The start of a new year provides time to reflect on changes that occurred in the past year. Sometimes I’m grateful for these changes but I also delude myself into thinking that things haven't changed much (when they have!) or waste time grumbling over what's gone and not likely to come back like my 36" waistline!

WOO HOO!    New restaurants often offered welcomed changes! In Mt. Vernon, Marie Louise Bistro put the ghost of Gampy's to rest with panache and Zacchi's Café brought new life to storefronts on Read St. Ciao Pizza Cafe and California Tortilla now overlook the previously deserted quarry off of Greenspring Ave. I finally got to eat at comparatively new restaurants (that I wished that I had discovered sooner…) like Feast@4East in Mt. Vernon and Alexander's Tavern in Fells Point   I owe thanks to “JT” for telling me about “Mimi's Café” and “Mama Lucia’s” (both in Columbia),  to Tom who took me to the Sunshine Grille (Yup, there really is a town named “Fork”! ), to Jerry who introduced me to “Timbuktu” in Odenton and to Mimi who got me to “Artful Gourmet” in Owings Mills.

WHAT CHANGE?   Some places like Hull Street Blues in Locust Point (a neighborhood bar with a charming dining room that opened 25 years ago!) and the Paper Moon Diner in Remington (a veritable museum of kitsch and toilet bowl jardinières) manage to just roll along looking the same and leaving me as happy and satisfied as the first time I ate there!  Up in Timonium at “The Peppermill”, word mysteriously passes from one generation of retired folk to the next that they can come here for a nice meal in a clubby “seniors” environment (and if you don’t have a clue who Lady Gaga or Adam Lambert are, you might enjoy it too!) Others “In” places like the Milton Inn in Sparks, the Candlelight Inn in Catonsville, the Williamsburg Inn in Whitemarsh and the Elkridge Furance Inn manage to keep maintain the same décor and core menu items while surprising numbers of men still wear jacket and tie to dinner.

SIGH…   Some restaurants closed during 2009 that I will miss: Pisces at the Hyatt with its awesome view of the Harbor and delicious seafood, Ixia in Mt. Vernon with its whimsical yet elegant interior (which extended even into the rest rooms!), "That's Amore" in Columbia which felt more like Little Italy than an office building across from the mall and Lucy's Irish Pub which occupied the lovingly converted former headquarters building of a local insurance company built in 1847. (Hmm! What became of that young waiter at Lucy’s with that beguiling Irish lilt who almost charmed the pants off of Marty and JT? <Wink!> ).   Others, I won’t miss at all - Jordan's in Ellicott City (ending up with way overpriced mediocre food and pretentious service), Brasserie Tatin in Tuscany (where our server took mercy and warned us that the featured $23 Steak Frites was a cheap, grisly cut of meat), and the Brass Elephant in Mt. Vernon (where the handsome front dining room had long eclipsed the high priced, “cuisine ordinaire” served there)

WHY?    I’m still shaking my head asking why as menu prices continued to spiral upward in a broken bubble economy.  Twelve dollars-plus for a cheeseburger with fries?  Three dollars for a plain coffee or soft drink?  Come on! (Maybe I should be happy that they don’t start charging 50 cents to add a slice of lemon to my tap water!)  I feel curmudgeonly as I walk past the “re-invented” City Café, which looks dark and washed out as if the management forgot to replace a bunch of burnt out light bulbs while I remember the old days when the interior shone like a beckoning, bright urban beacon at night.  Why no spots on the artwork anymore?  What happened to the big potted palms? And where are all those young people in the café who stared intimately into their notebook PC’s ? (Geez, it might help explain things if at least the decorators who wrought these changes to City Café were “straight!”   Ever optimistic, I’m hoping that a year from now I’ll be asking why restaurants got so much better and their prices got so much affordable! Fingers crossed! Best wishes for a happy, healthy and 2010 full of good “DiningOUT” experiences!

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