feast your eyes on this beauty:

ok so im pretty sure I’ve had salmon belly before?? but I also don’t remember it being this good. so either I love salmon belly or I love Hana’s salmon belly, specifically.

I hit up one of my friends a few days after running into her at the market. we were overdue for a dinner date so we decided to make plans for that same night. don’t we love a same-day plan? alleviating the risk of overcommitting for something we’re in the mood for one day but not in the mood when the planned day gets here.

she is on my curated list of people who know how to dine. if you know, you know. we have those moments where we just give each other a look as the server is describing a special for the night and its our silent way of saying “we’re getting that.” I also love having a dinner date who wants to talk about the food as we’re eating it. debating the difference between crispy vs crunchy, etc

I also LOVE letting someone else pick where we eat at. which usually surprises people. being the go to for food spots can sometimes be exhausting when my greatest joy is trying places that I haven’t been to and haven’t even made it on my list yet.

ok so back to Hana. I am that girl that asks the server for their recommendations. I can usually tell by how they respond if they’re just running through a rehearsed list vs excitedly telling me about their tried and true favorites and in that moment I decide if I’m going to follow any of their guidance or just peruse the menu and pick whatever sounds good in that moment.

Our server mentioned a few dishes and the very last one he called out was the salmon belly. I just knew i was ordering it. but before we get to that…

we started with the crab rangoon sticks. super rich, creamy…a tad too salty (thanks to the old bay) and the explosion of flavor almost tipped the scale of overwhelming for me personally. I loved the texture, perfectly crispy. all that to say, I probably will get it again when I go back. A fun, unique dish.

next we got the tuna crispy rice. I really enjoyed crispy rice that I had at Lure Fishbar in chicago. so my expectation was that. however, Hana’s crispy rices was more crunchy/dense compared to the one in my memory that was more crispy/airy. I prefer the latter. It was funny my friend described how the crispy rice had a similar look and texture to a hash brown, making it trippy for her while she was eating it since it didn’t taste like a potato. I didn’t dislike the crispy rice, the flavors were good but I wouldn’t miss it if I tried something else on the menu next time.

ok so then came the salmon belly. I’m not a huge sushi girl and I think that context is important. I enjoy it as an appetizer or something but you’re never going to catch me going out for sushi and literally just getting sushi as my meal. I enjoy it but for me to rave about it means something. the salmon belly is of course rich and fatty, so it melted in my mouth like butter. and the charred flavor just finished it off so perfectly. I would go to Hana and place like 5 orders of the salmon belly. for myself. but no forreal - it’s officially on my list of bites worth trying for anyone visiting Baltimore. (currently a mental list but I PROMISE to make a real list)

now that we got that off our chest, let’s wrap up the meal. we each got ramen which was solid. at the time of my visit they only had options with either pork, pork broth, or tofu. my server was kind enough to ask the kitchen if they could make an alternative for me and I was able to get tempura shrimp in the miso broth. it was quite tasty! although of course the tempura quickly got soggy. I’d love for them to bring a beef (non-pork ramen) to the menu.

we also got kalbi beef. i wish this came out before our ramen did because it kinda just sat there forgotten about while we devoured our ramen. so it was room temperature by the time we ate it. no complaints but i didn’t give it a fair tasting.

I did not try dessert this time, but I was impressed by the takeout bag. It appeared to be insulated…not sure if that was aesthetics or if the insulated technology was actually there.

Hana is a new spot and I hope they’re feeling welcomed in Hampden. I’ll certainly be back. Let me know if you’ve tried it and what you thought!