Notes for the alt.polycon 12 restaurant guide.

[rivka]

Phillips' Restaurant, at the edge of the Inner Harbor, offers a "Crab Pot" for $49.99, which they claim feeds two. Here's what you get, in a big enamelware kettle:

- 8 steamed blue crabs generously dusted with Maryland-style crab seasoning, The crabs were described as "mediums" but seemed more like what I've been sold in the past as "larges." They had a surprising amount of sweet, flaky meat on them.
- 1/2 pound of steamed jumbo shrimp (maybe 18/20s) with onions.
- 1 pound of steamed mussels.
- Two medium-sized crab cakes, their "standard" version bound with a small amount of cracker-meal filler.
- Two ears of corn-on-the-cob.
- A large portion of lovely, creamy-textured boiled new potatoes.
- Melted butter in vast quantities, tartar sauce, and cocktail sauce.

It easily served all three of us. We ordered cups of cream of crab soup all around, but needn't have - as it was, we left 1 1/2 crab cakes behind. (They were fine, but they were the least impressive item in the kettle.)

We sat on the outside patio, watching night fall over the harbor - the lighted boats moving slowly to and fro, the neon signs making shimmering reflections in the water. It was a perfect meal for Maria's last night here.

There are so many things that we wanted to do, but never got around to. I didn't find out until this last week that she's interested in space, or I would've talked wcg into giving us a tour of the Goddard Spaceflight Center. We didn't get to the Smithsonian Zoo or the National Aquarium. We didn't go to Annapolis. We spent twelve hours in New York City, for heaven's sake. She never had time to teach me to make half the Spanish recipes we talked about.

She'll just have to come back next summer, is all.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Please give Maria my very best wishes for a safe trip home, and tell her how much I enjoyed visiting with her. If she does come back, and would like to visit the Goddard visitors center, I'll happily take her there.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Aww.

I knew you guys would make a very good time of it.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

She could come visit our Mars-analog drilling project in Rio Tinto in Andalusia, in September, if she's interested...

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Mmm, craaaab. How far from the hotel?

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Maybe 8 blocks? It's probably a ten-minute walk for the able-bodied.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Yay!

-J

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

How was the food at Phillips'? I remember it being lowest-common denominator seafood, like Legal in Boston is these days. Although honestly, I'm not sure what else to recommend in the Inner Harbor.

B

[rivka.livejournal.com]

They do classic Baltimore-style steamed seafood perfectly well. You're right, it's not the Best Seafood Ever, but it's hard to mess up steamed crabs smothered in Old Bay. I probably wouldn't order anything ambitious there.

My number one recommendation at the Inner Harbor is the Purple Orchid, a French-Asian restaurant in the northeast corner of the harbor which serves artistic masterpieces of seafood. And they have the best cream-of-crab soup I've ever, ever tasted.

There's also McCormick & Schmick's, which of course is a chain but does do marvelous seafood. I still feel a little faint every time I recall their seared scallops with a wild blackberry reduction.

[ckd]

McCormick & Schmick's has also come to Boston, so we have a choice of seafood chains in addition to the various local places (some more hypetastic than others).

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

The last time I ate there, I remember sitting at their bar area outside the restaurant. I think I ordered raw oysters and some clam chowder. Hard to mess those up, too.

I've always avoided McCormick & Schmick's, and I have never thought of them as a place for seafood. Maybe sometime I should go.

(Honestly, I don't have anything on my Baltimore restaurant list.)

B

[selki.livejournal.com]

Paper Moon has funky decor and good veggie and chicken quesidillas and omelettes, but one would have to drive there.

Chiu's Sushi, 608 South Exeter Street #105, 410-752-9666, is tasty, though a bit of a long walk.

There are several excellent Indian restaurants around the inner harbor / convention center area.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and I still want to try http://www.thebrewersart.com/index.html

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD do you want to try the Brewer's Art. You must order the rosemary garlic fries in the bar. (We've never made it into the actual restaurant, because the bar is so incredibly pleasant.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You'd probably like Charleston, in Fell's Pont, which serves fancy low-country food. The Helmand is probably the most popular restaurant in Baltimore - it's just around the corner from me, and it serves Afghan food. And yeah, the Purple Orchid. Absolutely.

Come visit sometime. :-)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh! I forgot to mention Blue Agave, which is sort of nouveau Mexican.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can't believe she's leaving already. I'm glad it turned out to be a good experience for everyone.

I hope she does come back.

And I think I shall think about asking wcg nicely for tour of Goddard.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The only tours of Goddard these days are tours of the Visitors Center, which has cut back on its hours. It used to be open every day except Christmas and New Years, but now it's only open on weekdays. (To which I say Huh?) The reasons given are security, which I personally consider to be a crock. But there it is.

Probably better to go downtown to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Well, poop!

I was hoping for something more like the private tour I got of JPL/Pasadena, where a small group of us got a guided wander through the buildings that are accessible during open house events.