Cuisine

Almost four years in, B&O American Brasserie, the restaurant inside the Hotel Monaco, has established itself as a worthy citizen of Baltimore. Before it came along, downtown dining options were scarce, especially at night, both for visitors and the hometown crowd. Now, nearby office workers have a handsome and uplifting after-work destination, a smartly designed space within an impressive 13-story Beaux Arts building, once the headquarters of the B&O Railroad and now part of the San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurant Group.

Herb & Soul began last September as a catering and carryout operation in the back part of a Parkville convenience store. The offerings included interesting Southern cuisine and soul food but also typical carryout items like cheese steaks and wings. The owners - Brandon Taylor, Yuriy Chernov and David Thomas, the executive chef - were encouraged enough by the neighborhood's response to think about expanding or even moving. They at one point considered a property in the Hollins Market neighborhood.

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)

The newest addition to Columbia's already-hopping ethnic restaurant scene is Curry & Kabob, serving up appealing takes on the traditional food of Nepal. Think heavily spiced sauces, rice - and more than a little goat - alongside familiar Indian classics. The Baltimore region is home to a handful of Nepalese restaurants that, like Curry & Kabob, partner the cuisine with food from India (whose northeast border abuts Nepal's southern border). Often, these places fly under the radar, operating as carry-out joints catering only to their immediate neighbors.

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 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.

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.

Twelve years ago when Pierpoint opened in Fells Point, there was nothing like it in Baltimore. Since then we've gotten used to expensive, chic little bistros with quirky but good food; but if memory serves me, Pierpoint was the first -- at least the first to specialize in contemporary Maryland cuisine. Chef-owner Nancy Longo, who had made a name for herself at a restaurant called Something Fishy, now had a place of her own. With a sure hand she created a spot that became one of the city's top restaurants in a matter of months.

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.

Almost four years in, B&O American Brasserie, the restaurant inside the Hotel Monaco, has established itself as a worthy citizen of Baltimore. Before it came along, downtown dining options were scarce, especially at night, both for visitors and the hometown crowd. Now, nearby office workers have a handsome and uplifting after-work destination, a smartly designed space within an impressive 13-story Beaux Arts building, once the headquarters of the B&O Railroad and now part of the San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurant Group.

Annapolis is swimming in wine bars these days. The choices include the deeply cool Red Red Wine on Main Street, Justin Moore's food-forward Vin 909 over in Eastport and the accessibly cozy Grapes Wine Bar on Forest Drive. Crush Kitchen and Winehouse got there first, though, back in 2010, when it opened on West Street as Crush Winehouse. Crush is a big, inviting space, loud and lively, with a smartly arranged layout of banquettes, four-tops and high tables.

  Annapolitans are loyal, and the city has an impressive list of long-running restaurants. Once a place clicks, it tends to stay. That's not too surprising for a political town. Call it the incumbency effect. In 1986, Jean-Louis Evennou opened the original Cafe Normandie on Main Street in Annapolis. Five years later, he and his wife, Suzanne, moved the restaurant five doors down, where it's been ever since, serving a reasonably priced menu of French cafe classics like escargots, bouef bourguignonne, bouillabaisse and roast duck.

Willow manages to be a lot of things all at once. The Fells Point restaurant, opened in July by the team behind RYE and Stuggy's, shares its name with the graceful weeping willow tree. With gray walls, hanging lanterns and gauzy curtains, Willow's interior is in sync with the moody look of its namesake. The space - like the staff - is casual but stylish. Willow's menu, on the other hand, is full of fresh takes on Tex-Mex and bar-friendly pizzas and burgers. Flavors occasionally veer into sophisticated territory, but overall, the food is straightforward, fun and approachable.

Some occasions require a touch of romance. Nothing too formal or over the top - no scattered rose petals or strolling violins. Just good, interesting food served capably in a special setting. Baldwin's Station in historic Sykesville is just the place. Housed in a renovated 19th-century train station on the Old Main Line, the restaurant straddles the border of Howard and Carroll counties. Baldwin's Station's current incarnation opened in 1997. Owner Stewart Dearie is a restaurant veteran who managed the Conservatory at the Peabody Hotel and Antrim 1844 in Taneytown.

The art of cooking is about the journey and the destination, to tweak a famous quote about life that downplays the latter. And it's also about who's guiding you along the way. So when David and Michelle Byrnes discovered one of their favorite chefs was offering private cooking classes in his Columbia home, the Sykesville couple immediately contacted Ben Tehranian to set up a session. And they weren't the only ones to seek him out in recent months: Two couples co-hosting their children's small wedding at home decided they wanted him to teach them to prepare the food for the reception, and six girlfriends chose a class as a unique theme for a bachelorette party.

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.

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.

For Maureen Burke, “gluten-free” is not just the latest diet trend -- it's a way of life. Since being diagnosed with celiac disease in the late 1980s, Burke has wrestled with her intolerance of gluten. And now, as chef and owner of One Dish Cuisine, in Ellicott City, she shares the fruits of her labor over the past two decades with others who suffer from food allergies and intolerances: a restaurant that serves food they can eat. Burke, now 49, was diagnosed with celiac disease and lactose intolerance when she was 25. Back then, celiac disease was relatively unheard of and there weren't many options.

Don't feel like cooking for a crowd on Sunday? Get your New Orleans flair from local restaurants and caterers instead. Restaurants: B&O American Brasserie (443-692-6172; http://www.bandorestaurant.com) will serve a five course New Orleans-themed game day dinner, including grilled oysters, a seafood boil and king cake for $50 per person, and 50 cent Natty Bohs and $5 "Hail Marys. " At Tooloulou (443-627-8090; http://www.tooloulou.com) and Ethel & Ramone's (410-664-2971; http://www.ethelandramones.com)