My Mediterranean food excursion

Thanks to Baltimore's rich immigrant heritage, I was able to experience Italian and Greek food without my passport.

My first stop was Trinacria, a small Italian market in west Baltimore. The store is in the Lexington Market district on a forgotten blog. So forgotten that I missed the store because all of the other buildings are abandoned, good thing my friend saw it. After settling in awkwardly place parking on a right turn lane that was totally legal, we entered a piece of Italy. The Trinancria market is over 100 years old and has the off the boat feel. When we opened the door, we were greeted by the smell of fresh herbs and baked goods. I don't think that is a accurate description of the smells. The smells were amazing. After browsing the market for a few minutes I bought some Biscotti, a black bottom cupcake, breaded eggplant for my moussaka, a loaf of fresh garlic bread that is still bringing the smell of fresh garlic and herbs to the cabinet a day later, and some Trofi Liguri' imported from Italy. All of it came to about $12. Not bad. I wish the market was bigger though.

Next, we headed to little Italy for some pasta. I wanted pasta, he wanted harbor but I got my way-sort of. After riding for ten minutes of Eastern Avenue, we found Greektown and settled on some Greek. At the recommendation of some locals(?) we settled on a spot called Samos. Upon entering we were told to seat ourselves. I didn't think much of it but we waited ten minutes before anyone acknowledged we existed and that was only after I began talking about how we weren't seated when others were. After my complaining, things sped up a bit and we finally got menus and a cold waitress. I don't think she introduced herself at all; scratch that, I know she didn't. We ordered appetitizers, or mezedes, because they're cheaper and I'm trying to eat more while eating less. I ordered the shrimp halloumi, which was seasoned grilled shrimp, warm pita bread, rice, and fried Halloumi cheese. It was amazing, although I didn't really touch the rice. My friend had Shrimp pie, which was philo crust with feta and shrimp. That was great also. The food was amazing but I don't think I'll go back because of the service. Only one person greeted us and we felt unwelcomed. I enjoyed the food but I couldn't wait to get out of there.

Tonight I'm making a variation of shrimp pie:

I have left over shrimp and egg roll wrappers, so I'm combining them with herbs and feta cheese to make my own version of shrimp pie.