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.

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.

Restaurant Review - Tbiliso

Don't let the photos on the web site fool you--Tbiliso isn't a trendy, well-lit, café with hunky, tweezer-wielding chefs in the kitchen. It more resembles granny's living room transported into the shell of a 70's-era bank building. To be honest, I have no idea what the bizarre space with 20' ceilings and partial mezzanine once held, but it functions as a restaurant now, one that has enough space for large parties, live music, and dancing. At Minxeats, we're only interested in the food, which [spoiler alert] is quite good.

I discovered the restaurant whilst randomly perusing Google Maps. (One never knows what one can find!) Tbiliso's online menu lists both new-to-us items like the vegetable stew ajapsandali as well as the more familiar dolma, lula kabob, and olivier salad. Some items have intriguing descriptions, like the kupati, "minced meat and spices in intestines" (yes, it's sausage), and the tbiliso, "fried pork with fajitas and cherry tomatoes" (surely a translation issue). Each item is also spelled out in the delightfully squiggly Georgian alphabet. What caught my eye, however, was the selection of breads stuffed with cheese or meat. I'd always wanted to try Adjarian khachapuri, a bread boat filled with melted cheese and topped with an egg, and I was finally getting my chance.

On our first trip to Tbiliso to enjoy the cheesy bread boat, we also ordered the ajapsandali and kupati, plus the chakapuli, a tasty stew of lamb with sour plums. Eventually we'd like to try everything on the menu, but this was a good start.

kupati with rice

Kupati are fat pork sausages with a nice snappy casing and a garnish of onions and parsley. The online menu offers a side dish choice of fries or rice, and on that first trip we tried the rice. On our second visit, we were served a larger portion of sausage without a choice of starch. More tasty sausage = good, though the slightly oily, vegetable-packed rice was quite delicious. Though everything we ate at Tbiliso was good, the kupati was a standout both times.

 

We also enjoyed the ajapsandali, a stew of peppers and eggplant somewhat like a Georgian ratatouille. It reminded me a bit of the Indian eggplant dish baingan bharta. The spicing of the ostri, a stew of tender beef in a tomato-y broth with a whiff of coriander and fenugreek also brought to mind the food of the Indian subcontinent.

ostri

Though I have recently been cursed with lactose intolerance, I was not deterred from sampling two (so far!) of the ten or so breadlike starches on Tbiliso's menu. Perhaps the most famous Georgian bread, the adjarian khachapuri is a boatlike vessel of white bread filled with a pool of molten cheese and topped with a raw egg. One (carefully) tears off chunks of bread and dips them into the fondue-like pool of melted dairy, repeating the motion until the khachapuri is gone or there are no more Lactaid pills left. It's simple, filling, and very good.

Adjarian khachapuri

The equally mouthwatering Megruli khachapuri is similar, at least in the quantity of cheese it contains. The dairy goodness is both stuffed into and layered on top of this bread, making it quite pizza-like. It's a bit easier to eat than the Adjarian version and just as delicious.

Megruli khachapuri

Tbiliso, or "fried pork with fajitas and cherry tomatoes," came with strips of multicolored bell pepper (but not tomatoes) and was served in a sizzling hot bowl, much like the popular Tex-Mex fajitas. The tender hunks of pork would have seemed right at home nestled into folds of tortilla. I might have tried to wrap it with the khachapuri, but the Megruli style was far too oozy with cheese (not a bad thing).

Tbiliso

I can't really find fault with any of the dishes we tried at Tbiliso. Not being familiar with Georgian food at all, I cannot attest to the authenticity of any of it. From what I can tell, however, much of the menu represents the "greatest hits" of  the cuisine. The flavors and seasonings were all pleasing to my palate, and I feel like everything had been prepared lovingly by people who know what they're doing. Even if none of them is wearing a long stripy apron and tweezering microgreens onto every dish. 

Next time we're in the mood for some შემწვარი სოკო კარტოფილით or შქმერული and a boatful of cheese, we're heading back to Tbiliso. Next time, I hope to try some of the many dishes that contain walnuts, a popular ingredient in Georgia.

Tbiliso

Church Lane Shopping Center

9926 York Rd,

Cockeysville, MD 21030

https://www.tbiliso21.net/

Rating - Highly 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.

Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro

I have long lamented that there aren't any really good Chinese restaurants in northern Baltimore County. There are plenty of smaller American-style Chinese carry-outs, and Szechuan House, which has always been hit or miss. (They deliver, however, so that is definitely in their favor.) When I read in Kit Pollard's Hot Plate column for Baltimore Fishbowl that a new Sichuan restaurant opened on Allegany Avenue, we visited post haste, hoping for the best.

Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro is a rather expansive restaurant with a soothing decor and not particularly comfortable, unpadded, Chinese-style wooden chairs. The kitchen is also large and visible through a plate glass window at the back of the restaurant. Continuing the size theme is the menu, a glossy tome featuring not only lists of available dishes, but also helpful photographs of nearly all of them. Another theme of Red Pepper is spicy, which of course one would expect to find in a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Sichuan province. My kinda food.

I'm always attracted to spicy wontons, so we had to order the Sichuan spicy wontons in red oil. I'm forever chasing the flavor of a similar dish I had years ago in a restaurant in Randallstown called Szechuan Best. There, the red oil was as aromatic as it was spicy. Red Pepper's rendition is very good, with nicely tender pork-filled wontons, but the sauce didn't have the kick that I was looking for. Still, it was pretty tasty and I'll order it again.

One of our two favorite Chinese restaurants is Grace Garden in Odenton, and one dish we always order there is the Sichuan pork belly, a dish of thinly sliced pork belly stir fried with chiles and leeks. We thought the Fried Salty and Dried Pork with Scallion at Red Pepper would be similar. It was, and it wasn't. When tasting the dish in the restaurant, I did notice that the pork was indeed salty, but it wasn't until I ate the leftovers at home three days later that I noticed the pork had also been smoked. Saltiness aside, the dish was quite nice, and as it was not spicy, somewhat of an antidote to the following dish.

We used to get a dish called "beef on toothpicks" at our other favorite Chinese restaurant, Hunan Taste (which appears to have closed permanently). Literally fried slivers of beef impaled on toothpicks, the meat was flavored with cumin and chiles. Red Pepper offers both beef and lamb with cumin. The dishes seemed similar enough despite the lack of pointed wooden implements, so we tried the latter. Baby, it was hot, but also redolent of the promised cumin. I can dig the heat of dried red chiles, which to me doesn't last as long on the palate as that of fresh green chiles, and is much easier for me to tolerate. However, Mr Minx found it a bit incendiary.

Another way to beat the heat of the lamb dish was to take bites of Shrimp with Rice Crusts. The menu describes the dish thusly: "When rice crust is combined with beef or pork, it tastes spicy. With shrimp or fish filet, amazingly, it changes to sweet and sour." The rice crusts - squares of crisply fried rice - are presented on their own in a large bowl, with the topping poured over at tableside.  Rather than some mysterious alchemical transformation, the shrimp and fish versions are simply presented in a somewhat brothy, lightly sweet and tangy sauce that is absolutely nothing like the ketchup-and-pineapple juice sweet-and-sour that Americans are used to (thank god). I imagine that the beef and pork versions have a spicy sauce, which we will have to try at another time.

The shrimp were plump and sweet, and there were a nice amount of vegetables. The rice crusts themselves have a nice roasty flavor, and I'd love to nibble them on their own. I am torn about their texture once deluged with sauce.

Finally, we tried the Stir-fry Green Beans, which I loved. The beans were still a little crisp, garlicky, and salty. Mr Minx likes them a little softer, and preferred the reheated beans a few days later. Still, a very good rendition of a favorite dish.

After this first visit to Red Pepper, we determined that we need to go back again, and often. The food was very good. Amazingly good for Towson. And while it might not be at the top of the heap for us just yet, we will put Red Pepper into our regular dining rotation and hope to taste most of the menu (might skip fish maw though) in the not too distant future.

Red Pepper Sichuan Bistro
11 Allegheny Avenue
Towson, MD 21204
http://www.redpeppermd.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.

Flashback Friday - Woodberry Kitchen

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on October 17, 2011.

This was a fun post to write, even if the meal wasn't very much fun.
-----------------------------------------


Like Cindy Wolf's Charleston, Spike Gjerde's Woodberry Kitchen is touted by both local food press and foodies alike. When I read such effusive praise, I'm always very skeptical, especially since we weren't at all impressed by the one visit we paid to Charleston. We had managed to avoid dining at Woodberry Kitchen for almost four years, but thought maybe it was high time to give in to the hype.

One of the main reasons we've never eaten at Woodberry Kitchen is that every time we check the online menu, we're not tempted by any of the offerings. They all sound so boring and plain and homey. If we want chicken and dumplings or a pork chop, we're perfectly capable of doing that in our own kitchen. And if we do go out and pay $28 for chicken and biscuits, well, the thing better be singing and dancing, I don't care how local/sustainable/free range/spoon fed it is. As it happened, Mr Minx and I were looking for a place in which to celebrate our 11th anniversary. A glance at Woodberry Kitchen's online menu revealed some items we might actually be into trying, so I made a reservation. Unfortunately, by the time October 7th rolled around, the menu was once more full of ho-hum selections. We went anyway.

The restaurant itself is set in one of the many old mill buildings that line the Jones Falls in the Hampden area of Baltimore City. With exposed brick, wooden tables, and plaid-clad servers, the place tries hard to evoke a feeling of modern rusticity. Kind of like the joints run by the bearded, pickle-making hipsters in Brooklyn who have already become a modern stereotype mocked by food critics. There's nothing else quite like Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore, though, so we've fallen for the image.

Not us, however.

If there's a bad table to be had in a restaurant, it's almost guaranteed that Mr Minx and I will get it. Maybe our preference to dine early gets us labeled as middle-aged or elderly rubes who won't appreciate the place and don't deserve a quieter or less-trafficked table. At Woodberry Kitchen, we clearly got the worst table in the house - a tiny one on the second floor, next to the service counter, where we were treated to the sight of servers slicing bread and packing up leftovers for two-and-one-half hours. Over my right shoulder, I could see particulate matter in the air coming from the fryers and the wood oven beneath us, and I knew that when we left the restaurant we'd be reeking of food odors. Immediately to our right, in our peripheral vision, was a line of round paper lantern-style light fixtures suspended from the ceiling. As the evening grew darker, these lights grew to have the effect of a bare lightbulb suspended from a basement ceiling. And strangely, as it got darker outside, the lights dimmed more and more until eventually we were sitting in the shadows.

It took us a while to decide what to eat. Between the stink of the fryers and the din of the music, I was irritated. Eventually, though, we were able to select a few items that seemed interesting. Because we expected small portions, we ordered both a flatbread and the "butcher's board" for starters, along with an order of wood-roasted okra.

The okra came out first. It was not a dish to convert okra-haters, those pussies who whine about the vegetable's delightfully mucilaginous texture. To me, it's more creamy than slimy, and what's more, okra tastes wonderful. WK's okra was still crisp and crunchy, with flavorful spots of char here and there, and made a good start to our meal.

Wood-roasted Richfield heirloom okra, pickled fish peppers

Soon afterward, we received the "foraged" mushroom flatbread. I don't know if the foraging was done in the wild or at the farmer's market, but the pizza-like creation was sublime. The crust was perfect - thin and chewy, the mushrooms nice and roasty, and the cabbage surprising. Forget Woodberry Kitchen - Spike Gjerde needs to open a pizza parlor. Looking down onto all of the many flatbreads arrayed on tables below our perch is all the evidence I need to declare Spike's Pizza a rousing success. (One party of six monopolized a table for about as long as we did. They ordered one dish of popcorn, some cheese and crackers, and five out of six "entrees" were $15 flatbreads. I think our dinner for two cost more than theirs.)

 Foraged mushrooms, savoy cabbage, onion, goat's cheese

With the flatbread came the WK Butcher's Board, a long plank topped with an arrangement of cured meat products. While a nice presentation, the board was longer than the table was wide, so part of it hung out over the edge of the table. The portion was generous, probably better for a party of four to share than a party of two. All of the meats were quite tasty, and I especially enjoyed the head cheese and the air-dried beef, which had a flavor reminiscent of pepperoni. The house-made pretzel sticks and pickles were also quite good.

 WK Butcher's Board - cured pork neck, black ham, pork belly, air-dried beef,
pretzels, head cheese, apricot jam, pickles, brown mustard, and assorted crackery things

Considering that the flatbread and Butcher's Board were so large, I'm rather surprised that our server didn't say anything when we also ordered entrées. Considering how long it took for our entrées to arrive, we probably could have cancelled the order. (Guess they had to kill the cow.)

I ate less than half of my Kitchen Burger and about three of the fries because I wanted to save room for dessert. The burger was fine, I suppose. Cooked perfectly to medium, the meat was juicy, but like most beef these days, it didn't taste particularly beefy. I loved the squishy sesame seed-topped bun though, which was toasted and buttered. The fries were also very good - crisp outside and soft within, like fries should be.

Kitchen Burger - house-ground chuck, lettuce, onion & pickles, fries/ raw cheddar

Mr Minx ordered steak because he was hungry and was surprised at both the generous amount of vegetables and the small amount of steak on the plate. The steak was tender, with a nicely seasoned crust, but the aggressively spicy padron pepper sauce underneath everything killed the flavor of the meat, which didn't have much of the expected "nutty" or "buttery" qualities customary to dry-aged beef.

 Liberty Delight dry-aged tavern steak - fried potatoes, green beans, tomato, padron pepper sauce

We also shared a side dish of underseasoned, slightly sandy, chard.

For dessert, Mr Minx went for the C.M.P., an item touted as the "best thing he ever ate," by Charm City Cakes' Duff Goldman. The bruléed marshmallow sauce on the top was a nice touch, but it made me fear for my dental work. The hubby, on the other hand, loved it.

C.M.P.  - malt ice cream, chocolate sauce, marshmallow fluff, wet peanuts

I had a sundae as well, the "Big Whoop," consisting of pumpkin ice cream layered with a pumpkin whoopie pie, candied pecans, and bourbon caramel. I expect whoopie pies to be soft, but this one had a bit of a crunchy crust. Crunchier still were the candied pecans, both of which lent nice contrast to the melty ice cream. I loved it. (No picture, because by the time dessert arrived, it was so dark on the 2nd floor, the only parts of the sundae visible in the photos I took were the bright blobs of ice cream.)

So while the faux-rustic surroundings, poor lighting, and incredible din were less-than-pleasing to us, I have to admit that the food was pretty darn good. Hype-worthy? Maybe not. But Woodberry Kitchen is certainly busy enough not to need my opinion one way or the other to be successful. Just ask Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff, who scored a much better table than we did.

Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Rd
Baltimore, MD 21211
www.woodberrykitchen.com
(410) 464-8000

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cypriana

When Cypriana was downtown, sprinkled here and there in office buildings and in the University of Maryland hospital, they specialized in things like kebabs and salads. I loved their Greek salad, the typical inauthentic pile of lettuce with cucumbers and tomatoes, topped with a generous amount of feta cheese and a cup of creamy tarragon dressing on the side. The dressing really made it.

A few years back, they closed their fast casual restaurants and opened a full-service place in the Broadview apartments, former home to the venerable French restaurant Jeannier's, among others. I'm not sure why we put off going for so long, but this spring we finally paid Cypriana a visit. It was a pleasant evening, so we asked to sit on the patio, which may or may not have been a good idea. The restaurant's patio is divided into two areas, one more loungy, and the other for dining. After we were seated, we noticed a lot of musical tables and chairs being played by a trio of people who were apparently hosting a graduation party. They never seemed particularly satisfied with the number of tables pushed together or the chairs arranged around them, and the whole thing got uncomfortably close to where we were seated. As in, perhaps one of us would get smacked with a heavy metal table or chair. Fortunately, seating arrangements were resolved before I felt we had to move out of the way.

But then the kids happened.

There must have been a large party inside, one with many small children. Many small children who decided to run around outside on the patio. A patio that is actually a large balcony. Had any of those children been curious enough to climb the short wall to see what was on the other side of the balcony (a drop into a courtyard), there may have been a tragedy. One parent was outside briefly, sitting on a chair and playing with his phone while the children ran in and out of not only the dining room entrance, but also the ramp into the kitchen entrance. Bad enough they caused a ruckus on the lounge section of the patio, but they also decided to run around in the increasingly more crowded dining section, hiding behind tables and running around servers with full trays of food.

And nobody said a word to anyone.

I'm not sure why half a dozen kindergartners were allowed to run around largely unsupervised in a restaurant. I don't understand why parents cannot parent their children.

Anyway...Cypriana is lucky that neither of us got belted by a chair or had food spilled on us by a waiter who had to avoid rugrats. And the food was good.

We mostly stuck with mezzedes, small plates. We tried the spinach and feta flatbread, which was crispy and melty and nicely cheesy.

Also the beef- and lamb-stuffed grape leaves. They were much larger than normal grape leaves, and really very nice, with flavorful filling and tender leaves. They were supposed to come with a yogurt sauce that our waiter forgot, promised to bring, but never did. I suppose they didn't need it.

The sesame roasted feta was drizzled with honey and served with fresh hot pita. I love baked cheese, and could have eaten a few more slabs of this stuff.

We also had the "Mousaka of Cypress," a small and unphotogenic ramekin with layers of eggplant, zucchini, potato, and a beef and lamb mixture, covered in a dreamy bechamel. It was quite possibly the best moussaka I have ever had.

We tried one entree dish of tender grilled octopus served with a cucumber salad (called tabouli on the menu) and some red quinoa, which brought nothing to the plate. The octopus itself was very nice. I tried dipping it in the container of what appeared to be plain, unseasoned, red wine vinegar, and felt that it was fine on its own.

We couldn't pass on dessert, especially when pistachio sea salt baklava was on offer. Made as individual pieces rather than in a large pan, it made for a much neater serving, though it was a bit difficult to cut into bite-sized pieces. The flavor was very good though.

The menu lists the chocolate rose cake as "layers of dark chocolate cake with rich Belgian chocolate and edible roses with a semi-sweet fudge icing." I figured the "edible roses" were made of frosting, but no, there was a definite rose flavor to the cake, and pulverized rose petal dust garnished the plate. I never would pair chocolate with rose, and while it worked here, I still probably won't pair those two strong flavors. The cake was otherwise moist and quite good.

I have mixed feelings about Cypriana. While by and large the food we had was good, the service was meh (still waiting on that yogurt sauce!) and the rugrat disturbance was pretty inexcusable. I can perhaps understand that management might not have wanted to upset their customers by asking them to mind their own brats (Really? I actually do not understand it at all.) but why sacrifice the enjoyment of the other diners?

Cypriana
105 W 39th Street
Baltimore, MD 21210

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Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Oyster Bay Grille

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on January 31, 2014.

I'm only posting this because it was the restaurant at which last week's Flashback Friday rant took place. See, I'm not mean-spirited--just honest.

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I've been sorta curious about Oyster Bay Grille since it received a measly 1-star from Sun critic Richard Gorelick. Urbanspoon users give the place a 40% positive rating, with only five votes. This prompts me to ask two questions: 1) is it really that bad? 2) does nobody know the restaurant exists?

When they posted a tasty-sounding menu for Restaurant Week, I thought it was high time we found out for ourselves. Our dining experience was as uneven as expected.

The place is handsome, with dark paneled walls and soothing blue-gray tones. The space is oddly-shaped, however, and the bar area runs the length of the restaurant. Diners looking for a quiet experience will be disappointed when Happy Hour rolls around with its crowd of Loud Talkers and People Who Have to Yell to Be Heard Over Them. (Honestly. Nobody really cares to hear about your crappy job and your idiot boss. Stop drinking so much and shut up.)

We had already determined we would order items from the Restaurant Week menu, but took a gander at the regular menu as well. Ordering oysters at a place called Oyster Bay Grille seemed like a fine idea. We decide on two each of the blue points, Delaware Bay, and Honeysuckle varieties listed on a chalk board in front of the oyster shucking station. Our server immediately ran off to place the oyster order and then lingered behind the far end of the bar until the oysters were ready, rather than return to take the rest of our order. We expected service to be spotty for the rest of the evening, and while we had other issues, our waiter ended up being fine.

On to the food, which was better than expected from a 1-star restaurant. The man in charge of the kitchen has some skill, which was apparent in the lovely hash of sweet potatoes, andouille, asparagus, and corn that accompanied my fish. However, billed as "crispy-skinned," the rockfish was anything but. It was also unseasoned, but nicely cooked otherwise.

Mr Minx's lamb duo featured two fat and well-seasoned lamb chops and a chunk of fatty lamb belly on a dollop of lentils lightly flavored with cumin. The chops were perfectly-cooked and had a nice smoky grill flavor. I thought it was a very nice dish.

Starters of tomato-based crab soup and fried oysters were fine, if unremarkable. The remoulade that came with the oysters did not taste of the promised goat cheese, but the breading on them was nice and light. The soup needed a bit more spice, but it was pleasant enough.

The online menu suggested that a chocolate mousse flavored with Thai basil would be a dessert choice, which was intriguing. Instead, there was a chocolate cake that was like a cross between a brownie and a pound cake, flavored with cinnamon and cayenne, and served with a bit of caramel. The serving was ridiculously small (hopefully a non-Restaurant Week portion would be bigger), but it was pretty good.

The dessert that was more intriguing, the "candied bacon caramel cheesecake," turned out to be a combination of elements that didn't necessarily work together. The menu listed a pistachio brioche crust, Charlottetown Farms chevre, and goat milk caramel. The crust was indeed nutty and reminded me of baklava, but the cheesecake itself was lemon-flavored, which made the bacon seem like an intrusion. There was no hint of goat (the lemon was too strong), and the sauce on the plate seemed more like dulce de leche than a goat caramel. Take away the lemon, or keep the lemon and remove everything else, and it would have been fine.

So...while the food was good, between the noise level and the oyster incident, the visit was disappointing. Take from that what you will. The place seemed pretty busy, so our staying away isn't going to hurt business any.

Oyster Bay Grille
1 East Joppa Road
Towson, MD 21286
(443) 275-7026

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Bar Louie at White Marsh

The restaurants at the Avenue at White Marsh don't seem to change very much, except for the one across from Red Brick Station. That space most recently housed The Tilted Kilt; before that, Bayou Blues Cafe. Now it's a Bar Louie. This nationwide chain specializes in the kind of food that seems to make Americans the happiest: burgers and other sandwiches; flatbreads; Mexican-inspired items like tacos and nachos; plus salads, pasta, and booze. It's one of those places that, if you're among a group of people who all want different things, can make everyone happy.

Before the restaurant opened to the general public, Mr Minx and I were invited in to taste the menu, on them. Having been to the Bar Louie in Hunt Valley a couple of times, we knew what the restaurant was all about. Normally a loud and boisterous venue, it was nice to be able to dine there while it was still uncrowded and somewhat quiet, though the "friends and family" guests were already starting to have a good time at the very early hour of 4pm. It was happy hour, after all.

We started off with cocktails, two of the restaurant's signature martinis. Mr Minx had the cucumber-forward Effen Good, made with Effen cucumber vodka, mint, lime juice, and agave nectar. I had the Tea Ketel, with Ketel One vodka, Earl Grey and honey syrup, lemon juice, Fee Brothers orange bitters, and La Marca Prosecco. Both were good, made with quality ingredients (and a steal at $5.50 during Happy Hour), though I preferred his drink to mine. I felt the fizz of the prosecco to be unnecessary and somewhat disconcerting in a martini.

We started off with a couple of apps, labeled "bar bites" on the menu. The flash-fried calamari with spicy pickled peppers and a charred lemon to squeeze over were served with a dip of aioli rather than the usual (and tired) marinara. There was a generous amount of tender tentacles, and we were happy with the dish overall.

What really turned me on was a dish called "roasted roots," namely carrots and radish, in an Angry Orchard cider glaze with warm whipped goat cheese and spiced Rice Krispies. Honestly, it was pretty shocking to see a dish of roasted carrots on the menu. Vegetables that are not brussels sprouts are rare as hen's teeth in chain restaurants, and I have to wonder how long these will be on the menu. (There is also the trendy roasted cauliflower!) The menu at the White Marsh Bar Louie is a test menu, btw, that they are hoping to roll out to the other restaurants at some point in the future. You'll find things here that aren't at other locations, and vice versa. Like those carrots, which despite the cider glaze, were not at all sweet. The radishes--a highly underutilized vegetable that is far more delicious cooked than it is raw--were a nice earthy touch. Carrot freak that I am, I would order this again.

I wasn't as thrilled with the chicken and churros. While perfectly Instagrammable, the textures were a bit disappointing. The boneless white meat chicken was juicy and perfectly cooked, but the coating quickly grew soggy under the buffalo maple glaze. The savory churros were a little tough. The flavors, though, were fine.

Mr Minx's sandwich, however, the "BBQ Pork & More," was the highlight of the meal. A crispy and sturdy (but not hard) pretzel bun stood up to its filling of moist chunks of pork in a bbq sauce topped with bacon onion jam, white cheddar, crispy pork rinds, and aioli. It was sweet (but not too), juicy, porky, and delicious, and surprisingly not at all messy. The accompanying fries were pretty good, too.

There are only two desserts on the menu, churros with bourbon-spiked maple dulce de leche (or a non-alcoholic double chocolate sauce), and an ice cream sundae of sorts. Having already had enough of the churros, we decided to split the sundae. We had a choice of a squeeze bottle of Bailey's espresso liqueur, or boring non-alcoholic espresso cream sauce; we chose the former. After applying the sauce to the vanilla ice cream, the effect was somewhat like a chilled, boozy, affogado (espresso over ice cream).

As I mentioned earlier, we'd been to the Hunt Valley Bar Louie a couple of times. In fact, I had a blog post started quite a while ago, but never got around to finishing it. This seems like as good a time as any, as some of the things we ate are still on the Hunt Valley menu and will likely remain there until the future new menu rollout.

I am a sucker for most Asian-flavored items, so we had to try the tempura shrimp. Tempura was a bit of a misnomer, as the batter on the shellfish was more akin to a beer batter in texture. It came with three sauces, Szechwan (sic), Thai chili lime, and buffalo.

I was also into the Thai Chicken flatbread, topped with spicy chicken, mozzarella and provolone cheese, green onion, red pepper, jalapeños, and house-made Thai peanut sauce.

We also had a straightforward beer-battered cod and fries with tartar sauce...

...and beef brisket sliders (sliced beef brisket, peach moonshine barbecue sauce, pickles, topped with grilled pear slaw) that were served with fries. Though I didn't taste the moonshine, the menu states that diners "must be 21" to order them, so I guess they use a goodly amount.

Everything we tried those on those prior visits was satisfying, particularly the flat bread (because peanut sauce). As I said before, if you want tacos and your friends want pizza and burgers, Bar Louie can make everyone happy.

Bar Louie
The Avenue at White Marsh
8133-C Honego Blvd
Baltimore, MD 21236
410-844-7512
http://www.barlouie.com/locations/states/maryland/white-marsh

Hunt Valley Towne Centre
118 Shawan Rd
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
443-541-2950

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - A Tale of Two Burgers

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on June 27, 2012.

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We went to Hamilton Tavern specifically to eat their Crosstown Burger. We'd both been jonesin' for some beefy goodness after eating mostly poultry and fish for the past several weeks. Word around town was that Hamilton Tavern had some of the best burgers in town and we needed some of that.

We also heard that the Tavern got crowded, so we got there just after it opened on a Saturday afternoon, took one of the few tables in the small restaurant, and settled back to admire the Art Deco bar back and the old tools that decorated the walls while we waited for our food.

Not long after we got our beers (Brewer's Art Resurrection for me; the owner is a partner in that restaurant, too), our fried pickle appetizer arrived.

The juicy slices of sour pickle slices coated in an armor of batter and deep fried were accompanied by a tangy goat cheese dip. Personally, I think a sweeter dip would have provided more of a contrast in flavors and would have worked better, but I enjoyed the pickles in their rather hard crusts.

After a bit of a wait (perfection takes time), we got our burgers. Mr Minx got his as advertised, but I opted to add sweet spicy bacon to my burger and swapped out the fries for a side of Boh-battered Os.

The burger portion of the meal was outstanding. The fat patty was juicy and moist inside, pink but not quite medium. The Tavern did not skimp on the horseradish cheddar, and the cheesy flavor was prevalent in every bite. The bacon added a bit of sweetness that I really enjoyed. My only problem with the sandwich was the bun from nearby Hamilton Bakery; it tasted terrific, but shedded something awful. Not exactly fell apart, it was sturdy enough to withstand the weight and moisture of the burger, but pieces of the crust adhered to my fingers every time I put the burger back down on the plate. Eventually I was left holding the insides.

The onion rings were a huge disappointment. If I thought of them as donuts filled with onion, they worked better, but as onion rings, they were a failure. They were too doughy, not crispy enough, and too sweet. Mr Minx's fries were bland and a bit undercooked.

Overall, however, a stellar burger experience that we're eager to recreate over and over again.

Flash forward to the following weekend, when we once again had a hankering for red meat. Not wanting to be boring and go back to Hamilton Tavern, we decided to head to Piv's Pub in Cockeysville. Their online menu listed a 10oz char-grilled burger on a brioche bun, which sounded pretty tasty.

And it was tasty. The meat had a good char on it and the grilled flavor took me straight to Summer cookouts. But, unlike the burger at Hamilton Tavern, Piv's burger was as dry as a desert. There was a slight tint of pink inside, but it was nowhere near the requested medium. And the burger was as flat as a pancake, with a dense, compressed, texture, which tells me that it was smashed unmercifully against the grill, which produced a nice crust but allowed all of the meat's moisture to escape into the flames.  

Honestly, why do people do that? Are they stupid? Are they in such a rush to get the food out to the customer that they willingly let quality slide? Eating this dry burger made us realize why the wait for our burgers at the Tavern seemed so long. Because they were cooked with care.

We also tried the slider sampler, which included one each of shrimp salad, crab cake, and pulled pork in addition to the horribly dry beef. The best of these was the crab cake, which was moist and had nice chunks of crab. The shrimp salad was bland, and the pulled pork was very salty. The rolls had been toasted, which might be a nice touch for larger burgers, however, these were very dry as a result. And the fries, the kind with the little bumps on them, what I call "shrapnel," clearly came out of a bag from the freezer. Disappointing.

Slightly less disappointing was the wedge salad, which inexplicably came deconstructed, with bland bleu cheese dressing and mass-produced croutons. Once everything was cut up and mixed together, it tasted fine, but it wasn't $8.50 worth of salad.

Neither meal was perfect, but you can probably guess where we'll be spending our money in the future.

Hamilton Tavern
5517 Harford Rd
Baltimore, MD 21214
(410) 426-1930
hamiltontavern.com

Piv's Pub
9811 York Rd
Cockeysville, MD 21030
(410) 666-7487

Posted on Minxeats.com.