ghostrider

As an itinerant tourist, I'm going to advance the proposition that there are some fine, fine crabcakes to be had at Vikki's Fells Point Deli in Broadway Market, & if they aren't among the best in Baltimore I'd like to know why. I'll qualify this with the note that I never got to Faidley's, that was on the agenda but life intervened. At Vikki's the cakes are piled up in a glass-fronted deli cooler & deep-fried to order. They are made with a peppery mustard-&-white-bread binder - fiery, but not so much as to overwhelm the flavor of the lovely crab chunks. Crunchy on the outside, steaming hot & spicy on the inside, they were the best I've had in five-plus decades on this planet. Vikki's also makes a terrific slaw. The minced green pepper makes it something special. Maybe I got a little carried away by the whole experience - I got the stuff as a carryout & went out to a shady park bench in the late summer sun & watched the Fells Point street life & the Harbor activity as I dined, & I tell ya it was all pretty swell.

Thanks! Shot by Billy The Kid? How poetic. Those ingenious Dutch immigrants! When they weren't inventing corncob pipes it was excavators. It's actually true about my great-grandad though. If you go to Washington MO, where this all happened, there's a big historical plaque in a park overlooking the Missouri River that tells the story. We used to drive out to Washington frequently when I was a kid, one of my dad's brothers lived there, back when it was still a slieepy little farm town. I think the real purpose of those trips was the German butcher in town - the bacon, the sausages, & the infamous "raw hack" that we used to bring back, my lord - well, it's no wonder that my dad survived 3 heart attacks. Or had them; the wonder is that he survived them.

We wound up at La Tomate our last night in DC because my SO's boss wanted Italian, we had a mob from the convention & tables for 10 in the area weren't easy to come by that particular evening. On my own, I'd have opted for Afghan Grill up in Woodley Park based on a walk-by on my way to the Nat'l Zoo & reinforced by the comments I've read here since, but that'll have to wait. There was nothing objectionable about the food any of us had other than the fact that, like many restaurants, the place tends to use too much oil in their cooking, but there was little that was memorable either. The appetizer of spinach, mushrooms & garlic that I had was quite good, a pleasant way to start a meal. A month later, I've forgotten what my entree was. Service was good & the atmosphere of the place was nice. We don't drink, but one of our companions who is a serious wine head was very happy with whatever red he chose from their offerings.

My SO & I were in DC in October for an annual convention she attends. We dined at Bistro du Coin one night, as she'd been there previously & rather liked it. One of my guidebooks warned us that the service could be "chaotic." An apt term, but they got the job done. It seemed to take forever for someone to take our order, & then for the mineral water we ordered to show up, & then bang-bang-bang, salads & entrees showed up with perfect timing. I'm still trying to figure out why they gave us some semi-stale brown bread when everyoen else in the joint was getting normal French bread. Finally, as we were having dessert, another table also got the brown bread. Do they save that for recognizeable out-of-towners? We both had the blanquettes de veau, & it was quite good - a bit rich for my system, as it turned out, but certainly tasty. Noisy, hot, hard to hear ourselves even though we were seated near the front windows, which were wide open on a warm fall evening. I liked the place & was glad to have the experience. If I lived there, we'd probably hit it every once in a while. As it is, being occasional visitors, there are too many other places to try.

Hey folks, I've drifted in & out & back into a few other food boards. When we were planning a trip to DC in Oct, someone suggested I look here for restaurant suggestions. I remembered Don from one of my "in" periods at eG & so I ran the board down. Don't know how much I'll have to contribute here, since we live in NJ just outside of NYC, but I became an instant fan of DC last month, had a wonderful time, & know we'll be back at least once a year, hopefully more. I expect I'll have some sporadic comments on the foods we find in our travels. My name is Anton but since I've been ghostrider everywhere I've gone on the Net for the last 7 years, it's too late to change now. No I'm not a leather-clad crime-fighting biker; I pinched the name from a John Fogerty lyric, who of course was referencing Ghostriders In The Sky. I grew up in suburban St. Louis. Unlike most of my peers, I was raised on fresh vegetables from our backyard garden. I've never lost my taste for the fresh stuff since. Moved to NYC after college, lived there approx. 20 years, then moved across the Hudson 16 years ago, but still within easy striking distance of Manhattan. In the 1970s I taught myself Indian & then Chinese cooking. I became quite good at certain aspects of both, if I may say so, particularly the Indian dishes. Over the years my ambitions dwindled; I still do all the cooking in our house, but these days I tend towards a quasi-Italian minimalist approach, a description that seemed to resonate with some folks on another board. I do a lot of greenmarket shopping (enjoyed Dupont Circle market greatly!) & generally let whatever's fresh & in season shape our meals. I'm "transitioning" toward a third career, or something like that. I was a literary agent for 10 years, then a system analyst for a big insurer, then I got downsized in the new millenium. While I figure out what's next, I've been working as the lunchtime delivery guy at Belgiovine's Italian Deli in Montclair, NJ, a shop widely known for having the best mozz & store-made ravioli in North Jersey. It's run by 2 brothers-in-law who came over from Bari 25 years ago & believe me, it's the real deal. Somehow this transition phase has entered its 3rd year. One of these days I'll figure out what comes next. Oh yes, my great-grandfather invented the corncob pipe, the well-known Missouri Meerschaum. Unfortunately my grandfather had no head for business & lost the company, and with it my chance to be a corncob pipe tycoon. Such is fate. I have a short list of places I want to try when we get back to DC, which I hope will be soon. Cheers, see y'all in cyberspace.