Baltimore City Paper

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Pablo Fiasco

SPECIAL

Hunger Pains: City Paper’s Annual Dining Guide | Introduction

Park and Pay: This is not a valet town. | Special Issue Eat by Richard Gorelick

Downtown: Ban Thai 340 N. | Special Issue Eat

Midtown: b, a Bolton Hill Bistro 1501 Bolton St., (410) 383-8600, $$ Why We Go: It might be the chalkboard scrawled with the changing list of specials, Eurostyle, or the neighborhood's big Victorian townhouses, or the sweet sense of exclusivity we get from a small restaurant: b's a weeknight place that makes us feel kinda rich. | Special Issue Eat

West: Chinatown Cafe 323 Park Ave., (410) 727-5599, $-$$ Why We Go: It's Chinatown, Jack, the only one we've got. What We Eat: Dim sum, a myriad of dumplings and buns surrounding stuff like pork, tofu, shrimp, lotus seed paste, and ground fish, and also more straightforward offerings of steamed chicken feet, cuttlefish, and steamed snail. | Special Issue Eat

Northwest: Cafè Hon 9002 W. | Special Issue Eat

Charles Village Area: Charles Village Pub A107 St. | Special Issue Eat

North and Northeast: Atwater's/Ploughboy Soups Belvedere Square Market, 529 E. | Special Issue Eat

East and Southeast: Birches 641 S. | Special Issue Eat

Fells Point Area: Arcos 129 S. | Special Issue Eat

South: The Bicycle 1444 Light St., (410) 234-1900, www.bicyclebistro.com, $$$ Why We Go: It feels like we're in a real grown-up city here, and although we actually do like the commotion inside, we fight for a place on the patio outside on summer nights. What We Eat: We're still adjusting, really, to new chef Nicholas Batey's somewhat revised menu, but we've got our eye on the Mongolian short ribs. | Special Issue Eat

Outside the City: Andy Nelson's Barbecue 11007 York Road, Cockeysville, (410) 527-1226, www.andynelsonsbbq.com, $-$$ Why We Go: Are you kidding? There is no better barbeque in the Baltimore area. | Special Issue Eat

Deep Dish: Running a restaurant dining room on a busy evening is far more complicated than it may appear to a casual diner. | Special Issue Eat by Jason Torres

Kid’s Meals: Walking into the kitchen of the Brass Elephant, Mount Vernon’s romantic and historic fine-dining restaurant, and being greeted by Chris Lewis can be a bit bewildering. | Special Issue Eat by Jason Torres

Being Here: “Hold on,” Vince Fava says, breaking off his sentence and excusing himself. | Special Issue Eat by Bret McCabe

Old Dog, New Tricks: Hampden isn’t exactly known for its fine dining. | Special Issue Eat by Anna Ditkoff

Smoke ’Em If You’ve Got ’Em: Ask most Americans about their first food memories, and they probably conjure up peanut butter or maybe bologna and cheese. | Special Issue Eat by Lee Gardner

Talking Dry: Rob Wecker doesn’t look like a wine aficionado. | Special Issue Eat by Anna Ditkoff

Bread And Hot Cheese: Baltimore doesn’t yet have a real pupuseria, though there’s rumor of a truck somewhere along Eastern Boulevard. | Special Issue Eat by Richard Gorelick

Sweet Meats: Part front parlor, part community meeting house, Big Jim’s Deli (1065 S. | Special Issue Eat by Richard Gorelick

Tastes Like Chicken: At his self-named Fells Point bistro, Timothy Dean applies the haute-cuisine techniques he first learned from the legendary Jean-Louis Palladin to bistro fare. | Special Issue Eat by Richard Gorelick

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NEWS

Raw Deal: Notes From the Amish Dairy Underground | Feature by Michelle Gienow

Dr. Dee, for Drugs?: Silver Spring Neurologist's Patients Try To Save Her Medical License | Mobtown Beat by Chris Landers and Edward Ericson Jr.

Good Questions: What You Should Know About the New Smoking Ban in Baltimore | Mobtown Beat by Erin Sullivan

John Trikeriotis: The movie adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book 300 premieres this week, and few people will be watching it as closely as Monkton's John Trikeriotis. | Q+A by Chris Landers

The Mail | Councilmania | Murder Ink | The News Hole

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COLUMNS

The Song's the Same: "It's a massacre, it's a tragedy, it's a travesty of justice!" Those were the words that began the opening number to Watergate: The Musical, written by my friend Maryland playwright Cybele Pomeroy several years ago. | Political Animal by Brian Morton

Age d'Gore: What a wonderful world it would be, many Democratic daydreamers are mooning about today, if only Al Gore hadn't been the victim of, in New Yorker editor David Remnick's words, a "judicial coup d'etat" in December 2000. | Right Field by Russ Smith

Bones of Contention: So what's the big deal about finding Jesus the Christ's bones or ossuaries or leftovers or whatever? I mean, it's not like people who don't think Jesus the Christ was related to the God of Abraham are gonna give a shit, and if you do believe in, like, God, the Father Almighty and Jesus Christ, His only son conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, and was buried, descended into hell, on the third day rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead and whatever, then you also probably don't give a shit that the guy who made that Titanic movie is going around saying stuff about the Christ Jesus, right? So let's move on dot-org to something way more important, namely, who dropped the Baltimore-ball with this The Police thing? The musical The Police, not the regular ones. | Mr. Wrong by Joe MacLeod

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