New Winter Menus at Vivo and Grillfire

Grillfire and Vivo, the restaurants at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve, are ringing in the holiday season with new menu offerings. Grillfire is introducing new starters, salads, and a surf and turf dish, and Vivo has added five new wood fired pizzas. I'm all over that buttermilk fried chicken and oysters dish with andouille gravy and creamed spinach and the burrata and pistachio pizza!

STARTERS
Flash Fried Chesapeake Oysters $12
“Rockefeller” with creamy spinach, gouda, caper butter and Pernod

SALADS
Roasted Beets, Arugula and Goat Cheese $10
Rainbow baby carrots and toasted walnuts with champagne-honey vinaigrette

GRILLFIRE FAVORITES
Add a side salad, Caesar or iceberg wedge, for $6
Baked Brie Chicken $24
Balsamic-cherry glaze, wild rice, grilled asparagus and butter-toasted walnuts

Braised Durham Ranch Bison Short Rib $26
Asparagus and onion “casserole,” charred fingerling potatoes and pan jus

SURF AND TURF
Includes one accompaniment. Add a side salad, Caesar or iceberg wedge, for $6
Ribs and Shrimp $25
Half-rack baby back ribs and chili-glazed jumbo shrimp

Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Oysters $24
Andouille gravy and creamed spinach

SANDWICHES
Seared Ahi Tuna Wrap $17
Tomato-jalapeno salsa, black beans, avocado, baby greens and wasabi mayo

VIVO PIZZAS
Prosciutto and Arugula $16
San Marzano tomatoes, oregano, basil and fresh mozzarella

Baby Clam Neapolitan $15
Garlic, lemon, mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, oregano and parsley

Burrata and Pistachio $15
Garlic, olive oil, Pecorino Romano, sopressata and crispy kale

Il Porco $14
Braised pork, housemade sausage, rapini, Pecorino Romano, provolone and taleggio

The Hotel at Arundel Preserve
7793-A Arundel Mills Blvd.
Hanover MD 21076
410-799-2883

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The Boathouse Canton

 (photo: Downtown Diane)

For two decades, the Bay Cafe used to be the place to hang out on the water in Canton. It's gone now, but its replacement, the Boathouse, looks like an even better place to be.

Owners Gene Singleton and Maureen McEnerney put quite a bit of money into renovating the building at Tindeco Wharf; the result is airy and modern, feeling like a place on the water should feel, without being overtly nautical. Al fresco dining on the new outdoor patio is the big draw in warm weather, but the food should be a draw all year long.

Chef Matt Campbell, a Virginia native, works hard to make sure the food he serves is what the customer wants to eat. This being Baltimore, that means plenty of seafood and lots of things that taste good with a tall drink in hand.

We were introduced to the Boathouse's fall menu at a media tasting, and were impressed with the food, the starters especially. We tasted the seared ahi tuna on won ton crisps, and loved the hint of sesame oil in the dressing. We also enjoyed the pimento cheese, a southern specialty that's not seen in these parts too often. Chef Campbell's version is packed into small crocks, baked to an appealing crustiness, and served with crostini and crudite.

Oysters  (photo: Downtown Diane)

The rest of our dinner spread included some very fresh oysters, both local and otherwise...

Chicken Chesapeake  (photo: Downtown Diane)

and interpretations of classic fare like chicken Chesapeake and steak frites.

The chicken Chesapeake included thin slices of prosciutto sandwiched between a moist chicken breast cutlet and a mini crab cake, the whole thing topped with an Old Bay Gruyere cream sauce. The steak dish featured hanger steak cooked to a rosy medium, served with crisp fries.

One of the more popular dishes we sampled, judging from the speed the dish disappeared from the buffet, was the lobster mac and cheese. In addition to nicely sized bites of lobster, the dish contains four cheeses, andouille sausage, plus peas and roasted tomatoes. It's got vegetables, so it's healthy, right?

Lobster Mac & Cheese (photo: Jess Mayhugh)

My favorite dish was the grilled salmon. The salmon itself was fine, but the accompanying pan-seared brussels sprouts with caramelized pearl onions, bacon lardons, and rosemary balsamic butter were So. Good. And, the sprouts are available by themselves, as a side dish. Gimme.

Steak frites, fried cod (the "fish" portion of fish and chips), chicken Chesapeake

We also sampled two desserts, the seasonal fruit crisp, which featured apples (but in the summer contains peaches), and what was billed as a flourless chocolate cake, but was more like a rich classic chocolate cake. Both were pleasant ways to add a sweet finish to our meal.

Flourless chocolate cakelets (photo: Downtown Diane)

Let's not forget the beverages here. We tasted a sangria made with rosé, ruby port, triple sec, and cinnamon spice syrup that was quite nice and a change from the normal. There are also about a dozen beers on draft, with selections from local breweries Union, Heavy Seas, and Brewer's Art, plus bottled selections, wines, and crushes in several flavors. All this, including food to please many palates, seems like a pretty good reason to check out the Boathouse.



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Brunch at Wit and Wisdom

Mr Minx and I were recently invited to try Wit & Wisdom's revamped brunch buffet. Despite our usual lazy weekend mornings that involve eating breakfast in the vicinity of noon, we don't consider ourselves to be brunch people. Our experience at Wit & Wisdom might just change that.

The brunch buffet there is serious. Executive chef Zack Mills' offerings include everything from soup to nuts. (Almost literally--we didn't see any nuts.) There are plenty of familiar breakfast options like scrambled eggs, potatoes, Belgian waffles, buttermilk pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and omelettes. But there are also salads and soups, raw oysters, smoked salmon, poached shrimp, and more substantial items like pulled pork, roasted salmon, and teres major.

Raw oysters with mignonette, tuna tartare, lamb chop, pita, labne

Near the front of the line was a chef's choice table featuring flavors of the Middle East, including some lovely lamb chops that, despite resting under a heat lamp, were perfectly pink and juicy inside and nicely crusty on the outside. There was also hummus and labne with pitas, a spiced rice pilaf, and a pot of ful medames, an Egyptian fava bean stew.

Smoked salmon, shrimp, rice pilaf, scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon, tuna tartare

There's also a section of items for the kids--thoughtfully arranged on lower, child-height tables--with chicken fingers and fries, mac and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Bacon, eggs, potatoes, macaroni and cheese, roasted root vegetables, biscuit with sausage gravy

We had to try a little of everything. Well, almost everything, because two people couldn't do the expansive buffet justice. Everything we tried was quite good and served at the proper temperature. My favorites were the lamb chops (I was so tempted to make a pig of myself and eat two) and the roasted root vegetables.

Rice pudding and assorted Viennoiserie

The dessert table was hard to resist. Pastry chef Dyan Ng's tiny croissants and other sweet morsels are a perfect ending to the meal. Even if you pig out on savories, there's always room for a tiny cream puff or a couple of spoonfuls of rich rice pudding. Or both.

In addition to all of the various eats, Wit & Wisdom's brunch also features a build-your-own Bloody Mary bar and bottomless Mimosas. A full array of cocktails crafted by lead bartender Aaron Joseph are also available. (We chose to stick to more traditional breakfast beverages: coffee and freshly-squeezed orange juice.)

Wit & Wisdom's brunch is served on Sundays from 9am - 2pm. The cost is $49 for adults and $19 for children 12 and under. Yes, the price is steep, but you probably won't need to eat for the rest of the day....


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Happy Thanksgiving!