By Greg B. To celebrate Amanda’s very successful public proposal, a few of us ventured out to a Baltimore restaurant.  The choice came down between Peter’s Inn and Rocket to Venus.  In the end, Peter’s Inn became the choice of the day, and I am thankful for the experience.  What a great restaurant, with interesting, delicious food at very reasonable prices.  I have to say this is one of the best value for great foods that exists in Baltimore, from my experience.

For starters, we had a group of 6 people.  Now, Peter’s Inn does not take reservations, and their seating is rather limited.  I would recommend going here as an excellent date location for two, and maybe 4 people.  However they were able to accommodate our rather large group for the evening.  On a Tuesday night, we arrived at the restaurant around 6:30/6:45 and basically, we got there just in time.  The place rapidly filled up as we were sitting, to the point where people were waiting at the bar for tables to open. (I might add at this point that Wednesday is 1/2 of wine night here).

The menu changes often, so either go and be surprised by what you get or check online to see what they have.  As for a beer list, I did not hear the entire list, since I interrupted our waiter once he said “Dogfish head 60 min IPA”.  I couldn’t pass it up on draft of course!  The beer was a little on the pricey side for a draft ($5.25 I believe) but it went well with dinner and dinner was cheap compared to the great food, so I’m not here to complain, though I wouldn’t go here to drink all night at those prices.  Later on, I did try an Arcadia Angler’s Ale, which was another great, bitter hoppy beer which went well with my dinner.

It is at this time that, once the beer arrived I really started to look around at the place we were.  Seating is limited here, so you should be sure to try to beat any dinner rush by getting here early.  The decor is interesting, definitely a Baltimore restaurant.  Giant oil paintings of what looks like a twin for Captain Piccard from star trek and J.P. Morgan stare down at you from the walls, with a bookshelf of eclectic books and a pair of prosthetic legs affixed to another shelf.

For dinner, there were a good number of seafood options, no doubt to help cater to the vegetarian crowd.  A steak, veal, chicken and lamb dinner were available, but there was also an equal number of seafood options involving tune, scallops and mussels & clams.  I opted to try the mussels & clams with chorizo, in a Portuguese recipe since my Portuguese labmate had been talking about Portuguese restaurants all day (I’ve never used Portuguese that many times in a sentence before!).  We also ordered a plate of garlic bread for the table, to be split among us.  This was a wise idea, because when the garlic bread arrived, you can see it comes on large slices of toasted bread, and with a great buttery sauce involving actual chunks of garlic.  Be prepared to either warn your significant other that you’re going to be eating this, or to have them partake in it too, to level the playing field!

Dinner arrived, and everyone was pleased.  The plates are rather large and it seems that there is a lot of attention give to detail.  Each plate was elegant in it’s own right, either in the simplicity of the design of the veal cheeks, carrots and mashed potatoes with a bright green, tall garnish in the potatoes or in the elegant Tuna 2 Ways dish, involving a thinly sliced seared tuna option with cubed raw tuna in a glass, all on different beds of greens.  My order of Mussels & clams ($15.50) came with a side of bread and I quickly got to work.  The clams and mussels were excellent (though judging by the minimal openness, of some of the shellfish, it might have been ok to cook it a minute extra, though I’m not complaining since they were all tender and not rubbery at all, just a suggestion!).   I always have to say no one ever gives enough bread to sop up the delicious shellfish sauce afterwards, but it was great.  It was the right amount of food for the right price.  As for Georgia’s Veal cheeks (I forget the price, about $13-14), these were amazing.  I’ve never seen a cut of meat this tender, even fillet Mignon which is supposed to be so tender.  This meat actually melted in your mouth.  And the scallop dish?  This came with three great big scallops (about $17), not the least bit over or under cooked and with a great buttery sauce.  I heard no complaints from anyone during dinner and really, if this is how they cook meals all the time?  I’ll be back.

In the end, the check came, we did the complicated splitting a meal between cash and cards bit, and left.  But I think we all left really enjoying the restaurant.  Amanda had been here before many times, and I know she’ll return.  I know I will be back (though to be fair, I don’t know that I would bring my more conservative father, though if he didn’t use the restroom it would be ok.  For more details… use the restroom at Peter’s Inn.  You’ll see.)   I would, however, happily bring friends of mine or dates here in the future and would love to explore more of their beer list.  I did see at least one Oliver Ale on tap after all, who knows what else they have?