We’ve always been of the opinion that Mount Vernon’s City Cafe is as consistently good as it is underrated. So when we heard that their chef Chad Gauss was opening a new restaurant in Hampden we had pretty high hopes. New restaurants open up all the time. Hell, new restaurants open...

As a lifelong Orioles fan and a big league bon vivant, we were incredibly excited to hear that former 3rd baseman and long-beloved legend politely tolerated player Melvin Mora would be opening his own restaurant here in Baltimore. We were sad ambivalent about seeing Mora leave the Orioles,...

Walking around and looking for a drink in downtown Baltimore can make you feel a little like Goldilocks. The Inner Harbor bars are too touristy and overpriced. The non-touristy places, like Midway Bar are too sketchy (and overpriced). But if you look hard enough, you can find a bar...

We feel kind of silly admitting this, but before this weekend we had never heard of Sherwood Gardens, even though we live close enough to walk there easily. Obviously, we haven’t been paying very much attention. We live nearby to Guilford, and we go through there all the time, but...

So the Chop is going golfing again today. We’ve got a late-morning tee time, which we’ve come to figure out is just about the ideal window to tee off because you can still sleep in a little bit, and by the time you’re round is done you’re in prime position to go...

Part of the appeal of any neighborhood bar is being in a spot where “everybody knows your name,” but as we discussed in a previous post, a little anonymity can go a long way sometimes. There are times when a man wants a little solitude; not too much, just an hour or so to sit in...

The Charles Village Pub has always had an outstanding business model: put a bar where a bar needs to be. Be a bar. Have beer and liquor, some background music, a few TV’s, and let the people come. All the basics are there, right on Saint Paul Street, and no frills at all. It’s a...

If Baltimore is a city sometimes known to celebrate the bizarre, the unusual and all things on the fringes, we’d posit that there may be no more bizarre place in the city than Crazy Ray’s auto parts on Erdman Avenue. An automotive “graveyard” might be an apt...

Today is Saint Patrick’s day, Baltimore. It’s that most drunk and sloppy of meaningless phony holidays which are completely insignificant and thoroughly unenjoyable. We’re already on record as being against drinking holidays and the rabble they produce as a matter of...

Now that the holidays have come and gone and the dead-of-winter hibernation period has fully set in, we’re beginning to make subtle preparations to go a-traveling again. One of the most important of those preparations is the acquisition of a new pair of solid-yet-comfortable everyday...

As you may already know, the Chop is no stranger to matters of style. Classic American fashion is one of the cornerstones of this blog. So when we heard word of a new men’s shop opening in Hampden, you can believe it raised our eyebrows pretty high. For too many years quality menswear...

Since word got out on Friday that Denise Whining trademarked the term Hon, the outcry against her corny, crummy restaurant and her slimy, anti-social business practices has been nearly universal, with some of the best writing on the topic coming from sources like The Sun’s editorial...

You know, we just don’t hear the phrase “Hail Satan” often enough anymore. Time was when you could walk down any street in Fells Point on a Sunday afternoon and cross a group of kids with bags of records in hand walking around on nearly every block. The common parlance in...

You don’t need us to tell you about the food at Bluegrass. There are already plenty of reviews out there in the Sun, The Citypaper, Baltimore Magazine and elsewhere. Baltimore is very much a city in which restaurants are their reputations, and when a place like Bluegrass opens up,...

For those among you who are wont to give credence to ghosts and spirits, there’s no need whatsoever to look toward haunted houses or haunted hayrides or any other seasonal attractions where high schoolers and jaycees put on masks and yell ‘boo.’ Those who wish to seek out...

We probably shouldn’t tell you about iBar. We should probably keep our big mouth shut for once and leave well enough alone. Or maybe we should use some reverse psychology. Don’t go to iBar. It’s not very cool. There. That ought to insure that iBar remains one of the best kept...

You might be surprised to hear it, but the Chop fully approves of hotel bars. Most often we find ourselves in one when we’re overseas. Many times hotel bars are the cream of the crop, and some countries’ bars are found to be so wanting that the hotel bar with the western visitors...

“I’m on a boat!” Not really. I’m actually on a ship. But if you want to get your little Foursquare badge-y thing, this would be a hell of a way to do it. Today the Chop is visiting what is probably Baltimore’s most interesting and least visited attraction, the...

If there’s one thing we can’t stand, its getting all geared up to go somewhere, do something, or get something, only to get there and find the doors locked and lights out because its Sunday. In a town like this with so many small businesses, it can be twice as bad, because whoever...

Like we mentioned last week, The Chop loves free stuff, so we’re pretty excited about the grand opening of the all new Baltimore Free Store today. The Baltimore Free Store is another one of those radical ideas that isn’t really that radical, and is merely common sense once...

One of the things the Chop loves best about Baltimore is that its a city of open secrets. Anyone tuned into the right gossip channels (of the offline variety) doesn’t have to do too much digging to get to the dirt. The Chop was clued in to a particularly incredible open secret some years...

We’re still pretty excited to get up to Towson tonight to see Gentleman Jesse and His Men, but we also wanted to put in a word here for the Station North Flea Market going on today in North Avenue between Maryland and Howard. This thing has been going on occasionally for some years now,...

Sam Sessa over at Midnight Sun blog reported today that the end times have finally arrived for the Talking Head Club. The Talking Head, which opened up in a dinky underutilized space on Cathedral Street in 2002, stayed there about the course of the summer before moving to the former Ottobar...