A Trip South

The weather has been horrible up on the mountain so "She Who Must Not Be Named" and I have retreated down to Baltimore where the Winter Restaurant Week is being observed. It's a pretty good marketing device. Top restaurants throughout Charm City are offering limited menus for reasonable prices. It's a good opportunity to visit places you wouldn't normally go and to sample their offerings and not spend too much. We did this a few months ago and enjoyed it, so once again we have been restaurant hopping.

So far we have sampled the Brewers Art [good food but loud and crowded]; the Rusty Scupper [not bad, but not particularly good -- standard tourist fare]; the Capital Grille [good steak and seafood, a business crowd] Bistro 300 at the Hyatt [not good at all]; Meli's in Fells Point [superb, everything was perfect, great pastries]; the Lebanese Taverna in Harbor East [good khofti and the best pita bread anywhere]; and the Black Olive, also in Fells Point [great ambience, excellent seafood, especially the crabcakes]. Tonight we are going out again but I don't know where. "She" will let me know.

What all this means is that I don't have much in the way of new Pennsylvania pictures to post, but here are some I took in on the road and in Baltimore instead. Think of it as an advertisement for a nice day trip for those of you still stuck up in the frozen tundra.

UPDATE:

We finished up our tour of Baltimore restaurants tonight with a visit to Pazo, part of the Cindy Wolf/Tony Foreman empire. Cindy and Tony sit on top of the Baltimore food chain and all of their restaurants are great. "She" particularly likes Pazo, I prefer Cinghali, Charleston is generally considered the best restaurant in the State, but as I said, they're all good. The restaurant week menu consisted of tapas, a choice of entrees [small servings], and a dessert for two. Good food, excellent service, delightful ambience. Only one problem -- the place is dark, really dark, and unless you are young with very sharp eyes you might want to bring a flashlight in order to read the menu. I had been to Pazo before and brought a pocket light with me. We were glad I did.



The frozen Susquehanna. Brrrrrr.



The Inner Harbor -- a view from the Rusty Scupper.



Snowcapped sentinels outside the Capital Grille.



Inside the National Aquarium -- Whale Bones



Also inside the Aquarium -- "You Lookin' At Me?"



Finally, over at Harbor East, a memorial to the fallen -- Polish officers exterminated by Stalin at the outset of World War II. A reminder that there are far more important things in this world than restaurant week.