Restaurants
How can it not be a good day when you wake up to this view out your hotel room window?
After a long day of conferencing, it felt great to walk outside and discover it was warm and beautiful out.
It felt weird taking pictures of somewhere I’d been so many times. 
The roommates and I:
New mom and work-out rockstar Tina; fellow-RD and Fitbloggin’ speaker Katie; and newly accepted culinary student and DC local Amanda.
After our less-than-stellar crab cake dinner, we made sure to find a restaurant that would make up for it. When we saw M&S Grill had tables outside and could sit us fairly quickly {a huge achievement the weekend of Preakness}, we knew we’d found our spot.
M & S Grill is the little sister to seafood powerhouse McCormick and Schmick’s, so it was sure to please.
And it did. I’d had my fill of seafood, so I dug into a fresh strawberry spinach salad that pretty much knocked my socks off.
Spinach topped with strawberries, red onions, and spicy hot pecans, served with a thick and spicy peanut dressing.
Along with a side of parmesan potatoes in case the salad wasn’t big enough.
We must’ve spent a few hours at dinner since it was dark by the time we left.
And with that, Fitbloggin was over just as quickly as it started.
Restaurants
{And not just because Fitbloggin’11 is over!}
If there’s one thing Maryland is known for, it’s crab. Having grown up outside of Baltimore, I’m not stranger to crab- I can’t tell you how many birthdays were celebrated with a bushel of crabs steamed in the kitchen and smothered in Old Bay, with a live crab or two escaping the steam bath and skittering across the kitchen.
So when in Maryland, it only makes sense to eat crab…Especially crab cakes, where the cake is more crab and less, well, cake {aka filler}.
Within minutes of arriving in Baltimore, I headed straight for the crab cakes.
I had the pleasure of participating in both DC and Baltimore’s oh-so-welcoming rush hours. The extra hours in the car followed by both a shuttle ride and a stint on the Light Rail {not to mention a heck of walk} left me more than a little starving upon arrival.
Luckily I found my roommates for the weekend just as they were heading to dinner at Bo Brooks, a waterside seafood restaurant in Canton, not far from the Inner Harbor.
Instead of traditional crab cakes, I opted for something a little more interesting to mix things up a bit: Chesapeake Toast- mini crabcakes on a baguette with chipotle aioli.
They were nothing less than fabulous, despite being a little mayo-y for my liking.
Of course the Chesapeake toast whet my appetite for crab cakes, and I had to get them again the next night.
Unfortunately this time it wasn’t the same pleasant dining experience. Unless crunching down on shell after shell in your crab balls is your thing.
It’s not mine. Dinner at Mo’s was disappointing, and leaves a tarnish on Maryland’s stellar reputation for above-the-bar cakes of crabby goodness.
Though round 2 of the crab craving failed to satisfy, at least the company did!
{Don’t you love when people capture awkward photos of mostly-unsuspecting victims?}
