When you’ve had all you can take of trendy new hot spots, one cure is to turn to Baltimore’s bar-restaurants, the ones that have been around forever and pride themselves on their crab cakes, hamburgers and steaks.

When you have one in your neighborhood like McCabe’s in Hampden, which offers five homemade soups to begin with and freshly baked desserts to end, all the better. 

But with rising food costs, places like these could be hurting. The cost of beef and crab meat has skyrocketed, and what was once a bargain meal is no longer.

Then, too, has the smoking ban hurt McCabe’s — or helped? The open dining room is so close to the bar it wasn’t possible to have a no-smoking section before.

Find out what I think in my review in next Sunday’s Arts & Life Today section. And check out tomorrow's Monday Morning Quarterbacking if you want to talk about today's review of Abacrombie.

(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)