Hop in your car and take a quick little adventure down York Road - fly past Jamaican food shacks and fried chicken joints, and within 10 minutes you've gone from an enclave of ethnic bargain dining into an epicure's paradise of international cuisine. Belvedere Square is comprised of a number of unique shops specializing in a fabulous variety of treats, selling bottles of Bordeaux at one end and offering imported Dutch tulips at the other. The most impressive of these stores is Belvedere Square Market, a culinary emporium divided into a number of wonderful chow counters and food distributors.
The most famous business in the market is Atwater's, which is known for their daily-changing menu of creative sandwiches, hearty soups and heavenly pastries. Indoor and outdoor seating, in addition to a diner-esque soup bar and an irresistible bakery, make for a dynamite combination that entices any grocery shopper to take a break from their errands and spoil themselves with a lemon buttermilk tart and a cup of organic fair trade coffee. Just make sure to pick up some farm fresh milk from Ned Atwater's Farmstead Cheese counter; you just might wake up a few minutes earlier, simply to enjoy a first-class bowl of cereal.
If hosting a dinner party is on your weekend social calendar, make your way towards Ceriello Fine Foods, stationed next to Neopol Savory Smokery. Ceriello offers a variety of Italian delicacies, including aged balsamic vinegar and Castellino grilled green olives. Pick up one of their 11 varieties of homemade, all natural sauces. Serve the white wine clam sauce with whole-wheat capellini or the tomato vodka sauce with homemade gemelli pasta, and your guests will be convinced you spent hours stirring up your Italian grandmother's addictive family recipe.
Craving something other than your familiar European/American cuisine? Try Ikan Seafood and Sushi across from Planet Produce's Earth Essence smoothie bar. Owen Vong, sushi chef at the Pacific Rim restaurant in Cockeysville, opened Ikan (Malaysian for "fish") Seafood a few years ago and has quickly received much-deserved praise from professional and amateur critics alike. In 2006, Baltimore Magazine recognized the modest Japanese establishment as the "Best of Baltimore" for calamari.
Although their menu tends to stray away from typically traditional Japanese dishes, like Yakatori and soba noodles, Ikan's kitchen entrees, such as fish-n-chips ($7.95) and shrimp stuffed with crabmeat ($11.95) promises to satisfy non-sushi lovers and seafood aficionados equally. Their signature maki rolls are unique, affordable and surprisingly filling. The Bahamas roll, which combines tempura shrimp, avocado and cucumber on the inside and finishes the outside of the roll with toasted coconut and spicy wasabi mayo ($7.50), is a meal within itself, making your taste buds decipher between salty and sweet, bitter and sour tastes.
Belvedere Market is certainly a gourmet heaven of global delights, but not all is heavenly in Belvedere Square. Taste, a trendy contemporary American restaurant at the entrance of the square, is the antithesis of all that is delicious at the neighboring market. But you'll have to wait until next week to find out why.
