Christopher Daniel, Timonium

Christopher Daniel is the type of place where you walk in and will immediately feel the snobbery in the room. I'm just being honest here. It's the type of place where people get dressed up to eat here (and once again, this place is in a random strip mall) and you are almost obliged to drink expensive wine or a crazy martini. Well, i didn't do any of those things and I still had a great time. Why? Because the food was good. And I mean GOOD.

They first brought some yummy type of focaccia bread to the table while we waited for dinner, which was great. My meal itself was YUM. I ordered the pan seared scallops which came with a vegetable risotto and "crispy basil." Ok, the crispy basil was one leaf of basil stuck in the middle of the risotto as a garnish. Please do not write a garnish in a menu description. The scallops were perfect-- buttery and tender. The risotto was yummy, but I was disappointed with the vegetables because I'm pretty sure they were from the vegetable medley frozen bag, you know, the kind with carrots, green beans and corn. This meal was about $24.

My mother-in-law ordered the beef short ribs which were braised in red wine sauce and honestly the best ribs I have EVER tasted. The meal came with green beans and mashed potatoes which I didn't try. That was about $26.

My hubby ordered the burger, which came with fries and coleslaw. It was really great and only about $10! The seasoning was yummy, and it was NOT dripping with oil. It was a perfect burger.

The waitress brought out their flourless chocolate cake since we were celebrating my birthday, which was a really nice touch and NOT AT ALL what I would expect from that place. The torte itself was good, but I think I would have rather tried the ricotta cheesecake with mangoes. Doesn't that sound heavenly!?

Overall, I can't imagine having a reason to go back to that place anytime soon since we would just be able to order burgers, and I would never order just a meal of burgers in their dining room. They do have a martini bar next door (which was apparently hopping based on loud it was) so maybe I would go there and order some "lite fare" instead.

Christopher Daniel
106 W. Padonia Road
Timonium, MD 21093
410-308-1800
http://www.christopher-daniel.com/ (Don't trust the menu on this website, the dinner options are very different when I went)