Sometimes I think vacations end on days like this to make going back easier. After six sparkling days of bright sunshine, blue sky, low humidity, highs in the low 80s, and clean mountain air, I woke up to rain, which turned into gloom and drizzle and then more rain.

My breakfast bread had gotten moldy.

Andy Roddick lost. 

To cheer myself up,  I took my husband to the new Sonic in Monteagle that Bucky told us about for lunch. Not because I was craving a fast food burger. In fact, I wasn't. But I was curious. ...

Continue reading "View from the front porch" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

And now for a change of pace. Enough of these new, trendy, Harbor East, high-energy, tapas kinds of places. Next Sunday I review Pappas Restaurant in Parkville.

It's a classic Old Baltimore restaurant, the kind that used to be everywhere but is now a dying breed.  Seafood and steaks are the specialty. You have to have the crab cakes. And prices are surprisingly reasonable.

These days when most restaurants are struggling, Pappas had every table filled the night we were there. To find out how our meal was, please look for my review in next Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section.

(Photo courtesy of Pappas's Web site) 

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Review Preview
        

 
I know we still have French restaurants, although I don't think we have enough any longer to make a Top 10 out of them. (Maybe I should try.)

And, of course, we have some good ones: Petit Louis, Tersiguel's, Crepe du Jour, Cafe de Paris.

But how did Italian food take over French as Most Popular, Most Sure-Fire Bet for a Successful Restaurant and so on? ...

Continue reading "What happened to all the French restaurants?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
        

I decided not to go to the parade today, which might take too much energy, but instead to lie on my bed under the slowly revolving ceiling fan and read all the comments of the past week.

I found I couldn't decide on just one for Comment of the Week, so instead I'm going to declare a winner of the four-word review contest (all of which were great, by the way, if you missed them). This one made me laugh out loud. ...

Continue reading "The Comment of the Week" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

Under an earlier post, a lively discussion developed about what condiments were proper for a hot dog. As if "proper" and "hot dog" belong in the same sentence. (Don't get me wrong; once in a blue moon I crave a good hot dog, and I indulge that craving.)

Anyway, Voodoo Pork once sent me an e-mail saying I should write a post about this very subject and I would get 100 comments. I thought that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard, but now I think he may have been right. Who knew? ...

Continue reading "Mustard or ketchup on a hot dog?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (92)
        

This has been such a good vacation that I haven't been food once, which is some sort of record here. Not for a mosquito, deer tick, chigger, spider or copperhead.

Actually we had lunch at the Blue Chair yesterday, and I had a hard time choosing between these two items on the menu:

Maryland Crab Cakes -- handmade wild-caught crab claw cakes served with red pepper ranch and capers $10

and

Lunch Croissant -- ham or peppered turkey with cheddar and dijonnaise on a plain bagel, multi-grain toast or croissant $6

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
        

It never occurred to me to wonder where the name "slider" came from until I got an e-mail from a reader asking me.

What I do remember is that when they first started to appear on restaurant menus I was surprised that it was a name everyone had heard of for mini-burgers except me.

So I looked it up on the Internet and here's the explanation I found:

In 1994 White Castle was granted a U.S. trademark on the term "slyders" which derived from the way the burgers slide out of their cardboard boxes. ...

Continue reading "Where the name slider comes from" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

I was thinking of doing a post asking everyone to tell us how you're celebrating the Fourth. But frankly, I don't think yours could compete with guest poster Bucky's. EL

Tomorrow is Independence Day, and this year we will engage in one of our semi-traditional activities, going up into the mountains to have lunch at the Coney Island Boardwalk Hot Dog Stand in Bailey, Colo. ...

Continue reading "The smoked elk hot dog" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (33)
Categories: Bucky's World
        

Just in time for my vacation, I got an e-mail from Crabby Crab Host that makes an excellent guest post. I wish I'd raised some of these issues before, only I thought it was just me being greedy. EL

Living in a crabcentric (pretty good word, huh?) town presents us with a unique set of problems. Fortunately you are here to assist with our most pressing needs -- finding the best steamed crabs, crab cakes, and  settings. However, a real dilemma reared its ugly head the other evening -- steamed crabs etiquette. ...

Continue reading "Steamed crab etiquette" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)
        

Brother Bim: Would you like a glass of Trader Joe's shiraz?

Me: No.

Brother Bim (reading the label): It's a very interesting vintage. March. 

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

I want to give you a link to Other Reviewer Richard's review of Tahina in Owings Mills today before I go down to cut up apples and peaches to put in the pitcher of sangria I plan on making.

I have to admire Richard's ability to turn this into a full review. Tahina sounds like one of those places that are worthy of a review, but it would definitely have been easier for him to write a four-word review of it.

(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer) 

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

I'm not, but some people still are and are still commenting on an old post about where to get the Maison Marconi chopped salad recipe, which led to this joke from Bucky:

Q: How many Baltimoreans does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: All of them. One to put in the bulb, and the rest to talk about how much better the old bulb was.

How true. I don't know how many comments the Top 10 Locations We Miss Terribly got, but I remember it was a ton.

Here's the caption for the photo:

Oct 1, 1998-- Marconi's on 106 W. Baltimore St. offers French and Italian (Continental) Cuisine. The restaurant opened in 1920 and the owner claims it is the oldest restaurant in Baltimore. The owner (proprietor) Ilene R. Booke loves the color green so when she renovated the front dining room, she painted it pale green. It has European touch in the room. It's signature dishes are Lobster Cardinale, Oysters Pauline, and Softshell Crab as well as homemade chocolate dessert dish. It opens for lunch and dinner from Tuesday through Saturday. Photo by Chiaki Kawajiri/staff

Oh, heck. While I'm at it, maybe I'll reprint my whole review, which this photo illustrated. Although it makes me a little sad to read it, because Doug H. died in a car accident not too long after. It was his daughter whose wedding we attended in Argentina this Christmas. If you aren't into nostalgia, don't bother to click "Continue reading..."

Marconi's closed in 2005. ...

Continue reading "Yearning for Marconi's" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)
        

As I'm reading this fantastic Funtastic Thursday guest post from Owl Meat, I'm trying to decide what I want for dinner, drink and music.

This would be the music for some reason, maybe because I'm on vacation, and the food would be straight picnic fare, but including cucumber sandwiches, with iced tea for a drink. Here's Owlie. EL

You are stranded on the proverbial desert island. You find a lamp. You rub it and a genie appears. He says that you can have any food, beverage and music for dinner. What do you ask for? It isn't your last meal. It's just what you want today.
 
Over the past few weeks I polled people for their choices. I also included one of my own. I'm sure you can guess from the photo what my wish was. I was a little surprised by how quickly people answered the question. ...

Continue reading "What I want to eat, drink, and listen to right now" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (62)
Categories: Funtastic Thursdays
        

Have you seen the site Four Word Film Review? Some of them are very clever. I picked out a  food-oriented movie we've discussed here and looked up the reviews to give you some examples.

For instance, for Waitress: "Keri Russells up pies." Although that's not really a review. If you've seen the film, you'll understand why this is both more clever and a review: "Quirky Romantic Comedy Pie."

It's harder than it looks, especially when you apply it to a restaurant review. ...

Continue reading "Four-word restaurant reviews" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (40)
        

I would be writing more about the restaurant meals I've been having on my vacation in Sewanee, Tenn., except that this year all the restaurants seem to have closed or burned down.

My brother arrived with a box from Trader Joe's, which he said contained the two major food groups. I looked in and it was filled with bottles of two-buck chuck, except that two bottles were missing, and two cans of tennis balls were in their place.

Here's how my days have been going so far: ...

Continue reading "Midweek update on the vacation" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)
        

I was tearing my hair out while I was writing today's Table Talk column.

The news had just broken about the Brass Elephant being for sale, but it wasn't clear whether the Sun was going to write a news story about it or wait until there was some real news, like a buyer. So I didn't know how much to say in my Table Talk lead. (The food section prints on Monday, and I knew I wouldn't be around on Monday to make any last-minute corrections.) ...

Continue reading "Mount Vernon's lost restaurants and Top 10 Wednesday" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

I know you've been waiting all week for this one. Our Shallow Thought Wednesday guru John Lindner, as promised, reviews Maggie's. Here's John. EL

I’ve been wrestling with how to accurately describe Maggie’s in Westminster.

Based on my first meal there, a dinner, I’d have called Maggie’s Carroll County’s Peter’s Inn, lighter on the inventiveness, but with gloriously more seating and decidedly less corner in its bar. Oh, and let’s not forget, plentiful convenient parking. ...

Continue reading "Finally, the Maggie's review" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: Shallow Thought Wednesdays
        

The question of our best food neighborhood came up peripherally on Chowhound awhile back, and many of the posters understandably ducked the issue.

But if you were forced to name Baltimore's best neighborhood for restaurants, bars that serve good food and even markets, what you say? And why?

Harbor East? Hamilton/Lauraville? Or somewhere else? ...

Continue reading "Baltimore's best food neighborhood" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (55)
        

John McIntyre sent me this as a possible topic of discussion, and I was so taken with it I thought I would post his whole e-mail. Unfortunately, I can't think of any new embarrassing food preferences to tell you about because if you read this blog regularly you already know about all of mine. The one that probably caused the most consternation was my liking bagels toasted and buttered -- and not too dense. Here's John. EL

John McIntyre's entry: I order steak well done.
 
This is rank heresy, shameful, disrespectful of meat and of the chefs who prepare it. Kathleen (who tells my son, "Put your father's on the grill ten minutes ahead of ours") attributes this to unfortunate formative experiences in my youth in Kentucky, where people are suspicious if the meat is a different color on the inside. I am still a rube. ...

Continue reading "My most embarrassing food preference " »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (71)
        

Earlier this summer I wrote about the original name of Spam, Hormel's Spiced Luncheon Meat, which I thought was a much better name.

This poor food. A whole category of things we hate, spam, has been named after it, so now the name of the canned meat has horrible connotations.

I don't even remember how I felt about the name, as opposed to the meat, before the Internet; but I guess I thought it was a clever combination of spiced and ham, and its only flaw was that it was the name of something unpalatable. ...

Continue reading "Why Spam needs to change its name" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

All-American Restaurants was a tougher category than I thought it would be.

I didn't want to include diners and barbecue places, because they deserve Top 10s of their own.

And I didn't want to include restaurants like Cafe Hon that are American but also fun and campy.

The restaurants on my list all take their American food seriously.

If you're a new reader of our Top 10 lists, please click here before you go all postal on us.

Here's my list in alphabetical order. Feel free to post your own suggestions. ...

Continue reading "Top 10 All-American Restaurants" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (45)
Categories: Top Ten Tuesdays
        

How dumb are some people? I got this comment a while back about a restaurant I won't name:

I will never eat at [name deleted] again merely based on how filthy and disgusting the majority of the servers were the two times I was there.

Dirty fingernails, wiping their noses on their sleeves, and the stench from not showering....plus the food isn't even that good.

F#@!ing hipsters!!

Why even waste your time? I'm not naming the restaurant and getting myself and the paper sued.

And why waste your time and mine putting in a fake e-mail address? I was going to suggest softening it so at least something negative could be published (OK, a little optimistic on my part), but my e-mail bounced back.

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)
        

My husband and I are heading for Sewanee, Tenn. today for a relaxing week, an informal family reunion, and a small town Fourth of July. Poor Gailor has to stay in Baltimore for work.

Thank goodness for auto-publish so you can talk among yourselves while I'm on the plane.

I do have my laptop with me, so I won't be out of touch long. And I do have someone checking comments to eliminate multiple posts, spam and unsavory statements when I'm out walking in the woods or something. 

You'll see that many of my posts this week are going to be short and asking you to do more of the work. Please oblige.

To get you started, I'm going to repeat a comment Jules W. wrote a few months ago. We were trying to figure out what kind of themed week to have this summer: ...

Continue reading "Post your vacation eating adventures here" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)
        

Yesterday my review of Talara, Harbor East's new ceviche and tapas bar, ran in the Arts & Entertainment section.

I liked the food a lot, and I would go back for the tapas and ceviche in a heartbeat, but I hope I emphasized enough that a tapas meal here will cost you as much as a full dinner at some places. One reason tapas has made something of a comeback recently, I believe, is that you can usually eat cheaper with small plates. That won't happen here unless you go for the happy hour. 

(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Monday Morning Quarterbacking
        

I'm usually not around Baltimore on July 4, and if I am I make a picnic and we eat it out on our little deck in back. It didn't occur to me that restaurants might be open on the Fourth until I got a couple of press releases, one from Donna's and the other from McCormick & Schmick's.

Donna's locations will be open their regular hours. The Fourth menu will include gazpacho with crab, zucchini fritters, crab cakes with summer slaw and sweet fries, Mediterranean lamb burgers in pita, New York strip steak with hand-cut fries, grilled local corn with herb butter (greens and herbs from local markets), summer bread pudding, and key lime pie. ...

Continue reading "Restaurants open Fourth of July" »

Posted by Elizabeth Large at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)