Having been travelling for the last three weeks in East Africa and Kosovo, I was looking forward to a date night with the Wife. Our date nights usually mean a great night out at one of our favorite restaurants.
I was pretty exhausted after a week of meetings, so I let the Wife decide where we would go for our special night out. She has been to the Helmand before with other friends, so she recommended that we head there.
Most of the food I was eating while travelling was grilled Chicken and Chips, Beef Kebabs and Chips, and grilled Fish with Rice. So, I was looking forward to some sophisticated food.
Now, to be honest I was a little disappointed with the food at the Helmand. To start we shared the Kaddo Borawni, a pan fried and baked baby pumpkin seasoned with sugar and served on yogurt garlic sauce. For entrées, I had the Dwopiaza, which is a seasoned tenderloin of lamb cooked with onions, sautéed with yellow split-peas and tossed with onions lightly marinated in vinegar. This is served with pallow rice. The wife had the Chopendez from the daily special. This is a tenderloin of beef, marinated in fresh garlic, Afghan seasonings and onions char-grilled and served with vegetables and pallow rice.
The starter was excellent, it has been a long time since I had something as tasty as that. My appetite was piqued and I was looking forward to the entrées. My lamb came out in a watery yellow gravy. The meat was tender but had very little flavor. I don’t think they seasoned it at all. The rice was well cooked though. Lamb is my favorite meat as it has such a great flavor, but I wont be ordering it at the Helmand again.
I sampled the wife's beef, which was very tasty but the meat was stringy and tough. The beef was full of flavor, it tasted char-grilled, and it was cooked excellently to medium-well. Again, her rice was excellent.
We both had a glass of malbec. The wine was quite nice until we got to the bottom, which was when we realized we were served the dregs of the bottle. I swallowed a load of grit. It was pretty nasty. When we told the waiter, he hardly acknowledged it.
Overall, this was a disappointed experience from what is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Baltimore.
Our Rating:
*** Disappointing
3 comments:
bummer..thanks for the heads up! I've lived in B'More a long time and never made it to the Helmand, may move it down the list...usually a good Malbec can be redeeming. sorry.
That's sad. I've always had a much better experience at the Helmand than that, but I guess every restaurant has its bad days.
Your experience sounds like every experience I've ever had at Akbar across the street. It consistently gets raves as the best Indian in Baltimore, but I have yet to have a very good meal there. But hey, if everyone else likes it, good for them. I probably won't be going back.
the Chilean Sea Bass is amazing!!!! Though I no longer live in Baltimore, we visit yearly for the holidays and The Helmand is a must...I dream of their Chilean Sea Bass dish!
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