Onion Rings

Ocean Pride, 1534 York Road, Lutherville, (410) 321-7744. Open for lunch and dinner every day. Major credit cards. No-smoking area: yes. Prices: appetizers, $1.95-$9.25; entrees, $6.50-$21. **1/2The times they are a-changing when a good old-fashioned seafood place like Ocean Pride is thinking about revamping its menu to reflect its customers' changing attitudes.Nothing is happening very quickly. This is still the place to go for fried oysters and steamed crabs. What you'll notice is that while the menu is still the same, the list of daily specials is more imaginative than it used to be.Ocean Pride has a new chef, Steve Foell.

Pier 500 is definitely new Baltimore, but it's a restaurant that all Baltimore can be proud of.Nestled into the HarborView Marina & Yacht Club, once the site of the Bethlehem Steel Shipyards, this small, contemporary restaurant, operated by chef Connie Crabtree, is somewhat of a pioneer in the reincarnation of Key Highway beyond the Inner Harbor. Rising next to the yacht club is a towering condominium complex -- if you haven't been that way in a while, your jaw will drop. The marina just outside Pier 500's glass walls will eventually harbor hundreds of boats.

The BowmanThe Bowman, 9306 Harford Road, (410) 665-8600. The Bowman, just outside the Beltway in Parkville, seems to enjoy a good reputation and a loyal clientele. It's an inviting, attractive restaurant with a warm dining room and a comfortable atmosphere. We found the service and the food a little less accomplished than on earlier visits, but still enjoyed our meal, especially the French onion soup ($3.25), with its rich, buttery edge, and a nicely done strip steak ($16.95). $$moderate.

What makes Duda's such an amiable pub? Why do I want to call it a pub, when we don't have pubs in this country, we have bars? When's a bar a pub? When nobody in it has drunk too much? Or is too stridently on the make? When nobody mumbles or screams? Duda's feels civilized. Let's call it a pub.One of its charms is a picturesque Fells Point location, across from a tall abandoned warehouse, with iron shutters at its apertures, some open, some shut. To the west, dead brick buildings reminded me of a World War II nostalgia movie about Belgium.

There is nothing old or inn-like about the Olde Philadelphia Inn. And I dare say this shopping center restaurant's only link with The City of Brotherly Love is its location on what was once a main road between here and there. Why, there's not even a cheese steak on the menu.Perhaps this large, informal restaurant once lived up to its name. Our waitress said it used to occupy a large blue house, now boarded up, across Philadelphia Road. But today the restaurant fills two storefronts -- one for the bar, the other for the dining room -- in an L-shaped congregation of groceries, video stores and copy centers.

''Are the mashed potatoes real or instant?'' my husband asked.''Fake,'' the waitress answered, looking him in the eye. ''But with gravy it's hard to tell the difference.''How's that for honesty?''If you don't like them,'' she added, ''let me know and I'll bring you something else.''It was Tuesday night, the end of a difficult day for my husband and I. We had met at Perring Place to relax over a drink, have supper and share the day's hassles.We weren't looking for gourmet food; we were looking for comfort food.

Windows on the BayWindows on the Bay Pasadena, 255-1413. Tucked into an Anne Arundel County marina, Windows on the Bay is an attractive, informal restaurant with superb food and a great view. With an indoor dining room and a deck not far from dockside, this is the kind of place many would return to as much for the ambience as for the appetizers. But the food is a draw too -- way above average, beautifully presented and served with a reasonable degree of professionalism. The small menu includes pastas, steaks and seafood.

On a hot night, the lines at Mr. G's Carryout are so long you might think this is the last place on U.S. 40 West serving gooey ice cream sundaes and deep-fried onion rings.It is, sort of."We've survived them all -- the Varsity, Champ's, Howard Johnson's -- all the Route 40 places that people once identified with this road," said Ina Kronthal, who with her husband, Donald, has owned this Catonsville-Westview institution for the past dozen years.Mr. G's is an unpretentious 1950s carryout where the dip-top swirl cone reigns supreme.

JILLY'S, 1012 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville. Open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to midnight and Sunday noon to 10 p.m. Phone: 653-9029.In an old episode of "M*A*S*H," Hawkeye (Alan Alda) goes to great lengths to ship to Korea an order of barbecued ribs from a Chicago eatery. Remember? He never gets to eat them, but the show perfectly illustrates the true rib lover's sometimes insatiable addiction.There's something about the tangy, sweet taste of a good ribs sauce.