Charm City Cakes

Chris and I watch The Food Network. We love Ace of Cakes with Duff Goldman, although our favorite is his associate Geoff Manthorn. Geoff is my favorite because his sense of humor, he is hysterical in that dry serious kind of way. If you haven’t seen the show, you should, but besides that it is about this bakery that makes crazy cakes. Since Ace of Cakes is filmed in Baltimore we decided to go find it! (I was secretly hoping Geoff would be outside)

We knew we wouldn’t be able to knock or wave or disturb the cake makers but we just wanted to see the place. We typed Charm City Cakes into the iphone and off we went. Only about 5 minutes from the city we ended up in a residential neighborhood, I was thinking the iphone had failed us when… There it was! Shiny and just like on the television. We were like kids, running over to the door to get a picture. All the windows were blacked in and of course there was a buzzer to get in, but we didn’t bother anyone.

As we were leaving we did see one of the girls from the show, but she is our least favorite. I was so excited that I am sharing my excitement with you.

The Blue Moon Café

    Fells Point is an area of Baltimore known for its bars. There are a lot of bars; some amazing bars. Anytime you have bars clustered together you’re bound to find the most amazing bar food, which usually includes wings, pizza, or burgers. The Blue Moon Café on the other hand serves breakfast.

    Chris and I sought of the café after they were featured on The Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It’s a small building right off of the main bar street. We sat at a cute little table in front of an old fireplace. The whole place is charming, like an old, warn in pair of jeans that you could probably update but love too much.

    We ordered the Captain Crunch French Toast and the Mexican Scramble. The Captain Crunch French Toast is their specialty. The cereal is crushed up and the toast is covered in it before it is cooked. It caramelizes and sweetens the outside while retaining the crunch, mmmm. It is served with fresh fruit. The Mexican scramble is eggs, chorizo, cheese, peppers, and spice served scrambled with hash 

browns and a biscuit.The biscuit came out before anything else. It was gigantic, that is a half of my biscuit in the picture. It’s served with butter and strawberry jam. It was flaky and delicious, bordering on better than mom’s homemade. Chris even liked it :)

    The food came out in a hurry, the whole place was working very quickly. It was amazing. Chris stopped talking completely to shovel French toast into his mouth before his stomach could tell him he was full. The home-made 

whipped cream serves as the syrup as it melted on the hot French toast. The Mexican

 Scramble was perfectly flavored. It was spicy and savory. The textures worked so well together, I even scrambled in some of my has

h browns for more of a crunch.We were so full we couldn’t finish our big servings but o

ur bill wasn’t inflated at all. We stumbled out into the street in a food coma, similar to a beer coma.

My Trip

I am from Maryland. Reisterstown, MD actually which is a tiny no nothing town North of Baltimore. Urban Dictionary goes into detail about the town. I don't agree with everything the dictionary says but most of it is pretty true. 

Chris and I are taking a trip to MD so he can see my home state just like I saw Gillette, WY in December. I'm excited about showing him my hometown. 

This is the cow. It used to be called Dairy Fresh but they put the cow out front and everyone just called it the cow, so they changed the name.  They sell soft serve ice cream and italian ice. Its better than Rita's or Jeremiah's. This is our first stop on our trip, right after I pick up Chris from the airport.

The Cow is right on main street in the heart of Reisterstown so it is a good first stop. Main street is one of those super cute old school streets, my pediatrician still practices in an old home right on the street and I think the whole town went to him when we were young. 

Then we have to go have a crab cake sandwich from G&M. mmmm, my mouth is watering in anticipation. Just look at how delicious it looks. Crab is a Maryland specialty and there a lot of ways to eat it. The most popular is steamed crabs with old bay but they are expensive and Chris thinks the hassle of picking the crab isn't worth the amount of meat, so already picked crab meat is going to be the method of choice for our trip. If you're going to eat a crab cake then make it a great one. G&M doesn't have the tourist feel of Philip's Seafood so the price isn't a jacked up. The main things to look for in a crab cake is good jumbo lump crab, little filler, and great seasoning, but not covered with cheese & other nonsense. 

The other food necessity is the Blue Moon Cafe in Fells Point, as seen in Diners Drive-ins and Dives. I've already been there once and it is sooo delicious. I had the Capt Crunch french toast the last time I was there. Chris and I watched the episode together and he was so jealous that I went without him. I owe it to him to go again, and I can't say I mind at all. :)

We're also going to visit one of my favorite museums that I've ever been too. It's called the American Visionary Art Museum. It features only untrained artists. People just living their lives in ordinary ways creating for the pleasure of being creative. One of the rooms

is filled with tiny dolly made from scraps of fabric. The woman was a semstress, I think, and she used the remains of fabric to make dolls for little sister. You can feel the love she put into each of those dolls when you walk into the room, it's amazing. 

There is a lot more I'd like to do in MD with Chris but we're only going to be in MD for two days before we head to Philadelphia and New York. I'll let you know how the trip goes.