This stands as a warning to anyone who invites Nestor by their place for the Maryland Crab Cake Tour: you’re an invite and a taste away because he’s en route to meet more great local folks who want to promote their business. Owner Soo Mi Kang of Honey’s in Halethorpe invited us over and must’ve known that offering “Crabby Toast” would invoke the legend of Charles Markwood Eckman. Competitive billiards, great food and the game is always on at this old-school joint on the south side.
Nestor J. Aparicio visits Honeys Bar and Grill in Halethorpe, highlighting its unique blend of Asian and Baltimore fare. Soo Mi Kang, the owner, shares her journey of transforming the bar into a thriving establishment, inspired by her father’s traumatic brain injury. The menu includes Asian-inspired dishes like Korean fried chicken, crab toast, and crab cake egg rolls, along with traditional favorites like meatloaf and pot roast. The bar also hosts the APA pool league and emphasizes community involvement. Nestor appreciates the fresh, homemade food and the welcoming atmosphere, promising to return with friends.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend and host the event at Costas in Dundalk next Thursday as announced on-air
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Attend and host the event at Gertrude’s at the BMA on Friday as announced on-air
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Visit Planet Fitness in Timonium to work off food as planned (attendance announced on-air)
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Bring Izzy Patoka and Nick Stewart back to Honey’s for a follow-up visit and meal
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Schedule Shawn Stinnett to appear on the show (plan to have him on as a guest)
Welcome to Honeys Bar and Grill
- Nestor J. Aparicio introduces himself and the show, mentioning the Maryland lottery sponsorship and upcoming events.
- Nestor shares his enjoyment of visiting new places and mentions his rough childhood and adoption.
- Nestor reminisces about his lawyer, John Cool A Hand, and his connection to Baltimore County.
- Nestor discusses the unique character of different Baltimore neighborhoods and his appreciation for the place.
Soo Mi Kang’s Background and Inspiration
- Soo Mi Kang shares her background, including her family’s migration to the U.S. and her Korean heritage.
- Soo Mi explains how her father’s accident led her to take over the bar to support her family.
- She describes the initial state of the bar and her decision to change it into an Asian-inspired place.
- Soo Mi highlights the challenges she faced in introducing Asian fare to the local community.
The Evolution of Honeys Bar and Grill
- Soo Mi talks about the community’s initial resistance to Asian food but their eventual acceptance.
- Nestor shares his personal journey with Asian food, including his introduction to Chinese food and his love for sushi.
- Nestor recounts his experience with chopsticks and his appreciation for Asian cuisine.
- Soo Mi and Nestor discuss the various Asian dishes available at Honeys, including Korean fried chicken and crab cake egg rolls.
Community and Specials at Honeys
- Soo Mi explains how customer requests influence the specials at Honeys, such as bourbon chicken and fire chicken.
- Nestor praises the quality of the food and the unique dishes offered.
- Soo Mi mentions the use of fresh ingredients and homemade sauces, including honey and unprocessed brown sugar.
- Nestor enjoys the food and expresses his interest in returning with friends and family.
Pool Community and Charity Events
- Soo Mi discusses the pool community at Honeys, including the APA pool league and various league nights.
- Nestor and Soo Mi talk about the family-like atmosphere at the bar and the importance of community events.
- Soo Mi highlights the charity events and local hiring practices at Honeys.
- Nestor expresses his interest in attending a ball game at Honeys and enjoying the food and community.
Personal Stories and Connections
- Nestor shares a personal story about his mother’s love for Chinese food and her influence on his palate.
- Nestor recounts his experience with shrimp toast and his appreciation for different Asian dishes.
- Soo Mi and Nestor discuss their shared love for Asian food and their experiences with different cuisines.
- Nestor expresses his gratitude for the invitation and the unique experience at Honeys.
Final Thoughts and Future Plans
- Nestor thanks everyone involved in the event and expresses his appreciation for the food and the experience.
- Soo Mi mentions some of the popular dishes at Honeys, including meatloaf and beef stew.
- Nestor and Soo Mi discuss the bar’s package goods and the sports-themed atmosphere.
- Nestor shares his upcoming events and plans to return to Honeys with friends and family.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cakes, Asian delights, competitive pool, Maryland lottery, Baltimore County Executive, Hale Thorpe, Korean food, Guy Fieri, sports bar, community events, pool league, specials menu, fresh food, customer requests, family-owned business
8
SPEAKERS
Soo Mi Kang, Mitasha Palha, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 task of Baltimore. It is a beautiful bottle more positive day. Today we’re here in the hail fort word honeys. And this is, you know, I enjoyed having Izzy Patoka by, he’s running for Baltimore county executive. I enjoyed having Nick Stewart by, I love having rough and buy because he’s gonna help me eat some of this stuff. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. It’s Raven scratch offs. This is my last hour of Raven scratch offs. Might be the last hour of the season too, but I’m gonna have candy cane scratch offs giveaway next week. They’re gonna smell good. We’re gonna be at Costas on Thursday, Friday. We’re gonna be at the gertrudes at the BMA. My cousin John runs the joint, and then we’re gonna be a planet fitness at Timonium, trying to work off everything I’m eating here with Sue me Natasha and the staff at honeys bar and grow so this is a little public service announcement for anybody out there who loves me because of GBMC or Maryland lottery sponsorships or anything. Natasha wrote to me. I could look in my phone, but I want to say it was like in August, yeah. And she Yeah. And she said, Hey, what does it take to get you out? And I said, electricity, some semblance of a crab cake, or I’ll even fake it if you give me something else. And basically, I like coming to new places. And I had no awareness of this particular strip other than the Lansdowne mall on the other side. And it’s not an area I’ve traversed being a Dundalk guy, my childhood lawyer, the man who got my parents custody of me. I’m a Venezuelan descent. I was I had a really rough childhood, and I was adopted, but my parents had adopted me. The lawyer was here, and he was running for Baltimore County Executive. His name was John cool a hand. He was known as the Lion of Hale Thor. That was his name the lion, and he had a booming voice in a Baltimore accent. He was probably a little right leaning, but this is 50 years ago, and he was larger than life to me because his name was on my front lawn, because we, we campaigned for him, and then Ted venetoulis, who won Baltimore County Executive, who later became my friend in life, said, I can’t believe you campaign for cool a hand. I kicked his ass, is what he said to me. So when I got invited to hail Thor, I think a Jimmy Schwartz, who always said, I’m from Arbutus. I’m not from Hale Thor, Baltimore Island. I’m from our so there is a real like if you’re from Paradise or you’re from Catonsville, they take it seriously. Like, I take my Dundalk and Essex seriously. So over here on the west side, sumies, here, you run the joint. Two decades. You’ve had this place 19 years, 19 years. So I appreciate but come in here and like, let’s worry about blocking the food. I’m gonna get the food out. Okay. Now she told me, this is Asian inspired place. I’m like, All right, Google Maps. I’m like, they got pool tables. They got to carry out. It reminds me of Dundalk, but it’s Hale Thorpe. It’s kind of same as my my side of town. And I’m like, looked at the menu and I saw Asian pot stickers. I saw Asian owned I saw LGBTQ friendly. I saw and you invited me. And it’s very rare, really rare, that I get an email from anybody saying, Will you do the show in my place? I want to encourage people that I don’t care where your place. It’s around here. I’ve done crab cake tour stops probably in about 150 places now in the state, because I’ve been all over the state. I love getting invites, and I love it when it’s a little funky, you know, like Austin, Texas is a little funky. So this your place a little funky. Would you agree with this? All right, so tell everybody what your place is and what the the inspiration was, because I came in. It’s a little bit old Baltimore bar. It’s got a good, better than a good kitchen. You’re doing serious Guy Fieri stuff here. So this isn’t sort of Cisco’s sending over chicken tenders and chicken wings. You have a vision. This is a different kind of joy. Yeah.
Soo Mi Kang 03:51
So basically, 19 years ago, my my father had fallen 30 feet off of a ladder and had a traumatic brain injury, and he was comatose. Yeah, so my mom, after he woke up, basically said, Listen, you know, we’ve got a lot of medical bills. We need another source of income because, you know, we’re going to have to take care of him. So they convinced me that they were going to buy a bar and that, because I have the food concept, and I’ve bartended and I’ve, you know, waited on table
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:26
8your background, where your family the
Soo Mi Kang 04:29
cameras this. So basically, we’re Korean. We came here in the summer of 1973 My whole family is here, except for maybe a cousin here, and there are still in Korea, and then the rest of us are here. I come from a family of strong women who love to cook. My cousin has Korean pop song in the right place, ruff.
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:54
It’s over here, laughing. He’s like, get the story out so we can hear it. Nestor wants to eat.
Soo Mi Kang 05:00
Yeah, so she’s a big YouTube blogger. Has her own food pop song. My aunt Haja used to watch Food Network all the time. If you if you told her you wanted to eat something, she could make it. So the concept was, here, I came here. Everything was frozen. I said, What in the world? They said that this was a sports bar, but I really bought it because I like the purple ceiling. I like the I’m a huge Ravens fan. So I said, You know what I want to you know I’m gonna take go ahead and my mom’s gonna buy it, and I’m gonna buy the building. And I said, we’re gonna make a go of it. They had one TV that took an hour and a half to turn on. And they were calling it a sports bar with curtains hanging in the window. And here was this 2000 This was 2007 Seven. All right, so I basically said, You know what? We’re gonna change it. We’re gonna do some fresh food. We’re gonna change the concept. People fought me tooth and nail about doing Asian fare. They were very negative about it till they
8Nestor J. Aparicio 06:01
eat it. You don’t like Indian food. You don’t like Asia.
Soo Mi Kang 06:09
So now, basically, a lot of the food concepts come from my customers. I didn’t make it today, but
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:16
that is not shrimp toast. That is crap. That’s crab toast. Let me hold this up here because they came out, and I swore it was shrimp toast. So let me give you a little Asian background for me. I grew up in East Baltimore, and we had a Chinese restaurant my mother, my mother worked it late at night, so she would go down to the white rice Inn. And I got introduced to Chinese food total redneck from Dundalk total, like nobody knew, you know, we ate hot dogs and hamburgers and, you know, pizza, you know, I was meat and potatoes in my family, right? And I got introduced to Chinese food, and I fell in love with Chinese food as a kid. I’ve loved it my whole life, the rice part, but I was afraid of Thai food. Didn’t know much about Korean food, Japanese. I mean, it’s raw fish. Who’s eating that? How’s that ever gonna catch on? Who the hell’s ever gonna eat raw fish in this country? 19 I remember the first time I ever had sushi. My wife, 1990 I was working at the newspaper. There were some culture people I work with that took me to eat raw fish at kiwasaki on Charles Street. So we’re old school man, right? So I hot food. Spicy food turned me off. For years. I’ve gotten more with my palate, with being able to eat the mild spice of Thai. You know that, but I have fallen in love with Asia as an adult. So I flew to Japan and China and Hong Kong with Cal Ripken in 2000 and we did a thing with the State Department. And it’s all on YouTube. You can go check it out. And when I went to China, you can see I’m missing a finger. Do you see that? So I had a lawn mower accident when I was a kid, and I’ll put these down, because I’m going to eat it and I’m going to talk about it. So I went to Beijing, and we’re with the State Department, but we were staying at this nice place, and we had to go out into Beijing on our own. Nobody speaks anything. You don’t speak Mandarin. You’re screwed, and that you can’t read the maps, and it was before Google Maps and like all that. So we’re there, and we got into a cab, and they took us to this place called Bellagio, which we found in the mobile guide, right? Because this what you had to travel tonight. We went in, and my wife ordered these Dan Dan cheswan noodles, and I ordered, I was just pointing at things because we couldn’t read anything. We don’t speak Chinese. I mean, it’s wonderful thing to find yourself lost in a place where you cannot communicate with people, it really gets you on your human game. So they brought me out a bowl of soup that I apparently ordered, and I’m missing a finger, and they brought chopsticks, and I didn’t know how to eat, use chopsticks. This is 2007 and they brought me, and I showed my finger, and they were like, you know, Asian face. They shake right back. They came back, and they brought me toothpicks. They brought me toothpicks. I have it on video. And I said to my wife that night, I’m like, I’m gonna learn how to eat with chopsticks. So I came home and I fuddled around and I made a mess, and I couldn’t figure out the rice I can eat chopsticks. Oh, good. This is one of the things I brag about as an adult, that I’ve made progress in life. But I love Asian food. I go out of my way to go to West side of town to get bingsu. I love Korean bingsu. When I’m in New York, I’m in K town, 33rd 30
Soo Mi Kang 09:26
8flushing, flushing.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:29
I’ve had hot pot and flushing. But when I’m in LA, and I was in LA a couple weeks ago, I go to K town. Oh yeah, I am absolutely so when I heard you were Korean, I’m like, sue me and I are gonna get on. So thank you for inviting me out. Natasha, thank you. You invited me and you said you didn’t always have a crab cake on your menu. Sometimes you do it, but you’re doing this is crab toast, right? So let’s talk about your food here a little bit, because anybody can whip up a hamburger, chicken wings. She. Got chicken wings, but she’s whipping up like, this is a legit Korean wing. This is my wife’s gonna be pissed when she’s out of town and finds out that I ate this. So, quite frankly, so you’re doing a whole bunch of different things, but you have some Baltimore fair, you do a crab pretzel, don’t you?
Soo Mi Kang 10:15
Yes, we have crab pretzel. We have crab dip. We have a full menu. We have Cheesesteak. We have, you know, burgers. I waited three months eat the spots. Yes, but one of the things that we’re known for our special so we do daily specials. The daily specials we have Asian fare, fire chicken is Korean pub dakogi that we do a different little version of. This is Korean fried chicken. We do crab cake. Egg rolls are what we really sell.
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:42
One of those crab cake egg rolls. Yeah, I can only eat this one.
8Soo Mi Kang 10:46
Yeah, we do crab cake egg rolls. I do crab cakes as a special. When we do it, we sell out. So, yeah, a lot of my customers will help me come up with some of my specials where they’ll request things like, one of our favorite big time seller is bourbon chicken. Guy says, Look, I remember bourbon chicken from the mall. He’s like, do you think you can make yours better? Be better than charcoal? Yeah, well, set. Well, we sell out. They say it is so I make so most of our cooking is from scratch. We use chicken breast. We do healthy, we use honey, which is one of the reasons why you see honey. Honey is Bar and Grill. Comes from the concept one that I use honey and I don’t use white processed sugar. We try to use honey in our sauces. So I make all the sauces from scratch. And if we do use sugar, we use unprocessed brown sugar.
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:40
So I got, by the way, can’t always get it on the mat. This is delicious. You gotta try it with this laid out for me, Man, I gotta bring Izzy come back. You know, let me, let me get Nick Stewart back here too. So this is a, this is a rice chicken stir fry,
Soo Mi Kang 11:57
wreck, fire chicken. So it’s basically Korean pub Gogi and spice, yeah, has a kick, and it comes out on a sizzling hot plate. Sell out all the time. People want me to make the sauce and sell the sauce. I have a bite off. So I always say, with this dish, you hear it and smell it.
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:17
8Yeah? I smell. This is what I smell. Yeah.
Mitasha Palha 12:22
Yeah. Yeah. And Nestor, I just want to say, you know, I came here first as a customer before I ever worked here. And I, I really, truly believe in this place with Tumi all the food community. So I would not invite you here if this is not something I truly believe in. So the food the pool community, everything.
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:41
Tell me about the pool community, because here’s a problem. I’m the host of the show. My mouth full because you’re feeling you got to talk.
Soo Mi Kang 12:48
So we host the APA here, Tuesday
8Nestor J. Aparicio 12:52
pool table here, but around the corner, we are total we have four
Soo Mi Kang 12:55
total tables. We actually host the APA pool League. We’re here
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:00
your jam, your player, number
Mitasha Palha 13:04
8one hustler in this bar,
Soo Mi Kang 13:07
so Minnesota slims, so we basically have pool league here, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Monday is ladies league night, which we just started, yeah, and then we have eight ball on Tuesday, nine ball on Wednesday, and then we have eight ball again on Thursday. So that was one of the things I said, you know, if I make good food, people gather, they’ll spend more time here. And I really wanted to make it a family, like where people knew everybody, so I pretty much know all my customers. We do charity events all the time. I hire locally, I’m like, I try to keep everything within the community. I already
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:44
want to come back and watch a ball game next summer. I do. I’m gonna bring my wife back in after these wins. Yes, I would eat that, but I wear it if I eat it. But I want to talk about, I told my mom, Connie, my mom, who introduced me to Chinese food.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:59
She loved Chinese food, but she would get chicken chow mein, Chicken Chop Suey egg drop soup, which I still get all the time. Egg rolls, shrimp egg rolls I love, like shrimp and broccoli. And I promoted my 27 favorite things to eat this year on behalf of curio wellness and foreign daughter. I did that in the summer for my 27th anniversary, and several of them were Asian, because, like, I’m nuts about, like, Drunken Noodles. I you know, I like, I love pot stickers, one of my favorite things in the world. But shrimp toast. Shrimp toast was something I got in East Baltimore, and it shrimpy toast, as you remember Charlie Eckman, who was the godfather of sports radio in the city. He talked about that shrimpy toast down at Joe Louis down in Anne Arundel County, get that shrimpy toast. And so that was his thing, shrimp toast. And so I eat shrimp toast all time, but sometimes I get it and it’s a little it can be greasy and really greasy. There was a joint down near Merryweather that I found that did a really nice one. Alberna. And it wasn’t great. It was toast with the shrimp lump on top.
8Soo Mi Kang 15:04
And this is a, this is, this is crab, crab toast, all right. So like, talk to me about what this is a crab, like a crab cake. So yes, me to dip it, yep, in this sauce. It’s like a yum, yum sauce, yep. So basically, you know, for me, I was like, I could do shrimp toast, but I’m gonna make it with crab cake.
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:24
Charlie Eckman, it looks like shrimp toast, but it’s not gonna be, it’s gonna be crap.
Soo Mi Kang 15:28
It’s crab so you’ve got lump crab meat, basically just like a crab cake. And I put it remulant, or was that gonna be sweet? So basically, it’s a little sweet, and it’s got a kick to it because it’s Asian, yep, you
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:44
8know that’s a tiger mom. Oh, that’s
Mitasha Palha 15:50
like a crab cake. I hear that crunch too,
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:52
and that’s weird, because I’m expecting shrimp, right? Yes, all right, when I come back for the ball game. I want to make you with me, because I have a feeling it’s gonna be like, not greasy and awesome, yes, oh man, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I haven’t even had to
Soo Mi Kang 16:09
grab that’s one of whenever we have
8Mitasha Palha 16:14
one mouth, few pounds won’t hurt. Nobody’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:17
been saying that all we I’m gonna kill those wings when I’m done, cuz I’m gonna make a mess with those holiday season. We’re down here at honeys. I meet my face off. Sumi is here. Matashi is here. We gotta get Sean.
Mitasha Palha 16:29
Sean, come on over here. Sean’s our manager, so
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:32
8he’s the guy’s been hydrating me from the beginning when I walked in the door here this morning. Well, thanks for having me in. It is such a quirky, unique place, and I didn’t know what to expect when I came down, because I googled it up. I knew that I was gonna get Asian food and Asian love, and I knew I was gonna love the food, so I knew that when I came in, but, but this has been a great afternoon.
Soo Mi Kang 16:53
Well, we also like another one of our popular sellers, meatloaf. So I do meatloaf from scratch. We have homemade meatloaf sell out of that every time I do it as a special mashed potato, broccoli or garlic, string beans. So basically, this time of year we do a lot of beef stew. We also do, you know, pot roast. So I do pot roast from scratch. So basically, my customers will tell me what they want to eat, and I’ll make a special and then we’ll have it on the special board. Nestor, you name it, she’ll make it.
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:26
Thank you very much. You can find them online. They’re right here in halethorpe. Honeys Bar and Grill. It’s, um, you got a package goods here too? Yeah?
Soo Mi Kang 17:35
Liquor Store, yep, package good. We’re open seven days a week,
8Nestor J. Aparicio 17:39
Orioles and ravens. Bar too, for the Ravens
Soo Mi Kang 17:42
over there, Orioles, ravens. I’m a huge Ravens fan. I’m a, you know, last week’s game was a little disappointing. I think we got robbed a little bit. But hey, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:51
went through that with Max yesterday. Let me say this to everybody, this just not for the women, but for the boys and the girls out there. We don’t complain about the officiating, you know, I just she wrote a whole column the bottom of a magazine Monday, and I said, this is the week where I miss my mother the most. You remember my mother? My mother was 98 when she passed away, back 2017 and I’m friends with my Tomlin. And we brought Tomlin. Did you come to you at the event that night? Down the downside, you didn’t come. I had Tomlin and har ball, and my my mother was a raven fan, and my mother was four foot six, about 70 pounds and 98 years old. We pick her up, put her in a back seat of car, and one week, I picked her up. This is 15 years ago. She’s in her 80s then, and I would always videotape her. Have all these video tapes of her in her life, and she was feisty. I picked her up after they lost to the Steelers, and I think it might have been the Jacoby Jones tripping. I might have been that. And she’s in the back seat. It’s cold out. She’s got her hoodie on. She’s pissed they cheated. Steelers cheated us, and she went on and on. So of course, when Tomlin came that night, my mother was still alive, and I got Tomlin on stage, sitting next to HAR ball, sitting next to Billick, and we had the video, and I rolled that for the crowd. I rolled i i had my mom calling Tomlin a cheater on tape in front of Tom and he still talks. But my mother, she this would have been a week for her, because she hated crooked refs, and she was convinced that they were trying to screw the Ravens. So this would have been a big week for her, and I missed that part of hearing her take on whether that was a reception or you clearly think Isaiah likely caught the ball.
Soo Mi Kang 19:39
8Yes, he definitely did. It was a bad call, bad officiating. But again, that’s how we we rolled my mom, my dad, my brother, University of Maryland, if they were playing basketball, we were watching it. We watched basically the whole ACC, ravens, Ravens fans, Orioles so pit, yeah, yeah.
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:00
Of course, companies non denomination, because this foods getting cold, honeys. My thanks to everybody. Nick Stewart for copping stopping by, Izzy Patoka for stopping by my man Ruff and came by. Sean Stinnett. Sean Stinnett with a flat tire somewhere in West Baltimore, my brother will get you back. And I was gonna put Sean with Ruffin, and we’re gonna do a whole west side thing. He’s running for delegate. We’ll have Shawn Stinnett on. I will be at Costas in Dundalk next Thursday with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gina shock, who’s doing great. I visited her yesterday. Friday, we’re gonna be at
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:35
my cousin’s place, John shields at Gertrude to the BMA, and then Monday, we’re gonna be in. What are you guys doing?
Mitasha Palha 20:42
He couldn’t help himself.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 20:48
Let me sign off. He couldn’t wait on Christmas Eve’s got opening
Soo Mi Kang 20:53
presents. He opens everything. I’m gonna open,
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:56
I’m gonna shut my mouth, is what I’m gonna do. I’m signing off from a monies. We’re gonna go eat some food here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland line. Maryland lottery. My thanks to everybody here. Thank you very much, and I’m gonna get my hands real dirty and eat this food back for more Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
