Woodberry Kitchen

Our friends came into town from NY a few weeks ago for the Marine Corps Marathon. Since we were picking them up at BWI, we decided to head into Baltimore for dinner, since we rarely ever venture out there. I picked Woodberry Kitchen (http://www.woodberrykitchen.com/), which is located in the Druid Hill area. The atmosphere was great. The two-level restaurant is housed in an old foundry space. The second level is open and overlooks the first, so the ceilings are high. The ambience are warm and woody in a hip way with a wall of windows and walls of brick accented by stacked logs and wine bottles. It reminded me of a toasty restaurant at a luxury ski resort. The menu, which has a wine bar aura, centers around organic and local meat and produce and is extensive. We had decided what we wanted only to later discover that we had overlooked an entire menu of specials. The menu is fun with a selection of appetizers and snacks, for as cheap as $1 (popcorn). There's just something special about being able to get anything at a restaurant that is not McDonald's for $1. We finally settled on the pear flatbread, which featured pears, of course, and blue cheese. While highly recommended, it was a bit oily and soggy for my liking and the pears seemed to be drowned out by the other flavors. The bread itself, however, was excellent. I ordered the hanger steak, which tasted like it had been infused with cinnamon or other fall spices. It was delicious and cooked exactly to my liking. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the chicken, which was highly recommended by the server. It came to the table undercooked, and when I say undercooked, I don't mean slightly pink. It was raw -- translucent raw. The the server was apologetic and offered to bring out a soup while the dish was re-cooked, but our friend who ordered it was full from the appetizer and his yummy side of cheesey crusty spaghetti squash, so decided to pass. Disappointingly, the server had to be asked to remove the chicken from the check. We splurged and ordered coffee and a slice of the pumpkin roll cake. It was like a pumpkin jelly roll cake filled with cream. Very tasty. The coffee, relatively decent, was the French press variety. It was presented in a unique way. The presses came to the table with a miniature hourglass to tell us when to push the press. I'd go back if I lived closer, but wasn't that blown away that I would make a special trip out there to go again.