One advantage of being the only customer at a restaurant: my lunch came out in about 5 minutes.
Today, I’m wandering around Middletown, Maryland. It’s one of many Middletowns, this one nestled between two ridges. An important rest stop in the steady river of trade between Baltimore and the west during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it slid back into a sleepy backwater town as larger highways arose in the last hundred years.
Unfortunately, according to today’s experience, it now houses retirees that stand on their porches, staring sourly at
So there’s not much to do here. A beautiful little garden squats in the shadow of the big church in town. The main street corner includes a curio shop, an old church converted into a jam space (“COME IN; OPEN MIC”), and a spa.
The one restaurant, fortunately, serves huge portions cooked perfectly. The fish above fell apart when I touched it, and the fries were crisp but not dry, bursting with salty potato flavor.
And then my server brought out a sweet cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries:
That was worth the trip.