Faidley’s Raw Bar
Sometimes it’s nice to be an all-out unabashed tourist. Sometimes it’s nice to stare at things and take pictures of people that don’t especially want their picture taken. Sometimes, in other words, its nice to go to [Faidley's](http://www.faidleyscrabcakes.com/story.html) in Baltimore for a crabcake. Granted, it’s a $20 crabcake, and light, almost like a crabcake souffle, with enormous pieces of crab, and gently cooked, with a crisp, light exterior, rather than a crunchy panzarotti frame. But, merit of the food aside, it’s nice to take pictures like this one:
Oyster Sign
The old days are gone, indeed.
Faidley’s is a fish and shellfish monger cum raw bar cum lunch counter at the “World Famous” Lexington Market. Lexington Market is like many indoor markets in the US that were more or less run down and then reopened or redone with municipal money into food courts with some market vestiges here and there. It is neither as nice as Ferry Building in San Francisco, nor as authentic as the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, but it has some cool little booths, and Faidley’s serving ethereal crabcakes. That’s in the East Market, however. NK and I made the mistake of venturing across Paca to the West Market. It has the look outside of a street market in Hong Kong, bustling with cheap and knock-off goods, and hucksters selling everything from handbags to cell phones, and we thought it might be a fun to wander through.
We were met, once through the doors, with the literally overpowering smell of body odor and forgotten carcasses. I nearly fell over. As we walked through the filthy row of stalls serving unappetizing food, we were amazed that anyone could eat, especially since halfway through the building, the smell worsened and became distinctly odoriferous of human feces. I wish I was exaggerating. It haunts me still.
Somehow, when we got back to the hotel, NK was hungry again, and he went off to Pizzeria Uno with another coworker of ours. I couldn’t understand how he was hungry again, after all, he left a teaspoon of coleslaw and a slice of tomato. (I left more than half of my slaw and a good measure of potato salad; the pile of slaw was easily five inches high.)
Nick’s Plate
We’ve also been eating at a fantastic Irish pub and restaurant called [Maggie Moore's](http://www.maggiemoores.com/) on Eutaw and Fayette, across from the Hippodrome. I’ve eaten several meals there, including lunch today and dinner yesterday, and I’m not showing any signs of slowing. Baltimore is a car town, so our options here are somewhat limited. Maggie’s however, is no compromise. I would eat there every third meal or so even if I lived here. It’s like all of the good food of the new and old Irish traditions, except cooked by someone who knows how. Just about everything is homemade, and the quality is high. The prices aren’t daunting, either, especially given the level of the ingredients and the portion sizes. I had corned beef both on its own with cabbage and roasted root vegetables (I always forget how much I like parsnips) and also in a reuben on excellent marble rye bread with strong swiss cheese and moist, chewy sauerkraut, not that mushy stuff from a can. The corned beef is the real deal. They either make it themselves or they get it from a butcher who knows how to float an egg.
There is a modern take on bangers and mash, more like a saute of bangers and scallions with white wine over mash: innovative and very tasty. Being a bar, they have a predictable array of sandwiches: burgers, salmon (haven’t tried), BLT with chicken (excellent), ther aforementioned reuben and a few others. Fish and chips and lamb chops both get an A+ also.
I have some friends who live here and last night they took me to a place called [Brewer's Art](http://www.belgianbeer.com/), a brewhouse and gastropub in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. We were too late for dinner, but I had a decent pizza with an adequate crust, but excellent sauce, dry (style of mozz, not an invective) mozzarella and sausage. My friends had a cured salmon sandwhich with sauce gribiche (an often overlooked but delicious sauce, much like mayonnaise, but made with cooked egg yolks, and with salty bits added, usually some combination of cornichons, capers and onions) and a bowl of Vichyssoise(chilled cream of leek and potato soup, usually pureed). I didn’t try the Vichyssoise, but it looked excellent and, really, who’s going to go to the trouble of Vichyssoise unless it’s decent? We also shared some rosemary-flecked garlic fries, and no matter how standard I like my standards, these fries were wait-out-in-the-rain, kick-you-in-the-crotch good.
I had the “Proletary” dark beer, which came out of the tap with the enormous pitchfork as a handle, and my companions had the “Resurrection” abbey-style dubbel, an excellent, barely sweet red dubbel which, premature in its metaphor, came from the tap with a crucifix on it (or maybe too late, depending on how you look at it). The dark beer was perfect: not as thick as Guinness, and more flavorful, but a little lighter than Murphy’s; if they sold it in bottles I would have taken home a case. My friends know the brewer and told me I’d have to come back when he’s there. Apparently, he’s a nut, but can talk beer like there’s no tomorrow, and I’d love to hear what he has to say. And I’d like the opportunity to talk him into bottling some Proletary.
There’s a wine-oriented restaurant called [Corks](http://www.corksrestaurant.com/default.asp) about a mile from the theater. I have traded a few emails with the sommelier, and although the [menu](http://www.corksrestaurant.com/menu.asp) is a little busy for my taste, the wine list is around 300 selections, every one of them domestic. Yes, that’s right, every one domestic. No Champagne, no Burgundy, no Bordeaux, no Super-Tuscans. It’s a fascinating list including a large selection from Oregon and a smattering of East Coast wines, although, to their discredit, none from New York. Regional pride aside, New York is now a *major* wine producing region, third among states, with the quality (especially among whites) to back it up. For me, a comprehensive list of American wines is incomplete without rieslings, at least, from New York. It’s also strange, since Corks’ wine list is set up to mimic a geographically European list (cabs under “Bordeaux,” pinots under “Burgundy,” etc.), to exclude the “Germany” (or Austria or Alsace) of the US. What’s missing aside, what’s there is worth checking out. I’m hoping to have dinner there next week sometime.
So far, I have to say it is great to be back in a more or less big city, and I am looking forward to a quick trip home on our only day off, Labor Day (which is just a coincidence, we happened to be booked in Baltimore for two weeks, so there’s no travel-and-load-in Monday next week).
Listening: Chris Smiter, Train Home and Chris Thile, Not All Who Wander Are Lost
