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.

Trinidad Gourmet

Trinidad Gourmet
418 E. 31st St.
Charles Village/Waverly, Baltimore
410-243-0072
Cost: $
Reservations: take-out
Date of meal: Friday September 28, 2007 (7pm)
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It

Trinidad Gourmet isn't really a restaurant. It has a counter, but that's about it. It is designed for take-out. It also has a rather extensive barrier between the counter and the patrons; the proprietor is obviously worried about crime.

The menu has a wide variety of Trinidadian food. Oxtail stew, goat curry, jerk chicken, etc. Entrees in the $7-$9 range. I had the jerk chicken dinner ($9) which includes rice and beans (mixed together), sauteed spinach (my choice of vegetable) and plantains. The jerk chicken was tasty and well-cooked. I would have liked it with a bit more spice, but it was juicy and fell right off the bone. The spinach was simple but excellent; it was fresh, perfectly cooked and not overly oily or creamy. Rice and beans were good but standard. Plantains are always yummy, but these were a bit mushy for my taste.

Trinidad Gourmet is a solid choice for inexpensive take-out in the Charles Village and Waverly area. I prefer The Yabba Pot (which serves Caribbean-inspired vegan food nearby at the same price point with nicer decor and more inventive cuisine), but others who want more meat may not.

On the Hill Cafe

On the Hill Cafe
1431 John St. (at Mosher)
Bolton Hill, Baltimore
410-225-9667
Sandwiches, Breakfast
www.onthehillcafe.com
Cost: $
Reservations: Not Accepted
Date of meal: various
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: On It

We were thinking about buying a house in Bolton hill, so there were several days when we were hungry and in a hurry at noon in Bolton Hill. On the Hill Cafe was perfect. They are closed for dinner (and all day on Sundays) and probably serve the MICA lunch crowd. You order from the counter and sit at uncomfortable tables. They have outdoor seating, which is nice when the weather is good.

I had an outstanding curry chicken salad sandwich wrap thing with grapes that could not have been better. My spouse had a good salad. I don't remember what our realtor got but she takes people there all the time, which I guess is a good sign. On the Hill Cafe is too low-key to be worth traveling for, particularly given that most of us can't take off time for lunch. Still, if you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend it for lunch (and probably breakfast too, though I haven't tried it).

Blue Moon Cafe

Blue Moon Cafe
1621 Aliceanna St.
Fells Point, Baltimore
410-522-3940
Brunch
Cost: $
Reservations: weekend wait
Date of meal: Sunday, August 19, 2007 (8am)
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It

I was expecting to love Blue Moon Cafe. It's a cute Fells Point brunch place and looks the part. It's full of yuppie parents and urban hipsters in equal (and excessive, they don't take reservations and we had to wait even at 8am) numbers. The atmosphere is great.

I should start with a very fixable complaint. Their web presence stinks. It's not just the lack of a web page, but there is considerable ambiguity and disagreement among other cites (citysearch, etc.) about their hours. This problem is compounded by the fact that they don't pick up the phone much and their answering machine (if they have one) doesn't turn on within a small number of rings.

The staff are obviously over-stretched and this led to sub-par service (e.g., 10 minute wait to get a check) despite the best efforts of the servers. The menu looked promising and creative (apple and bacon pancakes!!) but execution was mediocre. I had an omelette, and ingredients were of low quality and eggs were cooked badly. Toast was served with sub-par jam. My spouse's pancakes were kind of blah.

I guess all this is about right given the low prices ($8 omelettes) but given the clientèle, the neighborhood and the high prices of restaurants in Baltimore in general, I think Blue Moon would be well-served by raising prices a bit ($10 omelettes) and putting the the extra money into better ingredients and more servers. While at a higher price-point, for me Miss Shirley's is worth the extra price for brunch.

Yabba Pot

The Yabba Pot
2433 Saint Paul St (at 25th St.)
Charles Village, Baltimore
410-662-8638
Vegan
www.theyabbapotcafe.com
Cost: $
Reservations: Not Needed
Date of meal: many
National Price-Quality Frontier: Extends It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: Extends It


The Yabba Pot rocks! In all seriousness, I almost bought a house two blocks north of The Yabba Pot so that I could be near it. That the house is still for sale must mean I have non-standard criteria for houses. Good vegan food is hard to find even in cities with large yuppie vegan populations. To the best of my knowledge, Baltimore is not such a town. Still, this place is probably the best vegan restaurant I've ever been to in any city. The proprietor, Skai Davis, is a very nice woman from the Virgin Islands. (Her staff is not always so nice, but I can live with that.) Entrees vary from day to day and are ordered from the counter (cost: about $10). You can sit there and eat in a bright, cheery, simple environment. It is not fancy but it is perfectly pleasant. Take-out is also a good option. I've had a number of amazing tofu dishes, and even a kale dish which I liked even though I generally don't like kale.