The mistake is almost never the food. It is the math and the timing. Someone volunteers to handle the food, orders at four for a five o'clock kickoff, and arrives with wings that went soft in the car and forty percent less of everything than the room needed. This is a practical guide to getting it right in Northeast Baltimore, built from what we actually see leave this kitchen on a Sunday. The numbers here work whether you are in Belair-Edison, Hamilton, Overlea or Parkville.
Start with the headcount math, not the menu
The most common error is ordering for the number of people invited rather than the number of people eating, and the two are never the same. Assume everyone eats.
Wings. Eight to ten per person if wings are the meal. Four to six per person if there is other food on the table.
Hibachi plates. One per person if the plates are the meal. If you are combining plates with wings and fries, one plate per two people is enough, because a hibachi plate is a full portion.
Fries and sides. One shareable item per four people. Any less and it is decoration.
For a room of ten with wings as the centerpiece, that comes to fifty wings, two or three hibachi plates for the people who want a real meal, and two loaded fries. For a room of twenty, double it and add a third fries.
The order sizes that actually exist
Wings and tenders both come in counts built for groups, and both take all fourteen flavors.
| Count | Price | Feeds |
|---|---|---|
| 20 pieces | $27.99 | Two to three as a meal |
| 30 pieces | $39.99 | Four to five as a meal |
| 50 pieces | $66.99 | Eight to ten as a meal |
| 100 pieces | $129.99 | A room, comfortably |
On the larger counts you can split across two or three flavors at no extra cost, and you should. A fifty-piece order in one flavor is a fifty-piece order that half the room does not eat. The reliable split is one heat option, one sweet option and one mild option: Hot or Mango Habanero, Honey Garlic or Buffalo Gold, and Garlic Parmesan or Old Bay. Build Your Own Platter is the other route for a group, and it is the better one when the room has mixed appetites rather than a wing crowd.
What travels and what does not
Travels well. Bone-in wings hold heat and texture longer than boneless. Bento boxes are closed containers and stay hot. Sushi rolls are meant to be eaten at room temperature and are the one thing that genuinely does not suffer.
Travels badly. Loaded fries. They are excellent and they are best within about ten minutes of leaving the kitchen. If the drive is longer than that, order the fries for the people already at the house and let someone collect them separately, or accept that they will be soft.
In between. Open hibachi plates hold up for fifteen to twenty minutes and then start steaming themselves. If your drive is longer, order bento instead of plates. Same food, closed box.
Timing, which is where most orders go wrong
Everything is cooked when the ticket comes in. Nothing sits under a lamp. That is why it is good and it is also why a fifty-piece wing order is not a walk-in.
Under twenty pieces: order online thirty minutes ahead. Twenty to thirty pieces: forty-five minutes to an hour ahead. Fifty pieces or more: call the store directly rather than ordering online, and give us at least an hour. A hundred pieces: call the day before if you can.
Sunday afternoons in autumn are the busiest stretch of the week at this store. An order placed at four for a five o'clock start on a Sunday in November is competing with every other order in Northeast Baltimore. Place it in the morning.
Feeding a mixed room
Kids. Boneless wings in Mild, Garlic Parmesan or Lemon Pepper, plus chicken tenders in three, four and five piece counts, all in the same fourteen flavors.
People who do not eat wings. A Chicken Hibachi at $9.85 or a bento covers them without you ordering a whole second cuisine. Tofu Hibachi at $9.85 covers vegetarians, and Avocado and Avocado and Cucumber rolls at $7.85 cover anyone avoiding meat entirely. Because the whole menu is halal and there is no pork anywhere in the building, you are not managing two sets of rules across one table, which is the actual reason people host with us.
Ordering from Moravia Road
We are at 5230 Moravia Rd, Suite B, in Northeast Baltimore, a few minutes from Belair-Edison and Frankford, and a short run from Hamilton, Overlea, Parkville and Rosedale. For any group order, calling 410-858-4910 is better than ordering online, because you can talk through timing, flavor splits and what will still be hot when you get home.
Visit us
Group orders, fourteen wing flavors, cooked when you order them. Flame Japanese Hibachi Baltimore, 5230 Moravia Rd, Suite B, Baltimore, MD 21206. 410-858-4910.
