Imagine my surprise last night when I went to meet friends at Miss Irene’s in Fells Point at 6 p.m., and the place was dark. According to a sign out front, the new place will be called Poe Boys Oyster Bar and will open in early December under new ownership and management.

It will feature local and gourmet oysters, seafood, and cocktails. It will have 18 beers on draft and late night food. There also will be a game room and billiards.

That's quite a turn around from the upscale bar and dining room that opened about a year ago. I’m going to miss the croque madame sandwich.

Also, it looks like Meridian 54 in Canton may be closed or going through a change. Its phone is temporarily disconnected.

Formerly called Red Fish, it also opened about a year ago. Its chef abruptly left after a couple of months, but the place seemed to be doing okay after that. Does anyone know anything?

In celebration of this year’s National Farm-City Week, the new B&O American Brasserie is offering a three-course, prix-fixe menu featuring ingredients from farms across the area. The promotion starts today (Nov. 20) through Nov. 25. (The restaurant is closed Thanksgiving Day.)

The menu was created by the restaurant’s executive chef E. Michael Reidt and is available for $38. The food pairings look exciting, and if you haven’t been to the glam city restaurant in the old B&O railroad headquarters, this would be a good time to try it.

The farm menu features:

1. Knopp Farms sweet potato soup with lobster and winter-spiced "marshmallow."
2. Duo of beef from Roseda Farms (strip loin with braised short rib) with Arnold Farms cauliflower and One Straw Farm Swiss chard.
3. Firefly Farms goat cheesecake with Reid’s Orchard apples and pear cider sorbet

Let me know if you go.

Father Leo Patalinghug—Maryland’s newest cooking celeb—is scheduled to be the subject of a feature segment at 9 a.m. Sunday (Nov. 22) on CBS’s News Sunday Morning during its annual episode devoted to food.

You may remember that the St. Mary’s Seminary priest bested chef Bobby Flay in a Throwdown fajita challenge on the Food Network this summer. But Father Leo has a bigger mission besides whipping up fabulous dishes. He encourages communal meals on his website Grace Before Meals as a way to connect families and friends.

The show was taped at Renegade studios in Hunt Valley. You can read more about Father Leo in the December issue of Baltimore magazine.

Pictured, from left: Renegade president Tim Watkins, Father Leo, and CBS senior correspondent Rita Braver.

I was getting a turkey sandwich recently at The Wine Merchant in Lutherville, but I was really on a search for wine—and not just any wine. I was looking for Henry’s Passion.

The story behind the wine captivated me, and I had to have a bottle or two. The wine was created in memory of 21-year-old Henry Lubke, an ’05 Boys’ Latin alum who passed away from an undetected heart condition in 2007. He was in California at the time, pursuing his love of winemaking at Chateau Felice Winery in Sonoma County. (His story is on the winery’s website.)

In his honor, the winemaker bottled two barrels of merlot that Henry and the cellar master had made. The wine sold out last year by Christmas, said Joe Ciletti, owner of The Wine Merchant. The second vintage ($17.99) is available now at several local stores. "The wine is great," Ciletti said. "It's another great blend."

The best part is that proceeds benefit the Henry George Lubke IV Scholarship Fund at Boys’ Latin. What a wonderful tribute to a young man who was following his dreams.

Like many others, I enjoyed reading the recent New York Times blogs on "100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do," especially since I’m usually on the receiving end of service.

Part one presented such dictums as "Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong" and "Never touch a customer." Part two had these admonitions: "If someone complains about the music, do something about it" and "Do not disappear."

The list is based on requisites for servers at a seafood restaurant that the writer, Bruce Buschel, is building in New York. His wait staff is going to have a lot to live up to.

I agreed with many of his "rules," though some seemed like a stretch, like this one: "If a guest goes gaga over a particular dish, get the recipe for him or her." That’s a nice thought, but have you ever seen a chef’s recipe? They make humongous amounts, not what a home cook would want anyway.

But what do I know? I asked two of our magazine interns, Johanna Anderson and Hilary Thomas, who are servers at local restaurants, what they thought about the NYT list. The women had strong opinions about the rules. Essentially, they felt that diners should remember, "Servers are people, too."

Here’s a synopsis of what they had to say:

From Johanna, who works at a bistro in Annapolis:

She agreed that many of Buschel’s comments involve common-sense practices. But she said that his list also involves elements of service that are measured subjectively or are difficult to quantify.

For instance, diners may feel their servers are "racing around the dining room as if there is a fire" (No. 71) when a waitress is simply walking quickly to the kitchen to pick up food and serve it while it is still hot.

She also said she is "irked by rules like, "Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason." She’s been on the receiving end when she hasn’t taken an order. "If you want to talk without pausing for the first 15 minutes of your time in a restaurant, don’t snap at the server if you don’t have a martini in front of you when you take a breath."

I thought Johanna really hit home with this remark, "Don’t become a houseplant." Evidently, houseplants are guests who stay long after the check has been settled. She doesn’t mind that they linger, but she does mind when they stay after the restaurant has closed. She has to remain until her table is gone.

She also reminds us that the rules work both ways. One rule says, "Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness." She asks that diners do the same: "No making sexual innuendos. No—to men—asking me to sit on their lap, especially when your wife is sitting beside you."

From Hilary, who works at a casual restaurant in White Marsh:

She pointed out that a lot of a server’s duties are dependent on their boss or manager. For example, one of Buschel’s mandates states, "Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course."

But she points out that "pre-bussing, as it is usually called, is mandated by most restaurant managers. So in some ways, a server does not really have a choice in the matter."

She also thought the rule about asking people if they had allergies was too inquisitive. "Aren’t medical problems personal." It may be embarrassing if a person has to announce the allergy to the rest of the table, though they could alert the staff beforehand.

She also wants diners to realize that she can’t always tell them if the restaurant is out of an item (Buschel’s rule: "Let the guests know the restaurant is out of something before the guests read the menu"). "It’s only possible if the kitchen lets everyone know," she pointed out.

She also had some advice for diners:

Do not order a big-price meal and then not compensate the server if the service was good. (She told me that she’s seeing more skimping in this economy. She said she gets paid a pittance per hour and has to share her tip with numerous people from runners to busboys.)

Do not complain to get a free meal or after you’ve eaten 75 percent of your meal.

Do not allow your child to make a mess and leave it there for "the help" to clean up.

But I think she summed it up best when she said:

"Do treat your server the way you want to be treated by them."

By now, you probably know that the American Visionary Art Museum finally has a new restaurant. It’s been a long culinary drought, but the intriguingly named Mr. Rain’s Fun House officially opened this week.

I was perplexed, though, when I checked out its website. There’s no hint as to what’s actually on the menu, which is described as "iconoclastic Americana cuisine, classic cocktails and farm to table philosophies." Huh?

So I contacted the restaurant’s general manager Perez Klebahn, who is also the beverage director, and he was kind enough to send me a working dinner menu. Here are some of the items listed:

Soup and salad: roasted beets and rutabaga with snow peas, croutons, and gorgonzola with a citrus ginger dressing ($8); coconut and galangal (okay, I had to look this up in the Food Lover’s Companion. It’s described as a rhizome with a hot, ginger-peppery flavor) with oysters ($8), and purple yam soup ($7).

Appetizers: wild mushroom terrine with blackberries and cocoa reduction ($9), crab and mango tartare ($12), and adobo ribs ($10).

Entrees: prawns and pheasant ($20), tangerine duck ($25), flat-iron steak ($24), and black-eyed pea cakes ($15).

The menu sounds as interesting as the museum. The chef is William Buszinski, formerly of Sputnik Cafe in Crownsville, which he owned with his wife Maria. She’s now the business manager at Mr. Rain’s.

The restaurant serves lunch, dinner, and Saturday and Sunday brunch. It’s open Tuesday-Sunday, and closed on Monday. There’s also no phone number on the website. The one listed on a press release is 410-244-1900.

Has anyone been there yet?

I had a nice chat on the phone Friday with Bryan Voltaggio, chef/partner at Volt restaurant in Frederick. Bryan is one of this season’s contestants on Top Chef. Out of 17 chefs who started on the Bravo show, only six are left, including Bryan and his brother Michael. It’s getting really hot in the kitchen now.

I’m an avid follower of the show and recently had dinner at Volt (my review will be in January’s Baltimore magazine), so I was looking forward to catching up with Bryan.

But we weren’t alone. When you schedule an interview with one of the show’s contestants, a Bravo representative is involved in a conference call to make sure you don’t pry any inside info out of the chef, like who won.

I evidently crossed the line when I asked if the finale had been shot and when it would air? A terse "No announcement has been made yet" from the mysterious Bravo voice quickly cut me short.

But Bryan, a Maryland native as is his brother, seems like a really nice guy. He’s married and has a two-year-old son. When I talked to him, he sounded like he was in or near his restaurant kitchen, so there were some interruptions, in a nice way, from Bryan as he talked to his staff, like, "No, not like that," or "save more room there," so I’ve paraphrased a lot of what he said.

Here are some of his comments. You’ll love his reflections on contestants Robin and Jennifer

Why a restaurant in Frederick? "I grew up here," he said. "I always thought at some point I would come home here." Bryan said that another plus is that Frederick County is agricultural so he is close to the seasonal, local sources he uses for ingredients. He added that when he became a Top Chef contestant, the restaurant had only been open seven months. "It was difficult to walk away" from the startup, he said.

About his brother, who is a chef de cuisine in L.A.: Bryan said it was really fun spending so much time with his younger brother Michael (both are in their early 30s) on the show even if they did have a "spat here and there." He doesn’t mind the show playing up the sibling rivalry. It’s not that usual to have two brothers in the same field, he said. "For chefs, it’s unique. You don’t usually find that."

How his Top Chef appearance has affected his restaurant: "When it opened (in 2008), it took a little while for people to trust it," Bryan said. But once Volt was discovered, it became a hit. Now, with additional publicity from the show, you have to call weeks in advance for a weekend reservation. "There’s a whole new energy here at the restaurant," the chef said.

Top Chef screenings at Volt: Bryan said his family and friends would stop by to watch the show on a TV in the restaurant’s lounge area on Wednesdays. Finally, the crowd grew so large that the restaurant sets up a screen and projector outside, weather permitting. (Sounds like fun.)

About contestant Robin: When I asked him if he felt sorry for Robin, his quick response was, "Yes and no." He said he felt bad about how some of the other contestants treated her and how a lot of people felt she shouldn’t still be on the show. "I tend not to agree," he said. "I have a lot of respect for her. She should be proud of how far she’s gotten."

But he added that they have distinctive styles, citing the recent restaurant wars challenge when they were on the same team. "I don’t see eye to eye with her when it comes to food. We’re very different." He described her food as being more homey. "I do different cooking." The food at Volt can be best described as New American cuisine.

About contestant Jennifer: In recent episodes, Jennifer, once poised and confident, has seemed on the verge of a meltdown. "Yeah," said Bryan. "She felt overwhelmed. But you go in every day and try and perform your best again. Every challenge is different."

I hope this is a spoiler: "She could bounce back," Bryan said.

How does he stay so darn calm? "As a chef, you’re always up against a new challenge in your own kitchen," he said, whether it’s a diner’s request, machinery breakdown, or supplies don’t show up. But he added that despite the outward calm, he can feel frantic inside. "I try not to show it. I try not to over do the emotions." He said it’s better for his kitchen team if he’s composed when there’s chaos in the kitchen. He’s pretty much been able to carry that over to the show.

What’s his favorite restaurant besides Volt? It's not a restaurant, it's home, he said. "I love to cook at home. I keep it more simple for my son and wife. I don’t want to make the same food" as at the restaurant, he said, adding that, at times. there are even lumpy mashed potatoes.

When I asked Bryan whether his other sibling, a sister, was a chef, he laughed and said, "No way. She’s an administrative assistant."

I guess two chefs in the family are enough. Kudos to their mom. I can’t wait to see what happens on Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of Bravo