The Hill - 1017 S. Charles St. - Baltimore

The Hill is a new restaurant that opened up about 2 weeks ago on Charles Street in Federal Hill. My wife and I were looking for a quick meal that was something other than the local bar food which is pretty much indistinguishable from one place to the next.

Atmosphere:

The place is newly renovated and it looks it. The decor is simple, but the layout is pretty cool. I especially like the belt-driven ceiling fans, but I'm an engineer, so maybe its just me that thinks they're cool. It was a bit loud, probably b/c of the Friday special (1/2 price wine bottles and complimentary cheese and fruit plate), but not so bad that you had to yell to have a conversation. And the resturant was divided from the bar area with a 6' wall/divider that probably keeps the noise to a reasonable level.

Food:

The items on the menu all sounded appetizing. Nothing too fancy, but a lot of fairly simple dishes with a little unique twist. No one that goes there will have trouble finding a dish that they can eat. My problem with the menu, (and my problem with many menus) is that there were WAY too many choices. There were about 12 apps, 10 sandwiches, 6 salads and 25 entrees. While I like choices as much as the next person, I have yet to find a restaurant that can do that many dishes well, especially a new restaurant. I'll probably post a separate rant about restaurants with too many menu items later, but for now I'll just say this: Its possible for a restaurant to do about 20 items well. After that, cooks make mistakes and the quality suffers.

My expectation was pretty much dead on. My wife had the cheese and tomato ravioli and I had a pulled pork cuban sandwich. The ravioli was bland. It tasted like someone forgot to add a key ingredient to the ravioli stuffing and the sauce. It wasn't bad, but certainly not very good. The pulled pork cuban sandwich was a really interesting dish that I was pretty excited about having. Two types of pork on one sandwich with swiss cheese and a pickle is not something you get to eat everyday...not if you want to live a long life anyway. It was delicious and I would order it again in a heartbeat but it definately has some room for improvement. For starters, the bottom of the bun was soaked through with dressing from the cole slaw that was on the sandwich. I'm not even sure the cole slaw was supposed to be on the sandwich (I don't remember seeing it on the menu), but it wasn't doing it any favors. I had to eat with a knife and fork (not a big deal), but I also couldn't find the pickle anywhere. The curly fries that came with the sandwich were outstanding though.

Service:

I'm usually pretty critical of service, but I don't have anything bad to say about the service at The Hill. Everyone on staff was pleasant, our server was friendly and she was on point with the drink refills. The food came out hot and on time. Couldn't ask for much more.

Other:

I think the Hill has a lot of potential, but I would love to see them drop about 1/2 the menu and focus on a narrower set of dishes. I like the 1/2 price wine special and I hope they continue to do some unique happy hour deals instead of the 1/2 price burgers or $2 pints that you see everywhere else in the neighborhood. I think they have a chance to be a quality neighborhood restaurant like the Wine Market in Locust Point. I hope it happens b/c there's a shortage of quality food in the neighborhood.

A little background to start things off....

So, we'll see if anyone actually stumbles upon this blog, but if you do, I hope you find the info contained within useful or at least amusing. My goal is a mix of a couple things. On one hand I'd like to provide an opinion to the world about the various eating and drinking establishments where I end up having a meal or a few drinks. On the other, I'd like a forum to share the things that I love and hate about restaurants in general, so that maybe one restaurant owner will stumble upon this and be able to do a better job than the rest of the places out there.

I've worked in resturants for about 6 years as a busser, server, bartender, and manager, but I haven't been in the business for about 4 years. I live in Baltimore, so that's where most of the reviewed restaurants will be.