I LOVE the idea of a Top 10 for the best deals as a result of the recession. And, to help you out...I've found a few recently on my own...

Corks Restaurant is offering 1/2 price foie gras and white wines on Mondays and steaks and BIG, beautiful red wines on Tuesdays. You can get a Filet Mignon with 2 sides (currently they are offering mashed potatoes and creamed spinach---which is FANTASTIC!) for only $15!!! I'm excited to get back for the next one to try out their Porterhouse for two!!

I kinda like the Top Ten Restaurants that make you feel like you aren't in Baltimore.

Has a Top Ten Places to get really good pizza been done recently?

Or a Top Ten Places that have really good soup/stew, since its winter?

Top 10 restaurants to get diet food? Because we need to balance out the holiday cookies?

Top Ten Cold Cut Subs: That could take us to an interesting place, the intersection of restaurant, and supermarket. (To say nothing of delis.)

My vote for subs goes to Eddies of Charles Village (okay, so I work near there, but I think they use better than average oil.). They have more tables on the sidewalk during the summer than a couple of restaurants in Bel Air that have wine and beer licenses. So what are they??

In 1998 we took the kids on the great American cross country tour, and about every third day we declared "supermarket lunch." Even at random we never failed to find one without some provision for seating, either picnic tables outside or a little seating area inside.

So maybe this becomes another top ten list: best supermarket meals!

I vote for best supermarket meals also - it's very recession friendly, customized, cand be a quick or leisurely experience, depending on your schedule.

I had lunch today at Mari Luna for the first time since the cold weather set in because I was afraid I would get the table by the door and freeze to death. How about a top ten of places you avoid when the weather gets either very cold or very hot?

Perhaps in honor of Groundhog's Day, you could do a "Top Ten Places to deal with Six More Weeks of Winter" list. Ie, places to go for hearty, warm, winter fare...

Thumbs down on the "Top 10 places that make you feel like you're not in Baltimore." Way too tempting for people who love to bash our fair city. I do like the idea about "Top 10 places to eat healthy" (or something like that). You could even bill it as "Top 10 places to keep your New Year's Resolution"!

My hesitation is that I did one last January, and it generated almost zero interest. I think last year's list is still valid, though. EL

I have to tell you, when I saw Zenonista's comment in the "Most Recent Comments" box under "Next Week's Top 10 Tiesday list and it read:

Zevonista wrote: Perhaps in honor of Groundhog's Day...

I was absolutely compelled to click "more" and see what list was being recommended.

Squirrel...mmmm.

Wow, I'm surprised a Top 10 Healthy Restaurant list was such a clunker. Oh well! It was just a thought. Thanks for the link to last year's list though. I only started reading your blog, so I missed it the first time around.

How about a top 10 places for a vegetarian and meat lover to eat together and both be really happy? Huge problem in my past relationship. Hard to find a place where we were both really happy with where we had to go eat together. I wanted BBQ or steak, he wanted sushi or curry. The compromise places were usually, at best, only "okay" for one of us and great for the other, or even worse, neither of us thought any of it was great because by virtue of having to compromise, you lose the best quality of each.

Ground Hog Day does not appear in any of my official calendars. Candlemas does . . . though oddly, both celebrate the halfway point (six more weeks!) between solstice and equinox, just in very different ways. We bought our house in Bel Air on February second, and it has been "Candlemas House" ever since.

Top 10 best places to go for restaurant week.

That's a good suggestion, but unfortunately it's not a list I can make up because I've never been to Restaurant Week. EL

Bucky wrote: Squirrel...mmmm.

Do not, I repeat, do NOT...get me started about squirrels! They are a higher-order life form that are plotting to take over the world.They know I'm on to them...so they follow me around to keep tabs on me.

Oh, wait, this blog is supposed to be about food...let me talk to the local squirrel spy and see if he has any recommendations on acorn preparation.

How about a top ten of "nice" places that don't have alcohol. Are there 10? I don't mean byob. I mean no alcohol. The reason being, that the financeer of the food is always getting stuck with large bills due to astronomical alcohol markups...hmmm- who could I be talking about....maybe ... me?

This whole vegetarian thing has me confused. Sushi is not vegetarian. To the guy next to me at lunch last week, any dish with eggs is not vegetarian. Vegetarian = Vegetables. Right?

Transformer in front of my house went bang about 10. I looked over, and saw sparks falling.

Ran upstairs to get a good look, and the transformer in front of my house was on fire, the pole was scorched and one very still squirrel was lying on the sidewalk.

I wasn't tempted to eat him, even if he was cooked, but I did briefly consider chalking him.

(Idea inspired by/stolen from "You Don't Say"):

A Top Ten List of places for fuddy duddies who don't like loud music to go on a Friday/Saturday night and have drinks with like-minded friends. You know, the friends who are semi-deaf so they need a quiet environment to carry on a conversation, whose knees have long-since given out so dancing is no longer an option and for whom leaving with someone they just met is not an option.

Instead of "Midnight Sun" you could call it "9:00 p.m. Sun".

How about "best places to dine alone"? I often like to go out to eat to get away from cooking myself, but have found some places do not make a lone diner feel very welcome (especially if you're a woman!). I think the hostesses use us "single-woman-dining-alone" patrons as punishment to the servers they know are bad! I guess the MISTAKEN perception is that the tip won't be adequate. I have always been an overly generous tipper when receiving great service and the server always seems surprised at this.....hmmm....whatcha think Liz?

Bucky,
Carrabbas would fit that bill. Its pretty quiet there, and the food is fairly decent. I love their filet marsala.

And by the way, groundhogs are not squirrels. They are big fat things that like to steal golf balls. No kidding, I have seen them scurry out and snatch up a perfectly driven shot. Longview in Timonium is famous for that. Well, that and foxes there do the same, hence that course's logo.
Do I get a free drop then?

Rob - Interference by an outside agency. That's what I would call it. Free drop, no nearer the hole.

Bucky, I don't know about your Rocky Mountain squirrels, but looking at the ones I have in my backyard you'd need a whole bunch of them for a decent meal. I've also heard that goundhog is greasy, probably due to all the fat they store for six more weeks of winter.

Top 10 places to avoid on Valentine's which this year falls on a Saturday? Oh my.
Or Top 10 options if you want to brave the crowds.
Many restaurants/caterers are offering special dinners before the actual day..Feb 12 and 13..

How about Top 10 places we remember that EL has given 4 stars for Food in her reviews. Granted it would be tough to come up with 10, but we can try!

EL: dont classify this post as a personal attack, please, i mean it with the best of intentions. Seriously, I respect your opinions and think your blog is one of the best on the web.

perhaps you could just post your 10 best food review's of the past 3 years or something in lieu of the usual top 10.

Elite Elephant Lover- there are different types of vegetarian. Some eat no animal byproducts (vegan). Some eat no meat, but dairy (cheese, milk, eggs) and some eat seafood in addition to dairy.

Also, a good sushi place will have vegetarian rolls as an option.

A vegetarian that also eats fish is generally called a pescatarian. The owner of a veg restaurant I go to calls them "Baltimore vegetarians" because why live in Baltimore if you can't eat fish?

If you eat eggs, you're ovo-vegetarian. If you eat milk products, lacto-vegetarian. Both, ovo-lacto-vegetarian.

If all you eat is vegetables plus avoid animal products altogether, including honey and leather, you're vegan.

Then there's the raw food people who are vegans who also don't cook anything. The idea is that you get the most nutrients and "life force" from still-living food.

All this is up for endless debate on The Web, of course.

Oh, Ms Diane, you have mad me a very sad Robert. Yes, I realised that my birthday falls on a Friday, but hadn't made the connection that Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday, this year. It looks like it will be 3 or 4 days eating at home this year.

I think vegetarians who eat dairy and (especially) seafood are just lazy. Fish have feelings too!

I think vegetarians who eat dairy and (especially) seafood are just lazy. Fish have feelings too!

Not all vegetarians are so because they're concerned about killing what they eat. Some do it for health or religious or other reasons.

Disclaimer: I'm not any sort of vegetarian, although I experimented with it in my youth (but I didn't inhale).

Hal, if the vegetarian food of your youth was anything like the vegetarian food of my youth, I can certainly understand why you didn't inhale it!

What we did to tofu back in the day was a crime against appetite.

RtSO - don't be sad, my partner's b-day is Valentines Day Eve too. And, yes, the restaurants will be busy - but we're getting one over on 'em and going out to lunch instead!

Lissa, I seem to recall that practically everything had sesame seeds in it.

Hal, you must have been eating the upscale 70's veg food. I didn't get sesame seeds.

Poorly made tabouli was everywhere, though, along with the various crimes against tofu (a perfectly tasty food when properly prepared).

Lissa and Hal, my parents suffered patiently through my experiments with "Recipes for a Small Planet".

"Oh no, she's making weeds and seeds again".

Lissa, it was indeed in the 70's. Most of the recipes came from Diet for a Small Planet.

The horrible thing is that there is awesome vegetarian food out there. The year I lived in India, I didn't miss meat one bit.

I was vegetarian for part of the early 80's. For those considering doing the same, I would gently suggest that beer and iceburg lettuce with the occasional slice of tofu marinated in soy sauce does not make a nutritionally complete food.

Lissa, a glass of wine instead of beer will at least add the fruit to the fruit and vegetable food group!