There seems to have been some sightings of acerbic, bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain in Baltimore today. Hmm, what could the star of the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations” be doing in Charm City?

Perhaps it has to do with an item on his Sept. 1 blog about the TV projects he is planning:

“And a Detroit/Buffalo/Baltimore hybrid show which (I hope) will pay low rent homage to Curtis Hansen, Vincent Gallo and John Waters respectively (There will NOT be a Pink Flamingos finale, however).”

But should we be worried about our culinary reputation? After all, this is the man who wrote, “Baltimore sucks. If you haven’t been there, it’s a fairly quaint excuse for a city,” in his tell-all book “Kitchen Confidential.”

Uh oh. I’m not feeling so good about his visit.

Posted at 4:22 pm
Categories: chefs, what's new | 1 Comment

Restaurants come and go, and in this economy, we may have to say goodbye to more places than we’d like. So it’s encouraging to know that Da Mimmo has stood the test of time and is celebrating its 25th anniversary with several fun events.

Proprietor Mary Ann Cricchio will kick off the celebration on Jan. 11, starting a noon, with the exact menu and prices from the 1984 menu. Mary Ann promises to wear the original dress she wore on opening day. Now, that’s impressive!

Other events include: Jan.12-16, a three-course meal, $25; Jan. 18, 25 percent of the proceeds from dinner will be donated to the Associated Italian American Charities; and Jan. 21, “Veal Chop” night features the restaurant’s signature dish for $25 (it’s usually $45). Make reservations at 410-727-6876.

Posted at 9:31 am
Categories: Uncategorized, events, restaurants | No Comments

Forget the JFX traffic for a while. Head to Pazo after work for $5 tapas and cocktails from 5-7 p.m., starting today. Festively called “Pazo Cinco,” the happy-hour menu, offered Monday-Friday, includes chef Michael Costa’s Mediterranean-style cuisine and cocktails by sommelier/mixologist Olivia Boru.

Here’s a sampling: croquetas (crispy mashed potatoes with manchego cheese), grilled pork tenderloin pinchos (like a canapé), veal-and-pork empanadas, wood-grilled eggplant dip, and mini pizzas. To wash it all down, there are drinks like kaffir-lime-and-Thai-chili martinis, white-chocolate-and-macadamia-nut martinis, and spearmint mojitos.

Suddenly, the work week never looked so promising.

Posted at 11:07 am
Categories: restaurants, what's new | No Comments

If you still don’t have plans for New Year’s Eve, stop by RA Sushi in Harbor East. There’s no cover charge, and no reservations are needed. Plus there will be a guest DJ, extended sushi bar hours, and a sake toast at midnight.

There’s no need to wrap up the party early either. The restaurant (in the Eden building, 1390 Lancaster St.) is staying open till 4 a.m. For more info, call 410-522-3200.

Happy New Year!

Posted at 3:32 pm
Categories: Uncategorized | No Comments

Instead of looking back, I prefer to peer into the food future, or, at least, look at what others are forecasting for the upcoming year. These lists are fun whether they pan out or not. Here are some of the predictions.

—No surprise: Organic and local foods will be in the forefront again. But they’ll get even more attention because “green can mean efficiency and cost savings,” according to foodchannel.com. And who doesn’t want that in this economy?

—A return to home cooking—again a cost-saving measure, says foodchannel.com. It’s time to dust off the slow cooker, it says.

—When you do go out to eat, it will be for breakfast, says Bon Appetit magazine. Look for affordable seasonal menus with dressed-up pancakes, waffles, and eggs.

—The National Restaurant Association is all over the brunch trend, too. It predicts a leaning toward ethnic-inspired breakfast items like chorizo scrambled eggs, Asian-flavored syrups, and coconut-milk pancakes. It also mentions an increased interest in seafood breakfast items, specifically mentioning crab cakes!

—Desserts focus on the pantry-staple peanut butter, says Bon Appetit. Think peanut-butter and chocolate cheesecake swirl brownies and peanut-butter and jelly shortbread wedges, it says.

—Bite-size, mini desserts will be popular, too, the restaurant association says. Other trends: dessert flights, gelato/sorbet, drinkable desserts, and savory desserts.

—New Southern cuisine will shine. Classic country cooking gets gussied up with such ingredients as cornbread croutons and crispy country ham in beet salad and brioche-breaded fish, says Bon Appetit.

—New cuts of meat will land on our tables, like Denver steak and pork flat iron, says the restaurant association. (I found some great suggestions for one new darling, pork petite tender.)

So we’re in for some great eating in the year to come. I’ll share more trends soon like one for nutrient-rich superfruits. Goji berries, anyone? How about mangosteens?

Posted at 2:40 pm
Categories: what's new | No Comments

A world traveler/gourmand convinced a friend of mine that Shula’s is the best steakhouse in town. Now, there’s a challenge a food editor can’t ignore. So I dutifully agreed to meet my friend last night at the restaurant, which is in the Sheraton City Center Hotel on West Fayette St. I made reservations and spoke to a polite woman who took my information. The visit went downhill from there.

I should have known when I couldn’t find the hotel’s garage that the evening was not getting off to a great start. At this point, I should warn you not to go there in the next couple of days. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

I circled the downtown blocks in frustrating rush-hour traffic and finally found the garage entrance on Baltimore Street. Miraculously, my friend pulled into the underground parking right behind me. It’s not the most welcoming place. Eerily empty with low ceilings and pipes, I expected to see Scrooge’s ghosts while trying to find the door to the hotel lobby.

After being innocently misdirected by a staff member to the 11th floor, we backtracked to the lobby and found the swanky steakhouse, which is next to Shula’s 2 (its sports-bar counterpart). The casual spot was lively and bright. So you can imagine my surprise when we realized the upscale restaurant next door was dark and shuttered. What? On Shula’s behalf, a pleasant manager explained that the main restaurant is closed till Tuesday. Hotel occupancy is low, another employee explained. OK, I just wish someone had told me before I made the trip there.

But that isn’t the end of the story. After getting our parking tickets validated (thank you, Andrew), we headed back to the garage, only to find that there was no attendant on duty and you needed coin tokens to exit. We were trapped. We called a mysterious person on a garage phone, explaining our dilemma. The man who later came to our rescue was skeptical of our validated tickets (Hey, we’re talking free parking versus $10!). He later relented and parted with some tokens so we could escape. I’ll go back to the restaurant—but next time, I think I’ll take a cab.

Of course, by now, we were starving. So where’d we end up? We opted for Pazo in the Harbor East-Fells Point area. I’ve never been so glad to see complimentary valet parking in my life. There is a Santa Claus.

Posted at 10:53 am
Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I just saw on Elizabeth Large’s dining blog that the current owners of Brasserie Tatin sold the restaurant to someone from the now-closed Boccaccio, who plans to open an Italian restaurant there. Tatin’s last day is Tuesday (Dec. 23).

If you can, try and visit the restaurant before it closes. I was there a few weeks ago and had a lovely meal. I was planning to run a review soon. Here’s what I wrote about my visit:

A contemporary French restaurant in the midst of vintage apartment buildings in the Homewood area is a visual surprise when you enter the front door, tucked inside the Broadview apartments. Tiny lights cascade down a wall in the sophisticated bar, black tabletops glisten in the dining room, and sleek banquettes in modern-day tangerine and turquoise hues add poufs of color. We had to agree with one diner who exclaimed, “I love these sparkly tables. I feel like I’m on Broadway.” Indeed, the staff and kitchen do everything they can to put on a worthwhile show. Appetizers like succulent frog legs in garlic aioli and rich slabs of country pâté arrive quickly. Entrées live up to expectations, too—from a classic roasted chicken with marvelously crackly skin to humongous diver scallops in a fresh St. Jacques interpretation with rum and vanilla. And you must have dessert before bidding au revoir. How can you not succumb to tarte tatin, a wedge of caramelized, tender apples with crème fraîche and a tart green-apple sorbet?

Adieu, Tatin.

Posted at 2:17 pm
Categories: Uncategorized, restaurants, what's new | 2 Comments

I’m sure Miss Irene (of the namesake restaurant in Fells Point) is smiling right now. Her granddaughter, Emily Gleason, and boyfriend of two years, Andrew Reymer, have added their own chapter to the family’s long history at the Thames Street location.

But, first, a little background: Miss Irene and her husband Mr. Mike (as they were called by locals) Glyphis emigrated from Greece, landing first in Ohio and then Baltimore, living on The Alameda. Mr. Mike ran the downtown family bar, which was called The River Drive Inn. When he became too ill to work, Miss Irene, a no-nonsense, compassionate woman who spoke broken English, stepped in. The couple moved to an apartment on top of the bar (now a dining room), and the matriarch took over the operation. “It kept her going,” Emily says. “She was an amazing woman.”

Emily tells stories of her grandmother having Thanksgiving feasts in the bar for neighbors who had nowhere else to go and hosting her own birthday bashes on New Year’s Day. Emily now has the old bar jukebox in her home as a keepsake.

Mr. Mike died in the ’70s. Miss Irene passed in 1995. By that time, bar regulars had come to calling the place Miss Irene’s. The name was sealed when a storm in the ’90s ripped apart the River Drive sign and was replaced by one that said Miss Irene’s. When Emily’s uncle eventually sold the restaurant, the new owners asked the family if they could keep the name.

So Miss Irene’s lives on—this time transformed into a spiffy, upscale bistro instead of the rough-around-the-edges tavern it was. New memories are waiting to happen.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago. Emily, who spent much of her childhood and teen years at her grandparents’ apartment, was taking a sentimental tour of the new restaurant with Andrew. The couple had been running errands all day and had just come from Home Depot. Emily had no idea what Andrew had planned. But just before they were getting ready to leave, Andrew dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. “He knew how much my grandparents meant to me,” says Emily, touched by his thoughtfulness. And, oh, she said yes.

No wedding date is planned, perhaps next fall. But the couple is already thinking about using Miss Irene’s for their rehearsal dinner. Miss Irene and Mr. Mike will be watching, I’m sure.

Posted at 11:36 am
Categories: restaurants | 12 Comments

I just finished talking to Jill Snyder, former cheftestant on the Bravo reality show Top Chef. She was in the kitchen at Sotto Sopra, where she’s working with friend and executive chef Bill Crouse. “I hadn’t done Italian food before,” she explains.

I was wondering what happened to Jill. Not long after she was told to pack up her knives in episode two of the TV show, she left Red Maple, where she had been working as the chef. For now, she’s planning to say in Baltimore.

She hasn’t been idle. Besides helping out at Sotto Sopra, she’s really excited about being one of the honorary co-chairs at the 18th annual Chocolate Affair, which benefits Health Care for the Homeless. You’ll find her amid the chocolate decadence on Feb. 5 at the M&T Bank Stadium. She’s also talking to Fox News about a possible morning cooking segment.

Jill is still under contract with Top Chef, so she really can’t say a lot about the show. But she did say the finale hasn’t been shot yet. She also says she has stayed friends with everyone on the show and keeps in touch with them by e-mail. I like her attitude. “It was just a show,” she says. “I just want to keep learning and cooking and one day open a restaurant.” Yeah, who needs Top Chef.

Posted at 12:18 pm
Categories: chefs | No Comments

I’m impressed, really impressed. The 29 best sandwiches in our October food issue caught the attention of two food-addicted bloggers, Kate and Nicole, who are going to sample them all. You go, girls! Here’s what they say on their blog:

“After reading a recent article in Baltimore Magazine about the best sandwiches in Baltimore, we were both so enticed that we decided to try them all. Every other Friday (payday) we will try a new sandwich. To help maintain our girlish figures, we decided it would be best to split the sandwiches. Here, on this blog, you will follow us through our journey and find out if these truly are the best sandwiches in Baltimore.”

Kate and Nicole, we await your judgments. (And welcome to my world of constant exercise and fat jeans.) The women are rating the sandwiches on a one-to-five star basis with five being the best. Each woman weighs in, so to speak, on the merits of each one.

Here’s what they’ve found so far:

Petit Louis, croque monsieur. Both gave it five stars.
On the Hill Cafe & Market, The McMechen. Both, three stars.
Ceriello Fine Italian Foods, Roma. Both, four stars.
Miss Shirley’s, bistro beef. Kate gave it four stars, although she did note that she would have added a half star if they did that; Nicole, five stars.

What do you think of their ratings to date?

Posted at 12:11 pm
Categories: Uncategorized | 3 Comments