Corner BYOB in Baltimore

On the Avenue in Hampden in Baltimore, a new restaurant, Corner BYOB, opened in the last few months, and I stopped in for an early dinner one evening a few weeks ago. The chef, Bernard Dehaene, from Brussels, previously cooked at a Belgian place called Mannequin Pis in Olney, and I had heard that his new venture had a more adventurous menu. When I was seated, one of the days specials included kangaroo tenderloin, but I was immediately attracted to the boudin noir and the just in soft shell crab.
The crab arrived first on a bed of fiddlehead ferns. This started truly captured the local and seasonal spirit of the area. The crab was fantastic, just simply pan fried with no battering at all, and it paired wonderfully with the fiddleheads.
My second starter was the boudin noir on a bed of mash and topped with a whole grain mustard. The texture was creamy and the flavor was nice and earthy. I think Corner won me over with just this dish alone.
For my entree, I had the Veal Orloff, a veal that starts braised, then is topped with mushrooms and bacon, and finished in the oven. It's then smothered with a béchamel sauce. I liked it, but the star of the meal was the blood sausage.
I was too stuffed to try dessert, but I hope to return soon.

850 W. 36th St.
Baltimore, MD
(443)869-5075

DInner at Masa 14, DC

This post is a bit of a food porn post. Last Saturday night, I was invited to go to a dinner at DC's Masa 14 specially put together by their chef de cuisine, Antonio Burrell. It was amazing, specializing in pig and incorporating seasonal ingredients.

We started with 4 appetizers. First up was a plate of flash grilled shishito peppers with bonito, goat cheese, and sherry vinegar.

Next was a bowl of warm spicy chicharrones.

Third was some grilled pig's kidneys. These were fantastic. The texture of the kidney was more akin to rare beef than the usual firmness of offal. I would say this ranks as one of the best iterations of kidney I've ever had.

The final app was housemade sausage with wasabi mustard.
The first course was spectacular: a piece of deep fried housemade scrapple, softshell crab, ramps prepared three ways, and mustard. Chef said he has some leftover pig heads around, so he decided to make scrapple.

The second course was a hash made of BBQ pork cheek, a fried egg yolk on toast, and spring garlic.

The third course was ramen in pork broth topped with pork belly, ribs, cracklings and morel mushrooms. The broth was really rich with piggy flavors. Fortunately, this was not a deep bowl of "ramen" as I was already getting stuffed.






Certainly, I had room for the fourth course, a crispy pave of pork saddle with baby vegetables, carrots & corn, and peppercress. The pork skin was wonderful, but I was happy to have some veggies at this point in the meal.

Dessert was a dulce de leche ice cream with candied bacon, two ways. There was a piece of candied bacon on top and under the ice cream were bacon bits and peanuts.

1825 14th Street NW
Washington D.C.
(202)328-1414

Dinner at Grapeseed Bistro, Bethesda, MD

I had a wonderful summer-themed multi-course dinner at Grapeseed Bistro in Bethesda prepared by chef Jeff Heineman.
Many of the vegetables and fruits came from the chef's own garden.
For starters, we had a grapeseed tomato cocktail. They used tomato water and mixed it with spices and a splash of Hendrick's gin. It was light, sweet, peppery, and I did not realize there was alcohol in it at first.

We followed with a trio of items using tomatoes grown on the roof of the restaurant.
My favorite was a fried green tomato topped with cheese. We also had a mini-bruschetta, and a cherry tomato with thai eggplant on toast.

The second course was a Frito Misto & mixed grill of summer vegetables including eggplant, squash, okra and green beans. Chef offered 2 choices of dipping sauce- a kind of remoulade or olive oil with balsamic vinegar. For this dish, the olive oil was so good I wanted to drink it.

Next up was soft shell crab, delicately yet perfectly fried, topped with a smoky piece of Benton's bacon, on top of corn chowder.
The fourth course was Piedmont Farms Beef hanger steak with creamed spinach, and Pecorino new potatoes served with a chili sauce. The meat was beautifully cooked, and I liked how the potatoes were a little smashed.
The dessert might have been my favorite: blueberries from Woodbine, MD prepped 3 ways with Limoncello. The blueberries were served raw, stewed and sauced, and the combination with the limoncello was so simple and delicious.
It was a pleasure to have experienced this seasonal menu at Grapeseed Bistro.

4865 Cordell Ave
Bethesda, MD
(301) 986-9582

Bangkok Garden, Columbia, MD

I've been meaning to visit Bangkok Garden in Columbia, MD since friends reported that the restaurant has a Thai language menu available to try. Equipped with a makeshift photocopy of an approximate translation of the menu, we dropped in last weekend for lunch.
We started with their papaya salad. However, instead of the usual dried shrimp, we got a version that used padaek, or raw brined blue crab. The flavor was fresh, salty, spicy and very good.
Our second dish was a crudite dish with a dip called Naam Prik Gapi which was a sweet and very spicy shrimp paste. We dipped veggies like baby corn, thai eggplant, bamboo shoots, cucumber, and broccoli, and we got a small whole grilled fish to eat with the dip as well.

Our third plate took a break from the spiciness. It was a straightforward dish of Chinese broccoli cooked with chunks of pork belly.
Our final dish, the spiciest of the meal, was Khang Som Cha-Om , a sour red curry broth with shrimp and pieces of acacia omelette. Acacia is a green leafy vegetable. I'm not sure what it tastes like because the curry was so hot, but the texture in the omelette reminded me of spinach.

When we ordered our meal, one of the other waitresses came out to our table because she said that she had not seen non-Thai customers order some of the dishes we selected.
The Thai menu has at least 20 or more items that, considering how good this lunch was, warrant return trips to explore.

5810 Robert Oliver Place
Columbia, MD 21045
(410)992-9553

Giris Cooking Night: Seafood

For our last girls cooking night we decided on seafood as a theme. It ended up being a great summer meal, with mostly cold dishes. We thought that we should probably try the theme again during a winter month and see how different it turned out.

I had these great lobster mango skewers at a wedding I went to at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, so I recreated them. Such a simple yet great combination. I made a dipping sauce -- creme fraiche with basil and dill. They were good with the sauce, but I don't even think they needed it.

Brownie made a crab margarita served elegantly in martini glasses. Really refreshing with lime, cilantro, jalapenos, tomato, and her secret ingredient a hint of sriracha sauce!

Marian made fish tacos with orange roughy just sauteed on the grill pan, accompanied by guac, a fiery red sauce, and a killer mango salsa.

Kim got us eating our veggies with a caesar salad, falling into the seafood criteria with the anchovies in the dressing (and enough garlic to kill all vampires trying to crash the party).