Tag: Pit Beef

Pit Beef – The Canopy – Ellicotty City, MD

On By Rob GIn Going PlacesLeave a comment

My morning started out successfully. My goal was to get a pit beef sandwich from The Canopy for lunch and get home in time to watch the game, which I was able to do.

The Canopy is a small restaurant right off of Route 40 in Ellicott City, MD. When I lived in Ellicott City, I would go there every month or so. Now that I’m a bit farther away, I don’t get there as often, so I was happy to plan my day to include this place. This place has been open since 1983, and it’s easy to see why it’s still around and still bringing in the customers.

One of the nice things about the Pit Beef restaurants that I’ve visited is the meat is right behind the counter. You order your meat and your desired doneness (if beef), and they take it off the pit and start slicing right there. The meat is fresh. The sandwich is made right there while you’re saying what you want on it.

When it was my turn to order, I opted for a pit beef sandwich with the meat cooked rare. I then asked for tiger sauce and BBQ sauce. And requested potato salad on the side. Their version of tiger sauce is mayonnaise and horseradish. A perfect blend that goes well with beef. The barbecue sauce gives it that extra little touch. The potato salad uses red skin potatoes and onions. There was a nice proportion of mayonnaise on this, and the onions added a nice little crunch. The Canopy has Birch Beer as a fountain drink, so that also puts me in a happy place.

The sandwich itself is fantastic. The meat was cooked to perfection. I like it very rare, so it was good to have those bites that had the perfect flavor of the extra rare meat. Since the meat is thin-sliced, you can have some variety in terms of texture. This sandwich takes some work to bite through, but not too much. The meat had a tender bite through, which made it easier to eat. The kaiser roll held up well. Not soggy, not falling apart. The tiger sauce had a nice kick to it. It wasn’t overbearing, it was just enough to let you know it was there without making your sinuses go crazy.

When I first started ordering, I was thinking about getting Cole slaw as a side dish. But, I tend to think of Cole slaw as accompanying pork, so I decided against it. Potatoes seem to pair well with beef, which is why I went for the potato salad. I don’t remember having ordered the potato salad before, but I’m glad that I did. It was nicely seasoned and had really good flavor. The coolness of the potato salad worked well with the sandwich. And having Birch Beer on tap made it even more special. You can usually find Root Beer, but Birch Beer is tougher to find. So having a good meal at a familiar place helps make for a better day, and makes it easy to stay positive.

Smoky’s BBQ – Eldersburg, MD – 9.17.19

On By Rob GIn Going PlacesLeave a comment

Smoky’s BBQ is another local place that I frequently visit. I went there today and decided to get the Pit Beef Sandwich with a side of Macaroni and Cheese. I added horseradish and barbecue sauce.

I enjoy all types of barbecue. When I came back to Maryland in 2015, it was the first time I really paid attention to Pit barbecue. It’s a big thing in the Baltimore area, which is probably the reason why I started noticing (I moved about 15 miles West of Baltimore). I’ve been to quite a few Pit barbecue places and will most likely be doing write ups of them at some point. Smoky’s BBQ is close to where I live now, which makes it easier to frequent. They have many different menu items that I’ve tried and enjoyed, so it will be fun to write about the different options. In the Pit barbecue places I’ve been, the meat is cooked over an open pit. With the beef, you have the option of doneness, which is nice. With ham and turkey, you get that nice smoky flavor with the meat.

As far as today’s meal, I decided to order the pit beef sandwich, medium rare, with horseradish and barbecue sauce. I went up to the counter, the asked me what I wanted and how I wanted the meat, and then took the meat off the pit and started slicing. This is a very fresh sandwich. The meat was cooked perfectly. The flavors of the meat and the toppings work perfectly for me. But the thing that makes this sandwich really enjoyable for me is the texture of the beef. I’ve had sliced beef before (pit beef, roast beef, or some variation) and it can be very tough and chewy. This was not the case with today’s sandwich. The meat was easy to bite through, so I didn’t have to pull huge chunks of meat in each bite, and I wasn’t hurting my teeth or jaw to actually chew through the meat. As far as the characteristics I would look for in a good pit beef sandwich, this sandwich met them all.

The macaroni and cheese was a nice side dish. Elbow macaroni with a cheese sauce that was the right consistency and amount. Sometimes you can get too much cheese sauce, where it’s just swimming. Sometimes you can get too little cheese sauce, where it is drier than it should be. Sometimes you can get a cheese sauce that has been cooked at too high a temperature and separated. There are things that can go wrong with macaroni and cheese, but that didn’t happen here. If I were to only order the macaroni and cheese, it would need something extra (tiger sauce, bbq meat, etc.), but as a side it worked well with the pit beef sandwich.

It was an overall pleasant experience and one that I look forward to duplicating again soon.