A Weekend in Maryland - A Little Bit About a Lot of Things A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

February 22, 2011 A Weekend in Maryland

Who’s excited to drive around all weekend in this nifty whip?!? The Nissan Cube! Yikes!! This was my ‘upgrade’ from a compact car….not so sure if our definition of upgrade is the same…Driving this hot number around was like driving a Fred Flinstone car!

We start the weekend off at Phillips seafood for dinner located at 1775 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. Phillips is to Maryland as Anthony’s Pier 4 used to be to Boston. Maryland is known for their crab, so I was looking forward to seeing what this place had to offer.

The restaurant is in the Legacy Hotel. You walk down some stairs and you are greeted by a wall of wine!

We arrive there pretty late, so there aren’t that many people here. The restaurant is quite large with an area for larger private parties in the back.

Instead of bread, they serve potato chips.

We start with some peel and eat shrimp (1/2lb for $10.99). They are steamed with a nice sprinkle of Old Bay on top. Pretty standard, and when you come to MD, you have to have some Old Bay.

We also had the crab and spinach dip, with cheddar cheese a bread bowl and tortilla chips ($12.99). The dip was VERY thick, and not very crabby. You could have this as your dinner it was so filling.

We share the salad, which they make table-side (which is sort of over rated if you ask me, they just dumped all the ingredients in the bowl from their individual bowls and mixed it at the table).

And we shared the crab mac and cheese ($20.99) made with crab and three cheeses. They also “prepared” this table side which was really weird They came out with a plate of two pieces of asparagus and a slice of toast and then dumped the bowl of mac and cheese on top of it. We just thought that was weird.

We ended the night with a slice of key lime pie. The filling was ok, but the crust was soggy on the bottom, and frankly kind of yucky! We spent about $80 on a TGIFriday kind of dinner, and we were expecting a little more high end quality food. The service was just ok, nothing to write home about. If we do decide to go again, I think that we will try the one in Baltimore, there is more of an ambiance there.

Moving in to day 2, we meet up with some friends and go to the Mount Airy Inn located at 1401 South Main Street, Mount Airy, MD 21771. The atmosphere inside is nice, it’s an open space with lots of light. There is a full service bar located in the front and plenty of tables around the corner. The place is brimming with customers. They serve a diner like menu in a space that reminds you more of a eating in someones home than a diner.

I order the legendary French Toast ($8.99) that is “a classic recipe with a super secret twist”, and the secret twist is that it is coated with Captain Crunch cereal before it’s cooked. There was so much French Toast that I couldn’t eat it all! The cereal gave it some extra crunch but not extra flavor.

We roll ourselves out of breakfast and head out to run some errands. We stop over at Georgetown Cupcakes over in Bethesda. Make sure to bring your quarters and your patience, because parking on a Saturday morning can be tedious. Located in a great downtown shopping area, Bethesda is Georgetown Cupcakes second location. You may have seen them on TLC’s DC Cupcakes.

They have a cute little shop, and the service is down to a science. One person is taking your order, as others are filling the order in the back from racks-you don’t get cupcakes off the display stands. They have some flavors available every day, and then they have a rotating menu for the rest of the cupcakes. I was totally bummed when we returned home and realized that we didn’t get a red velvet, they gave us 2 peanut butter fudge cupcakes instead of one red velvet and one pb fudge :(.They are$2.75 each, $15 for a half dozen, and $29 for a dozen.

The Vanilla 2-Classic madagascar bourbon vanilla cupcake with a vanilla cream cheese frosting topped with a fondant flower. Love how pure and simple this is-love the vanilla flavor and the frosting-super smooth cream cheese…YUM.

The Strawberry Fudge Cupcake-it got jostled around in the walk to the car:(. The frosting by itself tasted a little like cotton candy, and when you ate it all together, the flavors blended all together really nicely. The cake was moist and had a really fudge-y flavor…and add to that the intense flavor of the drizzle on top.

The Vanilla Birthday-Classic madagascar bourbon vanilla cupcake topped with a traditional sweet vanilla butter cream frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Different than the Vanilla 2, because this one has butter cream frosting. It’s hard to make a choice of which one I like better!

The PB Fudge-Valrhona chocolate cupcake with a fudge core topped with a peanut butter frosting and fudge star drizzle. The flavor is intense-you could taste the PB cupcake on the other cupcakes that were next to it in the box. All the flavors in this cupcake were strong, and really, who doesn’t love peanut butter and chocolate?

Key Lime-Fresh key lime cupcake with a key lime frosting topped with a candied lime. I am a sucker for anything key lime. When I saw the zest in the cupcake and in the frosting, I have to admit, I was concerned that it would be a little gritty. Boy was I wrong. This was by far my favorite cupcake of them all. Really nice flavor over all, the cupcake was SUPER moist and the frosting was so creamy!!

Finally, ending our time in MD, we have dinner at Lia’s, located at 4445 Willard Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. (240) 223-5427. Probably one of my favorite restaurants I’ve eaten at in MD. There is a bar area to your left when you walk in, that is far away from the main dining area-so the noise is contained. We sit in the back of the restaurant in the area that could be closed off for private parties.

I love the wall of wines! The doors can be closed for private parties in this room.

The rooms has a really cozy feeling about it. Our waiter is knowledgeable and really friendly. He makes good suggestions!

We start with an excellent cheese and meat plate. It comes with fresh bread, toasted bread and a delicious fig spread that I am still dreaming about. We have the soppresatta, a coarse pressed pork salami and the prosciutto di parma, a dry cured ham. For cheese, we have the Marieke Gouda that is sweet and nutty, the Cacio di Bosco which is a Tuscan Pecorino with truffles, and the Crucolo, a cow’s milk cheese from the Italian Alps. All excellent choices-I love a good cheese plate!

I have the bucatini with the black truffles, porcini and truffle pecorino ($26.95). An excellent dish. The pasta is cooked perfectly al dente, the sauce is light so the truffles can really shine in the dish.

My dining companion had the lasagna with ricotta, mozzarella, and meat sauce ($17.95) which was really quite excellent as well. The lasagna was so light, and while you walked away full from the meal, you didn’t feel like it was sitting in the bottom of your stomach.