Time to hit the Beltway,,,

It's been a while since I last went around the Beltway to sample foods from Glen Burnie to Catonsville, Pikesville to Towson, Essex to Dundalk. And a good bit has changed since then: some places have closed, others have opened, yet others were pointed out to me that I didn't even see the first time! So I'm going back in, people.

This time I won't be hitting every single exit on its own. Instead, I'll be hitting a few at a time: the Glen Burnie area, the Catonsville area, etcetera. It will give me a chance to get through this more quickly, and to spend less money on gas and food (always helpful). I will also get the chance to stop at some of the places I only passed by the first time, and again to comb the comments for places I missed.

Look for it starting around June. First stop: is there anything around Exit 1 that I haven't seen yet? I've hit Cookie's already.

Well here's one Food Network host that won't be coming back, like, ever

Juan Carlos-Cruz, the cheflebrity from the Food Network's long-since canceled Calorie Commando, is in custody for trying to get homeless people in LA to do a hitjob on somebody. I'm guessing we probably won't see much of Mr. Carlos-Cruz anymore, not that we've seen his show much lately as it is.

Iced Gems Baking

I had the chance to go for a bison burger at the Kooper's Chowhound Burger Wagon yesterday at 222 Schilling Circle in Hunt Valley. As I found out on Twitter (it's showing itself to be such a useful tool), the Iced Gems Baking company was also going to have their cupcake truck nearby. I'm guessing the two got together to coordinate this, but if not it was a good bit of luck. After ordering my bison burger with spicy Cuban sauce and blue cheese ($8 today), I walked over to the cupcake truck and saw a small but nice variety of cupcakes ($2.50 each): peanut butter, red velvet, vanilla, chocolate and - get this - Vanilla² and Chocolate² (vanilla frosting on vanilla cupcake and chocolate frosting on chocolate cupcake, respectively). I thought I'd keep my first exposure to the self-described "boutique bakery" and its goodies to those Vanilla² and Chocolate² creations.

I am usually a bigger fan of vanilla than of chocolate, but you have to try their Chocolate² cupcake. The moist and tender cake part was so intensely chocolaty, much more than any chocolate cake I have ever eaten. The frosting on top was thick and rich, and had a relatively large, soft chocolate candy on top. It was a simple and perfect cupcake. The Vanilla² was also delicious, and I especially loved the white frosting crowning the delicate vanilla cake, though I was more impressed with the chocolate. I would still buy either.

One thing I've noticed with most cupcakes these days applies to Iced Gems' gems: you probably need a fork to eat them. It's too big for me to bite into unless I nibble here and there. It's not one of those cupcakes with a big ol' pile of frosting reaching higher than a hon with a beehive, but it's still tall. This is not a complaint so much as a practical observation for you to keep in mind when you are eating it.

A few tidbits: Start of May edition

1. Found some potatoes and peas vindaloo in the freezer (recipe from Julie Sahni's Moghul Microwave). Tastes as fresh as ever. Score!

2. I just love Fat Tire. When are they coming out to Maryland!? I have to go all the way to North Carolina to get it. Though for a very limited time, it's being sold somewhere in DC, at the Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan. But just temporarily. By the time I can get down there it'll probably be gone.

3. A few things I've eaten recently that have caught me off guard because of their tastiness:

• Trader Joe's French Vanilla ice cream has an extremely luxurious richness to it. Really, it has to be the best commercially available (that is, not farm made) vanilla ice cream I've eaten in ages.
• The Helmand's vegetarian platter ($14). I don't often eat meatless when I eat out, but this past Saturday I made the choice and it was a winner!
• Dietz & Watson hot dog - I had one at Bon Bon's Ice Cream in Belvedere Square today and I was very impressed. Didn't even feel bad about the $2.85 I spent on it and the sauerkraut that came with it (I actually saw the caraway seeds).
• The cute little mini-cakes that you can get at City Café for a mere $3. I had a cup-sized red velvet cake that had two different layers of icing - a whipped one and a much denser cheesy one. The carrot cupcake I had today was almost as good.
  

4. Went to a sake tasting at Honeygo Wines - not in my neck of the woods so I had to go out of the way for it. The one I left with, after snarfing down three pieces of free nigiri sushi (What kind of fool passes up free sushi?): Gekkeikan's Haiku brand. The woman said the rice is polished. Gekkeikan says: "Slow fermentation at low temperatures gives this sake a slightly dry flavor with a light aroma reminiscent of orchard apples." I didn't taste apples. But I still liked it.

5. And finally, something that has nothing to do with food. As I've hinted once or twice on here and Twitter, I can sing! I'm a member of the Baltimore Men's Chorus, and I've got a plug to make. Our big spring concert and silent auction is coming up on Saturday, May 22, 8:00pm at the University of Baltimore Auditorium. Yes, I know that's the same night as the big Anthony Bourdain-Eric Ripert event at the Hippodrome. Yes, I know many foodies will be going there. But if you weren't planning to go see Bourdain and you wanted to listen to more than a few talented gay men singing some great music, you have your chance! Tickets are only $15!

Because I just don't feel like going to the Farmer's Market today

I said last week that I was going to go to the JFX Farmers' Market. But I don't feel like it, I have so much to do, and I really don't need anything right now. So why go just to buy stuff I don't need?

I know this is one of the more random posts I've ever made, but there it is. A report next week.

El Guapito

A few days ago I had the pleasure of getting takeout from El Guapito, just around the corner from the Central Branch of Enoch Pratt, a hop, skip and jump from the Basilica of the Assumption and the delicious dim sum of Zhongshan Chinese Restaurant. As one review on the wall at the beautiful, deep-brick-red walls notes, El Guapito is in a horrible location - not in terms of crime but in terms of traffic. That is, there isn't any. One would think it is centrally located for people to get to, but it's nestled just so that you don't really notice it. And that's a damn shame, because more people need to go to this place to eat. Seriously.

I mean it, seriously. Baltimore's Mexican food scene still pales in comparison to anything you'd find closer to the border (after 6 1/2 years of eating it in SoCal I can attest to this). But it's getting better, and now there are more Mexican restaurants in the city worth patronizing than ever before. El Guapito is one of them.

I went on Cinco de Mayo, a day that I knew there would be heavy business for just about any restaurant serving even remotely Mexican food. I did have to wait a while - one woman serving twenty people takes a while. But the food (which I ordered for take-out) not only came out hot but stayed hot on the drive home.

For my Cinco de Mayo lunch, I ordered a green tamal (tamale, $2.50) and three tacos ($2.75 each): chorizo, spicy pork and lengua (yes folks - tongue). I also ordered sides of rice and beans (about $3), which are complementary with most platters but not with with individual tacos.

The rice and beans were standard. I must say the red rice was a little saltier than I expected it. But I still liked it, with bits of corn and what looked like lima beans sprinkled throughout.

The tamal was wrapped up in a snug, flat banana leaf package, and opening it was an experience I haven't had in ages. The soft tamal inside managed to hide a good bit of pretty moist chicken. I'm not sure how it all managed to fit to be honest.

The tacos were so filling that I had to finish them the following day. No hard taco shell here (ick). These were the real deal: soft corn tortillas bulging and bursting with meat and onion, and accompanied by cilantro, cucumber, salsa verde and even more onions. My favorite was the chorizo, since I just happen to love chorizo. But I was also pleasantly surprised by the spicy pork: not dry, as some chunks of pork can be, with nice flavor. My least favorite was the tongue. I have ordered tongue elsewhere once or twice and wanted to be adventurous. It's not El Guapito to blame: it's tongue. Don't get me wrong. I don't regret ordering the tongue at all. It was quite good, if you like the flavor of tongue. Next time I will have to get the carne asada or the salty pork (either The Sun or the City Paper simply raved about the salty pork).

I am really hoping there is a next time. Now that I know where it is, I will have to go back. I hope you do, too, since this gem is nestled away in such a tough-to-find location. Make sure you get there for some of Baltimore's best Mexican food while it's still there!

NB: Since El Guapito seems to be so difficult to find, I'm going to try to embed a map to the place. It's something I should have been doing for years but I've never bothered. I hope I will keep up with this idea.


View Larger Map

El Guapito (Mexican) - 110 W. Mulberry St. (Downtown), Baltimore, MD 21201; Phone: 1-888-892-8157

Because it's Mother's Day

And because it's Betty White, goddammit, on SNL for the very first time. Also the rare episode that was actually funny. I didn't see it, but it's Betty White! So this episode being funny is par for the course.

Food Ethnography on a Budget: Papua New Guinea II: Bava Bona Taro

My next foray into cooking it up Melanesian-style brings me, coincidentally, right to my own back door. As many people in Papua New Guinea rely on the surrounding seas for their food, fish, shrimp and crabs are common throughout the coasts and outside the highlands. We here in the Chesapeake are no stranger to crabs, of course, so a crab dish was unquestionable.

The dish: bava bona taro (crab with taro)

There was just one little catch to Anne MacGregor's recipe in the Papua New Guinea Cookbook: the crabs in question needed to be boiled. Now, I have no problem with murdering crabs - I have steamed many a blue in my lifetime, and eaten many, many, many more victims of callinecticide (yup, made up my own word). But I cannot bring myself to boil a crab. They boil their seafood up in New England, and they boil their seafood down in the Deep South. But we do not do that to our crabs in the Chesapeake. It's just sacrilegious. So, instead of boiling my own crabs, I got 'em steamed for me - in the same Old Bay that they just do not have in Papua New Guinea - and picked the crabs instead.


The crabs are just one of many ingredients for this dish. I had to make a substitution here or there, and I had to do some multitasking in the kitchen in the process, as there are two parts of this recipe, a sort of crab and coconut milk stir-fry, and the mashed taro itself:

• Of course, the crabs were a vital part. That trip to Richard's Crabs in Churchville? That was for this project. I needed 2 large or 4 small crabs. Three females and a smallish male gave up their lives for this experiment (plus another small male, just because I was hungry). Again, Tuesdays is $1-$2 crab day at Richard's. Each female was a dollar, and each small male was half a dollar more. Total spent: $4.50.
• Of the other ingredients that went into this recipe, the pumpkin tops were difficult to find. The recipe calls for tomato, scallion (or as they call them in Oceania, shallots), coconut milk, and pumpkin tops. I truly have no idea what they mean by "pumpkin tops" but as far as plain old "pumpkins" go, in Australia and Oceania, pumpkins refer to any winter squash. I had an acorn squash lying around (paid about $1 for it) and just cut up and used half of that.
• Two Roma tomatoes went into the dish, about $1.50 per lb - or about 75¢ for the two.
• About three scallions, roughly 50¢ to $1 for those.
• One can of coconut milk, which set me back $1.50. It was cheaper and more hassle-free than buying and processing my own coconut meat (one coconut would run at least $3). Though the recipe calls for two coconuts, I did just fine with one coconut's worth of coconut milk - based on recipes for processing coconuts into milk, the ratio is roughly one coconut to one can of milk. I still bought a second just in case.
  
• And of course, there was the taro root. I had never worked with taro before. It's tough to find unless you go to H-Mart, where it is easy as anything to find. I bought three taro roots, which set me back about $1 at the very most.
  

After picking the crab, the stir-fry was pretty easy: just chop up the tomatoes, squash and scalions, stir-fry for a few minutes, then add coconut milk and crab and cook for 20 more minutes.


The part I had the most trouble with turned out to be the taro. On the surface, it's quite easy to prepare: just boil, peel and mash. But once you start the prep work, you realize just how tough it really is. Fir st, you need to remove the hard, hairy fibers on the outside of the taro. You will not get all of them off. Just try to remove as many as possible.

I'm gonna wash that hair right outta my taro

Next you can go one of two ways, either boil the taro until tender (about 30 minutes) or microwave it for about 4 to 5 minutes (this post from Just Hungry.com tells you how to nuke it effectively). I took the more conventional route and boiled it. Since I had also read that taro can be poisonous if undercooked, I wanted to take no chances, and cooked it longer than I probably should have. After boiling and peeling each taro root, I mashed it up and then nuked the slightly-purplish taro for about two minutes. The end result was a much drier product than I should have gotten. At least it wasn't slimy like taro can sometimes be.

Mashed taro

The dryness of my overcooked taro was still adequately masked by the rich coconut milk, drenching the succulent crab, squash and tomato. This dish also goes well with rice, by the way. The one thing I was most concerned about was how the Old Bay from the steamed crabs might alter the taste. Surprisingly, the coconut milk overpowered the Old Bay, not viceversa. But after all, it's not like a dumped a whole cup of Old Bay into the stir fry. So don't be afraid to use steamed crabs instead of boiled ones like MacGregor's recipe calls for. They will work just fine. Of course.

What's Tok Pisin for "Bon Appetit"?

Porque es el cinco de mayo

¡¡¡Guacamole!!!

It's so simple to make a good guacamole that I tweeted my recipe earlier today. But it'll only be good if you use the right ingredients. To wit:

2 avocados
1 Roma tomato - not those big-ass, flavorless beefsteaks - seeds removed, diced

1 small onion or 1 - 2 green onions, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped, with or without seeds and vein (I prefer to keep all that in)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (for me, the more the better)
juice of 1 lime
a little salt to taste

Mix it up, go to town. Repeat as necessary.

The Big JFX Farmer's Market starts today!

It only dawned on me this morning, after sleeping in to 9:00 (yes, for me that's sleeping in), that today is the first Sunday of May. That means it's JFX Farmer's Market time! Now I don't have to hustle so hard to get to the one on Saturday, when I am usually coming from the other side of town. I can just go to the Sunday one if I feel like it. I still like Waverly's a little better - it's cozier. But downtown's just has so much STUFF!

Well I will be going next Sunday so stay tuned for that report. Also coming up this week: one more Papua New Guinea post and algo relacionado al cinco de mayo.