Where to eat for Inner Harbor Weekend in Oct.

[ciomar]

My husband and I will be in town for a conference and want to sample the best the area has to offer. We are open to any type of food and price range. We want to come home with stories about great food!

[pastrydiva]

Oceanaire in Harbor East is wonderful, and the Brazilian restaurant in the Inner Harbor, Fogo de Chao is a must (though it actually may be part of a chain).

[Dmnkly]

Twenty locations, to be precise.

[DCDOLL]

i think Little Italy is fun...it's a cool neighborhood that you don't see everywhere. The restaurants there are all pretty much the same...red sauce italian...but they are pretty authentic and reasonable.
I heard there is a new wine bar in the IH but haven't been yet.

[ciomar]

Thanks for the suggestions. We will not have a car- so a walk or a taxi ride.
We always try to avoid the Chains and love to eat like locals. After reading the boards, it looks like the locals stay away from the Inner Harbor. Small or big, cheap or pricey doesn't matter. Just has to taste good. Cinghale is ok with us - not a fan of red sauce places. Too much like eating at home. lol

[BRI328]

The Wine Market in Federal Hill, Ixia in Mt. Vernon, Woodberry Kitchen..cab ride, but worth it, Pazo in Fells Point.... a great wine store is Bin 604...

[bordeauxfan]

Glad you'll be spending time in Charm City. It would help if you could give us a few more parameters though (location/transportation access/price range $$). I STRONGLY suggest you search/navigate this board for Baltimore suggestions, and would advise staying away from the chain restaurants that ring the central Inner Harbor area.

I'll toss in one suggestion: Charleston Restaurant in the growing Harbor East neighborhood. Great food, service, but pricey.

[Hal Laurent]

That Charleston description (great food, service, but pricey) would also apply to its sister-restaurant across the street, Cinghiale.

[FoiGras]

Cinghiale--ABSOLUTELY NOT. Charleston is a good rec, but it is pricey. You get what you pay for. Blue Sea Grill (a short distance from the Inner Harbor is very good, offering very fresh seafood in a lovely environment.

For something a bit more unusual, Ixia is a fun place with good food. None of these restaurants are chains. They are unique to Baltimore. FoiGras

[Hal Laurent]

Lots of Baltimoreans seem to dislike Cinghiale because it's not a red sauce joint with huge portions. And it's not. It's very good (and expensive) northern Italian food, with a very good Italian wine list.

[lisenu68]

My husband and I had a very different experience at Blue Sea Grill. It has gotten pretty good reviews on this board, and our experience did not match up. We went for Restaurant Week, on a Thursday evening around 7. The bar was full, but the restaurant was only about 25% full. First, I should say, it's a beautiful place--they've clearly put a lot of thought into the atmosphere. The maitre d' was helpful, and we were seated promptly. For restaurant week, we had a choice of two apps, an entree from 5 choices that seemed a pretty good representation of the menu in general, and a dessert from 3 choices. We were in Baltimore, after all, so we chose a number of dishes in which crab was featured.

The service was a bit too attentive in some ways (understandable, since we were the only table in our waiter's section that was occupied), and brusque in others; we felt strangely rushed (perhaps because of same). Our waiter asked if we wanted cocktails before we'd had a chance to settle in and look at the cocktail menu. We deferred, and took a moment to peruse the menu. He brought us bread quickly that was cold and a bit stale; the breadsticks they offered, however, were good. We ordered a glass of wine and a cocktail, both of which were good.

Appetizers: I started with a mixed salad of arugula dressed in a pesto vinaigrette, topped with pinenuts and what was billed as warm, crispy goat cheese croquettes. While it turned out to be the best part of my meal, the salad was underdressed (and I don't like much salad dressing, so this was really underdressed), and what were supposed to be warm, crispy goat cheese croquettes turned out to be a single, ice-cold, mealy croquette about the size of a large marble. It was an average salad, not too good, not too bad. My husband had the cream of crab soup, which they warned us in advance, was not thickened with a great deal of flour like they do in other local restaurants. It was to be more like a bisque, which sounded great. Sadly, it was not. Good cream of crab soup tastes like crab. This soup tasted like warm milk, with a tablespoon or two of crabmeat loaded in the middle. We tried adding salt and pepper to see if that helped matters, but it didn't.

Entrees: My husband ordered crab cakes, which were fine. A little on the dry side, but adequate. Not great, not bad, just fine. I had Mahi Mahi topped with crab imperial, which came with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables. The Mahi mahi itself seemed fine (if a tiny bit undercooked), but the there was nothing remotely imperial about the crab imperial. Like the cream of crab soup, it was utterly bland, and had a minimal amount of very finely chopped crabmeat in it. The potatoes were fine, if lukewarm, and the fresh vegs consisted of a couple of tablespoons of what tasted like a fresh jicama-carrot type slaw. This last bit, while not what I expected from the description was actually pretty good, and the only shame was that there was so little of it.

The dessert we chose was creme brulee, as we're both big fans. What came out was not bad, but again, not as described. It had a sort of citrus base that clashed a bit with the crunchy browned sugar top, and was topped with chopped fruit.

Overall, we decided, we'd give it a 6/10. Perhaps less if we'd had to pay full price, instead of price fixe. I'd like to be able to chalk the failings up to a rushed restaurant week evening, but like I said, the restaurant was only about 25% full, even at prime dinner time, so that is unlikely to have been the culprit. Needless to say, we will not be going back.