Our Go-To Restaurants

Pre-COVID, we Minxes dined out at least once per week and sometimes 2-3 times if we were invited to restaurant events. Our regular night for dining out was Tuesday, the same day we did our grocery shopping. For the most part, it made sense to eat in restaurants that were close to grocery stores. The Weis Market in Towson Place (still Eudowood to me) is our favorite grocer, so we ended up at Red Robin entirely too often. Sometimes we would go to Spice and Dice for Thai food, or Gino's, and if we were especially tired of all of those places, we'd go to Glory Days Grill. Sometimes we'd go to a different grocery store because they all don't carry the same products at the same prices. Wegman's had a good by-the-pound buffet, so we ate and shopped in the same building. At other times, we'd go to ShopRite in Timonium, and we'd dine either at the Nautilus Diner, Il Basilico, or Yamato Sushi. Eventually, we soured on Yamato. While the fish was always fresh, the rolls were too large and seemed bland for the high price. We started going to Yama Sushi in Hampden/Roland Park/Whatever that area is called and consequently added the Giant in the same shopping center to our list of favorite stores.

in the car with the local bird from Ekiben

During the early days of COVID, we stopped dining out entirely. Our rare trips to the Weis Market were a quick in-and-out involving masks, rubber gloves, and lots of hand sanitizer. We ordered lots of carry-out and delivery from regular favorites Red Pepper, Kathmandu Kitchen, and Yama Sushi. We also discovered how delicious the burgers are at Alonso's, that giant fried chicken sandwiches from Ekiben taste just as good when eaten in the car, and that fries and wings from The Local Fry actually travel pretty well. Once summer hit and restaurants offered outdoor dining, we ate at La Cuchara as often as possible and celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary at a table in Petit Louis' parking lot. 

Now that things are pretty much back to "normal," except for the fact that there still is a pandemic going on, we're back to eating indoors on a weekly basis. We still don't go grocery shopping all that regularly, thanks to Amazon Fresh, but we do have a regular Saturday restaurant date. I do Whole30 off and on most of the year, which limits our restaurant choices. However, there are three places that are pretty safe for me, and we end up eating at them fairly frequently.

Lorenzo salad and wings @ Earth, Wood, & Fire

Earth, Wood, & Fire (1407 Clarkview Rd, Baltimore, MD 21209) serves one of our favorite pizzas in town, and they also have really good burgers (which are available on gluten-free buns). A pizza and a large Lorenzo salad (endive, arugula, grapes, macadamias, bleu cheese, in a lemon vinaigrette) constitutes our usual order, but on Whole30 days we each get an order of their spicy dry-rubbed wings in place of the pizza. To be honest, we can make the wings at home because I was able to cajole the recipe out of the chef, but we like the restaurant and want to continue to support them by eating there.

patty melt @ Nautilus Diner

Nautilus Diner (2047 York Rd, Timonium, MD 21093) has the typical huge diner menu with lots of carby breakfast options that aren't my thing even when I'm not dieting. I usually go for a slab of lasagna or moussaka, but now that I've discovered how good their patty melts are, my regular order may change. On diet days, however, I get a giant 3-egg omelet, with home fries, hold the toast. Broiled or roasted chicken--no stuffing, please!--is also a good choice, with a baked potato, veg of the day, and bonus cup of Maryland crab soup. Even I can't eat an entire half chicken, so there are plenty of leftovers to take home for a lunch later in the week.

chunky dunker oyster with watermelon mignonette @ True Chesapeake

As long as I stick to the oysters and other seafood items and stay away from the bread and other carb-laden goodies, I can have a fine meal at True Chesapeake. But why torture myself? Though we have gone there while dieting, it's more fun to go when I'm not. 

loaded yuca fries @ La Food Marketa

Another place I like when I'm on Whole30 is La Food Marketa (2620 Quarry Lake Dr, Baltimore, MD 21209). While I can't eat the tacos and such, I will get wings, brussels sprouts, and the loaded yuca fries. (Yes, some of those items have cheese on them, but it's my body, my diet so butt out.) The restaurant has a nice patio, so we tend to eat outdoors when we can. Neal is rather fond of their kobe beef hot dogs topped with street corn, and once in a while I order something different, like black bean soup. Those yuca fries are always on our table, however, no matter what else we get. 

beef kabobs and chicken fesenjan over tah dig @ Villagio Cafe

Most of our go-to restaurants are close by, no more than 10 miles in any direction. One, Villagio Cafe (6805 York Rd, Baltimore, MD 21212), is within walking distance. I think I've had lunch with friends at Villagio more often than Neal and I have eaten dinner there. It's never disappointing. My favorite is the un-lovely tah-dig topped with chicken fesenjan (crispy rice with a stew of walnuts and pomegranate with chicken), but I also enjoy their kebabs and lamb shank. Sometimes, when we want to feel young, we go to The Peppermill (1301 York Rd, Timonium, MD 21093), a restaurant that has been referred to as "God's waiting room." It's an old-fashioned sort of place with the kind of non-trendy comfort foods we grew up eating and where applesauce is considered a vegetable. But any place where I can get stewed tomatoes as a side and a hot fudge sundae or coconut cake for dessert is aces in my book. 

various maki and nigiri sushi @ Yama Sushi

Back to Yama Sushi (1030 W 41st St, Baltimore, MD 21211). I believe that maki rolls need to be small enough that I can fit an entire piece in my mouth without having to take a bite--2" in diameter at the very most, and that's pushing it. The rice of a piece of nigiri should be thumb sized, with the fish not much larger. Also, the rice should be fresh and not cold. Sadly, so many restaurants make giant rolls that are impossible to eat, and drape their nigiri with tablecloths of raw fish. The rice is either overcooked and sticky or cold and crumbly. Yama sushi is the optimal size and the rice is always perfect. Sometimes it's even a little warm. I appreciate an inventive roll, like their Red Devil, topped with lightly cooked, Cajun-spiced tuna, and the Christmas Tree, which wears a garland of seaweed salad. Not only is the food always very good, but the prices aren't astronomical and the service is pleasant. (We miss our regular pre-pandemic waitress who addressed us  as "honey" every time she came to the table.)

fish and chips and baby back ribs @ The Crackpot

Stalwart seafood restaurant The Crackpot (8102 Loch Raven Blvd, Towson, MD 21286) gets our business fairly regularly. It has recently come under new ownership and the menu has changed quite a bit. One can still get steamed crabs and a crabcake that weighs 23 ounces, but also chicken momo, veggie samosas, and chicken or beef tikka masala. I've always been fond of their baby back ribs, which are a bargain $12 on Mondays. I wasn't crazy about their crabcakes (which also came in a gluten-free version) and haven't tried them recently, though I'm curious to see what the new owners are doing with them. 

There are also a handful of go-to restaurants for when we're in a celebratory mood. We used to go to Cunningham's, but now that the restaurant is part of the Atlas Restaurant Group, they no longer get our business. Instead, we go to True Chesapeake, Cosima, or La Cuchara, all three of which were mentioned in a recent post. Others of our go-to dining spots that have also been named in prior posts: Red Pepper, Kung Fu 12, Asian Kebab and Hot Pot, and Il Basilico. Sometimes I think we should branch out and try other places, but to be very honest, we're quite happy with the selection of restaurants we currently visit. That's not to say that we haven't tried others--we have. But none of them have been worthy of adding to the list...though there is one we hope to visit again soon. More on that sometime in the future.

If anyone knows of a must-try restaurant in our general vicinity (Towson), please 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!

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Flashback Friday - Maryland is for Crabs

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on June 19, 2013.

It's June, and that means it's time to eat crabs! (True of every other month of the year as well.) Please to enjoy an excerpt from our book, Food Lovers' Guide to Baltimore, with the addition of photos.

Here in Maryland, the act of cleaning steamed crabs, along with extracting (and eating) the meat, is known as “picking.” There are two schools of thought. One involves removing the legs before cleaning and the other does not. We like to remove the legs, since any meat that comes off with them is that much less we have to dig for later. Don’t just yank them out—grab a leg up high near the body and bend it downward. You should hear a small snap as it breaks away from the shell. Use a little finesse to gently wiggle the leg away from the body; hopefully there will be a hunk of meat attached to it. In the case of the backfin, there will be quite a bit of meat. If not, all is not lost—the meat is still inside. All crabs are different, so you won’t get lucky every time.

A crab and his legs are soon parted. Stop staring at me!

Next, turn the crab so it’s belly-up. Using a short, nonserrated knife, lift up the slim pointed tip of the flap-like apron (which is much larger on the female) and pull it upward until it’s perpendicular
to the body of the crab.

See the pointed tip of the flap?

At this point you should be able to slide the tip of the knife within the newly revealed gap between the bottom and top shells. Twist the knife and the halves should separate easily; remove the top shell.

Place your knife in that gap under the lifted apron, or use your
fingers if you prefer brute force.

What you have left will be pretty ugly, but stay with us! Use your knife or fingers to scrape off the gills or “dead man’s fingers” from both sides of the body, and remove the squiggly mess of guts
in the center.

Some of the squigglies are in the top of the shell, but you won't eat the shell,
so don't worry about them. The yellow, greenish-yellow, or brownish
pasty stuff, the "mustard," is edible, and actually tastes pretty good.
Some folks think it's fat, but it's actually the crab's hepatopancreas.
Mmmm! Doesn't that sound appetizing? 

Remove the gills, and the face while you're at it so it
won't stare at you anymore.

Whomever was the first to eat one of these was sure brave.

What you’ll have left is two halves of the body, joined by a thin piece of shell. With one half in each hand, bring them toward each other to crack the shell and separate them.

Grab each half...

...and snap the body in half.

Using the knife or your fingers, remove the meat from the various chambers that make up the crab’s body. The shell is quite easy to break with a little pressure, but the going might be slow until you get the hang of it.

When you’ve exhausted the supply of meat within the body, move on to the claws (the legs aren’t really worth bothering with, although there is some meat in them). Bend each “elbow” in the wrong direction to separate the top and bottom pieces of the claw. Grab the edges of the pincer (watch out, they’re sharp) and pull them apart. You should be able to wiggle the “thumb” portion of the pincer away from the shell, hopefully pulling out a piece of cartilage and a chunk of meat. If you only get part of it, use your hammer to crack the shell and remove it the hard way. Use the hammer on the white portion of the bottom part of the claw to crack it in the same way. Some people like to place the blade edge of their knife against the shell and hammer that instead, which can make a cleaner break.

However you do it, enjoy!



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Flashback Friday - Nectarine Soup with Crab Salad

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on August 29, 2014.

It has long been a tradition to have steamed crabs for Mr Minx's birthday. We usually get two dozen, which comfortably feeds four adults, but for some reason, we had a ton left over this year. We did our part, putting away a dozen between the two us (along with hush puppies and corn on the cob), but there were still several crabs left by the time we were done. These were meaty suckers, so once we picked the remaining critters, we had a whole pound of meat (.984 lb, to be exact) left over.

I can probably eat a pound of crabmeat served with nothing but a fork, but that's no fun, and maybe more than a bit piggy. I didn't want to only make crabcakes, especially since I feel I've done that recently. I thought back to a soup I made with avocados and garnished with crab salad and decided that would hit the spot. Only we didn't have any avocados. But we did have a big bag of nectarines and white peaches that I had purchased at the farmers' market earlier in the week. Rather than going to my old stand-by soup, gazpacho, I decided to let the nectarines speak for themselves. Blended with a bit of Greek yogurt and seasoned with savory spices, it went nicely with the rich, sweet, blue crab (the best crab!).

As for the salad, I went with a ceviche-style preparation, with citrus juices, jalapeno, and tomato. Mr Minx and I agreed that it was a restaurant-quality dish, and not really all that difficult to prepare. And made entirely from things we already had on hand in the pantry and fridge.

Nectarine Soup with Crab Salad

For soup:
5 nectarines
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup chicken stock (you can use veg stock, or water)
1/4 cup mint leaves, loosely packed
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon harissa powder
Pinch cayenne
Large pinch salt
Agave syrup, to taste

For salad:
1 small shallot, minced
1 small tomato, seeded and diced, or 5-6 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon agave syrup
1/2 lb fresh blue crab meat

To make soup: Peel nectarines and cut into chunks, discarding pits. Place nectarine flesh into a blender or food processor with remaining ingredients except cayenne, salt, and agave syrup, and pulse to a puree. Season to taste with the last three ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

To make salad: Place vegetables in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together citrus juices, olive oil, and agave syrup. Pour over vegetables. Add crab meat and gently fold to coat with dressing. Refrigerate for at least an hour for flavors to meld and to tame the oniony-ness of the shallot.

To serve: Pour soup into bowls or cups. Top with a generous portion of crab salad.

Serves 4-6, with extra crab salad.

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Win a Copy of Maryland's Chesapeake!

Enter for the chance to win a copy of our latest book, Maryland's Chesapeake: How the Bay and Its Bounty Shaped a Cuisine! You just need to do a few things first.

Follow @minxeats on Instagram. Then come back here and let us know in a comment. For an extra chance at winning, follow @daminxy1 on Twitter as well. (If you don't use Instagram, then following us on Twitter will count. Just make sure you tell us that when you leave your comment.)

Contest ends November 11th, 2016. Winner will be announced by email, so make sure we can reach you that way.

Open to residents of the Continental US only.



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Book Launch Party

Hope to see you there!



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B&O American Brasserie Spring 2015

Over the past few years, we've been to many media dinners at B&O American Brasserie, usually to herald a new chef and his complete reinvention of the restaurant's menu. While all of the dinners were enjoyable, some dishes we ate along the way were downright weird. I'm happy to say that the B&O's current chef Michael Ransom is not only still around (huge hooray for that!), but he's also not doing anything bizarre with food.

That's not to say he's not imaginative. He is, very much so. But his imagination is practical, not fanciful. Definitely not weird. He has the ability to innovate and be accessible at the same time. His dishes are ambitious enough to impress hardcore food snobs, and so flavorful and well-composed that everyone else can enjoy them as well.

At this dinner, we left ourselves in his capable hands. He came to speak to us and told us what menu items he planned to serve Mr Minx and me, starting with the strawberry salad, which would be a refreshing start to our meal. The pickled strawberries and the tang of sherry vinegar were balanced by sweet fresh berries and crunchy toasted almonds.

Next, we received a pair of tacos with a filling of charred octopus, chorizo verde, celery-herb salad, and pumpkin seed vinaigrette in a raw jicama shell, with harissa pickles and a fiery green hot sauce on the side. Personally, I could have done without the celery, but otherwise loved the combination of ingredients. The hot sauce wasn't as incendiary on the taco as when tasted straight, but it still had a strong kick. I don't recommend anyone drinking it. And the jicama wrapper proved that there is such a thing as a completely gluten-free (practically calorie-free, too) taco shell. Genius.

We also shared a single large raviolo, filled with ricotta and a perfectly runny duck egg yolk and topped with shaved Parm, pea tendrils, and crispy shards of shiitake mushroom, all dribbled with brown butter. A seemingly simple dish, but full of flavor.

Then we moved on to the entrees. The one I was most interested in involved soft shell crabs. Full disclosure: Chef Ransom is working on a soft shell recipe for our upcoming book, and it's going to be a lot like this one: Soft Shell Crab, crushed leeky potatoes, green tomato salad, chili-lime butter, crispy corn. The crabs were poached in chili-lime butter before being finished on the grill, a technique that left them tender and super juicy. There were a lot of tangy and complicated flavors on this plate, tempered by the mild potatoes, which Chef Ransom meant to evoke potato salad. Mr Minx, never a fan of soft shells, found the dish to be "a revelation."

Another stunner, both visually and flavor-wise, was the evening's market fish, in this case flounder, served with spring vegetable ragout, pickled ramp, yellow tomato coulis, and spanish chorizo. I normally find typical thin flounder filets to be a snooze, but the creature this slab came from must have been a monster. The fish was as thick as halibut and very moist, but the star of the plate was the spring vegetables, which included large semi-starchy English peas and asparagus. The tomato coulis wasn't at all acidy, and the nuggets of confit chorizo and drizzle of chorizo oil gave the dish depth. Really beautiful.

We also tried the chef's cut of lamb (this week it was racks; because we were eating three entrees between us, Chef simply cut one chop for each of us), served with fregola, shitake, field greens, pickled and roasted onions, natural jus, and dried lemon salt. The chops, beautifully frenched and resembling miniature tomahawks, were juicy, pleasantly fatty, and perfectly medium-rare. The accompaniments were rich and earthy, punctuated by bites of acidy onion and a hint of lemon.

We drank a couple of cocktails apiece with our meal: a light and bright cardamom-spiked daiquiri and a perfumey (in a good way--expensive perfume) "Tin Cup" for me; the whiskey and sherry combo called a Cadizian and a rather whiskey sour-ish Glen + Tea for the mister. For dessert we had simple scoops of ice cream and sorbet in honey thyme and pineapple flavors. The sorbet was great, and the ice cream was pretty good too, even if the dried fresh thyme garnish did remind me of pizza.

Chef Michael Ransom's Spring menu is a real beaut and we'd really like to get ourselves back to B&O in the next few weeks to sample a few more items. Or just get the fish and crabs again. And the tacos. And....



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Crab Country Gourmet

It's always tough to come up with the perfect holiday gift. Some folks are easy to buy for, some others are impossible. But I have found that even the most difficult people like food gifts. Everyone needs to eat! And one of the best food gifts a Marylander can give is...the gift of crab. Especially to friends from out-of-town.

Crab Country Gourmet, owned by Tom and John Knorr, will ship crab cakes, crab dip, and crab soup, all made fresh daily in Maryland, to anywhere in the contiguous 48 states. They recently shipped a box of all of the above to us to sample.

Our "dinner for 2" package, which included 2-5oz crab cakes, 10 ounces of crab dip, and 16 ounces of crab soup, arrived packed in dry ice, along with small containers of remoulade sauce and reheating instructions.

Half the crab dip, a classic creamy concoction of cheeses, crab, and seasonings, was scooped into an oven-proof ramekin and topped with a little bit of shredded cheddar before going into the oven. Pita chips were employed as the ramekin-to-mouth vehicle, and when we ran out of those, we used a spoon. Yummy stuff. It was pretty good cold, too, straight out of the package.

We used the remainder of the dip the next day, mixed with some shell pasta, to make a rich crab mac-and-cheese.

Crab Country Gourmet's tasty crab soup is a lighter version than what we're used to, with a mix of still-crisp vegetables and bacon in a tomato-based broth.

The crab cakes were baked for 10 minutes at 450°F, then put under the broiler for another minute, to get them nice and brown on top. The plump 5oz mounds were mostly meat, lightly seasoned, and with very little filler. We found them to be proper crab cakes, moist, yet firm, and full of crabby flavor. These are the same crab cakes you'll find served at the Red Roost in Whitehaven, MD, on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

The Knorr brothers also own Evolution Craft Brewery in Salisbury, and two other restaurants. They should offer a beer-delivery service, too, to wash down all this crabby goodness. ;)

If you'd like to send Crab Country Gourmet products to your kith and kin this holiday season, just head on over to their Web site: http://crabcountrygourmet.com/. Use promo code bmore10 to get 10% off your order.

* 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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Upcoming Events at Liv2Eat

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Nectarine Soup with Crab Salad

It has long been a tradition to have steamed crabs for Mr Minx's birthday. We usually get two dozen, which comfortably feeds four adults, but for some reason, we had a ton left over this year. We did our part, putting away a dozen between the two us (along with hush puppies and corn on the cob), but there were still several crabs left by the time we were done. These were meaty suckers, so once we picked the remaining critters, we had a whole pound of meat (.984 lb, to be exact) left over.

I can probably eat a pound of crabmeat served with nothing but a fork, but that's no fun, and maybe more than a bit piggy. I didn't want to only make crabcakes, especially since I feel I've done that recently. I thought back to a soup I made with avocados and garnished with crab salad and decided that would hit the spot. Only we didn't have any avocados. But we did have a big bag of nectarines and white peaches that I had purchased at the farmers' market earlier in the week. Rather than going to my old stand-by soup, gazpacho, I decided to let the nectarines speak for themselves. Blended with a bit of Greek yogurt and seasoned with savory spices, it went nicely with the rich, sweet, blue crab (the best crab!).

As for the salad, I went with a ceviche-style preparation, with citrus juices, jalapeno, and tomato. Mr Minx and I agreed that it was a restaurant-quality dish, and not really all that difficult to prepare. And made entirely from things we already had on hand in the pantry and fridge.

Nectarine Soup with Crab Salad

For soup:
5 nectarines
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup chicken stock (you can use veg stock, or water)
1/4 cup mint leaves, loosely packed
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon harissa powder
Pinch cayenne
Large pinch salt
Agave syrup, to taste

For salad:
1 small shallot, minced
1 small tomato, seeded and diced, or 5-6 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon agave syrup
1/2 lb fresh blue crab meat

To make soup: Peel nectarines and cut into chunks, discarding pits. Place nectarine flesh into a blender or food processor with remaining ingredients except cayenne, salt, and agave syrup, and pulse to a puree. Season to taste with the last three ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

To make salad: Place vegetables in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together citrus juices, olive oil, and agave syrup. Pour over vegetables. Add crab meat and gently fold to coat with dressing. Refrigerate for at least an hour for flavors to meld and to tame the oniony-ness of the shallot.

To serve: Pour soup into bowls or cups. Top with a generous portion of crab salad.

Serves 4-6, with extra crab salad.

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Sidebar - H.L. Mencken: Culinary Chronicler of Baltimore

We were perhaps a bit overzealous when we wrote our most recent book, Baltimore Chef's Table, and handed in far too many words. Unfortunately, this meant some of them needed to be cut, among them several recipes and sidebars. We're posting some of those sidebars here on Minxeats. Think of them as supplemental material.

Robert F. Kniesche, Baltimore Sun photo / September 20, 1950

H. L. Mencken, the cantankerous journalist who worked for the Baltimore Sun during the first half of the 20th century, wrote about everything that affected his era, from revolutions in Cuba to the antiquated ordinances of the city government. Despite his contrarian and sometimes fiery demeanor in print, he could also become quite romantic when it came to the culinary delights of Baltimore.

Mencken lived the vast majority of his life at 1524 Hollins Street, a three-story rowhome in the West Baltimore neighborhood known as Union Square. Some of his earliest memories are of his mother going to the fishmongers on Hollins Street to buy 8-inch blue crabs “with snow white meat almost as firm as soap” for ten cents per dozen. The rarer soft crabs were more expensive at 2 1/2 cents each. When his mother reported to his father that the price of a 20-inch shad had gone from 40 cents to 50 cents, his father predicted that the Republic would not survive the 19th century.

Breakfast and lunch were the heavy meals in the Mencken household. While many today would have a sandwich for lunch, this was a rare item then. “When I was a boy there were only three kinds of sandwiches in common use - the ham, the chicken and the Swiss cheese. Others, to be sure, existed, but it was only as oddities. Even the club sandwich was a rarity, and in most eating-houses it was unobtainable.The great majority of people stuck to the ham and the Swiss cheese, with the chicken for feast days and the anniversaries of historic battles.” A typical lunch would include a platter of Norfolk spots, Himalaya corn cakes, succotash, buttered beets, baked potatoes, and string beans. If they were in season, oranges and bananas for dessert. Mencken estimated that the calorie content of this family meal was around 3,000.

Fruits and vegetables were seasonal in those days, and in winter there wasn’t much produce at all. In the summer, however, Mencken recalled the African-American street vendors who sold produce from the back of their horse drawn carts, known as Arabs or Arabers. “Arabs (with the first a as in day)...announced their wares with loud, raucous, unintelligible cries, much worn down by phonetic decay.” A handful of these vendors can still be seen and heard wandering through the streets of Baltimore today.

To Mencken, oysters were a low class food eaten by drunks in oyster houses like Kelly’s on Eutaw Street. He did concede, however, that one of his favorite lunch spots, the now gone Rennert Hotel at the corner of Saratoga and Liberty Streets, had a decent oyster pot pie. He was more inclined to order the crab soups, either the shore-style with vegetables or the bisque.

Indeed, crabs were the most popular item which came from “the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay.” Mencken remembered how a former sheriff of Baltimore, Tom McNulty, had a special way of preparing soft shell crabs. He would spear a slice of bacon on a large fork, jam a soft shelled crab on top, and hold the fork over a charcoal brazier until the fat melted over the crab. Then he would slap it on a slice of hot toast.

Mencken loved strong drink as much as food, and was not a fan of Prohibition. "A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank." He felt that alcohol was “the greatest of human inventions, and by far -- much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet." Indeed, he saw food and drink as prime examples of Man’s ongoing quest for the finer things in life,"...all the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen."

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Chesapeake Crab & Beer Festival

The Chesapeake Crab & Beer Festival will make a stop at Westshore Park in the Inner Harbor on Saturday, June 21st in two fun-filled sessions from 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. The Festival is an ALL-YOU-CARE-TO-TASTE extravaganza complete with thousands of crabs, lots of beer, arts & crafts, music, family fun and so much more!

Guests can enjoy the great food! There are over 20,000 crabs on-hand, plus steamed corn on the cob, cole slaw and UTZ potato chips. Guests should enjoy the fact that the portions are not limited and the crabs will be freshly steamed on-site. In addition, guests will enjoy all you care to over 20 different beers and wines in their souvenir glasses.

Seating is limited, communal and all seats are covered under large tents. There are only 500 tickets per session and the event is expected to sell out in advance. Ticket prices are from $29 - $89 and offer different benefits. For more information or to purchase tickets in advance, please visit www.mdcrabfest.com or call 800-830-3976. Kids 3 and Under are FREE.

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Fall Menu at J. Paul's

I love when restaurants change their menus seasonally, not only to reflect available produce, but also to include heartier dishes when the weather turns cold. At J. Paul's, Chef Jason Dyke does just that. The new fall menu for 2013 includes a rib-sticking Virginia beef chili that combines ground beef with smoked short ribs topped with cheese and sour cream. There are also baked oysters topped with bacon, smoked gouda, scallions, and garlic butter...

...and chicken Marsala, with fettuccini, goat cheese, mushrooms, and asparagus.

There are also two salmon dishes on the fall menu; one is a salad with dried fruits and hazelnuts, and the other is grilled with a honey bbq glaze.

J. Paul's also has a new Ravens-inspired cocktail on the menu, the Ravens Nation, comprising Bacardi Razz rum, black raspberry liqueur, cranberry juice, lime, a splash of soda, and served with a sugar rim.

J. Paul's will also be part of Downtown Partnership's Maryland Crab and Oyster Celebration. From October 25th-November 3rd, J, Paul’s will be offering a special menu that highlights crab and oysters from Maryland including the yummy crab cake appetizer: a Maryland jumbo lump crab cake over a boursin-stuffed fried local tomato with corn relish and cherry pepper remoulade. There will also be a fried oyster po' boy, local fried oysters in an amoroso roll with lettuce, tomato, red onion and tarragon mayonnaise; and a crab cake salad with mixed field greens, tomato, onion, corn, red and green bell peppers and cucumber tossed in peppercorn ranch topped with a Maryland jumbo lump crab cake. For more information on the event: http://dinedowntownbaltimore.com/.



Posted on Minxeats.com.