The evening after our meal at Charleston, we attended “First Friday” over in Leonardtown. It was a happening place despite February weather. North End Gallery was pretty packed as were most of the normal haunts on the circuit. We met some friends, “did” the Gallery, Quality Street, and eventually decided to get a bite and a drink at Front Porch. Upon arriving there, we found it was packed with a long wait for most everything. So belly overcoming patience we set out, knowing Café Des Artiste would be slammed, and went across the street to El Cerro Grande. A small wait was promised, and almost realized, with maybe 20 minutes of heel cooling. Soon after being seated the requisite bowl of chips was delivered along with a couple of bowls of the salsa and that strange white stuff I never have figured out why or what. I suppose I’m just lacking some cultural nugget of knowledge. Drinks orders were taken, a Pacifico, and a Tecate, and MFO went with the flow and got a margarita. This place like others was pretty jammed, but after a second basket of chips, we got food ordered. Not much sense going over the dishes, a fajita for two, an enchilada mole (to split), and a dish of queso fundido. Standard stuff, pretty much what you always expect, although the rice wasn’t blown out which seems to be fairly common. The queso turned out to be an unsightly amalgam of white stuff and ground meat. Didn’t look much like some web images I found. However, service remained friendly. If you want what Americans view as Mexican food, it’s probably as good as any around here. I still kinda like the old Nook and Monk’s space..
The next night we joined up with a DC friend for a return visit to Jerry’s Place in Prince Frederick. Like us, he had heard people rave about the place and wanted to try it for himself even though my first visit was somewhat underwhelming. A call for reservations confirmed (get it…) that there were none and queuing up was the only method of entry. Remembering that our other time there had tables filled by 5:30, so we reluctantly said we’d meet at six (barely, just barely, inside a civilized dining time). We got there maybe five after six, to see once again a jammed parking lot (the tire store was just closing) but we did shoehorn the flutter mobile into a slot. As we neared the door, we observed that the enclosed area at the entrance was jammed, including our friend who had gotten there about a quarter to the hour, and we were about 25 minutes into “about a half hour”. The next 25 minutes passed fairly rapidly as we got to know the others awaiting service. We even found somebody who knew an acquaintance from my old work. A nice feature was that Jerry appeared occasionally with fish bites, or crab balls where were passed as we passed the time. After nearly an hour following initial contact, we were seated at a table. Service was friendly, it seemed like everybody knew everybody including most of the waitstaff, and I can see why people enjoy that. More fish bites were brought to the table, I think by Jerry. Despite the full room, service was pretty attentive, partially due to the number of feets on the floor I think. The table selected a crab cake sandwich, a crab cake platter, and I chose one from the verbal “fish of the day” list, the rockfish, broiled please. Despite being “out of season” both MFO and my friend enjoyed their cakes. Sides were also good, our friend especially enjoying the stewed tomatoes, which I thought a bit sweet for my taste. My rockfish was served as two pieces of (not quite browned) fish each of which would easily fit in the palm of your hand, on one of those white oval porcelain patters. That’s it. White fish, white platter, nothing else. It was tasty enough, but not very well presented I thought. I believe it was 22 bucks, which is a little steep. Meanwhile the show went on, with Jerry strolling the room, asking about this and that, in a voice obviously meant to be heard by more than the table he was addressing. I finally figured out what bothered me about the place besides the slightly inflated prices is the concept of the owner “holding court”, performing for the customers. There is no doubt that I am in the minority there, otherwise the place wouldn’t require waiting for an hour to get in. If you like that atmosphere, that’s fine. I don’t need a floor show.
The surprise:
During the 15 (wowee!) years the feeder has been in residence in Southern Maryland with some four residences, and several trips to St. Louis, the wine cellar has been under stress of travel, temperature, and probably mishandling. And I freely admit that I suffer from the “it’s just not the right time for that special wine, maybe next time” syndrome. The result of which is that there are a few (well, maybe more) wines that are still resting in their bottles that nominally are “over the hill”. Given that I am in pretty much the same state, and at the urging of a friend I have begun to make it the "right time" and see what’s up. So on a pretty afternoon earlier this week we extracted the cork on this bottle:
And in case you can’t quite see the vintage:
Where were you when this was bottled? I’m sure a few readers were just that proverbial “twinkle”. The cork was extracted with the aid of an “Ah So” and was in surprisingly good shape. We decanted the wine, and at the first pour it wine exhibited a healthy brick red hue, exactly what you might expect in a wine of that age, and it was perfectly clear with no hint of residue. We both said “wow”. Finally the moment of truth, the glass lifted and “wow”!, the unmistakable Bordeaux nose.. A taste confirmed that although it wasn’t in its youth, it wasn’t in the coffin either. Amazing. Now I’m looking forward to further investigate the geriatric part of the wine cellar..
Noted with hope:
As hoped, the menu at the Front Porch is being changed, to include a strip steak and dishes such as a parmesan-cheese encrusted salmon served over wilted spinach with roasted red pepper sauce. Ah, that’s better. and maybe more of a reason to
DFD
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