Earlier this year, I met a really nice lady at my social club that shared a love for good food and great conversation.  We kept trying to make plans to meet but could not solidify a date. Finally, we were able to link for a meal, months later, and decided to go to the BlueStone Restaurant located at 11 West Aylesbury Road in Lutherville-Timonium, MD during Baltimore Restaurant Week. BlueStone is an American seafood restaurant that offers light fare to full dinners in a hip setting with a bar. We meet up for our 7pm reservation and were seated immediately.

My dinner buddy had been here before and really enjoyed their Sangria. She highly recommended the pitcher of Red Wine Sangria ($28) so we decided to order that.  Let me just say, that we could easily get about 10 glasses from the amount in that pitcher.  It was definitely worth the price! The Sangria itself was deliciously sweet, had fresh fruits, and I did not start feeling it until I got home. I was very happy we made that decision.  There were an added bonus to the Sangria order that I will not disclose for legal reasons but you should definitely order that and find out for yourself!

Since it was Baltimore Restaurant week, they had a 3 course menu for $30 and $35 that had some really great options.  The meal included any house salad or soup, an entrée, and a dessert. My dinner buddy has enjoyed the Fried Green Tomatoes ($13) appetizer in the past, but I declined to share because of my dislike of tomatoes. This dish is served with colossal crab, shallots, chives, garlic, and lemon Beurre Blanc.  I started my meal with the House Caesar ($6/$8.5) served with long leaf romaine, local tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, house garlic, and anchovy dressing. My friend ordered the Cream of Crab Soup ($6) with lump crab and a touch of Sherry.  Any other day when I was not watching my weight, I would have ordered that soup but I had to go with the salad, which was delicious by the way. The romaine leaves were definitely long as promised but made for a creative presentation.  I was not too fond of the tomatoes which was a bit of a weird addition.  As a child, Caesar salads were my favorite simply because tomatoes were not included.  The dressing on this salad was fantastic. It had the right blend of salty, creamy, pepper, and more. The only disappointment was that I do not recall the waitress asking me if I wanted fresh pepper on my salad.  My dining buddy really enjoyed her soup and spoke of the abundance of crab meat in the soup which is a promising sign.

A little before our appetizers arrived, the server bought out fresh warm bread and butter. A little hard to mess that up but my friend mentioned that it was tasty. From what I recall, I believe the butter was softened which is excellent for customer service.  If you’ve ever tried to spread un-softened bread, you can understand my frustration with restaurants that serve cold butter with bread. Like really, get it together!

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As for our entrees, I was stuck between ordering a steak and crab cake, or the soft-shelled crab dish.  I ended up ordering the Hooper’s Island Soft Crabs ($32) that were pan roasted (though were breaded and appear fried) with old bay flour, a three mustard emulsion (An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally unmixable), and corn pudding. My friend was also stuck between the crab cake and the soft-shelled crab.  This was not listed on the menu, but the waitress mentioned that she could have one of each for her entrée for $35 with corn pudding and it also came with a side of asparagus. She was immediately sold. A bit weird that my meal did not come with a side considering we pretty much ordered the same thing.

The presentation of the two soft-shelled crabs was pretty neat.  This can be challenging thing to plate and they did it well.  The crabs were plated on top of the mustard sauce with chives.  What was interesting was the corn pudding that was served in molded-baked cup. To put it simply, I really enjoyed my meal. The soft-shelled crabs were well-seasoned, cooked well, the mustard sauce was different but was tasty, and the corn pudding was pretty good.  It is hard to impress me with the corn pudding because I have a fantastic recipe so compared to that, it was just pretty good.  The corn inside was good and the custard exterior was a bit much. No matter what, it was a great portion of food, I enjoyed it, and I finished my plate.  My dining buddy enjoyed both her crab cake and the crab.  She equally enjoyed her asparagus.  The corn pudding was liked but she too felt that the exterior was a bit much but unlike me who finished the pudding, she only ate the insides with the corn.

For dessert, we both ordered the Crème Brûlée ($7) with rich vanilla bean custard with a caramelized crust and seasonal berries. It was disappointing. One of the best parts of this dessert is the caramelized crust that you get to break into to get to vanilla custard. That was pretty much nonexistent for the dessert. The custard itself was not bad not bad but I expect a little more. It was a generous portion of the dessert but, I just was a bit disappointing. The berries served on top were good however, the strawberry was borderline rotten which did not help with the flavors. I think I would just for go desserts here going forward and get my sweet tooth fix from the delicious Sangria!

Overall, we had an amazing time dining together. Our total together came to $104.72. We decided to split it down the middle and which came to $52.36 and after 20% tip, I spent $62.36. I will definitely be back here when I am in the area and I definitely think you should as well. Based on the prices, it will definitely be a splurge meal but at least you know upfront to get the dessert elsewhere.  The following is my Seven Mac Score for the restaurant:

Please look out for my next post as I review another one of Baltimore’s Best and other restaurants in the DMV area. Also, you can find me on Instagram @finediningdiva and twitter @moderndaybeauty. Also, if you would like to follow my blog to receive notification when a new blog is posted, please send your email to finediningdiva@gmail.com.

And remember: It’s a BIG world and we are going to eat our way through it!

http://www.bluestoneonline.net/