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Headed back over Labor Day weekend. A big motivation is revisiting Charleston, a dream restaurant for me. I wish it was in NYC, but then the pricing would be different. Southern dishes with strict French technique, lovely dining room, correct service.

Maybe it will be terrible second time.

I added Magdalena, upscale Maryland style. I will of course get to Faidley’s for their eighteenth century crab cakes.

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1 hour ago, Wilfrid said:

I will of course get to Faidley’s for their eighteenth century crab cakes.

I miss these, which we always had on our visits to friends who once lived in Annapolis (he worked in Baltimore, and would bring them home for dinner).

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6 hours ago, Wilfrid said:

Headed back over Labor Day weekend. A big motivation is revisiting Charleston, a dream restaurant for me. I wish it was in NYC, but then the pricing would be different. Southern dishes with strict French technique, lovely dining room, correct service.

 

You sound like a Michelin inspector.

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Magdalena at The Ivy Hotel. Small, attractive dining room. There’s a large party across the corridor, fortunately behind closed doors, but only me in the dining room, which permitted:

”I’m Emma and I’ll be your server tonight.”

”I’m Kim and I’ll be your diner.”

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Oysters, one of the sauces was an in-house mango-based hot sauce which was the fiercest thing I have tasted in years.

The pit beef dish, so-called, was little pieces of steak on brioche, nothing like pit beef, but it did have tiger sauce. The pork belly was excellent, superbly crisp crust. If it had been less generously served, I might have found room for the cheese.

Emma boasted about the El Salvador sourced espresso and it was really good.

Three courses with champagne to start, wines BTG, espresso and a Banyuls, check way short of $200 before tip. I am not in Manhattan.

(Ate oysters before photographing them.)

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Something I will doubtless regret for years. Turns out the historic signs in Lexington Market advertising muskrat and raccoon in season are not just historic. There was muskrat today, $15 each. Now, there is a kitchen where I am staying but how much other stuff would I have to buy to cook it? And I had restaurant reservations each night. But I am now thinking I could have stuffed it in my bag and got it back to New York without too much smell. And damnit I could have frozen it overnight.

Bah.

I did eat the inevitable Faidley’s crab cake which deserves its reputation. And clam strips.

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Good cocktails in the Elk Room (St George gins) after staff at the Italian restaurant next door told me what unmarked entrance it was behind.

Then dinner at one of my favorite places, Charleston (Baltimore). She-crab soup, Italianized steak tartare, not so good quail with excellent but out-of-place onion rings, venison with polenta, a real cheese trolley. I did wine pairings, and as the steak tartare was a special the pairing was a pleasant surprise, a 2018 Barolo.

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Two good but completely different cocktail bars, two good restaurant meals and a Faidley’s crab cake , a full day doing all the museums and galleries I planned, and Amtrak running exactly on time.

Only two negatives. Warm enough but solidly cloudy. And the AC in my Airbnb was so bewildering the owner actually sent me a readymade video about how to operate it. I guess everyone asks.

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And breakfast this morning in the Marriott near Camden Yards. There was a buffet and I did my best with eggs and sausage and bacon, but my server told me I didn’t eat enough and she was going to put in a continental at half that price. ❤️

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