Restaurant Week Carroll County

Various Locations

Names Not Provided to Protect the Innocent and Keep Me From Being Sued

 

If there is any wonder why I do so few reviews of restaurants inside my home county of Carroll, Restaurant Week there provided the answers. There is damn little here to keep one here if it is fine food and a restaurant-like atmosphere one is in search of. In my dining experiences at three restaurants during the week of August 22^nd through the 26^th 2011 I found the all shared three of the same qualities, if that’s what you want to call them:

• They apparently believe that quantity is what it is all about. One had five huge courses – nothing extraordinary mind you, just 5 big courses of food.  Another, for $15, let you select an appetizer and two – yes two- full size entrees. Why the hell would anyone need two entrees? All the food was mediocre. Am I supposed to vote on these restaurants based on the number of plates of food I carry home as left-overs?

• The water sucks in every restaurant in Westminster. If they gave you a whole lemon to put in it the water it would still taste awful. They should either give you a bottle of Deer Park water or a demi bottle of white wine to atone for the lousy municipal tap water they are stuck with. What, they never heard of a Brita or a decent water treatment system of their own?

• They all play music for people who are not listening to it. It isn’t ambient white noise, it is noisy noise – annoying noise that makes everyone speak louder and the restaurant be louder than it need be. Yes, I have been to noisy fine restaurants but that’s because the people there were having a good time and the plates were clanging – not because Abba was playing the same old same old over speakers positions everywhere or the TV’s had some sports nonsense on while the dining room was pretending to be a restaurant in a sports bar.

None of the formula / chain restaurants participated in restaurant week, for example Olive Garden and Chili’s. From what I can tell, they did not need to as business there is quite good and for what it is, so is the food for the price. I try to avoid these type restaurants but you’ll catch me in one occasionally, particularly for their lunch specials.

I do hope Restaurant Week grows in Carroll County next year with more restaurants participating, particularly some of the Chinese restaurants who may have the originality to put something special together on their menus. Let’s hope that other restaurants realize that the occasion is more about the challenge of fine food than the quantity of it.