|
|
|
|||||||
|
Chestertown The Imperial Hotel Two opulent, intimate dining rooms, one on either side of the main corridor, are the setting for some of the area's better meals. The dining rooms have been refurbished in favor of a lighter, sophisticated look. “Victorian had its time,” said co-owner Dick O’Neill, “but it was time to lighten up.” The Zagat survey of Washington-Baltimore restaurants rated the Imperial among the tops in the region for food. Chef Eliza Abbey has given the contemporary menu global accents, as in starters of Hungarian mushroom soup with chicken, Indian samosas with cilantro sauce and North African spiced crab cake with merguez sausage and hearts of palm salad. Her wide-ranging entrées include arctic char à la chinois with Thai red curry sauce and curried duck with spiced basmati and Indian lal masale wali sauce. Our dinner began with a complimentary cheese straw. Starters were a roasted garlic and goat cheese soufflé and a wondrous plate of smoked shrimp, mussels and bay scallops with a cucumber and dill cream. Among entrées, our party sampled the sautéed lump crab cakes with a tomato-lemon-caper sauce, grilled fillet of snapper with sundried tomatoes, grilled scallops with red bell pepper and pineapple sauce and New Zealand rack of lamb with artichokes, kalamata olives and pine nuts, all superb. The pan-seared Atlantic salmon with a tropical fruit relish over wilted greens and the filet mignon with a vidalia onion compound butter and cabernet-tarragon sauce were winners at another visit. Desserts here earn much acclaim. Our chocolate praline triangle with grand mariner sauce was heavenly. We’ve heard good things about the honey panna cotta with dried figs and apricots, the peach frangipane tart with orange crème anglaise and the paris-brest with raspberry mousse and seasonal berries. (410) 778-5000. Entrées, $24 to
$28. Dinner, Wednesday-Saturday from 5:30. Sunday brunch, noon to 3. Blue
Heron Cafe The old Ironstone Café gave way to this newcomer run by Paul Hanley, former general manager and partner in the highly rated Bayard House Restaurant in Chesapeake City. Previous owners Barbara Silcox and Kevin McKinney decided to concentrate fulltime on their newer restaurant, the Kennedyville Inn, eight miles north of Chestertown in Kennedyville. The atmospheric, L-shaped dining room occupies an old carriage shop and glass company, which accounts for the garage door at the rear. The shelves that contained ironstone china now display Delmarva porcelain and stoneware commissioned by the Blue Heron for the restaurant. A local artisan obliged with a blue heron, skipjacks, chickens, Chesapeake workboats, redwing blackbirds and the like. An antique quilt from the 1920s hangs in the back dining room. Paul says his team of chefs call their cuisine “traditional and innovative regional American.” Typical main courses range from grilled swordfish with citrus-cilantro salsa to grilled veal chop with roasted garlic demi-glace. Pan-seared Atlantic salmon with oyster cream sauce, pasta Delmarva (with grilled chicken, oysters, Smithfield ham, spinach and wild mushrooms in a romano cheese sauce over linguini) and honey-basted roast duckling in a grilled pineapple and shallot sauce were early favorites. Among appetizers are oyster fritters in lemon-butter sauce – “to die for,” as rated by a national magazine – and barbecued shrimp cocktail on a bed of baby greens and red cabbage. Homemade desserts include crème brûlée, hot milk cake with mandarin orange glaze, chocolate bourbon cake with white chocolate and raspberry sauces, pecan pie and assorted ice creams. Some appetizers turn up on the lunch menu, which featured a delectable-sounding lump crab frittata at our visit. (410) 778-0188. Entrées, $15 to $24. Lunch,
Monday-Saturday 11:30 to 2:30. Dinner, Monday-Saturday 5 to 8:30 or
9:30.
After training with leading chefs and the Marriott Hotel group restaurants, Steven Townsend returned to his hometown. He purchased the old Buzz’s Steak House across from Washington College, renamed it for the state flower and turned it into a restaurant of distinction. The Annapolis newspaper rated it “worth the trip to the Eastern Shore,” praising it as a “serious food kind of place” where imagination is at work. The menu is extensive and the prices affordable, which guarantees a strong local following. For dinner, you might start with local snapper (turtle) soup, blue crab bisque or a sampler of three. Or how about Florida stone crab claws, honey-touched alligator medallions or a Kennett Square mushroom quesadilla? Main courses vary from the traditional (Maryland fried chicken, mile-high meatloaf and calves liver with onions) to local crab cakes, scalloped oysters roasted in an earthenware dish, steak diane, and Carolina peanut-crusted loin lamb chops, served with a sweet and spicy Asian sauce. Can’t decide? Pick any two designated items from the menu and they will be presented together for $19.95. Or go for the East Coast seafood sampler: jumbo lump crab cake, vidalia onion- roasted rockfish and garlic shrimp. Salads, sandwiches and a children’s menu also are available. Desserts range from six-layer chocolate cake to bread pudding with sweet moonshine sauce and Georgia pecan pie. A favorite is the “skillet sunday:” a homemade deep chocolate brownie cooked and served in an iron skillet with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. (410) 778-1214. www.black-eyedsusan.com. Entrees,
$7.95 to $22. Lunch, Monday-Saturday 11 to 3. Dinner nightly, from 4:30.
Sunday brunch, from 9. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
page |
Full destination index | |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
