Thursday, December 11, 2014

Liv2Eat

On Sunday evening I met one of my bridesmaids, Lee, and her good friend Rebecca for dinner at a Federal Hill restaurant called Liv2Eat, rated by City Paper in their Best of Baltimore Edition as Best New Restaurant for 2013. 

The place is pretty small but if you go on a Sunday evening there was plenty of seating. The decor is really cool with lots of wood panels and there were fresh flowers with votives on the tables. Liv2Eat has a really small menu displayed on a one-sided piece of paper. It's all you need though.


I tried their Winter Wine Spritzer, a spiced red wine with a foam cap, served warm with a straw. I loved this. It was simple, cozy, and exactly what you would want to drink on a cold winter's night. 


After looking over the appetizers I was intrigued by the Risotto Fritters, served with chive creme fraiche and parmigiano reggiano. These were crunchy on the outside, melty and savory on the inside, and the creme fraiche gave them a little tang that was perfect. Lee had these too and they didn't last long. Rebecca tried their Pork Belly, new to the menu and a welcome addition. If you've never had pork belly get your hands on some ASAP. It's a huge slab of bacon and it's awesome. 



Liv2Eat is pretty well known for their crabcakes so of course I wanted to try one. In fact, all three of us did for our entree. The crabcake is served with a potato puree, dijon creme fraiche, and pickled cabbage. This may go up there with one of the best ones I've ever had. The cake was mostly chunks of jumbo lump crabmeat without an excess of filler. I loved the uniqueness of the dish with the potato puree and pickled cabbage. Usually crabcakes are served with french fries but I liked the potato puree even better! Pickled cabbage with crabmeat is a great contrast. It gave the dish almost an Asian twist but still felt true to a Maryland crabcake. This dish was definitely the highlight! 


We skipped dessert at the restaurant but traveled over to Fells Point to Pitango, a gelato spot that uses largely organic ingredients. I tried the Milk and Honey and Almond. The flavors have a sort of raw quality to them but are still sweet and were really good. Definitely worth a stop if you enjoy gelato. 


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