A Thai-ish Supper

I always have at least one jar of Maesri Thai chilli paste with sweet basil in the pantry. If you enjoy drunken noodles, you'll like this condiment.

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Ordinarily, I plan our weekend dinners a few days in advance, but other times I just wing it. We normally have enough raw ingredients in the house to produce something interesting without having to make a run to the store. On this particular weekend, I decided to use some of the Trader Joe's cod we had in the freezer. Cod's not my favorite--I'm not into its weird, almost-buttery, flavor-- but it's relatively inexpensive and cooks quickly. I thought I could do something like my old standby Sriracha Bouillabaisse, which is relatively easy. (I was feeling lazy.) Then I noticed a jar of Thai chilli paste with sweet basil in the cupboard, next to a can of coconut milk, and dinner suddenly veered off in a slightly different direction.

Both recipes start with sautéing aromatics, then adding tomatoes, stock, and something spicy. In this case, the spicy element is provided one of my favorite condiments. I discovered chilli paste with sweet basil leaves at H Mart many years ago. There are a couple of variations and brands available, with holy basil, or labeled as "pad kapao" sauce. All of them contain some variety of Thai basil, chile peppers, soy bean oil, garlic, and salt. The flavors are spicy and aromatic, bright and fragrant, great with everything (I think). If you appreciate the licorice-like flavors of Thai basil and are into hot stuff, I think you'll like it.

I mostly had peppers on hand--an orange bell pepper and a bag of shishitos that I haven't gotten around to using. I chopped up a handful of those; while not really spicy, shishitos still have the flavor profile of a hot green pepper, which I vastly prefer over a green bell pepper. Green beans would work nicely in this dish, too, so if you have some, toss them in. Hell, any veg would be good, and shrimp or tofu would work just as well as the fish.

I simmer the veg and wet ingredients until they look more like a sauce than a soup, adding lots of fish sauce, lime juice, and a pinch or two of sweetener (sugar, agave nectar, honey) to get a balanced flavor. Restaurant Thai food, at least in this area, tends to be sweet. It's nice to be able to cut back on the sweetness when preparing food with Thai flavors at home, but I still think many dishes need at least a touch of sweetness to balance the more intense flavors of chiles and fish sauce.

The protein is added at the last minute and heated only until cooked through. Overcooked fish is a bad thing, so don't do it. I don't think you can overcook tofu, but probably best not to let that go too long, either. I served the dish with plain jasmine rice, your favorite grain would probably be fine. If you reduce the sauce even more before seasoning, you could probably eat this over pasta, should you be so inclined.

Thai Basil Coconut Fish

2 tablespoons neutral oil
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 orange bell pepper, sliced thinly
1-3 green chiles of your choice (jalapenos or whatever you have on hand), sliced thinly
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro stems
2 cloves garlic, minced
Kosher salt
1 Knorr fish bouillon cube plus 1 cup water, or 1 8-oz bottle of clam juice
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz can coconut milk
2 heaping tablespoons Maesri chilli paste with sweet basil leaves (or to taste)
Fish sauce
Lime juice
Sugar to taste
1 pound boneless, skinless cod filets, or similar white-fleshed fish
Rice for serving
Cilantro and sliced green onion for garnish

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a dutch oven or large pan with lid. Add the onion, peppers, cilantro stems, and a big pinch of salt.. Stir occasionally, cooking until veg have softened a bit and starting to brown, 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute or so. Add the bouillon or clam juice, tomatoes, and coconut milk and stir to combine. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes to evaporate some of the liquid and concentrate the flavors.

Turn the heat down to medium. Add the chilli paste and taste for seasoning. If you are serving this with rice, you'll need the sauce to be somewhat aggressively seasoned. Add fish sauce for salt--I used a couple of tablespoons. You can add some kosher salt, too. Add a few squeezes of lime juice and a bit of sugar. Once you have the sauce flavored to your liking (it should have a nice spicy/tangy/sweet balance, but do what works for your palate), slip in the pieces of fish. Cover the pan and cook until the fish is cooked through and easily flakes apart, about 5 minutes.

Serve in bowls, with rice on the bottom or on the side. Garnish with cilantro.

Serves 4.

* 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!

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True Chesapeake Oyster Co

Full disclosure: I have been acquainted with one of the investors in True Chesapeake Oyster Company since the late 1980s. Also, Chef Zack Mills has long been a favorite person in Baltimore's rather small culinary world. He was very helpful with providing recipes for our third book, Maryland's Chesapeake, and is just an all-around good guy.

Sometime in the second half of 2018, I became aware that True Chesapeake Oyster Company, based in St Mary's County, was planning to open a restaurant in Baltimore, that Zack Mills, who had most recently been executive chef at Wit & Wisdom in the Four Seasons, was involved in the project, and the restaurant would be housed in the as-yet-to-be-redeveloped Whitehall Mill complex on Clipper Mill Road. The Local Oyster, a popular raw bar in Mt Vernon Marketplace, had also signed onto the project. I'm not sure there could be a better trifecta of concept-chef-location, especially not in Baltimore. The resurgence of the region's oyster population, due to the recent boom in oyster farming, has made everyone's favorite bivalve more popular than ever. Maryland native Mills was known for his ways with local seafood. And opening a restaurant along the banks of the Jones Falls has been a recent success story for several restaurateurs (see: Birroteca, La Cuchara, Gypsy's Truckstaurant, and Cosima).

The wait for True Chesapeake the Restaurant (as opposed to the Oyster Farm) seemed interminable, but it finally opened its doors in October of 2019. Mr Minx and I hit them up fairly early, not always a fair thing to do to a new restaurant, but we were eager to experience the food. We weren't the only ones; on our first visit, there seemed to be a pretty good crowd, which included local seafood expert John Shields and his husband John Gilligan, owners of Gertrude's at the BMA.

roasted half-shell oysters, Zack's crab soup

The high-ceilinged restaurant is rustically beautiful, decorated with large globe lamps wrapped in fishing nets, photographs by Maryland photographer Jay Fleming (who provided some of the photos in Maryland's Chesapeake), and lots of exposed brick and beams. There is a large bar that exists both in the front bar area of the restaurant and in the dining room, accommodating both casual and fine dining. Despite the clear separation between bar and dining room, the overall vibe of the restaurant is not formal. However, the food is serious.

the fish stick: fried blue catfish, mayo, capers, cornichons

Ingredients are sourced as locally as possible. Most of the oysters come from True Chesapeake's farm on St Jerome Creek in Southern Maryland, but the restaurant also offers those from other Chesapeake-region growers. Blue catfish and snakehead can also be found on the menu. Though they are damaging the ecosystem and consuming native fauna like rockfish, these invasive species are delicious. Eating them seems like the best way to eradicate them, after all, it worked for local shad and terrapin, which are still struggling to make a comeback in the Chesapeake area.

mushroom toast, crispy horseradish, tarragon, creme fraiche

Non-seafood dishes like the mushroom toast (above) and a regular vegetable-based entree, such as the one with roasted squash and turnips offered earlier this year, will please vegetarians. There are meat dishes too, including a classic burger topped with Hagerstown's Palmyra cheddar, for those folks who go to a seafood restaurant but don't like seafood. (Yes, I know they exist. I just don't understand them.)

crab cake, golden beet puree, creamed leeks, fennel salad

semolina fried oysters, braised swiss chard, caper hollandaise

spaghetti with clams

One of my favorite dishes at True Chesapeake is the house-made spaghetti with middleneck clams and bacon. The portion is app-sized, and fine to share if ordered with a few other apps. Honestly though, they should offer an entree-sized portion. It's one of the best pasta dishes in town.

panfried snakehead, cauliflower, beluga lentils, romesco

It was hard to find fault with anything on our two visits to True Chesapeake. Everything we tried was excellent, from the raw oysters to the duck fat-roasted monkfish. I will quibble, however, that the yogurt panna cotta dessert didn't contain enough gelatin to be an actual panna cotta, and the ice cream sundae dessert may have been a bit on the enormous side. (They were both delicious, though.)

panna cotta

I would be remiss not to mention the bar program, which is in the hands of Chelsea Gregoire. We were fans of her inventive beverages during her time at the Hotel Revival; True Chesapeake also benefits from her creativity. The restaurant got a boost when Gregoire was named Esquire Magazine's Beverage Director of the Year, which is rather a Big Thing and so well deserved. Congrats to Chelsea!

True Chesapeake Oyster Company
Historic Whitehall Mill
3300 Clipper Mill Road
410.913.6374
https://truechesapeake.com/pages/restaurant

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NoNoNo New York

There is far more to Japanese food than sushi, but it's hard to find a restaurant that offers more than seaweed salad and tempura in addition to the usual raw fish favorites. At least in Baltimore. But in New York, one can dine at an izakaya--a Japanese style pub--or at a restaurant that specialize in one or more specific dishes, like yakitori or ramen. NoNoNo, on the edge of Manhattan's Koreatown, is one of those places, with a menu of yakitori, or various chicken bits on skewers, plus noodle dishes and various other delights.

I wanted to dine at NoNoNo last December, but didn't have the forethought to make a reservation. This time around, I did, and so we feasted. We enjoyed some dishes more than others.

I am a fan of chawanmushi, an egg custard made with dashi broth rather than eggs, studded with savory bits and bobs, usually a shrimp or two. NoNoNo's version can be had plain, or for a small upcharge, topped with salmon roe, snow crab, and uni. Unfortunately, they were out of uni, and the snow crab was a disappointing small spoonful of shredded meat, but the overall portion of custard was large and, I thought, quite good.

The yakitori on offer includes everything from thigh and breast to skin, gizzard, even back cartilage (a favorite of mine). But we bucked the trend and went for beef skewers, instead--short rib with onion and skirt steak with shishito peppers. In both cases, the meat was flavorful and juicy, with the expected pleasant chew.

A skewered soft egg wrapped in bacon and topped with truffle salt made for another lovely mouthful or two.

We also tried the duck nanban, or deep fried duck topped with egg salad. The egg salad seemed more like mayonnaise with bits of white onion in it, and I felt it was a strange topping for the duck. I've seen too many food competition chefs get dinged for putting a wet sauce on a crisp piece of protein to think this is a good idea. But even the pieces of duck that escaped the sauce were a bit on the soggy and chewy side. Not my favorite dish.

Because our meal was going to be meat-forward, we ordered the grilled romaine, which was much like a Caesar salad. A very good Caesar salad.

We also ordered the deep fried grilled mushrooms with a very garlicky basil and scallop filling. I'd love the filling tossed with pasta. Those mushrooms were a challenge to pick up with chopsticks, by the way. Slippery devils they were.

Then there was the grilled salmon belly topped with shaved radish and salmon roe. I was hoping for a fatty and lush texture, but the meat was a tad overcooked.

Finally, we had the cold sukiyaki udon, which may have been my favorite dish of the evening. Fat slippery udon noodles swam in a tasty broth topped with various mushrooms, slices of beef, tofu, scallions, and a goodly hit of wasabi.

I'm not sure if we ordered badly, or what. The beef dishes were excellent, but some of the others had issues. There was still plenty more interesting items on the menu to explore, and I think we may have made a mistake in overlooking the chicken skewers. There are plenty of other restaurants in NY in which to dine, so we probably won't be revisiting NoNoNo in the future. Still, I'm glad I was able to satisfy my curiosity.

Check out the online menu and be intrigued yourself. Prices per dish are all pretty inexpensive, but if you order as much as we did, your meal won't be cheap.

NoNoNo
118 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10016
https://www.nonononyc.com/

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Flashback Friday - French Laundry Salmon

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on July 30, 2008

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After reading this entry on the blog French Laundry at Home, I was determined to try it for myself. After all, I owned the cookbook, and had neglected the huge tome ever since I purchased it from a book discounter several years back. Mr Minx and I both enjoy salmon, and I thought the recipe could be fairly simple, with some modifications.

The original recipe calls for creating a rub of citrus zest, salt, and sugar in which the salmon would marinate for a period of time. That was easy enough. Then it should poach in 110º olive oil. Yeahh...olive oil is expensive. Sorry. I'm not going to waste a bottle of it to cook fish. I figured pan-sautéeing would be good enough.

The fish was supposed to marinate for 1 hour for every half inch of thickness (if memory serves). That would be less than two hours for the salmon I had on hand. Unfortunately for us (and the fish) following that time frame proved impossible as the kitchen sink decided to back up and refuse to drain at just about the time I was ready to remove the fish from its citrus spa treatment and had pots and pans stacking up to be washed. The cookbook admonishes that leaving the fish in the marinade would result in a dish that was too salty. So as Mr Minx ran out to get some drain cleaner, I, in desperation, resorted to rinsing the fish in our tiny bathroom sink. As I opened the foil wrapper, I was sad to see a puddle of liquid under the fish. Not only would it be too salty, it would also have the consistency of rubber bands because too much moisture had been drawn from the flesh.

Maybe poaching in oil would have restored some resiliency? But I was not to find out.

In addition to all of the citrus zest, the recipe also calls for marinating orange segments in a mixture of simple syrup and vinegar to create a confit (you catch that, Kit?) As I had a whole grapefruit on hand, I used that as well. It turned out fine.

Another component of the dish was pea shoot coulis. The local supermarket doesn't carry pea shoots, and they're probably not in season anyway, so I used sugar snap peas. Unfortunately I had no tamis in the house so the purée wasn't as smooth as it should have been, and I opted not to thin it out so it was more like a mash. Or mushy peas. Only not mushy.

I didn't think that pea puree was enough of a veg, so I made asparagus as well. And of course the dish had no starch element, and that's simply not allowed in Casa Minx! So I fried up some sliced yellow potatoes, simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

Plated, it looked pretty enough. But the citrus flavor was barely noticed beyond the salt. And the texture of the fish was terrible. The confit was mild, as were the peas. The potatoes, however, were quite good. If not for the chopped chive garnish and the asparagus, this would have been a fairly flavorless meal.

One I'm not likely to try again.

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Flashback Friday - Tuna Casserole

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on March 7, 2014.

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I was raised in a Polish Catholic family, so Lent was a big deal when I was growing up. I hated Lent. I resented that I had to give something up. I disliked the whole weekly standing/ kneeling/ chanting torture known as the Stations of the Cross. And I hated the customary Friday suppers of either fish sticks or tuna casserole. Back when I was in grade school, my mother wasn't a very imaginative cook, so we were stuck eating either Mrs Paul's (later Gorton's, which were much tastier) or a combination of canned tuna, noodles, and Campbell's cream of celery soup every Friday for six weeks. A relatively short amount of time, but it felt like an eternity to someone who just didn't want any part of it.

It's been at least 25 years since I've eaten tuna casserole. By the time I graduated high school, my mom was a more creative cook and also felt we could fix our own Friday dinners. Yay for adulthood! Honestly, I'd rather have egg salad or fried eggs or pancakes or a veggie burger than fish sticks or tuna casserole on a Lenten Friday evening. (Even more honestly--I'd rather have a steak.)

Not long ago, I decided to try making a tuna casserole. Mr Minx had been spared the lifetime of horror but he was still completely dubious about the idea of hot tuna + noodles (although he did like the noodle part on its own). I wanted to make my Mom's casserole--partly to see if it was as scary as I remembered, and partly because (more honesty here) I did occasionally enjoy it--but I couldn't find her recipe. I was pretty sure she used the one on cans of Campbell's cream of celery soup, but the recipe found there now, labeled "classic," involves pimientos and peas. Yuck. Lets not make things worse, shall we?

I did remember that Mom's dish had cheddar cheese and crushed pretzels in addition to egg noodles and that soup, so I went with that. Part of me hoped when we went to the grocery store that Campbell's had discontinued the cream of celery variety. Alas, it was there, in a low-sodium version that had no flavor at all, celery or otherwise. I added some sauteed onion and celery to the dish to make it taste like something other than hot tuna.

Surprisingly, the flavor-less soup was actually not a bad thing at all. I think the strong celery flavor was what made me dislike the casserole more often than not. The rest of the ingredients were spot on though, really evoking a taste of the 70s. But in a good way. The real trick is to season that bland soup. Dress it up with herbs and spices, add onion and garlic, some cayenne or Tabasco. If you're not averse to a little more work, make a couple cups of bechamel and use that instead.

Mr Minx actually enjoyed the casserole, as did I, and we ate the whole thing over the course of a few days. And I'd actually make it again, maybe for Lent. But more likely we'll be having steak instead.

Tuna Casserole

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 stalk celery, chopped fine
1 10 1/2-ounce can cream of celery soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt, or to taste
Pinch cayenne
2 6-ounce cans tuna (in water), drained well
1 bag of egg noodles, cooked and drained
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Thin pretzels, crushed into small pieces to equal 1/2 cup

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a 3 quart saucepot, cook onion and celery in the butter until vegetables are soft. Stir in the soup and milk. Season with dill, onion powder, pepper, salt, and cayenne. If you think it needs more flavor, add more of the above, or even other stuff. A pinch of tarragon might be nice. Stir in the tuna.

Add cooked egg noodles to the pot a few handfuls at a time, stirring to coat with soup mixture. You will not need all of the noodles, so hold back a cup or two.

Pour half of noodle mixture into a buttered 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle over about 1/2 cup of the cheddar cheese. Top with the remaining noodle mixture and the rest of the cheese. Sprinkle the crushed pretzels on top. Bake for 25 minutes, until cheese is melted and the edges of the noodles are getting brown.

Serves 6

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Observing Lent

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on March 14, 2014.

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Lent is upon us, and for you practicing Catholics, it's time for Friday fasting. No meat for you!  To help you with Friday meal planning, here are some of my favorite meat-free (but not seafood-free) recipes from Minxeats.

Alton's Mac & Cheese
Asian Pasta Salad
Avocado Soup with Crab Salad

Black Bean Ragout
Black Bean Soup
Clam Chowdah

Clamburgers
Corn, Crab, and Coriander Fritters
Crespelle di Mare e Pesto
Drunken Noodles with Seafood a la Minx
Gagooch (fried zucchini with eggs)

Greek Shrimp Pasta
"Healthy" Spinach Lasagna
Mushroom and Tomato Ragout with Polenta

Oatmeal Risotto with Roasted Vegetables
Panfried Tofu with Asian Caramel Sauce
Parisian Gnocchi with Caponata
Seafood Louis

Shellfish Etouffee
Simple Black Bean Burgers
Spicy Fish Soup
Spicy Korean Tofu
Tomato Bread Pudding

Warm Tofu with Spicy Sauce



Posted on Minxeats.com.


Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tuna Salad with a Twist

I've always had a love-hate relationship with canned tuna. Growing up Catholic, it was a big part of my diet, what with all the Lenten Fridays in my past. Tuna salad or tuna casserole were weekly occurrences, with occasional break for frozen fish sticks. Mom always bought the solid albacore in spring water, which I thought was too dry. But chunk light was too mushy and not as tasty. Once I got out of Catholic school and started feeding myself, I stopped eating tuna entirely. That is, until I discovered sushi.

Mr Minx likes canned tuna, though, especially the solid albacore, so I started eating tuna salad again. I never even thought of using canned tuna in any way other than salad or casserole, but then I got a couple cans of tuna from Tonnino, a company known for their fancy jarred tuna (like tuna belly, the yummiest, fattiest, part of the fish). They've just started offering tuna in cans, two varieties of solid 100% yellowfin--packed in spring water and packed in olive oil--and they sent us both to sample. I didn't want to smother this high quality fish in mayonnaise, so I had to come up with a different way of serving it. I thought the oil-packed stuff would be great in a salad Nicoise, but I didn't have any of the other components on hand. What I did have, however, were cans of cannellini beans, and I recalled that tuna and bean salad was a thing. I also had lemons and celery and cherry tomatoes, so they were going to play a part. I wanted to make it a little more substantial but not heavy, so I added quinoa, too.

What a great combination of textures and flavors! Crunchy veg and quinoa, tender beans, meaty tuna, lots of lemon. So good! And so much tastier than tuna with mayo.

I really liked the mild flavor of the Tonnino tuna in spring water. It wasn't fishy, and it didn't seem dry. And I like that they have finally given the nod to canned fish, because while the jarred tuna is pretty, cans stack better in the pantry!

Tuna and Cannellini Bean Salad with Quinoa
I used celery two ways in this dish, but you can use it all raw or all cooked, if you prefer.

1/2 onion, diced
1/4 red (yellow or orange) bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced (divided use)
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Few sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 cup quinoa
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
Pepper
1 4.94-ounce can Tonnino Yellowfin solid pack tuna in spring water, drained
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved (quartered if large)
2 radishes, diced
Chopped parsley

In a medium saucepan, cook the onion, pepper, and half the celery in a tablespoon or so of olive oil and a big pinch of kosher salt over medium heat, stirring regularly, until vegetables have softened. Remove veg to a large bowl and add the beans and the leaves from the thyme sprigs. Cover and refrigerate.

Put the quinoa and 1 cup of water in the same saucepan that you used to cook the veggies. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low and cover the pot. Cook 10-12 minutes, then turn off the heat and allow the quinoa to sit for an additional 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and add to bowl with beans and veg, stirring to combine. Cover and refrigerate until cool, at least 1 hour.

Make a dressing with the lemon juice, mustard, honey, and a some olive oil (I like equal parts acid and oil, but YMMV), beating with a fork to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When the quinoa and beans are chilled, pour over the dressing and toss. Add the tuna, tomatoes, radishes, and remaining celery and toss again. Taste for seasoning and add more salt or lemon juice, as needed. Garnish with parsley.

Serves 4.

* 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!



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Magdalena

When Magdalena opened in the Ivy Hotel last year, I took one look at the menu and the prices and determined that we'd probably never eat there. We just can't afford $38 entrees and $25 appetizers. But lucky for us, they participated in Baltimore Winter Restaurant week, so we were able to enjoy a fine 3-course meal at the reasonable price of $35 per person.

The day before our scheduled dinner, I received an email from OpenTable saying that the restaurant had cancelled our reservation. A phone call to Magdalena confirmed that we were still on the books, and I didn't have to pull out the, "don't you know who I am?" card. (No, I haven't ever done that. Mostly because it would be greeted with a shrug and a blank stare.) Probably an OpenTable glitch. But as we left our car with the valet (which is complimentary) and followed the two employees who each opened one of the two doors into the restaurant for us, I still had some feelings of trepidation. Hearing "your table is ready," was music to my ears, as was the jazzy music--including my favorite Ella Fitzgerald--coming over the sound system. We were led to a corner table at the banquette facing the courtyard in the dining area nearest the bar. We like to eat early, for many reasons, and have found that doesn't always get us a good table. In fact, it usually scores us a pretty crappy one, like near the POS station or bathroom. So getting what seemed to us to be a very nice table with a view was a good way to start our meal.

We ordered drinks. I had a glass of Pinot noir, and Mr Minx ordered the Bookie. A riff on a Manhattan, it involved Maker's Mark bourbon and Averna Amaro, garnished with a strip of lemon peel and a Luxardo Maraschino cherry. The drink cost $18, which is just $7 shy of the price of an entire bottle of Maker's Mark at our favorite liquor store. It was tasty, sure, but the price was excessive for such a simple concoction.

Sure the booze was pricey, but we were getting a bargain as far as the food was concerned. Mr Minx started his meal with the potato and watercress soup with Benton's bacon dumplings and tarragon. The generously portioned green concoction was smooth and surprisingly light; the bitter flavor of the watercress was balanced nicely by the blandness of the potato and especially the strong smokiness of the bacon.

My fried Maryland oysters were specifically Holy Grails, from Hooper's Island Oyster Aquaculture Company. The pleasantly salty bivalves were plump and perfectly cooked and served with a creamy horseradish-flavored sauce and a little pile of lightly pickled shaved cucumber reminiscent of the cucumber salads familiar to all Marylanders.

There were three entree options, one of which had a $30 upcharge ($50 on the Restaurant Week web site) which meant for us there were only two. I was intrigued by the idea of candied eggplant, so opted for the filet of sea bass, which also came with forbidden rice, broccoli, and chili oil.

I was somewhat disappointed that the eggplant was a puree. It was lightly sweet, but not what I'd consider "candied." However, it was a nice foil for the rice, which was doused in an acidic and quite hot chili oil. The fish was tender and perfectly cooked, with a nice crisp skin, but my favorite part was the broccoli. It had been roasted to a lovely crisp-tender texture, well-seasoned and buttered, with a pleasant roast-y flavor.

The other attractive entree option was roast chicken with bread sauce. What Mr Minx received was half a baby chicken that was clearly of very high quality. It was that rare chicken that had real flavor, juicy with the smack of chicken fat and simple seasoning. The sauce, a classic accompaniment to simple roast fowl and a nod to Chef Mark Levy's British heritage, was creamy without being overly rich, thanks to its thickening agent of bread. French beans and tender slices of rutabaga--a homely root vegetable rarely seen in restaurants--made the dish homey and comforting.

All three dessert options sounded wonderful, but we could only eat two. The Meyer lemon posset was something else not usually seen in restaurants (or really anywhere in this country). An olde worlde kind of dessert, a posset is a very simple pudding of cream and sugar and some sort of citrus flavoring which curdles the pudding and helps it set. It was quite tart, though the coconut sorbet added a little sweet relief.

My sticky toffee pudding was just sweet, in a soothing old-fashioned molasses-y kind of way. The pudding is actually a dense cake made with dates and drenched with a caramel sauce. The flavor is reminiscent of gingerbread, but without the spices. A perfect little quenelle of whipped cream flavored with a touch of Earl Grey tea added a bit of light and creamy contrast.

Speaking of gingerbread, we received a tasty mignardise of mildly spiced gingerbread topped with lemon buttercream along with our check. A nice touch in an evening full of them, starting with the crusty bread rolls accompanied by whipped butter flavored with sweet soy and yuzu brought to us at the beginning of or meal. The server urged us to tuck into them right away while they were still hot from the oven.

Magdalena is a small gem of a restaurant with delicious food and really terrific service. (It was impeccable, not quite formal, accommodating but not intrusive, very polite and friendly. Kinda perfect, actually.) But the only way most of us will ever get to enjoy the place is during Restaurant Week. I urge readers to be on the alert for the summer version of this biannual event and if Magdalena participates again, run, don't walk, to your phone or OpenTable and make a reservation. Otherwise, start saving up to enjoy a meal there at any other time of the year.

Magdalena
The Ivy Hotel
205 E. Biddle Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
(410) 514-0303
http://www.magdalenarestaurant.com/



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Best of 2016, Part 1

Every year we compile a list of what we felt were the best dishes of the year, both at home and in restaurants. These are completely subjective, of course - it's what tasted most delicious to our palates. First up: the best of restaurant dishes. They are in order of posting, starting, of course, with January.

January

This rockfish dish at Waterfront Kitchen came with a plethora of carrots, and I couldn't have been more pleased.

February

A dinner at the Food Market's Private Kitchen included these succulent lamb chops, which we were happy to eat with our fingers in order to get every morsel of meat from the bones.

March

I indulged in a rather extravagant multi-course Korean meal at Gaonnuri in NY early last year. My favorite course was the kalbi, or short ribs, easily the best I've ever eaten. The bibimbap was pretty delicious, too.

Mr Minx and I had a great meal at Seasons 52. We enjoyed every course, but I think the sea bass with black rice was my favorite. Honestly, it was hard to choose.

April

Another tasty sea bass dish was had at the Rusty Scupper during an introduction to their Spring menu. Mr Minx also had blue crab ravioli that hit the spot.

May

Lamb shoulder isn't the first thing one thinks about when one considers chiles rellenos, but Chef Mike Ransom's lamb-stuffed chile in an ancho bbq sauce was among the best dishes at a B & O American Brasserie dinner where everything was pretty wonderful.

June

We went to a media preview of Gnocco in the spring, and honestly, there wasn't a bad dish in the house. The agnolotti with goat cheese, chanterelles, and hazelnuts was probably my favorite, though.

July

I'd never think I'd include a kale dish in a "best of" post, but here it is. The kale chaat from Sneha Indian Cuisine is an odd hodgepodge of crispy fried kale and a sweet tamarind yogurt sauce, and it was both unusual (not a classic "chaat" dish at all) and delicious.

September

In September, Mr Minx wrote about the best pizza we had all year - the cape sante di pancetta at Cosima. Topped with smoked baby scallops, smoked mozzarella, basil, caramelized bacon, and tiny whole onions, the pizza was fabulously unusual and unusually fabulous. The whole meal was excellent, but we gotta go back for this pizza.

October

It's hard to pick our favorite dish at Points South Latin Kitchen. Everything was marvelous, including this slab of meltingly tender short rib braised in a sauce containing bittersweet chocolate. The pork belly chicharrones and the evening's duck special were also amazing. One of the top meals of 2016.

November

Is it weird to have a salad on the best of list? This one,.the Fall Harvest Salad at the newly remodeled Milton Inn had mixed greens, maple vinaigrette, roasted butternut squash, feta cheese, and pistachio nuts and totally hit all the right spots.

B&O American Brasserie has yet another new chef, this time it's Scott Hines, who had been their executive sous chef for a while prior to his promotion. We love Scott - he's a great chef and a good guy, and always willing to help us out with recipes. He contributed several to our latest book, Maryland's Chesapeake. He's come up with some delicious dishes for the B&O's dinner menu, among them is this house-made pappardelle with veal sugo and an unexpected orange and marjoram gremolata. Another dish we need to have more of before the season ends and it comes off the menu. His oxtail marmalade and lamb dishes are notable as well.

December

We were invited to Charles Levine's new restaurant at Quarry Lake, Citron, where we had a lovely meal. There were many high points, the highest of which may have been this lobster bisque. Redolent of shellfish broth and containing two butter-poached claws, it is last-meal-worthy.

That's it for 2016. Not a good year in many respects, but not bad at all when it comes to restaurant food. Still, we can hope that 2017 is even better!



Posted on Minxeats.com.