Phillips Seafood (Baltimore, MD)

We rounded out our trip to Baltimore with one last stop for crab at Phillips Seafood. (This time I opted for a crab grilled cheese — crab grilled cheese! genius! — loaded with bacon and avocado.) We had a gorgeous, sunny, flower-filled view of Inner Harbor, and all walked away with a little sunburn. (Fun fact: In French, sunburn is “coupe de soleil” — “cut of the sun.” I love this.) In addition to plentiful crab-spiked dishes, including macaroni and cheese, Phillips had the best calamari I’ve ever had, lightly breaded and fried, and a far cry from the rubberbands you usually get.

Phillips is one of those very family-friendly places, where you expect the wait staff to parade to your table with bibs, booster seats and crayons in tow, so their homey — literally — restroom suited the place perfectly. The outside area had siding, a mailbox and even an “address” nailed to the wall. The bathroom itself was fairly typical, with its white tile and stainless steel stalls, but a huge gilt-framed mirror hung above the sink, making it feel almost (key word, “almost”) as if you were in a Victorian powder room.

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Ale Mary’s (Baltimore, MD)

Baltimore and crab — can’t have one without the other, right? We went to Ale Mary’s for delicious, mountain-high crab cakes that made me wish fresh crab meat were a standard part of NYC life, too. (I really do go bonkers over the fact that everything has crab in it in this part of the country; one of my favorite parts about D.C., in fact, is that the Applebee’s serves crab quesadillas.)

Our host in Baltimore suggested we get some tots, which come with all types of toppings (is it just me, or does the term “tots” make other people think of Napoleon Dynamite?) We chose the crab-topped tots — naturally — and got this amazing plate of cheesy, creamy, greasy, salty, crabby goodness. It wasn’t as good as Sip & Bite’s disco fries, but I had no complaints. Our host also insisted that we get Ale Mary’s famous Krispy Kreme bread pudding. That’s all I’m going to say about that; I think you can imagine the decadence.

When I headed to the bathroom, which was full of religious and nautical motifs, I finally understood the name of the bar / restaurant. Ale Mary’s. Hail Marys. Ha. I am so dense sometimes. The women’s room was marked with a painting of a creepy, googly-eyed nun, and the men’s room with a similar priest. Not sure how schooners and crosses are connected, but it worked, and I liked the pseudo stone floor and the cheerful goldenrod paint job (that was my second favorite Crayola crayon color, after brick red).

Restroom Rating: [rating=4]

Sip & Bite (Baltimore, MD)

After Max’s Taphouse closed on our first night in Baltimore, we headed to Sip & Bite (or, according to the broken neon sign, Ip & Bite) for good ol’ greasy diner food. I ordered “disco fries” — French fries drowning in gravy and smothered with mozzarella — which was like eating regular gravy fries on steroids. Seriously, I was still talking about them when we left Baltimore two days later.

We were also still talking about the fact that a wannabe patron walked in gushing blood, leaving a trail of blood splatters all over the floor. “Who let him in?” one waiter asked, as he mopped the floor with bleach. “Well, I didn’t know he was bleeding!” the waitress replied. Somehow, none of us saw Mr. Bleeding Man, even though he clearly walked past our table, but by the looks of the floor, he was not in good shape. Crazy.

Sip & Bite was a clean but divey diner, and I expected the typical vanilla stainless steel bathroom, but it surprised me by looking like a bathroom from a trendy Manhattan bar — it was nothing extra special, but everything matched, and the walls were made of dark red tiles. The only thing that was a little off was the pink soap (of a Pepto Bismol hue, like the flamingos at Max’s Taphouse; I was seeing too much of that color that night) in a giant ketchup / mustard bottle.

Ah, disco fries… If only a trip to Baltimore were easier. I’m going to go against tradition and post a non-restroom-related photo so you can see how amazing (and amazingly fattening) they were.

Restroom Rating: [rating=1]

Max’s Taphouse (Baltimore, MD)

NYC has ruined most other large-ish cities for me — as a kid, I was always so impressed by cities of any size, because they all seemed huge, fast-paced and exciting compared to the little town I grew up in, but now I go to a place like Baltimore and feel as if I’m in some small suburban Hamlet. Sigh. I love New York, but I don’t want to be a jaded New Yorker.

I love weekend road trips, but they’re always sort of a whirlwind, because you try to squeeze in as much as possible, therefore sacrificing sleep, and Baltimore was no exception. We got in at around 11 p.m. on a Friday, and then went out to Max’s Taphouse, where the beer list is 6.2 miles long (it probably would have taken me as long to fully read and digest the list as it takes me to run a 10k). Baltimore is not New York; the bars close at 2 a.m., which made my tired self happy, and you don’t have to be dressed to the nines to go out. However, the girls who decided to dress up took it to a whole new level of scandalousness, encasing themselves in tight “cocktail dresses” that just barely covered everything.

Max’s restroom was bizarre. The sink was one of those sturdy mottled plastic things that you see in rest areas off the interstate, so I half expected to find a baby changing station. Sinks in bathrooms bars are subjected to some, shall we say, vile things, and I suppose this type is especially easy to clean. The walls had large paintings of Pepto Bismol pink flamingos. Ummm…

Not to be a total downer on Max’s, I did enjoy my pear hard cider (a friend picked it for me, because there was no way I could choose), and if you’re a beer aficionado, this is clearly the place for you next time you’re in Baltimore.

Restroom Rating: [rating=2]