Morning Edition

Morning Edition
153 N Patterson Park Ave
Butcher's Hill, Baltimore
Brunch
410-732-5133
Cost: $
Reservations: not needed
Date of meal: Saturday October 6, 2007 (11:00am)
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: On It

Morning edition is a cute brunch place north of Patterson Park. Please note that it has weird hours (only open Friday through Sunday and only for breakfast brunch but not too early). If you want to grab breakfast on a Wednesday, this is not the place for you.

Decor is homey. Tables are old, wood, and wobbly. Menu is handwritten (and photocopied and long). Decorated walls with lots of odd objects make give the place a personal touch. Given the dirth of alternatives, I was surprised it wasn't more full.

The menu is long enough that there is something for everyone. We had a raisin French toast and an omelette with Italian sausage. Both were excellent, and at prices <$10 for interesting omelettes it's almost a good bargain. The main problem with Morning Edition is the wait for food. We sat for roughly 30 minutes waiting for our food to come. While this can be nice if you want an extremely leisurely brunch, it can be a bit stressful if you only want a fairly leisurely brunch and have something to do afterwards.

I would be very happy to go back. The price point is much more appealing than Miss Shirley's, and the quality is almost as high. If they nailed service a bit more, it would be ideal.

Nasu Blanca

Nasu Blanca
1036 E. Fort Ave.
Locust Point, Baltimore
Spanish/Japanese
410-962-9890
Cost: $$$$
Reservations: recommended
Date of meal: Wednesday September 29, 2007 (6:30pm)
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It

I don't know of any other Spanish/Japanese fusion restaurant in the U.S. This means either that the owners of Nasu Blanca are incredibly creative, or that this combination doesn't make a lot of sense, or both.

I went to Nasu Blanca for a work dinner party with 4 other people. While the restaurant was relatively empty when we arrived (at 6:30pm on a Wednesday) it was full when we left. Nasu Blanca has two floors. The lower floor has a bar and a bit of seating, but most tables for dinner are upstairs. The Nasu Blanca site is a nice, stylish gut remodel. The downstairs decor was swanky and upscale but in a way that seemed a bit hollow and forced given the unrenovated buildings around it. The upstairs decor was a little boring for my taste, but they were trying and it was pleasant. Unfortunately, the upstairs feels like overflow seating even though it is not. I'm not sure what they can do about this.

The menu has two sides. The left had appetizers; the right entrees. At the top of each page were Japanese dishes, with Spanish ones below. The Spanish entrees were all paellas, which seemed needlessly narrow. What's the point of being Spanish-Japanese fusion if you aren't going to have fun in mixing and matching striking flavors? The menu looked more standard "New American/eclectic" than sharply Japanese/Spanish; I'm not sure I would have guessed that it was more than pan-Asian eclectic except for the large numbers of paella options. The alcohol menu included a wide variety of sakes, as well as wine and beer. Food was quite expensive, with entrees in the $30 range.

We ordered:

• Japanese eggplant ($8), grilled with a miso sauce.
• edamame ($5), no surprises
• spicy tuna tempura ($13), sounded more interesting than it tasted, but still not bad
• sashimi appetizer was amazing
  
• braised short-rib appetizer ($12+/-), I love short-ribs and these were great but it wasn't that interesting.
  
• panko-crusted walu ($28), got good reviews from my colleagues
• pumpkin-seed crusted lamb chops ($32+/-) were excellent
• scallops ($32+/-) had a nice pan-Asian flare but were a bit generic.

Food was brought at a glacial pace, and this was clearly not intentional. The server was nice but the lowness was a problem all around and made the meal less pleasant. (Our guest almost missed her train as a result despite ample warning of our constraints.) The prices were very high. I know Baltimore has a 20-25% markup compared to other cities for nice restaurants and ethnic ones. I guess I should not be surprised that a nice ethnic-fusion place has high prices. Still, entrees here would be more appropriately priced in the $22-$26 range rather than the $28-$45 range. Nasu Blanca would be a good place to go if you wanted a fun work dinner, but only if you weren't paying for it yourself.