Random Bites: December Edition

I haven't had a lot of time (damn, do I type that a lot) to write about places I've been eating at lately.  A few brief notes about what I've been eating outside of my kitchen, apart from the quick rush to the local Wawa, Wegman's or Harris Teeter.

* Heavy Seas Ale House (Little Italy) - I love brewpubs.  It's why I head first thing to the Dogfish one every time I hit up Rehoboth Beach.  Baltimore has a few good ones as well.  The Heavy Seas Ale House in Little Italy was able to seat me relatively quickly (then again, I typically go to these places by myself, so I can come and go as I please).  Most every ARRRRRR'-tinged beer that Heavy Seas currently has is on tap.  I had the very nicely hoppy Loose Cannon American Hop3 IPA (7.5% ABV) with my hamburger: the juicy Heavy Seas Burger & Fries ($13) covered in onion straws (or "peg legs").  Somewhat surprising was the Earl Grey Crème Brûlée ($7) with delicious spice cookies.  Hoppy beers, juicy burgers and crème brûlée are three of the things I like to eat / drink the most.  Even more convenient: Heavy Seas is right across from the Little Italy parking garage - the one that costs $3 to park.

* Birroteca (Hampden, hon) - A new but very atypical Italian restaurant in Hampden, along Clipper Mill Road with ample parking, is Birroteca (City Paper story here).  The place touts its "Craft Beer, Wine and Artisan Pizza" and I'm sure it excels in all of these, but it has much more as I found out this past weekend.  Especially of note: Birroteca is a restaurant that features local foods when they can, something I am planning to do more in my kitchen in the new year.  They have lots of craft brews (no Bud or Miller, or at least that I could tell.  I wasn't looking for that), and I got there Friday evening while Evolution Craft Brews were still offered for happy hour prices (score!).  They also have several other area craft brews, including the aforementioned Heavy Seas.  The beer I enjoyed the most was the one that was not offered at happy hour prices, the Evolution Lot #6 DIPA ($7.50, with the rest of the Evolutions half off at just $3).  Again, I like the hoppy beers. Along with that I got a bevy of finger foods: bread with olive oil and sea salt ($2), a bowl of olives ($3) and my main dish, the salumi and cheese plate (three choices for $11 - I had the chef choose).   The best part was that I got there while there was still seating at the bar, so no waiting for a table for me!  That's another plus to flying solo.

* Nando's Peri-Peri (Pentagon Row, Arlington, VA, and various locations in the DC area) - I've not been to Nando's before, though I see it often when I'm in the DC/NoVA area.  The Johannesburg (yes, South Africa)-based Mozambican-Portuguese hot chicken chain has several stores in the DC area, and apparently one is opening near the UB campus up our way (H/T: MinxEats' Kathy Patterson).  I'm not sure if this is the area's first South African chain (probably is),, but it's definitely the first Mozambican-Portuguese-themed restaurant.  For those of us not in the know: Nando's specializes in chicken, ranging from lime to extra hot.  You can order anything from a quarter breast-wing or leg-thigh to a whole chicken, and various sides.  I got the quarter leg-thigh, hot - one shy of their hottest possible temp - plus two sides (about $9), in this case fries with "Nando" spices and garlic bread made from a thick, soft Portuguese roll.  While the chicken was not unbearably hot for me, it was indeed hot, and people who don't like "hot" food will probably want something a bit less picante.

* R&R Taquería (Elkridge/Jessup) - For the recent turning of the b'ak'tun - the alleged End Of The World (TM) that everyone but the Maya were up in arms about (because, of course, the Maya never said the world was going to end) - I wanted cochinita pibil.  Without the time, the mood or the finances to make my own right now, I sought it locally, and found it at R&R Taquería, in a Shell station at the intersection of US 1 and MD 175 in Jessup/Elkridge.  You will wait a while to get your food, simply because the line is long.  It's some good food (they've even been on the Guy Fieri Happy Time Annoying Show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives), and while it's easier to find good Mexican food in the Baltimore area than it used to be, it's still a relative rarity.  You can order whole platters or simple tacos.  I went for the latter - two of their cochinita pibil and one barbacoa lamb taco (yes, I admit I saw it on the little video clip of R&R from the DDD show).  Each was delicious: the barbacoa lamb was juicy and the cochinita pibil was hot.  Actually, the hottest I've ever had it.  Certainly hotter than that Nando's Peri-Peri hot chicken.  And of course they make no secret about why: it's flavored with habanero peppers.  I've lost many a battle with the habanero.  It burned for a while but actually left a nice feeling in the mouth for a while after I was done with the tacos.

Bengie's in Time Magazine

Bengie's Drive-In in Middle River is in an article about the resurgence of the drive-in theatre, in this week's Time Magazine. No I haven't been before, but I do remember my parents smuggling me and my sisters into the drive-in that existed on Washington Blvd thirty years ago in Elkridge - which is now, I think, a half-finished high-priced housing development. Mom would boil a package of Esskay hot dogs and put them in a large metal thermos with some hot water, then bring it along with us. The most exciting part was Dad telling us to BE QUIET! as he made us cover up and hide while they paid for the two of them, then we popped up after we were parked safely away from the ticket booth, and fell asleep somewhere between The Black Hole and Sleeping Beauty. I don't think I ever saw the inside of their snack bar. Well, maybe.

I know I did twenty-five years later when I went on a date to the Van Buren Drive-In in Riverside, California. Freddy vs Jason and Jeepers Creepers 2 were on the bill, but I was more interested in the conversation, and the two of us riffing on those horrible, horrible movies MST3K-style. I think I bought a tamale or an enchilada - much Mexican food at this drive-in. Not sure whatever happened to him. We kept in touch for a few years but he just stopped getting back to me.

Exit 11B - I-95 South (to Washington)

I had stuff to get done for work today, so I didn't feel like traveling around that much. I did get lots of junk, stopping for some CDs at the office supplies store and one or two donuts from Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts. It's for a project I'm doing (stay tuned). Feeling hungry for something a bit more sustaining than donuts, I headed down I-95, looking for something to eat.

Taking the inner loop (going from Exit 10 to 11), the first exit off I-95 South takes you to Sulphur Spring Road, back to Arbutus. The next Beltway post I do will take me back to Arbutus anyway, so why not go somewhere else? Just my luck: taking the outer loop (going from Exit 12 to 11), the first exit off I-95 South is Interstate 195. This takes you in one of two directions: MD-166, which leads to the local colleges, UMBC and CCBC's Catonsville Campus; and I-195 toward I-95, MD-295 and US-1. I veered left, and went the latter route.

The first exit puts you back on 95, so I took the next one, which heads into Elkridge. As you enter Howard County you pass by Patapsco State Park, the Thomas Viaduct, Old Washington Blvd and the site of what was once a drive-in, now a future site for condos (let's see how fast those sell in this market). Most of the eats here are the typical fast food chains: Burger King, McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, Subway, Quizno's, Blimpie... Lots of subs, now that I think about it.

There is also a fairly new Chinese restaurant by the Super Fresh. The Chopstixx Café (map) has been there long enough for me to just never get around to stopping in despite several opportunities. Despite my past bad luck with strip mall Chinese I decided to go for it.

Just reading the menus in the window told me this was not your typical Chinese place. Many Chinese restaurants in the area are starting to offer additional things on their menus: dim sum, sushi, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, even Korean. This place had a few of those, and something else I haven't seen yet: their special Street Meals selection. This special menu offers, as dine-in or take-out, "street vendor food" or gaai bin dong. They insist it's so good you'll want to eat it standing up! It's supposed to be snack-sized. These dishes are not snack-size, either in price or volume, but promising: Cantonese shrimp ($10), hot and crispy shrimp ($12), Szechuan ma po tofu ($8), Malaysian red curry ($7), etc. I got this last one, the Malaysian red curry, with big shrimp, red bell peppers, tomatoes, onions and lots of string beans in a red curry sauce with lots of rice. With this came an 8-oz cup of milk tea, free of charge.

The one funny thing about Chopstixx: they gave me no chopsticks! Anyway...

So I got it home and hunkered down into my Malaysian red curry. Not bad. In fact it was pretty good. A little spicy but not horribly so. The green beans and onion slices were crisp and long, the tomatoes juicy, and the shrimp were juicy, a bit strong but that's a plus in my book - isn't shrimp supposed to taste like shrimp? And the milk tea was mellow and sweet. Ahem, I need to get some exercise in after this.

My one complaint was the overabundance of rice. So much rice! I was too full to finish it but I had to discard the rest, knowing full well that I wouldn't go back later just to eat warmed-over white rice with some veggies thrown in. Not a big complaint, but it's not a place where you can really save the rest for later.

Places I visited:

Chopstixx Café (Chinese / pan-Asian) - 7260 D Montgomery Rd, Elkridge, MD 21075; Phone: (410) 379-5566

• Would I eat there again? Yes
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Sure!
  

Dips and Spreads from Africa, Asia and Europe

I spent way too much today. Most of it was at Jiffy Lube - $20 for a new air filter (it was pretty disgusting), $40 for an oil change, $90 for a radiator flush! And an extra $30 to fill my not-so-large gas tank down the street.

Today I happened to choose the Elkridge Jiffy Lube to get my car serviced. Hey, if I'm driving it to OC, Jamestown and all over the Baltimore area this summer, I'd better damn well make sure it's in top working order. Yes, I know I should take it to a mechanic for that, but I don't have a lot of money to work with here.

I was hungry, and my family was going to this cookout in Essex (two hours after they were supposed to even leave, there they are, still waiting in the house). So I didn't want to eat too much. I took a walk (it's healthy) past the KFC, past the Taco Bell, even past the Subway, to the little strip mall across from the Super Fresh shopping center at the corner of Montgomery Rd and US Route 1. Famous mostly as the location of a now-shut-down "massage" parlor, it now houses some spas and beauty parlors, as well as a Chinese take-out place, a deli and an international market. The deli was closed, the Chinese take-out place had nowhere to sit, and the market had no food ready to eat. But I went in there anyway to see what I could find.

This market is an "African-Caribbean-Latino" market. I'd say it's about 50% Caribbean, 30% Latino and 20% African, but I may be way off on those figures. As much as I like food from all those areas, I went for the one least known to me - African. There are not many African groceries or restaurants in the Bawlmer area. You have to go to Washington for a better selection. And this one, like all other African groceries I have set foot in, smelled like dried prawn (baby shrimp). And there it was aplenty! Also close by were some jarred African spreads. One, from Ghana, didn't really catch my eye. But the one next to it, Olga's Liberian Hot Fried Pepper ($4.49), did. I haven't tried this yet. Frankly, I'm a little scared to, due to the prominence of habanero chilis in the list of ingredients. But I can tolerate the spicy stuff better than most people in my family (even with the Crohn's - I didn't say I ate a lot of it), so I'll be the sport. Interestingly, it's not from Liberia; instead, it's a Liberian-American product, and the entrepreneuses are Liberian Americans sharing an old family recipe. Olga's is even based right in Elkridge!

After paying the lube guys* and filling up on gas, I ran some errands and eventually found my way up at Whole Foods - the one at the Inner Harbor. God, I love that place. Their free samples are why I love it so much. On a mission to buy some hummus (Asmar's Mediterranean Hommus, Original and Extra Garlic, $2.99 for each 8 oz. tub) with little pitas for the cookout - my sister now owes me $12, by the way - I passed by this table by the cheese section that had the most divine spread made of fig spread and Italian-style mascarpone cheese. I usually avoid the impulse buy, but this tasted too good not to buy. And it helped me avoid the cake I would've inevitably picked up. This was a mixture of, it seemed, 60% mascarpone cheese (this from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company, $4.99) and 40% fig spread (Whole Foods Organic Adriatic Fig Spread, $4.99 for an 8.5 oz jar - which, for Whole Foods, is pretty damn cheap; I figured it'd be $8, $12 easily).

I wonder how the Liberian fried pepper would taste with the fig spread? Stranger things have been mixed together...

UPDATE: No, I haven't mixed the fried pepper and the fig spread. But I did try just a little bit of the fried pepper - not even the pepper, just the liquid it was sitting in - on a boneless steak. It is hot! Also found out that, as much as I love cake, the cake they sell at Geresbeck's in Middle River is too damn sugary for my tastes.

* That didn't come out right, especially after passing that ex-"massage" parlor.