Bel-Loc Diner

I haven't been eating out much lately, which is good because I should be saving the money for other things. But I was up by Joppa Road today and passed by the locally famous Bel-Loc Diner (that's Bel as in Bel Air and Loc as in Loch Raven). I almost drove by, but decided to see how it compared to the Double T Diner, where I recently had a memorably below-average lunch.

Bel-Loc Diner is located at the intersection of Joppa Rd and Loch Raven Blvd, and has a staid and sedate diner decor - they're not trying to live up to some exotic "diner mystique" - they're just a diner. I got there for lunch, and had the benefit of having not just a pleasant waitress but also more than enough cash on hand to order one of their lunch specials - i got the burger with fries and a drink and soup, for all of $7.50 after tax (I thought that price of $7.14 was strange - I guess it's so they can charge an easy to remember seven and a half bucks after tax). I took it home, had a chat with my neighbor and wound up eating it half an hour after I got it.

Hot or warm, it was still one of the best burgers I have had in a long while. Double T's doesn't even get into the same ball park; theirs tasted like it was thawed out before cooking. Bel-Loc's tasted like it was actually made fresh. Damn good, I'd say. Double that for the fries - as rock hard as half of TT's fries was, and soggy as the other half was, these fries had a wonderfully normal texture. Maybe they weren't the best fries I have ever had, but they were the best diner fries I've had in a while. They also gave me a little tub of mayo, which I hardly touched (mayo and fries? Bleh). And I was amazed with the soup, which also tasted fresh. Actual pieces of chicken meat torn off the bone instead of processed and fatty cubes of "chicken" in the soup.

I liked this lunch, I must admit.

UPDATE: Mark writes that the Bel stands for "Beltway" - I wondered why it would be named after Bel Air. Now it makes sense if it wasn't. Thanks!