Revisiting: My First Restaurant Review

For my last restaurant post (and my penultimate post of all), I went back to Tapas Teatro.  I used to go here often but sadly have not gotten around to this place lately.  It hasn't changed: still bustling, still ready with the delicious sangría, still with a dizzying array of tapas for the hungry theater-goer (or the guy who stumbles in off the street).

I re-read my first Tapas Teatro post from way back in September of '06 before heading there, and I have to admit: I like how my writing style has evolved (specifically away from the style I used to write in).  I don't know.  It does seem like I'm being extra-descriptive, something I really don't bother to do anymore.  An example from that post:

When the waiterss came back, I ordered a Guiness [sic] (a favorite beer of mine) and one of my favorite dishes, their battered fried vegetables. A little bit about these veggies: the chefs take onions, eggplant and asparagus and fry it in what seems like a tempura-like batter. The chefs at Tapas Teatro then serve it up hot with a spicy, smooth mango-jalapeño salsa (actually, it's more like a jelly), with pieces of red pepper on the sides. The presentation on a square white plate is also gorgeous.

After another wait, in which I was brought some Italian bread with olive oil mixed with softened baked garlic (mmmmm, garlic), the waitress brought out the veggies and my beer. I bit into the onion first. It was a little soggier than usual, but still tasty. Everything else was nice and crispy, not soggy at all (well, as not soggy as fried eggplant can be). And the sweet and spicy salsa was a perfect complement.

I can't explain why but I want to smack the guy who's writing this.  But then again, I've always been self-critical.

Well, my tastes have definitely evolved since then.  I've switched form Guinness in a bottle to the much hoppier craft beers (mmmmm, hops).  But I admit that I was a little bit disappointed when I didn't see that same tempura veggie dish on the menu.  I was looking forward to that.  Not a big problem, mind you, since what I ordered along with my friend Eric (sadly the hubby is out of town) was still very good.

So what did we eat during this visit?

True to form, we ordered a variety of things.  We started with the fritura de mariscos plate, a bevy of tender and wonderfully crunchy fried calamari, bass and shrimp.  Normally I might just order this one thing and that would be enough for me.  But no, there was more.

For a little bit of red meat, I ordered the bistec a la brasa, a small but juicy piece of Angus beef with a "piquillo pepper sauce" and a parsley aioli.  I don't eat too much in the way of steak, so this was an indulgence for me.

Believe it or not, my favorite part of the meal was something I don't particularly enjoy: fennel.  I have nothing against it, but I just don't usually find very inspired versions of it.  However, this fried fennel with garlic aioli was a nice surprise: crispy and even a little juicy with a flavorful crunchy breading.  The aioli was a delicious sauce to go with it.  Alongside this dish was the remolachas dish, made of beets and arugula on top of chêvre.  Again, delicious.

Not pictured was our final dish, the plato de España: an arrangement of different Spanish cheese, sausage and ham: Manchego, Cantimpalo and jamón serrano.  This was a nice way to end our dinner - no dessert for us, as we were just too full.  And this was also a lovely way to end this blog: one final post about a restaurant I haven't gotten to in ages, and am reminded why I need to get there again.

There we go, my last normal post.  There is just one left, and it's going up tomorrow!

Tapas Teatro for Restaurant Week

I went with a friend last night to Tapas Teatro. I thought they might be taking part in Baltimore Restaurant Week, and they indeed are! Not that Tapas Teatro needs any more customers, as our half hour wait for a table made painfully clear. The dimly lit restaurant that shares a building (and a door) with the Charles Theater still somehow manages to be cozy, bright and lively all at once. And that is even as you try in vain to find some way to move around the place! It is constantly packed and for good reason - Tapas Teatro is one of those few places that not only lives up to the hype, but somehow seems underhyped! I have not eaten at all of the tapas places in town (I will get to Pazo, I promise!), but this one is a fave for good reason.

Eric and I waited a good half hour for our table while we nursed our alcohol - his choice was wine, mine a bottle of Bass Ale. We spent the half hour trying to choose between the $35 Restaurant Week menu and the regular one. At most area restaurants, the $35 prix fixe menu is a steal (less so than in August when it was only $30, but still). But at Tapas Teatro the Restaurant Week menu consists of three plates: one small tapa, one large tapa, and one dessert tapa. For a grand total of $35. I rarely spend more than $15 here, but Tapas Teatro is a place where you could easily spend $30, $40 or $50 on tapas, but not on just three of them, unless you stick with the pricier options. As indecisive as I am, it took me a good while longer to choose. Eric seemed to settle rather quickly on the regular menu, and after another 10 minutes of hemming and hawing, I did too.

We ordered a total of seven different tapas - I chose three, and Eric chose the rest. He said that this was that rare occasion where every dish he ordered was really good. He had some sort of unsatisfying flatbread plate the night before while eating there with another friend of ours (shout out, Jim!) but this night was different.

Here's what we ordered. I would recommend each one:

ensalada del teatro ($7) - A peppery arugula salad with very thinly sliced red onion and an almost chocolaty balsamic vinaigrette

batter fried vegetables ($6) - This is one of my tried and true favorites. I have ordered this so many times (it was, in fact, the very first dish I wrote about on this blog). I still love the tempura asparagus, eggplant and thickly-cut onion, and that jalapeño-mango jelly goes with anything batter-fried. But I think after tonight I have a new favorite dish.

asiago cheese with tomato on Ciabatta ($5) - This wasn't the new favorite I meant. That one is below. But I still found myself going back to this garlicky cheese-covered ciabatta for one bite here and one bite there. I almost didn't have room for anything else after that.

asparagus with serrano ham ($8) - I only had a little bite of this. Tasty.

baby potatoes ($5) - I rarely find potatoes that I really like when I eat out, particularly those of the whole-roasted variety. But the flavor of the potatoes was a pleasant surprise, especially combined with the garlic aioli.

fried calamari ($9) - This is my new favorite. On the menu, it's listed as grilled calamari, but you can get it fried instead. And it will be one of the best fried calamari dishes you will eat. The calamari is quite tender, more so than any I have eaten. In addition, the coating is crunchy, light and not too greasy. Sadly, there are no long, stringy tentacles (I like those, okay?), but what you get is very satisfying.

skewered lamb with lentils - Eric ordered these, so I'm not sure how much these were. I can't find these on the menu. So I will have to ask about it next time I am there. What it was, was tender skewered lamb laying on a bed of lentils. This is a simple sounding dish that packs a lot of wonderful flavor. You don't have to win me over to lamb - I am a lamb-lovin' person as it is. Perhaps it's less lamb than I am used to, but I still liked the dish.

Minus Eric's glasses of sparkling rosé and coffee and our pre-dinner drinks, the total food bill was about $50 to $52 (making that lamb dish about $11 or $12). That's seven tapas for about $50, minus the six tapas we could've gotten from the Restaurant Week menu for $75. I have to say that ordering off the menu was by far the better deal for my skimpy bank account (what I ordered cost about $20). But if you can find a seat for Restaurant Week, peruse the prix fixe menu and decide for yourself what you'll get next.

Baltimore Restaurant Week: Red Maple

I was not sure if I'd be able to do Restaurant Week this year, time and money wise, but I did manage to get around to it. So I asked my friend Eric if he and his better half would like to go to Red Maple. I wanted to try it out since the chef - Jill Snyder - is now locally famous. Fortunately for us (and her?) there was no ostrich egg on the menu. What was on the menu, however, was a mixed bag.

We got there for our 8:00 reservation, and got quickly seated - the only thing that happened quickly that night. I figured there were just a lot of orders. Eric, not impressed with that excuse, brought up a good point: they only have to worry about a few dishes. You see, Red Maple cut down its typical menu for Restaurant Week, only offering five selections for its first (appetizer) of three courses, five more for its entrée course, and four or five more for its dessert course. That's about 15 different things that the kitchen has to worry about putting on the tables of hungry patrons.

Red Maple is certainly not lacking in stylishness. It caters to a youngish, hip sort of crowd. As we brought up later in the evening, Red Maple is less of a restaurant than a lounge that serves food. It has not only a nice wine list, but a diverse selection of cocktails, all of which were a bit more than I wanted to pay (I just got a Sierra Nevada for $4, while Eric and Alan got a nice bottle of white wine).

The menu looked quite promising. For each of three courses, you could choose one of a variety of small plates, each of which was just large enough to share a little of everything amongst the three of us.


For our first course, we each ordered different appetizers: I got a tom kha kai sort of soup with lemongrass, coconut milk and chicken that was the best of anything on the table. The other guys ordered some okay egg rolls and some dumplings that were a bit on the bland side.


Our second course was the main one, with slightly more substantial portions than I would have expected on a small plate. That's not a complaint, mind you. This time, Alan's scallops were the tastiest thing amongst the three of us. I did like my seared and crusted tuna with wasabi pea mash, but the scallops were better. Eric, on the other hand, was thoroughly dissatisfied with his jerk chicken satay, which was very dry (to put it mildly).


For the final course, we had a selection of desserts. Both Alan and I ordered the double chocolate creme brulee. I loved this stuff, which came with some dots of whipped cream and a few blueberries on top. But it really didn't seem like creme brulee. It was more like a rich chocolate mousse with a crispy creme brulee top, but I liked it. Eric's apple tart was the best thing he had that evening, and really was the only thing he liked. Of course, the worst thing about the evening was the wait. From the time we were seated to the time we got our first course, almost a full hour had passed. As I alluded to before, the waitress said there were two big parties that came in and ordered just before us. Still, with such a limited selection of choices on the menu, one wonders if it should have taken that long, and just how long it would've taken for the food to come out had it been a regular night with the full menu!

Eric's not having much luck with my choices of restaurant.

As for my own assessment: I liked what I had. Perhaps it wasn't really worth $30, but I would eat it again. As for Red Maple: I probably won't be going back. The food is okay, and the desserts were lovely, but it really doesn't have that restaurant vibe. But at least there were no exotic eggs on the menu!

UPDATE (1/27/09) - Minx just let me know that Jill is no longer with Red Maple. She's "workin' the line" at Sotto Sopra. Is that a demotion? Regardless, our food at Red Maple the other night clearly can not be blamed on Chef Jill!

La Tasca (Baltimore Restaurant Week)

I went with my sister and some friends to La Tasca to sample their tapas menu for Restaurant Week last night. La Tasca is a gorgeous, two-story restaurant in Harborplace with a beautiful view of the Harbor and the USS Constellation. It's right there - I mean right there - at the other end of the Skywalk from the Gallery on the other side of Pratt Street. Very conveniently located. Also near La Tasca: the above-average Irish restaurant Tir na nÓg, and Edo Sushi. I've never been to Edo Sushi, but it's constantly mentioned as one of the Best Restaurants in the area. I have to go sometime.

La Tasca has an arrangement where if you want the Restaurant Week prices, then everyone at the table must order from the Restaurant Week menu. This was great, because we were all there for Restaurant Week. Their menu included one salad, four tapas of our choice (from a selection of about twenty), and one dessert. We started out with glasses of sangría (which were extra). I got their rebujito, which had sherry in it. At least they said it did. It didn't seem so obvious as I drank it, but I figured all the sherry had settled to the bottom. Oh well, it would kick in soon, I thought. My salad was pretty good, fresh greens with chopped bell peppers and fresh tuna, and topped with balsamic vinegar. Everyone else seemed to like her salad. One of us got a salad with lots of prosciutto, and wanted something a little sweet in it to cut that.

Continuing to sip my sangría, waiting to feel the kick or, for that matter, taste the sherry, we waited patiently for our tapas. My favorite tapa was the calamares (calamari - note the cognate?), battered and served with mayonnaise (not so much a mayo-based sauce but, it seemed, just plain old mayo). It was a little salty (in a good way) and very crunchy without being tough or dried out. I really liked the calamares and would get it again. That is, if I was going back. You see the rest of the tapas were, well, lacking.

• Meaty, perhaps once-frozen albóndigas in a generic tomato sauce with some peas thrown in. My sister and I shared the three that we got, and we still left some behind. It wasn't due to their size.

• The blandest mussels I have ever eaten in my life. At least one of mine was closed. I've never left so many behind before. Trust me: you will find better ones in one of the street fairs in Little Italy. Another great plate of mussels: Nasu Blanca. And wait: doesn't Tapas Teatro serve some, too?

• I got a flank steak and potatoes dish. The potatoes were tasty and flavorful. I found the steak to be on the tough side. My sister liked it better. That was good, because she got some memorably forgettable tapas as well.

• One thing she ordered was a salmon steak with chopped up tomatoes or something (they were pretty flavorless, so it was difficult to tell what they had once been). She didn't care for it. I thought it was better than anything I had eaten save for the calamares.

• She also got a typical tapas restaurant dish, a tapa-sized bowl of paella a la Valenciana. It included some pretty dry pieces of some kind of meat that tasted like chicken. The rice pilaf itself was not bad.

• Believe it or not, our friends fared worse. One dish that one of them got sounded like it would be delicious garden vegetables served Spanish-style. What she actually got was mixed frozen vegetables from a bag. So classy! She was quite annoyed about it but remained gracious - it wasn't the fault of the waiters' after all. But it did become the running joke of the evening.

• One of them also got some shrimp simmering in a butter sauce, which I tasted. I think it was a butter sauce, but it really could have been wine, or something else. A throwaway, sadly: again, I have had better. At least they were tender.

The desserts were much better. My sister got this truffle and chocolate dish which was tasty (I tried it), while one of our friends got a bowl of strawberry ice cream, which she also liked. Our other friend and I each ordered the crème Catalana: basically a large custard in a shallow dish with crème brulée caramalized sugar in the middle and strawberry slices on top. It was good, but still not as good as similar dishes I have eaten elsewhere. It seemed almost like a lazy crème brulée with that crispy topping just in the middle. But it was good enough that I would recommend it if you went to La Tasca. I mean much of the stuff is pretty bland, so at least order something tasty.

And by this time the sangría had truly not kicked in. I now suspect they just gave me some fruit juice with an anemic splash of sherry in it that I couldn't even taste, if there was any sherry in it at all. I could have easily gotten behind the wheel with the drink in my hand and still have had a ridiculously legal blood alcohol content.

Long story short: for $30 plus about $5 per drink, this was a pretty forgettable place to eat. Truly, the meal was uneven - even the alcohol was weak - and even though the service was not bad, you go for the food, which became the butt of many of the night's jokes. Note to the folks at La Tasca: you don't want your guests making derogatory jokes about your dishes, especially when they are giving you their business. That's when "patronize" with a long /ā/ - to give your business to someone - and "patronize" with a short /ă/ - to make fun of - mean one and the same thing. Folks, that's not a good thing. Plus, I can find jokes online for free - why should I pay $30 plus tax for new ones?

Anniversary Trip: Tapas Teatro

My very first restaurant review was for the hip and always-crowded Tapas Teatro, next to the Charles Theatre. During that review, I raved about tempura veggies:

A little bit about these veggies: the chefs take onions, eggplant and asparagus and fry it in what seems like a tempura-like batter. The chefs at Tapas Teatro then serve it up hot with a spicy, smooth mango-jalapeño salsa (actually, it's more like a jelly), with pieces of red pepper on the sides. The presentation on a square white plate is also gorgeous.

I'm gettin' all sweaty just thinkin' about it.

Since then I've been a few times, but I haven't been lately. So I decided to go this past weekend. There were some seats outside, but even more people waiting to be seated, so I figured I wasn't going to sit outside. I eventually ponied up to the bar and looked at the menu.

Maybe it's been a while, but some of the prices seem to have risen since the last time I went! Only by about a dollar or two, but it caught me by surprise. So I ordered the requisite Guinness (about $4) and decided on a meal. I got a little more than I usually do:

• lamb albóndigas (meatballs) in a tangy tomato sauce with cilantro (about $8)
  
• dried tomato on hearty bread slices, with a little tomato sauce underneath (about $4)
  

These were good tapas, with the beer coming to about $17 after tax. I left $20 and headed out for the next part of my night. I didn't go far. In fact, I went to the other side of the Charles. Sofi's Crepes offers crepes - just crepes, dinner crepes, dessert crepes, fancy veggie, cheese and meat crepes and simple crepes with butterscotch or chocolate. And they always serve them up hot. The best part is that you can create your own. Instead I took a pre-existing one and added to it. I wanted dessert and I wanted cheap. So I went for the simplest and cheapest dessert crepe I could find, their homemade butterscotch crepe. The kicker is that it's the butterscotch that's homemade. To this decadent crepe I added nutella for an extra buck. Total cost: $5, for a hot, steaming, fattening, wonderful crepe. I also got an iced tea. It wasn't remarkable - just your standard iced tea. I doubt people go to Sofi's for the tea anyway.

All in all, I'd say this was an extremely satisfying anniversary meal. I don't know why I had never gone into Sofi's Crepes after the Charles. Glad I did this time.

Vacation Over

Sadly, my vacation is done. **SIGH** The next time I post anything I'll be back in the comfort of my home in Bawlmer. But I have one or two things left to write about:

Papaya Bay of Yucaipa

Jim took me to this Thai restaurant, Papaya Bay, in this remote, dusty little Yucaipa strip mall. Note that this city isn't very big to begin with, but hey, it's the desert, so 40,000 people can live on a patch of land much bigger than they need anyway. My jaw dropped when I walked in; the place is gorgeous, with all this beautiful woodwork and even a fancy table and chairs when you walk in, all ornate Thai woodworking.

The food was just as good, and as usual we ordered too much of it. For starters we ordered some egg rolls - crispy and with a sweet and sour sauce - and some puff pastry sort of thing that looked like a tiny empanada, but with curry and potatoes in it - still done up in Thai style. This latter one came with a sweet vinegary sauce with little chopped-up red onions and cucumbers in it.

Then our soup came out - tom kha gai, which I have never received as a complimentary part of my meal before (and so good). Next was the mains course. Mine was panang curry chicken, which I've never had before. Smooth and coconutty (coconut milk, not coconut bits), a little hot. It looked more like a stew than anything else, and came with a large mound of white rice. It also came with a little salad that I didn't bother with.

Total price for two: about $38.

Café Sevilla of Riverside

It seems to have become a tradition, our going to Café Sevilla once during every trip out here. We went in April and we did it again. Just a note of advice (heads up, Danielle, if you make it out this far; you'll be in LA by the time you read this): if you are out in Riverside, go there on a Wednesday night. They have tapas platters, and they are all half price. We got $50 worth of tapas for $25 easily, not even that. Plus, try their sangarita. It's their claim of "Spain meets Mexico!" It's just a margarita mixed with sangría, and put in a standard short glass with sugar instead of salt around the rim. Tasty. Total was about $60.

And that's it. I'm off to the local Vons (a Safeway subsidiary - note how alike their websites look) or Stater Bros for something to eat on the plane. I could just get something between connections in Phoenix, but I won't have enough time and it probably won't be any good anyway.

Update on SoCal visit 2: Back to Bawlmer, hon, er, dude

Oh my God, did I hit the Publish button instead of the Draft button? Now I feel so embarrassed! Oopsie! My heartfelt apologies for the very embryonic post there (I was wondering how Fairfax could've known I was back in town already). My only excuse is that I had to act fast because we were boarding. Anyway...

Well I am sitting here at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport waiting to board my connection between Ontario and BWI (or at least I was when I started typing; I'll probably be back in Maryland by the time I publish this), and my meal here was a bit less appetizing, just a slightly tough little Nathan's hot dog (again, the Fresh Connections sandwiches I found at Las Vegas are here, but the hot dog was cheaper). This after I polished off a Del Taco bacon and egg breakfast quesadilla and three and a half hash brown sticks (hey, I won't be eating that for a while anyway, so why not). But I have had much better food over the last day or so. A recap (again, photos are forthcoming, because I am too tired to deal with them right now):

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE AT CLAREMONT

Think Mt. Washington Village, but with more smog and palm trees. And wind - man, those Santa Anas were kicking up yesterday! I almost got hit by a very heavy palm frond. But the Village at Claremont is in Claremont, CA. This city is on the westernmost cusp of the Inland Empire, and the easternmost part of LA County, and it's a very cool, happenin' place. The Village at Claremont has a Rhino Records, a music store where I bought this really cool device where you turn a knob on a string and it makes these wooden chickens "peck" the platform above the knob. And I almost bought a VHS tape on how to play the didgeridoo (yes, I have one, and yes, I know that is weird).

A. Kline Chocolatier - My friend Jim and I went to Claremont's A. Kline Chocolatier. Okay, I did, and dragged Jim in with me. They have some absolutely wonderful candies in there, and some Easter candies on sale for $3 for a small, Mary Sue-sized egg (the one that's about the size of a very large normal egg). It's as good as a non-Mary Sue can be (God, am I a typical Bawlamoron or what, comparing all such candy Easter eggs to Mary Sue). Bought some wonderful butter creams, too, about $18 a pound, but each was worth about 50 to 60¢, and I only got 10 of them.

Kinya Japanese Restaurant - Every hip, happenin', semi-pretentious place like the Village at Claremont (or Mt. Washington) almost always has a Japanese restaurant with sushi. So on a hunch I did a search of the restaurants there, and lo and behold, Kinya popped up. This place had some very good (though occasionally stringy) sushi and sashimi, at comparable prices (we ended up paying about $50 before taxes for drinks, appetizer, mains and dessert). I liked the presentation of the sashimi in a bowl of rice and radish shreds, their Chirashi Zushi. However, I was particularly bowled over by their deep-fried (though not tempura) soft-shell (Mmmmm. Soft shell). Even better, they had the first tempura ice cream I have ever had outside of Baltimore that actually tasted good at all. And unlike the ones here, which serve it in a dish, Kinya cut their tempura ice cream into quarters, making it ridiculously easy to eat. What a great idea! They even put a nice dollop of whipped cream and a cherry in the middle. Jim got the green tea flavor (which is odd, considering he's no great fan of green tea ice cream), and I got the vanilla, but we each tried the other's.

I hope I see tempura green tea ice cream in Baltimore soon.

BACK IN RIVERSIDE

Café Sevilla - We finished off the evening, and my trip, at a favorite tapas bar and dance place, the Café Sevilla. This place is in a fashionable part of downtown Riverside. And though we don't dance, we do like those tapas. We started with drinks - Jim got the sangría, which was so strong he almost asked me to drive home as soon as it first hit his lips! I had a Spanish beer, whose name I forget, but it was good enough for me!

For tapas, Jim got a good, hearty gazpacho and this quartet of marinated vegetables and seafood, including some "firm" octopus, very sharp and tangy artichokes, mellow red pepper (and garlic that actually took on the flavor of the pepper, not the other way around), and almost bland mushrooms (all for $11). I got a tangy ceviche for $9 and some very smooth meatballs (that is indeed the best way to describe them - smooth) al Jérez (in Sherry) for $6. Then we shared a crèpe filled with chocolate mousse and covered in white chocolate and Grand Marnier - which was better in theory than execution. Altogether, another $50 for the two of us, before tip.

And so that's it. After some more junk food on the plane and in Phoenix, here I am, ready to go to bed and off to work tomorrow morning, and ready to hunker down into this horribly cold weekend. Well, at least I can look forward to my next trip out there, whenever it is (I'm shooting for Christmas break - I plan these things well in advance).

Man I wish I was back in California!

Tapas Teatro

For my first entry, I thought I would visit one of my favorite restaurants, Tapas Teatro. This tapas bar and restaurant next to Baltimore's Charles Theater (hence the "teatro" part of the name) serves up tasty tapas and alcohol until 12 midnight on the weekends, and then alcohol and dessert after that.

I got to Tapas Teatro about 11:30 PM, and was really hoping for something small to nosh on before going anywhere specializing just in alcohol. Usually, this place is packed to the gills, but by this time of the night, with no movies starting and all the moviegoers already in their seats, there was plenty of room (more than I had ever seen, in fact). If you go before, say, 10, expectto either wait for a seat or wait for a spot at the bar - yes, wait for a spot at the bar. It's that popular. I hear the sangria is good, though I don't drink much of it. But if you like it, it's good.

The waitress gave me a menu and some salad pickles (olives, pearl onions, baby gherkins), and I started looking at the menu. Now I usually expect to wait a while for service, again because it's such a busy place (relatively speaking, it's pretty quick). Service was, however, slower than I expected last night. But it gave me time to sink in the surroundings. The place is softly lit, and because it was such a balmy night, the doors were open. I should've asked to move to a table on the sidewalk, but I didn't feel like moving.

When the waiterss came back, I ordered a Guiness (a favorite beer of mine) and one of my favorite dishes, their battered fried vegetables. A little bit about these veggies: the chefs take onions, eggplant and asparagus and fry it in what seems like a tempura-like batter. The chefs at Tapas Teatro then serve it up hot with a spicy, smooth mango-jalapeño salsa (actually, it's more like a jelly), with pieces of red pepper on the sides. The presentation on a square white plate is also gorgeous.

After another wait, in which I was brought some Italian bread with olive oil mixed with softened baked garlic (mmmmm, garlic), the waitress brought out the veggies and my beer. I bit into the onion first. It was a little soggier than usual, but still tasty. Everything else was nice and crispy, not soggy at all (well, as not soggy as fried eggplant can be). And the sweet and spicy salsa was a perfect complement.

As for the Guiness? Well, I always drink Guiness. I just like it better than most beers.

The waitress took a little while to bring out my check, but things went pretty fast once I got my check. The greatest thing about Tapas Teatro isn't the atmosphere, or for that matter the quality of the food (which is high). It isn't even the relatively clean bathrooms (considering how many people pass through in one night, the bathrooms should be dirtier, but they're not). It's the fact that I can get something that satisfies me for only $5.95. It's not the hefty proportion that you'd get at Friday's or Ruby Tuesday's, and it doesn't need to be. With my beer at $3.50, my entire meal came out to $9.45. Mind you, many people would either order more food, more alcohol, or some type of dessert. I, on the other hand, usually eat light for dinner (I eat more for lunch). Butalso note that many people just order one tapa, something to drink (a pitcher of sangria, perhaps), and sit around chatting. It's a good place to do it, except for all the smoke inside, which will probably end with no-smoking-in-bars legislation sometime soon (I don't smoke so I won't be complaining). Add tax (5% in Maryland, bringing it to $9.92) and a 15% tip ($1.50), and I wound up paying only $11.52. How's that for a meal? I feel like Rachael Ray!

Coming up... I take a visit to Baltimore's Irish Festival for some of Baltimore's delicious Gaelic eatin'!