Y'all knew this was coming...

Baltimore Restaurant Week has been extended through August 23. Hilarity ensues.

Wild Wolf's Beef Shack

When I'm in mood for pit beef around the southwest part of the Beltway, I usually stop at the Lansdowne pit beef truck. For a change, I hit up Wild Wolf's Beef Shack in Arbutus. A medium rare pit beef sandwich costs $6.50, and the meat is very soft and juicy. It's a little difficult to bite into here and there, but that's true with most pit beef. Pretty tasty sandwich here. They also have pit ham and pit turkey.

Things made out of bacon that SHOULDN'T be?

I don't buy into the notion that we should be prohibited from using bacon in every facet of our life, except for Morningstar Farms' veggie "bacon" that tastes like shoes. This strange picture poll from the Huffington Post shows some of the more creative uses for bacon that I've ever seen, which makes Mo's Milk Chocolate Bacon Bar (from Vosges) seem positively conventional! My favorite? Carl Warner's "Bacon World" (shown above). The lamest? Bacon cupcakes. They're just yellow cupcakes with vanilla icing and a pathetic little piece of bacon jabbed into the top. Come on, show some creativity!

Don't Buy This

Wegman's sells the Taylor Classic Instant Thermometer ($7.99), which has "instant" (meaning about a minute to get to the actual temperature) digital reads ranging from between -58°F to 302°F. It also comes with an extra "long-life" battery. They didn't mention that the "long-life" part was in fruit fly terms. I used it to make mozzarella. I was making some more just now and it died half way through the process (yes, I left it on for about five extra minutes, which I admit was a mistake). No problem: just change the battery! After that it would never work again. So what to do? Well, I just got back from Giant with a Farberware analog instant read thermometer for just a dollar more. At least this one needs no batteries. Something told me I should've spent that extra dollar.

Baltimore Restaurant Week: Ambassador Dining Room

Two things always pop up in my mind when I hear the phrase "Ambassador Dining Room" - "Indian" and "expensive". I did not realize just how (as our British friends might say) "posh" it is as well when I stopped by to kick off my own personal Restaurant Week. And "posh" it is. Inside that regal stone exterior that makes the phrase "A Separate Peace" pop up in my head, is an almost castle-like interior that leads out onto a lush garden with a direct view of the big Masonic center next door. On a beautiful August day such as this, it is a lovely place to eat.

I've heard great stuff about the Ambassador's food, too, but again, that's always coupled with "expensive" - as in "It's good but I don't get why Indian food is so expensive here." Yes, I am in that camp, but I am used to eating most of my Indian food at all-you-can-eat buffets. Yes I have eaten Indian for dinner, with no buffet to be found, but you gotta admit: the fabled Indian buffet is a wonderful dining experience. The Ambassador serves up some luscious Indian food (and, ironically enough, a buffet). As I would progress through lunch, I would find out what I usually miss outside the buffet box. I would also find out that the food and the view are pretty good reasons to go, despite some minor annoyances throughout the meal.

For $20 I got three courses and bread: the first course was an appetizer (such as soup, raita or a samosa); the second course was a main dish (and there was a dizzying array of both traditional and not-so-traditional ones) plus choice of one bread (various selections of naan and paratha); and the third course was dessert (sorbets, cake or kheer). I perused the menu, chose my lunch selections, and ordered an utterly forgettable Diet Coke, which had that wonderful dishwater-y flavor that fountain sodas usually have (NB: If you want to drink cheap at the Ambassador, don't order the damn soda. Just go with the free water and leave it at that).

Lamb samosa

My first course was a lamb and pea samosa. Usually the samosas I get are beef and pea or potato and pea, inside a heavy, greasy deep-fried pastry crust. But I love 'em anyway, so I keep ordering them. The samosa I got here was not greasy, and had a thin and very buttery crust, filled with soft ground lamb. It was perhaps the best samosa I've ever eaten, and that's before mentioning the tamarind chutney that came with it. I could eat these all day, and my waistline would not be happy.

Shahi korma with garlic naan

As good as the samosa was, the main course actually was the best part of the meal. I ordered the shahi korma, the "famous dish brought to India by the Mughals" as the Ambassador puts it. I had never eaten it, but since this place is one of the nicest Indian restaurants in Maryland I figured I'd get one of the classics and see how they do it up. My plate - which came out about 10 or 15 minutes after I finished the samosa (I think my waiter was a trainee or something) - was brought out with a lid on it! And under that lid was a plate bursting with basmati rice, a spinach dish and about ten hunks of tender lamb smothered in an almond cream sauce. The rice was standard and cooked nicely. That's important: clumpy rice can ruin the meal, as I've found with some buffets. The little hair's-width of a fried onion was decorative, nothing more. As for the saag: buttery and smooth, and I was so disappointed to see it go. Tasted lovely on the garlic naan that I ordered for my bread choice. The shahi korma was the best thing about lunch today: a sweet and savory cream sauce with raisins and almonds covering chunks of lamb that were more tender than I usually find when I eat out. Regrettably I could not finish it. I was that full by the time I got down to my last piece of lamb.

Rice pudding

My final course was dessert, a kheer sprinkled with minced pistachios, served in a martini glass. It was standard rice pudding, nothing terribly special.

I can't stress enough that the food and the view are two things that are really special about the Ambassador. This is despite some minor annoyances, such as, oh, the price? But I didn't get hit as hard by that since I was paying Restaurant Week prices. I've already mentioned the soda - again, just stick with water. The major problem I had was the choppiness of the service. I have never seen anything like it! It was, literally, equal parts doting, clueless and "Who really gives a fuck?" While it was a nice touch to open my napkin for me, it was a less nice touch to have the waiter stand there watching me wait for him to get my plate when he wasn't helping anyone else (another waiter finally directed him to grab it). The mildly rude - or moreover, socially inept - end to my dinner was when I turned away from the not terribly busy dining area to discretely wipe my nose. By the time I had turned around, the waiter plunked my check on the table and thanked me for coming. Odd enough as it is. Even odder since I was only about a third of the way through my dessert. Dude! Don't drop the damn check in front of me while I'm still eating! That's, like, rude! Don't act rude when a customer isn't being rude to you (if he is rude, then all bets are off). And since the place was about empty, it's not like they had to hurry me out (though they were hustling tables by mine to set up for the dinner rush, so maybe they just wanted me gone so they could move my table). While that didn't exactly ruin my dining experience, it was an unpleasant way to end it, basically sending that fond, special message of "Leave, bitch" that just makes you want to come back for more.

Okay, come back for this.

Despite that "Don't let the door hit you in the ass" sendoff, I still have to say I loved both the food and the view. I would go back if: 1) I had the money, and 2) I liked mildly rude service. Really the service isn't bad (I've definitely seen worse). But for a place that pricey and "posh" the service needs to be better than it is. Don't let it deter you: the Ambassador had some absolutely wonderful Indian food.

IIIIIIIIIIIt's Baaaaaaaaaaaaack...

Another Baltimore Restaurant Week is upon us. I'm saving up to go out some night - or to save money, some day for lunch. Remember: dinners are $30.09 before drinks, tax and tip, lunches are $20.09. Due to the recession, I wonder just how popular this is going to be? On the plus side, normally expensive restaurants get a little more affordable. On the minus side, more people are choosing not to eat out.

Whatever happens, remember to maximize your eating experience by finding somewhere to go where they don't just put average crap that would normally add up to $30 anyway. Instead, look for the places that really give you a bargain for your money. And avoid the places where a typical meal would not normally cost upwards of $30 for dinner or $20 for lunch. I still have no clue why Café Hon does Restaurant Week since you can usually cobble together a full meal for a good bit less than $30 there.

One thing that concerns me: will whatever restaurant I eat at for Restaurant Week wind up closing down not long after, even though I gave them generally good reviews? It happened to Nasu Blanca. It happened to Vīn. Will it happen to some newly unsuspecting restaurant? It almost makes me not want to take part at all, for fear of cursing the place.

"Fleur de Baie" Caramels Part II: Update

Some interesting observations on those fleur de sel caramels I made a few weeks back, in which I replaced the sea salt with Old Bay. If you recall, I could not really taste the Old Bay, so I rolled the caramels in the stuff. I thought it had a fascinatingly salty, spicy, Old Bay taste - something I might eat on occasion, but not something that I would pass up.

Over the past few weeks, these caramels, which have sat in an often un-air-conditioned apartment in their own sealed up plastic container, have gotten a little more crumbly (maybe I just cooked them too fast). Another strange thing has happened at the same time: the Old Bay in the caramels has really gotten pronounced, so that you can taste it without having to roll it in Old Bay. This has resulted in my plain caramels taking on a subtle though still distinct Old Bay flavor, which is quite good. However, it has also resulted in those caramels that I rolled in Old Bay taking on an extremely strong Old Bay flavor that I can best describe as "wince-inducing" - it's like licking the salt and Old Bay off of a steamed crab, minus the crab taste. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not used to licking crab shells for any reason. So in the future when I make these "fleur de baie" caramels, I will merely stick to integrating the Old Bay into the caramel itself, and not rolling it in Old Bay. Eventually, the Old Bay will be detectable, and will taste just fine.

Mayo-NAAAAAISE!!!

Yesterday I finally figured out how to both link to and embed a video from YouTube at a specific point in the video. Now that I know how to do this, I can finally present, with confidence, my favorite scene from Mystery Science Theater 3000 that involves neither a scary woman-child pixie named after a musical note nor a dinner date with your family. Damen und Herren: Professor Bobo makes a sandwich out of someone's brain.

Next Food Network Star 5 Live Blogging: The Finale

This is it! We've reached the end! And though Debbie (who I think is Korean or Southern or something - I mean she never said) is no longer with us...



...her memory lives on. I'm kind of surprised that Deb is done for. But I haven't watched last week's ep (seeing a little of it now), and from what I've heard it was a tough decision no matter what.

So it goes down to either Jeff or Melissa. Jeff seems fated to win, which is why I confidently predict that the winner will be Melissa. The reason: Melissa has stumbled a few times in the past and has gotten better. She's also gotten more irritating. Jeff is too good, and that's what kills him: he's too good (although, again, maybe he screwed up last week - I don't know). Plus, Melissa seems to really hit that "Sandra Lee" demographic. I won't say if Melissa is also in the habit of making utter crap like Sandra Lee, but she's certainly as sickeningly saccharine as she is. And that is why she will win, unless - again, as I said with Whatsername our long-gone dietitian - she literally packs her knives into one of the judge's heads and goes. So again:

Runner up: Jeffrey

And our predicted winner: Melissa

Tonight's drink of choice is Shiner Smokehaus Mesquite Smoked Beer, which (to me) really, really has that mesquite flavor. It's an acquired taste, much like the Old Bay caramels I made last week (and which aren't holding up terribly well in the heat - maybe the mistake was rolling them in even more Old Bay).

9:01 Obligatory montage of the past series. Hey, Rick Bayless must've been on last week. And there are some judges from Chopped. Yup, trying to squeeze in as much face time for 'em as possible.

9:02 Ah, bye Teddy, Michael, Brett, Deb, Eddie, Katie, Jen and Jamika. We knew them well, Horatio.

9:03 Oh, that's right. Jeffrey has a daughter. He hadn't mentioned that before, had he? What the hell: DRINK for old time's sake.

9:05
Maybe I should have
Done this live-blog in haiku.
Aw hell, it's too late.

9:05 And we move on to Melissa's family. Yup, y'all know the drill: DRINK!

Time for a rousing chorus of "I Am Woman"! I love the drag queen version in the movie Trick. Wonderful stuff.

9:07 Chelsea Market - hey, I was there!

9:08 I knew Alton would grace us with his more aggressive self - hey, does he have more hair now?

9:11 So of course, each cheftestant has to make a draft of his or her own show. Jeff wants to take "exotic" ingredients - such as "paprika" (WTF) - and use 'em in an American way. Melissa chose some pretentious French name that Alton totally swatted down, and he suggested "Survival!" Cuz she is a survivor! (What?) She's not gonna give up (What!), She's not gon' stop (What!?), She's gonna work harder (Yeah!)

9:12 Jeezy Peezy, not another friggin' Next Iron Chef!

9:13 Didn't get a chance to say how pleased I am that Gordon Elliott is not going to exec produce the winner's show like he did with Aaron "Big Daddy!!!!!!!" McCargo - or the Neelys, or anything by Paula Deen.

9:14 I never realized how cute Brian Boitano is.

9:15 Did y'all know that Sandra Lee won an Emmy? Yup, for Outstanding Hair Styling. I am not making that up.

9:15 Melissa is stressed? Rustic lemon-onion-chicken dish with her patented "four step chicken" (TM).

She looks kinda wooden. But that's what Alton is there for! His advice to the young Jedi: Be yourself. DRINK for mention of her girls.

Alton is pleased thus far.

9:17 And here is Jeff, comfy and, er, orange. Harissa steak sammich with some kind of mayo-naaaaiiise!!! Again, wooden. What was that Stepford Husband grin at the beginning while he scrubbed the griddle?

9:19 Okay, found a copy of "I Am Woman" with drag queens! Lots of sweaty shirtless gay men dancing around but hey, that's what you get with a drag version of "I Am Woman". Ladies and gents: Miss Coco Peru!

9:24 I like both their outfits, though I think a deeper shad of pink would look better on Jeff. Melissa's dress is lovely.

9:25 Hey, was Paula Deen in this season of this show? I forget.

Oh God, this is going to get tedious real, real fast.

9:27 They're going to show the presentations that each of these guys just made.

Awwww, they're bringing them all back! It's a reunion scene!

Oh no, they're getting all "Project Runway Reunion Episode"-ish on us now.

Thanks for sharing your lactation memories, Melissa.

Someone, please remind me how Eddie got on this damn show again?

9:29 Ohohohohohoho, we sure have some nicknames for you people, Tuschie!

9:30 Is it over yet?

9:32 Still not accidental posting on the Food Network home page prematurely congratulating the winner.

9:35 Teddy, on Eddie: "It's my Me-in-a-Bo-o-ox!"

9:36 And now, the pilots...

Melissa D'Arabian: Kitchen Survival Guide (please promise this won't be her opening sequence if she wins). I do like the whole "Plug and Play" thing she uses.

9:37 What does she dress the chicken in?

"My kids" reference: DRINK!

9:38 A little bit of butter? Oh, girl, you would not make it two minutes on Paula's Home Cooking or Barefoot Contessa.

9:39 Whoa, is that thunder I hear outside?

9:40 Overall, I thought her pilot went well. She offered good tips in a non-scatterbrained way. Focused and not needing others to help her. The show still seemed a weeeeeee bit wooden, but much closer to "Dan & Steve" than "Amy Findlay." A 4 out of 5 from me.

9:41 Again: I am so seeing that Julie & Julia movie.

9:45 And now it's Jeffrey's turn...

Jeffrey Saad: the Indredient Smuggler - even worse opening than Melissa's.

OMG, it's HARISSA!!! Kudos for what seems to be the Food Network's first ever mention that North Africa even has a cuisine (it does - it's lovely).

Teddy's so cute.

The food looks good and Jeffrey is goin' very smoothly. But he seems to have just jumped right in with such little opening. Melissa seemed to give more background, which helped. Granted, he doesn't have enough time to really go into what harissa is, but it would've been nice to hear at least a few more sentences on it. Overall, 4 out of 5, but a slightly lower 4 than Melissa's. I think she did a little better.

9:51 Just because they're offering "Maine"-like and "Louisiana"-ish recipes does not mean I want to eat at Red Lobster.

9:53 So at the 53-minute mark, I'm still ready to call it for Melissa! Let's see how my prediction holds up.

9:54 Who is this person in the Proactiv ad again?

9:55 I figured Suze would have tried harissa by now.

9:56 Continued heaping of praise on the cheftestants. Just don't give it to Stefan! (Oops, wrong show.)

9:57 And the winner is... aw, who the hell is this? It's just the president of the Food Network.

And NOW the winner, whose show airs in one week, is...

Pick up the pace, Flay.

(Still not as long and drawn out as the first Make Me a Supermodel finale.)

9:58 Oh, SNAP, I knew it! Cue "I Am Woman"! It's a fun song, okay? Don't hate on me for playin' it. And everything's better with drag queens.



POST-GAME -

Once again, our winner. I'm getting better at predicting these, I think. But had you told me at the start of this series that Melissa was even going to make it halfway, much less win, I'd have said you were crazy. So here you are, crazy and vindicated! And so am I. We start seeing Melissa's rescue kitchen next week. Now I watch Duff promote pizza in the Midwest. Shouldn't he be touting local pizza? Oh that's right: apparently we only have inedible pizza here as far as resident New Yorkers are concerned. How the hell did I get onto pizza again?

ADDENDUM -

I'm deleting the rules for the NFNS5 drinking game, of course, since no one needs them anymore. And yet, to save my hard work for posterity, I preserve them en toto below. This will be helpful if and/or when this series is ever released on DVD.

Drink ONCE:

* If someone says or does something stupid
* If someone talks wistfully about "their kids/spouse/parents/partner/dog, cat or goldfish
* For every Food Network celebrity that pops up (just once per hour for each cheflebrity
* Any of the guests (but not the judges or Food Network personalities) makes a face because of something food related
* Whenever any of the competitors is seen in a state of half-dress (shirtless men / bra-clad women)
* Whenever anyone says the phrase "YUM-O"
*Whenever Debbie mentions that she is Korean or Southern (TWICE if she mentions both in the same breath)
* Whenever Katie acts "dietitian-y"
* Whenever Teddy acts "Teddy-like" (SUPERENERGETICOBOYOBOY!!!)

Drink TWICE if:

* Any team spends too much for their food
* Any of the judges or Food Network cheflebrities makes a face because of something food related
* Anyone says some variation of "I don't know if I can trust him/her"

Drink THRICE (?) if:

* Any of these yokels hooks up.

DOWN WHAT'S IN YOUR GLASS or CHUG YOUR BEER FOR FIVE GULPS:

* If anyone - ANYONE - cries, for ANY reason.

Woodberry Kitchen

I saw The Little Dog Laughed performed by the Mobtown Players at Mobtown Theater last night. Funny at times, emotionally charged at others. It was well done. The play ended at 10 exactly, so I had some time to head over to the Woodberry Kitchen. I had heard about a fave dessert of the Duffman on (yes) the Food Network, a sort of marshmallow-peanut concoction served in a tall drinking glass, with a sugar "lid" melted on top that you have to break through to get at it. This was on the Food Network's new, somewhat useless new show The Best Thing I Ever Ate (I guess they needed to find another venue for the irritatingly belligerent judges from Chopped). I guess it's not so useless, since it's encouraging me to try places I have not been in the area yet, all because of Chef Duff. Thanks, Duff.

So I set out to Woodberry Kitchen in search of this dish. At my late hour of arrival, there were still some seats in the still-crowded venue. It is a lovely, rustic place in an old converted foundry (hell, the complex is called "The Foundry"). Be warned: parking is precious, so unless you're walking from the Mobtown Theater parking lot or parking at the Foundry parking lot, expect to pay for valet service. Then again, if you have the money to eat at Woodberry Kitchen on a regular basis, you probably can afford to use valet parking all the time.

The place ain't cheap, but they're not using crap ingredients either. Woodberry prides itself on using only local ingredients from the region - Maryland, southern PA, Delmarva and Eastern Virginia - specifically the Chesapeake Bay. They boast their selection of oysters and other seafood from Maryland and Virginia. Since I came in for dessert, I hardly paid attention to the entrées, but I did notice the price tags - they regularly averaged around $25. That's apart from the appetizers, cocktails, wine, oysters and clams on the half shell, cheese plates, dessert and coffee. It's a special occasion place in a rustic setting. So again, unless you're going in for cocktails or dessert, the place ain't cheap.

Before I ate my honey wheat bread (on the house), I asked for the dessert menu, but felt a little hungrier than I thought I would be, so I looked for some nice local seafood. Their stuffed Chincoteague clams ($9) were not only one of the cheaper appetizers, but also sounded particularly good to me. What I got for my money was a selection of six baked clams in their shells, stuffed with bread crumbs, bacon and chilies. The clams were nestled on a bed of hot, very coarse salt, in a hot metal dish. Each clam was juicy, and though the breading was worth eating in its own right it didn't mask the flavor of the clams.

My thoughts then turned to dessert. I was disappointed not to see the delicious dessert that the Food Network showcased, but there were lots of others that I had my sights on in the same $8 price range. One sundae featured basil ice cream and gooseberry syrup (interest piqued!). Another was a selection of various cookies and candies, made in-house. But I decided to go with the peach crisp with vanilla ice cream for $8, again made from locally grown peaches (and probably cream). If you're expecting Friday's-type absurdly gargantuan portions, you will be disappointed. Otherwise, it was a nice, manageable dessert, big enough to satisfy, not big enough to hurt. The peach crisp came in a shallow dish, so the peaches and the crisp were compact together, which I like. The vanilla ice cream came in a small ball to the side - good if you don't want your vanilla ice cream half-melted into the dish (if you do, just put the ice cream in the dish yourself). The topping was not as sweet as you normally expect in a peach crisp topping, but it doesn't have to be: the peaches and the ice cream are the sweet part of the dish.

The final bill was $18 after tax and before tip. I could have easily spent three times that if I had not eaten dinner before the play. We're not talking "The Charleston" prices here - it's not a very expensive restaurant. But you'll spend a lot of money if you're not careful, because there are too many interesting items on the menu. It's a damn shame they're not taking part in Restaurant Week, because I had some delicious food while I was here. Eh, maybe the next one...