Great News From the Liquor Board for North Baltimore

Posted on by

If you’re not on Twitter, you probably should be. It’s as fun as Facebook is tedious and in terms of functionality it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to the Web since email. Twitter is a great tool for making friends, reaching out to people who might otherwise be out of reach, and especially for knowing about things well before the non-tweeting public knows about them. Anything that’s worth repeating hits Twitter before it hits the news, which is part of the reason that most in the media are so obsessed with it. Everything from major world news events to baseball scores is reported on Twitter first.

If you are on Twitter you should click one of those little follow buttons below to follow @BaltoBeerBaron. From his seat as the chairman of the Baltimore City liquor board, Steve Fogelman has long been in the habit of tweeting both liquor board dockets as well as the results of hearings in real time. Many of these hearings tend toward the ordinary: an extension request here, a request for outdoor seating there. But on Thursday last week The Beer Baron announced two pieces of very good news for North Baltimore.

By way of background: Meet 27 was formerly the 1.7th Generation karaoke bar. In 2010 Richard D’Souza reinvented the space as a restaurant (and an excellent one at that, if we may say so) but was forced to manage the dining room as a BYOB operation while undergoing a three year legal battle with the Remington Neighborhood Alliance who protested Meet 27’s liquor license transfer on some very dubious grounds. More information in this post from 2012 on North Baltimore Patch.

The RNA, and its vice president Joan Floyd should probably just move out of Remington. They don’t seem to like it there very much and are little more than a small cadre of paranoid NIMBY’s with outsized influence and a history of baseless opposition to positive neighborhood development. This blog has nothing but contempt for Floyd and her ilk, and short of moving out of Remington they should all just drop dead.

It’s a small miracle that Richard D’Souza was able to stay in business for three years not only without a liquor license, but with the added strain of fighting busybodies in the special appeals court. It’s a testament to the quality of Meet 27’s food, service and ambiance that they were able to stay afloat while fighting for the license that is rightfully theirs. We have no doubt that what’s already a great restaurant will only improve going forward.

Meet 27 is great, but if we’re being honest we haven’t eaten there as often as we’d like. That’s going to change very soon.

While we like the idea of BYOB restaurants in theory, in practice we just don’t patronize them as often as places with a full bar. While it’s easy and fine to bring along a bottle of wine or a six pack on a dinner date, BYOB places are less than ideal for meeting friends or for popping into the bar for a quick bite. Given the choice between Meet 27 and nearby spots like One World Cafe, the Dizz or Rocket to Venus, we haven’t been choosing 27 because you can’t get a beer with dinner. Now that you can, it’s bound to become one of the best neighborhood bars in the city, in addition to being among the best restaurants.

If you’ve never been inside Meet 27, it’s mostly unchanged architecturally from 1.7th Generation, which was more bar than restaurant. So they have a very nice, big physical bar in a distinct space from the dining room, a picture of which can be seen in the Patch article. Finally stocking that bar with bottles is truly cause for celebration.

* * *

In other news, our own neighborhood of Waverly is about to receive a major improvement. The Peabody Heights brewery which is home to craft beers such as the Raven and Full Tilt has been operating very quietly since it set up shop at 30th and Barclay. Unlike Woodberry’s Union Brewing, which regularly opens its doors for tours, growler fills and events ranging from parties to movie nights complete with music and food trucks, the brewery at Peabody rarely hosts any sort of visitors at all.

It’s been somewhat frustrating to walk by so often and see an entrance marked ‘Tasting Room’ and know that it’s not open to the public.

Except now, presumably, it will be. The grant of a brewery license allows for a bar on the site, meaning Peabody Heights can finally take its rightful place among other great Waverly weekend attractions like the farmers’ market, Pete’s Grille and Normal’s Books and Records. We’re looking forward to it.

Stemless Wine Glasses: Perfect for Cold Weather Drinking

Posted on by

It’s cold here in Baltimore. Cold as hell. There’s snow on the ground. It’s the holiday season, that time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s when everyone’s idea of hot Friday night plans involves sitting home, eating carbs, and saying ‘poor bastard’ any time someone walks by the window.

It’s about this time of year that the Chop and many other drinkers like to take a little break from Bourbon and Scotch and reach for a bottle of Cognac or Port wine instead. When the mercury drops and the radiators are fired up, a bit of rancio is the only thing that can really warm a body down to the core.

But there’s only one minor problem. Despite owning 6 different sets of glassware we still haven’t got the perfect vessel for drinking Cognac Or Chartreuse or neat single malts for that matter. Traditionally these are served in snifters. But fuck snifters. We’ve never really liked drinking from them, and they continue to suggest to the Chop’s mind some kind of Gilded Age plutocrat drinking sherry at the Waldorf Astoria in tux and tails.

We much prefer a more recent evolution in glassware, the stemless wine glass. It’s always felt a bit extravagant to consider purchasing a set for the Chophouse, since we own so many glasses already, but after finding out that Crate and Barrel has them for $2.36 each with free shipping. We just oredered half a dozen of them, and the total with tax was $15. (Thanks O’Malley! Thanks Obama!)

If you’re looking for the perfect glass for neat liquor or fortified wines, you’d be wise to do the same. If it’s an elegant Christmas gift at a very low price you’re seeking, grab 4-6 of these for your Christmas party host and let them ladle out the eggnog in style.

(Image credit: Crate and Barrel)

Should You Be Watching the Esquire Network?

Posted on by

Short answer: Maybe.

We didn’t even realize there was an Esquire Network until our remote landed on it by accident recently. But there is, and for those who are similarly surprised, it’s Comcast channel 48 in Baltimore City. A quick Internet search reveals that it’s owned by NBC/Universal which used it to replace the Style Network back in September. Since we never watched Style at all and couldn’t name a single show on it, we’re not exactly missing it. To the Chop the switch feels less like a channel swap and more like cable has dropped an early Christmas present right in our lap.

And it would be rude not to take that present out of the box and play with it a little, right? So we’ve been watching a lot of Esquire lately, trying to decide how we feel about it, exactly. On one hand, it’s tough to launch a new TV network. Even Oprah is barely scraping by at it. On the other hand, we do believe Esquire is the best bang for the buck on the ‘Men’s Interest’ shelf at the newsstand, and we’re pretty much the poster boy for the exact specific demographic they’re chasing (but perhaps a little more working class and a little less aspirational than their idea of an Esquire Man). So we’ve got a little more patience for it than we might otherwise. It’s basic cable, and basic cable is mostly crap, but this is crap that’s been intentionally tailored to our interests. As Nick Sullivan himself would admit, a cheap suit that’s tailored will always look better than an expensive one that’s not.

The Network’s original programming is off to a promising start. Shows like How I Rock It, Alternate Route, and Best Bars in America are the best they’ve got to offer and are pretty much what you’d expect: guys traveling around shopping for clothes, drinking at bars and checking out local culture around the country. It’s basically the magazine contents come to life. Also a plus are the culinary offerings. Shows like Avec Eric and Knife Fight are engaging enough in an already overcrowded cooking show genre.

Brew Dogs is a fairly interesting show about craft beer but there’s no getting around the fact that the hosts are kind of douchey and overly reliant on stunts and gimmicks like brewing beers at the bottom of the sea or on a Fourth of July parade float. Come onnnnn. Drinking craft beer is great. Worshiping it as an idol is an embarrassing waste of everyone’s time.

They’ve also produced some interesting magazine-related specials like Esquire’s 80th [anniversary] and Women We Love. We’ve missed them all so far but they’re sure to be re-run soon and probably often.

Esquire does make a few early wrong turns though. White Collar Brawlers takes two office drones who may or may not have a personal beef and follows them as they train in a boxing gym and prepare to fight each other. We could give a shit about anyone’s petty quibbles with their dumb cube-mate, and the show is packed full of melodrama and bathos.

Similarly Risky Listing is nothing more than a commercial real estate version of HGTV’s Million Dollar Listing: New York and follows a bunch of snotty, bratty, impossibly privileged and ridiculously overpaid commercial real estate agents in NYC as they do things like throw temper tantrums about attending meetings and quibble about closing dates and commissions. It’s easy to hate these people and their whole shitty Tom Wolfe-esque world immediately, but basic cable has been so overrun with bizarre characters behaving awfully that America (or at least the Chop) is sick to death of hate-watching things. Watching Risky Listing is the TV equivalent of hate-clicking all the garbage on the Daily Caller.

* * *

All basic cable channels have loads of empty time slots to fill with unoriginal content, and this may just be Esquire’s secret weapon. We recently discovered Party Down, which we’d never heard of before but is a pretty solid sitcom offering from Fred Savage, who had a hand in the early Always Sunny seasons. Esquire also fills some space with movie offerings, and whoever they’ve got selecting them is doing a pretty good job of it. Rather than just purchase the rights to every Van Wilder movie and run them all weekend every weekend a la Comedy Central, they’re showing movies people actually want to watch like Groundhog Day. Other rerun content is pretty thin at the moment, but at least Esquire is limiting infomercials to the extreme late night hours.

Overall, Esquire isn’t great but has a ton of potential. At worst it’ll continue to be what it is. At best it will be a basic-tier version of IFC and will keep the likes of FX, E, and Spike on their toes. It may even end up as a second-chance platform for some of the better ideas that Comedy Central develops and gives up on immediately. That would certainly keep uus watching.

Cass McCombs, Arbouretum @ Ottobar Saturday

Posted on by

Cass McCombs is dad-rock.

We mean that in the best possible way. We hesitate to describe anything we like as dad-rock, but when your latest record is interspersed with a four year old playing a left-wing version of ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things’ you’ve crossed at least a little into dad-rock territory.

But perhaps dad-rock means something different to the Chop than it does to you? Cass’ latest, Big Wheel and Others is not a Hootie and the Blowfish album. Our own dad’s tastes run more toward Eric Clapton, Alison Krauss, Levon Helm and stuff like that. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just not our thing.

Except that now it is. We explained here a few weeks ago how we hate bands. Recently we’ve been staying away from shows more and paying less attention to most of the same old records we’ve known and loved. Lately what’s been getting a lot more airplay around the Chophouse is the stuff we’ve always respected but never really embraced: Honky Tonk, Blues, and especially roots rock like Ryan Adams, Wilco and Uncle Tupelo. So it happened that Cass McCombs latest record, released in October, arrived right on time for us.

Of course, Cass’ music is no recent discovery. We can remember well when he qualified as local music in this city and we saw a number of his early performances on Davis St. For a bit of background, check out this City Paper article from back in the day. When you’re 23 and going to shows five nights a week, singer-songwriters and the idea of ‘folk’ provide a nice break in the constant parade of tattooed screamers and distortion pedals. Eventually though Cass left town and we all but lost track of him, turning instead to acts like Pedro the Lion and Kind of Like Spitting for our slow music fix.

With Big Wheel and Others it’s almost as if we’re hearing Cass McCombs for the first time all over again. He’s developed as a songwriter just as we’ve developed as a fan. Being over 30 has its advantages for both the album’s players and its listeners, like having the patience to deal with 19 songs and enjoying the sound of pedal steel.

A double LP might seem like a lot to get through in the age of digital music and short attention spans, but Cass makes it work here. Being the kind of artist who doesn’t write records but instead just writes McCombs has never been guilty of putting out albums where each track sounds like a different version of the previous track. One of Big Wheel’s strengths is that each song is distinct from every other song, even to the point that the track Brighter! which appears in two different versions on the record manages not to sound repetitive. With one version sung by Cass and the other by Karen Black, it’s the opposite of repetitive and is in fact a standout track that makes the listener want to hear each version back-to-back.

* * *

One of the lines in the City Paper article linked to above credits Arbouretum’s Dave Heumann with introducing Cass McCombs to Monitor Records ten years ago. While McCombs did ultimately go back out west just as the article said he would, no latter-day hippie gypsy vagabond troubadour can pull of that lifestyle without making and keeping a lot of friends all over the map. Heumann’s been a fixture in the Baltimore music scene since that piece was written, and Arbouretum has made a place for themselves such that they’ve got a big enough and unique sound that could headline a stage anywhere any night of the week.

The two musicians have remained friends, and have been touring together in support of respective 2013 releases. When they take the stage together at the Ottobar on Saturday it could be some kind of mystical coming full circle of the muse and the rich tapestry of human patterns and all that, or it could just be an excellent show that you’d be sorry to miss out on.

(Image Credit: Pony Cassels)

Power Up Remington Benefit Show @ Liam Flynn’s Saturday

Posted on by

What is it? It’s a punk rock show. It’s our favorite kind of punk rock show, actually- the kind that takes place in a venue which doesn’t usually hold punk rock shows. In fact, the closest thing we can recall happening at Liam’s has been Punk Rock Karaoke. So it’s a good chance to go in there and not be at risk of hearing bagpipes and fifes or whatever.

Who is it? It’s the Assless Chaps. Baltimore’s very own chaps who lack asses. They’re the kind of band who makes $5 hats to put on their merch table. You know who needs five dollar hats? People who work for a living and want to keep the sun off their heads. Maybe we’ll get an Assless Chaps $5 hat and sail around the world with it, come back with it sun bleached and covered in paint and grease. They’re playing a holiday themed set, and you can be sure it’ll be more like old Fear than new Bad Religion.

Also thrash band Queen Wolf, whale watchers Ahab’s Revenge and pop-punkers Canker Blossom.

Where and when is it? Liam Flynn’s Saturday at 8. Can’t you read fer Chrissakes?

Why is it? It’s a $5 at the door fundraiser for Power Up Remington. Here’s some copy somebody wrote about it:

“The Remington Empowerment Center is a transparent community space located at the corner of Huntingdon Avenue and Lorraine Avenue. The REC creates a venue that can be shared by many neighborhood organizations who lack a brick-and-mortar space. Our dream is to host meetings, workshops, art shows and small music events, as well as movie nights and game nights to bring the community together. We want to hear everyone’s voice on local culture, social justice, solving issues of access to food and affordable housing, and how we can ultimately make Remington’s voice heard in local politics. REC gives away free produce on Fridays starting at noon. We’ve given away over 1,000 pounds of donated food in three weeks.”

We’re not sure what that even means. It’s hard to tell from that if they’ve even got a building or are just in a lot or maybe somebody’s house. It’s hard to tell if it even existed before three weeks ago. Googling turns up nothing. ‘Workshops’ on ‘local culture and social justice’ can mean just about anything. But whatever. Anybody who’s doing any organizing in Remington who’s not Joan Floyd is A-OK with the Chop. So go to the show and give some money at the door.