Wegmans

I happened to venture outside the Beltway yesterday and find myself at Wegmans Grocery Store in Hunt Valley! I first need to establish that the only reason I ever go to the grocery store is to buy dogfood for Connor, and... well, that's about the only time I ever go. So in light of the coming storm, I decided to brave the wilds of Hunt Valley and go to Wegmans.

After fighting to find a parking place amongst the behemoth SUVs, I walked into the section of the store that's the food court with wings, seafood, pizza, baked goods and Asian foods. I wasn't searching for anything special, except for something that would be comfort food during the storm.

Here's what ended up in my cart:

• Sunday Observer Newspaper from London (at about a 3x mark-up)
• Kerry Gold butter - another bad habit from my UK days
• Hot loaf of garlic infused bread with cloves of garlic.
• Half gallon of milk
• Pint of shrimp bisque
• Croissants for breakfast
• Pate with truffles
• Hobnobs with plain chocolate - yet another bad habit from the UK (one nibble and you're nobbled!)

Wegmans, oddly enough, has a British food section, and since the Brits aren't known for their stellar cuisine, you can find the traditional mushy peas, Birds custard, some Irish bread mixes and the UK equivalent of Vegemite, called Marmite.

The store was mobbed, and from what I understand from a friend I ran into there, it's always like that. It was fun to see the spectacular variety of what they sell, but the distance, combined with the crowds will make a trip out there a rare event for me.

Holy Frijoles!

Dinner tonight was with four friends at Holy Frijoles in Hampden, a small (but larger than it was) Mexican restaurant that's been around for ages. It was in a teeeny storefront, but in the last couple of years, has acquired the adjacent space and added a full bar. However, the restaurant is still in the teeeny section.

First, let me say that the food and service were both great, and the price couldn't be more affordable. With five entrees, three margaritas and two lemon/limeades, the total bill was $55.00, plus tip. Pretty good! Two of us had the Caesar salad with steak, one had the nachos, one the soft tacos and the other a burrito.

We got there early because two of us had meetings, so the kitchen was super fast. Our meal came in about 10 minutes. We asked for some additional guacamole, and the server brought us about a cup of it! It was freshly made and delicious. The Caesar salads with steak were excellent and the steak was cooked perfectly - grilled on the outside and rare on the inside and the lettuces were fresh. The dressing was a little garlicky, but wonderful, nevertheless.

There were five of us, and they were hard-pressed to seat us all at one table. We had an old pew, and a bench and then a chair pulled up to the table. There were larger tables on the bar side, but they seemed to just be for the bar patrons, and the server wouldn't seat us there.

My only other small quibble is that the writing on the menu is very small and hard to read. Otherwise, it was a great evening at a great price.

Happy Year of the PIG!

We at Pigtown Pigout are ready for a year of celebrations, the first of which was last night. Friends had a Year of the Pig dinner party at their house. When we all arrived, there was an array of wines in brown paper bags... now, we've been known to do this before on the streets, but never in a private home. It turned out that it was a wine-tasting, just to see how discerning our palates were.

K. brought a terrific starter - shrimp wrapped in bacon with horseradish, dijon and something green (perhaps spinach). The spicy heat of the horseradish was a nice counterpoint to the shrimp and bacon.

P. made me love him all the more when he brought out oyster stew! Oh. My. God! I love oyster stew but don't have it very often because it's a heart-attack in a soup-spoon! If you don't know, it's basically cream, butter, chopped celery and onions, a little Old Bay and oysters. You cook it to just below boiling and then add the oysters and cook for about one minute more. What a huge treat!

Dinner was a pork roast, because we didn't care if we ate the honouree, and risotto, carrots and green beans. All delish!

Before the chocolate shavings

I made a tiramisu for dessert and it turned out really well. I made the tiramisu in a springform pan, lining the inside with ladyfingers cut to fit the top of the pan. I basted them with the espresso so they would adhere to the rest of the dish. I could have added more coffee, but I just hate tiramisu that's got a puddle in the bottom of the dish. I went up to Trinacria yesterday morning to get the marscapone ($6.00/lb) and the Marsala wine ($9.00/bottle).

I could have used something other than Marsala, like Tia Maria or Gran Marnier but had a conversation with Mr. Rallo, of Rallo's, where the elite meet to eat, and he said that he'd not used Marsala before. (I made a small batch for him and took it to the restaurant.) I also had to go buy a mixer, since I had gotten rid of my 40+ year old Kitchen Aid Mix Master when I moved to the UK.

After the chocolate shavings

Making tiramisu is pretty simple - whip egg whites, mix yolks and sugar, add the marscapone and Marsala, add the egg whites, dip lady fingers in espresso, and layer. No cooking involved. I shaved chocolate on the top of the tiramisu, but you can dust it with cocoa. I think that the hard lady fingers work better than the soft ones. I used Aunt Enza's Tiramisu recipe from Epicurious.

The only thing you have to be careful about in any of the tiramisu recipes is adding the marsala to the egg and marscapone mixture. I have had it break. I saw a suggestion to add the Marsala to the espresso, but I like to taste marsala with the marscapone.

As for the wine tasting, we didn't like the least expensive and all loved the most expensive. There were also two identical bottles of wine, one of which we liked and one which we didn't!

Pan Asian Groceries

One of my best friends just got the referral for her Chinese daughter, so I wanted to send her some Chinese thing. I hopped in the car and headed over to Route 40 and Rolling Road to H-Mart, formerly Han Ah Reum. It's in an old SuperFresh or other major grocery store on the southwest corner. Unfortunately, their website is mostly in Korean.

When you enter the store, there's the most gorgeous bakery with sweet-looking cakes and pastries. I have the feeling that they look better than they taste. They have the most incredible fresh produce. There are a lot of the fruits and veggies that I've never seen before and am not clear what I would do with them. And they're all marked in Korean, so that's not much help. One of the things I love about some of the fruits is that they are still on their stems, and don't look like they've come from a factory. Sometimes, they even have lychees, and durian, which is either the most disgusting fruit imaginable, or the best one.

As you move through the store, you'll find a Korean hotpot deli and a sushi/sashimi bar. You have to pay for these in cash on the spot, no credit cards in that section. Next up is a small salad selection with favourites like seaweed & sesame salad, kimchee and other chilled condiments. I've found fresh quail eggs for dying at Easter. They're wonderful hard-cooked and then dipped into sea salt and sesame seeds. Oh... or with creme fraiche and caviar.
H-Mart has an enormous selection of meats, including hearts, lungs, feet, tongues and blood. This is not your sanitized Whole Foods where the meat is all laid out without any nod to the fact that it was once an animal. If you're at all squeamish, like I am, you'll want to dash through this section.
They also have an extensive selection of frozen foods including the makings for an at-home dim sum dinner. Potstickers, dumplings and other little wrapped goodies are all in that section. There are also whole aisles of rice and seaweed in myriad forms. Their spice selection is excellent and priced much cheaper than McCormick.
As you round the final turn into the back corner, you will find the seafood section. There are all sorts of live fish, crabs, lobsters and sometimes even turtles. Once, I watched an elderly Asian man select a live eel. Unfortunately, he dropped it on the floor and it slithered its way into the crowd. I didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
There is also a small "department store" in H-Mart. It's full of rice cookers, specialty kitchen utensils, blankets and the obligatory Hello Kitty offerings. There are also select cosmetics, a phone card store and video shop.
The place is usually jammed and it looks like a mini-United Nations. If you want to take a quick and inexpensive trip to an exotic land, then head out to H-Mart.

Snow Day

Well, it's snowing up a storm here, and I got to thinking about what I like to eat when it's snowy. Right now, I am having a pasta, ground beef and tomato casserole. It's nice and hot, and even thought I am inside, it makes me feel all warm.

When it's cold, and I take my yellow lab, Connor, for a walk, I like to make a cup of cocoa when we get back. I usually take the lazy way out and make it from a mix and nuke the milk. But sometimes, mostly on the weekends, I will make it from scratch and add marshmallows.

I had that delicious pumpkin-mushroom soup the other night and that got me to thinking about soups and stews. I love a good beef stew with lots of potatoes, tomatoes and some red wine to add depth. Since it's just me, I don't cook too much, but I am a good cook and know the rules well enough to break them.

I love reading cookbooks and when I left the UK to come back to the States, a friend gave me a cookbook called Roast Chicken and Other Stories. It's recipes and stories about them, including ones on brains and other odd eats. I also got a little Penguin set of 100-page cookbooks by Elizabeth David, the gals who run River Cafe in London and Jane Grigson. They are just so much fun to read. I am personally not wild about Jamie Oliver, he just looks too sloppy. I did love Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Hell, which was WAY toned down for US TV.

I also love Epicurious.com and their feature of putting a couple of ingredients and coming up with a recipe. I am making a tiramisu this weekend, after being inspired by the one I ate last weekend. I searched Epicurious's recipes and came up with a good one. I will let you know how it works.

Sobo Cafe

Last week seemed to be a week for eating and going out - a lot! This week looks to be a little quieter. One night last week, we went to Sobo Cafe on Cross Street in Federal Hill for dinner and had a great meal and some good wine.

We got to Sobo at about 8:00 and it was pretty crowded. There were three of us and it was one of the bitter cold nights. We were placed at a table near the door, and when we asked to switch tables, one of the waitresses wasn't too happy, while at the exact same time, the other one said of course we could change tables. We had to wait a minute or two while they cleared the table, but we were much happier with the warmer location. If you've been to Sobo, it's pretty small - maybe 15 tables and the bar.

Since it was bitter cold out, I wanted something warm, so I ordered a bowl of the pumpkin-mushroom soup and the mac and cheese. The soup was spectacular... I didn't really know what it would taste like, but the pumpkin was subtle and the mushrooms gave it a meaty feeling. At the very end of the bowl, I put about a quarter of a teaspoon of my red wine into the soup, which gave it more depth. I like to play with my food. My friends ordered the pasta in a chile alfredo creme sauce and the salmon. They each also got salads. We also ordered a bottle of wine. The total bill came to $57.00, which is a very reasonable price for three.

The menu at Sobo is pretty limited and changes seasonally. Their wine list is extensive, with some good selections. Brent, the owner, is a great guy with some good ideas, including showing works from local artists at the restaurant.

My two issues with Sobo Cafe are the service, which can range from warm and friendly to downright aggressive and nasty, and the lack of an exhaust fan. Because the kitchen doesn't have a stove, just a convection oven, they're not required to have an exhaust fan. I've been there a couple of times when my eyes have watered from the smoke. This time, my coat smelled like pan-fried steak for a couple of days. My friend wouldn't even wear her coat into Sobo, despite the 15 degree weather that night.

Aside from those issues, Sobo Cafe is worth a visit for the great food. They don't have a website, so I can't link you. This picture is from a dining out website, so isn't great. Also, Brent mentioned that he might be painting the walls soon.

Vaccaro's

My god-daughter and I have been taking knitting lessons in Fells Point at A Good Yarn on Saturday afternoons, and we've been going out to lunch before the lessons. Today was our last lesson, so we went out for dessert instead.

We went from Fells Point to Little Italy, just about a mile to the west. We were headed to Vaccaro's, a small spot which only serves desserts. Of course, their specialties are all Italian, from gelato to cookies to tiramisu. Conveniently, they also hold a liquor license, so you can get some yummy coffee drinks or gelato with liquor poured over it.

J. got a "small" bowl of mint chocolate chip gelato and I got a piece of tiramisu. A friend and I had done a tasting of tiramisus in Rome a couple of years ago, and this was right up with them. I also bought an éclair for my parents, along with pignoli cookies and some almond macaroons. The éclair weighed almost a pound and is the size of a hefty submarine sandwich.

Even though it was 3:00 in the afternoon, there was a line to get a table. The place is teeeeny and parking is always a challenge, but both are worth the effort. The portions are just HUGE!!!!