Seafood Platter

Timbuktu is a big restaurant that serves big food. Slabs of red meat. Plates overflowing with pasta. Towering layer cakes. The restaurant has changed a lot since Michael Stavlas purchased it in the early 1980s. Timbuktu was then a small bar. Stavlas spent two years expanding the place. And expanding. Now, the original bar is a tiny part of an enormous 600-seat restaurant run by his nephew George Anagnostou. As the restaurant grew, one thing didn't change: the name. Anagnostou doesn't know why the original bar was called Timbuktu, but his family decided to keep the name.

Crofton soon will be rolling in dough.The Dough Roller, an Ocean City landmark that specializes in pizza and pancakes, will be striking inland for the first time, opening a restaurant in a Route 3 business park."

What is it we want from Phillips? Like it or not, the restaurant is the city's unofficial headquarters for Chesapeake seafood. For the last three decades, more visitors to Baltimore likely received their first crab cake from Phillips in Harborplace than anywhere else in Baltimore. I think we want to know that Phillips is representing us well. If, like many, you've found yourself uneasy about how Phillips was performing in this ambassadorial role, I've got some encouraging news for you. Phillips' move across the harbor last fall from the Light Street Pavilion to a new home at the Power Plant has done it a world of good.

TersiguelTersiguel, 8293 Main St., Ellicott City, (410) 465-4004. Tersiguel is a delightful place to dine. In fact, it's the best I've found in two years of reviewing restaurants. Housed in a large, old home in the historic district, Tersiguel offers beautiful French country surroundings; proper, but friendly service; and wonderful, consistently wonderful, food. Between the menu and the specials there were so many delicious-sounding dishes we couldn't decide what not to have. The rockfish en croute ($18.

The Snow Hill Inn104 E. Market St., Snow Hill, (410) 632-2102.Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m Monday through Friday for lunch; 5:30p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.Sunday for dinner.Credit cards: V, MC, AE.No-smoking section? Yes.We came upon the Snow Hill Inn during a day trip to Furnace Town and the Pocomoke River State Park, about a half-hour drive from Ocean City.The restaurant at the bed and breakfast was a welcome respite from the heat and humidity that sent us reeling from the forest to civilization and air conditioning.

Cool beer on a sunny deck at a bend in the river. Nabbs Creek Cafe has a sweet situation on a little pinkie jutting into the Patapsco. There's actually a series of decks descending from the back of the chalet-style restaurant, a rundown but still-handsome structure built snugly into the hillside. On the deck closest to the creek, a busy boat-filled marina to their backs, an energetic cover band was playing a sweaty set on a late summer evening. And if you were anywhere in the tri-county area on a recent Saturday night, and kept thinking you heard a woman shouting across the water, "Bon Jovi!

Here we are, the four of us, standing in line waiting to get on the most popular ride at Disneyland. Nope, check that. We're waiting for a table at Phillips Harborplace in tourist season. The boisterous crowds are about the same as you'll find at the theme park (maybe slightly fewer kids). As is the general air of bonhomie, punctuated by the cheerful honky-tonk piano in the background. The staff is young, sweet-natured and efficient; and the dining rooms have that stage set look: rooms within rooms, with faux Tiffany lamps and fake windows that open out onto other dining rooms.

"My father started the business 30 years ago in Columbia - Oakland Mills," says John Bell, owner of Bell's Deli. "We started as a butcher shop, but as everyone got more and more busy and didn't have enough time to regularly prepare meals, we began doing sandwiches and carryout items." Bell's Deli moved 18 years ago to its current location, off U.S. 40 in Elliott City, and offers a variety of lunch meat and submarine sandwiches. Whether you're looking for a 6-inch sub or one that's a foot long, you have several choices - such as chicken parmesan, New York strip steak, Italian meatball, Texas barbecue pork, chicken cheese steak and Italian cold cut. But there's a modern twist to the deli as well - grilled chicken, ham and cheese with turkey bacon, ribeye steak and vegetable wrap sandwiches.

Located where Ten Oaks, Howard and Green Bridge roads intersect in Dayton, the Crossroads Pub is a cozy, inviting place to stop for a country seafood dinner. Crabs and other seafood are the house specialty. During the summer, the restaurant offers all-you-can-eat crabs Mondays and Tuesdays. "Most summer nights, our crab deck is filled," says Bill Green, owner and chef. The pub's menu also offers hot sandwiches served with seasoned curly fries, thick onion rings, cole slaw, applesauce, three-potato salad or hush puppies.

Towson's old Crack Pot seafood restaurant keeps rolling with the times and the punches at its familiar outpost on Loch Raven Boulevard at Taylor Avenue. On a recent weekend night, it is packed but friendly and well-run, and boasts the largest mix of age and ethnic groups we've ever seen, everyone enjoying mountains of steamed crabs and seafood, everyone carrying home leftovers in plastic foam containers. The Crack Pot has a huge menu - five oversized pages, plus a listings of kids' meals.