Baltimore Restaurant Week: The Spice Company

Please pardon the quality of the photos. I forgot my camera so I'm using my new, lower quality (!?) camera phone.

Cathy and I went to the Spice Company yesterday for lunch. It will be our last Restaurant Week outing since we just don't have the money to do anything else (and I want to save up for Body Worlds anyway). Spice Co. is a lovely place, located conveniently across from JHU, with a vaguely British Raj-like decor. We went for lunch, since the food was only $20.08 - the normal cost of an entrée.*

Just as the decor was appealing, the service was wonderful, and if money were no object (note the use of the subjunctive here), I would eat there more often. The menu for Restaurant Week lunch was more varied than I have ever seen at a participating restaurant. Each of us varied our menus, to maximize what the other could taste:

• Appetizers: Maryland Crab Soup, Grilled Vegetable Bruschetta with Fresh Mozzarella (my selection), or Small House Salad (Cathy's)
• Entrées: soooooo many, from crab cake to cheeseburger to roasted vegetables with couscous to "Crab Lauren" featuring blue crab meet, beets, avocado and maché in citrus vinaigrette. Cathy got the Blackened Chicken with peas, pine nuts and tomatoes over penne in parmesan sauce. I got the Soy Ginger Glazed Salmon with mound of mixed rice and little pieces of roasted squash.
• Dessert: three items to choose from: Cheese Cake (which neither of us got, which is a surprise), Key Lime Pie (Cathy's choice) and the mocha-flavored Pot de Crème (my choice).
  
  

Le bruschette. Cathy snapped photos of her foods with her camera phone, but for some reason they haven't gotten to my inbox yet.

We each loved our first courses, which came just after our complementary bread and butter (hot bread, cool and spreadable butter). Cathy's salad covered the whole plate, and had some nice flavors: a variety of greens with little strips of baby zucchini, plus what I think was a little feta cheese on top. My bruschetta plate was, well, smaller, but surprisingly filling. Three bruschette topped with tomato, mozzarella, and little pieces of squash (I think). Very tasty. They actually filled me up more than the salad would have.

Soy-Glazed Salmon with Squash and Mixed Rice

Our entrées surprised us. Cathy was surprised because what she got was so different from what we normally picture as blackened chicken. She hadn't read the "penne and Parmesan sauce" part of the description, and even though she liked it, it was a little rich for her. But the chicken didn't seem blackened to me at all. As for the salmon, I liked the flavor and the overall texture. The white-wild rice mixture was a little clumpy for my liking but, again, a good flavor. The squash was okay, but mostly forgettable.

My pot de crème, with a big-ass strawberry slice and dollop of whipped cream

Unlike with Vīn, our desserts were not only satisfying but could be found without the aid of a microscope. Cathy loved her smallish-though-not-stingy slice of key lime pie, with real key lime rind on the top. I loved my big ol' pot o' cream. Not usually a coffee fan here, but the mocha flavor was a nice surprise. The texture was smooth and the flavor was just wonderful.

Including $3 each for drinks, our lunch with tax came to a grand total of about $47. We left a $9 tip and headed on our way, bidding Restaurant Week (which technically ends on Sunday, August 3, so you still have time to take part in it) farewell until sometime in early February.

* That is the way to do it - don't go somewhere for Restaurant Week where most of the entrées normally cost $10 - being charged $20 or $30 will therefore be a rip-off. Café Hon's odd participation in Restaurant Week is a good example.

Petit Louis Bistro (Baltimore Restaurant Week)

There's a reason why Petit Louis Bistro in Roland Park often gets mentioned when someone asks what is the "Best French Restaurant" in town, or at least one of the best (check out the City Paper and Baltimore Magazine - you have to scroll down on the BM page to find it). Is it the location? Great location, but no. Is it the lovely ambiance, including the stone table tops? Maybe a little, it is a beautiful place. Is it the price? As high as they are? Hell no, bitch! Maybe the service? It is excellent, attentive service. That's a big part of it. But hands down, the biggest reason is their food. Such wonderful food!

And it's food I would never have tasted had it not been for Baltimore Restaurant Week. Man, I love this week!

It was my sister and I again, this time meeting with two former co-workers (now doing well for themselves as assistant principals on opposite ends of Baltimore County). I got there a little late, and everybody else had finished some hearty, crusty bread with butter. The waitress almost immediately came out to us (it wasn't crowded - yet). She filled us in on the other specials, including this $44 prix fixe menu of tomato dishes. We knew what we wanted - the $30.07 menu (Restaurant Week menu), so when she came back we all asked for that.

We wound up getting, among the four of us, everything on the prix fixe menu. For our first course, our friends ordered the Salade de Tomates, Fromage de Chèvre, Basilique (Salad with Grape Tomato, chèvre - French goat cheese - and Basil). My sister and I ordered the vichyssoise, that classic cold potato and leek soup. I don't know what the salad tasted like, but they seemed to like it. As for the soup. Oh my God. It was wonderful - absolutely, totally, fucking wonderful. Thick and rich, and as buttery as it was potato-ey. I could eat this stuff all day and gain ten pounds. It was also a great way to counteract my workout the previous hour, where I found out I was three pounds less than I thought!

For our main course, we all ordered different things. Our friends each ordered the Saumon Grillée - a fabulous grilled salmon (I tried it, okay? Some of the best salmon I have ever tasted off of someone else's plate) with a rice pilaf in a beurre blanc sauce. My sister got something I was eyeing, the Steak au Poivre (steak with pommes purée - French mashed potatoes - in a red wine reduction sauce). Again, wonderful stuff, especially that steak. If I go back (which would likely be next year's Restaurant Week), I'm getting that. Such a tender steak. I got the Confit de Canard (duck confit with sautéed spinach). The fat on top was so flavorful and good - okay, there goes my workout and the next two). The duck, as is most duck I have eaten, was a little tough. The spinach was good. I liked my dish, don't get me wrong. But I wish I had ordered the steak or salmon. I liked it that much better (NB: the sis liked my dish more than I did). Note that I was sipping on a red wine recommended by my waitress, who also doubled as a sommelieuse. I couldn't tell you what wine I drank, only that, unlike most red wines, it didn't disagree (hey, I'm not the sommelier, here, she was).

Dessert was a choice between the Sabayon aux fruits locaux (local fruits with sabayon, like a zabaglione - similar linguistically, no?), which our friends got - very tasty - and the Mousse au Chocolat - good old fashioned chocolate mousse, with Grand Marnier! Wowie wow wow, that was some good mousse.

The grand total for dinner was $145 - the four prix fixe dinners, plus two glasses of wine (mine and someone else's) and two Diet Cokes. What a great dining experience. The next time I win the lottery (which will be, well, the first time I win the lottery), I'm going to Petit Louis to celebrate.