Not my Choptank

I've never been to the restaurant in question, but my Dad has a house on the actual river... and in general I think it's good form to highlight the awesome sauce that is Sam Sifton's food writing. What a revelation that guy is. Here's a snippet:

Choptank the restaurant opened this winter on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, taking the watershed as its muse and Baltimore as its butler. The restaurant evokes the Chesapeake region in the way that dorm rooms at Johns Hopkins do: Duck Head khakis in the dresser and lacrosse sticks leaning against the desk, postcards from Rehoboth Beach tacked to the wall along with the covering board from grandfather’s sloop, a thrift-store oil painting, sconces from mom.

So there ain’t no pit beef here, hon. Too low-class. No steamed crabs on paper tablecloths, either. (Though they say come summer.) You can’t buy a can of Natty Boh beer. (The company doesn’t distribute up north.) There is a fine Ostrowski’s Polish sausage sitting with its pretzel brother on a plate, garlicky as a Pigtown housewife, but there is no John Waters to Choptank, much less Avon Barksdale or Stringer Bell. The restaurant’s vibe is suburban, as safe as Cal Ripken.

Heh... that's the good stuff. I guess it's not that crazy to look forward to reading reviews of restaurants that I'm never going to eat at... indeed, for food tourism articles and shows, that's the main draw... but it still surprises me. I have nothing against Frank Bruni, but Sifton was definitely a huge step up in my humble opinion.