My husband and I have had a great 'foodie' start to 2013, visiting numerous amazing restaurants. Surprisingly, our little town of Frederick is home to many excellent restaurants, including three 'Top Chef' restaurants. We are also close to DC and Baltimore!
Urban Dictionary defines a 'foodie' as: A person that spends a keen amount of attention and energy on knowing the ingredients of food, the proper preparation of food, and finds great enjoyment in top-notch ingredients and exemplary preparation. Although the second definition was less polite: a douche bag who likes food. There has been a 'foodie' explosion lately, due to the success of shows like Top Chef and new fad diets like Whole 30. So, we have recently jumped on the foodie bandwagon per se.....
Our foodie year started off on John's birthday outing, every year since I can remember we go down to DC and visit one of the FREE (my favorite word) Smithsonian Museums (this time, the American History Museum, my husband is a huge history nut). While we were down there I planned for us to go to Top Chef (Season 4) Spike Mendelsohn's Good Stuff Eatery (www.goodstuffeatery.com/). Now we set the bar pretty high for this restaurant, did it meet those expectations? Not really, however the burgers and fries were still pretty damn good! I had the Prez Obama Burger (Applewood Bacon, Onion Marmalade, Roquefort Cheese & Delicious Horseradish Mayo Sauce) and John had the Farmhouse Bacon Cheese (Applewood Bacon & American Cheese). I'd say they were a bit better then another local favorite, Five Guys, but comparable. The burgers were moist and well cooked, but nothing special.
For dinner, we had reservations at Family Meal (www.voltfamilymeal.com/), Top Chef (Season 6) Bryan Voltaggio's third restaurant in Frederick (there is also Volt and LunchBox). Again, the bar was set high, however this time it was amazing! For an appetizer, we had the Chicken Potpie Fritters, which I wish was a entree, because they were sooo yummy! Light on the batter and gooey in the middle! For entrees, I had the Fried Chicken, which was 1/2 a chicken! It was moist, lightly battered (again), not greasy and nicely cooked. John had the Pork Shoulder BBQ Sandwich, he said it was amazing, and he even ate it with the coleslaw on it! For sides, we had the Duck Fat Fries and the Mac and Cheese, both very yummy. Loved the sauces that came with the fries, reminded me of the Indian sauces that come with Poppadoms. And we both had a few drinks and the whole meal cost about the same as a visit for the 2 of us to Longhorn Steakhouse, and the food was much better! The atmosphere is different than most restaurants, it's in a converted car dealership, it has a very open quality and is reminiscent of 1960s diners. Needless to say, I would definitely come here again (and we did several weeks later with John's family).
We've also been to Isabella's Taverna, a tapas restaurant (www.isabellas-tavern.com/), and Sumittra, a Thai restaurant (www.sumittra.com/), both of which are in Frederick, have excellent food and we've been to multiple times.
Next up, a girlie brunch with friends from high school at Founding Farmers in Montgomery County (www.wearefoundingfarmers.com/).