Yuki Sushi

We spent Saturday in Owings Mills because our foster kittens were at the PetCo at an adoption event. Remembering the Restaurant.com certificate we bought for a sushi place there, we headed to Yuki Sushi for lunch.

On a side note, our Westie's name is Yuki which translates to "snow" in Japanese, or "snowflake" if you want to tease Dave about 1. buying a tiny white dog and 2. naming said tiny white dog officially "Hana tusu yuki" which means "snow that is like flowers". So, we bought the certificate because the place was named after our dog.

We always have such high hopes for sushi. It so easy to make, and so easy to screw up. Well, ok it's not easy to make exactly, actually it's pretty effing hard. It's easy to throw together the flavors in it to make it taste GOOD I should say. Unless you're using rotten fish or something, in which case your sushi will taste like rotten fish.

It took us awhile to figure out what we wanted because we didn't get a check off sushi menu so we had to remember what we wanted. The prices here were pretty standard for the Baltimore area, the more "plain" rolls were actually pretty inexpensive (ranging from $5-$7) and then the specialty rolls racking up to $15 which is the norm. I went with a Raven Roll (shrimp, mayo, cucumber and topped with avocado) and a Boston Roll (shrimp, mayo, lettuce). Dave ordered a Dynamite roll (salmon, asparagus, crab mix, deep fried) and hibachi steak and shrimp.

Dave started to pick up on some "abruptness" from our waitress early on, but it took me a bit longer to notice it. Then when I asked if they happened to have shrimp sauce or "yum yum" sauce (not every place in this area has it, but a few rare gems have so I always ask) she gave me this look that was like "WTF are you talking about?" said "HUH?!" then stared at me until I said "I was just checking. Nevermind." and then she shook her head and walked away. Then she started slamming cokes onto our table and I'm actually quite surprised Dave was able to finish his meal. He was really disappointed that she said he couldn't use the certificate towards the lunch boxes (bento box lunch specials) even though it didn't say any such thing on the certificate according to him, but he relented and chose the hibachi meal instead.

As for the food, it was good. The sushi was really tasty, fresh seafood, it was made really well so the insides weren't coming out (I really hate that when it's rolled too loosely and all the goodness flops out onto the plate). The flavors of the Raven roll especially worked really well together. The Boston roll was alright, definitely get this as a starter roll to share. It's really kind of bland to just eat the whole thing. Dave hibachi meal was really good. Plump shrimp, tender pieces of beef wrapped up in warm noodles. I was satisfied with the food portion of our experience.

I give it 3 noms.

Dave Says: It's amazing how much the service influences the whole dining experience. I wish I could contact the owner and let them know, but I doubt they care. She's probably their daughter/niece, anyway.

Mongolian Grill

The Mongolian Grill Of Columbia

8865 Stanford Boulevard, Suite 107 Columbia, MD 21045-5420

Call: (410)290-0690 for reservations of six or more people.

Click here for FREE COUPONS!

http://www.mongoliangrillcolumbia.com/
Lunch Hours: Monday – Friday, 11:30am-2:30pm

Dinner Hours: Monday – Thursday, 5:00pm-9:00pm Friday, 5:00pm-10:00pm

Weekend Hours: Saturday, 12:00pm-10:00pm Sunday, 12:00pm-9:00pm

Now, if it's one thing Dave likes other than hotdogs, it's Mongolian BBQ. He's always seeking out

Mongolian places. While living in Fernandina Beach, Florida there was one that he would go to every year for his birthday and on our most recent trip he found out it closed. Sad face.

As far as we know, this is the only Mongolian place in a 45 minute radius (possibly more than that we haven't looked any further than 45 minutes away). As a bonus, they have coupons on their website that gives you $5 a $25 purchase and $10 off a $50 purchase. (coupon available at the top of this blog post)

It's set in a little strip mall tucked away as everything in Columbia is. Walking in we noticed a well stocked bar and then a little nook of knick-knacks for sale. We were there for dinner, early dinner but dinner, so we had full access to the Mongolian bar and the salad bar. While everything on the salad bar certainly looked appealing, fresh and delicious, I spent all my food space at the Mongolian bar.

Their options vary depending on what they have in stock but their staples are pork, chicken, beef, fish, shrimp, scallops, rice, noodles, eggs, and cabbage. They usually have zucchini, carrots, bean sprouts and water chestnuts as well. You start by grabbing a bowl, a bowl tray, your token with your number on it, then you fill your bowl with the rice or noodle, veg. and then meat of your choice. You can season it however you want, they put out tons of spices, garlic, green onion for you, then you dump on your sauces.

They make it really easy for first timers suggesting you create your own and then offering handy little menus for the gun-shy that teach you how to make certain ones. I went with the Child's sauce which was peanut, sesame oil, teriyaki, and mongolian sauce. I sprinkled on some garlic and took my bowl up to the grill then sat down to await what sorts of lovely flavors I'd end up with. In my bowl was also some noodles, an egg, beef, shrimp, water chestnuts, zucchini, carrots, onion, and green onion.

I wasn't disappointed. Everything blended together so well and it was soooo good that I ended up having another heaping bowl of it. My 2nd time up I changed my sauce a bit and just splashed some stuff together. I went with sesame oil, teriyaki, a touch of lemon water, peanut sauce, house sauce, mongolian sauce, and garlic. This time my sauce was just a big more tangy than it was previously. The first time up it was a tad sweet and nutty.

Mmmm mmmm mmmm.

5 noms.

Dave's 2 Cents:

Even though this place is a little out of Baltimore's city limits, it definitly is a place to mention. It's a perfect place to take the family or a large group of friends, and GO HUNGRY! With over 6 meats and 25 sauces to mix and match, the only thing that can go wrong is you getting full before trying everything. I know this is a place I will be taking friends and family for years to come.

Just remember to take your token up to the cook with your food, and remember what number you are, or you'll end up eating someone else's creation!

G&A Restaurant

G & A Restaurant
3802 Eastern Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21224
(410) 276-9422
http://www.gandarestaurant.com/
Mon - Sat: 7 am - 7 pm ~ Sun: Closed
BEST HOTDOGS IN BALTIMORE

This came to us by way of the suggestion box once it was learned that Dave loves hotdogs. LOVES hotdogs. Apparently this place is said to have the best hotdogs around.

Apparently that is correct. They also have the best everythingwetasted around.

This place has been around since 1927 and has remained family owned the entire time. You walk into to this narrow little, easy to miss place and you're greeted by a friendly staff. Once seated, we began to pour over the laminated menus (ah, true diner style) that never leave the booths. We ordered a couple of cokes, and got down to business with the food.

I ordered a G&A club which came with turkey, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo on three crispy toasted slices of white bread with a side of coleslaw. Dave ordered two dogs, mustard and relish, and a slider platter which had three cheeseburger sliders with ketchup and mustard and pickle and a side of fries.

The sliders hit the table first and we dug in. Holy delicious. You can tell right away these were made FRESH mere minutes before we started shoving them into our mouths. The bun was soft and the fries were fresh cut. We got a side of gravy for dippin' (something Dave was skeptical about but being from one of the fattest states in this great U.S. of A. I knew was delicious and after some coaxing from myself and our waitress he agreed to try it). I am happy to report that the gravy was salty, gooey and perfect. The combo of fry and gravy was unbelievable. Dave is now a convert.

So, now for the club sandwich. I went with an easy dish I suppose, but it looked good. It's really really hard to mess up a club sandwich. This one was great. The bread toasty and perfect (except for the one burnt slice but it was hardly noticeable and I only took note of it when the club fell apart in my hands and I saw it, then had a good laugh). The coleslaw was also pretty good, definitely carrying that "homey" taste with it.

Dave LOVED the dogs. He loved them. The look on his face when he bit into them was priceless. It was like he'd never tasted a hotdog before.

Now, I will say that this diner isn't pretty, but it's clean, and it's well broken in and that is exactly how diners should be. It's been standing for about 90 years so it has stood the test of time.

The owner himself, Andy was working the register, cooking, greeting people which was amazing to see. He took so much pride in this place you could just feel it. Our waitress apologized several times and thanked us for being "patient", even though the wait for the food was under 15 minutes and everything was so incredibly good we would have waited longer for it.

This place TOTALLY gets 5 noms. The food was amazing, the service was amazing, and we were completely and totally happy with the entire experience.

Dave's 2cents:

So as you heard, after a reader saw my bad review of Stuggys, he/she suggested G&A. When I google mapped it, I wasn't impressed with the area, the southeast area past Patterson Park, aka Little Havana.

But as I have been told MANY TIMES, if I want to live in Baltimore I got to get over these bad areas.

Walking into this place was nostalgic. I grew up in West NJ, with a diner names Geets, and my wife in Michigan named Tony's. We both sat down and looked around and felt like we were home.

The customer service was outstanding, from the BOSS, Andy greeting us at the door, to the waitress making sure we were ok every few minutes.

The food was heavenly. Yes the sliders were good, but the hotdogs were perfect. (I realize that I cannot tell you about this without you pervs giggling because I sound phallic, so here it goes...)

The hotdog's crisp skin just pops as you bit into it, as the warm hotdog innards explode in your mouth. Leaving its eater with closed eyes and a wide smile. nommmmmmmmm

ok, seriously. stop giggling.

Talara

Another Groupon, another review. Today we visited Talara, a little tapas/bar place right by Little Italy. We opted to go during a non-busy time of day (read: when we woke up from our nap at 3 p.m. 45 minutes before we had to pick up the foster kittens from their surgery) in hopes of quick service.

I walk by this place pretty frequently as it is near to both work and home, and I have never seen it busy. I noticed that this particular groupon had a little over 1,200 purchases so I do hope that changes. However, before we get to the reviewing of the food part, I do have to say one thing: their website is goddamn annoying. Dear Talara, go easy on the flash, mmkay? You kinda froze up my computation machine and I don't even run into that problem toggling between facebook and hulu Wednesday nights when I'm desperately trying to catch up with Amy and the gang on Secret Life of the American Teenager (we all have demons, go with me on this one). So, in conclusion, your website is confusing, too flashy, and it needs to be stopped. The end.

Now, the food/restaurant experience itself.

It took us a few minutes to decide on what to order, despite it being their lunch menu and pretty concise. Finally we settled on the Pork Empanadas for an appetizer, and Dave got the Bento box lunch which came with a salad, Asian salmon tar-tare, tempura shrimp over grilled pineapple, and two small slices of tres leches cake, I went with the green chile burger which came with queso blanco, bacon, green chile salsa and bbq sauce and a side of fries.

It took almost 15 minutes for our app to hit our table and before we were even done eating it our entrees were there, so I think there's a bit of a timing problem in the kitchen (which happened to be located about a foot to our left). The empanadas were pretty good. The pork wasn't dry at all, the pastry outside was crispy and then soft. It came drizzled with a sauce that tasted like a spicy mayo.

As for my burger, it was in interesting combo of flavors, definitely had that "southwestern" flavor going for it. It was cooked properly, and the fries were delicious. I must warn you this burger has a tiny kick to it, so I was unable to eat much thanks to my stomach. What I did eat was pretty good.

I tried Dave's salad and his shrimp, avoiding his salmon tartare at all costs, then giving his cake a try (I hate cake as a general rule. If you put cake in front of me and I have more than one or two bites, it's damn good cake). His salad was very crisp, the shrimp had a good flavor and I really liked the grilled pineapple. The cake was "eh". It wasn't dry and it was drizzled with a coconutty creamy sauce (which I liked) but it's cake.

The restaurant itself is really lovely. It's covered in all these latin-looking paintings, and the decor is funky and cool. I really like that they do the cooking basically right in front of you (sometimes I wonder what really does go on in kitchens, then I remember that I'd rather not know) but here they're right there and you can watch them make your food.

As far as the service goes, when we walked in we had to wait for someone to come up to the stand to seat us, watching the cooks shout and gesture to someone in the background. Our waitress was really really nice but I think that because it was so slow, it was easy to forget about us. She brought our food as soon as it was ready and our glasses didn't go empty but it did take her awhile to settle the bill. The last time I was in there I waited about 15 minutes to have my glass refilled then by the time she refilled it, we had to go back to work. So the service was better than it was that time.

I do think this place is more suited for a happy hour or business lunch place. I didn't get to try any of their alcohol drinks but I have heard good things. The food is pretty tasty but I just don't see this as a go-out-to-dinner kind of place. This is more of a meet-your-group-there-for-cocktails place. Its relatively inexpensive (at least their lunch menu is, I'm not sure about their dinner menu) and you do get enough food for what you pay for.

Overall, I give it 3 noms.


Dave's 2 Cents:
I really don't have anything to good or bad to say about this place. Nothing was bad, but for the location, something should have had stuck out as great.

Stuggy's

Stuggy's

809 South Broadway

Baltimore, MD 21231

Phone: 410-327-0228

http://www.stuggys.com/

Thursday - Saturday: 11am - 3am

Sunday: 11am-5pm

Knowing my husband's all-consuming love for hot dogs, when I heard about this place I figured we'd have to go sooner or later. We chose sooner. As for me, hot dogs aren't a holy grail food, but I can appreciate a good dog now and again.

First of all, I love this location. Fell's Point is one of my favorite areas of the city. I love how close and intimate all the shops are with each other, the proximity to the water, the fact that you can have a great meal and then five feet later have a great dessert/beer/drink/whatever. It rocks.

This place is tiny. There are only four stools in it and when we walked in, all four were covered in teenager. We stared hungrily at the chalkboard menu for a few minutes, I had already decided on the Motor City Coney (1/4 all beef dog covered in chili, shredded cheddar cheese and diced raw onion...just like they make 'em back home) and Dave settled on a #3, two dogs, fries and a drink.

I will apologize for not having taken pictures of our actual foods, we both had inhaled our dogs and then realized "Oh crap, the blog" so we found some photos online of their food. I will testify that what you see in these photos is what you will get at Stuggy's.

The food came fast. We requested that the Teens working boot their loitering friends and they did. We sat down to eat. I loved my dog. It was fabulous. Crohn's be damned. I ate that chili like...a person who can eat chili and not end up in blinding pain an hour later. Usually I dislike raw onion but it was excellent on this dog. The chili was plentiful, the cheese was fresh and gooey and the onions crunchy and...pungent, as onions tend to be. The stomach ache I eventually suffered through was worth it.

I ate all of Dave's fries too. These fries were very different than any others I've ever had. They were fresh cut, no doubt about it, covered in sea salt, but they tasted almost like they'd been refired as they were slightly chewy. Still a really good flavor, just odd texture.

The soda they have here is like no soda anywhere else. Boylan Soda Co. It's some fancy pants odd flavored soda (think if Jones had a fountain machine, but not as delicious). With flavors like Black Cherry, Orange Creme, and an odd tasting Root Beer, the soda selection was a tad disappointing for me. I liked the idea of the unique variety, I'm just not a fan of the "creme" variety of anything.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 noms.

Dave's 2 Cents:"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

This place pissed me the F#*k off.

It was as if an Oscar Mayer hotdog and "Clerks" the movie had a baby and gave it up for adoption in Baltimore.

On entering this establishment with no A/C in 100 degree weather, teens behind the counter not greeting us, and the only places to sit and eat were occupied by the employee's loitering friends, my temper grew fast.

At the point where our "to go" food was handed to us in "eat in" fashion, is when i started getting snarky.

As I tried to communicate with one of the employees over the blaring Death Metal music playing overhead, I asked if all these kids were their friends. When he said yes, I requested he tell them that they need to make room for paying customers.

On the flip side: The hot dogs were awesome, some of the best I have ever had. Surprisingly they were 100% beef, which I prefer Chicken/Pork.

I would suggest that the owner possibly think about doing some random walk ins or secret shoppers, but its really not worth it for what it is, a glorified hot dog stand in a popular bar district.

I just wouldn't be surprised if you caught the employees playing roof hockey at some point during the day...

REVISITED Sorso Cafe

As promised in our Sorso Cafe blog post, we revisited this place to try out the rest of the menu.

After the big dog dinner at Stuggy's we used up our final Sorso Cafe Groupon on some gelato. Their gelato is a treat for the eye I must say. In the cooler, it's all decorated (the strawberry is covered in fresh cut strawberries, chocolate covered in Hershey's kisses, lemon in lemons, etc) and delicious looking. I ordered half chocolate, half chocolate chip (which is actually a flavor I can neither pronounce nor spell) and Dave got half coffee half caramel. To tip our total over the $10 value of the Groupon, we tacked on a fruit cup.

I loved their gelato. It was creamy, rich in flavor and even though the little cups look small to the eye, you're definitely given enough to satisfy you. The fruit cup was big, fresh and ripe. In fact, it's my lunchtime dessert today (after sampling a few pieces with breakfast this morning)

Our rating stands. 4 out of 5 noms. Way to go Sorso!

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Sale lasts until the 12th, but it is defiantly worth it if you’re looking to save some money. Every certificate has rules, so please pay attention to the restrictions. (can’t spend at bar, etc…)

We just bought 27 gift certificates today equaling almost $600 for $45!!
Just thought I’d share, if you have questions let me know.

-enjoy!

P.S. This code also works on Dinner of the month club subscriptions for Baltimore. $24 for 12 months worth of gift certificates!