Octopus

Shin Chon Garden is popular to the point of overflowing. Even on a drizzly weeknight, the tables at this Ellicott City restaurant are full of diners. A friend, arriving a few minutes before I did, texted: "place smells AMAZING. " When Andrew Zimmern, the host of the long-running Travel Channel show "Bizarre Foods," came to Shin Chon Garden last summer, he told the world, via Twitter, that Shin Chon "is one of top ten Korean BBQ experiences in America. A must for anyone who loves food.

In just one month, Ouzo Bay has made a swaggering debut in Harbor East. Every decision concerning the atmosphere, menu and service feels exactly right. The food is prepared with extraordinary care and presented with casual grace. Dinner there is fun. You're meant to enjoy the food and yourself equally. We did, without exception. The fish and seafood program is spectacular. There are luxury items like Dover sole, wild-caught and flown in fresh from the Netherlands, and langoustines, a spindly lobster from the Norwegian Sea that you will fall in love with at first bite.

Dinergram lets you share images of your latest Baltimore restaurant experiences. Submit your photos via Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #bmorediner, and you could see your photo in the Sunday Baltimore Sun. See more submissions at baltimoresun.com/dinergram. Artifact Coffee "Best iced coffee ever. " Submitted by Instagram user emilyries Wit & Wisdom "CHARRED OCTOPUS | calverts radish, preserved lemon, apple, steak sauce #bmorediner #baltimore #harboreast #dinner #food.

No sooner had the morning ferryboat chugged out of the Fernandina Beach marina when somebody popped the question."All right, let's get this over with," said Jerry, a brash, middle-aged businessman on vacation from Atlanta. With a cold Busch beer in one hand and a bag of boiled peanuts in the other, he looked at the young woman in the Greyfield Inn uniform, offered a charming, crooked smile and asked, "Did you see any of them from the wedding?"Everybody on board the boat to Cumberland Island, Ga., all seven of us, knew exactly which wedding he was referring to. The one that starred John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette and, of course, Cumberland.

"I like 'Music, Music for Everyone' by Vera B. Williams. A girl named Rosie liked to play the accordian and would play for her grandmother. Rosie became worried when her grandmother got sick. Would her grandmother die or would she play for her again? Read to find out."-- Itavia NophlinLeith Walk Elementary"In 'Nate the Great and the Stolen Base' by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Nate and his friends lost the thing they used for second base. It was a plastic octopus. Nate the Great found some legs from the octopus, then found the rest of it behind the shelf.

"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.

At this restaurant, your table is on fire. OK, not quite. It merely sizzles. Not to worry. This is benign combustion at Honey Pig, a new restaurant in Ellicott City featuring Korean barbecue. Think strips of meat, chicken or seafood cooked quickly on a tabletop grill that sits in the center of your table and becomes the focal point of your meal. Think small plates of spicy sides, pickled vegetables — some smooth, some quite fiery . Finally, put all of these elements in a big room crammed with stainless-steel tables, filled with energy and waves of Korean-speaking servers moving to loud music, and you've got the scene at Honey Pig. Igniting the grill and most of the subsequent activities associated with its operation are not your concern.

Auto racing: The Indy Car circuit is in Japan, and ESPN has a tape-delayed telecast of the Japan 300 tomorrow at noon. Hockey: Maybe you haven't watched any hockey all season, but this is the playoffs, a time of high intensity and high octopus counts. NBC begins its coverage tomorrow at 3 p.m. (New York Rangers-New Jersey Devils, WBAL/Channel 11 and WRC/Channel 4). Boxing: It's not often a heavyweight title fight airs live not on pay-per-view, but that's the case with tomorrow's International Boxing Federation match between Chris Byrd and Wladimir Klitschko (above right and left)

The Cove House RestaurantThe Cove House Restaurant, Routes 50 and 301, Grasonville, (301) 827-6300. It's difficult to believe how much a restaurant can have going for it when it's so close to a six-lane highway catering to the beach-bound and home-bound crowd. Except for the moderate din noticeable outside the front door, however, the Cove House seems more old Eastern Shore than new. From the airy dining room, the view is of a bucolic cove with only some ducks and an occasional boat moving in the evening.

The sculptures of William F. Duffy, now on view at Galerie Francoise, may look appropriate in certain places. A gallery of contemporary art is not one of them.Duffy is a sought-after commission artist whose works decorate malls and other structures from coast to coast and even internationally. He has been commissioned to execute works for places as far-flung as San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and Athens -- Greece, not Georgia. Locally, Duffy has executed works for the Benton Building on Fayette Street near City Hall, the library at the White Marsh planned community in eastern Baltimore County and the Symphony Woods office center in Columbia.