Camberville Cuisine

So we decided to hit the road this weekend. Headed out around 8 am Saturday morning, figuring we’d grab breakfast in Connecticut and a quick lunch somewhere in Jersey/Philadelphia. Breakfast was at Rein’s; it is quickly becoming a dependable stopover whenever we head down the coast. Everything bagel with salty lox and cream cheese, plus a bialy and halvah for the road.

The drive down was amazingly quick; we were nearing Baltimore before 3, even counting that we sat outside in the early-morning sun eating our bagels for half an hour, so we decided to push back checking into the hotel and went to Fort McHenry to walk on the seawall for the afternoon. I was amused because I recognized it from the Key building in Treasure Hunters ;P Then we checked in, wandered through the Inner Harbor into Little Italy, realized that it was Prom Night in Baltimore, and ended up with crab cakes and crab legs from Phillips’ takeout and custard from the custard stand next door (which considers the size of its servings Serious Business – I got the kid-size, and couldn’t make it even halfway through. Later that evening, we met up with a friend, and ate yummy second desserts – a brownie sundae between me and Hyoun; a cookie sundae for her :)

Sunday morning, we went to brunch at the Rusty Scupper – somehow, we lucked into brunch reservations despite failing to make the connection that Sunday was Mothers’ Day, and that gosh, finding someplace to eat a nice brunch would be moderately difficult. I love buffets when they’re done right, and this one was exemplary. Tons of fresh fruit, asparagus and hollandaise, crab omelettes from the omelette bar, French toast and Belgian waffles, garlic cheese grits, garlic cheese grits, more garlic cheese grits, jambalaya, shrimp Newburg, gravlax, banana cream tarts, tiramisu, adorable little chocolate mousse cups, creme brulee, coconut cream cake … yum!

We went to the Aquarium afterwards, though our feet were getting a bit tired at this point (having walked over five miles the previous day, plus the two mile round trip walk to brunch); saw adorable puffins and lizards and fish and turtles and more turtles! Then started the drive back North, with a quick detour to our favorite sushi joint in the area, Sushi-Ya in Owings Mills. A previous boyfriend introduced me to it while we were dating; I made Hyoun drive directly to the restaurant from BWI to introduce him to it, and now it’s an established part of every trip to the area, even with it being half an hour’s drive into suburbia. :) Sunday afternoon’s extravaganza: toro sashimi; uni nigiri; fresh scallop sashimi with kiwi; salmon maki with mango, avocado, and tobiko, wrapped in a red bean-soy wrapper; and spicy crispy tuna maki, topped with hamachi and eel sauce.

We were on the road again by 4, but we hit awful traffic in Delaware, and were stuck in said terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad traffic pretty much until we crossed the Tappan Zee. At 10:30, we pulled into a random diner in NW Connecticut for sustenance; at 11, we realized we were just not getting any further that night, and after shenanigans with random NW CT chain hotels trying to charge us $139 at walkup, we finally found a Super 8 near Waterbury at half the price and went to sleep.

The next morning, we waited for rush hour traffic in Hartford to clear, thinking we’d breakfast at Rein’s; instead, a strange power took over the car and sent us north on 91 instead, and we had Antonio’s for lunch (shrimp and crab on a white pizza, sprinkled with dill for me; some sort of tortellini pizza for Hyoun) and Black Sheep for dessert. Spent a good portion of the day playing in the newly-reopened toy store in Amherst, then finally got back on the road home, and after a short detour to Russo’s for produce, we were HOME and STUFFED. Good trip!