Exit 41 - Cove Road (to MD-151 and Dundalk)

The search for food along North Point Boulevard continues. This leg of the trip takes me from Cove Road to Wise Avenue, beyond which lies the Sparrows Point Industrial Complex and - yes - another Beltway exit. The next one will take me into the heart of Sparrows Point itself. But for now, I'm still exploring MD-151 for some eats.

A few more notable things that I found past Cove Road:

• The seemingly vacant "Sand Witch" trailer (closed for today). Does anybody know anything about it at all?
• The standard Chinese and Italian places. The Chinese place is the Great Wall Chinese Restaurant (map). The Italian place is Vizzini's Pizza (map), one of several in the Baltimore area (including locations in Pasadena and Baltimore itself). Great Wall and Vizzini's are both in the St. Gregory Shopping Center. It looks like the North Point Mart Shopping Center but make sure you read the part at the top (especially bad to diss St. Greg if you're a singer, a musician or a teacher - or all three).
• Pop's Tavern (map) looks like a clean, bright and crusty old place (neither a good nor a bad thing - it's just a thing). They've got a listing on MDparty.com. From the look of the acts, Pop's seems like a country place. Their MDparty page lists upcoming live country band performances, including seemingly regular performers like the Cumberland Band, Southern Exposure and the David Wayne Band. I think they're all local acts, and are performing alot in the upcoming months.
• The Sparrows Point Restaurant, tiny and compact, so they must be crowded when they're open. Are they still open? I can find nothing about them.

Alright, Google, Yahoo, Urbanspoon - y'all don't believe me that there's a Sparrows Point Restaurant? Here it is! HA!

One important find for the drooling crab lover: dueling crab joints, across the Boulevard from each other. At least one makes it onto Elizabeth Large's top ten crab houses in the Baltimore area, and the other gets raved about by commenters.

On one side is the Costas Crab House/Inn, (map), voted the 2003's Best Crab House by the City Paper. Costas has also made its way into Zagat, where most reviewers loved the place (a few hated it big time). Costas serves "crabs all year round, hon". But of course, it doesn't stop there: they've got crab cakes, pit beef, even their own seafood seasoning. And yes, they do cater. It's a big, sit-down place where you can get your hands and arms covered in Old Bay and little crab shell-induced cuts right quick. It's one of those places that I really should have known about, but I don't. So I will have to get to know it when I have the time and the money.

On the other side is the Salty Dog's Crab House (map). This is not so much a crab house as a seafood shop. No, it looks like you can't sit down and eat, well, anything in Salty Dog's. This seems to be a carry-out place, so I assume carry-out is the only way to meet your seafood needs here. This place was packed - but considering that it was relatively the size of an outhouse (okay maybe not that tiny), it would have to be. Still, there were about as many people there as at the Costas Inn (maybe 10 5 times as big) across the street. They sell urshters, soft shells, etc. And here's what REALLY caught my attention: Tuesdays are $1 crab days! Get crabs for $1 each. That is my price range! I love what one reviewer said: "The crabs are not the absolute best but definitely are worth the money".

Yes, you too can get delicious steamed crabs for only a buck a piece! Too bad it's Wednesday...

I HAVE to venture back to the Salty Dog, maybe on my way back from Exit 42 when I get around to it. And I would've come here had I not already been to Tommy's Charcoal Express (map), a small little diner with all the feel of a Waffle House without any of the glitz. And like WH, Tommy's sells just about everything here. Their specialty, of course, is not waffles but all manner of pit meat: pit beef, pit chicken, pit sausage, pulled pork, etc. So much to choose from!

I stuck with the specials to save myself the trouble. For my meal I quickly settled on the pulled pork slider special with French fries and a 16 oz drink ($6). I got my meal in under ten minutes, all the while I was perusing the local Dundalk paper at one of the stools set up by a counter-away-from-the-counter, with booths and old video arcade games behind me. I'm not sure what he was doing, but one older gentleman (who obviously was familiar with the staff) took a butter knife from one of the tables and fidgeted with the side of one of the video machines for a second. Then he put it back down, which puzzled me.


The sliders were too hot and messy to even attempt to sample in the car, but I did get some fries: very fresh-tasting, like they had been cut not long before. I don't know if they had been just cut, but they sort of tasted like it. I ate the sliders later at home: three perfect little sweet blobs of pulled pork, each on its own soft mini-hamburger bun. Actually, I didn't eat them all. Instead I just cut each in half, saving the rest of them for later. It all microwaved well (even the fries) for about 45 seconds. Some of the tastiest pulled pork I've had as of late.

Other photos -

Just how many Louisville Sluggers have come in contact with headlights in Pop's parking lot? Did it make a difference?

Do you really want to argue with the man-sized crab? I mean he looks pretty steamed.

Onward and outward, back to the Beltway, hon

Places I visited

Tommy's Charcoal Express (American) - 3950 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 477-6900

• Would I eat there again? Yes indeed
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Maybe
  

Places to look up later

Costas Crab House & Inn (crabs / American) - 4100 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 477-1975

Great Wall Chinese Restaurant (Chinese) - 4045 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 477-4605

Pop's Tavern (bar / American) - 4343 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21219; Phone: (410) 477-0270

Salty Dog's Crab House (crabs / seafood) - 4011 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 388-0515

Sand Witch trailer (sandwiches) - can find no information

Sparrows Point Restaurant - can find no information

Vizzini's Pizza (pizza) - 4051 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 477-1200



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Exit 40 - MD-151 (North Point Blvd)

As I've mentioned before, this part of 695 is one of those corners of the Beltway where the exits all take you to more or less the same place (see: Exits 2 - 4, Exits 8 - 10, Exits 20 - 21, Exits 34 - 35). Driving around looking for places to eat, usually the first step in the journey that is this post, I found very few places off of Exit 40 that I didn't already find off of 39. What's worse, You only have to drive about a mile before you run into Exit 41 (Cove Road). So for this post, I am looking at everything along southbound North Point Boulevard (MD-151), including the side streets, stopping at Cove, where the next post picks up.

This is also where the Maryland Transportation Authority starts messing with your mind. No simple relationship between the inner and outer loop exits here! The inner loop Exit 40 takes you to southbound North Point Boulevard. The outer loop, however, off of which the exit numbers go down (easy mnemonic device to tell them apart: the outer loop makes you feel "down and out"), takes you to two places: northbound North Point Boulevard (MD-151), and westbound Eastern Boulevard (MD-150). To make matters worse, there is no Exit 38A or B - but Exit 38E is there to take you eastbound on Eastern. Got all that?

I think I'm insane now.

Apart from that, outer loop Exit 40 takes you to Eastpoint Mall and pretty much the same places that Exit 38A off the inner loop takes you. The one different place I can mention is the Best Buffet (map), one of the only non-chain buffets I know of in the area. It looked pretty full about the time I passed by there.

Back to the inner loop: Whereas Exit 39 yields an embarrassment of riches (food-wise), Exit 40 doesn't yield very much at all. Truth be told, you are the one who has to yield, since the exit turns into a merge from the left into oncoming traffic. Cut across too fast and you may get hit before you get to the Wal-Mart/Aldi's shopping center - just across from the big sign commemorating the Battle of North Point, which occurred around here in September of 1814, during the War of 1812. This is the same shopping center with the North Point / Plaza Flea Market complex (map), that also includes Charlie & Lena's Seafood & Produce and an Amish Farmers Market. I stumbled upon it on Sunday, just as it had shut down for the day. Also recall, as I found off Exit 39 as well, that Caldarazzo's Pizzeria (map) is much easier to get to from this exit. It's next to the Aldi's.

Cruising down North Point Boulevard you find little else before you hit Cove Road. Turning down the side streets just takes you to North Point (or Old North Point) Road - at Cove Road you can make a sharp right turn from North Point Boulevard onto North Point Road. Along the journey from North Point to North Point, you find a small handful of non-McDonald's eating establishments. Perhaps your best bets along North Point Road are the aptly-named North Point Diner (map), and Papa Leone's Spaghetti House (map). The former is a small diner in a red brick building that's pretty easy to miss if you pass by too fast. The latter was pretty empty when I got to it. I don't know much else about it. Another establishment, the Left Field Pub (map), borders both North Point Boulevard and North Point Road. So does the North Point Flea Market, which will inevitably come up on your right.

Much of what you can find to eat, or drink, is along the more well-traveled North Point Boulevard, including Journey's (map) and Michael's Halfway House (map), two taverns that the internet has precious little information about, except that they are places to find karaoke. For lunch and dinner, more promising establishments can be found on the other side of Cove Road (again, see Exit 41).

On the Boulevard side of Left Field Pub lies the Little Village Pizzeria (map). This unassuming little place is your standard pizza and sub shop, bright and clean inside with a television currently tuned into the Olympics (event on screen: men's water polo. Damn those guys can fill out a Speedo). The Little Village was also empty at the end of this lunch hour - a few more cars at the Left Field next door. Less of a wait for me I suppose. A few of Little Village's offerings, as I perused their take-out menu for a while: no slices of pizza but you can get a 12" cheese-only pizza for $7. most specialty pizzas cost just a few dollars more. Also on the menu are stromboli (between $10 and $11 each), subs in three different sizes (the smallest, 8" one will be about $7), salads, fish and gyro platters, shakes in three flavors, and desserts ranging from baklava to cake. I finally settled on the 8" pizza sub ($7) with small onion rings ($3) and a can of Diet Pepsi, which I was surprised to hear referred to as "pop". This must have been a lunch special as my bill totaled just under $10, and I know they added the soda. In ten minutes, as I was told, my order was ready.

The 8" sub is too much food for me. Another thing to point out: they sure know how to keep it hot, wrapping it (as you should) in paper and then foil. It was still hot half an hour later when I got it home (The onion rings? not so much). So the roll was, understandably, soggy when I got it home - and no, it would not have been soggy had I eaten it there.


The chopped meat was juicy and pretty tasty, the cheese was gooey, and the tomato sauce was mostly on the roll. I can't say I enjoyed the onion rings, which tasted like your standard frozen onion rings just out of the fryer. They should change the brand because it's not a very good onion ring.

All in all, Little Village is worth going to, though I wouldn't drive half an hour to get to it.

Other photos:

The memorial sign pointing out that you are driving by history here - the Battle of North Point happened near these parts

This is the photo I had up on the Exit 39 post. Not much more activity at the tail end of the Sunday shopping festivities.

Walk past the Aldi's from the farmers market and you can get pizza! Though it's probably cheaper frozen at Aldi's.

No I don't need any. But it's still good to know it's here, alright? And yes, I know I need to wash my windows!

Places I visited:

Little Village Pizzeria (pizza and subs) - 3819 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 284-9488

• Would I eat there again? Probably
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Probably not
  

Places to look up later:

Caldarazzo's Pizzeria (pizza / Italian) - 2315 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 284-3354

Journey's (pub) - 2701 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 282-0699

Left Field Pub (pub) - 3813 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 285-1691

Michael's Halfway House Tavern (pub) - 3814 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 288-9573

North Point Diner (diner / American) - 2701 North Point Road, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 477-1000

North Point / Plaza Flea Market (market - local foods) - 2401 North Point Boulevard, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 285-4504

Papa Leone's Spaghetti House (Italian) - 2713 North Point Road, Dundalk, MD 21222; Phone: (410) 284-9770