Ludlow Market Bar & Bottle Shop

I must admit never having visited the Wine Market Bistro, the precursor to Ludlow Market Bar & Bottle Shop in Locust Point. No particular reason, we just don't venture down to South Baltimore very often. Not long after the opening of the place, we were invited in to taste some of the small-plates style items that are ideal pairings for drinks at the bar or as a starter for a multi-course meal.

We had to try some drinks, too.

My taste in cocktails leans toward bold, unusual, and perfume-y, so I was happy with Ludlow's complex creations. The slushie Crush a Lot was far better than any of the typical insipid vodka-based "crush"-style drinks I've had. I normally avoid them entirely, but the promise of an icy drink comprising strong black tea and bourbon was hard to resist. It was strong and juice-forward, but also bourbon.

The Deluxe House was also quite nice. Mezcal drinks can sometimes be too smoky, but the agave liquor was tempered nicely by the addition of Spanish vermouth, dry curacao, and Baltimore Whiskey Company's fab 1904 Ginger Apple liqueur.

Room Service: Hamilton Rum, Demoiseau 110 Rhum, pineapple shrub, Jamaica #2 bitters

Chef Christopher Audia's creative menu borrows from various world cuisines. The Beef fat fries are a riff on British chef Heston Blumenthal's famous triple-cooked chips. They're super crisp on the outside and very tender on the inside, like no fries you've ever tasted, and they come with a trio of dips including mustard greens mustard, curry ketchup, and a malt vinegar aioli.

Beef fat fries, mustard green aioli, malt vinegar aioli, curry ketchup

Greens are a recurring theme on Audia's menu. The black eyed pea fritters are served on a nest of positively addictive marinated collard greens and topped with a dab of smoked mayo. The fritters themselves remind me of falafel and the whole plate would be pretty great stuffed into a pita.

Black eyed pea fritters, marinated collards, smoked aioli

The shrimp toast topped with radish salad and chili oil is a nod to everyone's favorite puu puu platter staple, only with much more flavor and no grease. I only got a piece of this (though I bogarted the fritters) and wished I could have savored more.

Shrimp toast, radish salad, chili oil

We also sampled a rockfish crudo with bright and refreshing cucumber and jalapeno flavors...

Rockfish crudo, cucumber, jalapeno, agua verde

...and the hangar steak with grilled broccoli, bacon lardons, and a mimolette cheese sauce. It's shown portioned for sampling but comes as a main dish.

Hangar steak,  grilled broccoli florets, mimolette fondue, lardons

What I really wanted to try, after seeing photos on Instagram, were the lamb ribs. They were fall-off-the-bone tender and came with a chunky hazelnut harissa, not too spicy but full of flavor, and the spark of pickled red onion. Another dish I had to share but really didn't want to.

Lamb ribs, hazelnut harissa, herb salad

Ludlow Market is strong on both the food and the drink sides of things, which I hope will make it a very popular dining destination. Mr Minx and I might even venture down into Locust Point more often.

Ludlow Market, Bar & Bottle Shop
921 E Fort Ave #135
Baltimore, MD 21230
https://www.ludlowmarketbaltimore.com

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Barcocina

Mr Minx and I visited Barcocina for the first time last summer. We were in the neighborhood, didn't have dinner plans, and had heard good things. Most importantly, after threatening skies most of the afternoon, the evening had turned breezy and pleasant, making the idea of outdoor dining very appealing. Lucky for us, in warmer months, Barcocina is open to the elements on three sides, with both indoor and outdoor seating. If you want sun, there are sunnier spots, and if you prefer shade, there's plenty of that as well.

On this first trip, which was early on in the restaurant's existence, we tried one each of Barcocina's selection of various tacos, guacamoles, and ceviches, plus a side of Brussels sprouts.

Crispy Brussels sprouts with red mole and Cotija

The sprouts, which were tossed with red mole and topped with a smattering of cotija cheese, were excellent. Who would think that cinnamon would work so well with the tiny cabbages?

Oaxaca style guacamole

The guacamole we tried was a fairly simple and traditional affair of avocado seasoned with shallot, lemon, lime, jalapeno, and cilantro.  It came with a generous basket of not-too-salty tortilla chips. Also successful were the easy-to-eat tuna sashimi tacos, cool raw tuna swaddled in pillowy soft flour tortillas.

Sashimi tuna tacos

A scallop ceviche, on the other hand, was a bust. What we received was one large scallop, sliced horizontally, sauced with citrus, vanilla, and habanero, with a smattering of red quinoa on the bottom of the dish and an overly generous amount of ancho chile popcorn on top. It sounded good, but the slimy slices were awkward to eat, and they were not as fresh as they could have been. (The restaurant seems to have gotten rid of the ceviche altogether, apart from one version on the appetizer list.)

Our second visit came about 9 months later, during the brief Baltimore City curfew period. Two media dinners planned that week had been canceled, but we ventured to Fells Point anyway to support the businesses that were hurt by the early shutdown. We had planned to revisit Barcocina at some point, and this seemed like a good time to do so.

Smoky Margarita and Texas Pink

We started out with two smoky mezcal-based cocktails, a margarita and a Texas pink, topped with pineapple foam. They were both refreshingly un-sweet, but the latter had far more ice than actual cocktail going on. With drink prices over $10 a pop these days, I want a little more booze, please.

Barcocina Dip

Like the first time we dined at Barcocina, the food was hit or near-miss. 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.

Duck enchiladas

Better were the duck enchiladas topped with red mole and a fried egg and served on a bed of black beans. Listed in the appetizer section, the three generously stuffed enchiladas would make a perfect entree as well.

Buffalo chicken tacos

We tried one of the seven varieties of tacos offered, the Buffalo chicken. Three flour tortillas stuffed to bursting with shredded chicken were topped with shredded green mango & napa cabbage and smoked cheddar, and served with a bowl of salsa de arbol. The flavor wasn't as reminiscent of chicken wings as the name suggested, but they were pretty tasty nonetheless.

Tuna taquitos

Even better were the tuna taquitos, wee small shells of fried malanga, a taro-like starchy tuber, filled with chopped tuna, pickled sweet potato and ginger, and a chili soy sauce. Each two-bite taco had just the right amount of texture and flavor, and were my favorite thing on the table.

We were hungry and tried two sides as well, crispy yucca tots and elotes. Let me just say this: all tots should be made with yucca! (I'm not a fan of the tater variety). These were super crispy on the outside and creamy within, and just fine without the accompanying adobo sauce and citrus crema.

Really?

As for the elotes--Barcocina should be embarrassed. For $6, we got one medium-small ear of corn, cut in half. It apparently had ancho cayenne butter, queso fresco, and lime zest, but in such minuscule amounts as to be ridiculous. Thinking on it, I should probably have asked to have it removed from our check. It made me mad.

So apart from two real bombs (elotes and scallop ceviche) and one almost-flop-yet-still-edible (Barcocina dip), the food at Barcocina is pretty good. Anything with raw tuna in it especially. And Brussels sprouts. And the food is prettily presented, to boot. Service is decent as well, if a bit relaxed. And you can't beat the location--at the foot of Broadway, overlooking the water or Thames Street, depending on which side you sit. The views certainly make up for any deficiencies in food or drink.



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Summer Fancy Food Show 2013 - Savory Delights

A couple of summers ago, I was all set to attend my first Fancy Food Show. It was in DC that year, a relatively short MARC ride away. But plans changed and I ended up spending the day with an old friend. This year, I was determined to go, even though the venue had changed to New York. I love New York, despite its nasty soup-like Summertime humidity, so I was even more excited to attend the event.

After a series of mishaps including a very late train into town and a taxi accident (I was not hurt), I made it to the Javits Center relatively unscathed (albeit sweaty). My first line of business was to check out the booth for José Andres Foods (which will get its own post), after which I simply walked up and down the aisles and checked out the products that most interested me.

The Fancy Food Show is an orgy of food samples. I can't tell you how many booths offered olives and/or olive oil, but there were quite a few. Olives are fine and good, but I was more interested in the unusual.

One of the more interesting products was a vegetarian caviar made from kelp. Kelp Caviar also offers the real deal, but the fake stuff was far more intriguing. There are eight flavors to choose from, including wasabi, balsamic, ginger, and truffle, and I found the tiny pearls to be somewhat like tobiko (the caviar one finds on sushi), only without the snappy texture.

Spain and Italy were well-represented and offered a goodly amount of olive-related products. I skipped much of them in search of other nations to taste. As I walked through the aisles of Mexican-produced items, I noticed that quite a few of them were tequilas and mezcals. Despite the fact that it was still pretty early in the day, I admit to tasting a few of them. Among the best were the mezcals from Oaxaca. The Real Minero, brewed in earthenware pots, is reminiscent of a fine Scotch, intensely smoky, but with a familiar (to tequila drinkers anyway) agave fruitiness. Another smoky, but lighter and drier, mezcal is the Yuu Baal brand. These mezcals have only been available in the US for about six months, and right now in selected restaurants and liquor stores in New York. I meant to pick up a bottle before heading home, but sadly wasn't able to find the time for a booze-shopping expedition.

Fueled by alcohol, I was attracted to a sign that said "World of Chia," which I took to mean a booth of chia seed products. While Interfoods does have one raspberry jam-like product that contains the Omega 3-rich chia, the rest of their products were pepper purees and fruit pulps. Despite being warned that the habanero puree I was slathering on a cracker was "very hot," I popped it in my mouth anyway. Like I said - fueled by alcohol. When the rep asked if I was ok, I acted like it was nothing despite the fact that the right side of my mouth was on fire and smoke was likely coming out of my ear. I thanked him, took a card, and went off to find something creamy and sweet to kill the heat. What I found first was more alcohol - an astonishingly delicious cocktail made with avocado oil, lime, and cucumber by Junior Merino, the Liquid Chef. There were three or four other cocktails on offer, and while I really wanted to try them, or have another one of those insane cucumber ones, I hightailed it out of the spicy, alcoholic land of Mexico and stumbled into Canada.

Canadians are so nice. Not only did the lovely Marianne Pemberton of Vancouver's Ethical Bean offer me a sample of their coffee, she made me a latte. Ah....sweet relief! As I sipped, she told me about Ethical Bean's fair trade organic coffees and showed me their nifty free iPhone app that one can use to track their bag of coffee beans, from growing and picking to roasting, via QR code. And that latte was pretty delicious. Now they have to start selling their product here in the US, because shipping costs from Canada are pretty outrageous.

Another product I liked was Hammons Black Walnut oil. A Sofi award finalist in 2011, the oil has a black walnut flavor that is a bold change from extra virgin olive oil. If you've never tried a black walnut, well, it's a bit hard to describe exactly. It's walnutty, sure, but also darker and fruitier. "Earthy" is a good word for it. Black walnuts are a

wild crop that are hand-harvested, so of course they're a little more expensive than regular walnuts. But what was most surprising about the Hammons oil was that it's available at Walmart. Apparently they're big on exotic oils and sell a good deal of them. However, if you're like me and won't shop at Walmart, Costco also carries Hammons Black Walnut Oil and it can be purchased online at Nuts.com, too. I think it would be a dynamite substitute for olive oil in an olive oil cake.

As far as I'm concerned, one can't have too many sources for seasonings. The Spice Lab features 180 gourmet salts and peppers and were offering sample packs of their pink Himalayan, truffle, and applewood smoked salts. And if applewood isn't your thing, they also have salts smoked with Hawaiian guava wood, grape vines, cherry, alder, hickory, and Welsh oak. They also have exotic salts flavored with saffron, curry, herbes de Province, Thai ginger, and green tea. Just imagine the kick they'd give the garden variety margarita (or a fancier one made with cucumbers, like that one I wish I was sipping right now)!

There were many more interesting savory and liquid treats at this year's Fancy Food Show, but these were my favorites. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on some of the sweet goodies I sampled.



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