We began a busy weekend by attending the 2011 inaugural River Concert at St. Mary’s College. Perhaps the forecast of severe weather (which was certainly evident the previous evening) kept people away, but we thought it was lightly attended. For instance you could kind of set up camp (at least in the serious listener section) pretty much where ever you wanted, and would have to reach to touch your neighbors instead of being jammed in there. The music seemed kind of uninspired to me, but geez after 13 (!) years, maybe it gets tough. Of course the social aspects are always fun, you get to see lots of friends and chat. Not many surprises on the culinary side with usual set of suspects, although there were a couple of additional caterers with (as I recall) Grizzly Mountain offering yet more barbeque, and Canards with some fresh salads and wraps. We opted for the salads and found them to be quite tasty. On the liquid side of things, Slack and Port of Leonardtown wineries are now offering their wines in the Rotary “beer booth”. At least for this concert (and I think the rest) a representative from each winery was there to talk about the wines. Very nice selections. As it turned out we lucked on the weather and were quite comfortable. Quite weather dependant, but a nice way to spend an evening if you don’t have anything to do….
Two
Saturday, we attended the annual Sotterley Plantation's “Gala”, which was dubbed “Picnic in Paris”. It was catered by Ken Upton of Ken’s Creative Kitchens out of Annapolis. That is the same outfit that does the annual Hospital Gala in November. One feature I particularly liked was a tray of assorted pâtés, both smooth and “rough”
Accompanied by cornichons, baguettes, and mustards as it should be. There was also passed apps of crostini, little tarts, the usual selections. And, you can’t miss on an open bar. Being a fund raiser, there were “oodles” of items both silent and “live”. The auctioneer was Dan Raley, our retired County Commissioner. He is quite talented with a microphone in his hand. Anyway he finally inveigled the flutters to part with some retirement cash, and we got a pretty sparkling opportunity. Details to dribble out. Our local Parisian, Chef Loic was also there. A pretty nice event. Consider it next year..
The surprise
And then yesterday on Father’s day, we met a friend from DC for an early dinner. Neither of us wanted the full monty drive up or down, so it struck me that we could compromise and meet at Stoney’s on Broome Island. And, that’s what we did. I am not fond of the two arms of Stoney’s over on the Solomon’s, but hadn’t been to the mother ship for a long time (years?) and thought this was a good way to revisit. I must admit, my memories of previous visits revolved around “smelly”, “flies”, “ugly”, and “so-so food" (including the award winning crabcake of the 80’s) so I took the little brown notebook and prepared for the worst.
Well, once in a great while the Feeder is wrong in his expectations. I am happy and pleasntly surprised to report that all of those issues no longer apply (well, we’ll get to the food). The oyster house that gave rise to the first three objections has been removed and replaced with a lovely little landscaped park area with water features, that also has an event tent on it. It’s quite an attractive area and provides a much better view for diners at the bar/restaurant. Would be a nice venue for a reception or even a wedding.
Since I was interested to see if Rory McIlroy could hold it together and win the US Open, we opted to sit in the bar in view of the flatscreen (yes, yes, I know, but it WAS Father’s day), but later moved to the enclosed portion of the deck. Memory fails, so I don’t know if there has been a “makeover”, but the place is light and airy inside, with many of those gorgeous carved fish and birds that adorn all of their properties. Our friend preceded us, and was halfway through his glass of wine by the time we joined him. He had already struck up a conversation with one of the (many) servers, an attractive young lady who was a student at nearby CSM-Prince Frederick.
Probably this is a good a time as any to tackle this observation. It’s kind of a delicate subject, but a good restaurant food writer has to report what he observes and this was very obvious. The above description of our server pretty much characterizes the entire wait staff that was there. I think they were entirely female, “young”, attractive to look at, very friendly, and all had the “uniform” of a Stoney’s Tee Shirt and khaki shorts. The rest is left to the speculation of the readers. I am not sure that is totally a coincidence.
Our version approached the table, and although all of us were much older and MFO was with us, we must have heard “you guys” with every conversation we had. Hi, can I get you guys something to drink? Are you guys ready to order? How is everything for you guys? Can I get you guys anything else? It is common and probably ordinary parlance for their generation, but it gets old (ha ha) and is innacurate. The bar seemed to be the rallying point for the staff, and I think it was shift change because there was a lot of conversation to the tone of “Brittany, are you working Tuesday?” “Are you guys coming in tomorrow?” And, with the flat walls, it was pretty noisy.
Okay, let’s leave that phase of things and move to the food. I won’t dwell on the menu, it’s a pretty standard one for a waterfront place, sandwiches, salads, baskets, and platters of the usual stuff. I didn't see hard crabs go by, but did hear whacking from outside so they must have been available We started out with an order of crab dip: “I’ll go get that started for you guys”, and we all ended up with a baby crab cake dinner including the ubiquitous choices of two sides. Onion rings, cole slaw, French fries, and potato salad in combinations made up our six.
The crab dip came out and I thought it was very good. It was a nice creamy consistency with big hunks of lump, hot but not scalding and an adequate supply of crackers and bread (a common failing). About the time the cakes arrived, it was apparent that Rory was not going to crack, so we moved out to the enclosed porch. Better view, but a six top of “contractors” and more flat walls provided another sound issue.
Of course Stoney’s built their reputation with their crab cake, judged the “best”, my favorite word, by the Washington Post many, many, years ago. Since I rant a fair amount about “best” I won’t argue that point. You like which crab cake you like and I’m happy for you. Personally I have never been much of a fan of theirs. The spherical shape makes it hard to get it hot inside, although the outside was a nice golden brown. It was about the size of a tennis ball, maybe a little smaller. I thought it lacked much lump, and had little binder and almost no (to me) discernable spice. So it's very dependant on the flavor of the crab, and although okay, I thought it was a bit short. Not bad, just not special. A hint of old bay, or a pinch of paprika would help for me. You like what you like. The single crab cake dinner with (Sysco like) two sides was $18.50 (Market price on the menu)
Anyway, it was an acceptable meal, the servers were friendly and their service was what it was, (a request for another napkin went unheeded), but the setting is nice, I would try to sit outside next time to avoid the noise, and personally I would return there rather than the closer Solomon’s versions..
And there certainly isn’t much issues with
DFD
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