Cuisine

Add another exotic cuisine to the growing list of those offered at Baltimore-area eateries. A new Parkville restaurant/carryout claims to be the first here to have food from Nepal on its menu. Nepal native Chandra Chhantyal opened Mount Everest at 1842 E. Joppa Road about a month ago. His cousin - and Everest manager - Lok Chhantyal - describes Nepal's cuisine as similar to Indian, but says it's not as spicy. He says the restaurant serves some of the most popular dishes from Nepal, including mo mo - a meat dumpling mixed with Nepali spices, cooked in a steam pot and served with a traditional Nepali soup ($8.99)

"Our chef is amazing. " Checking on our table between appetizers and entrees, our waitress waxed poetic about chef Cyrus Keefer, the culinary force behind 1542 Gastropub in Federal Hill. She was nearly gushing, but she was also right: Keefer's food is top-notch. It's creative, interesting and expertly executed — a welcome addition to the Federal Hill food scene. 1542 Gastropub, owned by Sean White and Andrew Dunlap, opened in March as the new incarnation of the duo's former spot, The Reserve.

The Red Parrot is far from the first restaurant in Baltimore to mix Asian cuisines on its menu. But it might be setting a giddy new standard. The cuisines keep coming — and never seem to stop. Among the first listed appetizers are Japanese spring rolls, Malaysian roti, Vietnamese spring rolls and Thai golden calamari. Among the noodle dishes are Singapore rice noodles with ground pork, yaki udon, pad Thai and pho. Such a mix would be a stretch at many restaurants, but this newcomer in Locust Point's McHenry Row development handles its far-ranging menu with competence and panache.

There's a lot of love at Nora's Kabob. Brothers Sevi and Raymond Sinanian, who opened the Ellicott City restaurant last month, are quick to profess their affection for the flavors of their youth, including the almighty pomegranate, and for their mother, for whom Nora's is named. Fortunately, the duo is more than just talk; their devotion to flavorful Middle Eastern cuisine shines through in their food. Though the service isn't perfect, the Sinanians' appreciation for their customers is clear.

Let other writers dish the dirt on Columbus. As the 500th anniversary of his voyage to the Americas approaches we'll be getting a bellyful of icon-smashing, as the hero of school children and Italian-Americans is taken to task for polluting Paradise with imperialism, anti-Semitism, slavery and the plague. For starters.Not by Raymond Sokolov, though.As he writes in his new book "Why We Eat What We Eat," "I come to praise Columbus, not to harry his memory. I come to laud the most unassailably admirable of his achievements -- the diversification and betterment of the human diet."

The most horrifying book about computer culture that I've ever read landed on my desk last week. The title is "Gigabites: The Hacker Cookbook" by Jenz Johnson.It has nothing to do with viruses, worms, Trojan horses and other things that go bump in the eternal night of cyberspace. It's far more insidious. It's about food, hacker food. It's about Twinkie Casserole, Chinese Leftover Lasagna, Liverwurst and Anchovy Tub, Fish Stick Stir-fry, Hot Dog Stroganoff, Spam Sushi and Cold Pop Tart Soup.

Food: *** (3 stars) Service: *** (3 stars) Atmosphere: ** (2 stars) A source whose opinion I trust told me MemSahib was the best Indian restaurant in Baltimore. This surprised me, because Baltimore has a number of very good Indian restaurants. Even more surprising is the fact that any sit-down restaurant with a liquor license has managed to hang on in this location - the Lexington Market - for more than three years. MemSahib does it by having a thriving lunch business, drawn by an all-you-can-eat buffet for $6.95.

When water damage caused the Carlyle Club to close for renovations, it gave the upscale Lebanese cafe an opportunity to reinvent itself - a necessity because it had become a semi-forgotten restaurant. It's hard to be an upscale dining room in a Quality Inn & Suites. This has always been a difficult location for restaurants. I'm not sure why other than the parking, which is no better and no worse than there is around many city places. For more years than I can remember, the Carlyle's dining room was a Chinese restaurant called the Dragon Palace.

As a spate of recent cookbooks makes clear, there's plenty of soul - in the form of tradition and reminiscence - in the kinds of foods favored by African-American cooks. But if you're going to talk about the dishes, you might want to find a more inclusive term than soul food.Call it Southern revival, African-American (as in Italian-American) or heritage cooking. For those terms more accurately reflect the history of food prepared by people of color, say today's chefs and cookbook authors.

Tony Cheng'sSzechuan RestaurantWhere: 801 N. Charles St.Hours: Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays.Credit Cards: AE, MC, V.Features: Sichuan, Hunan and Mandarin cuisine.Non-smoking section? Yes.Call: 539-6666.** 1/2It was our first Chinese meal of the Year of the Sheep. Actually, though, I had to go look this information up. Tony Cheng's is not the type of restaurant that has the Chinese zodiac printed on its menus.

The Red Parrot is far from the first restaurant in Baltimore to mix Asian cuisines on its menu. But it might be setting a giddy new standard. The cuisines keep coming — and never seem to stop. Among the first listed appetizers are Japanese spring rolls, Malaysian roti, Vietnamese spring rolls and Thai golden calamari. Among the noodle dishes are Singapore rice noodles with ground pork, yaki udon, pad Thai and pho. Such a mix would be a stretch at many restaurants, but this newcomer in Locust Point's McHenry Row development handles its far-ranging menu with competence and panache.

There's a holiday or something coming up. So we asked, "What's your favorite thing to do on St. Patrick's Day?" Sampling the finest in Irish cuisine, such as poor man's food and blood pudding. Yes, those are the actual names of actual Irish dishes. Luke Broadwater, reporter, The Baltimore Sun Drink to the stereotypes of my ancestors. Anne Tallent, editor, b Meet in the Street at Claddagh's. Kristen and the Noise - my favorite cover band from my days at Delaware - performs on Saturday, and as always, there will be a tent so rain plays no factor.

For at least two years, there has been hanging on the northeast corner The Promenade, a block-sized apartment building in the Harbor East development. "Authentic Greek Cuisine & Lounge Coming Soon," it says. It's really coming. It will be called Limani, and it will occupy a waterfront space on the Promenade's southeast corner, at Central and Lancaster. (Charleston is on the southwest corner.) The restaurant will put a modern take on traditional Greek cuisine. The menu will include fresh fish flown in from the Mediterranean, grass-fed lamb and beef and homemade Greek favorites.

Tucked in a house in the maritime-centric neighborhood of Eastport, VIN 909 proves that Annapolis cuisine has more to offer than crab cakes and rockfish. The duo behind the wine cafe, manager/owner/sommelier (and Annapolis native) Alex Manfredonia and Chef Justin Moore, met while working in a San Francisco restaurant. When they decided to head back to the East Coast to open a restaurant of their own, they moved into the space that formerly housed the Wild Orchid Café. The duo brought along a love for the Mediterranean-inspired cuisine of California, plus a commitment to environmental sustainability — working with local farmers and using organic ingredients.

The dish : Tai Chin ($6.95) At the very least, this pho with round steak and brisket is as accessible to the first-timer as any Vietnamese recipe, aside from, maybe, a spring roll. The pho curious can start with Tai Chin as an introduction to an exotic staple at a bargain price. For the pho lover who wouldn't dream of a bowl without tendon and tripe, An Loi offers, in all, a dozen pho selections. Given the exceptionally neutral tones of cooked beef and rice noodles, the broth needs to carry the day. An Loi's Tai Chin does, with subtly and a deceptively simple flavor.

If it took me too long to get to Mr. Rain's Fun House, I'm in good company. Approaching its second anniversary, the delightful restaurant has yet to penetrate the city's culinary mind. For one thing, I don't think that wacky name has been doing it any favors. And while its location on the top floor of the American Visionary Art Museum is a perfect fit for Bill Buszinski's freewheeling American cuisine, Mr. Rain's Fun House is out of sight, out of mind. By day, it's a natural lunch destination for museum-goers, but if you told me Mr Rain's has had more than a couple dozen walk-ins for dinner over the past two years, I'd die laughing.

It is ever-evolving, sometimes misunderstood, often romanticized, even ridiculed. But New England cuisine is as enduring and storied as Plymouth Rock. If it is not always in style, it is never out of style, kind of always simmering on America's back burner. In the pantheon of American cuisine, New England cookery is first-order iconic. Boston is baked beans; Maine is lobster; Vermont is maple syrup. If there were such a thing as New England guacamole, it would be made with pumpkin, cod, cornmeal, cranberries, turkey, oysters and molasses.

Gosh, it's almost as if Wolfgang Puck reinvented the meal. He brought us gourmet pizza. He rendered casual dining chic. He caters to the stars. If he's not the king of California cuisine, he certainly gets credit for catapulting it to fame.This year marks a decade of success for Chef Puck, a celebrity among celebrities. In 10 years he has opened five restaurants to critical acclaim, and they continue to do phenomenally well. Mr. Puck recently visited the Monitor to talk about "Adventures in the Kitchen" (Random House, $30)

For lovers of Asian flavors, organic and local food and, of course, noodles, the new Republic Noodle in Federal Hill hits a sweet spot. Owners David Lynch and Christopher Boylan — who live nearby — opened the Asian restaurant in September, hoping to make it a new neighborhood favorite. With Lynch and chef de cuisine Henry Hong, formerly of Suzie's Soba, working the wok, and a menu gathering flavors and cooking methods from across the continent (the name "Republic Noodle" is a nod to the pan-Asian approach)

The view from the Olive Room, the serenely seductive new penthouse restaurant at the Inn at the Black Olive, dazzles you senseless. Suddenly, Baltimore, seen from this fresh angle, looks like a European port city, vibrant and jagged, a starry skyline rising from waterfront promenades. The restaurant comes from the Spiliadis family, whose Black Olive introduced Baltimore diners, back in 1995, to the radical idea that the fish you eat in a restaurant could be fresh. Come meet your dinner, the waiters would say, as they walked diners from their table to the fish tank.