Seafood

Joe's Crab Shack will open its fourth Maryland restaurant at Hunt Valley Towne Center, the mall's developer, Greenberg Gibbons, said Thursday. The seafood restaurant will open this fall, adding to locations in Abingdon, Greenbelt and Gaithersburg. The 325-seat restaurant will feature a playground under an enclosed patio and a menu of crab and other seafood dishes. Earlier this week, Hunt Valley's developer had announced that women's apparel boutique Eilieen Fisher will open its first Baltimore-area store at the mall in September.

The best thing about O'Leary's Seafood Restaurant is how tricky it is to describe. Not so many years back, I'd have called O'Leary's eclectic, which became a byword for both a type of menu and the kind of place that served it. Offering a relaxed version of fine dining, the eclectic restaurant flourished in the 1990s, when serving staffs started wearing black T-shirts and sheets of paper were placed over the tablecloth. Eclectic lives on at O'Leary's, which is housed in a bright blue cottage-like building, a stone's throw from Spa Creek in Annapolis.

The Olive Tree is not the Olive Garden. But you would be forgiven for mixing them up. Both outside and in, the two restaurants look quite similar; they share a "rustic Italian" vibe and their logos are nearly identical. Both are reasonably priced, with menus offering a broad selection of popular Italian-American meals. The similarities between the two restaurants are obvious. But the Olive Tree, locally owned with locations in Glen Burnie and Aberdeen, differentiates itself from the mega-chain Olive Garden with an emphasis on what Maryland restaurants do best: seafood.

A 23-year-old man and his 4-year-old daughter were shot while sitting in a vehicle in Rosedale on Monday night, according to Baltimore County Police. Both sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and were driven to Franklin Square Hospital by a family member, police said. The hospital notified police about 8:17 p.m., and officers were told the shooting occurred near the intersection of Old Home and Meadow roads, police said. A third person, the driver, was also in the vehicle at the time of the shooting but was unharmed, police said.

In promoting his book, "States of Confusion: My 19,000-Mile Detour to Find Direction," author Paul Jury put up a video on the Internets that stereotypes every state in the country in less than two minutes. The video already has more than 1.2 million views on YouTube.  What was Maryland's stereotype?  For our fair state, Jury positioned himself on a couch in comfortable-looking living room, holding a glass of red wine. He said, "Have Jeeves bring the lobster boat around.

A Jessup seafood processor that had been ordered by the Food and Drug Administration to stop operations because it wasn't complying with federal safety laws will resume normal business Thursday with a new food handling plan. The agency said Congressional Seafood Co. Inc. did not document that fish were refrigerated at correct temperatures, failed to keep fish species separate to avoid cross-contamination and did not keep sanitation records. The company delivers seafood in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington.

Meet your anglers. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources will host its second Bounty of the Bay event, a five-course dinner celebrating the state's seafood and watermen, on Feb. 28 at the Boatyard Bar & Grill in Annapolis. The event is designed in part to give the public a chance to bring watermen, the public and DNR staff to the same table. Here's a video from the first Bounty of the Bay dinner, which was held last March. "We want to remind people that even during the winter months the bay continues to provide us with ample fishing opportunities and plenty of amazing seafood options," said Steve Vilnit, the DNR's fisheries marketing director.

Yawn, dear readers, Today, Aug. 10 is Lazy Day. Celebrate by lying in a hammock in the cool shade with an iced glass of lemonade and this column, and read on.....yawn. Ray Astor informed me that August commemorates the 67th anniversary of several important historical events from World War II. August is Peace Month. On Aug. 6, 1945, the first atomic bob was dropped upon Hiroshima, Japan, followed by a second atomic bomb dropped upon Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. By Aug. 14, 1945, Japan surrendered.

* Item: Washington Quality Batters and Breaders* What you get: Enough to coat 3 to 6 pounds of vegetables or seafood* Cost: About $1.89* Preparation time: Just minutes to mix and bread, three to five minutes per item to fry* Review: Washington brand muffin mixes have been staples in many pantries for years. Now the Ellicott City-based company has added four seafood and one vegetable batter to its line. The tempura batter is easy to mix (just add cold water) and offers a great alternative for vegetables.

After three years of controversy, the Towson Commons mixed-use complex in Towson made its debut quietly yesterday, as a seafood restaurant opened its doors. Meanwhile, the project's developers continued to fight a weak market in trying to lease the eight stories of office space.L&N Seafood, a division of Mobile, Ala.-based Morrison Inc., opened a 162-seat restaurant that Morrison executives say will be ready to compete with local restaurants in a seafood-loving town."We want to be the seafood experts," said Peter J. Donovan, regional director for L&N, a 10-year-old chain known for mesquite-grilling its fish.

The Olive Tree is not the Olive Garden. But you would be forgiven for mixing them up. Both outside and in, the two restaurants look quite similar; they share a "rustic Italian" vibe and their logos are nearly identical. Both are reasonably priced, with menus offering a broad selection of popular Italian-American meals. The similarities between the two restaurants are obvious. But the Olive Tree, locally owned with locations in Glen Burnie and Aberdeen, differentiates itself from the mega-chain Olive Garden with an emphasis on what Maryland restaurants do best: seafood.

The Patriots' coach might be a sore loser, but Boston mayor Thomas Menino has sportingly made good on the losing bet he made with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on the AFC Championship game.  A package filled with goods from Boston's public markets arrived at Baltimore City Hall on Friday. Inside were cannoli, ravioli, various packaged goods and an assortment of seafood, including mussels, scallops, oysters -- and four live lobsters. Rawlings-Blake, who was not in Baltimore on Friday, will be making a visit next week to the Cottage Avenue Community , the Park Circle transitional housing program for homeless families she chose as the recipients of the package.

Jimmy's Famous Seafood is hosting another one of its popular Ravens dinners on Wednesday. The guests this time are running back Ray Rice and fullback Vonta Leach. Jimmy's has postponed the event. The restaurant posted this notice on its Twitter feed at 11:50 a.m. on Monday: "*BREAKING* Coach Harbaugh has asked that players postpone all shows until after they win the AFC Title. We will not have shows this week. " The cost for the dinner, a shrimp feast, is $80 and $150 to sit at Leach's table.

Marlin & Ray, we hardly knew ye. The casual dining seafood chain restaurant that opened on Baltimore Pike in Bel Air in early October abruptly ceased operations Wednesday. The Bel Air Marlin & Ray's had company, as parent Ruby Tuesday, Inc., closed all 13 of the restaurants spread over an area that also included North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A person who answered the phone at the Bel Air restaurant on Thursday afternoon confirmed that they had closed, but directed further inquires to the parent company's director of media relations.

The third time is the charm - at least that's what fans of Saigon Remembered are hoping. Originally located on Belair Road, then on York Road in Govans, Saigon Remembered closed its doors in 2011. But the restaurant reopened last month in the CranbrookShopping Center in Cockeysville, with the same friendly service and careful interpretations of Vietnamese specialties that fans will remember. Vegetarian-friendly and healthful, Vietnamesefoodrelies on fresh herbs and vegetables for flavor.

When Demetrios "Jimmy" Minadakis opened a restaurant in 1974, he had high hopes for the place's success - such high hopes that he chose the name Jimmy's Famous Seafood. Nearly 40 years later, the Dundalk restaurant has lived up to - and deserves - its "famous" billing. Now run by Minadakis' sons, John and Tony, Jimmy's timeless takes on classic cuisine and professional service feel just as relevant today as they did in the 1970s. On a Tuesday night during a busy holiday week, Jimmy's cavernous dining room was about half full, with a mix of couples and larger groups.

Louis Charles Hasslinger, a member of a Baltimore seafood family who as a Northwood carryout owner introduced a popular crab cake submarine sandwich in the 1950s, died of cancer Thursday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Timonium resident was 83. Born in Baltimore, he was the grandson of another Louis Charles Hasslinger, whose nine children all went into the crab and oyster business in Baltimore and once had nine locations. While attending City College, Mr. Hasslinger learned how to cook and sell seafood from his father, who had a carryout and sit-down restaurant at Washington Street and Lafayette Avenue.

Sean Dunsworth has been in the wholesale seafood business for the past decade, and his partner, Robert Rehmert, has worked in the kitchens of places as diverse as Tiber River Tavern in Ellicott City, Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore downtown and Rocky Gap Lodge and Golf Resort in Cumberland. Together, they should be able to produce some very fresh fish at their new venture, Catonsville Gourmet (829 Frederick Road, 410-788-0005) in Catonsville. It's primarily an 80-seat restaurant that serves classic American seafood with an Asian accent; but it's also a gourmet market, with cases in the back of the second dining room containing seafood, meats, prepared foods and desserts to take out. The location where the Muir Hardware store once was has been extensively renovated and has what Dunsworth calls an "eclectic, antique look" and a bistro feel, with paper covering white tablecloths.

Though outside the leaves were changing, when we sat down for dinner at Marlin and Ray's Seafood and Sunsets, we had sand between our toes. Thanks to fun drinks, good seafood and laid-back service, getting a little sandy felt right. The Bel Air eatery, which opened in early October, is the first Maryland outpost of a Tennessee-based chain. When we arrived, it was 7 p.m. and the restaurant was packed. The friendly hostess warned us the wait would be about 20 minutes (it was) so we headed back outside to explore Marlin and Ray's little patch of parking lot beach.

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.