CD Lunch

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had an opportunity to have lunch at CD cafe. As I've commented before, lunch is a nice time to get a feel for a place you might want to consider for dinner. Of course, CD has established itself in the firmament of Solomons and Southern Maryland dining spots, so they're doing something right. Despite that, I will never forgive them for not having a possibility for making reservations, instead willing to consign serious diners to sit in an outside hallway, awaiting their turn, looking at venetian blinds of closed dentist offices and stock prints on the wall. It's a model that apparently keeps them in business, but i still don't like it. Not uniformly embraced in fine dining establishments.

Reservations don't seem to be a problem at lunch, although on one visit we fought for a table at 11:50, while a second visit was greeted with a "sit wherever you want". As most will know, there are several closely packed tables(don't discuss that tryst here) all affording a nice view of the traffic onto and from the Solomons. The focus should be within, not without.

Besides the standard luncheon selections of salads, sandwiches, pastas, and plated entrees, there are always two or three specials, and on both occasions these were recited from crib notes, with fairly extensive descriptions,so by the last you forgot the first. None the less, on each visit, the food has been satisfying and well prepared. On the latest visit I opted for a crab cake sandwich with a side salad. The cake arrived, of generous proportions, on a Kaiser roll. As an aside, has anybody ever eaten a crab cake sandwich as a sandwich? with the cake and roll, it's probably around 3 or 4 inches thick and pretty well unable to be eaten by the human mouth. Mostly you park the top bun, and eat the cake with a fork off the bottom bun. Why don't the just offer a single cake and forget the "sandwich" gimmick? Nobody eats it that way. Today, the lower half of the bun served to absorb the over abundance of the dressing on the side salad. The salad was good, with almonds, mandarin orange wedges, cored cucumber wedges over some greens that were just past crisp. As for the cake, it was voluminous with plenty of crab. There was some other seasoning i couldn't identify, but it wasn't old bay. A little cup of green goddess (?) was supplied that was okay.

Would go back for lunch, but without a reservation, dinner is out for the feeder. Respect me,I'll respect you.