Panini

When it opened nearly a decade ago with its high-end design and gourmet-to-go offerings, the Glasz Cafe fairly shimmered in the culinarily-challenged area around North Baltimore. Well, Glasz is still churning out the panini on Falls Road and remains one of the chicest-looking carryouts you'll run across, with lots of contemporary metallic accents and groovy light fixtures. No little Italian chef statue in the window here, my friends. Things have been toned down just a bit after all these years.

Spike and Charlie Gjerde signed the lease for their new seafood restaurant on Valentine's Day -- between the third and fourth courses of a Chianti dinner they were holding at Spike & Charlie's, their Mount Vernon restaurant.That's OK. They're going to have to get used to doing several things at once. The Atlantic, which should open mid-summer in Canton's American Can Co., will seat 120 people in the dining room and 20 at the bar, with another 50 seats in a outdoor cafe. The brothers will also open the Hudson Street Bakery in the space.

The Artful Gourmet Bistro 9433 Common Brook Road, Owings Mills, 410-356-0363. Open 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday, noon-10:30 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m.-9 p.m. Sunday. The "build" of a good sandwich is an art. You start with the proper foundation of bread then adroitly layer ingredients, creating an item that is pleasing to both the eye and the palate. The Remington from the carryout section of the Artful Gourmet in Owings Mills is a prime example of sandwich art. This bistro, tucked in a corner of the Brookside Commons shops, has an extensive carryout menu and a counter at the rear of the restaurant to accommodate customers who grab their food and go. The sandwiches and entrees are named in honor of artists.

Deborah Cogan, an owner of Spoons Coffee House and Roastery at 24 E. Cross St., knows her coffee. The place specializes in organic and shade-grown coffees from small farms, and the beans are roasted on the premises. Serious coffee drinkers should be very happy here, particularly as Spoons earlier this year added breakfast and lunch to the mix. Unlike some coffee shops that have only pastries or bagels, Spoons offers a full breakfast of eggs, pancakes, french toast and the like starting at 7 a.m. every day. Lunch at the moment consists only of five sandwiches; but panini, soup and salads are soon to be added to the menu.

Drive-through coffee places are scarce around here, a mark of cultural deprivation, I suppose. This year, we added one more when the Wannago Coffee & Cafe opened in the parking lot of the Shops at Kenilworth in Towson. On a recent visit, we were not there to order lattes from behind the wheel; we were there for the carryout, so we ventured inside Wannago. It sits in a neat eight-sided building with a copper-colored metal roof. Inside, the high-ceilinged space is decorated with avocado green accents, exposed black air ducts, halogen lamps that hang from the ceiling and racks of display cases holding coffee beans that can be bought in bulk (top price: $34.95 per pound for Jamaican Blue Mountain)

Panini Express 70 Delicious Recipes Hot Off the Press Massimo's Italian Kitchen Authentic One-Dish Meals From a Seasoned Chef By Massimo Capra Sellers Publishing / 2007 / $22.95 Both Maxine Clark and Food Network chef Massimo Capra highlight oodles of inventive risotto dishes in their tomes. Capra's Risotto With White Asparagus, Black Pepper and Wild Strawberries and the one with shrimp scampi and zucchini look delicious. The Red-Beet Risotto I made was vivid in color but tasted bland.

Visit downtown's new Sotto Caffe if you're anywhere nearby. Tucked into the lobby of the T. Rowe Price building, the offshoot of Sotto Sopra opened in October. The food's worth a walk, but with the dearth of cheap parking nearby, it's much harder to justify a drive downtown. There's scattershot parking on the adjacent Lombard Street, but otherwise your main options are wallet-gouging garages. Carryout orders don't take much time -- our rather large one took less than 15 minutes. You can sit and wait at one of the dozen or so tables in the cafe and admire the peachy pastel walls and blue tile mosaic.

NEW YORK -- Marvel Entertainment Group Inc. Chairman Ronald Perelman yesterday unveiled a second proposal to get the comic-book company out of bankruptcy court, drawing criticism from bondholders who succeeded in blocking the first plan.Under the proposal, Marvel would combine its comic book and character-licensing businesses with Toy Biz Inc., which makes toys modeled on Marvel characters. Marvel then would auction the combined company, mainly to repay secured creditors.Bondholders said the plan is Perelman's latest effort to hamper their recovery on $894 million of bonds.

7612 Belair Road, in Belair Beltway Plaza shopping center, 410-882-1255. Open 7:30 a.m-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m-4 p.m. Saturday. The Charm City Cafe had me the minute I spotted the easy chair. A big, yellow armchair and companion sofa resided in the back of this cozy new establishment. There were few conventional restaurant chairs and tables where diners could sit and eat, but many of the customers grab food and go. As I waited for my order, I headed straight for the soft stuff.

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)