in Baltimore and b) the pasta bar has no pretensions in any other way so it didn't seem pretentious, just quirky. Also, the euro pricing wasn't on the Web site.
Who knows? Maybe other restaurants in town will start to do this now. As Michael A. Gray so wisely pointed out under the same post:
I think it was Gypsy Rose Lee who said, "You gotta' have a gimmick." The management probably couldn't care less if someone pays the check in Euros, rubles, grickles or pastulas. A whole clutch of restaurant-savvy folk are being reminded of Milan.
As for Top 10 in the print edition, it's the one on the Top 10 Places for Restaurant Week with a few comments. It didn't generate many comments in the first place, maybe because you made up the list, not me.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
John, good news! You didn't miss Meat Week! EL
I feel like I missed Meat Week.
Still, I want to honor it.
Never better than late. That’s my motto.
Here’s my Meat Week Haiku: ...
Upturned, her nose sniffs
The smoke of distant grill marks
Fetch me a toothpick!
And I propose a contest. Write a Meat Week Haiku. Win (winner to be determined by me, entirely by whim) and you will receive a customized haiku about you.
(Photo by Chris Chidsey, courtesy Stock Xchng)
I just checked my work inbox, and while I've been gone, folks have e-mailed me some interesting tidbits of news.
John P. tells me that Boccaccio in Little Italy, both the restaurant and the liquor license, is being auctioned off Feb. 17.
Great Sage in Clarksville, a favorite gourmet vegetarian restaurant in the area, has become completely vegan as of Jan. 1. Reaction has been very favorable, according to the owners. I think this says something about veganism becoming more mainstream, but I'm not sure what. ...
Big Al sent me a link to Gayot.com's Top 10 Heart-Healthy Restaurants in the United States list, and Dalesio's of Little Italy is No. 4. We've all gotten a little cynical about Top 10 lists here, but it's still nice to have the national recognition.
On the other hand, the list of other heart-healthy places in Baltimore is strange.
And while we're talking Little Italy, Sergio Vitale of Aldo's sent me a couple of funny links, one to where you can buy the Bacon Bourbon Caramel Corn Pig Out, which gives new meaning to the term "eat your heart out" and another to Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Kit. Reviews, anyone?
Ken e-mailed me to say, "I just called Venegas Prime Filet and was told they are not honoring any gift certificates or gift cards from Jordan's as Jordan's database of information was lost. I mentioned your newspaper article and your blog and was told the information given to you on certificate acceptance was wrong."
My guess is that once Jordan's owner was no longer involved in the restaurant they figured there was no upside to honoring the gift cards. I still think it might be to a new restaurant's advantage, but maybe they are doing well without having to offer any incentives or promotions to draw in new customers.
The frozen tundra is where my e-mailers are, by the way, not me. Here the weather is sunny and warm. The reason you haven't heard much about it is that I've given myself over to a nasty head cold and am doing nothing but watching the Australian Open and drinking lemonade.
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
One unexpected result of the weak economy is the emergence of bakery cafes as go-to places for eating out on a budget. The industry grew by 12 percent to more than $4.5 billion in 2008, the latest year for which there are figures.
The press release I got about this came from Technomic, a national food service industry consulting firm, so it was talking about chains. I would have to buy its report to find out what the top 25 bakery cafe chains are, which isn't going to happen (I'm not that interested); but three top performers are Panera, Au Bon Pain and Einstein Bagels. ...
Doesn't that last surprise you? I simply don't put it in the same category as the other two, even though I know Einstein has sandwiches made from its bagels, and has added a few salads and soup to the menu. I still don't think of it as a bakery cafe. It's a bagel shop.
On a local level, bakery cafes do seem to be doing well. Certainly a new Atwater's is opening every time I turn around (I hear there's a new one in Catonsville), and Bonaparte in Fells Point always seems busy. Stone Mill Bakery has expanded big time. And dont forget Mr. HowChow's recent review of Bon Fresco.
I was trying to figure out why bakery cafes as opposed to cafes or bistros would be flourishing. The only answer I could come up with is that in a recession you need great bread to keep from blowing your brains out.
“The consumer trade-down from full-service to limited-service formats that solidified through 2008 and into 2009 allowed fast-casual bakery cafes to truly shine,” says Darren Tristano, [executive vice president] at Technomic.“The appeal of moderately priced, high-quality menu offerings served in contemporary ambiance, as well as consumer perception of value for this format, has more than likely strengthened over the past year.”
Does anyone really talk like that?
(Amy Davis/Sun photographer)
Midnight Sun Sam and I were discussing food slogans, brought about by my saying that the new Milan in the Harbor East/Little Italy area is the only restaurant I can think of around here that has a slogan: "Where food meets fashion."
I'm sure there are others; I just can't think of them.
That led to Sam's suggesting food slogans as a good blog post, but the only one either of us could come up with was "Uh oh Spaghettios." ...
What did that mean, by the way? And how has it come to be something you say after goofing up?
The amazing thing was that Sam and I couldn't come up with any others.
Later I thought of Tony the Tiger saying about Frosted Flakes, "They're grrreat!" But that only came to mind because of all the Tiger Woods jokes floating around.
I asked my deskmate, Tim the Arts Critic. He mumbled something about the Oscar Mayer wiener jingle, but he couldn't remember it.
I guess slogans aren't a very effective way of marketing your food if no one can remember them. And as for the Milan slogan, I'm just not sure what it means.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
One thing I want to do while I'm on vacation is get your help in answering my backed-up e-mails.
Often these queries are out of my experience -- I'm just not sure where these guys would enjoy going.
Anyway, Steve is right. This is a good future topic: ...
Perhaps you can help me. I am looking to host 5 people (including me) for a casual business dinner. I'm taking out 3 young doctors and 1 older doctor (they’re not stuffy guys, but not too casual). I need a place with a separate room, or table in a location where we can talk. I also want to limit the dinner to $250 with tip. I’m thinking a place like Henningers. What do you think?
Also, it should be easy to get to if possible.
Thanks for your help!!
Steve
p.s. maybe this is a good future topic
(Doug Kapustin/Sun photographer)
Thanks, Bucky! EL
Somewhere along the way, I started jotting down quotations that stuck me as insightful or funny or potentially useful for staff meeting arguments in a little spiral-bound notebook that I carried around with me in my briefcase. Thoughts like, “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to be your own hero” and “Work is for people who never learned how to fish.”
When EL asked for a guest Top 10 to cover her while she was on vacation, I thought to myself, “Whoa, this should bring Jay C. back to the blog.” Ha Ha Ha … I didn’t think that. I’m just kidding. ...
I went into my collection of quotations (now stored on Microsoft Word) and dug out some of my favorites that would meet the pesky “food-related” requirement. I actually had a difficult time narrowing it down to 10.
Feel free to add your own, and if somebody adds the one that should be on the list but isn’t, because I’ve seen it in D@L comments a few times, they will win a prize. (To keep things on the up and up, I’ve told EL what the winning quotation is.)1) “My favorite animal is steak.” ~ Fran Lebowitz
2) “Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.” ~ Alice May Brock
3) “I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks.” ~ Totie Fields
4) “Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
5) “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” ~ Lin Yutang
6) “Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts!” ~ James Beard
7) “He was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating oysters.” ~ James I
8) “A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do.” ~ P.J. O'Rourke
9) “Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable.” ~ Ina Garten
10) “Never eat more than you can lift.” – Miss Piggy
(Sun archives)
Lissa has kindly contributed a cautionary guest post while I'm in Florida. It needs no introduction. EL
Hal Laurent keeps trying to convince me that baking bread is easy. Sure, I've made the New York Times No Knead Bread, and it is easy and idiot-proof. But, what Hal (and others) don't understand is the trauma I went through as a child after watching a documentary on Swedish bread-making. ...
Now, I was one of those serious, quiet brainiac kids whom you probably really enjoyed trying (note that I said nothing about succeeding) to beat up on the playground. When I was still a toddler, Mom came into the living room to limit my TV viewing, just like Dr. Spock said, only to find me glued to live Shakespeare plays being broadcast live from Stratford, Ontario. What mother could deny her child the Bard? So it is only natural that I loved documentaries, from “Hinterlands Who's Who” to “The World at War.” The occasional nightmare was fair pay for the knowledge I gained.
Ah, but that Swedish bread-making documentary! That, that was trauma! To be rendered unconscious by a lump of death-dealing dough! Betrayed by a burping bready bandit! The horror!
As an adult, I realize that the chef must have over-floured the dough, leading to too much food for the yeast, thus to too large a lump of leavened lamia. As an 11-year-old, though, I didn't know enough kitchen science to figure out where the chef went wrong. I only knew that if a chef could be attacked by his creation, what chance did I, a mere amateur, have?
So, even though I did all the cooking for the family, we had no baked goods that weren't store bought. I could roast a chicken or make a mean beef stew, toss a salad or do up a stir fry, but the mention of a coffee cake or soda bread left me sobbing for mercy. Thanks to that blasted documentary, I just wasn't a doughy cook.
The video that goes with this, of course, is:
Recently I got an e-mail from loyal reader kvnmnnng, who posed an interesting question:
...a possible topic: for which restaurants do the servers/staff love to work? a happy staff should add to the dining experience, I would think.
He then said, in the interest of full disclosure, that he works at local restaurant -- one that I would think would generate good tips. Maybe he's just asking out of curiosity. But the grass is always greener. ...
I have no idea if the waiter pictured likes his work.
I do know that he's not the person who e-mailed me, and Dizzy Issie's (it's an old photo) isn't the restaurant where the e-mailer works.
(Karl Merton Ferron/Sun photographer))
If you remember, hmpstd was the commenter brave enough to try Bagel-fuls for the first time and review them for us. Now he's done the same thing with Pepsi Throwback. EL
Growing up in a large family, I had a limited exposure to soft drinks in the 1960s and 1970s, my prime soda-guzzling years. On the rare occasions (such as picnics and beach outings) when milk was inappropriate, we were subjected to store-brand private label sodas, the kind that came in cans that still required a church key can opener. (Woe be unto the sibling who forgot to pack the church key.) Other alternative beverages included Zarex (a concentrate for making non-carbonated bug juice), Kool Aid, and anything else that could fit in a two-gallon Coleman jug and/or the family ice chest. (There were occasional exotic offerings, such as the diet sodas my father found next to the helmets at the local surplus store. The fact that the diet sodas were marked 75 percent off because they were loaded with cyclamate, which the FDA had just banned, was a mere technicality as far as my penny-pinching father was concerned – but I digress.)
To the extent that we ever got a choice between Coke and Pepsi back in the day, I definitely preferred Pepsi, which was somehow fizzier, with a blast of sugary effervescence accompanying every swig.
Coke, by contrast, seemed to be stickier, with a caramel residue that coated my teeth for hours on end. My antipathy to Coke in the old days was so pronounced that I would wind up ordering Sprite at any place that dealt exclusively in Coke products. (It took the introduction of Diet Coke to get me to switch allegiances from Pepsi to Coke.
In the past, several D@L posters have extolled the glory of Coca-Cola products that are still being made with sugar instead of the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Kosher Coke and Coke bottled in Mexico are the two products most frequently mentioned in this regard. Unfortunately, as I live in northern Anne Arundel County, I have not been able to find either product at my local Giant. Besides, I was perfectly happy with Coke Zero.
Recently, while watching the NFL playoffs, I stumbled across a commercial for Pepsi Throwback, yet another soda made with sugar instead of HFCS. This intrigued me more than the Coke products, given my historic preference for Pepsi over Coke.
The next time I went grocery shopping, I checked the soda aisle, and, lo and behold, found a supply of Pepsi Throwback in stock. Next to it was a supply of Mountain Dew Throwback, a product of which I had not previously been aware. I bought a 12-pack of cans of each item and took them home for my own (admittedly unorthodox) taste test. I didn’t want to compare the Throwback products to the current standard (HFCS) products – there are enough online reviews comparing those products, anyway. Instead, I wanted to see whether the Throwback products tasted anything like the Pepsi and Mountain Dew that I recalled drinking some 40 years ago.
The Throwback products are supposed to be available only though Feb. 22. I might be tempted to stock up with some more of the two brands, depending on whether my opinion of either product evolves as I go through each 12-pack. I’d like to hear from any of you who might have tried on the Throwback products or on the Coke sugar equivalents.
To foodies, the expression "a great little hole-in-the-wall" is about as good a compliment as a restaurant can get.
It suggests a find, a place where the quality of the cuisine is in inverse proportion to the atmosphere and prices. Foodies love finds.
I found out early on, though, that no restaurant likes to be described as a great little hole-in-the-wall, even if it's guaranteed to bring in customers by the droves. ...
At one point, we ran listings of restaurants regularly in the paper, or maybe the twice-yearly dining guides, with one- or two-sentence descriptions of them. I was enamored of the Pinebrook in Hampden because of its awful atmosphere and fabulous homemade dumplings that the Chinese owners practically gave away. So my one-sentence description was, you guessed it, a great little hole-in-the-wall.
The owners were so incensed the wife called the Sun and asked us to take the listing out altogether.
I've reported here that my daughter called it the Cheapest Chinese Restaurant in the World. I found a photo of it in the archives -- I actually hadn't expected to. Apparently I reviewed it in 1997. The photo caption reads: "Pictured are hot and sour soup for two, left, ($2.50) and a plate of Fried Chiao Tzu (10 dumplings for $1.70)."
I miss the Pinebrook. It closed when the husband got too old to make the dumplings anymore.
It is tempting to come up with a list of the Top 10 Great Holes-in-the-Wall, isn't it?
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I've been meaning to post this query for Mary about restaurants that have gluten-free menus. I'm sure others would like to know the same thing.
Unfortunately the blogware just now ate the second half of this post when I went to save it, which contained her very interesting e-mail explaining that the Lebanese Taverna in Harbor East unexpectedly came up with one when she explained to the server that she had celiac disease. ...
The blogware has been really cranky the last few days.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
OK, I've gotten bizarre announcements before, but this press release about Meat Week may take the cake. Uh, barbecued ribs.
I'm going to let the Web site speak for itself, but there are many unanswered questions.
Like, why are so many captains, admirals and first mates involved in something that isn't Seafood Week? ...
Confused? Well, so am I. Apparently Meat Week was started in 2005 in Tallahassee, Fla. by Admirals Erni Walker and Chris Cantey. It's eight days of barbecue eating, and chapters have sprung up all over the country. This year Meat Week is Jan. 31 to Feb. 7.
Is the whole thing a colossal prank?
Here's what the press release says, "Captains and First Mates plan a carnivorous 8-day schedule that ends on Super Bowl Sunday. Meat Week consists of 7 days of visiting local, down-home BBQ joints and the final day is hosted by a member of the local Meat Week fleet."
Baltimore is one of the chapters, and I have the local schedule for you:
Sunday, Shorty’s, 1 p.m.
Monday, Big Bad Wolf’s, 7 p.m.
Tuesday, Andy Nelson’s, 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Chap’s, 7 p.m.
Thursday, HarborQue, 7 p.m.
Friday, Rub, 8 p.m.
Saturday, Mr. Chelsea’s, 1PM
Sunday, Fleet Member’s home, 3 p.m.
Baltimore's chapter was apparently founded in 2008, but if so, why haven't we heard about it before?
I dunno. If anyone can provide us with any more information, please post below.
(Chiaki Kawajiri/Sun photographer)
Not only am I giving this post under the Charmington's entry the Comment of the Week, as promised, I'm giving it Comment of the Decade:
There's nothing more dull than arguing over where one neighborhood begins and another ends.
Posted by: Posted by: Cheap Jim | January 11, 2010 9:57 AM
Jack Ziegler sent me this little memory of one of Baltimore's favorite restaurants and the 1987 menu, which I can't figure out how to reproduce here. Let me just say the filet mignon with two vegs cost $13.95. EL
My wife and I were doing some housecleaning today and I came across a 1987 Haussner's menu. I thought I would scan it and share it with you.
I started going to Haussner's in the late '40's. Living in East Baltimore my mom and I ate there many, many times.
When I started dating I always took my dates there. Then when I got married and had children we took them. My youngest son was fascinated by the giant ball of string. On this particular trip we were introducing my granddaughter, who was born the previous August, to the sights and smells of this wonderful place. ...
The next in a recurring series of reviews of restaurants the Sun has neglected. In an earlier post, I asked for mini-reviews of places we may have missed. Here's Bryan with a mini-review of Jilly's in Pikesville. EL
It just dawned on me that I don't think the Sun has reviewed this place ever. It's situated on Reisterstown Road between the two Mari Luna's. I, and many other members of my reserve unit often meet up for a snack after our drills on Tuesday evenings. ...
Jilly's, located in the heart of Pikesville on Reisterstown Road, provides what could be defined as standard pub grub but with a dedication to quality. Over the course, my visits I have never once had a bad experience.
Burgers and chicken sandwiches are handled deftly and with a flare that sets them above the standard fare. Take for example, Jilly's "Smokehouse Burger"; a generous portion of perfectly cooked (and rapidly delivered) ground beef, well seasoned, served atop a kaiser roll with a hefty slice of smoked Gouda and Canadian bacon. The basic burger elevated to something somewhat unusual and with attention to detail.
French fries are nothing special, but crisp and perfectly seasoned. Wings are tender and meaty, though the Old Bay variety was a bit dry.
Prices are reasonable, the beer is cold, Tuesdays are trivia nights.
Jilly's delivers a satisfying comfortable neighborhood bar experience in a stretch of Reisterstown Road dominated by diners and delis.
Sam has started a storm of controversy over at Midnight Sun with his post on the new Milan Restaurant in Little Italy pricing its food and drink in euros as well as dollars.
I'm not going to weigh in here except to say I wonder if you could follow the exchange rate and watch for when your meal would be cheaper or more expensive.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
I can't believe I didn't do a post on the Ravens vs. Patriots food bet. I didn't even know about it until I heard Governor O'Malley's gracious speech to his Massachusetts counterpart, Deval Patrick, after the beat down, which ended with his saying in a mock Boston accent, "Hey Deval, send down the lob-stah."
Now he's made the same sort of bet with the Indiana governor. ...
According to the Washington Post, O'Malley said these fighting words outside the state house Tuesday:
"I've tried calling Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), but I think he's scared. He will not answer the phone. He will not take the bet. Gov. Mitch Daniels is scared of making a bet with the Colts and the Ravens.
"Not only did they slink out of town in the middle of the night, but now their governor is afraid to take a bet on who is going to win this game. If Gov. Mitch Daniels is listening, governor, pick up the phone. It's not a big deal.
"Your team slinked out of here in the middle of the night. The Ravens are coming to Indianapolis. Let's pick up the phone. Let's have a gentlemanly bet. Don't be afraid, just pick up the phone, Mitch, c'mon. We'll put up crab cakes or we'll put up Smith Island cake, and you can put up whatever it is that Indiana does."
Then yesterday IndyStar.com reported that Daniels has countered with a sugar cream pie from Wick’s Pies, Inc. and a shrimp cocktail from St. Elmo’s Steak House. The problem seems to be that Indiana doesn't have much indigenous food. Neither of those stack up against crab cakes, it seems to me -- or lobster, for that matter.
Other Reviewer Richard reviews Geckos, a Canton bar/restaurant, in today's paper -- and gives a shout out to us at Dining@Large.
He was so tactful in his criticism of the place that the comments underneath his review are actually quite civilized. That's an accomplishment.
Do you notice anything interesting about the table setting in the photo with the review? It struck me immediately. ...
On a completely different subject, I got a call from the PR person for Morton's the Steakhouse in Baltimore saying that I was slightly inaccurate (which I thought was a very nice way to put it) in my Table Talk column yesterday.
I'm still not quite sure exactly what was wrong, but apparently the wait staff was told in a staff meeting the day Morton's closed that the restaurant was closing. They didn't, in other words, arrive at work and find the doors locked.
The PR person did say that Morton's is trying to find positions for the laid-off staff at the other restaurants in the chain.
Here's a link to yesterday's print Top 10 if you want to see whether your comment made it in.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Just in time for Saturday's big game, Jack has sent me the Web address of a popular wing Web site called Kluckr. (I wonder if there's a site devoted to every food in the universe. I should check sometime.)
Anyway, Jack seems to be a wing connoisseur, and he endorses Kluckr, saying he agrees with the top two choices in the Baltimore section.
You may want to put in your two cents about that.
The places are rated by heat, variety, service, atmosphere and value. ...
That got me to thinking about what makes some wings better than others -- something that, believe me, has never occurred to me to give a second thought to before. I just eat and enjoy them if they're in front of me. And I'm in no way an expert. I still call them Buffalo wings.
Here's what I decided a connoisseur would come up with in order of importance. Correct me if I'm wrong:
1) plumpness or meatiness
2) flavor of seasoning or sauce
3) the proper amount of heat
4) crisp, chilled celery
5) good, cold blue cheese dressing
Or are wings no longer served with celery and blue cheese dressing?
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Conventional wisdom has always said that Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods, but I don't think it's been a city of restaurant neighborhoods until the last decade.
Or maybe I should modify that to interesting restaurant neighborhoods.
It used to be the only group of restaurants that people from outside the neighborhood would travel to regularly was Little Italy. ...
But one of the things that came out of our discussion on local restaurant news stories of the decade that I hadn't really thought about before was how many neighborhoods we have that are, let me use an overused phrase, dining destinations.
We talked about the South American eateries along Broadway, the Asian restaurants in the Ellicott City/Catonsville area, the Hamilton/Lauraville corridor and Harbor East.
But during this last decade Fells Point also blossomed. Kali's Court opened in 1999, and the neighborhood now has a range of places that serve good and very different kinds of food. Even the bars have stepped it up. Of course, there were always a few standout places -- Savannah, M. Gettier -- but it seems to me that there are now many more choices, from Bonaparte to the Black Olive.
Hampden is another neighborhood that used to be known for one kind of food (I'm thinking Frazier's and Cafe Hon) and now has Grill Art, Rocket to Venus, Suzie's Soba, Big Grano, Golden West and an Afghan restaurant, King's. I'm playing a little fast and loose with the dates here -- Suzie's opened at the end of the decade before -- but you see what I'm getting at.
I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me that Federal Hill held its own in the restaurant-worthiness department during the aughts, while Canton slipped. With a few notable exceptions (Mama's on the Half Shell, Helen's Garden) Canton no longer has the cachet it once did as a neighborhood of interesting restaurants.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
When I ate at Ullswater in south Baltimore last week, I was struck by the number of folks eating at the bar, even though there were some tables empty. Especially at a neighborhood restaurant, that makes sense to me.
You may well end up in a conversation with someone you know without having to plan to meet anyone. If not, the bartender will keep you company.
We've talked before about the pleasures of eating at the bar. I think the reasons to do it are more numerous than ever before. ...
Restaurants with dining room menus that are a bit more expensive than you can afford on an ordinary night often have less pricey bar menu these days. I'm thinking of some of the upscale steakhouse chains.
And, as we pointed out earlier, one of the food and restaurant trends of the last decade was the upscaling of bar food, so eating at the bar doesn't mean you have to have wings or a burger.
Are there better and worse bars to eat at? I like eating at the bar at Peter's Inn, where the bartender folds a napkin to make a place mat for you. And that way you don't have to fight for a table.
(John Makely/Sun photographer)
Midnight Sun Sam reports that Friends in Fells Point may be closing, and one possible buyer might be the Richmond-based Sticky Rice. It's a little strange, offering tater tots as well as pot stickers, but people seem to love it.
In other eclectic Asian chain news, Noodles & Company has signed a lease to open a location in Harborplace, on the first floor of the Light Street Pavilion next to Urban Outfitters. It's the first one in the city. The opening date is set for spring.
(Chiaki Kawajiri/Sun photographer)
In this intriguing Shallow Thought Wednesday, guest poster John Lindner discovers the value of -- ta da -- water. EL
Once upon a time, I had strep throat. It hurt. Strep made the act of swallowing a form of self-flagellation.
Each swallow set off an assault of spikey tracheal bacteria that flayed my throat and set tympanium micronaut warriors to jabbing my ears drums with rough-hewn toothpicks, twisting them mercilessly for 15 minutes. ...
To stave off this torture, I deferred swallowing for as long as possible. The ensuing dehydration caused the Greatest Period of Thirst in My Life. But quenching my thirst meant unbearable agony.
I vividly remember sitting in a chair for four straight days, waiting for the end. During that siege I vowed that, should I miraculously survive, I would henceforth each day drink eight large glasses of ice-cold, crystal-clear water.
Not beer, not wine, not Caol Ila on the rocks, but water: cool, clear water. A solemn vow.
OK, so I checked out Maisy’s last week. The Monte Cristo struck me as quaint, and on a lark I ordered it. I suppose it was good. I wouldn’t order it again, but more on personal preference than because of any flaw in Maisy’s rendition of the sandwich. It was filling, but less decadant than ones recollected from the distant past. I found it dull and uninspiring.*
But it was the glass of water that triggered a Proustian remembrance.
On the few blocks walk to Maisy’s, the wind acted like a flux for bone marrow and the Arctic chill that blasted down Charles Street. By the time we made the restaurant, my fingers felt so brittle cold that I thought they might break off when I pulled on Maisy’s big wooden door.
Normally, I don’t order coffee at restaurants that aren’t Denny’s (or its ilk) because the servers never bring around refills often enough. It’s decaf for cry eye! What do they think’s going to happen? An overdose? Sheesh. But I was cold. I ordered coffee.
Well, it took forever to get the damn java. I would have slammed it down to warm up but I was afraid that would leave me with nothing but water to drink during my meal. That’s when I remembered the chair, the tympanium micronauts, and the Vow. I tried the water. It was cold and good.
After our meal, our server stopped by and asked if I’d like refill on the coffee. I paused, considered, then placed my hand over the empty cup. No thanks.
As we wrapped up our postprandial conversation, I sipped the water. Yes it was cold. And so was I. But I was alive.
* Again, no slight to Maisey’s. They may make the best Monte Cristo of all time. In any case, I like Maisy’s (313 N. Charles) too. It’s a haven from “pubs.”
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
My call for mini-reviews of restaurants the Sun has neglected has turned into mini-reviews of places we probably won't get to as well, which is fine too. Here's a good one from Mr. HowChow. I had already gotten a glowing e-mail about Bon Fresco from Arden, so I was delighted to hear more. EL
Bon Fresco Sandwich Bakery brought sandwiches and bread to Columbia that rise immediately into my favorites in Howard County.
Great ingredients. It couldn't be more simple, but it feels less and less common to find delicious food that tastes like someone was paying attention. Certainly rare at casual sandwich joints -- where the chains profit from interchangeable ingredients. ...
Bon Fresco's sandwiches are exceptional. Thick $6.50 sandwiches, each with several great ingredients. Thick slices of real roasted pork loin with grilled squash and a spicy sauce. A pile of salami, topped with green-leaf lettuce and cream cheese. Each ingredient stood out, and it came together with the beauty of Thanksgiving leftovers -- a simple sandwich made scrumptious because someone spent an entire day cooking the parts.
They’re supposed to start serving breakfast any day, and they already sell the baguettes, ciabatta, focaccia and other loaves. Baked in that open kitchen, they're sandwich breads – more perfect white than the yeasty French of a top restaurant – and they’re spectacular right out of the oven. Worth a trip – although maybe not from Baltimore.
Bon Fresco Sandwich Bakery
6945 Oakland Mills Road
Columbia, MD 21045
410-290-3434
I got a press release recently from Johnny Rockets about its new Houston burger, described as "a spicy twist" on its regular burger, with mayonnaise, Hot Rocket Fuel sauce (whatever that is, but, let me guess, it's not the mild version) and topped off with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.
This was in response to customer demand, the release said, so I'm gathering customers were demanding heat. ...
It seems to me that fiery food is more and more the norm these days, and American tastebuds are getting used to it in a way they never have before.
Spicy cuisines -- Latino, Thai, Korean, Indian -- are more popular than they ever have been. It's not surprising that these flavors are making their way down to the lowest common denominator. (I don't mean that as a knock at Johnny Rockets in particular, but just saying that American fast food in general is heating up.)
Am I stating the obvious, or do you still ask for your lamb vindaloo mild and hold the whole hot peppers in the orange beef?
None of this is a huge surprise, except that this is also an era when heartburn is endemic, and every other ad on TV is for an over-the-counter remedy.
Cause and effect, or just coincidence?
My fellow reporter Chris Kaltenbach has asked me to ask you to e-mail him if you're a Ravens fan who has changed your restaurant plans for this Saturday night because of the game.
I don't want to tell him about the post I wrote during Sunday's game and the response I got. ("Game? There's a game today?") ...
Anyway, if you've told your honey you have to change your reservations (or go to a bar when you were taking her to Charleston) because of the Ravens, or some such thing, please e-mail Chris at Chris.Kaltenbach@baltsun.com. He'd like to interview you. (A phone number would be helpful.)
And go Ravens.
(Karl Merton Ferron/Sun photographer)
I just got an announcement From Miss Shirley's Cafe about its Valentine's Day dinner and was surprised to see that you have to guarantee your reservation with a credit card.
Are a lot of restaurants doing that this year?
Miss Shirley's is a nice place, but somehow it doesn't seem fancy enough to be asking for a credit card. However, the announcement did say call right away for reservations; the two locations were booked solid last year. ...
In other Valentine's Day restaurant news, the Charleston Group is treating Feb. 13 and 14 as Valentine's Weekend, with special menus being offered both Saturday and Sunday nights at the various restaurants (Petit Louis, Cinghiale, Pazo and Charleston).
I wonder if other restaurants are doing that, too. I would think more people would go out on Valentine's Eve (which is Saturday) this year than on the day itself, but maybe not.
In any case, this is serendipitous for both customers and the restaurants, spreading out the crowds over two nights.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
Owl Meat has a good Tipsy Tuesday over at Midnight Sun today. It reminds me of a Top 10 list a commenter once suggested: restaurants you shouldn't break up in (like steak houses because of the big knives). I loved that idea but never could come up with 10. Anyone want to try?
Anyway, it reminded me that Valentine's Day is looming, although it doesn't seem as if we'll ever get through January. ...
I should do a Where to Eat Out on Valentine's Day Top 10 Tuesday in time for people to get reservations, I suppose. I wisely asked for mini-reviews last year immediately after the day, so I have a good start to the list. If any of you has something to add to it, please post below.
Or I could do a Top 10 of new places for Valentine's Day. Or some other topic that you suggest, such as best chocolate desserts or best Valentine's Day prix fixe menu this year.
Or a Top 10 of reasons not to eat out on Valentine's Day.
(Karl Merton Ferron/Sun photographer)
I don't do Restaurant Week(s), but I still get lots of requests from readers asking where they should go.
I can't answer them from personal experience, so I decided to make up a list of commenter recommendations from the last year. (If I knew there had been been a major change at a restaurant, such as a chef leaving, I didn't include it.)
Most of them are pretty obvious -- a good restaurant is a good restaurant -- but a couple you may not have thought of.
Obviously there are no guarantees. The mini-reviews by commenters are all six months or a year old. Use them as guidelines, and let us know if your experience differs.
These are the places Dining@Large commenters think you'll get the most bang for your buck during Restaurant Week(s). They are also all places where I've had a good meal.
If you want to read full mini-reviews, just type "restaurant week" into the search function (use the quotation marks or you'll get too many choices).
Also, please take a minute to vote in the Restaurant Week poll. ...
* Alizee near the Homewood Campus. "Overall we had a great time, the food was good to very good, the atmosphere was very nice and comfortable."
* Blue Hill Tavern in Brewers Hill. "It was one of the best meals we have had in a long time."
* Brewer's Art in Mount Vernon. "It was a good excuse to eat in the dining room for once!"
* Capital Grille in the Inner Harbor. "Our dinners were outstanding, service was impeccable."
* Helmand in Mount Vernon. "We weren't rushed at all, and we went right to our table, even though it was full."
* Meli in Fells Point. "They let you choose any appetizer, entree and dessert off of their menu."
* Oceanaire Seafood Room in Harbor East. "Enjoyed it quite a bit, and compared to the regular menu, it was very much a bargain."
* Pazza Luna in Locust Point. "Everyone praised the quality of the food....The one weakness was a martini not cold enough."
* Prime Rib downtown. "The service was smoothly professional, the signature prime rib succulent." [But there was a $4 surcharge for it. EL]
* Salt Tavern in East Baltimore. "Overall a great dinner, one which succeeds from a restaurant week standpoint, as before this was a place i wasn't sure about going to during a non-restaurant week."
Bonus tip: No one reviewed Fogo de Chao last time, but a couple of people said they were trying it this time because it seemed to be the same menu for $35 instead of $49.
For more info on these and other restaurants participating in Restaurant Week, check out Editor Amanda's photo gallery.
(Photo of Blue Hill Tavern food by Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I've gone against the natural order of things here. I was too tired to write a review preview last night. (Sunday night is its regular slot.) Then there was no Monday Morning Quarterbacking this morning because I was on vacation yesterday, or rather my column was. So the review preview will have to stand in its place.
I'll be writing about Ullswater in Riverside next Sunday. This is the new place opened by the former Bicycle owners, Nicholas and Saundra Batey. I tried to review it on its own terms, and not get into the whole complications and mess that the sudden closing of Bicycle created.
To see what I thought, please check out my review in the A & E section next Sunday. ...
The photo caption, by the way, provided me with some information I hadn't known when I visited the restaurant. I totally missed the nautical theme, which is very subtle (actually pretty much nonexistent in our dining room):
"This is Ullswater Restaurant and Wine Bar at 554 E. Fort Ave, new Italian restaurant in Riverside (near Locust Point). ...Chef/owner Nick Batey and his wife bought a variety of landscape pictures and added matching stones for each to highlight the nautical theme of the restaurant, and in the process, created another piece of art."
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
Midnight Sun Sam has heard that Peter Livolsi, the chef who was at Petit Louis, opened Pazo and then moved on to Three... (which seems to be closed), will be running the kitchen of Porter's when it reopens next month in Federal Hill.
Anyone know anything more?
It looks like the Dining@Large Sunday supper is on, brought to you (but not paid for) by Dahlink and Robert of Cross Keys.
The date is Jan. 31, the time is 6 p.m. The place is Cinghiale in Harbor East, and the Sunday supper menu is three courses for $25: antipasti, main course and dessert.
Because I have to stay anonymous, I won't be there, but I'm hoping to hear about it afterward. ...
If you're interested, either post below and include your e-mail (which won't be published). I'll forward it to Dahlink or RoCK. Or you can send me an e-mail at elizabeth.large@baltsun.com and I'll forward it.
RoCK tells me they need a commitment by the 20th so they can make reservations.
(Sun archives)
Zagat makes it well worth your while to participate in the voting for the local restaurants to be included in the 2011 guide. The survey is going on at Zagat.com from now until Feb. 21.
If you register and complete the survey, you get one of the following:
* The Washington DC/Baltimore Restaurants 2011 guide
* A 90-day subscription to Zagat.com
* An entry into the $500 Night On The Town Sweepstakes ...
By participating in the nightlife survey, you're entitled to a 90-day subscription to Zagat.com.
"I was able to include more places on the list this time," Editor Marty Katz wrote me, "and tried to be very up to date with openings, previously overlooked spots and stay current with new, hot openings and discoveries. Plus people can write in places I didn't list."
As an aside, Marty's been following our discussion of Restaurant Week, and he passed along this tidbit, which was on the Zagat Web site. It may explain the origins of the promotion nationally:
Back in 1992, Tim Zagat and renowned restaurateur Joe Baum conceived of enlisting top Manhattan restaurants to offer $19.92 lunches as a promotion while the Democratic National Convention was in town. NYC's popular Restaurant Week was born. Given the success, cities around the nation gradually started their own versions of the promotion.
My question is still: Has Restaurant Week outlived its usefulness to both restaurants and customers? Or not?
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
Thanks for dragging yourself away from the game a moment to check out the blog.
I know a lot of people miss the Cafe at bluehouse. If you're one of them, I have good news for you.
Eight of the original staff have stayed together, bought the cafe equipment and found a location near Remington. The result is Charmington's. (nearby Charles Village + Remington, get it?) ...
They've leased space in Miller's Court, a renovated building at 2601 Howard St.
The new cafe (specializing in organic coffees and locally produced foods) should draw Hopkins students and Charles Villagers as well as old customers from bluehouse.
(Photo courtesy of Charmington's Web site)
Baltimore isn't the only place having Winter Restaurant Weeks, as I've decided to call it since it's now two weeks.
Howard County is having its own from Jan. 18 to Jan. 31. More than 25 restaurants are participating.
Pretty much all the ones I expected to see are on the list except for the new Venegas Prime Filet in Maple Lawn. Maybe it's just too hard to offer prime meat at Restaurant Weeks prices. ...
Those prices aren't so cut and dried in Howard County. The menus range from $10.10 to $40.10. Some are for lunch, some for dinner.
There are probably good bargains there, but it's impossible to tell where you can find them just from the Howard County Restaurant Weeks Web site. You're going to have to call the restaurant or got to its site to get more information. And I hope you'll let us know what you thought if you went last year, or report back if you participate this year.
I should do a poll on whether Restaurant Weeks have run their course. I feel like I'm hearing more and more grumbling and less and less about what a great promotion it is.
But those Aida Bistro ravioli pictured look good.
(Andre F. Chung/Sun photographer)
There were a lot of intelligent and/or funny discussions this week, but although I just went through the whole week, no one comment stood out for me above all others. So no Comment of the Week this week unless you want to nominate one I missed.
However, in scanning back over them, I did come upon this question by Kim, which I didn't answer when it was first posted: ...
Does anyone know why several standards for RW are not participating this year? Corks, Salt, Abacrombie etc...
Posted by: Kim
I don't know the answer for the specific restaurants, and the reason may not be the same for each. They may even have decided to take part after the list was made up. But I do know from Downtown Partnership that for the first time participating restaurants were asked to contribute $150 to help pay for the marketing of Restaurant Week.
It doesn't seem like a lot of money; but if you were on the fence about taking part, it might influence you.
And it may be one reason the dinner prix fixe price was raised to $35.10.
The second in a recurring series of reviews of restaurants the Sun has neglected. In an earlier post, I asked for mini-reviews of places we may have missed. A few days ago S. did Papa Leone's; now LEC takes on Josef's in Fallston. Actually I have reviewed it in the past, but not since 1996. I'm glad for the update. EL
[Recently] my wife and I went to Josef's in Fallston. It seems to me this was pretty popular when it opened in the 80's but I haven't heard much of it recently.
The place was nearly full with regulars on an icy Tuesday night. Good food, extremely competent staff, most entrees in the 15 to 20 dollar range and wine list ranging from 19-220, many in the under 35 range.
When the owner, Josef, came to our table to check that everything was well, I mentioned to him that the food, furnishings and the competent staff reminded me of Rudys' that used to be in Finksburg. He said has known Rudy Paul, who handled the front of the house of Rudys' since 1964 in Germany. ...
When we were leaving after a pleasant, well-paced 2 hour dinner, Josef stopped us and we had a nice 15-20 minute chat about the Rudys, how their paths had intersected over the years, where they are now, the restaurant business, being frugal, taxes and kids. His kids are not interested in the business so he will probably sell it in the next couple of years, he's 63.
A nice interesting evening.
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
Somehow vitamin D has become the hottest, trendiest, newest magic bullet without the media taking much notice of it. It's tricky because it's one of the few vitamins you can't get enough of by just eating the right foods. It's in certain fish, and in fortified dairy products and cereals, which if you feel you should get your vitamins naturally, like I do, doesn't count.
Scientists have long known that we need vitamin D to maintain bone health and metabolize calcium; but recent research suggests it may also help both men and women in reducing the risk of certain kinds of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other medical conditions.
That's what I mean by a magic bullet.
The first dilemma is that most people get vitamin D through exposure to sunlight, and we're all supposed to be wearing sunscreen these days.
The second dilemma, a personal one, is that I don't like taking supplements, especially mega-doses of vitamins. Who's funding that research anyway? ...
I remember when Linus Pauling announced that large amounts of vitamin C would cure the common cold and just about everything else. People no longer relied on their daily glass of orange juice to get enough. I remember the backlash as nothing was ever proven; and someone saying, "Americans have the most expensive urine in the world."
Then it was the fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin E, which turned out to have toxic effects in large doses.
And every woman's gynecologist telling her that chewing Tums was the best way to get the calcium she needed -- until it turned out that the stomach acid the Tums controlled was actually needed to absorb the calcium.
So I wasn't happy when my doctor got the lab results back after a routine annual physical and told me my vitamin D levels were unacceptably low; and I would need to take 1000 IU twice a day for a month to catch up and then 1000 IU daily "forever."
The one difference I can see is that in those other examples, people just took the vitamins. They hadn't been tested and found to have low blood levels.
Talking to a few friends, I found out their vitamin D levels had also tested below acceptable. I checked out our health blog, Picture of Health, which reported that 7 in 10 children had unacceptably low levels of vitamin D.
I wonder how they decide what the parameters should be if so many people are deficient. I did a little internet research, but it didn't answer all my questions.
Anyway, I guess I'll be taking vitamin D until the next round of research. I don't see myself eating sockeye salmon every night, which is what it would take to get close to my doctor's recommendation.
(Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)
This is one of Robert of Cross Key's best Free Market Friday guest posts yet, and it continues today's piggy theme. He calls himself a poor carver, but those ham slices look pretty good to me. EL
Right before the holidays, I went in search of ham. Not that tasteless flesh sold by Hillshire Farms and Hormel -- I’m talking about real ham, America’s prosciutto, country ham.
I’m a recent convert to country ham. I didn’t grow up with it, and like many who didn’t, I found it to be too salty. Over time, however, I developed a taste for it. There are few things that have as much flavor as country ham. A paper-thin slice of country ham fills the mouth more than a pound of city ham. It is intense, but it is also incredibly satisfying.
My desire for country ham took me to the place that is synonymous with the product: Smithfield, Va. Smithfield is to country ham what champagne is to sparkling wines. Lots of places make country ham, but only those hams that are made in Smithfield are Smithfield hams. Put another way, and I’m paraphrasing from something I read in a Junior League cookbook, all Smithfield hams are country hams but not all country hams are Smithfield hams. ...
While in Smithfield I sampled the Smithfield ham in all kinds of ways. At the Smithfield Inn, I went traditional with ham slices on sweet potato rolls. At the Smithfield Station, I went retro with ham croquettes, which were fried ham balls accompanied by an apple and raisin sauce. At the Smithfield Bakery, I went fusion with a Smithfield dim sum platter that featured ham dumplings and spring rolls.
All of those places were good, but perfection was found at a place called Darden’s Country Store located a few miles outside of town.
The Darden family has been curing and smoking hams for almost 60 years in a smokehouse that sits across the road from their general store. Since these hams are made outside the city limits, they are not Smithfield hams. Don’t let this technicality stand in your way. Their ham is phenomenal, an opinion shared by the late Johnny Apple of the New York Times who described it as “the subtlest flavor of any I've tasted.”
I knew as soon as I tasted the Darden’s ham that I wanted to buy one to take home. Unfortunately, a whole ham ran around $100. Now, it was not that the ham was not worth it; rather it was that Darden’s did not take credit cards. I am lucky if I have enough cash on me to cover tolls and parking meters on most days, so there was no way I would have enough clams to buy a whole ham.
I pulled together all the cash I had, which was a handful of singles that totaled about $20. I was able to buy a pound of sliced ham, a few strips of side meat and a bag of hickory nuts. If I had a few more dollars, I would have bought a ham hock and a package of their fresh country sausage.
I still wanted to buy a whole ham, and on the drive back into town I saw a sign from above…in front of the True Value Hardware Store. It proclaimed “country hams, $1.89 per pound.” Now, living in a condo, I don’t visit a lot of hardware stores. Of course, if the hardware stores around here carried salted and cured meats, I would probably be a more frequent customer.
I went inside and picked up a ham. It wasn’t a genuine Smithfield. It was from Ivor, which is in the next county over. It was, however, purchased with plastic and at $1.99 a pound the whole ham was had for under $30. I also picked up a bag of redskin peanuts. You have to love a hardware store that carries everything from ham to nuts.
I made that ham on New Year’s Day. It was a little bit of a challenge, as the preferred method for making a country ham is to boil it. The largest stock pot I had was more chicken-sized than ham-sized, which meant that I had to bake the ham in an unconventional way. The ham was placed in an oven for a few minutes of 500 degree heat followed by hours of cooling down.
The ham turned out great this way. One of the great benefits of baking as opposed to boiling a ham was the wonderful smell in my kitchen. It reminded me of a great line the curator at the Isle of Wight Museum in Smithfield said to me. I asked her if there were any complaints about the smell of producing hams. She said some people grumble about it, but other people say, “Mmmmm…smells like money.”
Indeed.
Editor Amanda is in the process of making up a photo gallery of the restaurants participating in the latest Restaurant Week, with links to the establishments' information, sample menu items and related street address maps.
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
I just got off the phone with George Dailey, who owns On the Hill in Bolton Hill. (I had noticed yesterday on the liquor board docket that the Bicycle license was being transferred, so I wanted to follow up.)
Dailey told me he's taken over the Bicycle space at 1444 Light St. in south Baltimore. His new restaurant, to be named Centro, will offer "a modern take on Spanish and Latin American tapas."
The menu will have small plates "with ingredients not usually used here." ...
After renovations, he said, he hopes to open sometime this spring, perhaps as early as March.
"It will be a casual upscale place, if there is such a thing," he said, "not stuffy, and as affordable as we can make it."
The food will be farm-to-table as much as possible, but because he wants the tapas to be authentic, a lot of ingredients will be imported.
Dailey was born in England but raised in Venezuela. "My background in cooking is Spanish and Latin American."
I asked about parking around the Bicycle space, which is difficult. Dailey said the restaurant will have some valet parking, probably on the weekends.
Centro will be open for dinner only, at least at first.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
Midnight Sun Sam just e-mailed me this story from a liquor board hearing yesterday.
Morris Martick, the one-of-a-kind owner of the now-closed Martick's Restaurant Francais, was applying for a hardship extension so he would have more time to sell his liquor license.
Here's how the hearing went, according to Sam: ...
His brother, [also his] lawyer (don't know his name), said he thought Morris should use his name recognition to start catering private parties. Morris didn't like that idea, according to liquor board chairman Stephan Fogleman.
"Morris said, 'My brother can go to hell. I'm not doing any of that. I don't want to work,'" Fogleman recalled.
The liquor board granted Martick his extension.
(David Hobby/Sun photographer)
In next week's Table Talk I give you the details of the newest Jasmine Asian Bistro, which opened last month in Timonium.
It's a restaurant with a pan-Asian menu, a concept that's been taking hold while Asian fusion and one-Asian-cuisine restaurants have been fading.
The other pan-Asian restaurant you've heard me talk about recently is Sam's Kid, the new tapas place in Fells Point. ...
I know some people don't think pan-Asian restaurants are a good idea. Why not concentrate on the one cuisine your chef knows and can do best?
But so often the owners or chefs of these restaurants are from Malaysia or Hong Kong, or in the case of Sam's Kid, Indonesia. Their native cuisine is pan-Asian. It's an eclectic mix because of the diversity of their countries' populations.
What's too bad is when a nice one-cuisine Asian restaurant believes it has to offer sushi or pad thai just because that's what customers want. In that case it feels like a compromise.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Other Reviewer Richard got to Punk's Backyard Grill in the Annapolis Mall and reviewed it for today's paper.
Until recently I thought it was a chain (that's the problem with the name), and someday it may be franchised. But right now it's the one and only, and the owners are local.
Oddly, although people don't mention Annapolis restaurants all that much to me, this is one people periodically told me the Sun had to review.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
At the beginning of the week I asked for mini-reviews of restaurants that you think we've missed. I've gotten four or five already. Here's the first of them by S, who says not to mention his name because he wants to keep going there incognito. EL
Papa Leone's Spaghetti House might be a place you'd want to review.
They're in Dundalk, we went there after we saw an article in the local
paper in Essex (East County Times).
Food is great, soups are great, portions are large and they had really good chocolate raspberry cake. The place is decorated w/ liquor 'miniatures' which is kinda cool. The marinara is on the sweet side but really good. The fresh mushrooms were amazing. And the place has a really cool/weird ambience. ...
It's one of the best new finds my wife and I have come across in a while. I normally wouldn't pimp a place out, but we like your blog and this place seems like some sort of hidden secret. Even the Chowhound people don't know about it.
Portions are large. I had the biggest bowl of chili I've ever had in a restaurant and took half home. Their bean soup was also great. Meal in themselves.
Homemade meatballs. Don't know where the sausage came from but spicy. Hope they used a local brand. The mushrooms were buttons cut in half, so big, not thin, and sauteed by themselves before dumped on top of the sauce. The marinara was good, just sweet, and that may because they use an old family recipe. Evidently the place has been open for 56 years. It was kind of like eating at someone's home, the waitress who has been there 30 years calls you "babe" and they go out of their way to be friendly and make you feel comfortable.
My wife had chicken alfredo and that was also delicious.
They also have a catering hall.
And the collection of liquor miniatures in wooden cases on the walls is amazing, there are a lot of old Baltimore brands that folks probably haven't heard of since the 50's.
Mr. HowChow, always an excellent source of restaurant news, reports that Honey Pig Gooldaegee Korean BBQ is coming to Ellicott City.
"This place was really hot when they opened in Annandale," he told me, "and it apparently has a very cool, very authentic Korean vibe. Aimed at a younger crowd maybe than Shin Chon Garden."
Then Jeff Quinton at Inside Charm City was the first to alert me that Morton's the Steakhouse in Annapolis had closed after only a couple of years in that location. ...
I e-mailed the corporate offices and found out that it was, indeed, slow business that did this branch of the upscale steak house chain in. Gift cards will be honored at Baltimore and DC locations.
Annapolis is losing some other restaurants, but not all because of a weak economy. Jerry's Seafood is looking for another location in Annapolis after closing because of a dispute with the landlord.
The Mexican Cafe is being forced to move; where isn't clear yet.
I had heard that Hell Point Seafood might be in trouble, but when I called the manager told me they are dealing with the lack of customers in the winter (she didn't put it that way) by closing Monday through Wednesday until spring.
I just got this e-mail from Len, and nothing is coming to me except Pierpoint, and the description doesn't work. Any ideas?
Hello Elizabeth, Maybe you can help us. My wife and I ate at a small restaurant several years ago. I believe it was near Paterson Park/Canton, female chef, dark wood panel, bar on right-restaurant tables on left and in the rear, middle of the block and possibly hunting (?) pictures. A real nice neighborhood restaurant that was reviewed by the sun or Baltimore Mag several years ago. The entrees were great.
Any ideas? I cant find it so it probably went out of business. Thanks...
(Photo of Pierpoint by Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
I finally made my way through all my backed-up e-mail. You get a good overview doing it this way (sifting through a million in a week), but I don't recommend it. Too stressful. You find there are e-mails you should have answered whose writers are probably dead by now.
But back to the overview. I've gotten a surprising number of e-mails (OK, four) about new kebab houses.
We had an earlier conversation about all the Latin American places that opened in the last decade in the Upper Fells/Highlandtown area, and the Little Asia that's developing around Catonsville and Ellicott City.
Just as striking, it seems to me, is the number of kebab places that opened in the aughts. What makes it particularly interesting is what I wrote about immediately after 9/11 at the beginning of the decade: ...
I stopped by the Kabob Hut at 13 Allegheny Ave. in Towson recently and felt sad because the normally bustling spot was empty, in spite of the little American flags stuck everywhere. (The super-nice owners are natives of Iran.) A few days later, a friend of mine was told the Egyptian owner of Al Pacino Pizza at 6080 Falls Road had gone home depressed because business was so bad.
I can understand customers having vague feelings of unease about eating Middle Eastern food these days, but it would be too bad to see any of our nice neighborhood eateries go under as a byproduct of the terrorist attacks.
Luckily that unease didn't last too long, and now kebab places are opening everywhere. To mention just two that I got raves about:
Ayubi's Chicken & Kabob
6604 Ritchie Highway
410-766-9585
Susan wrote this about it:
I took a chance this weekend and stopped at a little place in Glen Burnie Called Ayubi's. It looks like a drive through and the posted exterior meno was for generic fried food but a quick roll up to the window gave me access to a Afghani menu. I bought an entree and it was superb! I plan on stopping there every time I drive that way. The food was cooked to perfection; the food was fresh, beautifully presented and delicious. I came home and sent a group-wise email to friends in Canton, Federal Hill and UMMS.
Then I heard about this one from Danielle, who seems to be involved with it in some way:
10902 Boulevard Circle
Owings Mills
410-998-9004
I've been following your blog and thought you may be interested in learning about a new small restaurant in Owings Mills, MD, KavKaz Kebab. This six month old Kebab cafe has already made a huge impact in the Owings Mills, Reisterstown and Pikesville communities.
What's particularly interesting is that this is an Azerbaijan restaurant.
From a purely personal standpoint, kebab restaurants represent something of a dilemma for Sun food writers. Our style is to spell it "kebab," but most of these restaurants have "kebob" in their names. It's like writing about the Szechuan House and having to say it specializes in Sichuan cuisine.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
...but unconfirmed reports have new Redskins coach Mike Shanahan celebrating his $35 million contract at Shanahan's, his recently opened, swanky steakhouse in Denver’s Tech Center neighborhood tomorrow night.
If you aren't convinced, check out the Web site and the statement at the bottom: "will be closed for a private party January 7."
Early word is that this is the best steakhouse in Denver, even better than Elway’s in the Ritz Carlton.
This is a big day for Midnight Sun Sam. First, he had the cover story in Taste on Winter Warmers. (It's become a photo gallery on the site.)
Now the Sun's home page is highlighting one of his posts yesterday, where he's bragging that he has a MIDNIGHT SUN EXCLUSIVE on his blog.
This is only because Milan's PR person sent him the press release yesterday and not me.
Way to endear yourself to the restaurant critic. ...
Today's Table Talk column, by the way, features news about Langermann's, the new restaurant in Canton's Can Company.
The print Top 10 Wednesday is the one on the top food news stories of the decade. Comments by Robert of Cross Keys, baltoellen and hmpstd made it in.
(Gene Sweeney Jr./Sun photographer)
See, you're not the only with New Year's resolutions you haven't kept. Here's guest poster John Lindner with today's Shallow Thought Wednesday. EL:
We ducked into a joint last night.
Had to. Had one of those emergency situations that call for crisis-amelioration of a type only joints can deliver: comfort food of a certain quality, a wide selection of popular ales, hassle-free parking, and passable service.
We settled on the Full Moon Pub & Grill, 100 Westminister Road. That spelling’s verbatim from the customer copy of our bill -- other sources drop the second “i” and add a number to come up with 1100 Westminster Road, and the FMP&G Web site simplifies matters by averring they’re “conveniently located on Route 140 in historic Reisterstown.” (Our experience suggests it’s in the least historic part, abutting what some of my more citified friends call “prehistoric Carroll County.”).
The experience was, in a word, perfect. (Note to doubters: FMP&G currently has a brand new Harley-Davidson Fat Boy in its bar window. This we took as a good sign. Most joints settle for a neon Corona palm.) ...
Saving the best for first, we imbibed Makers, Blue Moon, and Oliver Red. Thus stoked and ameliorated, we had some nice clams (passo lippo) that I heartily recommend (I'm not kidding).
And then we ate some meat and fish. I’ll spare you the details because they are superfluous to the point -- which was to drown sorrows, talk treason, and slouch at table without incurring “looks” from fellow diners.
Tangentially, the meal pulled a gun and shot in the heart my New Year’s resolution to eat nothing but steam and reduced-cal celery till May. It was worth it. I’d do it again for a good cause. Maybe tomorrow. (May is a long way off.)
Finally, it occurred to me as we left the ample parking lot, that there’s a Top 10 in this somewhere: The top ten places to de-celebrate, to retreat, regroup, or cower.
Or if you don’t want to give away your secret joints, what are the top 10 reasons to visit them: recalcitrant co-worker; coldest day of the year and my heater keeled over ($5,100); my baby lef’ me; the Nissan’s water pump broke ($700); my baby didn’t leave me; I broke my resolution just five days into the new year. ...
(Photo by Ophelia Cherry courtesy Stock Xchng)
What? You aren't trended out yet, are you? We've barely gotten started.
Faithful readers know I never met a trend list I didn't like, and when it's the Top Food Trends Overall for the Decade -- well, you know I have to share it.
Here we go: The Food Channel's Top 10. ...
* Sushi
* Bacon
* Cupcakes
* Sliders
* Gourmet burgers made with Kobe or Angus beef
* Superfruits such as acai, pomegranate and blueberry
* Oils, such as olive oils and truffle oils
* Whole grains, such as Kashi, polenta, risotto
* Artisan foods, particularly in breads, cheeses and dark chocolates
* Coffees, teasSo what do you think? (Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Kashi, polenta and risotto aren't whole grains.)
You might say, Huh? Coffee and tea are a major trend? But I get what whoever made up this list means: All I have to do is consider my shelf filled with cans of gourmet loose teas, which looks like an ad for Murchie's. And from this blog, I know many of you got into coffee in a serious way last decade.
As much as I like to make fun, I actually think this is a pretty accurate list, even though when you read it as a whole you think, "Wow. Our civilization really is in decline. Cupcakes? Acai?"
I just hope we can do better in the next decade.
As a bonus I'm going to throw in the Food Channel's Top Restaurant Trends of the Decade, although I'm not sure I'd call taco trucks a restaurant trend:
* Fast casual concept
* Tapas and shareables
* Gastropubs
* Molecular gastronomy
* Taco trucks
* Underground dining
* Fusion
* DIY
* Catering
* Upscaling of bar food
I'm not sure what DIY means as a restaurant trend. Everyone opening his own restaurant? You have to fill your own water glass from the sideboard?
One good thing about lists like these: They'll provide us with lots to talk about in the next few weeks.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photogarpher)
I was thinking about the fact that at the last two restaurants where I had dinner (not necessarily reviews), both of them good restaurants with good service, I got lukewarm coffee. What are the odds of that?
Then I came up with this theory: It's not that the coffee is lukewarm, it's that with this weather the china cups are ice cold. ...
Is this happening to anyone else? Asking the server to heat the cup first seems above and beyond, but I don't like lukewarm coffee. Maybe I'll just wait till spring before I order coffee after dinner again.Disclaimer: I don't know if the coffee cups pictured are cold or not, by the way.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
No, this isn't another list. Or rather it is, but it's not my list.
I got an e-mail from the folks at Steak & Main telling me it's featured on the Travel Channel's new show, 101 Tastiest Places to Chowdown.
The North East restaurant is going to be featured on the third episode, which by my calculation will air Sunday, Jan. 17 at 10 p.m. That means, the e-mail said, that Steak & Main will be ranked between 41st and 60th. ...
In honor of this momentous occasion, the restaurant is having a party starting at 9 p.m. that night. Customers can guess where Steak & Main is ranked; the correct guess wins a $50 gift card.
Guesses have to be in by 9:30 p.m., and the offer will only be valid if the Travel Channel and "the media" don't leak the results.
If you're wondering why this particular steak house has been chosen out of all the Maryland restaurants there are, my guess is because it appeared on another Travel Channel show, Man v. Food. I got in touch with the Travel Channel, and other local restaurants featured on the show are Obrycki's, Chick & Ruth's Delly in Annapolis, and Chaps Charcoal Restaurant.
(Photo courtesy of Steak & Main Web site)
Someone asked me, either by e-mail or here on the blog, for a list of restaurants worth going to during Restaurant Week.
Because I avoid Restaurant Week restaurants for reviewing purposes (the menus just aren't typical), I'm not the person to ask.
I did, however, do a story a couple of years ago that might be of some help. ...
I can tell you what restaurants I think will be a good value, and I did with my Top 10 list this morning; but I hear tales of upscale places with chintzy Restaurant Week menus and casual restaurants that offer a lot to lure new people in on a regular basis.
Your best bet is to check back here and hope that readers who participated last time will post advice below.
We'd also be interested in why participants this time have made reservations at certain restaurants and not others. (The restaurant's prix fixe menu doesn't include any seafood, for instance.)
I'll also create a post during Restaurant Week where you can post your thoughts about the restaurants you go to this time, or at least award them stars.
Actually, if I got enough votes for places to go, I could do a Top 10 Places to Go for Restaurant Week.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
This list was inspired by an e-mail from Lars Rusins of BaltoFoodies.com asking if there was any way of searching the Sun's restaurant review database by how many stars were awarded.
The answer is not yet, although that would be a good thing to add, as I found when I tried to make up this list.
I went back into the Sun archives to create it, and I put the stars awarded for food in parentheses.
But wonderful food isn't the only qualification for why I want to go to a restaurant, so I next decided to order them in terms of overall experience.
This is a totally personal ordering, and one I can't really defend except to say I'd go back to Restaurant A before I'd go back to Restaurant B.
Out of curiosity, I asked Other Reviewer Richard Gorelick what his standout restaurants for 2009 were. He e-mailed back: "Hi, Mekong Delta is the one place I was most happy to tell readers about."
Here's my list: ...
1) Prime Rib downtown (4 stars). A classic that just gets better with age.
2) Volt in Frederick (3 1/2 stars). Go for the total experience as much as the food.
3) Sam's Kid in Fells Point (3 1/2 stars). Inexpensive Pan-Asian tapas in a high-style atmosphere.
4) Tapas Adela (3 stars). Authentic Spanish small plates in a handsome dining room with good service.
5) Bistro Blanc in Glenelg (3 1/2 stars). A wine bar with elegant food.
6) Restaurant Sabor in Lutherville (3 1/2 stars). Good, eclectic menu ranging from French to Puerto Rican and BYOB.
7) Alizee near Johns Hopkins University (4 stars). The food was great; the service was inconsistent. But that was three months ago.
8) Talara in Harbor East (3 1/2 stars). The menu has changed since I ate there and now isn't just ceviche and tapas.
9) Peter's Inn (3 stars). Gourmet comfort food in a classic Baltimore bar.
10) Brasserie 10 South downtown (3 1/2 stars). French-inspired American food. Closed and then reopened with a different chef and menu. This is not the same restaurant I reviewed.
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
It's Restaurant Week time again. They seem to come at us pretty quickly these days, don't they?
That's not necessarily a bad thing. But now there's a Restaurant Week in the summer, and a Restaurant Week in the winter, and in the past they both have been extended.
Some restaurants even extend the fixed-price menu on their own for weeks. ...
This time Winter Restaurant Week is set at two weeks from the get-go, Jan. 22 through Feb. 7. That gives restaurants three weekends to offer their fixed-price menus.
The prix-fixe will be $35.10, an increase of $5 from last time. If the restaurant isn't cutting corners, it will be worth it; but it seems like sort of an odd time to be raising the price by almost 20 percent. Lunch will stay the same at $20.10 for three courses.
More than 90 area restaurants are participating; you'll find them listed on the Web site.
Tomorrow my Top 10 will be on the best restaurants I reviewed in 2009, so that might give you some guidance if you aren't sure where you want to go. Wherever you choose, make your reservations early.
Meanwhile I've got to find a couple of worthy restaurants outside the city limits to review those two weeks.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Yesterday I reviewed the new Tapas Adela in Fells Point. This is the fourth in the Kali's Restaurant Group.
Is it my imagination, or is there a new philosophy on how local places should expand? ...
When the Gjerde brothers, the Country Fair Group and Donna's expanded, they opened in various parts of the city and suburbs.
But Kali's and the Charleston Group seem to feel that it's more efficient to group their restaurants in one place. (I know Petit Louis is the exception.)
Just a thought.
At least one person posted here she hadn't been able to get into Sam's Kid after my very positive review, and so she went across Broadway to Adela and had a good meal there. If anyone else has anything to say about eating at the new tapas restaurant, my review or how the new year is so far, please post below.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Under an earlier post there was a lively discussion of whether the Sun neglects small, ethnic restaurants producing the authentic cuisines of their countries because...I'm not sure what the because was.
Anyway, this is your opportunity to do something about any places you feel Other Review Richard or I have missed. Or if not missed, at least not given them the credit they deserve.
You could just post below, but I have a better idea. ...
If you're up for it, please e-mail me a mini-review, preferably with a photo. (A camera phone photo of the exterior will do if you don't feel like taking something more elaborate.)
I'll post it as a separate entry so it won't be just a footnote under one of my posts.
It could be a semi-regular feature: "Restaurants the Sun Has Neglected." I bet my bosses will love that. This could also include places out in the burbs that Richard and I, who both live in the city, haven't heard about.
I leave it up to you how long they should be, but when I used to coordinate the dining guides, I limited reviewers to 175 words. That to me is the ideal length for a mini-review. It could also be two sentences. But if you prefer to send me a full review, that's fine too.
Just send it to elizabeth.large@baltsun.com (not baltimoresun.com).
(David Hobby/Sun photographer)
Every once in awhile readers send me tidbits of information on food they've sampled or created. I love that. Here are a couple of examples:
The first is from Stephen and Jacob of the 21201 blog:
Happy New Year, EL. I’m sending you this link because something wonderful happened in our kitchen today. Super-chocolate bread pudding from left-over, dried out brownies. ...
I have a trip coming up to St. Pete Beach soon, and while I'll have my trusty laptop there and will be posting, it would be nice to have an easy week. That's why I'm going to solicit a guest Top 10.
In the past I've gotten some good ones. For instance, a local bartender sent me an excellent list of food and drink pairings. Barry Glassman provided us with the Top 10 Places to Hear Live Jazz. And our Shallow Thought guru John Lindner has come up with several very funny ones. ...
Isn't there a Top 10 list you've been dying to do?
For instance, where to get the best bagels. What restaurants have the best service or bolognese sauce. Whatever. I'll try to come up with art for it.
Send it to me at elizabeth.large@baltsun.com. In return you'll get -- well, John, tell them all the fabulous prizes you got.
The picture is totally unrelated. I just liked it.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
When we ate at the new Tapas Adela in Fells Point last week, my daughter had one of those brilliant ideas that could make us millionaires. Or not.
She pointed out how awkward American tapas menus are. Even at this restaurant, where the menu is (probably deliberately) quite small. You want to keep it around because you aren't ordering everything at once. You have a few dishes, see how you feel, and then look at the menu to pick the next round. ...
By this point, however, your table is filled with little dishes so you haven't wanted to keep the menu on the table. (I wouldn't want to anyway. Anything besides the food, drinks and maybe flowers or a candle shouldn't be on the table.)
So you prop the menu up against the leg of your chair while you eat, and then it slips down and next thing you know you have to crawl under the table to retrieve it.
OK, worst case scenario. But you get what I mean.
If you let the waiter take the menus away, then when you want something more you have to flag him down and get a menu again. And you can't expect him to wait while you peruse it. No, you need the menu at the table.
Gailor suggested a little stand to hold the menu in the middle of the table. I don't think that would work well because it might block your view of the people across from you. But you have to give her credit for recognizing the problem in the first place.
I want to open a tapas restaurant where the server comes up to the table and says, "The chef is making shrimp, lamb and eggplant for the first round. Do you want some or all of those?" And then he keeps coming back and announcing stuff throughout the meal and you can decide whether you want them.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Bourbon Girl (welcome back) posted this comment just now under an old entry, and it might be a good time to explain what's going on with the captchas. I'm sure others are wondering.
Catching up after long absence, the comments to this post made me realize how much I miss this blog. JMc you really got me this time when I wasn't expecting it...
Happy New Year everyone. Can someone explain the captcha references? Or at least point me to where it began? ...
Sometime back, I'm not sure when, the Web editors added captcha (the official name is Recaptcha) as a way of foiling automatically generated spam. It's those two words or parts of words or numbers that you have to type in before your post will go through.
You don't have to be too precise when you fill them in -- anything fairly close seems to work -- but if you can't make the words out, you can get two new ones by hitting the little refresh button to the right of the box. Or if you want more interesting ones. Or just don't have anything better to do.
Pretty soon people began listing their captcha words, particularly if they contained food references or seemed apropos in some way. Then somewhere along the way Cleatus started saying ... oh, somebody else explain.
The annoying thing is that the companies just hire folks in India to sit at a computer, fill in the captcha and post their ads and Web site addresses. So every morning I kill it out five or six spam comments anyway. But the Web editors say it would be many, many more without the captcha.
We had several contenders for Comment of the Week this week. The first was by baltoellen, who made a very persuasive argument for her case without being nasty about it. But the discussion that followed pretty much covered the subject.
Second was a comment by Chowsearch that I thought was a model of how to respond to an angry comment with reason and facts to back up his previous statement without being defensive.
In the end I decided to award the Comment of the Week to an insightful comment that didn't get any discussion, and I thought it deserved to be more than just an ignored footnote: ...
Funny, but not that long ago, everybody was touting the dominance of the Gjerde brothers (not Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman) on the Baltimore restaurant scene. If I recall, their empire included (at its peak) Spike & Charlie's, Atlantic, jr.'s, and Joy America, all since gone. Even the brothers have gone their separate ways -- Spike to Woodberry Kitchen, and Charlie to Alexander's Tavern. It might be interesting to consider why the Gjerde empire declined even as the Wolf-Foreman empire continued to prosper.
Posted by: hmpstd | December 30, 2009 7:17 AM
It's always good to be reminded how fragile empires are.
Chowsearch had interesting news for me. Gino's is coming back in 2010.
We're not talking Troia but football great Gino Marchetti and his fast food burgers.
I find that particularly interesting given what we were talking about earlier and the current fascination with burgers. I wonder if that's because they're becoming the forbidden food.
Here's what Chowsearch e-mailed me: ...
Gino Marchetti, Ordell Braase and Johnny Unitas started restaurants and the Gino chain succeeded in franchising, sold to Marriott, now coming back, crucial part is Gino is still around, sounds like all the important grayhairs as well. This will meet pent-up Colts nostalgia. It was better than all other fast burgers except In-N-Out.
Here's its Web site. It amuses me that it will now be called Gino's Burgers & Chicken, considering it's going for the nostalgia thing. One thing I'm sure of, even though I have absolutely no memory of it: The original Gino's, founded in 1957, was too manly to have "chicken" in its name, even if it sold fried chicken.(Never grilled chicken, of course.)
Of course, someone will actually remember and tell me I'm wrong.
I really don't remember Gino's except as a name, but I did review Johnny Unitas' Golden Arm. Mr. Unitas came and sat at our table and recommended the chicken gordon blue.
Reading the Gino's history on the Web site, I was struck by two of the chain's innovations: It sold the first fast food triple decker burger and, even better, introduced the first fast food indoor seating in 1969. (Can that possibly be true?)
(Sun archives photo)
As far as holiday eating traditions go, Robert of Cross Keys has us all beat. EL
Back in the 1970s, around the time I was born, my dad and uncles started going to Lexington Market just before Christmas. Originally, the intent was to buy fresh turkeys and Rheb’s candies for holiday parties, but it soon became an afternoon of feasting at the market. We haven’t purchased turkeys for years, and last year was the last for Rheb’s at Lexington Market, but the annual pilgrimage of gluttony continues. ...
I have been invited for the past few years. This year, snow prevented us from getting together before Christmas, but we were able to observe the feast according to its order, ordinances and customs this week.
The day always begins at Pollock Johnny’s at 1 p.m. Everyone gets a Polish sausage with The Works: a spicy red relish that you can only find at Pollock Johnny’s. I know The Works is really just doctored-up ketchup, but it is really good. Its sharp flavor is a great complement to the juicy grilled sausage.
The next stop is at Faidley’s for oysters, coddies and beers.
The oysters are huge, plump and very fresh. The cocktail sauce, dispensed from nasty-looking squeeze bottles, is not a worthy pairing -- it’s watered down and lacking in flavor. I should have forgone the sauce and just gone with a squeeze of lemon, but unfortunately I’m a creature of habit.
The coddies are probably my favorite food at Faidley’s, and that includes their upscale brother, the crab cake. Their coddies are flaky codfish mixed with mashed potatoes and onion, then deep fried and served on a saltine cracker with mustard. It is such a simple dish, but it has a lot of going on. Cod and potato bring a buttery flavor and a creamy texture, which is a great contrast to the bite of onion and mustard and the crunchiness of the deep-fried coating and the saltines.
As for the beer at Faidleys, it is nothing special, but it’s cold and it’s available to drink on premise. Years ago, the liquor laws at the market were much more lax. A brown paper bag or a plastic cup was all that was needed to get your drink on. Of course back then, the market smelled of urine, so the limited beer selection is a small price to pay for progress.
The action then shifts to Mary Mervis Deli. When I first joined the party a few years ago, everyone got seafood salad sandwiches there. Now, I am all in favor of tradition, but seafood salad? Seafood salad is something you eat at an office party, not something you go out of your way to order. I remember standing in line and when I heard what everyone was going to order I spoke up.
“This is Mary Mervis, get the shrimp salad. When it comes to Baltimore delis, everyone knows it is Mary Mervis for shrimp salad, just like it is Attman’s for corned beef.”
My suggestion at the time was not well received. My uncles taunted with me with the label of “rookie.” The owner of Mary Mervis asked me not to use profanity in his line. When I inquired what he was talking about, he told me to watch the language…the A word (referring to Attman’s).Well, this year everyone got a shrimp salad sandwich on rye, and I once again refrained from using certain verboten words while in line.
I’m by no means an expert on shrimp salad. I’ve never been to Kibby’s, and I’ve never had the shrimp salad at Bay Café, but from what I’ve tasted I can say that my favorite is from Mary Mervis. What I like about theirs is the shrimp are tender and the Old Bay is held in check. Too many shrimp salads are ruined in Baltimore by cooks who view excessive Old Bay as some kind of provincial badge of honor.
The feast then moves to Parks Fried Chicken for fried chicken livers. I’ve started adding fried chicken wings to the order.
I’ve tried to embrace fried chicken livers, but I can’t. I try them every year, and every year they taste like dirt. This is nothing against chicken livers, nor is it anything against Parks. I love chicken liver spread, and the fried chicken at Parks is great.
Everyone else enjoyed the fried chicken livers, while I was happy with the fried chicken wings. The wings at Parks are well seasoned, juicy and crispy. Plus they are mammoth, and you get a whole wing, not some half wing like you get when you order hot wings.
The last stop is for dessert at Berger’s. Everyone else goes with pound cake that they take home, but I opt for Berger Cookies that I eat on the way to the car. The fudge frosting is creamier than what you get when you buy the cookies in the grocery store, but the cookie itself is probably better when fresher the day before.
I understand that this sounds like a lot of food, and it is, but it used to be a lot more. In the past there were burritos and raw beef sandwiches involved. You can still get a burrito at the market, but raw beef sandwiches are nowhere to be found. I figure they stopped being available after one of the many food scares of mad cow or E. coli or insert intestinal illness here.
I decided around the same time I started going to the market with my dad and uncles to bring back the tradition of raw beef. Since we couldn’t have it at the market, I would make it my contribution to my parent’s holiday party.
This year I went with ground sirloin from the Fresh Market. I asked for it to be ground on the spot, but they couldn’t accommodate me. They assured me what I was buying was ground 20 minutes ago, so I decided to trust them. It ended up being fine, but I was a little concerned, especially considering that I witnessed the consequences of my wife's last year making the mistake of eating raw beef after the meat sat out on the kitchen table for a few hours.
The ground beef has a deep red color that is visually pleasing when placed on pumpernickel cocktail bread and topped with white onions. Seasoned with a healthy shake of salt and pepper, it is incredibly satisfying and pleasing to the mouth.
I won’t have raw ground beef again until next year, and while I’ll go back to Lexington Market before then, I won’t be doing it up on the same scale until December 2010. In fact, after the way I’ve been eating during this holiday season, I think my thoughts need to turn to a different kind of scale for the next 11 months.
(Glenn Fawcett/Sun photographer)
Happy new decade, everyone. Let's hope it's better than the aughts. It's hard to imagine that it was a decade ago that I wrote a story for the paper called Millennium Blues. How prescient. (Also hard to imagine I was worried about programming my VCR because of Y2K. What were those again?)
Also hard to imagine that I was in Argentina at this time last year.
On the past two New Year's Days I've published a Commenting, How to post; but this time I'll just link to it, in case anyone needs a refresher.
I don't make many resolutions anymore. I wasn't keeping most of them so it seemed pointless. (I've got to get the basement under control this millennium.) ...
However, I always resolve to do two things at the beginning of the new year:
1) Buy more fresh flowers.
2) Eat more sweet butter.
I find I can keep those.
I don't feel quite finished with the aughts yet. I wish I had done a post on food happenings of the decade. I'm thinking of small things, like wraps. Didn't they pretty much start and finish last decade? I'm sure there are other ones; if you think of them, please post below.
Anyway, I hope you had a great celebration last night and don't feel too rocky this morning. My husband and I walked to Donna's in Charles Village for an early dinner, and I drank a little too much prosecco, but no damage done. That's the nice thing about prosecco.
(Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)
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