Prime Rib

FOR ABOUT THE last 40 years, whenever George McGinn visited a Baltimore-area restaurant, he would walk out with a menu. Sometimes he got permission, but other times he or a companion slipped the menu under a jacket and hustled out the door. One reason behind his menu-nabbing habit was professional curiosity. McGinn was in the restaurant business and he wanted to see what his competitors were doing. He ran McGinn's restaurant at 328 N. Charles St. from 1974 to 1995. It is now Mick O'Shea's.

Sometimes only roast beef will do. You know the kind of roast we're talking about - seasoned crust, big beefy flavor and juicy center. Not a fancy steak you can cut with a butter knife, or a pot roast braised until it's falling apart, but an honest piece of meat with flavor and texture. The problem is how to achieve this ideal roast. All too often, roast beef turns out as tough, dry, stringy and flavorless as the proverbial shoe leather. In fact, I'm convinced that's why roast beef seems to turn up on a lot fewer tables these days.

Kaufmann's Tavern in Gambrills, noted for decades for its seafood, may be under new management, but that hasn't deterred its customers from coming back. Open since 1937, Kaufmann's Tavern has been owned by James King and Greg Casten since last February. Since the new owners took over, a terrace for outside dining has been added and the menu has gotten some additions. King and Casten also own restaurants in the Washington area. I talked with the people next to my husband and me on a recent evening, and they said the food has the same great flavor as before.

William Tutton Jr., the jovial Baltimore restaurateur who in the mid-1940s transformed a former West Eager Street lunchroom into the swank Eager House where drinks were always doubles and steaks were charcoal-cooked to perfection, died Tuesday of Parkinson's disease at his Glen Burnie home. He was 86. "The Eager House was always a big-time place and was the best in town. It was the place to be seen," said Peter "Buzz" Beler, owner of the Prime Rib restaurants in Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia.

You could say the cuisine offered at Columbia's new Lily's Southwestern Grill & Bar is American, in the true sense of the word. That's America as in North America, Central America and South America. Owners Ricardo and Lilia ("I call her Lily," he explains) Vanegas offer dishes from all three. Working our way up from the south, there's the Argentinian steak with chimichurri sauce ($12.95). There are several Mexican items, including burritos ($9.95), chimichangas ($9.95) and enchiladas -- regular ($9.95)

It's always sad when a restaurant loses the chef who made its reputation, but the new Courtney's Cafe and Restaurant -- formerly Rothwells -- has much to recommend it, even without ex-executive chef and part owner Mark Hofmann, who parted ways amiably with co-owner Philip Forrester. Rothwells closed for renovations after a fire next door caused smoke damage. It was sold, and Forrester stayed on as a managing partner. When the restaurant reopened recently, it was renamed Courtney's Cafe.

Saigon, at 3345 Belair Road, gets high marks in the latest Zagat Survey for "phenomenal pho," "great value" and "warm family" atmosphere. Unfortunately, by the time the survey was published, the Vietnamese family who owned it had sold the place. Last week, they opened a new, larger restaurant, Saigon Remembered, at 5857 York Road. It's located where the Empire Cafe used to be, across from the Senator Theater. The menu has expanded, with a range of authentic Vietnamese dishes like noodle soups (pho)

Each day of the week offers a menu aimed at a different aspect of meal planning. There's a family meal, a kids' menu aimed at younger tastes, a heat-and-eat meal that recycles leftovers, a budget meal that employs a cost-cutting strategy, a meatless or "less meat" dish for people who may not be strict vegetarians but are trying to cut down on meat, an express meal that requires little or no preparation, and an entertaining menu that's quick. SUNDAY / Entertaining Celebrate the millennium with Prime Rib with Chipotle Butter.

Bippy's is a family-owned restaurant and bar with something for everyone. For football fans, there's a fancy new satellite dish that catches all the games. For meat-eaters, there are hamburgers, steaks and prime rib. Lighter eaters will find salads, soups, pastas, quiches and sandwiches. There's a children's menu. And catering is also available. The restaurant, which opened in 1991, is run by Bill and Sue Vaselaros, their son, Craig, and his wife, Anne. Bill, also known as Bippy, provided inspiration for the restaurant's name.

Let me introduce you to the restaurant that was the ne plus ultra of dining out when I first arrived in Baltimore almost 30 years ago. Things are and always have been tres sophisticated at the Prime Rib. The walls are black, the mirrors framed in gold, and the floors covered in swank wall-to-wall leopard-print carpeting. Someone is actually at the piano playing that suave piano music. And note the paintings: just slightly titillating but oh so tasteful, like that naked Leda cozying up to a swan.