Three Things about Food

We finished up the taping of another promotional video for HoCo Restaurant Weeks today. The original plan called for Paul and I to begin the afternoon at Kelsey’s Restaurant in Ellicott City and finish up at Victoria’s.  That didn’t happen. Victoria’s had to cancel due to a family emergency.

It’s just as well. Our time spent with Chef Chad Medina at Kelsey’s was more than enough for one day. We were eating large by noon. Chad started us off with a chicken tortellini soup and finished us off with a pork tenderloin and corn thingy. Of course he doesn’t call it a corn thingy but I’ve honestly forgotten about half the ingredients. I know it had corn, zucchini, jalapeno peppers and heirloom tomatoes and I know it was delicious. He also whipped up some fig sauce thingy that was very tasty with the pork. The pork/corn combo will be one of Kelsey’s prix frixe menu items during restaurant week. This is definitely not your fathers Kelsey’s.

Did I mention that doing these restaurant week promo shoots were fun?

It beats the hell out of working.

Our minder for these promo shoots is Amanda Hof, the Special Events and Projects Manager for HoCo Tourism. Amanda is a Centennial High graduate and HoCo loco. She’s sort of like our scout mom for these shoots.

Tomorrow night Amanda will be working with the HoCo EDA at the Feastival at Clark’s Farm. The Feastival is the official kick off to Restaurant Weeks and is meant to showcase HoCo loco agriculture.

And lastly, I heard a rumor that the Stanford Grill may be considering closing down and reworking the concept in Columbia. That really didn’t ring true with what I have seen but the rumor came from a HoCo loco in the know type so I couldn’t just dismiss it.

Tonight, on my way home,  I decided to drop in to see how things were going on a Monday night for the now year old restaurant. As luck would have it the owner, David Jones, was standing at the bar talking to his Chief Operating Officer, Juancarlo Parkhurst. Stanford Grill is actually the mothership for a chain of restaurants called Copper Canyon Grill. There are currently five Copper Canyons in three states. The original one is in Boca Raton.

“We are closing that one down for a makeover,” he told me. When completed the Boca location will look more like a Stanford Grill than a Copper Canyon.

They will also be opening a sixth Copper Canyon at the Woodmore Town Center in Prince Gorgeous County.

I’d have to say that the rumors of any impending closure of the Stanford Grill would be greatly exaggerated. On a Monday night at 7:00 PM the place had a nice crowd.

“We’re running about 30% ahead of what we projected,” David shared.

Juancarlos told me the patio has proved to be popular for private parties. He said they plan to add air conditioning next month.

Now that’s living large…