Baltimore is a lovely city. I had a great time exploring. Never once did I feel unsafe. Much to my SO’s chagrin, I made him walk almost everywhere…since East coast cities are ideal for exploring on foot. I wish I could have explored the food scene more, but we just didn’t have enough time.
Places recommended for the future: Clavel, Yemen & Gulf, WC Harlan, Dutch Courage, Royal Blue.
For folks looking for snacks to bring home, I found that I had more success at the Harris Teeter (Kroger) stores than the Safeway. Old Bay chips and snacks were aplenty. The locations in Canton had an abundance of free parking…everything in downtown or the Inner Harbor is parking structure or metered.
Thames Oyster House
A casual walk from our Inner Harbor hotel, led us to Fell’s Point. There are a ton of restaurants and bars in this neighborhood. Thames was recommended to us by a few people we met along the way.
Opened with a selection of oyster varietals that I’d never had before (the Tatsu was my favorite). Some of the oysters were not shucked well…I found bits of shell in my bites.
Lobster roll - an excellent warm lobster roll where you get extra warm butter on the side…sorry for the fuzzy photo.
Crab cake - a little filler-y to me but I loved the zucchini and potato salad accompaniment
Not pictured, the Maryland crab and short rib soup…it sounded interesting but the short rib overpowers the crab entirely. It’s quite a hearty cup of stew. Also the Caesar salad because additional vegetable content.
Service was nice, and it was a good meal after a full day of travel. Something just seemed missing from the experience. I think we were maybe expecting more from the crab cake.
Peter’s Inn
Our hotel helped us secure reservations to Peter’s Inn during our stay. It’s another charming neighborhood place that spills into the sidewalk. Really nice on warm nights, but I don’t know how folks have dinner outside once the colder temps roll in.
The bar program is great. Nice and balanced cocktails. My violet femme was delicious as was the lemon drop ordered. The problem was the long wait times between ordering and actually receiving your drink.
But we found that waiting seemed to be the theme of the night.
After a very solid carpaccio was delivered, a long wait ensued where we also had to wait for a second round of drinks in between. One entree was delivered and by the time the remaining 2 entrees were delivered, the person eating the first entree was almost done.
My mussels with a green curry-coconut milk broth was quite good and reasonably priced. I love the generous amount of baguette you get to dip into the broth. Mussels were well-cooked.
The surf and turf (scallops and short rib) was a minuscule plate where the scallop was sliced in half and placed atop some dry short ribs. Not a highlight.
The chocolate pôt de crème was great…silky, rich, and also restrained.
The team was apologetic about all the waiting, but the pacing really was bad. We ordered 4 dishes total for our table…there were significant timing issues for each, and quite honestly, I’m not sure I would return. I didn’t love my mussels or the carpaccio enough to want to come running back if I ever find myself back in town.
La Scala
Dropped by randomly for drinks and snacks. I love that they have an entire bocce ball court inside the restaurant.
Drinks were fairly good. We did a selection of appetizers and salads. The fresh tomato salad was significantly better than the bruschetta dish itself. The garlic bread was more astringent in garlic nature than I’m used to.
I did find my favorite Caesar salad of the trip here. They had a choice of grilled romaine and cold. Both were great, but I liked the cold version better.
We might have stayed longer had we not had reservations elsewhere.
Underground Pizza Company
Probably the best meal we had in town. After a long day, we had it delivered and I’m so glad we did.
Underground makes Detroit-style pizza where the crust was quite good and the toppings were just as good. Pepperoni cups properly. Sauce was well-balanced. Fantastic.
The house Bounty salad included mixed spring greens, candied walnuts, raisins, mandarin oranges, apples, goat cheese and a sweet but tangy vinaigrette. Superb salad.
LP Steamers
Maybe the Baltimore Running Festival had something to do with it, but LP Steamers was plenty open on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. We walked right in and grabbed a table outside.
We knocked down 3 jumbo steamed crabs, old bay fries, and a cup of half/half Maryland crab soup and cream of crab soup. These crabs were delicious, though not as sweet as Dungeness, quite good.
I was remiss in taking good photos this trip. So this is the carcass bucket
It was a great meal after exploring Fort McHenry.
Miss Shirley’s Cafe
Picked up brunch from nearby Miss Shirley’s because the online order from Kneads was way too long.
Breakfast sandwiches come with bacon, your choice of egg, cheese, and fried green tomatoes with a side of hash browns. A great breakfast sandwich!
I had the salmon and grits with fried green tomatoes and old bay hollandaise. I really enjoyed this. Salmon was blackened and cooked really well. There was a nice texture to these grits, and I loved that the fried green tomatoes had a great sweetness to them.
Maximòn
Part of the Atlas group of restaurants, we found ourselves here out of convenience than anything else. It claims to be Latin (but mostly Mexican) but with a Nikkei twist. I didn’t see any Nikkei outside of its raw bar selection of one tiradito dish.
Drinks are just okay considering the wide selection of spirits and liquors. Serviceable.
Food-wise, we got as far as the chopped salad and a shrimp quesadilla that they mistakenly thought we had ordered the queso fundido. The chopped salad was fine. The quesadilla was a quesadilla…though we are a tough crowd since we’re from the L.A. area so we view Mexican food maybe a little differently…I’ve stand about a mile away from our house that makes fresh tortillas in addition to their proteins and salsas.
The churros they make are likely frozen and fried to order with a dark chocolate sauce and dulce de leche…they did have a nice cinnamon-sugar mix that had hints of salt to keep the flavors alive.