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Bluegrass Tavern, Chef Antonio Rice's Contemporary Southern Gastropub in Federal Hill - Closed


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A new restaurant opened on Hanover St in Federal Hill, the BlueGrass tavern. Since it's a few blocks from my house, I've been twice already.

The chef, Patrick comes from Ryleigh's Oyster, and he seems to be subscribing to the local food movement and he's also interested in making some in house charcuterie as well.

On my first trip- I just went for a light supper. They have a nice selection of small and medium plates on the menu,

I ordered the bacon jam on crostini (reminded me of Kevin from last season's Top Chef). It was really good- sweet, salty, smokey.

I then ordered a fresh asparagus salad and the bison carpacchio. Both were very nice. The chef spotted me as a food person (the camera was a giveaway), so he came out, greeted me, and offered for me to try something off the menu.

It was slices of corned beef heart with cornichons and aioli. Very nice. pic

For desssert, I had the strawberry rhubarb pie with basil ice cream.

Went back for dinner with friends another evening.

This round, tried his two charcuterie plates- my favorites were his duck speck, the chicken livers, and the duck rilletes.

The best item, I had was the foie gras prep for the evening- seared foie gras, in between two pancakes, with egg and bacon, and maple syrup- a foie gras McGriddle.

I also tried my friends dishes- the antelope loin with redeye gravy was nice, lean, and the chicken fried quail salad was good too.

This time for dessert, we had the banana creme pie which was very good.

I would say, this place is very promising for the Federal Hill neighborhood.

blog/pics

1500 S. Hanover Street

Baltimore, MD

(410)244-5101

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Popped into Bluegrass last night for a late night supper.

This time they had the beef heart on special- it was prepped sous vide, slice thin with thousand island and pickles.

I also had the ricotta dumplings that were nice.

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Had a light supper at BlueGrass Sat night.

I ordered the wonderful soft shell crab served with an old bay cole slaw and egg salad, and a pair of tacos- one with pork tongue, one with spicy pork cheek- good stuff.

They seemed to have pared the menu down a bit as the honeymoon period of being a new place has seemed to died a bit, but I'm glad the chef is still trying new menu items.

I was told by one of my eating companions that the 1/2 fried chicken was delicious.

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Ok- had the 1/2 fried chicken- great.

The whole thing was deboned, deep fried and cut into segments. The skin was so good and the meat juicy.

Talked to Chef Patrick- he's looking to add a beef heart taco and a venison heart tartare in the next week.

(DC Rockwellers- come to Baltimore to try this place (and let me know so I can meet you as I live a few blocks away)

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Saw this on their website for next week:

Please join us at Bluegrass Tavern on Wednesday, August 18th at 7:30 PM for a beer & food extravaganza featuring the beers of Dogfish Head Brewery. Chef Patrick Morrow has tasted the beers and created a 5 course menu to showcases their exceptional craftsmanship. Reservations are Required. $70.00 per guest, tax and gratuity is not included.

First Course:

North Carolina Shrimp Presse, Kim Chi Puree

Midas Touch

Second Course:

Sahtea Cured Foie Gras Torchon,

Plum Consommé, Pickled Plums

Sah’tea

Third Course:

Pan Roasted Duck Breast, Pommes Sardelaise,

Rhubarb Pudding

Raison d’Etre

Fourth Course:

Prime Hanger Steak, Aged Cheddar Grits,

Bordelaise Sauce

Palo Santo Marron

Fifth Course:

Blue Cheese Cheesecake

90 Minute IPA

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Just got home from the Dogfish dinner at Bluegrass. Chef Patrick had an amazing set of pairing with the Dogfish head beers.

The foie gras course was amazing- he cured the foie in the Dogfish Sah'tea which was chock full of juniper berry flavor, but with a note of black tea as a finish. So good.

Both the duck and hanger steak were so beautifully prepared, and the savory blue cheesecake at the end was a perfect ending.

pics

I talked with Chef Patrick about possibly setting up a DR.com dinner here in the next few months.

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I talked with Chef Patrick about possibly setting up a DR.com dinner here in the next few months.

I know you probably feel like you're talking to yourself at times on here, but I just wanna say that I'd definitely be interested depending on availability and such. In the coming months I hope to move to the city but for now I can only watch most of the reviews from afar.

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Hello all,

While not an official dr.com event, I wanted to offer to people a dinner at Bluegrass for Wed Oct 6th (most likely) with some Baltimore foodies.

If people are interested please pm me for details.

So far, FYI, it will be a five course meal for approx $65/ head.

I still hope for a bonafide DR event, but I am still testing the waters of setting these things up in a way that will get people from DC to come up to Bmore on a weekday night.

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Hello all,

While not an official dr.com event, I wanted to offer to people a dinner at Bluegrass for Wed Oct 6th (most likely) with some Baltimore foodies.

If people are interested please pm me for details.

So far, FYI, it will be a five course meal for approx $65/ head.

I still hope for a bonafide DR event, but I am still testing the waters of setting these things up in a way that will get people from DC to come up to Bmore on a weekday night.

I'm very interested. I know you said PM, but I am lazy. :(

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Did anyone write up a review on the dinner that 1000yregg organized. I had hoped to be able to attend, but wasn't and would love to hear what you thought. Thanks.

I ran out of time to write it up among my other commitments, so here's a Reader's Digest version. I didn't opt for the wine pairings.

Charming bunch of folks turned up, mainly participants from the Baltimore Chowhounds board, although - and this will sound familiar to some - there seems to be some sort of issue with the powers-that-be there about people meeting up for loosely-arranged meals not organized through their anointed channels. Go figure. Anyway, we hogged the better part of the upstairs dining room. The ladies upstairs tending the beer taps were wonderfully hospitable, by the way. Chef Patrick Morrow was not in that night, which surprised me, so his sous stepped in to introduce each course.

The dinner itself seemed adequately enjoyable at the time, but on reflection the food was a mixed bag. The portions were quite small, and often disappointingly so. As expected, the meats seemed to fare better than the vegetables here. I thought the foie gras in the amuse was overpowered by the jam, but the sliver of rabbit loin in the first scheduled course was quite tasty. That probably owed something to the hazelnuts, which seemed to be the dominant flavor in the emulsion as well. It could have redeemed almost anything, including the slightly wan endive pieces. The second course, sausage stuffed quail, was very good, down to the house hot sauce. The third course was puzzling; the veal might have been slightly overdone, but the ravioli literally contained red wine - an odd bag of texture, really too big to be one mouthful yet too unwieldy to do much else with. I poked a hole in it and dipped my veal.

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The fourth course, venison backstrap with cheddar grits, was excellent. I didn't get a lot of snail-ness from the snail bits in the accompaniments, but with beautiful slices of venison cooked rare, who cares? My favorite course.

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Dessert was a dud, a reassembled block of semi-cooked slices of an unremarkable apple, served with a bit of ice cream that had largely melted by the time it was presented.

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There's a good amount of technique here for a neighborhood place, but I think the dishes we were served could use some more soul-searching before Bluegrass lives up to the ambitions of its tasting menu. If it's just a matter of cooking game protein, they've got that down.

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Matt and I had dinner at BlueGrass Tavern during the Grand Prix weekend. We really enjoyed it. I even got us there and back around all the road construction and closures for the track with just one look at my iphone map! We started with cocktails. During the evening I had both the grapefruit smash and the mule. I thought both were well balanced and made well. The grapefruit smash was really refreshing, I really like grapefruit though, so I could be biased. I have been on a real ginger kick lately and the mule had a really nice ginger kick to it.

For food we started with hush puppies and corn bread. The hush puppies were really very good hush puppies, although a little denser than my "perfect" hush puppy. Matt absolutely loves hush puppies so we are always on the quest. However, the corn bread was really phenomenal. It was light, and sweet, but not overly sweet with a good crust to it, wasn't too crumbly. It was very good cornbread. Now that the menu is changed I can't remember what we had for dinner, well I know my husband had BBQ ribs which were good, and I can't for the life of me recall what I had, except it was a beef dish. And that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I would definitely go back here, I loved the casual ambiance about the place, but the seriousness of the cocktails and cooking.

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Today's Baltimore Groupon-

"for $45, you get a contemporary American dinner for two at Bluegrass Tavern (up to a $98 total value). The dinner includes:

A charcuterie-and-cheese appetizer (a $20 value)

Two large bites (up to a $31 value each)

Two glasses of house wine (an $8 value each)

Expires May 30, 2012

Limit 1 per person. Limit 1 per table. Not valid until 10/20/11. Reservation required. Not valid on holidays or during Restaurant Week. Closed on Mondays. Not valid with other specials"

http://www.groupon.com/deals/bluegrass-tavern

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Ventured out to Bluegrass Tavern last night - glad I did! I sat at the bar downstairs, and Kelli, the bar manager, was incredibly helpful and hospitable. I wanted the grapefruit smash cocktail, but they were out of a couple of the key ingredients, so I opted for the mule instead. It was a little sweeter than I wanted, but overall it was nicely balanced. They also had a few interesting beers on tap, so I chose an Evolution ESB. At the end of the evening, I asked Kelli to pour me a really aggressively dry white wine, and she was spot-on with her offering (though I cannot remember what it was). As far as food, I order the crawfish hushpuppies from the "small bites" portion of the menu - there was nothing small about the portion! I ended up sharing with my new friends at the bar, though the hushpuppies were well-seasoned and had a great texture. For dinner, I had the smoked fried chicken - two boneless thighs, with a nice (and not overpowering, thankfully) smoky flavor and crispy exterior. The mustard greens that came with the dish were good, but the mashed potatoes were meh at best. Wish I had room for dessert - there was a banana cream pie situation that looked VERY interesting. Next time...

The happy hour is a steal - three rounds of drinks, an app, and an entree rang up for $44.

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I finally got to Bluegrass earlier this week. I had the Groupon that's outlined above. I was very pleased with the way they executed it - the wine wasn't a preselected house wine, you could have anything they sold by the glass from their list with an "upcharge" of the difference if the glass was more than $8 (most are in the $8-10 price range). The same was true of the entrees, there was one, the braised short rib that was over $31 so again, you just paid the difference if you chose that.

Regarding the food, sadly I think I have begun to automatically temper my expectations a bit when eating in Baltimore, but at Bluegrass there was no reason to. The food was excellent. We started with the charcuterie plate - the groupon plate included your choice of 5 meats or cheeses (they also offer a smaller 3-choice plate for $13 I believe). We went with the fig bacon jam, the rabbit scrapple, and the chicken liver mousse and 2 cheeses. You'll have to forgive me as I don't remember the names of the cheeses off the top of my heads, but they were both cow's milk, one a soft rind cheese that was nicely gooey, and other a firm cheese. We enjoyed both, but the stars were definitely the meat items. The fig bacon jam was delicious, slightly sweet and smoky. I'm not a huge fan of anything livery but I will eat a nicely made chicken liver mousse, which this was. But, the star was certainly the scrapple, which was thinly sliced, delicately coated and fried.

Between that and our entrees we got an order of the crawfish hushpuppies with tomato aioli ($5). I wasn't impressed with these - while well-seasoned, you couldn't really taste the crawfish and the aioli overpowered the hushpuppies. They were fine, just nothing special and the only mediocre thing we had that night.

For our entrees my friend chose the quail stuffed with lamb sausage. I only had one bite. It was good, but I was totally lost in reveling over my entree so I can't really say much about it. My dish however, the bulgogi marinated Roseda flat iron with korean potato salad and "kimchee" was outstanding. The marinated steak was a perfect medium rare with incredibly nice charry edges. It had a black vinegar sauce on the plate that had a subtle kick to it. The korean potato salad was something like what you might expect, cold and the potatoes mashed, and quite tasty. The kimchee was actually brussel sprout halves - it looked nothing like kimchee of course, but the flavor was there. I was disappointed at first because there were only 3 on the plate, but atypically for me I discovered that having a little bit of everything in each bite was the perfect balance so you didn't really need a lot of them. I would happily eat this again, and again.

We stuck with recommended wine pairings throughout and I felt they were good choices. I was also impressed with the quality given the low retail prices of the wines we had. We opted to drink our dessert - my friend was able to try a higher end bourbon he had been wanting to buy but hadn't pulled the trigger on and I enjoyed a glass of banyuls. The desserts all sounded great, but we really didn't have room.

Service was a bit slow at times (but we were upstairs with only one server for the entire room), but our server was knowledgable and friendly and the important things were accounted for - food delivered promptly, wines at our table when the food arrived, etc.

Would love to get up there for happy hour, this place is definitely worth the trip.

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I've been slacking lately and my adventures have been fairly limited to my own kitchen, but a few friends and I wandered out last week for our holiday dinner at Bluegrass Tavern. I'll try and describe as many dishes as possible, especially since it's been two years since the last post in this thread.

I started off with a glass of Four Roses Single Barrel for $9. I was happy to see this here as I do not believe I've ever had it, normally I can't find it in the area it seems and even if I do, most of the time I don't drink hard liqour when out. But it was still early in the night and I only had a few block walk home so what the hell.

We all ordered four different starters to split. The Kentucky Beer Cheese with crackers was a huge hit with the cheese lovers, I only think I had one cracker and a small sampling so I can't really describe it any more at this moment other than very good, and for $6 there was more cheese than I expected. I seemed to have a different opinion of the Crawfish Hushpuppies than Choirgirl21 above, but we can agree that they were well seasoned. I actually passed on using the smoked tomato mayo they provided as a dip as I thought it overpowered the hushpuppies themselves. The Foie and Buscuits were also a HUGE hit, definitely the favorite of this round. Again, I was only able to have a couple bites as everybody else was demolishing it and the person who actually ordered it was hoarding it (I don't blame her), but it was definitely my favorite. I had the Sundried Tomato Bourbon Shrimp ($11), which were served with girt croquettes and pickled okra. They were delicious and I loved the croquettes, but I wouldn't recommend it solely because of the better options available.

One friend ordered the Heritage Pork Du Jour with possibly my favorite menu description ever - something tasty with pork. I do not recall exactly what it was this time, which is my fault for not getting around to it until now, but I believe it was braised pork belly. The execution was great and the serving looked huge as well. I do not remember what accompanied the pork unfortunately, but it was a great hit. I believe that next time I'll see what they have featured with the pork and go with that. I passed on the Rabbit Pot Pie and went with the Sour Venison And Dumplings, which was served with carrots, leeks, and celery root. The meat wasn't nearly as gamey as I usually experience with venison, which almost detracted from it for me. But that's my personal preference. It was still extremely delicious and I loved the rutabega/bleu cheese dumplings, they were actually quite light and worked perfectly. I cannot say I was disappointed with my entree choice. The last one was the grilled salmon, which was a great salmon dish. Personally I would have never ordered it, but it was a great cut of fish with full flavor.

At some point I switched over to try two of their house cocktails - Bluegrass Manhattan (Bulleit Bourbon, green mountain maple liqueur, blood orange bitters, luxardo cherries) and White Whiskey Sour (Kentucky Black Dog Whiskey, house sour, red pepper flakes). I enjoyed the Manhattan served straight up (they gave you the option) and it was a splurge, but a wonderful one. The White Whiskey Sour was my favorite, it was still strong without being overpowering and the red pepper flakes provided an awesome kick.

I normally don't eat dessert, but one caught my eye - tobacco creme brulee. The tobacco flavor was very strong up front, which I thought provided a great balance to the normal sweetness of creme brulee. My friend noted that Anthony Bourdain had a similar dish on an episode of No Reservations a few years back, so I wonder if that's where the inspiration came from. It took me out of my comfort zone a bit and I was quite happy with the result.

I think my favorite part was when the bill came and it only came to about $60 a head when we said we were going to split it evenly. I was expecting much more damage with the drinks and everything added in - overall a great value.

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I came here for dinner last year, I don't remember most of the dishes but one that I've kept talking about is the smoked fried chicken. Cold smoke buttermilk brined the floured and deep fried. This dish was creaking awesome, the potato salad reminded me of something giant makes but I didn't care. You gotta make your potato salad with still warm potatoes and serve it not from the fridge. Anyway, chicken was two thighs, they were boneless but still juicy. Close to my favorite fried chicken ever

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I normally don't eat dessert, but one caught my eye - tobacco creme brulee. The tobacco flavor was very strong up front, which I thought provided a great balance to the normal sweetness of creme brulee. My friend noted that Anthony Bourdain had a similar dish on an episode of No Reservations a few years back, so I wonder if that's where the inspiration came from. It took me out of my comfort zone a bit and I was quite happy with the result.

It was at the French Laundry, a coffee custard infused with tobacco, together with a foie mousse according to Wiki.

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It was at the French Laundry, a coffee custard infused with tobacco, together with a foie mousse according to Wiki.

I've had a similar dish, either at Per Se, or (believe it or not) Nectar, near the Kennedy Center, or both - I can't remember where it was, but I'm certain I've had tobacco crème brulée.

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Made it back about a month ago - and oh my god the smoked fried chicken was heavenly. I was deciding between that and the hot fried chicken, which I'll have to try another time. They have a special on Tuesdays I think with chicken boxes for takeout/at the bar, but I can't seem to find it on the website (and Facebook is blocked at work), but it seems that it would be a great option for $15 (or less?). I love all of their brown cocktails, I've never been steered wrong, and occasionally they'll have a five star rare beer on tap. The other thing I can recommend is the sweet potato cornbread.

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