Ivy Talks Maryland Fried Chicken: Crispy, Juicy, Legendary

Okay, listen up, chicken fans. Maryland fried chicken is not your average, slap-it-in-the-fryer bird. This is crispy, golden perfection with juicy meat that practically sings when you bite into it. And the gravy? Creamy, dreamy, soul-hugging goodness. Look, some cooks swear by shallow frying, others by frying-then-steaming, and honestly? I’m here for the science. Fry first for that crunch, then steam to get the meat cooked all the way through without drying it out. That’s the secret handshake of Maryland fried chicken.

Seasoning? Simple is best. Salt, pepper, maybe a sprinkle of Old Bay if you’re feeling fancy. That’s it. Don’t go adding a million herbs and calling it Maryland. It’s humble, it’s straightforward, and it’s perfect.

Now, history nerds, brace yourselves: this bird is famous. Like, world-famous. The French culinary legend Auguste Escoffier put it in his 1903 Le Guide Culinaire—breaded, pan-fried, served with bacon, corn cakes, and fried bananas. Yes, bananas. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. And get this: it even made it onto the Titanic’s first-class luncheon menu on April 14, 1912. Talk about dining in style…before the iceberg, anyway.

So here’s the Ivy seal of approval: shallow fry, steam a bit, serve with a cream gravy that coats your spoon like a hug, maybe toss some biscuits on the side, and you’re golden. Crispy, juicy, legendary—Maryland fried chicken is basically a cultural icon, and if you don’t believe me, your taste buds will set you straight.

Maryland Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Fat for frying (lard, vegetable oil, or both)

Unsalted butter

1 cup milk

Method (aka how to make magic happen):

Toss the chicken in seasoned flour in a zip-top bag. Shake it like you mean it. Save 2 tablespoons of flour for later.

Heat ¼ inch of fat in a heavy skillet (cast iron if you have it). Fry chicken skin-side down for 5 minutes, then turn and cook for 3 more. Cover and steam for 8–10 minutes. Internal temp should hit at least 165°F. Brown more if needed. Crispy skin is king.

Remove chicken, leaving 2 tablespoons of fat in the pan. Add butter if there doesn't seem to be enough fat. Whisk in reserved flour until smooth. Gradually add milk, whisking constantly, until thick enough to coat a spoon. Salt and pepper to taste.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Marta

I really hate being disappointed. By anything, really, but especially restaurants that have been talked up by other food-loving folks. It's no wonder that Mr Minx and I stick to the same handful of places that we know will be consistently delicious on every visit. Marta is one such disappointing restaurant. That's not to say it's bad--not at all. It's just not as fabulous as we wanted it to be.

There are things about Marta that are actually quite nice. The restaurant is attractive and the service is attentive. When making our reservation, I mentioned that we were celebrating Mr Minx's 60th birthday. Once there, we found a card on our table thanking us for choosing Marta for our special occasion. However, they put us at a corner banquette with little legroom at an awkward bistro table supported by a center column with rather large feet. I suppose I should have asked to be moved--and I am sure they would have accommodated us--though I did like the idea of sitting next to my husband rather than across from him. After we rearranged our knees so we were both almost comfortable, we began the serious work of perusing the menu.

violetta and caprese martini

First beverages needed consideration. Mr Minx tried the Violetta cocktail, made with Bar Hill gin, Finocchietto fennel liqueur, lavender honey, and lemon juice. It was lemony and sweet, and rather good. I had an amazing Caprese martini, comprising Square One basil vodka, white balsamic condimento, honey syrup, muddled tomato, and basil oil. All it needed was a ball of mozzarella (which I don't think would have been at all weird or out of place). I loved the savory basil flavor balanced with a touch of sweetness--and I now need to obtain a bottle of that vodka. I was disappointed by the insipid chunk of pale and rather sour tomato used as a garnish, this being tomato season and all. I understand that a better tomato would be too juicy/messy for the skewer treatment, but cherry and grape tomatoes are usually uniformly good and would skewer neatly. A minor quibble, to be sure, and I would order this cocktail again.

yellowtail crudo

For food, we chose one crudo and two antipasti. The yellowtail crudo involved thin pieces of fish arranged on thinly sliced radish (though the menu says jicama) with bits and bobs of picked ginger on top. Five of these tasty treats were arranged on a plate drizzled with chili and basil oils; the server then poured over an additional green apple-hibiscus sauce after placing the plate on the table. While the dish was lovely, I have to question the wisdom of putting those flavored oils on the plate under the radish, which is not particularly absorbent, and not just drizzling them on top. We didn't opt for the $8 bread course, so there was nothing on hand to mop up the sauces. Seemed wasteful to me.

foie gras terrine

The two antipasti came next. The foie gras terrine with cherry-rhubarb compote, pickled stone fruit, gooseberry, shaved rhubarb, and toasted ciabatta was a big hit. The terrine itself was sublime, so smooth and mild, offal-averse persons may enjoy it as much as those of us who appreciate livers and thymus glands and such. The compote was also lovely, with lots of tart-sweet cherry flavor. And the toasted ciabatta was the perfect bread on which to smear the luscious terrine. 

 

there are meatballs under there somewhere

The meatballs cacio e pepe weren't as successful. The veal, pork, and beef combo seemed rather coarse, and the meatballs themselves were rather tough. Definitely undersalted. This was an item Mr Minx chose, so I didn't pay much attention to the menu description. I was surprised to find that the creamy, bland, and cheesy substance under the meatballs was polenta. I thought it was just another kind of cheese overkill, much like the cacio e pepe sauce on top. Additionally, there was a shower of shaved cheese and a black-pepper parmesan crisp. There is definitely a thing as too much cheese, and this dish is the poster child for that sentiment.

tagliatelle tartufo

Next up: pasta. Mr Minx would normally have gone for a red- or meat-sauced dish, like the ziti Bolognese, but decided since he couldn't pass up the meatballs (put them on the menu, we'll order them!) that he should try something he normally wouldn't order. In this case, it was the tagliatelle tartufo, which despite the truffle butter and preserved truffles, didn't taste particularly truffle-y. Perhaps it was the blanket of Parmigiano zabaglione that suffocated the flavor of fungus. In any case, this dish was far too rich.

campanelle zefferano

Being lactose intolerant, I wanted to eat at least one dish that wasn't smothered in cheese and cream, so chose the campanelle zeferrano with Main lobster, California uni, melted leeks, and uni zabaglione. They sure like zabaglione at Marta (yet, oddly, it's not on the dessert menu). Zefferano is the Italian word for saffron, but its usual hint-of-iodine flavor was overpowered by the strong seafood-y punchof the uni and the lobster. The lobster itself was a bit tough, though there was a fairly generous portion of it hiding among the bellflower-shaped pasta. Despite the preponderance of sea-flavored elements in this dish, it, like the meatballs, lacked seasoning. At least there was no cheese to be found on my plate!

strawberry panna cotta

affogato tiramisu

Finally, dessert. I must confess that I don't understand most restaurant dessert menus. After multiple courses of unctuous foods like foie gras and cheesy pasta, the last thing I want to eat is something drenched in mascarpone mousse, or anything with a menu description beginning with the word "rich." But most places will offer things like cheesecake, bread pudding, or towering slices of cream cheese-frosted carrot cake. The choices at Marta are semifreddo (with mascarpone mousse), tiramisu (with mascarpone mousse), opera cake (which is mostly ganache and mousse), filled bomboloni (fried donut balls), and panna cotta. I love me a good panna cotta, so that was the winner. The one on Marta's online menu is an intriguing basil-flavored version with tomato jam (and mascarpone mousse); the night we dined there, it was a strawberry version not unlike their semifreddo dish, minus the rhubarb plus a crumble. I figured it would taste like a fancy version of a Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake ice cream bar, and it did, but much richer, and without as much of the gelatinous jiggle I like in my panna cotta. Mr Minx chose the affogato tiramisu, which was served in a goblet topped with an empty chocolate cup. His choice of decaf espresso was then poured into the cup, which melted, allowing the hot liquid to dribble onto the traditional mascarpone/ladyfinger concoction. Rather clever. But again, very rich.

Perhaps we ordered poorly that night, but we had no idea that Marta was so fond of loading on the cheese. Armed with such information, we might have skipped the meatballs and ordered the beef tartare instead, substituted an entree for one of the pastas, and skipped dessert entirely. I would definitely go back for the caprese cocktail and the foie gras terrine, and perhaps try the aqua pazza or grilled branzino. When a dinner is this expensive, I expect spectacular food. We did get a couple of really great things, but honestly, not enough of them.

Marta

2127 E. Pratt Street

Baltimore, MD 21231
https://www.martabaltimore.com/


* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Visiting Charm City? You Need to Try This!

When I go to NY and visit with my friend Daisy, she takes me to all the best eateries. And I don't mean fancy 3 Michelin star restaurants like Le Bernardin. Instead, she takes me to the best places to get banh mi, birria tacos, ice cream, and pizza. In a city like New York, there's more than one place to get the "best" in pretty much any category. Here in little old Baltimore, however, there are far fewer choices. Sometimes I think, if Daisy came to visit me here in Baltimore, where would we eat?  

neighborhood bird from Ekiben

First of all, we'd go to Ekiben and chow down on the chicken sandwich known as the Neighborhood Bird: a fat fried Taiwanese-curry-seasoned chicken thigh or two (I've even had a sandwich with three!) crammed into a rather large and pillowy bao bun and topped with sambal mayo and a handful of herbs. Another must-order there is the gluten-free tempura broccoli topped with sliced Chinese sausage, fresh herbs, red onion, and a dose of rice vinegar. Those are my favorites, but to be very honest...everything at Ekiben is perfect.

Koco's crab cake, served at home

Koco's Pub is next on the list. While I'm sure all their grub is good, unless one is allergic to shellfish, the massive 11-ounce crabcake is mandatory. Right now, one cake with crackers, lettuce, tomato, and pickle is a splurge at $36.99; four bucks more will get fries and cole slaw, too. If one is feeling cheap, there's a smaller 6-oz cake available (Wed - Fri until 4pm only) for $22.99. I suggest going for the gusto and getting a 11-oz sandwich, which is plenty large enough for sharing. Daisy will probably want her own. Honestly, I think she has two stomachs. 

steamed crabs from Salty Dogs

We might opt for steamed crabs, though not necessarily instead of crab cakes. I like getting carry-out from Salty Dogs, but we could dine in at Bill's Terrace Inn, instead. Bill's crab cakes are pretty decent, so we could get both cakes and steamed crabs there. Mmmm...making myself hungry here.

mushroom "crab" cake at Foraged

Keeping with the crab cake theme, we'd probably also hit up Foraged and sample their "crab" cake made with lion's mane mushrooms. So good. And also a selection of their pig parts, definitely the kool ranch pig ears, maybe some snout and/or jowl. One really can't go wrong there.

bone marrow crab dip from True Chesapeake

I'd also want to take Daisy to True Chesapeake. For oysters multiple ways, of course, but also for the fantastic crab and bone marrow dip and also to eat whatever invasive species they might have on the menu at the moment, snakehead or blue catfish or both.

loaded yuca fries from La Food Marketa

We also might go to La Food Marketa, where we'd order the yuca fries loaded with short rib and a fried egg, the reuben quesadilla, the street cauliflower, and any number of other fine things. Or we could go to their sister restaurant, The Food Market, and order pretty much everything on the menu, but especially the soft pretzels and a Baltimore club.

ice cream cone at the Hampden location of The Charmery

What about dessert? I think a scoop of Old Bay Caramel ice cream from The Charmery would do nicely. Or any flavor from Taharka Brothers.

New York has world-class Chinese food, so there's no place in Baltimore that would be particularly impressive to someone who lives in Manhattan. Folks from other areas, however, I'd absolutely take them to Red Pepper or Kung Fu 12. It seems that half the restaurants in NY are Italian, and while we have some good places in the Baltimore area, nothing tops what New York has to offer. The same for pizza, though I feel like the pies at Squire's are different enough for a visitor to appreciate. They're not NY-style, for sure, and not Neapolitan-style either, with their firm and crisp crust and somewhat sweet and herby sauce. One can say the same for Ledo, which some will argue isn't even pizza. (Then what is it?) 

If any other Baltimore-area readers have suggestions as to where to take an out-of-towner for a Baltimore dining experience that won't be found anywhere else, I'd love to hear your ideas. Leave a comment!

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Dry-Rubbed Cauliflower "Wings"

I know this blog is rife with recipes for my favorite cruciferous vegetable, but I'm going to add one more: dry-rubbed cauliflower "wings." Why "wings?" Because the word is more appealing than "chunks," "blobs," or even "florets," and because the recipe was inspired by a local restaurant's chicken wings. 

I've used this dry rub on both wings and other chicken parts. The whole cumin and fennel seeds create a unique flavor combination that would also work on pork ribs, steak, and even fish. However, we're trying to eat more vegetarian dishes at Casa Minx. Cauliflower is my favorite meat alternative because it's nutrient dense, low in calories, and full of fiber. Plus its relatively neutral flavor works with most kinds of seasoning. If you're thinking, "blech! I hate cauliflower," well, you should probably stop reading.

The amount of savory spices in this recipe calls out for the balance of a rich and creamy sauce, so I served it with a homemade blue cheese dressing made with one of my favorite blues, Point Reyes Original Blue. Use your favorite; even the pre-crumbled stuff is fine. If you don't like blue cheese, then try feta. And if you are one of those weirdos that likes ranch dressing with their chicken wings, then omit the cheese entirely and increase the amount of TJ's Green Goddess seasoning to a full teaspoon. Taste for seasoning before adding more salt, as the GG already contains salt.

There's not a lot of either heat or sweetness in this recipe, so if you'd like a bit more of both, a drizzle with hot honey might make you happy. (I recommend Runamok Chipotle Morita honey.) 

Dry-Rubbed Cauliflower "Wings" with Bleu Cheese Dressing

For the cauliflower:

1 batch dry rub (recipe follows)

1 large head cauliflower

3 T extra virgin olive oil

1 batch blue cheese dressing (recipe follows)

To make the cauliflower: Put the dry rub into a gallon-sized plastic zip-top bag.  

Trim off the tough green leaves from the bottom of the cauliflower and discard. Rinse the head and shake dry. Trim into florets, keeping small ones (1 1/2" and smaller) whole and cutting larger ones in half or quarters. Place the florets into the zip bag with the spices, zip the bag, and shake to distribute the spices. Open the bag and add the olive oil (more, if your head of cauli was particularly large). Push out the air, re-seal the bag, and shake it around to distribute the spice mix and oil as evenly as possible onto the cauliflower. (You could also do this in a large bowl, using your hands to toss the spices and vegetable together, but the bag is much neater.)

Put the bag in the fridge to marinate.

About 90 minutes before you're ready to eat, preheat the oven to 400F. 

Line a large baking sheet with foil and dump the bag of cauliflower onto it. Arrange the florets so they are more or less evenly distributed. Place tray in oven and bake cauliflower for 20 minutes. Remove tray from oven, and turn florets over with tongs. Put back in oven for another 15-20 minutes, or until cauliflower is tender but not mushy, and browned.

Serve hot, with blue cheese dressing.

For dry rub:

1 T sweet paprika

1 T smoked paprika

1 T whole cumin seed

1 T whole fennel seed

2 t salt

1 t dried thyme

1 t Urfa Biber or your favorite chili flakes

1/2 t onion powder

1/2 t garlic powder

1 t ground black pepper

1/4 t ground white pepper

To make dry rub: Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

For bleu cheese dressing:

1/4 c sour cream

1/4 c mayonnaise 

2 ounces crumbled blue cheese (I used Point Reyes Original Blue)

1 T fresh lemon juice

1/2 t Trader Joe's Green Goddess seasoning

Pinch kosher salt

Pinch ground white pepper

To make dressing: Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Use a fork to combine, crushing the cheese into small bits to distribute through the dressing. Refrigerate until ready to use.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Throwback Thursday - The Orient Perry Hall

This post originally appeared on August 9, 2019.

Though we now have two excellent Chinese restaurants in our area, on occasion we do go to The Orient. The enormous portions and good prices are part of the allure, but also the food is very good.

-----------------------------------------

I have often lamented the lack of good Chinese food in the Baltimore area. Oh sure, there are several carry-outs and smaller restaurants serving up Americanized food, but how many of them are actually good? As far as I'm concerned, Grace Garden in Odenton and Hunan Taste in Catonsville (which has been "temporarily" closed since at least November of 2018) are the only two that are consistently good. Szechuan House in Timonium is extremely spotty, but they have a huge menu and it is possible to find one or two decent dishes. Asian Taste in Ellicott City is good for dim sum, but we were disappointed by a recent dinner. Some folks swear by Chopstix Gourmet; we went for dim sum once and were not impressed. There's a new place in the city called Panda BBQ. I have heard positive comments, but their online menu indicates a very limited menu of mostly skewered meats and vegetables. We have gone to Galaxy Asian Cuisine for dim sum once and enjoyed it. We'll need to visit again to check out their dinner offerings.

And then there's The Orient. My family used to frequent the original Towson outpost back in the 80s and 90s. That location closed a few years ago, but there are others in Bel Air and Perry Hall. A new Towson restaurant opened a couple of years ago; we haven't been yet. The Perry Hall restaurant is right up the road from my Dad, so we have gone there a few times and haven't been disappointed.

The food is primarily American Chinese-style, but everything we've tried has been consistent and well-prepared.

We've had the crispy duck twice and have enjoyed the tender meat and salt-and-pepper seasoned skin.

The mai fun noodles can be had Singapore-style (with curry) or a simple soy sauce seasoning with meat and shrimp. They don't have as much wok hei as the same dish at Asian Court, but they are still quite good.

The Szechuan string beans, a family favorite, are still nicely crisp and green at The Orient.

We've also tried the House Crispy Pepper Squid and the whole shell-on shrimp with the same preparation (above), and have found them to be quite delectable. Shredded Crispy Beef and General Chou's have been admirable, with tender meat and a still-crisp coating, despite the sticky sauce on each.

Portions are huge, and prices are very reasonable. We've gone on Saturday afternoons and found the place abandoned, which is a shame. However, that means we get all the attention and the food arrives promptly. Though it's not Grace Garden, I am looking forward to our next trip to The Orient, mostly for the soy sauce noodles and the House Crispy Pepper seafood dishes.

Have you been?

The Orient
9545 Belair Rd
Baltimore, MD 21236
https://www.theorientmd.com/

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pizza! Pizza!

I wouldn't call Baltimore a pizza town, but the city is currently more deserving of that title than it was in the past. Regular readers might remember me railing on about the "fresh dough" pizza craze in the 70s and 80s, the days of flabby, undercooked crusts, insipid sauce, and rubbery cheese. Papa John's and Pizza Hut continue that sad tradition to this day. 

I enjoyed Pappy's pizza as a child, and my favorite pizza during high school came from a little carry-out on Harford Road called the Hamilton Eatery. Their pizza had a crispy crust, flavorful sauce, and the perfect amount of stretchy cheese--and it was 100% a frozen product from some food service company. One day I watched them transfer a frigid disk from freezer to oven and was shocked that it hadn't been made in house. I remember their pies being delicious; perhaps they were, only in comparison with the other pizzas I so hated. The most loathsome pie came from a place called George's Beef and Beer, on Broadway in Fells Point. It was largely pale and flavorless, with the standard dull toppings scattered on a soggy, doughy, crust. On Saturdays, my Uncle Frank, who lived downstairs in the townhouse we occupied, bought lunch. He was no gourmet and offered only two choices: fried chicken from a stall in Broadway Market, or pizza from George's. I preferred the chicken, but good as it was, it was a chore to eat it even every-other week. On pizza weeks we experimented with toppings, hoping to find something worth eating, but nothing overcame the overall blandness of the pies. (Onion and black olive was probably the best of the bunch, but still not great.)

George's is long gone--thank the pizza gods!--and slowly but surely Baltimore has evolved a far more interesting pizza culture. One with quite a bit of variety, too. There are standard round thin crust pies that claim to be "New York-style," pies with super thin crusts, square pies, pies topped with stuff like figs and brie, and pies with crusts that don't fit into any particular genre. People still eat the crappy chain pizzas, too, which baffles me almost as much as why people prefer P.F. Chang's to actual Chinese food made by Chinese people. 

One pizza that I did enjoy in my youth and still eat today is Squire's. The crust is firm and sturdy, with a nice crunch, the sauce is herby and a tad sweet, and they are more than generous with toppings. Our go-to order is a large "everything" pizza, minus the green pepper. 

can you tell from my expression that I can't wait to take a bite of
 this "everything" (minus green pepper) pie from Squire's?

We get a pie from Squire's at least once a year, as a reward for getting our taxes done on time. (Our accountant is in Dundalk.) If we're lucky, we'll find an opportunity to visit again a few months later. If not, we usually bring home several slices to tuck into the freezer to enjoy on another occasion.

There are several Baltimore area restaurants serving Neapolitan-ish pies. Traditionally, a Neapolitan pie has a thin hand-formed crust and is baked for a brief time (up to 90 seconds) in a screaming hot wood-fired oven. In Italy, these pizzas must be made with very specific ingredients in a very specific way, but that goes out the window here in the states. A Neapolitan pie also tends to have a soggy middle, which doesn't really fly here. So while restaurants might use wood-fired ovens imported from Italy, and make the crust in the prescribed manner baked at the proper temperature, Neapolitan-style pies in the US play more fast and loose with the type of cheese and the crispness of the crust. Personally, I enjoy a thin and flexible crust that has some charring underneath and leopard spotting on the cornicione (the outer edge). 

everything at Hersh's is wonderful, but especially the pizza.

Among my favorite local pies that are made with the Neapolitan sensibility are those from Hersh's in South Baltimore and Paulie Gee's in Hampden. Both establishments are creative with their toppings-- the smoked mozzarella and fried eggplant on Hersh's Fumo e Fuoco, and the dried cherries and gorgonzola on Paulie Gee's Cherry Jones--but somehow everything seems to work perfectly.

there's nothing like a pizza from Ledo.

Then we have the "is it really pizza?" pizza: Ledo. The crust is buttery and flaky, as if a pizza and a croissant had a baby. The sauce is sweet, and there is a ton of cheese, but the combination of all of the above works to produce a delicious whole. I especially like their "cannonball" pizza, which has half a giant meatball perched on every slice. Oh yeah, the pizzas are square, too. Weird, maybe, but so am I.

Detroit pizza is all about the toasted cheese that forms around the border of the pie.

And then there's Detroit-style pizza. A relative of the Sicilian pie, the Detroit pizza has a thick crust with no cornicione. The cheese goes on first and is spread from edge to edge, which produces a caramelized crustiness where the cheese hits the hot metal pan in which the pie is baked. Toppings like pepperoni are next, followed by stripes of sauce. I've only ever had this style of pizza from one place, Underground Pizza Company in Towson, and I don't think I ever need to eat it elsewhere. I don't know if it's a perfect Detroit pizza, but I can't imagine a better crust. It's like the most fabulous artisan bread you can imagine, but with crispy cheese edges. My favorite pie there is topped with fancy roasted mushrooms, but their vodka sauce pies are also :::chef's kiss::::

I know there are lots more pizza restaurants in Baltimore that I haven't included here, so let me mention a few more that we visit: Earth, Wood, & Fire; Ribaldi's, Il Basilico; The Arthouse. We're also fans of the pizzas at Cosima. Even longer is the list of restaurants serving pizza that we need to visit are JBGB's, Verde, Johnny Rad's, Kneads Bakeshop, Gil's, Pizza John's, and Little Donna's. 

What's your favorite?

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Best/Most Memorable Meals I've Ever Had

On a recent episode of The Dave Chang Show podcast, Dave and co-host Chris Ying listed their best and/or most memorable meals of all time. As I listened, I realized that I have lots of memorable meals, but they're not necessarily the best. Some meals are memorable because of bad food or service. Creating a list, even a short one, of truly great restaurant meals, is a difficult task for me. Perhaps I am jaded. Though I haven't eaten in the world's greatest restaurants--excepting Le Bernardin--I have dined in as many notable places as a person who doesn't travel much and who isn't wealthy can dine. 

Here's a list of restaurant meals that were highly memorable, even if they weren't the best, in alphabetical order.

pasta tasting menu for August 2004

Babbo - We celebrated Mr Minx's 40th birthday here, back in the early aughts, before we knew that Mario Batali was a rapey douchebag who stole his staff's tips. Mr Minx was somewhat of a pastaholic back then, so we opted for the seven-course pasta tasting menu with wine pairings. This was in the year before we started Minxeats, so there's no official write-up of the meal, but we did save the menu. I do recall that the starter was a bit awkward to eat. Whole cannellini beans on crusty bread might be a traditional antipasto, but it was impossible to take a bite without beans rolling off the bread and onto the table and the floor. Why not smash the beans? Dunno. Seems logical. In any case, the rest of the meal was fantastic, the first course being the best. So simple. So much butter. So good. We also enjoyed the wine pairing with the cheese course, a sweet sparkling wine called Brachetto d'Acqui. Sometimes we buy that to drink on New Year's Eve instead of champagne.  

foie gras with raw tuna 

The Bar Room at the Modern - I was in NYC for a Sniffapalooza event. I had not yet met my current NYC dining companion, Daisy, so I usually dined alone. One afternoon, I blew a wad of cash on a rather extravagant meal at the bar room of MOMA's restaurant, the Modern. The restaurant was an oasis after my morning of mingling with a crowd of chatty individuals amid clouds of perfume. Service was excellent--eager but not obtrusive--and the food was interesting and quite good. The unusual foie gras and raw tuna dish was particularly memorable.

Charleston is an example of a meal that has stayed in my mind for the wrong reasons. I had enjoyed a meal at Cindy Wolf's Savannah at some point in the 90s and looked forward to having a similarly splendid meal at Charleston. Instead, I found an oppressive atmosphere created by the ever-looming waitstaff. A "wilted spinach salad" arrived as a unadorned mound of barely cooked spinach with all its harsh tannins present. Cindy was at the pass and let this dish go by even though it clearly was not a salad and not particularly edible. Finally, the sauces for our entrees had been so over-reduced that it literally glued our lips shut. Even after eating dessert, I had to work to open my mouth to speak. The rest of the meal was unmemorable.

We've never been back, though we have eaten at other of Foreman/Wolf's restaurants. They may be run by one team, but I find the quality of them overall to be inconsistent. Pazo and Bar Vasquez were the best of the bunch; both are now closed. Petit Louis is a distant third. We haven't tried Cindy Lou's Fish House yet, and we miss the original Milton Inn. 

Harry's Seafood Grill on the Wilmington, Delaware waterfront was the site of a fun birthday lunch hosted by my best friend Kate, who had recently moved to Wilmington. While checking out the local restaurant scene, she had befriended a chef couple, one of whom worked at Harry's. Chef Applebaum generously sent out a couple of dishes in addition to the three courses we had ordered for ourselves. There was too much food, and all of it was delicious and of high-quality. I especially enjoyed my first sticky toffee pudding and my first taste of soft shell crab.

Herb & Soul is the site of another memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons meal. We had eaten there in the past and mostly enjoyed our food. It wasn't perfect, but the biscuits and fried chicken were stellar. On this particular occasion, we partook of a multi-course meal arranged by a member of the local Chowhounds board. I'm not sure whose idea it was to serve a selection of New Orleans-inspired foods, but it was pretty clear that the chef wasn't particularly familiar with any of the dishes he cooked that night. The first course of crawfish and octopus with brussels sprouts comprised two fingernail-clipping-sized shreds of crawfish on my plate and a dried-out, chewy octopus so small it was probably a fetus. Another dish was billed as an etouffee (which means "smothered") yet barely had any sauce. The bits of alligator meat in it were so chewy, if I hadn't washed them down with water I'd still be chewing them 9 years later. The fourth course was better: a well-prepared half chicken served with not nearly enough of a very good fig pan jus and a soupcon of cauliflower puree. The best course was dessert, French beignets (made with choux paste rather than a yeasted dough), and I could have eaten several more of those. Thankfully the dinner was dirt cheap. 

barely cooked scallop in brown butter dashi

Le Bernardin -- Mr Minx's next milestone birthday was celebrated with a 6-course lunch at Le Bernardin, a 3-Michelin star restaurant in NY. The service was impeccable, and the food almost perfect. I know, who am I to criticize a dish served at one of the "World's 50 Best Restaurants?" I'll tell you: someone who doesn't think a dark red wine sauce works well with wild rockfish. Mr Minx agreed with me. So there. The scallop in brown butter dashi, however, was mindblowing. So simple, yet so delicious. My one regret about the meal: I didn't take a roll every time the bread guy came around. There were about eight kinds of bread on offer, and I was only able to taste three of them. Le sigh.

NOLA - Back in the days before Minxeats, even before Mr Minx became Mr Minx, we took a trip together to New Orleans with a group of rabid Emeril Lagasse fans whom I had met online. Someone or other from that group was up our butts every time we tried to turn around. One person in particular stuck to us like a tick. After a couple days of eating at only Tick-approved restaurants, my beloved and I snuck off to have lunch at NOLA, one of Lagasse's more casual establishments. We ordered starters of gumbo and turtle soup, and a couple of pizzas to share. My soup was very good, but Neal's seafood gumbo was insane. We stopped short of literally licking the bowl clean, but we were tempted! 

As fate would have it, the man who made that gumbo now owns Cajun Kate's, a restaurant in Wilmington. We make a pilgrimage every year to keep our freezer stocked with gumbo.

my favorite course at Volt, tuna tartare in a delicate rice gelee wrapper. Photo credit: Kevin Eats.

Volt - We discovered Volt during chef/owner Bryan Voltaggio's turn on Top Chef. After our first delicious meal there, I was obsessed with getting seats at Table 21: a 21-course meal served in Volt's kitchen. We made our reservation ten months in advance, and the wait was worth enduring. For a measly $121 per person, we had 21 courses of surprising and delicious food. Sadly, this was back in the foodie stone age (2010) and I didn't have a phone with a good camera. Rather than bothering with my crappy little Canon, I sat back and enjoyed the meal. (Check out the post linked in the caption above for excellent photos of a meal very similar to the one we ate.) 

While the food was incredible, the service was a tad annoying. Servers replaced the silverware with each course, whether we had used a particular utensil or not. Remove clean spoon, replace with another clean spoon. Having disembodied hands appear over my shoulder or beside my forearm (we were seated at a counter in front of the garde manger station and couldn't see the utensil movers behind us) was a little disconcerting. It was like being served by Thing. I'm not a fancy-service kind of gal. Just give me my food and if I need a clean fork, I'll let you know.

-----------------------------------------

I'm sure if I thought about it a little more, I could come up with a few more meals to add here. These were off the top of my head, clearly very memorable. I hope to have many more meals like these in the future. The good ones....

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

My Poison Pen

I'm going to come right out and say it: writing positive reviews for good restaurants isn't fun. There are only so many ways of saying a dish works, that it's tasty, fun to eat, well-conceived, yadda yadda. There are myriad ways, however, of saying something is bad. While a meal might be unsatisfying during the eating aspect of it, the glee I get from trashing it verbally can more than make up for shitty food and worse service. The crazy comments a negative review can inspire are also pretty damn amusing. 

The highlighted text below contains links to my original posts, if you are so inclined to read them.

A long-ago visit to The Melting Pot in Towson left us wondering why anyone would pay good money to eat hot garbage. On the upside, the meal provided me with a fun-to-write blog post. Additionally, some unhinged TMP stan left an outrageous comment while posing as a West Coast food journalist. That got its own blog post.

Milan was a restaurant/club that was not well-received by its Little Italy neighbors. We ate there once. The food was actually pretty decent, but our first impression wasn't so great.

"Stepping into the restaurant, I was immediately struck by a smell. No, not of garlic and shellfish, nor of long-simmered tomato sauce, but of bathroom. A nasty chlorine+potty smell. Granted, we were the first people in the restaurant, and possibly when there are more people in the place and the kitchen is in full swing, the smell isn't noticeable. But it's really off-putting for that to be the first sensation encountered. (I eventually got used to it.)

"Once upstairs on the main floor, I saw that the glossy veneer from two years ago, when the restaurant was new, has faded. The black paint on the wood floor is worn off in paths, the paint on the ceiling has bubbled and cracked, and the tables and chairs show wear. One of the high-backed chairs, which doesn't quite match the others, is patched up with white tape. I'm guessing that the intended effect of the stark white decor with touches of scarlet is "modern" and "classy." And I suppose it is. Classy like a strip club with bottle service. It's a place where Pauly D and The Situation would be completely at ease, hanging out one on of the lounges covered with upholstery straight out of a '72 Nova."

From a write-up about a quick trip to NYC, which included dinner at A Voce in Columbus Circle:

"While the first course was successful, the pici that I ordered for my entree was a total disappointment. Pici is a hand-rolled pasta, somewhat like a thick spaghetti. Imagine making a snake of modeling clay by rolling it between your palm and a table top, and you've got pici. Because they're somewhat thick and about  4" long, picking them up with a fork is like wrestling with a bowl of tarantulas. They're not easily twirled, so a fork full had random ends hanging out in each direction, some of which were happy to slap me in the face as I brought the fork to my mouth. Eventually, I used my knife to cut them into shorter bits. In any case, awkwardness was the least of the dish's problems. The sauce was a bolognese in name only. It had an agrodolce (sweet and sour) thing going on that could have been quite delicious had the sauce had any other thing going on, too. The tiny nubbins of ground duck (which could have been any meat - turkey, rattlesnake) served as a textural element only, and I couldn't taste the cocoa in the pasta. After three or four bites, I was bored with the dish. Thankfully, it wasn't a large portion, so I pushed on and finished it, knowing that a doggie bag wouldn't safely survive the three-plus hours it would take me to get home."

Restaurant Week is always a fine opportunity to eat crappy food. I have always thought that the reason for Restaurant Week is to lure in new patrons with a reasonably priced menu, hook them with amazing food, and turn them into repeat customers who are willing to pay full price. Apparently that memo is only in my head. A 2008 RW meal at Tabrizi's had a high point or two, but was otherwise unexceptional.

"This unadorned plate of worms/bran buds/Plah-Doh after a trip through a Fuzzy Pumper play set is actually Mr Minx's chocolate mousse. Or, more accurately, chocolate ganache - melted chocolate whipped with heavy cream. If it was real mousse, with egg in it, I'd be very surprised. It tasted ok, but really wasn't worth the effort of washing out the ricer."

Another fun post to write involved our 2011 meal at Alchemy, in Hampden. It was Restaurant Week, and clearly Alchemy couldn't handle the extra-ness of it all. Though we normally eat on the early side of dinnertime, when the restaurant isn't busy, the kitchen still had a problem getting the courses out on time. The first course took forever, and the entrees came out while we were still eating our apps. Our waiter, who had promised to "take care of us," never gave us a second look, even while we were juggling five plates of food on a tiny table. The food itself was uneven, perhaps too ambitious. Dishes had multiple components that were under-seasoned or improperly cooked, though the proteins were pretty good. My dessert, a cabernet blackberry sorbet, was outstanding, and the only thing that would prompt my return to Alchemy. As it was, we never went back, and the restaurant closed a couple years later. If you check out the post, do read the handful of entertaining comments.

Occasionally, friends rave over a restaurant enough that Mr Minx and I have to try it. Over the years, I've learned that not all of my friends have good taste. One couple in particular loved Silver Spring Mining Company. I suppose lots of people like the place, as the restaurant has multiple locations. We, however, were not impressed. The food we ate was...edible...but not good enough for a return trip. I took umbrage to a mixed-protein creole masquerading as a jambalaya, and a "Reuben" sandwich that had rye bread and thousand island, but not corned beef, sauerkraut, or Swiss. Additionally, it contained a "razor-thin slice of nearly-white supermarket blandness that is a sin even during the Winter, but worthy of eternal damnation during tomato season." I stand by that opinion.

Some people think I'm a food snob, but that's not true at all. I just expect good-tasting food that is properly made and falls within standards that are acceptable to any local health department. My BFF's 50th birthday party was held at the Kentmorr, a seafood restaurant on the Eastern Shore. The only thing I remember about that meal is being served tepid crab soup, one of those half-and-half jobbies that was a mix of Maryland crab and cream of crab. Apparently, someone had accidentally turned off the burner under the pot of cream of crab, which remained on the stove long enough to get cold. Soup with cream and seafood in it. Yeahhh....no thanks. 

Occasionally an otherwise decent meal has dishes that fall short of expectations. And sometimes those dishes are pretty bad. But that makes them fun to write about.

Barcocina dip

"The Barcocina dip, listed on the menu as "an Oaxaca queso fundido" had a curious fluffy texture studded with odd rubbery and flavorless bits of chorizo, topped with a whole poached egg (not fried, as the menu indicated). While the yolk was runny, the white was very firm and required a knife to cut and distribute through the dip. The accompanying tortilla chips were weeny, as if made from taco-sized tortillas, and not big enough to scoop up a decent amount of dip."

While we adored Jesse Wong's Hong Kong, a restaurant on the lakefront in Columbia, we felt the opposite about his Hunt Valley restaurant. Jesse Wong's Kitchen served various Asian cuisines, including sushi, but wasn't particularly good at any of them. At least not the food we tried on our two visits. After our disastrous first meal, a lunch, I swore I'd never set foot in the place again. Then we received a gift card from my Dad's girlfriend, which made me eat my words. Sadly, they were tastier than the food at Jesse Wong's Kitchen. Turns out the gift card had no balance, and I had to pay for the crap we ate. I was pretty pleased when the restaurant closed, though I was sad that Hong Kong eventually shut down as well.

I'm sure I've written about several more poor restaurant experiences over the years, but I want to include just one more in this post. It's another Restaurant Week meal, this time at Oyster Bay Grille. The problem was not the meal itself (which was pretty good), but the way management handled a situation.  

"In a few moments, the man who had shucked the oysters came by, ostensibly to apologize. Now, let me give some pointers on apologies for restaurants. Restaurant Apologies 101, if you will. The very first thing to do is to say, 'I'm very sorry.' The next thing to do is to offer recompense. 'Let me take the oysters off the check,' or some such. And that's it. Then go away and let the diners finish their meal. Sticking around to make excuses like, 'they were hard to open,' and 'this is why we put oyster forks out' are not acceptable. (Especially when there was only one oyster fork present, and it was jammed into the rind of a lemon. Were we to wrestle it out and then share it?) You work at a damn oyster bar--learn how to shuck a fucking oyster. Bleeding customers are not happy customers, and Mr Minx spent the rest of the meal in a foul humor. Especially when another man, presumably an owner or manager who had been randomly wandering, came around to say he saw something going on at our table. He did not offer an apology or anything else; it seemed that he was there simply out of curiosity. When each of these men returned to our table yet again, individually, to ask 'you ok?' later on during the meal, it must have been the thought of liability niggling them. It just plain annoyed us." 

OBG's chef read my post and, in a comment, offered a free dinner. Because he knows how to treat guests properly. We declined, but I had enjoyed my rockfish entree enough to request the recipe for one of our books. 

Have you had any bad meals or bad service recently? I'd love to hear about it....so leave a comment!

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Restaurant Review - Golden West Cafe

Golden West Cafe has been around for a long time--I'm going to say at least 25 years. It started in a wee storefront on 36th Street on the Chestnut Avenue end of Hampden's popular strip of shops and eateries popularly know as "The Avenue." The menu was similarly tiny. I can recall my one visit to that location, during which I enjoyed a Thai-ish noodle dish with shrimp, while seated on the front porch with a friend. After a few years, the restaurant moved several blocks down the street with much larger digs and a huge menu of breakfast-all-day options, vegan items, and the flavors of the Southwestern US, plus burgers and a number of gluten-free items.

I'd eat there once in a while until a bajillion new restaurants opened in the neighborhood. Then I sort of forgot about it. Mr Minx and I ventured in a few years back but had a less-than-stellar experience. The dish I ordered was just shy of being too spicy to eat, and Mr Minx bit into a stone that was lurking in his black beans. The manager was very apologetic and comped hubby's meal, but we were wary of returning. 

Recently, however, I've been seeing Golden West get Instagram love for its vegan offerings. While far from vegan, I'm lactose intolerant and appreciate the ability to have a restaurant meal that doesn't require a handful of Lactaids to enjoy. I decided to give the place another chance. It's just down the street from my hair salon, and unlike some other Hampden restaurants that are dinner-only places, Golden West is open all day so I can pop in for lunch before my appointment.

On my first visit, I sat near the bar and ordered an oatmilk latte and the vegan French toast. I'm not sure why I did that, as I mostly eschew wheat bread; I suppose I was feeling indulgent. I was completely satisfied by the mountain of coconutty ciabatta and banana, which didn't even need the accompanying syrup. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the mammoth portion and didn't want to carry soggy leftovers around for the rest of the day, so I didn't get a doggy bag. 

I did doggy bag about half of my next lunch of chorizo and eggs with hash browns. It's a burrito on the menu, but can be had as a bowl. I requested the spicy chili sauce and salsa on the side, just in case the sauce was too hot for my palate (it was actually pretty mild). I loved the locally made pork chorizo and would definitely order it again.

On another occasion, I was tempted by the El Supremo vegan chicken sandwich. The tofu-based patty is made by Little Fig, a vegan bakery in Rosedale, and has just the right texture and flavor to mimic a battered and fried chicken thigh. It was topped by a vegan mozzarella stick that actually oozed like real mozz. The flavor was more buttery than cheesy, but was a realistic facsimile of dairy cheese. The whole sandwich, which included tomato, lettuce, pickle, and something called "wild island sauce" was rather gigantic (as things tend to be at Golden West) but so good I finished it all. And didn't have to eat for 2 days afterward.

I went Whole Vegan again on my next visit, this time with Mr Minx. We shared the fried green tomatoes with vegan pimento cheese and basil-forward herb aioli. The cheese was pretty impressively cheesy, and I made sure to scrape up and eat every bit of it that fell off the messy tower of tomato onto the plate. 

I also had the "Mission Impossible" burger, which in addition to an Impossible patty included fried brussels sprouts, vegan bleu cheese sauce, lettuce, tomato, and pickle, Additionally, a vegan chicken drumette was impaled atop the whole thing. (Again, a lot of food.) It was delish. Also excellent was Mr Minx's over-the-top Hangover Burger, with 8 ounces of beef, cheddar cheese, guacamole, bacon, and a fried egg. It was messy enough to require a knife and fork, but hubby didn't seem to mind the extra effort.

One might say that I've become quite fond of Golden West Cafe over the past few months. I have a lunch date with a friend later this week and have already been perusing the menu ahead of time. Should I go vegan again, or should I opt for meat this time? Sweet breakfast food, or a savory lunch? I feel like it's hard to make a bad choice there.

Golden West Cafe

1105 W 36th St.

Baltimore, MD 21211

https://www.goldenwestcafe.com/home

Rating: Recommended

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Best Burger in Baltimore

spicy buffalo burger from Alonso's

On toast, brioche, or on a ses'me bun

And crown'd with molten gold, or bleu, or bare

of cheese, instead top'd thick with more than one

wet squirt of sauce: ketchup? mustard? compare

the benefits of each plus mayonnaise.

Relish the addition of onion,

raw or sauteed, I can have it both ways.

Mushrooms are great, in my opinion.

Now comes the matter of temperature.

Well done's a cruel thing to do to good beef!

Nice med'um rare is what I do prefer,

and not too lean, fat's fine in my belief.

Now to my eager lips this juicy beast,

I sigh and bite into a beefy feast.

The burger is so universally loved, it inspired Shakespeare to write a sonnet. Well no, that's not true--I wrote the sonnet--though had burgers been around in Elizabethan England, the Bard may well have tossed a rhyming couplet or two its way. Of course, a burger in those days would have been a different animal entirely. Literally. It might have been made with mutton or pigeon, maybe a soupcon of eel, and as the sandwich wasn't invented until nearly 200 years later, it would not have been served on a bun. More than likely it would be enveloped in a crust of some sort. Yes, an Elizabethan burger would probably have been a pie, or a pastie. 

Yeah, sooo...there was no such thing as a burger in Shakespeare's day. In our time, however, burgers are everywhere. Chain restaurants dedicated to churning out mass-produced burgers are legion and even fancy restaurant menus include hifalutin versions of the ubiquitous beef-and-bun creation. There's the Black Gold "burger" from H Bar in Houston that involves black truffles, foie gras, and a pound of sliced wagyu beef, served on a 24K gold-leafed black brioche bun, with a bottle of Dom Perignon on the side...for $1600. I'm not sure why they call it a burger if it's actually a steak sandwich, but the price is ridiculous either way. I've eaten Daniel Boulud's signature burger at db Bistro Moderne in NYC and was not impressed. For about $30, I got a sirloin burger stuffed with short rib and foie gras on a parmesan-crusted bun. Sounds good, huh? Except the burger itself was maybe 3 ounces of underseasoned meat, the short rib had zero flavor, and the perhaps teaspoon of foie had completely melted out. The sandwich was about 4" in diameter and at least as tall, which made it difficult to pick up and bite into without first cutting it in half. Much better is the Minetta burger at Minetta Tavern, a well-sized patty topped with cheddar and sauteed onions and served with pommes frites for $30. (There's also a "Black Label" version made with dry-aged prime beef for $38.) 

While the Minetta burger was pretty damn fine, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the best burger I have ever eaten comes from Alonso's, in Baltimore. This Cold Spring Lane stalwart has been around seemingly forever. When I was a kid, we'd go there for pizzas but even then their 16oz burgers were legendary. I've never tried the enormoburger, though I did watch two relatively scrawny men attempt--and fail--to finish one apiece at a meal there about 25 years ago. I had the smaller, but still very large (8oz) burger and don't recall it having been anything particularly special.

Alonso's has gone through a few owners in the last 20 years or so, which has led to menu changes and expansions, and even Indian food (the current owner is the proprietor of Namaste, next door), but the burger remains, and is as close to burger perfection as I've eaten. I don't know what exactly makes their burgers so good. A mere $13 gets ya 8 thick ounces of juicy meat (see photo above for evidence) and a decent amount of fries, so it's not fancy beef, though it is nicely seasoned and flavorful. I am not wild about brioche buns, so I have to ding them on that. There's no point to consuming what is essentially breakfast or dessert* with a burger, and brioche doesn't always hold up to dripping fat and meat juices. That said, the buns at Alonso's are always impeccably fresh. 

On occasion, we eat at the restaurant, but more often that not we get delivery. The burgers and fries arrive in compostable containers, which is nice, but we always put them on plates because they are special and deserve to be eaten with respect. Apart from a few of Alonso's signatures that involve specific sauces like the Russian dressing on the Rachel or the herbed mayo on the Frenchie, the burgers are condiment-free. No ketchup, mustard, or mayo. They are moist enough that they do not need any of that wet stuff. And there's always plenty of cheese. I like bleu cheese with my beef, so my normal order is either the spicy buffalo (bleu, buffalo sauce, green onions) or the black and blue (bleu, sauteed mushrooms and onions, Cajun spices), cooked to medium or medium rare. Even though Alonso's is not a steakhouse, when one orders a medium rare burger, it arrives at the table medium rare. Astonishingly, even a delivery burger arrives medium rare. So...juicy meat, cooked perfectly, lots of bleu cheese, no sauces to hide the flavor of the beef = my favorite burger. 

Now if they would only put it on a non-brioche bun....

*Brioche is made with what is called an enriched dough, containing milk, butter, eggs, and sugar in addition to yeast and flour. Most breads contain only flour, water, and yeast, with a tiny bit of sugar added to feed the yeast.

Posted on Minxeats.com.