Restuarant Review: Pairings in Bel Air, MD

A few weeks ago, Mark and I went to Pairings to celebrate our anniversary.  Every year we usually go to La Scala in Little Italy (downtown), where we had our rehearsal dinner.  However, I'm not working downtown anymore, so we decided to stay local. 

The concept of Pairings is that they have an extensive wine selection that you can pair with your food.  The restaurant came highly recommended from a former co-worker of mine, so I thought we would have a great time.  I thought wrong. 

When we went to the restaurant on a Wednesday night, there were only two other parties in the entire restaurant.  The restaurant itself is small and set up in a way that does not correlate to its overpriced food. 

Since this restaurant had an extensive wine selection, you would have thought the server would make recommendations.  Nope.  She stood there with a sourpuss on her face as I asked about the different wine samplers.  I opted for a traditional Sauvignon Blanc and Mark had a glass of Pinot Noir. 

Mark and I both ordered cream of crab soup ($8/each).  The soup came with one, yes one, lump of crab.  They actually put it on your spoon and point it out.  Ummm odd.  Hello, we're in Maryland, it's crab season and you're giving us cream of crab that has one lump of crabmeat in it? 

I continued the crab trend by ordering the crab cake ($25).  Yes that's singular, one cake. In reality, it looked like it was the only thing I would like on the menu aside from the steak.  My crab cake came with some fennel slaw (no thanks) and sweet potato fries (okay).  What an overpriced meal.  The crab cake was small and burnt on the bottom.  The taste of the unburnt portions was okay...but really, $25 for that?!?!  I could get a bigger crab cake for that price in DC.  

Mark opted for a salad with seared tuna ($9.5 I think).  The tuna was decent according to Mark, but the rest of the salad was horrible.  It was saturated in soy sauce...yes soy sauce was apparently the dressing (not described as such on the menu). 

At this point we chose not to get dessert.  Our servers were ignoring us despite us being right there in their view.  They opted to spend more time cleaning up their bar and talking to the other two tables (I guess they were regulars).  It seemed like torture for the one server to refill my water glass. 

Having been a server at many restaurants and one country club, I can empathize with servers when they're in the weeds...I can't empathize when they just provide crappy service. 

Overall, what a horrible, overrated, and overpriced way to spend an anniversary.  We will never go back.  There are better places to go to and we wish we had, but you have to try new places. 

Bellissimo in Bel Air

Last night Mark and I ventured out (on a Friday night, gasp!) to Bellissimo in Bel Air.  We were shocked that at 8:00 on a Friday night in the ever busy suburb of Bel Air that we were able to get a table right away.  Take a short trip to Bonefish and I would bet you that you would not be able to do that.  Sidenote, apparently the Bonefish Grill in Bel Air is the busiest one in the country (ahem, I think that's because Bel Air needs some more restaurants). 

Anyway, Bellissimo resides where the horribly named Crackpot once was...in an awkward location near Target.  Mark and I both ordered wine...our server brought it in a little carafe but never poured it = odd.  The bread that was included with our meals was very tasty.  The salad was okay.  No ranch dressing I learned. 

I ordered one of the specials that night, Cheese Ravioli (in an alfredo sauce with crab meat on top), since it was Good Friday.  Mark decided not to abide by the religious rulings of Good Friday and ordered the carbonara.  My meal was okay...I would give it a 6/10.  The alfredo sauce tasted like it was from a jar...not so great.  It was just too overpowering.  The crab meat tasted like imitation crab meat.  Hey, I know we're in MD and it's not crab season, but some of the other restaurants manage to get some good crab meat from the Gulf of Mexico that is decent for the off-season.   

Mark said his dish was good.  Not too many details from him, ha!  Unfortunately, we have Basta Pasta, one of our favorite restaurants in the area, that we compare every other Italian place to.  Oh and La Scala too, but they're downtown.  This meal did not even come close to Basta Pasta or La Scala.  Maybe I was just being picky last night...other people have raved about Bellissimo. 

To conclude, it's also worth noting that the interior of the restaurant is still odd, with lots of bare wood.  They have tried to dress up the place and make it more formal but it's not working.  They added some booths which are nice, but still, it doesn't have that ambiance that the other restaurants have.