As you may be aware of, last Friday marked the beginning of Baltimore’s Summer Restaurant Week, during which oodles of area restaurants strut their stuff by offering prix-fixe menus at $20.11 for a lunch, or $35.11 for (usually) a three-course dinner. A fine value to be sure, especially with options like a-favorite-of-mine Helmand (806 North Charles St., Mt. Vernon), or Ruth’s Chris Steak House (literally everywhere in the city) if you’re slumming it* are available and might normally be out of your price range.
But for me personally, hell, for $35.11 you can get some pretty fantastic deals around Baltimore without the need for any hi-highfalutin’ Restaurant Week, to be sure! Just the other day I started coming up with a list of such options, and I think you might agree when I say they blow any Restaurant Week offering out of the water and straight into the toilet. Observe:
ROUGHLY 140 CHICKEN McNUGGETS
This one was already mention on The Twitter the other day, but the fact remains that a 20 piece McNugget is currently available at your local McDonald’s for $4.99, which means you could theoretically cash in on 7 of them and have a giant McNugget party complete with all 47 (or however many it is now) dipping sauces that McDonald’s seems to be rebranding these days. Even better, get only 6 20 piece McNuggets for a grand total of 120 McNuggets and cash in on the additional savings with a 44 oz Sweet Tea and a few lottery scratch offs! You might even profit on the whole thing!
A WHOLE BUNCH OF SPICY POLISH
Polock Johnny’s has some absolutely incredible Polish Sausages, my favorite being the Spicy Polish with their “works” sauce, which is essentially a sweet ketchup-based relish I could easily eat a whole gallon of slathered onto the sausage. For $35.11 you can easily buy ten or so with a large soda, and still have enough money to purchase everything on their alternate menu, including some very handy napkins or hot water for your noodle soup. The bargains are endless!
THE CHAPS MEATGASM
Chaps Pit Beef, Baltimore best place to get a pit beef sandwich and a lap dance, is practically world famous at this point for piling high assloads of their delicious meat products onto buns and serving them to you at an affordably delicious price. Their most iconic sandwich, according to the Travel Channel, is The Raven – a 3-meat abomination piled to the ceiling with pit turkey, pit beef, and corned beef covered with onions and their patented tiger sauce (mayo, mostly). And since each The Raven is $7.55, you can buy four of them with a side of gravy fries and a drink for roughly $35. Seeing as how each The Raven contains about 76 pounds of meat, I’d say it’s something of a bargain.
EVERY SINGLE PANINI ON THE MENU AT TRINACRIA
Trinacria is easily, if not definitely, number one of the top three Italian deli/groceries in the entire city, with some of the cheapest and most delicious sandwiches you’ll find. Their panini menu has five to choose from, each ridiculously delicious – and guess what, at $6.99 a piece you can buy all of them for less than $35.11 with a few pennies left over (give them to a homeless person or something, it’s good karma). In fact, as I was browsing the menu online I realized I might actually consider buying all five of these paninis and just cuddling with them:
Roast Beef Panini (Roast Beef, Gorgonzola, Roasted Peppers, Olive Oil)
Rosemary Panini (Rosemary Ham, Fresh Mozzarella, Romano, Olive Oil)
Prosciutto Panini (Prosciutto, Fresh Mozzarella, Roasted Peppers, Olive Oil)
Smoked Turkey Panini (Smoked Turkey, Artichokes, Fresh Mozzarella, Roasted Peppers, Olive Oil)
Veggie Panini (Artichokes, Tapenade, Roasted Peppers, Fresh Mozzarella, Olive Oil)
Not convinced? Well you should be. Otherwise, enjoy your restaurant week suckers! I’m going hog wild with some dipping sauces!!!!
I’m sure there are lots of things in the downtown area you can get for $35.11 that will leave you satisfied afterwards.