Can’t Help It!!
Longish time readers may remember that every time I go listen
to Brian Ganz at the college, despite claiming the contrary, I can’t help but
post another blog about him. He’s just
that good. Well, the same thing happened
yesterday when I joined a friend for lunch at
Nothing changes.
This month, last year, last decade, always the same. We were a little past normal lunch time,
which appeared quite busy as EVERY table had the remains of earlier lunches.
There were three other tables still occupied when we came
in, one by a long time friend from my Boeing community Relations days, and
another by a trio of denizens from Leonardtown, who were engrossed in comparing
historical photos of some sort. Everybody
goes to Courtney’s. We bussed a spot for
us on one of the tables and sat down.
As expected, it took quite a while before Tom appeared in that
red hat, menus and little pad in hand, asking if we knew what we wanted. Yes, we did.
A couple of beers and two oyster baskets. Off he goes, more minutes pass, and the beers
and two waters arrive. Just now I took
a peek at a couple of TripAdvisor reviews (unsuccessfully trying to remember
the name of his wife – in the kitchen), and there were a few that complained
about this and that, nobody greeted them at the door, took forever, was a “dive”,
etc. Well, you know what? All true, and that is EXACTLY why you go
there. And come back. You want greetings at door? Don’t come back. Leave the place to us.
Pretty soon his wife emerged from the kitchen with the red plastic/waxed paper baskets of Oysters fresh
from the fryer, so hot you had to wait a moment before getting the crunch and the milky
meat inside.
She was effusive about the quality of the oysters, saying
they were pure white, plump and so good she had to have a couple before cooking
ours. My friend asked for some Mustard
(not on the table), she disappeared and came back with a little jar of some
given to her from a trip to New Orleans.
No squeeze bottle, no packet, dip your spoon in the jar. The fries were no doubt food service fries,
but they too were hot and crunchy, just fine.
Food, character, views, and, just like Brian Ganz, just
right.
Another one
While I’m at it, we got our Friday Enterprise today (no
surprise because it is Friday) and I always look at the Weekend section, where
occasionally there is a little piece about an existing or new restaurant. And praise to Mr. Reid, he always does independents.
This piece was about the newish occupants of “DiGiovanni’s”,
now called “Island Hideaway”, which, strangely enough might be the reason for several
failed attempts in this location.
Anyway, it leads off with the phrase that always throws red flags to me:
“…always wanted to run a restaurant…”. I
wish them luck, I really do, but so many places open with that sentiment only
to close in a….while. As I say, I hope
they buck the trend. A quick perusal of
the article reveals kind of usual menu choices for a water based venue. Crab cakes, rockfish, as well as more
standard fare. Does anybody make crab
dip that isn’t “world famous”, or “to die for?”. Apparently not. The writer had a daily special of two pork
tenderloins in a light gravy, with scalloped potatoes and cabbage, which he
could barely finish. A quote from the owner
is that she wants everybody to walk out “satisfied” (read full). Also that “a lot of restaurants are into the
presentation, I’m into good food…”.
Well, a little of both is nice.
Anyway, I’ll make it over one of these days.
On the road …. Again
Well, Sunday we leave for our annual trek, making it some 15
years of Christmas away from Maryland.
We’ll visit both FOJ’s, have the traditional “TE” Christmas Eve dinner,
and then all journey down to the “Cape” to have Christmas Day with “TJ’s”, and
of course our Granddog, Stanley. We’re
going to have lunch with “a friend” -
not the Courtney’s one while there.
Don’t want to tip them off (as if they would care about a broken down
food writer).
and after travel we will be
DFD
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