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When I was little, Saturdays were spent going to the Millcreek Mall and having lunch at the Tic Toc Room in Kaufmann's Department Store, with my mom and grandma. A shabby tea room to most, but to a 5 year old, it was the Plaza. If you would have asked 5 year old me where I would run away to, I would have said the Tic Toc Room. If you asked 28 year old me, I would say Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore, MD.

This restaurant fills my needs on every sensory level. An old foundry, the owners, Amy Gjerde and Nelson Carey, have done a stunning job renovating this space. The design is beautiful, earthy, recycled industrial, and has so many layers, that you are constantly discovering little bits and pieces. Old jiggers, copper mugs, handsome brick walls with floating recycled-wood shelves, huge old gears.

Woodberry Kitchen in one word: LOCAL. They embrace every aspect of local sourcing. Meat, veg, fruit, wine. I find their approach about sourcing locally very genuine. It's not a tag line added to the menu or saccharin that's artificially sweetening their spiel. Frankly, it's refreshing to not have it jammed down my throat at every turn.

I wish we had eaten with a table full of people so we could have ordered one of everything on the menu and the special board.

The first course on the menu is identified as "Snacks," which are meant to be eaten while you look over your menu. I can never stay in the lines, so of course I had to start ordering off Snacks, Salads and Cold Plates, and the Soups and Warm Plates.

Kitchen pickles and olives

Bread basket and pickled deliciousness

Snap peas & summer squash, almond, romano, lemon, and GKF greens

This was the best salad I've ever eaten. The freshest veg, lightly dressed, marcona almonds. My new go-to salad.

Pork buns on soft pretzels, sweet onion relish

Fried miscellany – hot and perfect

Meet the greatest flatbread I've ever eaten : Pulled pork, apricots and ricotta. 

Tilghman Island crab cake, french fries, zucchini salad, smoked onion tartar – the meatiest crab cake I've ever tasted.

Now to dessert, my forte. I respect a good effort. What is common for me, is not common for others, so I am always looking for the unusual.

Cybee honey cake, wood oven-roasted apricots, whipped goat's cheese, candied pecans – Rocked my world! Gooey, sweet dense cake. Tangy goat cheese. Smoky, tart apricots. Crunchy pecans. Perfect and original.

Cookie plate: chocolate chip cookie, brownie, strawberry bon bon, peanut butter cookie, jelly candy, chocolate-peanut bark, blueberry muffin…I wasn't overly impressed. Everything on the cookie plate was acceptable, but they weren't anything I couldn't get at a bakery. The only cookie plate item that was over-the-top good, was the peanut butter cookie with a caramel filled chocolate on top.

If you'd like to write me after I run away, I can be reached at:

Woodberry Kitchen

2010 Clipper Park Road #126

Baltimore, MD 21211

(410)464-8000

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