photo by JTyler Fitzpatrick
Feast @ 4 East
In season: Feast @4 East serves locally sourced cuisine in a peaceful garden setting.
Feast @ 4 East is a secret garden of sorts, tucked away in an unobtrusive Mount Vernon townhouse-turned-bed and breakfast. Diners can eat in a real garden toward the back, replete with fountain, lush greenery, and a high wall to keep out the rest of the world. The food served at Feast, however, deserves to be shared. Chef Sandy Lawler dishes out well-seasoned and cooked fare with French, Mediterranean, and vegan influences. She plans the menu around what’s in season (or at least what’s growing in the Eastern Shore greenhouses) from local, organic vendors; the names of the suppliers are printed along the bottom of the menu. The self-taught cook chalks this ideal up to childhood shopping trips with her mother to produce shops in Bronxville, New York. During a late spring meal, the starters were simple and balanced. An onion tart appetizer featured caramelized onions held together in a thyme and white pepper custard, cradled in thin layers of melt-in-your-mouth crust. Asparagus soup—available in vegan and non-vegan (with cream) versions—was a bright green puree topped with four thin spears of the spring vegetable. And each component of a small salad—artisanal blue cheese, roasted nuts, fruit, and fresh, local
greens—held its own, enhanced by just a drizzle of vinaigrette. Entrees maintained the momentum. A hearty concoction of Creole shrimp (and not the “jumbo,” flavorless variety that bargain hunters like), tomatoes, and the holy trinity of peppers, onions, and celery was served with rice and a hefty side of lightly salted chopped spinach. A manageable-sized piece of Chesapeake rockfish came drizzled with mustard, tarragon, and chive. Porcini mushroom risotto provided a strong base for pearly white scallops with sautéed mushrooms. The only letdown of the evening was the slow-cooked pork, which was a series of small slices of overly fatty meat. But that was more than made up for by the dessert offerings, which included chocolate pot de crème and a small walnut cake infused with orange honey syrup and dusted with powdered sugar. Feast doesn’t have a liquor license (it’s BYOW), but it wisely has worked out an agreement with the nearby Spirits of Mt. Vernon, which gives Feast diners 10 percent discounts. (Lunch Wed-Friday until October; Dinner Wed–Sat. 4 E. Madison St.; 410-6052020; www.4eastmadisoninn.com/feast.)
reviewed
eat / drink
—Robin T. Reid
Koco’s Pub Home cooking: Koco’s Pub in Hamilton is known for its crab cakes and and family-friendly atmosphere.
photo by JTyler Fitzpatrick
Before the Hamilton/Lauraville renaissance of the last few years, there was Koco’s Pub. For twenty-five years, the corner restaurant/bar has attracted both locals and tourists with its brightly painted exterior, homey vibe—and crab cakes. The business has been continuously owned and operated by the Kocovinos family: Joanna and John and their daughter Marcella Knight, who splits her time between serving as general manager and pitching in on waiting tables and tending bar. The cool, dark space feels comfortingly like a club basement, with the bar and a kids’ play area bookending the dining tables. The food—classic pub fare, including wings, burgers, and salads—was, until recently, served on paper plates with plastic cutlery, due to the tiny kitchen’s inability to accommodate a restaurant-sized dishwasher. (Koco’s has since switched to silverware and compostable carry-out containers, in order to be more eco-friendly.) But it’s the crab that draws the crowds: The menu offers a crab cake sandwich and platter, as well as Maryland-style crab soup and a warm crab dip with appealingly gooey cream cheese. Knight says the crab itself is imported, high-
quality swimming blue crab from Indonesia. A recent crab cake special featured a softball-sized cake with lots of lump and a healthy dose of binder, served with a stack of alternating slices of feta cheese and tomato, which tasted as if it had come straight from a backyard vegetable garden. (Koco’s usually sources produce regionally but will go as far as Florida for good tomatoes.)
The Koco’s crew is taking some time off this month to celebrate its anniversary, closing the bar August 14 through 23. If you can’t make it in before then, order some to go: The pub overnights its crab cakes to anywhere in the continental United States. (4301 Harford Rd.; 410-426-3519; www.kocospub.com.) —Marianne Amoss w w w. u r b a n i t e b a l t i m o re . c o m a u g u s t 1 0
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