St. Michael/Easton MD

[MLZeats]

I will be staying in the St. Michael area for a long weekend. I would appreciate any recommendations for foodie places within an hour or so drive. We enjoy roadside stands as well as formal restaurants. Please include breakfast recommendations as well as lunch/dinner/snack. The important criterion is the quality of the food, not the looks of the place.

I have been told about Ruke's on Smith Island and 208 Talbot in St. Michael. Further discussion with regard to these 2 possibilities will also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[sdelgato]

The Inn at Easton is pretty nice. Australian influenced menu. A tad pricey however especially the wine list. My two cents...

[Joe H]

Inn at Easton is excellent, 208 Talbot is also very good-just a step below perhaps. Suicide Bridge, about 45 minutes away in Hurlock, is an outstanding Maryland style seafood restaurant. The Narrows, I believe with all due respect to G & M and Faidley's, has Maryland's best crabcake. I haven't been to the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford in several years but used to like it a lot. The Inn at Perry Cabin is expensive; for the money I would prefer the Inn at Easton. I do not know Ruke's but Smith Island food tends to be more simple and straight forward. If you go to Smith Island and happen to return via Crisfield (75 miles from St. Michael's) the Cove is Crisfield's best restaurant although it is not on the water. Captain's Galley is overrated yet has a great location. The Crab Claw in St. Michael's is good for crabs-in season.

[mnebergall]

On the road to St. Michaels, about a mile or so after the turn off from Easton, there is an Exxon gas station on the right side of the road. Inside the station there is food service. Very good cheese steak sandwiches. The home made pies are very good as well. The meat case also has home made country sausage and smoked bacon.

[misscindy]

I don't think I would be able to do a long weekend in that area without eating at the Inn at Easton...I really enjoyed my one and only dinner there. In fact, now I'm thinking I'd like to go again sometime soon.

[chappie]

I live in Easton, and while my current income doesn't provide for frequent dinners at the high-end places, I do eat often at Out of the Fire, on Goldsborough St. You can navigate the menu to make your meal as moderate or expensive as you wish; some nights I've had simply a salad and mezze platter, or a pizza and a few beers; others I've gone all-out with every course. This summer they offered a skate dish that was one of the best pieces of fish I've ever tasted, and a recent sweetbread appetizer was amazing. Inn at Easton is fantastic, and I've enjoyed the few times I've been to Columbia (Easton) and 208 Talbot and the Bistro (St. Michaels), but I return the most to Out of the Fire. Ask for Nancy -- the redhaired Nancy, preferably; the other Nancy is a great waitress, too, though.

On a cheaper note, Rusticana in Easton turns out my favorite pizza outside of NYC. Seriously. Alice's in Easton is a great lunch spot; owner/chef Dave Sarfaty's soups are delicious and hearty, and the paninis are popular. Latitude 38 in Oxford is a popular place for Sunday brunch or an affordable bar dinner, people rave about the cream of crab soup at Legal Spirits in Easton (skip most everything else there), and I'm addicted to a brand-new, tiny dive on Dover Street in Easton called Taqueria Mixta. All Spanish on the menu (and spoken), serves soft corn tacos the way they eat them in Mexico: sprinkled with cilantro, onion and radish only, with a squeeze of lime.

If you're staying in St. Michaels, you should duck into rugged, bawdy Carpenter Street Saloon on a busy Friday or Saturday night; trust me, you'll make friends. They run a shuttle van that will take you home, even to Easton.

[chappie]

On the road to St. Michaels, about a mile or so after the turn off from Easton, there is an Exxon gas station on the right side of the road.  Inside the station there is food service.  Very good cheese steak sandwiches.  The home made pies are very good as well.  The meat case also has home made country sausage and smoked bacon.

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It's called Carroll's Market, and it's been there since I can remember (I'm 28). He raised his prices when he brought in the gas 8-10 years ago, or so, but I still can't resist a simple sausage sandwich with mustard and hot pepper relish. I hate to say this, but I've heard from multiple sources that the pies are Sysco — and they're way overpriced. Still, they taste good, I suppose.

[Walrus]

I second Out of the Fire -- it was our introduction to Scrumpy Jack cheese (yum!) and truly the BEST mint chocolate chip ice cream I've ever even dreamed of...fresh mint flavor, like you were eating it off the plant. Amazing.

We also ate at Bistro St. Michael's, which was fine, though definitely flavored by the fact that it was prom night, so there were looooots of teens changing tables, awkwardly dating, etc. It was fun to watch, but maybe not the world's best fine dining atmosphere

[liamdc]

There are 2 older threads on this topic with more information:

Annapolis/Eastern Shore

Inn at Easton

[Crackers]

With spring in the air, Tweaked and I decided to use a "get out of Dodge free" card to head to the Eastern Shore. First stop Easton. Unfortunately, the recommended Inn at Easton is not open for lunch, and Out of the Fire and Alice’s Café (not Alice’s bakery a couple of blocks away), are open for lunch, but only if one manages to get to lunch before 2 p.m., which we didn’t.

Instead we decided to try Legal Spirits Tavern (corner of Dover and Harrison) because it was open and we were hungry. We were kept company by a menagerie of taxidermied critters (didn’t know moose were native to the Eastern Shore, but whatever.) We had two really great soups off the menu - cream of crab - full of lump crab and sherry, one of the best I’ve had, and a perfect charred tomato bisque topped with a generous mound of melting pecorino romano. Someone in that kitchen knows what they are doing. Their "business lunch" is a cup of soup and a grilled American cheese on white bread. Yawn. Our waiter happily took requests, and out came two very tasty grilled cheddar sandwiches with thick tomato slices and plenty of bacon - almost flabby enough for Tweaked, almost crispy enough for me. And a heap of Grandma Utz kettle chips.

A couple of pints of Bass and Harp later we were satisfied and on our way down to Tilghman Island after blasting through the heavily touristed St. Michaels. Our VP was there visiting his buddy Rumsfeld at his getaway place, causing a very D.C.-like traffic hassle later as all the choppers took off from the Inn at Perry Cabin landing pad.

On Tilghman, we pulled in at Dogwood Harbor to see the oyster boats and skipjacks, parking next to a pickup truck loaded down with heaping bushels of razorback clams - sitting in the warm sun. We were told it all gets crushed up and tossed over for crab bait. Crab alert: Crabs are working their way up the bay - already getting some down in the Crisfield area but not really as far north yet as Harris Creek. Ditto for softies - not due up here until mid to late June.

Harrison’s Chesapeake House. It’s been there since the 1870's, and not a tourist in sight, but plenty of rowdy sport fisherman enjoying the opening of rockfish season. Owner Buddy Harrison also does a thriving fishing charter business. Our table overlooked Harris Creek and the docks and we watched a fishing boat come in with the first rockfish catch. Two huge (at least 40") rockfish were held up for photos - what beauties!

We started with generous bowl of steamed shucked oysters in butter and a little Old Bay - right off the boat, and a Maryland vegetable crab soup that was just a bit above average, but definitely house made. More crab and it would have been great. It was opening day for Chesapeake Bay soft shells at Harrisons, and we got an entrée of two almost-whale beauties. They tasted like summer! Another special was soft shell clams (pissers to some of you) so I negotiated a two-fer plate of the clams and, yes, more oysters. Good stuff. The sides were petite brussel sprouts (sadly mushy steam table victims) and whipped potatoes with gravy. More memorable was the rich, eggy, warm bread pudding with rum custard that finished things off. Heavenly! Oh yes, summer is definitely on the way.

I haven't mastered uploading photos yet, so they are linked - hope it works!(click on “view slideshow”):

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/share/v...1&x=1&sm=1&sl=1

[Joe H]

Wonderful report-seriously jealous! Today would be a good day to be out, too!!! Harrison's is interesting-a lot of character and tradition. Great mayonnaisey cole slaw, too.

[Sthitch]

Those clams even look like they smell nasty.

[Tweaked]

Wonderful report-seriously jealous!  Today would be a good day to be out, too!!!  Harrison's is interesting-a lot of character and tradition.  Great mayonnaisey cole slaw, too.

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You have to love a restaurant that puts down a basket of club crackers and a plate of cole slaw on the table while you look over the menu!

[Joe H]

Those clams even look like they smell nasty.

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Am I wrong or aren't most of the clams that are used, say, in Ipswitch from Maryland's eastern shore?

Nasty can be good....

[Crackers]

Those clams even look like they smell nasty.

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Am I wrong or aren't most of the clams that are used, say, in Ipswitch from Maryland's eastern shore?

Nasty can be good....

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Don't know about most, but Kinkeads swears they get their Ipswich clams from Massachusetts.

Nasty can be real good, but when it comes to clams, nasty ain't good nohow. Unless you're a crab.

Edited April 18, 2005 by Crackers (log)

[Joe H]

crabs can be nasty....