Eat My Town

Per Meg's request, I am responding to her meme about great places to eat in this town. Meg, if you give me some notice as to when you're driving through, I'll even take you there! The only thing I'm not following through with is tagging other people--as I honestly can't think of who I'd tag for this particular meme.

List top 5 favorite local restaurants:

1) My absolute favorite: Puglioni's, known to the locals as "Pug's." This is an Italian restaurant that makes their own pasta; everything is soooo good, and pretty reasonable, too. They have a great pine nut vinaigrette for the salad, and though I've tried other things I always end up getting their sea scallop pasta dish. It's made with a garlic/butter sauce, homemade linguini and sauted spinach. Yummy!

2) Voyager's: think Lebanese/Mediteranean food, also reasonable prices. It's in the airport, as the owner got harassed pretty badly right after 9/11 happened, so he moved the restaurant to the safest place he could think of. All kinds of shishkebabs, curries, etc., a great tahini salad, and great bhaklava. Tasty.

3) Yama's: authentic family-run Japanese food served in a little hole in the wall for shockingly cheap prices. I always have the katsu bowl, which is some pork & egg thing with onion over rice. It's awesome. There is a big screen TV behind the counter blaring Japanese TV from the satellite--always weird stuff. A giant bookcase of manga sits beside the door, and you have to use chopsticks--they don't have silverware there (except for spoons). Beats the heck out of a habachi grill anyday. They close by 8 p.m., though.

4) The Regatta Grill: located in the Waterfront Hotel (where one of the richest men in this state lives in the penthouse--he looks like a greasy mobster), this is a good lunch deal but a pricey dinner meal. The food is excellent, though. No particular style, just the kind of stuff you come to expect in a fairly expensive restaurant. As a bonus, the Rat Pack lounge (fancy-pants, but not that pricey unless you're big on special drinks) is on the other side of the hotel lobby, and it's got fantastic atmosphere (the slinky, dark room, velvety chair kind of atmosphere). Lots of this towns power brokers come there to have a cocktail (or five). It's great to start there and work your way into the Regatta. When Fight Night comes to this town (whoo-hoo!!), a trip into the Rat Pack is required! But then the whole thing just becomes very Ernest Hemingway, so there you go, I guess.

5) Shah's: I think that's its name, anyway. It's only steps away from Pug's, and it serves Middle Eastern food, mostly with a Lebanese flair. It's really a little M.E. grocery store, but you can get food from the counter from the menu. You can't eat in the restaurant, but you can sit outside at a picnic table and eat. A fantastic buy. I see lots of out of the country doctors stopping in around dinner time from the hospital to take something home to their families.

I would recommend all of these places without reservations. All but the Regatta are locally owned and the owner is also usually the cook, or supervises it closely. They require you to drive a little bit away from the interstate exit, but honestly, not that much. Five minutes, maybe.

Do you ever go to Deep Creek Lake, MD? If you do, I completely recommend the Cornish Manor. It wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, and I think I'm going back there for my birthday next month. Whoo-hoo!

Buona fortuna -- Virgil