newyorkette

(Note the sausage detail on the ceiling.)

Baltimore has lots of faces—the astonishingly good (and also astonishingly free) Walters Art Museum, the plasticky and scrubbed if benignly pleasant waterfront, some new little fusion restaurants that could, the grim dead-end commerce echoed in The Wire, all those others I haven’t seen—and, of course, plenty of history. My aunt Bridget grew up there, and on a trip into the city she introduced Carolita and me to a few places she’d seen change a lot over the years. The old department stores, abandoned (white flight, I gather), their gorgeous edifices looking lonely on the nearly empty street. Drusilla’s Books, an antiquarian bookstore almost too perfect to be real, which everyone who cares about such things should keep in business by frequenting its website. The strip-joint and porn-shop block called The Block, which used to feature some famous burlesque dancers, said Bridget, and which now has a phalanx of cop cars poised to bear down if anything especially untoward should go down. It all seemed tame and low-rent rather than Sin City, like a quickie trip back to a few storefronts of the old 42nd St., but I did keep my eye on the basically genial-seeming sleazemongers as we strolled with my beloved girl cousin Jane at my side.

One of the other historic sites we stopped by was the Lexington Market. I just learned this from a Baltimore civic website: “Baltimore’s Lexington Market, the world’s largest, continuously running open-stall food market, has operated since 1782 at the same site it occupies today on the city’s West Side. General John Eager Howard, a hero of the American Revolution, donated the land for the market, named for the Battle of Lexington, on his return from the war.” Battles since include the economic downturn of the city proper; though genuinely bustling, the Lexington Market is surrounded by and filled with the clear signs of hard times. It’s also filled with delicious food. I understand Carolita and Bridget loved the sandwiches they had from the fish stand, but what I wanted was sausage: something like a bratwurst, which I can never find on the East Coast. If Manhattan still had a true German neighborhood, I bet I’d be able to find bratwurst there instead of having to rely on having to go all the way to Madison, WI, to visit State Street Brats or, better, have something properly soaked in beer and turned on a backyard grill. Anyway, a lot at Lexington Market looked tempting, but there was only one lunch on my mind as soon as I saw Polock Johnny’s, despite the Sausage Master and the Konstant’s Hot Dogs (as well as the pleasingly named Omlet Side Show and the best not thought about Cattleman’s Pride) elsewhere in the market. The other thing on my mind was the very unmodern and un-New York name “Polock Johnny’s,” plus the sausages lovingly painted on the booth’s ceiling.

Well, the Beef Polish, which Jane and I both had with ketchup (we keep it simple, despite the tempting extras listed above), was delicious, filling, resistant but not tough, tangy, juicy, and toxic in just the right ways. We did not require a napkin to blow our noses (.05, 3 for .10), since it wasn’t very spicy, and although “A bag because yours is breaking” is an affectingly poignant phrase (and only costs a quarter), we didn’t need that, either. The Beef Polish completely hit the spot, and across the aisle was a chocolate shop that provided some locally made sweets, including some not at all bad marzipan dipped in milk chocolate. Nearby, a band played; Baltimoreans talked, snacked, and danced. If I could find sausages this good in a market in my city, with decor this snappy to match, I’d dance too. Next time I go, I’ll have a Muffinski.

Polock Johnny’s
Lexington Market, 200 N. Paca St., Baltimore

Guest blogger: Emily Gordon, a.k.a. Emdashes

Posted Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 12:56 am under tables for one: when you vant to/must eat alone. Feel free to trackback from your own site. All images on newyorkette.com are the intellectual property of Carolita Johnson, and you must ask (and receive) express permission to use them or reproduce them in any way whatsoever.