Baltimore Foodies Help Needed!

My parents are coming to visit this weekend and I really have no idea where to take them to eat (which is obviously the best part)!  If you had guests coming from out of town, where would you take them for dinner?? 

I'm interested in any and all recommendations!

Taharka Bros.

As a newcomer to the Baltimore area, I am quickly finding out that one of the best things about it are all of the street festivals and fairs that seem to be going on every weekend.  I love it!  Especially because it gives me an excuse to try amazing food and sample a little bit of everything that they have to offer.  Lucky for me, some local restaurants also participate in these festivals, so I've gotten to try some places on my "To Eat" list while strolling around in the gorgeous weather.  At Flowermart this year, Taharka Bros. was set up, and I'm so glad that they were.

They have a pretty awesome list of flavors, but I knew which one I was going to get as soon as I saw it: Key Lime Pie.  Oh. My. Goodness.  It was heavenly.  I worked at an ice cream store that makes its own ice cream for 5 years, so I'm a little bit of a snob about these things, but this ice cream is amazing.  Creamy and surprisingly strong citrus flavors with an amazing graham cracker crust mixed in.  Yum!  G got a chocolate brownie flavor (not sure exactly what it was called) and it was also amazing.  I love desserts that have amazing flavor, but aren't sickeningly sweet and these ice creams fit the bill.

Besides having great ice cream, this business really does amazing things for Baltimore and its citizens.  They employ at-risk youth and train them in business skills.  From their website:

Taharka Brothers is a venture of the Sylvan Beach Foundation, Inc. Sylvan Beach is a non-profit foundation which functions to assist at-risk Baltimore youth and teaches them the intricacies of business strategy and entrepreneurship with the ultimate goal that each of these student-workers will found his own business prior to his graduation from the program.

Amazing.  Go there! Find them on the streets! Just support this awesome venture.

Carmine's, Hunt Valley

Every week, we typically go out to dinner before we go grocery shopping.  A lot of times, we eat at Wegmans.  Don't get me wrong, I love Wegmans, but I get a little bit tired of eating there every week.  Luckily, there are a few other options in the Hunt Valley area, we've been broadening our horizons a little bit.

On one of these occasions, we decided to try Carmine's.  This overlapped with a week that I was trying especially hard to eat healthy, so I tried to order a salad with goat cheese.  They were out of it, so I was content on cheating and getting a delicious eggplant parmesan-type entree.  And delicious is right.  I usually don't love eggplant, but everything about this was very good.  The sauce was great, the pasta was great, and the eggplant was cooked perfectly.  G got pizza, and it was also really yummy.  I'm actually surprised that we haven't been back since.  All in all, this was a cute family-friendly restaurant that is perfect for pre-grocery shopping.

Zorba's Cafe and Afterwords Cafe; Dupont Circle, DC

I wish that I had been more interested in food when I was in college.  I lived a metro ride away from some amazing restaurants in DC and some of them I didn't even discover while I was there.  During a recent trip into the city, we decided to try Zorba's Cafe and we were not disappointed.

I love Greek food and I love Dupont Circle so this was a  no-brainer.  We started out with spanikopita and tzatziki.  Both were delicious and amazingly fresh.  The spanikopita was well-balanced and wasn't weighed down with cheese.  Delicious.  For our meals, I got the falafel platter and G got the chicken kabob.  Both of these were really good, as well.  They came with a really delicious hummus and olives, which I love.  Their baklava looked amazing, but I knew that I had my heart set on a different venue for dessert.




Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe has amazing desserts.  I have actually never tried their other foods, but they always look amazing.  The cafe is connected to an awesome book store that you can peruse while you wait for your table (and you will always wait).  This time that we went, I got my favorite: berry crumble with cinnamon ice cream.  It is one of my favorite desserts of all-time, from any restaurant.  The berries are mixed in with nuts and a delicious crumble topping that are all so good.  And the cinnamon ice cream is the best way that you could attempt to make it even better.  Mmmmm.  G got cheesecake this time and it was also very yummy, but I like their pies a lot better.

The Cow, Reisterstown

There's a reason why there are very long lines and swarms of people hanging around the outside of The Cow.  This ice and custard is awesome and comes in a huge range of flavors.  They have more traditional ones, like cherry and egg custard, but they also have some different ones like fudge brownie and s'more. 

We each got gelatis of the latter two.  I loved the fudge brownie.  It had chunks of brownie and swirls of fudge and was more like a really icy ice cream than any "ice" I've ever had.  G wasn't crazy about his s'more, but mostly because he could taste mint from a previous use of the scooper.  The sizes were huge and I couldn't finish mine.  I would love to go back and try more of what they have to offer!

Pitango Gelato, Fells Point

About 95% of the time that I am in Fells Point, I want to get Mr. Yogato. If you've been there, then you probably understand why. But I have also always been tempted by Pitango Gelato. Gelato has always been a little bit intimidating to me. I feel like it's going to be trying to do too much or certain flavor profiles will be lost on me (whatever that means). But I finally decided to put my foot down and try it.

First off, the people there are really nice and will let you sample as many flavors as you want. And they have a lot of flavors. I ended up sampling the chocolate hazelnut, bourbon vanilla, tangerine, and a dark chocolate one. All of them are so delicious and fresh. I bought a combination of the bourbon vanilla and strawberry. I typically don't go nuts over strawberry ice creams, yogurts, etc. because they don't have enough real fruit flavor, but this one was amazing. And the bourbon vanilla with is was awesome. I am definitely not intimidated any more.

Andy Nelson's, Cockeysville

I am not a Baltimore native. I grew up in Maryland, though, so I do know that there are some foods that are traditionally linked to this area. That includes pit beef, which I hadn't even realized was a Baltimore thing until I did a little bit of web searching. According to many, Andy Nelson's has the best pit beef and barbecue around, so we headed over there one day to check it out.

I love the atmosphere of places like Andy Nelson's. We ate in the barn next door and it felt like we were having our own little picnic with amazing food. I had planned on getting pit beef, but got chicken instead because I really wanted to try the sides. The chicken was pretty decent, maybe not the best in the world but still pretty darn good. We also had the fries, cole slaw and corn bread. Mmm the corn bread. I can be a snob about dry, crumbly corn bread, but this was awesome. G got ribs and they were also really yummy. The sauces that they provide were delicious, as well. I was tempted to get a piece of apple cake, but that will have to wait until next time. Along with that pit beef.