Alexandria and Baltimore Eats

Hopefully I will update about our Thanksgiving eats, but first I want to write a little recap of all the ridiculously AMAZING food I had in Alexandria and Baltimore this weekend. Eating out is my favorite thing (way more than cooking, I have to admit) and boy, did I do a lot of it!

ALEXANDRIA

Sean, my future sister-in-law Katie, her friend Diane and I all went to Cafe Salsa Grill, a "nuevo latino" restaurant with lots of Cuban and Puerto Rican goodies on the menu. I ordered an appetizer of empanadas, which came with a trio, stuffed with seasoned ground beef, marinated chicken and cheese, and spinach and cheese.

They were delicious, especially the chicken, but three wasn't going to fill me up by any stretch of the imagination. So Diane very graciously offered me half of her sandwich, the Pollo el Aioli, which had shredded chicken, cheese, roasted tomatoes, red onions and avocado piled on a grilled French baguette. It was as good as that sounds.

BALTIMORE

On Saturday night, Sean and I went to meet Arthur (his Best Man) and two of his college friends in downtown Baltimore. I had never been to the city before, but I was impressed by the nicer parts of town and gleefully identified spots from "The Wire" in some of the not-as-nice areas we passed.

Arthur took us to Fell's Point (pictured above), a historic area with plenty of great restaurants, bars and shops. We had dinner at Kooper's Tavern, which specializes in glorious, glorious burgers. The tavern even owns a burger truck that travels around the city, making gourmet burgers on the spot.

I had the "Elvis Got the Blues" 1/2 pound Angus burger, with Maytag blue cheese and apple-smoked bacon WITH a side of sweet potato fries AND a Franziskaner Hefe Weiss beer. It was so delicious across the board. I ate every last bite of that burger and ended up splitting my beer with Arthur because I was s-t-u-f-f-e-d. Everyone spent the entire meal oohing and aahing over their burgers.

Later, we stopped into Bertha's Restaurant and Bar, famous for its green "Eat Berthas Mussels" bumper stickers, for a cream ale for Arthur. It's a tight squeeze, so we ended up leaving pretty quickly, but it seemed like a great bar for a small party.

Finally, we crossed the street from Bertha's to get gelato at Pitango Gelato, a very chic, Eames chair-filled gelateria. I got mojito sorbet, which tasted basically exactly like a frozen mojito and wowed everyone at my table. I paired it with white grapefruit sorbet, which was good, but surprisingly peppery, if that makes sense.

All in all, I was very impressed with Baltimore's food offerings and I heartily recommend a night there to all of you.