Cynthia’s
552-I Governor Ritchie Hwy.
Severna Park, Md.
410-315-8088, http://www.cynthiassevernapark.com
Brunch, Sun. 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Lunch, Tues.–Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Tues.–Fri. 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m.; Sat. 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 5 p.m.–9 p.m.
Atmosphere: Simple cool
Service: Young but attentive
Don’t miss: Grilled New York strip steak with “better than steakhouse” sides; adult milk and cookies
Tariff: Appetizers, $8-$15; entrees, $24-$32
We’re into the food,” says Brian Bennington, chef and co-owner (with his wife, Cindy) of Cynthia’s, a Severna Park restaurant that celebrated its first anniversary in July. “And we want people to eat here because of the food, not the decorations. It’s not about what’s on the walls.”
For the record, what’s on the cappuccino-colored walls are perfectly acceptable small, framed vintage ads for vegetables, like the one for Kingfish asparagus that hung near our table. And on the evening of our visit, the food was more than acceptable as well.
Let’s get one thing out of the way, though. Cynthia’s is also not about the location—a suburban shopping center. Admittedly there is a disjuncture between a fine dining restaurant sitting next to a pizza parlor. (In my mind, there’s also a disjuncture between consuming $30 steaks while wearing shorts and T-shirts, but that’s another discussion entirely.) But if suburban diners want an alternative to chain restaurants in their neighborhoods, they will need to be as flexible about location as the Benningtons were when they chose the spot for their restaurant.
The couple decided to open a restaurant in Severna Park after visiting Brian’s mother and discovering the dearth of good restaurants in the area. It took them nearly a year to find a space that met their needs, settling on their current location, formerly the site of a bagel shop. They remade the space, adding playfully modern lighting fixtures and streamlined window treatments to soften the storefront effect. White tablecloths, stainless-steel cutlery, and Riedel glassware also add to the ambience. In fact, the whole Cynthia’s experience is all about confounding expectations based on appearance, from the very young staff who are surprisingly professional, if slightly inexperienced, to the clever names and presentations of the dishes.
We began our meal with three starters. The gazpacho was fresh tasting but not spicy, and although the Dungeness crab that was mounded in the center of the soup had sweetness, its delicate flavor was overwhelmed by the taste of tomato. Better (and more fun to say) was the ahi tuna tartare à la Taylor’s Mom, first quality tuna and bits of avocado sauced with a light champagne reduction. The garnish of several crunchy potato crisps gave the dish a nice contrast in flavor and texture. I was curious to see what the restaurant would produce as zucchini jalapeño potato poppers, but as they had already sold out for the evening, I ordered another upscale take on fast food, the seared smoked salmon and frisée “like a burrito.” In this dish, house-smoked salmon, which takes nearly a week and a half to cure and smoke, is sliced thin and wrapped around a frisée salad dressed in a sherry-bacon dressing; the addition of candied walnuts adds a sweet flavor that complements the smokiness of the fish and the slight bitterness of
the frisée.
Entrées were successful all the way around. Although we were intrigued with the description of the grilled herbed pork chop (served with warm German potato salad, garlic sautéed green beans, and “yummy” sauce that turned out to be au jus) and tempted to feed our tuna fetish with yet another tuna dish (the seared ahi tuna loin with lemon risotto, oven-dried tomato galette, and shaved fennel salad), we opted for fish, fowl, and beef. The grilled Alaskan halibut was done to flaky perfection, but it was the corn, roasted pepper, and fava bean succotash and the accompanying corn coulis that made the dish come alive. It was just the opposite with the dish of the day, grilled Panamanian silk snapper, where the richness of creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and Chardonnay sauce threatened to overwhelm the fish’s delicacy. I love rich food, but I might have been able to enjoy more of the snapper if the sides hadn’t been quite so overwhelming. The breast of Moulard duck looked small but packed a wallop of savory flavor, and again, the crispy potato galette made a nice textural foil to the grilled squash and balsamic peach compote that accompanied the duck.
Then there was the grilled New York strip with “better than steakhouse sides.” As soon as our server brought the dish to the table, I immediately went for the tower of onion rings propped next to the perfectly cooked steak (luckily, the entrée was my husband’s). The plate also included a twice-baked potato topped with sour cream (described as a “high calorie baked potato” on the menu), a mound of sautéed mushrooms, and creamed spinach. Some may balk at the $32 price tag for this indulgence, but at a true steakhouse you could easily pay $32 for a steak without any sides.
We had mixed reactions to our dessert choices, with the adult milk and cookies the clear winner of the three dishes we ordered. A small milkshake made with mocha ice cream and spiked with Bailey’s Irish Cream accompanied two hot out-of-the-oven cookies generously studded with chocolate chips—a nod to comfort food at its most comforting. The unconventional s’more looked gorgeous—a swirl of homemade toasted marshmallow sitting jauntily atop a homemade graham cracker with semi-frozen dark chocolate mousse—but ended up being just a bit too sugary sweet. And while the “breakfast at Cynthia’s” was also presented cleverly to look like eggs Benedict, the texture proved slightly soggy when the cake soaked up the sabayon sauce and the juice of the poached peaches and berries that sat atop it.
Throughout the evening, I watched the staff politely check in on tables, hold and label “doggie bags” at the host stand rather than letting them clutter tables, and open the front doors for every guest who passed through them. And at the end of our meal, our server presented each of us with an individually wrapped house-made cinnamon muffin for breakfast the next morning. Although I wouldn’t have needed much persuasion to swap my muffin for one of the salt-topped brioche that were also part of our meal, the gesture is appreciated.
During our meal, a mom at a nearby table engaged her two lovely little boys in a quiet game of “I Spy.” “I see something brown,” she said referring perhaps to the walls, her husband’s curly hair, or a handbag hanging over the back of a chair. Had she said, “I see something good,” her sons would have needed to look no further than on their plates.
Mary K. Zajac writes from Baltimore.
