Dinner in “Hon”-town

All the Flavors of the Foodie
Ice Cream Rainbow

After the Ravens’ play-off game, it seemed like our victory deserved a special dinner. Now in Baltimore, hon, it’s not so easy to find high-end dining, at least not the kind I like. With Michael Mina’s Wit and Wisdom and a fistful of others, the town is getting a few foodie-havens, but the true home of foodie-land in this city is Woodbury Kitchen.

Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Road
Baltimore, Md. 21211
(410) 464-8000

 It’s in an old warehouse district just blocks from the heart of downtown Hampden. Now, until rather recently, thanks to the filmmaker John Waters that, Hampden was known for its denizens who were renowned for sitting on their screened in porches during the sweltering summers in their bras and panties, hair in big curlers, men in their underpants, and the whole bunch of them screaming at each other. But times have changed.

Perhaps when work dried up at this foundry area where the restaurant lies, the jobs dried up with them. But to find some of these old Baltimoreans you really have to look hard nowadays, or spend a little time hanging out at the open-late-at-night Royal Farms on the corner at the top of the street.

The menu read as follows: “From farm to table, Woodberry Kitchen features the seasonal best from local growers and emphasizes pastured meats and sustainable agriculture. Our goal is to nourish and delight our guests with cooking ground in the traditions and ingredients of the Chesapeake region.”

On the menu, Woodberry Kitchen even quotes my guitar hero Joe Strummer from The Clash: “If you’re after getting the honey/Then you don’t go killing all the bees.” I just knew we were in the right place.

The warehouse environment itself is as much of a treat as anything at Woodbury Kitchen. The entry itself makes the visitor open his eyes first. The main room has a large wood-burning stove in which the busy staff is cooking nearly everything (pastas, chickens, rabbits, fish, just anything). Check out the pictures! The cooks are dedicated folks who all take a part in the process and the reason for this place’s success.

Canned Veg Bringing Brightness
to the Winter Menu

My dining companion Koko adds that, “I know we didn’t spend any time at the bar, but I strongly recommend that you look for seating there on weeknights. It’s especially popular among the Happy Hour crowd who work in the area.”

He goes on to say, “I have taken a chance by not having a reservation and getting a table for two at the bar without a wait! But definitely plan to book ahead using Open Table on your Android, not your iPhone.” (I think he may have a thing against the iPhone!)

Speaking with Corinne, our top shelf waitress, Koko and I discovered that all the employees have to take a 4-5 week training course to work here. This program requires that they learn support in the kitchen, how to be a barista, and how to wait tables the Woodberry Kitchen way. The results really show. Corinne knew literally everything about everything I was asking. I had a million questions, and she had real answers for everything.

You’ll see from the pictures that Koko has it basically right, “These owners have made it all a little fetish, don’t you think!?” The Americana setting is completely at odds with the Hampden reputation I mentioned above, yet the sanctuary that is this dining room is all-encompassing and truly enjoyable. A majorly upscale version of those country restaurants you see off the highways as you drive in rural America.

Liberty Delight Beef with egg and noodles

But the menu is diverse and exciting. While we chose particularly meaty starters and mains, our table neighbors were vegetarians who swear by the place for fancy meals. And while we spent heavily, you could eat on the cheaper end of the spectrum here. There is a terrific looking $15 hamburger; a nice veggie dinner of kidney beans, gold rice and a tomato/horseradish relish; and a $23 stroganoff that is luscious and filled with richness.

“You know, they don’t hire ugly waiters here,” Koko remarked. Upon this revelation, I began looking up from the completely engrossing menu, and found a prompt excuse to look up from the menu and find out for myself.  As I headed off to the particularly elaborate toilets, I did take in the same impression that Koko had.  Wow, hotties everywhere.

On a completely different not, you just gotta love a restaurant with tidy, posh bathrooms. I couldn’t get over the detail and the time that the owners had spent on them. Not surprisingly, I took photos(!)

After having spent ages just digesting the menu before our eyes, we realized, “This seems like a great place to overindulge, and after indulging at an afternoon table full of Superbowl food, it was really a bit extreme for us to take this path.” But a food selection this elaborate provided a perfect excuse.

As you can imagine, ordering can be a challenge, as you may want to order some of everything. Their on-site charcuterie, pickling, and preserves program makes for terrific choices in the starters department. The WK Butcher’s Board looked incredible: a parade of cured pork neck, country bacon, summer sausage, air-dried beef, liverwurst, apple butter, pickles, brown mustard. Since we didn’t order this, I’m rarin’ to return, let me assure you.

Virginia Ham and butter sandwich

But first, the wines: the list of by the glass wine is lovely but pricey. the by the bottle wines were mildly extreme. However, we did find a $9 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, and since it’s been such a great year for these Italian wines on the U.S. market, you almost cannot go wrong. That rule held true here. But they are really good about making sure that even their wine list is local with a Barboursville, Virginia, Riesling that knocked my socks off with its dry, fragrant bowl of white fruit. What a terrific surprise; almost a Washington State-styled Riesling or Alsatian.

Landing on the table as our wines appeared was creamy buttered bread with Virginia ham sliced painfully thinly.

Koko's Beet Salad

It was a large-ish amuse-bouche that really benefits from the pickled shallots that are garnished with chives. With plenty of sour meeting salty and buttery, you forget all about the notoriously blood pressure-inducing saline meat as it finished with a creamy richness that leaves you wanted more, even though you know instantly that you should steer clear of second helpings.

The restaurant has an enormous canning program which the cooks work from May through to early December. The dishes actually incorporate canned vegetables and fruits bringing a brightness to this seasonal winter menu that would otherwise result in suppers that might be a bit dull.

We began with a “cold plate” starter of beet salad that Koko assures was the finest he’d ever had.

 ”The greens were baby spinach,” he said, “And they also placed some mild goat cheese as an accent atop the finished plate. Also the vinaigrette was a perfect balance of tart and sweet with savory.  But most importantly, the salad was not overdressed.  Kudos to the sous chef!”

“It’s earthy and well-composed, ” Koko firmly commits.

I enjoyed a perfectly serviceable rabbit loin with celery root slaw, and house made pickles. The cooking of the fricasseed rabbit didn’t seem to go well, as the loin curved wildly leaving me wondering if the chef had done this intentionally to make the “warm plate” starter look more inviting, or because he didn’t know how to remove the tendon that usually forces cooked rabbit loin to curve.

Koko asked me, “Was it well-seasoned? I barely remember the rabbit loin.”

And I thought, “Hmmm…exactly.”

Springfield Farm Chicken & Biscuit

From here a plate of warm breads and butter came to the table. A bit late, to say the least, but so delicious, that I was glad to have gotten past two courses before spoiling my dinner with these little carbohydrate thrills. When I saw hand-rolled biscuits, I leapt at the busboy, asking him for some honey. Well, they source the best honey I’ve had since I purchased a jar at the Union Square farmers market in New York City last April. The quality, the viscosity, Woodberry Kitchen has access to the best honey purveyors on the east coast.

Their access to the very best rolls over into their suppers as well. I ordered an enormous half of a Springfield Farm Chicken & Biscuit with braised kale and carrots.

Liberty Delight Farms Beef and egg noodle stroganoff 

The volume on my plate was overwhelming. This signature dish is a perfect portion if you need to leave with lunch for tomorrow(!) It was basically a “brick chicken” dish, except that they cook it in the brick oven. So it’s a very different in preparation as it is baked, not fried, and they do use a brick to keep it flat as it cooks. And it looks like chicken-fried chicken without the breading.

Odd, fun, delicious, and plentiful.

Koko’s Liberty Delight Farms Beef and egg noodle stroganoff was awesome. With a big, yellow egg yolk , an already rich dish becomes overwhelmingly old school. There’s almost a sweetness with buttery, super creamy noodles filling the plate. All the primary dish components come from area farms.

It’s a farm to table mecca in a down-market ghetto that really knows how to impress guests.

In the end, dessert was a total treat: and as you may know, I really don’t like dessert, usually. Corinne decided that since we were having such a tough time picking the ice creams we wanted, that she’d bring us a scoop of every ice cream flavor they had. That meant six scoops. This is a woman I could love for a very long time:

• Fresh Cream, Blackberry Buttermilk Sorbet, 
• Cocoa, 
• Bay with Orange Rind and Black Pepper, 
• Apple Cider Sorbet, and last but certainly not least, 
• Malt. 

All on a long wooden tray garnished with a crushed pie crust of some sort.

Woodberry Kitchen is the brainchild of chef-owner Spike Gjerde who transformed this terrific warehouse space—not far from the epicenter of John Waters' "Hon" town, just off the main drag from Hampden, Baltimore, Maryland. From this location, however, you'd never know that B'more was ever the capital of wild '50s hairdos and bad teeth. Gjerde has turned this area into an epicurean delight, and the locals who made this place famous by just being themselves have long departed (or found orthodontists).

Thanks for the photo: eater.com.

But don't let that dissuade you. Though Edna Turnblad cannot be seen for miles, Gjerde's hotspot has makes an excellent dining alternative to what Baltimorians used to eat (see Pink Flamingos for details). Edna and her clan can never be replaced, neither can the Egg Lady, or the guy with the prolapsing anus., but Gjerde makes a good argument for not running his business out of town on a rail.

The visit to this Hampden treasure is worth it for a weekend lunch, a Sunday brunch, or a Saturday dinner for anyone visiting Washington, D.C. or in Wilmington, Del. Take the hour, drive to Woodberry Kitchen and experience a terrific, novel experience like only the "new" Baltimore can deliver.
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