Aja Cage, the pastry chef at Salt, remembers her “aha” moment with ice cream. Her boss at the time, at an upscale Pittsburgh restaurant, asked her to check on some cilantro ice cream. “I thought, ‘Wow. You can make ice cream with cilantro?’ And it was a dessert.”

Summer fun is in full swing! Boating, picnics, pool parties—all great activities, but none of them ideal places for glass bottles of wine. Fortunately, the producers of good wine have set aside their bias against alternative packaging.At the forefront of this movement are folks interested in organic farming who recognize the inefficiency of glass. Glass is heavy, after all, and requires lots of fuel to move it around, so its carbon footprint is formidable.

Pete’s Grille in Waverly (3130 Greenmount Ave., 410-467-7698) does breakfast, not brunch; so don’t go there looking for mimosas, goat cheese and spinach quiche, or crêpes. What you will find are good old-fashioned breakfast classics—coffee, eggs, pancakes, waffles, sausage, bacon, and hash browns—prepared simply and deliciously. We tucked into a stack of fluffy, chocolate-chip pancakes ($5.75) and a blueberry short stack ($5.75) during a recent visit. Both were loaded with our filling of choice and so absorbent we needed to reapply syrup and butter several times throughout our meal.

It's a Sunday night up on the second floor at Germano's Trattoria, a Little Italy stalwart strung along the neighborhood's main drag. The pumpkin-colored walls are hung with vintage Art Nouveau posters, but all eyes are upon vocalist Sophie Louise Roland, a statuesque blonde in a diaphanous maroon dress.

The evening's entertainment, she says, is all about "sensuality." Patrons now have all the more reason to look up from their plates of braised beef shanks and red beet ravioli. "No one is going to die tonight," she adds with a grin.

These days, with more diners yearning for proximity to the chef, the table closest to the heat and clatter is hands-down the best in the house. But a chef's table can range from an actual seating in the kitchen—allowing diners to spy on the meal in production—to a spot somewhat removed from the fray in a private dining room or wine cellar. Most offer a tasting menu of hand-selected specialties, frequently paired with wines, and personal interaction with the chef. Here are several we discovered.

No one is really sure about the origins of Irish coffee. Some say a County Limerick bartender poured whiskey into coffee to warm up some American visitors in the '40s. Then, somehow, the drink migrated to a San Francisco bar with a travel writer in the early '50s. Regardless, the specialty brew is on just about everyone's menu these days, including many Baltimore taverns. We asked Mick O'Shea's Irish Pub (328 N. Charles St., 410-539-7504) to share its popular version ($5).

Yup, we did it again—ranked what we consider the area's 50 best restaurants. The surprise this year is how many newcomers made the list and how many of last year's contenders (like The Brass Elephant) closed due to the economic downturn.

We always start the reviewing process with everyone on an equal playing field—sort of like the start of baseball and football season. The past rankings are history. Then, our reviewers make their way around town, devouring pounds of beef, seafood, pasta, and desserts, even when waistlines scream for mercy.