Chap's Charcoal

[how do you like your meat? rahhhhhhhhh]

This post is way overdue and the tastes may not be as fresh in my mind as deemed appropriate for other aspiring Robert Sietsemas and R.W. Apples of the world, but I felt I needed to say a word or two about Chap's Charcoal Restaurant, one of the three pit beef joints that occupy a particularly unattractive mile-long stretch of Pulaski Highway in (way) East Baltimore. I was there about two months ago, whilst reporting on a relatively recently-opened housing development, and when I see me some pit beef, I stop for some pit beef. 

Now to explain: Baltimore pit beef is, like crabs, a dish of some local note. There are ways of cooking and eating it and ways not to eat it. But to start, you could read this, or just take my word for it that pit beef is delicious, but certainly less complex or nuanced than Southern barbecue or other types of slow-cooked or smoked meats. It is crisped over charcoal, and the inside left very, very rare, which is 100% my thang, and served on a kaiser bun with (lots of) horseradish and pickles. For the longest time I had no idea that Baltimore had a sandwich other than the crab cake. But turns out that's because I had never been to Boog Powell's at Camden Yards -- or at least, if I had, when I was a kid and came with grandma a lot, I'd forgotten. 

Since eating at Chap's I've been to the original Boog's in Ocean City, on recommendation from the inimitable Danny "Security Firm Wins Insurance Coverage Dispute" Jacobs, and learned the true meaning of pit beef and boardwalk fries, consumed together with lemonade.

So not to get off track here -- Chaps was great, but not incredible. There was some flaky, carbonized crust mixed into my sandwich for texture's sake, but I felt like the meat had been off the grill for far too long. It was, I dunno, lukewarm. There is, however, something nice about inhaling diesel fumes offa Pulaski, being surrounded by nudie bars and trucker hangouts, and eating a dish that is as working class as it is local (who can afford crab cakes, with an economy like dis, huh?) that made it worth the drive. All I needed was some Thrashers to further coat my stomach. I had lemonade, though.