Baby its Cold Outside

It may not officially be winter but it sure looks and feels like winter. When I woke up this morning the street outside was covered in snow.

As snowstorms go it wasn’t much of one. It was more like a taste of things to come. By Wednesday, when the temperature is predicted to climb back to 60 degrees, the traces of the white stuff will probably be gone. Still, I’d have to say that a “White Christmas” is possible this year.

The cold didn’t seem to keep folks out of downtown Ellicott City on Friday night for Midnight Madness. Mama Wordbones and I felt fortunate to snag one of the parking spaces right on main Street, though my parallel parking skills were somewhat wanting and traffic backed up a bit as I tried to salvage my maneuver. For those who got stuck behind me, sorry about that.

After parking we headed up to the new Diamondback Tavern to check it out. We arrived right around eight o’clock and were seated right away.

I am not going to write a restaurant review for two reasons. One, it is too early to subject them to that. They have only been open a little over a week. It is reasonable to expect that there will be bugs that haven’t been worked out yet so shortly after opening and there were. Two, there are now a healthy variety of food blogs covering the local dining scene so I’ll leave that exercise to others like HowChow , HocoLoco Girl and Live In Howard County.

I will say that I had a dish called “Shrimp and Grits” and it was delicious. I will also say that I met two of the partners, Lee and Evan and they seemed like nice guys eager to make sure their guests are taken care of. We will be back.

After dinner we headed up the street to the Wine Bin. The Wine Bin is the new liquor store that opened in the old firehouse across from The Judges Bench. The place was busy and they were offering tastings. We tried an appropriately named wine called “Firehouse Red” and purchased a few bottles. We also met the owner, Dave Carney. It is a nice looking store with an interesting collection of wines. If you are an oenophile it is definitely worth checking out.
The walk with our wines back down to our car chilled our bones again. We decided to hop across the street to Fishers, the former bakery that has been renamed Sweet in an attempt to transform itself into a coffee shop. They partially succeed. The place is an eclectic mess and the young staff was a little too self absorbed but the place was warm and the hot cider hit the spot. It was the perfect remedy for a cold night in the old town.