Marie Louise Bistro

Consistently Good Fare

Marie Louise Bistro
904 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-385-9946
www.marielouisebistrocatering.com

 This was our third trip to this small bistro in Mount Vernon and perhaps the best yet. We took advantage of the Restaurant Week pricing; although the menu is special and limited for this occasion it provided us with a great sampling of the choices on the regular menu, which routinely average around $18.00 per entrée. Our $30 special menu provided wonderful appetizers, delicious entrees and desserts from their incredible selection. As I probably noted in an earlier review of this Bistro, this is a very popular restaurant with a neighborhood following. You routinely see diners coming in for only a late night dessert specialty and a coffee or martini. The regular menu has a broad selection of French, Italian and Mediterranean entrees.

The appetizer list includes a charcuterie plate of assorted meats and pate’s. It’s the one thing I allow myself to step outside the Restaurant Week limits to add to the meal. Four of us shared small portions of delicious country pate, fois gras, dried beef and salami with olives and a tangy mustard and cornichons. I do believe it would be a tad better if toast points were provided but I heard no complaints as there was ample sliced baguette at the table. This is one of my dining weaknesses that cost to a meal out but can also make it special to share such an appetizer with friends.

Four appetizers were offered for the evening. Two diners chose the arugula and strawberry plate, an ample serving which completely disappeared from both plates. My friend chose the Caprese salad, which was a stack of fresh Tomato slices bisected with layers of buffalo mozzarella and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar – huge and delicious as it was shared by everyone. I had to try the most unique offering, the Decadent Egg, a halved soft – boiled egg smothered in lump crabmeat and sturgeon caviar. Everyone turned their noses up at the suggestion of this oddity but in the end I had to fight off the attacks of their forks. It truly is much more wonderful than it may sound and I’d like to find a way to work this delicate concoction into my weekly Sunday breakfast.

We tried only two of the three available entrees. The two of us that ordered the tempura battered soft shell crab were blown away, those who ordered for the filet mignon served over garlic mashed potatoes with bleu cheese and a demi-glace had to settle for, well, tender filet mignon portions. I heard no complaints.

Those of us with the soft crabs were delighted to find that the entrée consisted of two enormous soft crabs in a beautiful presentation with fried green tomato slices and a delicious tomato-corn relish that really is a superb compliment to the crab. The tempura batter was a magnificent compliment to the delicate crabs, which were tender. Soft crabs, you either love ‘em or hate ‘em but if you like them you are probably nuts for them and would just as soon eat them in a plain white bread sandwich with lettuce and tomato but oh brother they can reach a new height in a preparation like the one at Marie Louise Bistro.

They specialize in desserts at the Bistro and the special menu provided choices from over a dozen of these delicacies. There is pot du crème caramel, fruit tarts, assorted layered cakes, tira misu, and so on. I scored the prize of the evening with the chocolate covered pistachio brulee. While I’m not a big dessert fan, this one damn near made me one.

We shared a bottle of wonderfully dry Pinot Grigio with dinner; the wine list has sufficient choices of all moderately priced bottles. Monday nights at the Bistro are $6.00 martini nights and a guest had their pear martini special and pronounced it beneficial for the soul. I should mention that our service at Marie Louise Bistro has always been very good but was even better this night as Bulat, one of the original waiters on staff, gave us expert attention. You can sense he is very proud of the preparations coming out of the kitchen.

Parking is conveniently located on a large public lot immediately next door to the restaurant. It officially closes at 6 PM so diners at the Bistro and the many other nearby restaurants park for free – although this is not advertised as such. The restaurant is a maximum of 40 minutes from Finksburg and easily accessed via the JFX to St. Paul St. to Madison and then northwards two blocks away on Charles Street.  Getting home is to simply turn right onto Charles and enter the JFX near Penn Station. Dress is casual and reservations are recommended.

As with Fogo de Chow, there is nothing like this to compare with in Carroll County. It's well worth the trip.

Fogo de Chow

A Lot of Very Good Chow

Fogo De Chow

600 East Pratt Street

Baltimore, MD 212002

http://www.fogodechao.com/index.php?id=164

410-528-5292

It’s Restaurant Week in Baltimore and we’re jumping in with both feet this year and exploring several places we haven’t been before and revisiting some we have to take advantage of the discounted dinner prices of $15 for lunch and $30 for dinners.  Last year we waited too long to make a reservation for Fogo de Chow and were shut out. This year I made the reservation quickly for the top of our list.

This restaurant is immensely popular despite its high end price tag. It’s quite different from any other restaurant we’ve dined at and it was really quite a bargain at the $30 per head price. The theme is Brazilian steak house and it is quite unique.

Four of us dined there, sampled everything there is to eat, had a moderate bottle of fine Zinfandel and escaped for just over $200 including the generous tip. Parking added $14 to the cost of the evening and was our second mistake of the evening because we opted to park ourselves in the adjacent mega-lot and wound up paying $4.00 more than the cost of using the very efficient valet parking provided in front of the restaurant on Pratt Street, just opposite the Power Plant.

This is one busy place and the streets all around the harbor area were abuzz with tourists. There were many people waiting outside the restaurant with those red light beeper thingies they give you to alert you when a table is ready. I hate waiting and I hate the beeper things so my first thoughts were, oh no, another place that takes reservations but they are meaningless. Wrong! We checked with the Maitre’d and were seated immediately. A server appeared immediately at our table to explain how the restaurant operates and what was included in the Restaurant Week menu. Please bear with me if you have been through this routine before but it essential to dining at Fogo de Chow and unlike anyplace else; there is even a video at their web site to explain the rules of the house in advance.

All service is team based. After your initiation to the restaurant by the first server, the food is brought to you by at least a dozen “gaucho” servers whose clue that you want to stop by your plate is a coaster sized chit with a red side for “hold the chow” and a green side that signals “bring it on”. Water appears; side dishes arrive delivered by new faces throughout your meal. It’s a non-stop parade of various meats throughout the evening and even though the place was packed, we never once felt we had to wait for additional servings.

The Restaurant Week menu turned out to be the regular menu for Fogo de Chow. That made it quite a bargain since a meal routinely costs $48.50 per person, not including beverages, liquor & dessert. Two of us had the nerve to order dessert. How anyone can have room for dessert after a meal at this restaurant befuddles me but our friends managed to absorb the large servings of caramel cheesecake and key lime pie, which leads me to our mistake #1 of the night – going to the salad bar.

This is NOT the salad bar at Applebee’s! This is an unbelievable spread of food selections that would serve as a full meal if you only sampled 1/3 of them. It begins with the thinly sliced prosciutto ham and salami; followed with an assortment of cheeses, followed by…well here’s just a few of the things I sampled: thick slices of local tomato with fresh buffalo mozzarella balls, several kinds of sweet, hot and grilled peppers, hearts of palm, incredible chicken salad, olives, smoked salmon, sundried tomato wedges, several types of lettuce and green leafy things, tender asparagus spears… none is mediocre; all is spectacular and plentiful. Stay away from the salad bar! You can’t do the salad bar justice and the meat entrees too. There is just too much of both for people to eat unless you are one of those professional brunch diners who will make it a three hour dining experience and slowly eat and digest, eat and digest and so on.

You could go to Fogo de Chow just for the salad bar but then you’d miss out on the array of grilled meats their reputation is founded on. This restaurant is very big and very noisy but you will not be abandoned by any of the gaucho servers as soon as you flip your chit to its green side. I know that I sampled only ½ of the meats offered but have no regrets other than I wished I had room to try them all. Before I begin to list the array of meats that are sliced and served tableside, let me say that everyone at our table thought each serving to be extraordinary, done to our preference, moist and quite flavorful.

Throughout our meal servers brought side dishes of mashed potatoes, caramelized plantains and miniature cheesy popovers. They just keep coming as you sample your way through meat selections that include tender pork parmesan, sliced top or bottom sirloin, chicken breast wedges wrapped in bacon, small filet mignon pieces wrapped in bacon, pork spare ribs, prime rib of beef, leg of lamb, fat chicken legs, pork sausages. If you like your beef rare, the server slices off from the rare portion of the beef on his skewer. If you are the kind who likes the crunchy, well done end piece of the prime rib or sirloin, you get that and as much or as little as you’d like of it. You have some of the selection placed on you plate, flip the chit to the red side and the servers bypass you. Want more, flip to the green side and the parade of meat begins again. It’s all a tad sinful but enormously popular gluttony. By the way, the sinners are almost all dressed quite casually; a bit ridiculously so if you ask me but this is the acceptable trend in some restaurants these days. There is no accounting for taste and style in attire anymore.

I certainly recommend Fogo de Chow. The restaurant didn’t miss a beat in service or food preparation. It may not make it onto my list of regular diners and dives but it adds a delicious new dimension to the dining experience. Be sure to have a reservation and know that the salad bar is available on its own regularly for $24.95. The chicken salad alone is worth it.