A week in Baltimore

Having spent about two weeks at home, I was starting to feel restless; it was time to head down to Baltimore. I would see my two sisters, Stephanie and Brenda, and Brenda’s husband, a chef, and their daughter, Gertie, who is about as cute as girls soon turning four years old can be. I only left home around 10pm on Saturday as I had wanted to stay for dinner with some friends (dinner was nice, but not particularly note-worthy at the Ironhill brewery where I had a rather enormous teriyaki steak salad).

I arrived in Baltimore around 12:30 and outside the Chameleon Café I saw my sister, her husband, Steve, his sous chef, and their friend Sam- the Saturday night poker game already in progress. The restaurant is closed Sunday and Monday, so Saturday usually brings a game. The poker games framed my visit nicely, and I was able to come out on top a couple bucks.

The visit was really quite wonderful. I stayed with my sister Steph, who has a house with all kinds of space and cable, which I rarely have the opportunity to indulge in otherwise. I especially enjoyed immersing myself in Iron Chef, Top Chef and of course Hell’s Kitchen! I played a lot with my niece and it was wonderful to spend time with my sister Brenda as well, who is very pregnant with her next. I hold so much admiration for her, as I see her juggling motherhood, teaching art, taking initiative in her administrative position at the Baltimore Waldorf school, managing finances for the restaurant, the commercial properties they own, the big house they are fixing up and will soon live in, not to mention organizing parades and block parties in their neighborhood- she’s pretty incredible!

It seems every visit to Baltimore is supplemented with exciting eats, as Jeff, Brenda’s husband, takes me on little culinary tours. Somehow in the entire week I was down there I didn’t manage a meal at the Chameleon which I had been looking forward to. Nonetheless, there were a number of excellent meals.

The first two days, Sunday and Monday were taken up with Memorial Day BBQ’s. The first at Pete’s, Jeff’s brother, was low-key. The highlight though was Jeff’s pit beef- the most delicious, juicy, roast beef I have ever tasted! Jeff tipped me off to a great way to enjoy it: on a bun, with mayo, horseradish, and an Italian sausage cut down the middle. It was awesome. The following day brought a serious party at John and Milena’s, Brenda and Jeff’s neighbors. John has the biggest grill I have ever seen in my life, and it was covered with burgers, sausages with sautéed onions and peppers, chicken and ribs, dry rubbed or with a Fighting Cock whiskey marinade. There were plenty of sides- pasta salads, potato salad, fruit salad, chips, Tina’s incredible deviled eggs and more. And of course, there was plenty of beer. It was a perfect sunny day spent in the alley that lasted well into the night, throwing bean bags at the Cornhole boards, sipping beers and consuming more than a fair share of the grilled meat!

Tuesday’s dinner brought a change of pace. Jeff, Gertie and I went out to Sushi at a place a little ways up Harford road. We were interested in trying some rolls that were a little more adventurous than the typical pedestrian selections offered in the menu combinations. The waitress seemed reluctant to believe we were really able to handle anything too wild, but eventually we were able to put together a nice selection. They sent out some free samples with our seaweed salad and steamed soybeans- some deep-fried California roll, and two little vegetable pancakes. Then came our main order, arranged beautifully on a bridge-like dish. There was a soft shell crab roll, legs sticking out of sections on the end, a wild volcano roll the six sections covered with a spicy topping, a dragon roll with avocado and eel, a spicy yellow tail roll, some red snapper sashimi of great taste and texture, and two wild pieces- mainly two kinds of caviar topped with a raw quail egg! It didn’t taste as exciting as I thought it would, but textually it was unreal!

One of Jeff’s favorite places to eat is Jun Kack- Korean BBQ, so we had to go while I was down. It’s in a kind of sketchy part of town, but you know it’s going to be good when the only people in there are Korean and the waitresses are far from fluent English speakers. We went with Mike the dishwasher, and Matt, a server, after they got off Thursday around 11pm. We ordered the beef blood soup and two meats to grill- all parts of the cow and the spicy pork. I didn’t think this would be a lot, but when the waitress brought out the trays overflowing with raw meat, I was a little intimidated. There were about a dozen little sides, kim chi’s, big white radish sliced thin, mushrooms, peanut sauce, steamed veggies, rice etc, and of course the little bowls with salt and sesame oil. The soup was amazing, rich from the blood in a deliciously spicy broth. The bucket of hot coals was set into our table and the BBQ began. On the platter with our nicely presented cow parts came a little surprise- two little whole octopi! Before I got too full I knew I wanted to try one. It had been on the grill long enough to look kind of crispy, so I stuck the whole thing into my mouth- only to find it was like chewing some kind of rubber! My immediate impulse was to take it out and forget it, but resolutely I chewed the thing for a solid ten minutes, until finally I got it all down- now we know better than to eat it so soon. We finished the beef, the tripe was incredible- sweet, just the right amount of chewiness- wonderful. We were well on our way to full, but when we tasted the spicy pork we all seemed to have a little more room. By the time we finished all the meat about two hours had passed, and somehow stretching it out like that we weren’t totally bloated or over-stuffed, it was great!

Soon enough, it had rolled around to Saturday again, and before we sat down to poker Jeff suggested we get a Lake trout sub. I had already eaten, but I couldn’t really turn it down, so we decided to split one. Apparently all the soul food joints in Baltimore serve Lake Trout. I’m not sure if such a thing actually exists, but what I hear is that when trout used to go out of season, vendors would sell “late” trout, which was actually another fish, whiting, with a similar taste. Somehow along the way “late” became “lake” and now it’s lake trout that’s served everywhere! Before our game we took Mike home and on the way stopped at an all night fried chicken kind of place and picked up our huge sandwich. It was a hoagie roll with deep fried filet, slathered in mayo with lettuce, tomato and fried onions with hot sauce. It was Awesome! I’m not sure why, but something about the unexpected taste of fish in a sub, with the mayo and hot sauce, man, so good!

It was a great close to my stay, so even though I didn’t get the meal I had been looking forward to at the Chameleon, my week in Baltimore was full of good eats.