Visit Baltimore : Buzz

Last month, local food blogger Dara Bunjon wrote an extremely popular story that highlighted dining destinations on the Charm City Circulator Banner Route.

Mary Beth Marsden of 1090 AM WBAL Radio asked Bunjon how she got the idea for the story and to name some of the highlights of her culinary tour on wheels. The journey took her from Locust Point to the Inner Harbor. You can listen to the interview here. 

Bunjon authors the Dining Dish blog and is the Baltimore Dining Examiner for Examiner.com 

Fans of the hit TV show Seinfeld might remember that certain foods got special attention on the comedy. 

There was the soup from the "Soup Nazi," black-and-white cookies and muffin tops. 

Actor Larry Thomas, aka the "Soup Nazi," has featured all of these foods and more on a food truck that visited different cities, including Baltimore Aug. 6. The Seinfeld "No Food For You" food truck gave away the food for free at the Maryland Science Center.

It already stopped in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Read more in the Baltimore Sun and USA Today. 

Baltimore is one of the nation's coolest cities, according to Forbes. 

The magazine ranked 65 largest cities according to their "coolness," using seven measures. Cities were graded on the number of recreational activities, entertainment options, restaurants and bars per capita, as well as cultural composition, median age, unemployment rate and net migration. It used the help of Sperling's Best Places to assess the entertainment options. 
 
“Baltimore is in transition because it has been down and out for a long time but it’s beginning to come back because it’s affordable,” says Sperling’s Best Places in Forbes.
 
Houston, Texas took the top honor because it enjoyed a 2.6 percent job growth last year, which drew plenty of young professionals to the sprawling metropolis. Really. 

Our neighbor to the South, Washington, D.C., took the No. 2 spot. 

You can read the entire story and a slideshow here. 

It has gotten off to a rocky start, to say the least. 

But now there's some good news for the Baltimore Grand Prix. Organizers of the Baltimore Grand Prix announced that they have landed several new sponsors for this year’s race, including Sunoco, Dr. Pepper and Giant Food, CBS News reports. 

The city terminated its contract with Baltimore Racing Development, the group that put on last year’s event, and dissolved its contract with Downtown Racing. Now, could it be that the third time is the charm with Race On LLC?

We'll find out Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, when the second Baltimore Grand Prix is slated to run. 
 

The National Park Service has given tourists another reason to visit Maryland.

On Monday, July 31, it launched the Star-Spangled National Historic Trail, kicking off the event in Fells Point. The 560-mile route traverses land and water in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and takes visitors to important marks in the War of 1812. 

"By land or water, by bike or on foot, in a car or on a boat, visitors can follow the routes taken by the British during the 1813 and 1814 invasions of the Chesapeake, which resulted in the burning of the White House and Capitol, the capture of Alexandria and the battle for Baltimore, culminated in the writing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" writes the Washington Post.

You can read the Post's entire story here. 

While the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation filmed scenes in Washington D.C. last week, the Netflix movie House of Cards recreated the nation’s capital right here in Baltimore, reports the Washington Post.
 
House of Cards shot overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning at the Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute, which was “transformed into the fictitious ‘Hotel Cotesworth,’ a supposedly historic D.C. institution where the presidents have slept,” writes the Post.
 
The political thriller has also used the offices of the Baltimore Sun as the set for the show’s fictional newspaper, the Washington Herald.
 
House of Cards stars Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara and is directed by David Fincher, director of Fight Club, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

The Green Party nominated its candidate for the 2012 presidential campaign in Baltimore this weekend.

Dr. Jill Stein, a physician from Massachusetts, was formally nominated at the 2012 Green Party convention, which took place at the University of Baltimore and the Holiday Inn on West Lombard Street.
 
While the Green Party's convention was held in Maryland, there is a chance that Stein won’t be on the ballot here this fall. The Greens have until August 6 to present 3,000 valid signatures to the State Board of Elections to put Stein’s name on the ballot.

In any case, the convention's locale got press from a number of national outlets, including the New York Times and Time.
 
Jill Stein picked homeless activist Cheri Honkala as her running mate over actress and comedian Roseanne Barr, who had also been seeking the nomination.
 
The Republicans and Democrats will host their conventions in Tampa Bay and Charlotte, respectively, in August.

The Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore continues to get plenty of ink in USA Today. 

In a recent article, the newspaper wrote about Baltimore developer Michael Beatty's decade-long effort to bring the hotel to Charm City. 

"Over the last decade, Beatty's firm has been steadily developing the upscale Harbor East neighborhood along the harbor near trendy Fells Point where the glass-wrapped Four Seasons tower stands," USA Today writes in its story titled "Four Seasons Bets Big on Baltimore."

"The pedestrian-friendly neighborhood contains several towers with pricey corporate offices, apartments and four other hotels including a Hilton Garden Inn and the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. Harbor East's shopping options include national and local clothing shops (Anthropologie and J. Crew will open locations later this summer), as well as a Whole Foods supermarket."

You can read the rest of the story here.

The Washington Post has given a shout out to the fast-growing Howard County theater troupe Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. 

The theater made headlines recently when it announced that it is moving from the county to downtown Baltimore's Mercantile Trust Building in 2014. The move will make it the city's third largest theater company, after Center Stage and Everyman Theatre.

The Mercantile building is currently a nightclub, featuring liquor, a disco ball and a basement bar called the Bedroom.  The renovation to turn this nightclub into a theater fit for Shakespeare will take $4 million.
 
"The expansion into Baltimore is a major development for a $540,000-budget troupe that has grown steadily since it opened a decade ago with a Twelfth Night" that drew 100 people, the Post writes. 

You can read the entire story here. 

Baltimore may have shed its image as the gritty, crime-infested city depicted in the The Wire. That's according to USA Today, which credits the Four Seasons Baltimore as the watershed development that has helped Baltimore's image. It features a 44-image slideshow of the property. 

"The Four Seasons Baltimore hotel tower is the newest tower on Baltimore's skyline in the upscale Harbor East neighborhood, which contains retail shops, restaurants, galleries, apartments and office space," USA Today writes. "The hip retail shop Anthropologie will open a location in the hotel complex in late summer."

Check out the slideshow here. 

Top Haunts, which bills itself as a "magazine for haunt industry professionals," has recognized Jessup's Bennett's Curse as one of the top attractions for people who like to be spooked. 

The Howard County attraction is one of 23 scary spots featured in its haunted attractions' poll. Bennett's Curse shares the honor with The Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride in Glen Mills, Pa., and Disturbia Haunted House in Huntsville, Ala. 

You can check out the magazine and poll here. 

Baltimore came out on top in more than one Battle of the Beltways. 

Not only did the Baltimore Orioles beat the Washington Nationals but the city bested its rival at A Taste of Two Cities, a food truck competition held Saturday at the Westport Waterfront. It was organized by food truck owner Damian Bohager. 
 
First place went to Baltimore’s Gypsy Queen food truck, followed by the Red Hook Lobster truck of D.C. in second and Baltimore’s Miss Shirley’s truck in third.
 
A panel of six judges, three from each city, determined the winner. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a big supporter of Baltimore’s food trucks, presented the Mayor’s Cup to Gypsy Queen.
 
The People’s Choice awards, which were decided by competition visitors via text, went to D.C.’s the Cajunator and Baltimore’s Souper Freak. 

Read more about it in the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post. 

The Maryland Racing Commission has decided that thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat holds the all-time record race time for the Triple Crown.

This was after looking at new evidence presented that showed the horse ran the Preakness Stakes on May 19, 1973 in 1:53.

"The evidence was 'totally convincing,' said one commissioner, John McDaniel," the New York Times writes. “ 'Injustice was done, and we needed to correct it.' Secretariat finally holds the record for all three Triple Crown races."

You can read the entire story here. 

Andrew Zimmern spent three days eating through Baltimore’s finest fare for his Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods America this week.  Baltimore will be a part of the show’s seventh season, which begins airing sometime this fall.
 
Zimmern’s Baltimore stops included Chap’s Pit Beef, Hollins Market, Lexington Market, the Arabbers' Carlton Street Stables, and Woodberry Kitchen. He also spent time on the Eastern Shore and in Baltimore County, where he tweeted that Ellicott City restaurant Shin Chon “is one of top ten Korean BBQ experiences in America. A must for anyone who loves food. Major discovery.”
 
Read more about Zimmern’s in the Baltimore Sun story.

Baltimore's Sailabration brought the Today Show's Al Roker to the Inner Harbor, 1 million tourists, the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels and dozens of tall ships.

Joining the festivities to commemorate the 200-year-anniversary of the War of 1812 was the U.S. Coast Guard sailing vessel Eagle. 

"The war was one of the last major conflicts fought during the Age of Sail, but 200 years after it was declared, the Coast Guard uses the three-masted square-rigger to train future officers," writes the Washington Post.  "The very anachronism of sailing a square-rigger using sextants and celestial navigation at a time when armed drones and Global Positioning Systems dominate is part of Eagle’s appeal."

You can read the rest of the story here.