The new Lexington Market is absolutely stunning and with the weather warming and Orioles season coming, Damye Hahn and Jamal McCord talk spring and baseball pre-gaming at Faidley’s Seafood and all of the delicious stalls and local vendors making your Camden Yards day a richer experience. Plan a visit!
Nestor Aparicio, Damye Hahn, and Jamal McCord discuss the vibrant atmosphere at Lexington Market, highlighting its proximity to Oriole Park and the influx of visitors during baseball season. They praise the market’s new space, which offers better lighting and equipment, and note the variety of food options, including fresh seafood and unique items like snowballs from Sausage Master. Damye Hahn shares the market’s history, noting it’s the oldest continually operating market in the U.S., and mentions upcoming expansion to Catonsville. They also discuss the quality of Maryland crabs, the challenges faced during COVID-19, and the convenience of ordering crab cakes online for delivery.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Lexington Market, crab cakes, baseball pre-gaming, Maryland lottery, Damye Hahn, Jamal McCord, spring influx, parking, new market, Faidley’s, Catonsville expansion, Maryland crab meat, shrimp salad, Orioles games, local vendors.
SPEAKERS
Jamal McCord, Damye Hahn, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are in the most positive place I can imagine. We’re here in the new, beautiful Lexington market. All have been brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I have the magic eight ball scratch offs to give away. This is one of my fun favorite segments, because Dami Hahn is about to join us. She’s gonna bring me some muscles later on, because she says I’m looking kind of skinny. I need some more muscles. Too much hot yoga. Jamal McCord is here from Lexington market as well, talking about all things market and that, I say, the new market. At some point it’s not gonna be new anymore. Still. We’re about to go one year for faith leaves in this space that three years into the space for the whole market, it’s pleasure to have you on how are you? I’m good. Thank you, Jamie, always good to be back here, especially after I’ve already had a crab cake, french fries and cucumber salad. Yeah, gotta fill up first. Well, I mean, sometimes I get the coleslaw, but I’m cucumber salad. Ever since you turned me on to that, that’s my thing, and I only eat the french fries here. But if I was taking it home, mac and cheese, always mac and
Damye Hahn 01:02
cheese. Right, right. French fries don’t travel well. You from Baltimore, Jamal, I am all
Nestor Aparicio 01:07
right. So, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, if you weren’t, I’d say you ever had anything like this? First time you had a crab cake? You don’t remember
Jamal McCord 01:13
the first time I just had a crab cake last night for dinner. Not as good as this one, not as good as this one. The Whole Foods
Nestor Aparicio 01:19
does the best they can absolutely well inform our audience about what’s going on here. First things first, we’ll be playing baseball two blocks away from here. Yeah, 81 times this year. Yeah, hopefully, more than that. Hopefully, hopefully we keep 90 into late October the markets here, I’m going to be here the day of the second game. I’ll be here today, the first game too, but I’ll be not working as good on April 2. I won’t be dressed this nice because the addies are tonight here, downtown Baltimore. So I’m all, I’m all gussied up, but the amount of people that come through in the foot traffic spring changes things here, right? I mean, does not, yeah, yep. Spring,
Jamal McCord 02:01
we see a massive influx of people this. Their poor staff is just packed and swamped. You barely can walk through. The market is bustling. People around. We have the parking which people take advantage of a lot, probably the cheapest, I would say, the cheapest parking in downtown Baltimore,
Nestor Aparicio 02:18
in the garage always parked in, yeah, right across the street. Yes, I walked by us. Yeah, I listen. I’ve been coming down here all my life. I’ve lived downtown 19 years. Yeah, we’ve been doing the show here about seven or eight years. I started Baltimore positive back in 2018
Damye Hahn 02:33
has it been that long? It has been that long. She’s gonna get
Nestor Aparicio 02:37
Catonsville open soon. I swear she’s gonna get Catonsville open suit. I go by to scaffold. I’ll get to that in a minute. But one miracle at a time. As your mother stares at me, that’s one miracle at a time. You get a year here and this space, and I say this every time I come down, because a million crab cakes in the old place. Nothing wrong. Different equipment and all that. This is a different experience from your equipment and the food and the spacing and what you’ve done here, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, lot of, well, it’s not sunny right now, but it always is in the afternoons. Yeah, well, it’s
Damye Hahn 03:11
still daylight. You know, it’s nice to have light coming through the windows. It’s a beautiful market. It’s a beautiful space. And whoever hadn’t been here better get down here, because it’s, it’s just so much fun. And like you said, we are so close to the stadium. Perfect place to come, perfect place to park for the stadium, because it is, you know, cheapest
Nestor Aparicio 03:30
opening day. Yeah, last opening day I parked in that garage. I walked in here, saw damy, I gave away some lottery tickets, hung out, had some crab cakes. I walked to the stadium. And my buddy Chris pike lived in Federal Hill, and he ran into music. I walked over, can you give me a ride home? I’m like, Well, my car’s up by Lexington market shirt. Let’s take a walk. And then I navigated light street back down to Federal Hill to get him home. But, like, it couldn’t have been any easier to park here. Yeah. And when I think about you, and I think about this place and the institution of the market there the games are at 630 now, yes, you’re down here for 430 This is the place on the outside, cheaper on the outside. This is a great hub spot, yeah, before a ball game, really, absolutely,
Damye Hahn 04:15
come here. Fill up. You know, get your get get whatever you need to before you go to the game, cold beer at a reasonable price, cold beer and great the best oysters are the best crab cakes. So there you go. You know, muscles yet. Oh, the muscles are, you know, you like the shrimp too. So steak,
Nestor Aparicio 04:37
fish on the night, bread, that thing up. Do it all right. Oh, man, frying pan like my mom.
Damye Hahn 04:41
Yeah. So we got the fresh, fresh fish in summer where we’ll have crabs. You know, people, people can sit down on the patio eat crabs. So there’s, there’s so much to do. And of course, the the market’s got a lot of great selections too, for those who don’t eat seafood. So
Nestor Aparicio 04:56
I’ve never thought of doing that. You come there four o’clock and eat crabs. I. Right there. I’m gonna see the benches. Yeah, I can eat crabs and then just walk to the ballpark. Yeah,
Jamal McCord 05:04
yes, walk off your buzz. Like
Nestor Aparicio 05:08
a Saturday afternoon game, like, if there’s a Saturday afternoon game, come down here about 12 o’clock, knock back a dozen. See, oh, man, that’s something I’ve never done. I’ve gotta do it. I’ve never eaten crabs before an
Jamal McCord 05:22
8Oriole game. Okay, never. So we’ll make that your goal for this year. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 05:26
can do anything here in the market, all the courts here, Jamie’s here, talking about all things market for you, with the market and seeing it get lifted. See some vendors in, some vendors out. That’s always going to be a thing, but staple places like fadelies and what you’re trying to do here as you built a beautiful market. Now, all it needs, honestly, just some more people, yeah, just some more people that need some food. Now for fun,
Jamal McCord 05:47
I think a lot of people sometimes forget that we’re open, just because there was so much kind of back and forth with the old market. So I’ve had that conversation a lot like, are you guys open? Are you what’s going on? But when we talk like, Oh, we’re open, we’re moving, we’re bustling. Failies is in the market. Is opening or open. Everybody’s here. They get in here and they love it. They’re like, Well, I didn’t know I forgot, well, I think a
Nestor Aparicio 06:07
wide variety of food in here, yeah, well, let alone your meats down downstairs, your seafood up here, yeah, that you can take. I came through. I had to pee really bad when I got here, because I parked in the parking lot, carried all my stuff over, put it down. Lori and Alicia said, I gotta run the bathroom. I went through. Dude had a snowball. Yeah, dude, it’s 40 degrees outside. The guy had a snowball, jumbo snowball. Yes, it looked like it might have been like some it was like a lime, lemon, lime green, and it looked like Dundalk High School. I looked at Green Bay Packers, and I’m like to get snowball stands in here. I didn’t even know
Jamal McCord 06:41
that that’s from sausage master. So we have an eclectic mix of merchants that sell out different things. Sausage master kills it, summer time, winter time, spring time, Fall time, all year with their snowballs.
Nestor Aparicio 06:53
My buddy Tom cap was the vendor at Memorial Stadium, and he always talked to 1973 always talks to he was a junior vendor. He said, April, I would come in. They would say ice cream. And he say July, hot chocolate. So the seasonal thing to me, of like snowballs, is like, hey, summer’s coming here too, right? You know, right around the corner for you with the market. Give me some stats of how many vendors are here and and you have open stalls too for businesses. Okay? So people can come down and start a business.
Jamal McCord 07:23
Yes, we’re looking at that. So we have about four empty stalls at the moment, one that I’m hoping will be open in the next month, month and a half, and that is called be more twist, be a pretzel, specialty pretzel kind of place like pretzels, it should be good. And then we’re at about 45 in total of merchants and four or five pop ups. So that would be like our key all stands that we have Sure.
Nestor Aparicio 07:50
All right, well, I mean, I love this place. I’ve been coming all my life. I think for people that haven’t been down here, if you haven’t been in a long time, and you remember the old market, I think Dami, this place was designed much like your place, to give you the feel the old market, but like, let’s be honest, the thing was built in the 1800s it just, it was time for the old girl to go, and there were just some, some real safety issues in the old
Damye Hahn 08:13
market. Well, actually, actually the the style of this market was predates the market we just left. So the old Lexington markets that were started in 1792 not the
Nestor Aparicio 08:25
1800s Come on. It was the 18th century.
Damye Hahn 08:32
This is the the oldest continually operating market in our country. We’re actually older than Faneuil Hall in that respect so we but we had seven, what were called sheds with with metal roofs, and they designed this like the old sheds. Those sheds burned down in 1948 or 49 and and the building that we just left was built, opened in 1950 so this is actually the third building that my mother has worked in. Wow, which is crazy, yeah, and, but this style is like the older style, because they with the reason that the old buildings came down with this fire. You know, they it was, it was the major grocery store for all of Baltimore at that point. So the mayor wanted to get something up really quickly, so he built that great big cube that, you know, stood for the next 70 years. And now they’ve bought, built, come back to this beautiful shed style market with these high ceilings and and it’s, it’s, it’s beautiful. Jamal,
Nestor Aparicio 09:44
how long you’ve been with the market developed two years, two years. So you weren’t a part of blueprint. You were, yeah, and you remember when they brought you this and said, All right, your family’s 200 year business is going to be moving over here. What were your asks? What were your I mean, you knew you were. Have a new kitchen, and you knew it was gonna be a different space. You know, it was a block closer to the ballpark. I mean, you walked by here a million times your vision of what it was gonna look like in your mind, if Dami developed it, versus the blueprints, versus what? When I talk to you about this space, you always say, it’s got so much light. Did you request that? Or know that they were doing that? Well,
Damye Hahn 10:20
it’s interesting you say that because there been, there were several versions of this market. This wasn’t the one they landed on this one last thank God, because there were a couple. I mean, there was one that, you know, looked like out of George Jetson
Jamal McCord 10:36
around. You seen all you seen all that. I just saw that one recently.
Damye Hahn 10:41
I looked at it, and the first thing I did, and they spent all this money on developing it, and I looked at it, and I’m like, What do you think we are? Japan, nobody sticks a banana in a window. Why did you put, you know, that much glass in a grocery store? What are you thinking? So that ended up, you know, on the wayside. And one of the things that we had asked is, please make it look like, like it’s history. You can’t just take something from 1792 and make it look totally modern. You can modernize it, but you have to. You have to give a hint,
Nestor Aparicio 11:13
yard to be a great example of a ballpark that was built to have a retro feel so it doesn’t look like a friggin spaceship landed in middle downtown Baltimore, where all of these, I mean, these buildings over here, look like they were built 150 years ago. You look at the bricks this building over here, this pack Hall, you can see the red brick. It’s a more modern building, but like having it blend in a little bit. And then when you walk into it, and I told Megan McCorkle this minute ago, she loves to tell these stories, when these tourists come in here from the airport and say, it looks just like it did on TV, correct? And it was shot at the other place, but they think they’re in the place on
Damye Hahn 11:45
TV. We hear that all the time, which is, which is what I wanted to achieve. So that was one of the things that, you know, my dad wanted to make sure that they had a nod to the history, and that you can’t, it’s not all about the future. You have to have a nod to the history, and it’s somewhere about the future, but we have to have both and and I wanted to make sure that our brand wasn’t lost, that we didn’t go too modern. Even some of the early conceptual drawings of what it would look like in here for us were too modern. For me, you
Nestor Aparicio 12:22
always knew the walls were going to be full of your stuff anyway. Didn’t matter what color the walls were, you were going
Damye Hahn 12:27
to use the wall space. Yeah, I knew that. It took me a little while to talk everybody else into that. And I mean, they had, I think the first drawing they had us with the big square raw bar, very, very little of the rest of this, and like, live walls up off the raw bar with all these plants. And I’m looking at it going, Who the hell is watering the plants? Right?
Nestor Aparicio 12:53
Exactly. It’s like having the fish tank. Are we gonna keep the fish alive? It’s not
Damye Hahn 12:57
gonna be me. And what am I gonna do with all these plants? So, you know, you know, getting somebody, I literally hired someone, a designer, to work with me, taking all the history that I had and the things that I wanted to portray over here, taking the space and saying, Okay, this is, this is the best way to lay it out, and this is how you’re going to do it. And that helped having a liaison. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 13:21
I’ve been coming for years, and a year, a month ago, we did our cup of Super Bowl, Super Bowl week last February, and she was at the end of the end of the end at the other place. It was like coming apart. Things were off the walls already. It was empty. And then I came over here and it was all white. Nothing was in. None of the tables were here, and all of her stuff, all the pictures were against all the walls and against everything. And she’s trying to figure out exactly where everything was going to go in here. But it was, it was quite a little treasure hunt for you to be able to do this. Yes, yeah, because it is, you know, that you have history. Like, I’m 40 years into my thing. And people like, oh, you talk about your history too much. It’s because I got one. You know what? I mean, like, you know, if you got it, you brag about right. 40 years, I like showing old pictures of me when I was a little younger and less sexy than I am today. But this place, to me, has to be for you, even a year into it, saying we got it right, we got it right. I mean, I feel like
Damye Hahn 14:19
you got it right. I think we nailed it.
Nestor Aparicio 14:20
There’s nobody that’s an old faith Lee’s person that comes down here and says, change, I’m a little underwhelmed, or the food’s not as good, the food’s better. The space is better, the lighting is better. I mean, to me, upgraded everything. I mean, you really did from something that was already iconic and awesome, and you didn’t want to leave it, but you took all the best elements and moved to 50 feet, I mean,
Damye Hahn 14:43
and one of the, one of the things that made me feel so good is, is we were open maybe a month, and there was a woman who had driven up here with her girlfriend from Atlanta, and she, she literally, she saw someone of the TV shows. I, you know, I don’t know. I don’t remember which one it was. We’ve been on so many of them. Darn and they and she wanted, she and her friend literally drove from Atlanta just to come here, just to come and and see families and eat here. And so they were waiting in line, and the line was pretty long. So sometimes when there’s a long line, I’ll go through and hand out menus and ask anybody if they have any questions that I could help them with, just to kind of move them. And you were brand new open, right? Brand new open. And, and she said, she told me your story, that they had come up from Atlanta. They were so excited to be here. She says it looks exactly like it did on the show. And I said, Well, that’s amazing, because it wasn’t
Nestor Aparicio 15:41
here. You were in Disney World, not Disneyland,
Damye Hahn 15:45
exactly, exactly.
Nestor Aparicio 15:48
It worked. Then, you know, you nailed it. I’ll tell you this right now. That’s crazy story. I never thought to drive in Atlanta for anything, you know, for anything to eat, for sure, maybe a ball game or something. But you know, definitely not for fun getting to go. By the way, Jamal McCord is here and Dami Hahn is here. We’re doing a little Baltimore positive here at Faith Lee’s election to market. All are brought to you by our friends and the Maryland crab cake tour at Maryland lottery. We’re still doing our cup of Super Bowl. I have to apologize to you, Dami, a month ago we were supposed to be here, the equipment that makes the show happen was locked in the trunk of my car. That’s okay, because my car was in silver spring and I was in Towson and fates are still downtown, although it is coming to Catonsville soon. I know that to be a fact. What’s going on to Catonsville. Fill me in on it. Everybody’s seen the scaffolding over there. I was over at State Fair in El Guapo last week. By the way to pol when you’re over at the new fadley is a fishmongers daughter. You got a lot of places you can eat there if you get tired. I mean, go over to El Guapo and get that pozzol They do over there, state fair on the chicken and waffles. We’ll be back there too, but you’re going into a beautiful neighborhood, but friends of ours, and I can’t wait for you to get open, neither can
Damye Hahn 16:55
they. I know. I know. And it’s, it’s been all it’s, it’s been a long, hard road, you know, we, of course, we, you know, bought right before COVID hit. So that wasn’t the plan to take so long. But, you know, a couple years of it was a was, was COVID delay. Nobody was about to give out any loans for a restaurant when they were all closed. So it, it took us a little slow pace down a little bit, yeah, it does. It slowed things down. A lot. It slowed things down, sure, yes. So it hurt all of us, you know. And that’s one of the reasons that I think people have not come back too much to Lexington market, because we were close, yeah, you know. And it when you redirect people, it is hard to get them back. Yeah. So we are in the process of, you know, trying to beat that drama, make sure that people come back. That’s why I’m here. Everybody should come down here and see you. But Catonsville, it will be 2025, which month? I’m not sure right now. We’ve My birthday is October 14. That’s a good day to open. It would be a good day to open. I was, I was hoping we’d be up in a little bit before that, but we’ll see the structure. We found some structural issues in the steel work in the front that is going to cause us a little bit of a delay, because it’s all got to come. How
Nestor Aparicio 18:13
old is that building on fret? I often wonder, like the bones of Baltimore, I grew up in the 70s, everything that was there felt like it had been there. But I don’t know, the 50s, from the 30s, from the ox from like that building built in 1930s 1925
Damye Hahn 18:27
Okay, five. They opened in 1926 and that it’s 100 years old,
Nestor Aparicio 18:34
but Gainesville was like a farm community then, right? It was like the place people from downtown vacation. That’s an
Damye Hahn 18:41
Ellicott City. It was their farmhouse.
Nestor Aparicio 18:46
That’s why they’re all mansion and beautiful looking homes.
Damye Hahn 18:48
They left the city to go out there where it was cool, yeah, you know, but near the park, yes. So, so the big thing with that building is that for the last 100 years, it was not very well maintained, sure. So there was a lot of water damage. You know, bricks peeling apart. Every window had to come out, every lentil had to be replaced. It had no plumbing. Some
Nestor Aparicio 19:14
buildings have good bones. Some just have good location, yeah. Well,
Damye Hahn 19:19
this had a good frame. You’re
Nestor Aparicio 19:22
looking for something good beyond the location. It is going to be in Catonsville. It’s in the same parking lot where State Fair is, if you’re familiar at all, with downtown Catonsville, the music capital of Baltimore. Don Multnomah would make me say that, so would everybody Catonsville. They will be open later on the year, but in the meantime, you can order online. You can ship. You can. My wife is in the process of, like, having this family thing, and I think we’re gonna wind up shipping some of your crab cakes down because I made the mistake of hooking them my wife on the way to Christmas, on the way to the airport at Christmas time. Well, I did the show down here Christmas week. That’s what it was. I did the Christmas show the day before my wife left for. New Hampshire and I said, Hey, I’m coming home today. Why don’t you take some crab cakes up to your family tomorrow? She’s like, all right, you know the clams. They’re New Hampshire people, you know? And I stuffed four crab cakes, and I took them home, and we doctored them all up, took them up there, and then she got to watch them eat them that night, yeah. And now that’s it’s over. Every Christmas you’re done, we’re gonna have to come here and bring them there. So now they’re all asking, Hey to the Fade. Lease people, do they ship? And I’m like, yes, they do. You click away. How does that work? Like right now it’s two in the afternoon when we’re taping. If I click a button online right now and I say, I want them tomorrow, next day? What? How quickly can it happen then, like tomorrow night? I’m craving. I got a promotion. I live in Bemidji. I want to ship them.
Damye Hahn 20:47
How does so you have up until 12 o’clock any given day to have them by tomorrow? Okay, so and we do that. We except for Saturday and Sunday. UPS does not do overnight air on Saturday, Sunday, we overnight airship. We make every single crab cake to order. So we’re making them, putting them in the box and shipping them the day we make them. So let’s say, you know my wife’s birthday is next Friday. I want them to arrive on Thursday. You can go online order them for Wednesday. Wednesday. Ship. They will be to your house on Thursday. Short them at 10 in the morning, and then they go out that afternoon, next day. You can order them ahead of time. We love people who order them ahead of time. There’s a lot of last minute, but you know
Nestor Aparicio 21:29
some person you know this about me,
Damye Hahn 21:33
so the up until noon is for the last minute version. But those who plan we love those people who plan ahead, because it makes our lives a lot easier to know what we have to buy, know what we have to
Jamal McCord 21:44
production, like watching them do that. Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 21:46
I see the whole Yeah, listen, I was here play time during Christmas shipping. She had Oriole pitchers, you know, left handed guys using their right arms to stuff.
Damye Hahn 21:59
Absolutely had we had Bruce in here packing box. She’s a
Nestor Aparicio 22:02
baseball mom. Did you notice about her? I didn’t. I know her years. Huge baseball fan. Navy mom, baseball right here. Kid played for the Naval Academy, the whole deal, you know.
Damye Hahn 22:12
So I went to 242 Navy baseball games in my size. 242 more than me and boy, I used to call this beltway butter highway honey, because I was always, you know, driving to a game.
Nestor Aparicio 22:26
What’s your favorite part of baseball? Never ask you this, because it’s baseball season. Next time we get together here and Faith is going to be April 2. Luke’s going to be here. It’s going to be game five or six on the season. Game six on the season, because they’re playing four in Toronto. So be the sixth game of the season. So I guess we’ll have the number one starter back, pitching that they’ll be Wednesday afternoon. I love that, the fact that the team’s competitive again. You know, you’re talking to some people, wonderful to watch. I might get a press pass back. I’m not sure. Let you know about that later, but we’re going to Canada for the open. Luke and I are going up to Buffalo. We’re gonna drive over. We’re gonna do three days with Getty Lee and the sky dome. So we’re I’m vested. I’m down. My last name is Aparicio. I’m ready for a baseball season. I’m ready for new ownership. How about that? That’s great. What do you love about it?
Damye Hahn 23:13
I love Spring. I love everything about spring. The crabs come back into season. By the way, tomorrow is national crab day. And what does that even mean? There is a national crab day. It’s tomorrow, crabby every day, and but so, so we have it. We have a special Maryland crab meat today. So and took through the weekend. So anyway, and the Maryland crab meat is real Maryland crab meat. We we put it in the freezer. December.
Nestor Aparicio 23:42
Pray to everybody why they don’t want. No offense to people in Asia. I love Asian food. I love Asia. I go to Japan. I even like China, except for, you know, the government and Taiwan. I’ll keep saying I like it all, but I don’t want my crabs to come from there. And there’s, there are places I’m not going to name them. I don’t eat their crab cakes anymore, but I can taste the difference, yes, and I can taste the difference in your crab cake. The one I just ate there, it’s just sweeter. It’s just it’s a different it’s like a filet mignon with chuck steak there, both steak. It’s different.
Damye Hahn 24:13
Yes, it is. It is. And the bet and the the ecosystem here in the Chesapeake Bay is so much different than an ocean crab. So a couple of things are really important to remember. Our crabs hibernate. Because they hibernate, they store fat, and because they store fat, and they’re normally in a cycle to store fat, they’re sweeter because that fat, that is where all the flavor is. So ocean crabs, a lot of the crabs down south, they never, they never hibernate. So they don’t have to store fat, and they’ll use their fat. Ours will store fat, which, which makes them more flavorful. We have a brackish water, not a full salient water. So you know, the salt level is different, and that makes it sweeter. Okay? And then the third thing is, because of having a sweeter ecosystem, their food, their food source, is sweeter, so it does make a sweeter, more succulent. Simply, damn catfish. Get them out too. Yes, get them out. Get them out. Because cat, are you serving catfish or no, we are saved. So what’s a fancy name? They gave it. They gave it some funny name. Didn’t give you channel cats. Is that now, but did they give it like a fancy French name for the fish? Then they did. Last year they came. They were calling it something else, not calling a cat. I’m telling you, this happened last year. I’m not making this up. I don’t know. I’ve been ordering catfish. Nobody told me to guess, call it something different. Well, they wanted to give it a different name because, you know, everybody’s thinking a catfish is being very musty. The thing is, though, the catfish that they put in the chest, and, you know, they don’t get me started, they screwed the bay up, yes, and then this was for sport fishermen, you know, which, which really kills me. But the these channel cats that are now in the Chesapeake Bay, they
Nestor Aparicio 25:58
look like job of the hut. They’re here. They’re really, really ugly and fat and and
Damye Hahn 26:04
if they’re freakish looking, people think that they just suck along a bottom. No, these things are swimming. They are swimming, and they are they’re eating rock fish, they’re eating the crabs. They’re eating. They’re eating everything, eating all the babies. They’re eating all the all the good stuff, all right, all the stuff we want to eat so they do taste good. See, you’re promoting
Nestor Aparicio 26:27
the market eating crap. She brought me oysters about three years ago, and they were so delicious. Then she started telling me, You do know that the oysters, you will have no crabs, because the oysters clean the bay, oxygen ate the bay so the crabs can live. There’s a lot of I didn’t know that does 50 years old. Yeah, should have gone to biology class. Jamal McCord is here. He helps run things and keep things clean and safe and awesome down here at Lexington market and Damien, hi, keeps the crab cakes and the Bay oxygenated and clean and all that stuff. You can order crab cakes online, you can have them shipped. You can come down here. Don’t wait till we get to Catonsville. Come have some
Damye Hahn 27:07
crab cakes. Now, you know, oysters have it all. Fish, we got it all. Don’t sleep. Catfish,
Nestor Aparicio 27:13
don’t sleep on the shrimp salad. So I’m doing a thing this summer. I’m breaking you in on this because you were the first one on the oyster tour. I was gonna do crab soup and cream of crab soup. It’s my 26th anniversary. It’ll be my 27th anniversary in August. I was gonna do 27 days, 27 crab soups. And I thought, well, it’s, it’s a good idea, but I got a better idea. What I’m gonna do this year is spotlight my 27 personal favorite things to eat that are in restaurants in this city, okay? And because I do a bunch of crab cake places, I’m gonna use my crab cake places to feature, because they’re all your crab cakes are delicious. I love your shrimp salad. And I think your shrimp salad is my favorite thing. Here. It’s my favorite shrimp salad. So like, when I don’t get shrimp salad anywhere else. Okay, now, get some fried shrimp over Costas. I get the Cocos. Does these coconut butterfly shrimp with this raspberry They’re unbelievable. But shrimp salad is you. Where’s your shrimp salad recipe? I’m gonna eat this year in August and feature it because I love it so much. You’re my favorite. You’re my go to, you know, I take a little pint home all the time,
Damye Hahn 28:25
right, right? I know what we started we we always had shrimp salad. We didn’t sell a ton of shrimp salad because the big shrimp salad person was Mary Mervis. Oh, sure. Mary Murphy would just go, Well, that was a delicate all of that, and their shrimp salad was famous all over the city. So we were disappointed when they were, when they, you know, did decide to retire.
Nestor Aparicio 28:47
I’m glad you told me about them. That’s a nice thing to say, because I remember Mary Murphy. Well,
Damye Hahn 28:52
they were, they were, they were, and their shrimp salad was great. So when he left, he said, Can you start making my shrimp salad? Oh, it’s his shrimp salad,
Nestor Aparicio 29:00
stolen. Holy cow, I’m eating stolen shrimp salad. So I’m not wrong
Damye Hahn 29:09
salad. So if anybody loved, you know, worried that they’re not here because tell
Nestor Aparicio 29:17
that story again in August, I didn’t want to insult you about telling you how much I loved your shrimp salad. Now you’re like, well, it’s the most famous shrimp sound.
Damye Hahn 29:24
Of course. It’s great. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was always it’s almost
Nestor Aparicio 29:26
like there’s crab cakes out in South Carolina that were the faith, these crab cakes in that
Damye Hahn 29:31
restaurant that was, that was terrible. Now we went into wait to hear this one, this very fancy white tablecloth restaurant in Kiowa Island, and we sat down. There were six of us. One of my friends had this shirt on, who does a lot of scope to match. He knew they were doing this. I did not, you didn’t know. I had no idea. We sat down and I opened the menu, and it was the the special was faith Lee’s famous jumbo lump crab cakes with our. Ripped in our logo.
Jamal McCord 30:03
And no call, no, no, no,
Damye Hahn 30:05
no. And, of course, they didn’t buy it for me. So I’m like, okay, whose recipe is this that you’re putting this under? And they taste so they had, they had, and they had them on the and, and, and, and. And it was funny because the waiter came up and, and my friend the guy said, you know, it’s good, good evening. I’m so and so I’m going to be your waiter tonight. And, and my friend said, I think we got a little issue. He says, what’s that? And he started pointing to the shirt. And the guy goes, Oh, crap. Went and got the manager. Yeah, yeah.
Jamal McCord 30:40
Called owner, really, yeah.
Damye Hahn 30:42
Well, I mean owner, the owner, this was, this is what they told me, the owner loves my mother, loves my mother’s crab cakes. Had been up here and fell in love with the crab cakes, so he searched the Internet, and somebody had a recipe they put out of like a fade lays crab cake, Bailey style, and, and they put, I said, because my mother’s never put a recipe out and, and that’s what they used, and, I think, and they had had it on there for a month. They had had it on there since Thanksgiving. This was like January 5.
Nestor Aparicio 31:18
Was it even close to your mom? No, okay, all right. And,
Damye Hahn 31:21
and part of the reason too, I mean, it was, it wasn’t, no, it was, it was Carolina crab.
Nestor Aparicio 31:27
How would you have felt if it actually tasted good? Would you felt better about it?
Damye Hahn 31:31
I would because, honestly, I would have felt better if it was better, because at least it wouldn’t have hurt our reputation, right? Because people are sitting there thinking, Oh, if this is families, you know, they ain’t getting that exactly, and they’re not gonna call me to order some. Well, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 31:46
you know, we all have our favorite foods, and I started thinking about this with my wife, because I have some. I’m not gonna give it away the things I but I eat it. I have an Asian place that’s just phenomenal. They’re not a sponsor. They’re not, I don’t read there, but I eat there. And they’re a great family, and they’re local, right in Hartford. I want to promote them, because their food’s great, so I’m good, like, I’m going to use August for 27 years and say these are my favorite things to eat. And some of them are really simplistic. Like, I have a snowball joint that over in East Baltimore, Snowball joint. It’s my snowball joint. It’s great. Egg custard. Obviously, you know, Marshmallow, extra marshmallow. I love marshmallow. I’m out. No, I’m out. I’m traditional. Look me. People give me that. Look me. People get mad at me. TJ Smith got mad at me that I don’t That’s what he said,
Jamal McCord 32:33
like, that’s the best he wanted to take my Baltimore car
Nestor Aparicio 32:38
snowball right here in the market, ice cream. You can come down and get fruit. You can get a delicious only place in the world right now you can get a fatally scrap cake. Is right here at fade Lee’s. You get the fake ones key wall Island, or you can wait until the open but
Damye Hahn 32:53
don’t we could not get the faith. I made them take that off the fake
Nestor Aparicio 32:57
ones everywhere, everywhere outside of Maryland, is a fake one. You know, that’s right, the real thing down here at Lexington market, the real Lexington market. All that brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. So you see me look nice. I mean, we had, we had a theater night last year, and I put a jacket on. I smell nice too. But you even took note. You’re like Nestor. You got all dressed up in March to come down to Lexington market. My hair is all done. Nice. Tonight’s the Addy award. So it’s sort of the Grammys for the Baltimore advertising community. And I was lucky enough to purchase a ticket for $150 and tonight I won’t drink. I won’t drink my money’s worth but, but I will look charming and debonair
Damye Hahn 33:39
8tonight you’re taking your wife. Try not getting
Nestor Aparicio 33:42
faith. No, I’m going solo, solo, solo band tonight. Okay? My wife didn’t feel like doing this nonsense tonight. She said I’m gonna bring her home crab, crab cake, because I’m afraid I can’t come down here without bringing up. It’s chilly enough that I probably could get away with some shrimp salad in the trunk, because they’re probably about 38 degrees. Probably stay you
Damye Hahn 33:58
know, I have frozen gels. Anybody can come here and still do what you can come here and grocery shopping. I will make sure that your groceries are fine while you go to that ball game. Yeah, and then still go home. So you’re
Nestor Aparicio 34:07
gonna give me crab cakes I can take home tonight, and they’ll stay cold. Sure, sure we have, we have
Damye Hahn 34:12
insulated boxes. We have insulated bags. We have frozen gel. We got ice I can so
Nestor Aparicio 34:17
as an example, as an example, this is a great example, you’re driving to New Jersey for something God knows what. Hopefully you’re leaving. You come down here on the way and you’re like, yeah, we’ll get eight crab cakes. We’ll take them up give aunt Myrtle a little experience. People
Damye Hahn 34:33
come in here all the time with their coolers, and we will put ice on them. We’ll put frozen gels on whatever they need. If they don’t have a cooler. We’ve got one to sell you. So, you know, people, people do it all
Nestor Aparicio 34:44
that they’ve done this before here at faintly, is there anything you haven’t seen, or anything you’ve only seen while
Damye Hahn 34:49
my father could write, you know, dad, he’s doing well. Good doing well. He’s he, you know, he had a, he had, he had his. Heart surgery last spring before our opening. But he’s doing pretty good. He had a bout of the flu that we were a little afraid of. It took some out of it. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 35:09
it’s not the same without him down here trying to get me to eat muskrat and raccoon in season. Of course, always in season. I saw the muskrat and
Damye Hahn 35:16
it’s in season now. So we slip in that we’ve got him, my wife
Nestor Aparicio 35:21
freak out. You know, we have a raccoon that comes up and literally knocks on the door. Now we have a raccoon that knocks on the window, and I we think our cat has a relationship with the raccoon, because they play with each other at the window. And the other night, I swear to God, it was just like there was a little tap. It was like a I look up, look little dog sitting in a window. A little face looks like the Hamburglar in McDonald’s. You know what I mean? So I can’t No crabs. I’ll eat shrimp, scallops, muscles, everything forest company shrimp and everything beer, but I need no muskrat, and I’m not touching a raccoon. I’m sorry. Tell your father.
Damye Hahn 36:08
Some people do you served it to me
Nestor Aparicio 36:10
once here, and I’m out. Jamal McCords in he’s over here at Lexington market trying to make things great. Come on down. Participate. Be part of it. You’re playing an Orio baseball. You got no excuses because you’re in a neighborhood. Stop there and make your Oreo plans. Come down here, get a crab cake and don’t sleep on a cucumber salad. It’s also one of my favorite things. I might feature that as well. Dami Hahn, her old family is here. Nancy Devine is smiling at me, as she always does on the wall here. Come on down. Get some crab cakes and order them and order them and take them home. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 it’s all brought to you by our friends at Maryland lottery. I have to Raven, you won for I feel like Oprah. One for you, one for you. Dame. We’re going to take care of everybody down here and get them magic eight ball. It’s been a really lucky batch, too. So I’m giving that card back for more from Lexington market. Stay with us. You.
