Bistro serves those who want more!

By Elizabeth Large
Sun Restaurant Critic

Originally published on March 11, 2007

Restaurant chefs can be divided into two groups: those who believe less is more and those who believe more is more. OK, maybe not. But if they could be, Ted Stelzenmuller would fall in the more-is-more group.

He's the owner-chef of Jack's Bistro, formerly the Elliott Street Bar & Grille, La Vida Loca and Dooby's. When he prepares a poached lobster on Wednesday Lobster Night, the plate is piled high with fried grits cakes flavored with jalapeno pepper, smoked gouda, and bacon; asparagus, carrots and tomato in phyllo pastry; and a black truffle hollandaise. It's a mountain of food.

The barbecued beef short rib is so big it looks like something a caveman would brandish as a weapon.

The appetizer on the Scandinavian prix fixe (every month a different region's cuisine is featured) consists of enough tender beef chunks (topped with a wine sauce and a raw egg yolk), scalloped dill potatoes and onions to constitute dinner for a lot of us.

This largesse can be a good thing, as when the waitress brings to the table warm, fresh flatbread that has been drenched in a lake of hot melted butter and sprinkled with herbs. You just shake off the excess butter and enjoy. But sometimes the kitchen creates a plate so filled with food it isn't visually appealing.

The more-is-more philosophy extends beyond portion size and number of ingredients on one plate. Stelzenmuller's dishes are more wildly imaginative (read weirder) than any other chef's in Baltimore. Usually I don't make blanket statements, but I think I'm safe here.

Some work, like the Jell-O ahi tuna salad with mache that has a "raspberry-pomegranate and lemon confit Jell-O vinaigrette." I know quoting from a menu in a review is something of a copout -- but really. My own words fail. Still, if you can forget about the Jell-O, it's a fruity dressing that's not offensive.

Some don't work. As in the macaroni and cheese and chocolate appetizer. The milk chocolate chunks melt into the cheese over shell pasta and just, well, taste like chocolate and cheese over pasta. Even the chocoholic I married couldn't manage more than a few bites.

It makes the cheeseburger soup, a satiny cheese soup filled with freshly fried hamburger chunks and chopped lettuce and tomato and prosciutto "crisps," seem subtle in comparison.

Actually, subtle isn't a word in Stelzenmuller's vocabulary. Which is fine when we're talking about a barbecued short rib that looks like it came from a mastodon. The meat stands up just fine to a sauce made of merlot, Dijon mustard and caramelized onions.

Something more delicate, such as skate wing, could use a little more finesse. The kitchen buries it under a thick sauce and onions, all piled on the plate with mashed potatoes and sauteed greens.

One thing you have to give Jack's Bistro credit for: ambition. This is a small restaurant with a pass-through kitchen at one end of the dining room, but the menu ranges from a Maine lobster cake bento box to a green lentil curry. Most impressive was the four-course Scandinavian dinner for $48. After the beef and potatoes came house-cured salmon with mache and a vegetable salad, then a delicious pork loin chop with a lingonberry sauce, sauerkraut and a potato pancake. Dessert was a cold fruit soup with homemade yogurt.

The restaurant's signature dish, interestingly, is probably the simplest thing on the menu: grilled corn on the cob seasoned with parmesan, red pepper, butter, sea salt and a squeeze of something citrusy. This time of year, of course, the corn isn't worth the European butter it's saturated with, but the seasonings almost rescue it. I'd like to try it again in August.

Desserts are one food group that can stand being overdone. Jack's serves its fabulous warm Jewish apple cake not only with Haagen-Dazs ice cream but also a large apple-cranberry phyllo pastry on the side. The kitchen fries balls of s'mores ingredients -- graham crackers, marshmallow cream and chocolate -- and then smothers them in hot chocolate sauce. Even the housemade pink peppercorn and lavender ice cream, which ought to be a dainty dessert, comes with a large warm sugar cookie.

This is still comfort-food weather, and that's what Jack's offers. Sure, it's sometimes disguised as highfalutin' cuisine; but a lot of the dishes boil down to big portions and a pile of mashed potatoes (even if they are panko-encrusted). Prices are reasonable -- the entrees routinely are under $20. The dining room has been attractively decorated in warm terra cotta with cheerful retro art. The staff is warm and friendly. If you can move past the concept of a Jell-O ahi tuna salad, I think you'll be fine.