Eating at Baltimore's Greek Folk Festival

On the second weekend of June, I went with a group of friends to the Greek Folk Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Baltimore. My friend Tom told me he comes every year and orders the charcoal grilled octopus platter with olives, cucumbers, tomato and feta cheese. It was good and simple- smokey, with a little lemon.
I also ordered a side of deep fried smelt fish.

We shared several desserts. I ordered a baklava sundae made of vanilla ice cream topped with shredded up baklava. You could also top it all off with either caramel or chocolate sauce. I opted for caramel.
Tom & Jamie got several loukoumas, deep fried balls of light dough smothered in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.

Kellari Taverna, Washington DC

I went with some friend a few months ago to Kellari Taverna which had just opened a DC branch of their restaurant. The waiter mentioned that all their seafood was flown in fresh from the Mediterranean, and based on the freshness of our meal, I would believe it.



We started with Saganaki, a dish of Cretan Graviera cheese flamed with Metaxa, an alcohol made of brandy and wine. The flavor was really delicious.






We ordered the tasting menu to try a variety of the items on the menu. Our first plate, the charcoaled grilled octopus, was by far the best. It came with Plevrakia, lamb riblets, and small Spanakopita, spinach pies.

Our second dish was grilled langostines with Spanakorizo, or spinach with arborio rice.

Our main dish was Tsipoura fish with spinach. The fish was so incredibly fresh. It was really tasty and delicate.

We finished off our meal with a dessert plate of Baklava, Yiaourti me meli (like a cheesecake with sheep’s milk yogurt honey & walnuts), and Karidopita (a walnut cake with fig compote).


1700 K Street NW
Washington DC 20006
(202)535-5274

Susan Feniger's Street in Hollywood, CA

While visiting LA, we went to Street in Hollywood, chef Susan Feniger's restaurant that is an upscale place makes multi-ethnic street food.
I went in a bit skeptical about the concept. It reminded me of the one-off No Reservations with Tony Bourdain where he had the "At the Table" format and for some reason had some "nightlife queen of NY" participate. She mentioned that she would never eat food from a cart. Well the idea of this restaurant made me think that this restaurant is catered to her prissy type of eating.


After my dinner here though, I think more highly of the restaurant- I like the idea of a meal that is a mashup of cuisines from around the world.
We were first given Millet Puffs. These tasted like rice krispie treats met with Indian spices. A really pleasant starter.

Since we had a large party, we ordered a large number of diverse appetizers.
I picked the Sauteed Black Kale with Refried White Beans. It was served with an anchovy butter and olive bread. I liked the take on beans and greens, plus the anchovy butter.
Our table also like the Lamb Kafta Meatballs. They were really spicy and they had, on the side, cheese in grape leaves smothered in a date sauce.

The Argentine Ricotta Ñoquis simmered in brown butter on a celery root puree were light and heavenly.
We also tried the Smoked Whitefish Salad, the Ono Sashimi, and the disappointing Burmese Lettuce Wraps. All in all, the appetizers alone could be enough for a good meal.


For a main course, I ordered the Tastutage Fried Chicken. It was chicken marinated in soy, miso, & sake, fried up in a rice batter and topped with spicy kewpie mayo. It was basically Japanese fried chicken.

By far, the best entree, was Coprock's Beef Tenderloin Schnitzel. He described as probably the best schnitzel he ever had. It was beautifully pan fried in a wonderfully seasoned breading. The meat was I would say a nice medium. It came with sweet & sour cabbage, a parsnip puree, mustard cream sauce and fried cornichon pickles.

Just prior to dessert, we were served glasses of Vietnamese style coffee, and then we got Turkish doughnuts. They were soaked in a cardomon rose syrup and served with a dollop of sour cream.
Street was a fun dining experience, and definitely worth a trip back to LA.

742 N. Highland
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(323) 203-0500

Girls Cooking Night 3: Greek

The latest girls night theme was Greek. Above are the makings of our Greek salad which were devoured before Marian could actually make them into a salad. We liked to think of it as a "deconstructed" Greek salad.

My contribution was the spanakopita -- which I had never made before, but was surprisingly easy. Just mixed chopped spinach with feta, ricotta, scallions, with salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste. I cut the salt from the recipe way down since feta's already pretty salty. Then it's just the layering of the phyllo, each layer brushed with melted butter. It took a whole stick of butter, but then again that was for the whole pan, so when you break it up into 12 slices, doesn't seem that bad. I lost count, but I did roughly 7 layers below, then filling, then seven layers above.

Brownie contributed the lamb kofta, which I thought was cooked perfectly - just a little pink inside, nice and juicy. It went really well with Marian's homemade tsaziki which sounded complex -- who knew spanakopita was easy and tsaziki was hard! Debbie made the shrimp scampi over couscous, which was delicious. And finally for dessert was Kim's baklava with almonds which was totally decadent.
Because phyllo rolls came in 2, and because when I brought back the leftover spanakopita redneckhunter devoured it (this from a guy who thinks green things are evil), I actually made it again Sunday night. I'm splitting a farm share this summer and I've been told to expect lots and lots of kale. I'm foreseeing experimenting with other phyllo "green thing" pies. If the only way to get redneckhunter to eat them is to mix them with cheese and encase them with pastry and butter, well then I guess I just gotta do it...