As luck would have it, the 12th anniversary of the opening of Pierpoint Restaurant and Bar just happened to coincide with this reviewer's visit. Chef Nancy Longo's "colonial and modern combination" of Maryland food adorned the menu with famous specialties such as Smoked Maryland Crab Cake and Eastern Shore Rabbit Sausage. The atmosphere of the restaurant was quaint and rustic - very personal. The open kitchen in the back gave diners a view of their meal in progress. The service was friendly, but not intrusive. The wine list was extensively prepared with the usual, and none stood out as special on the reserved list.
The price ranges were fair. Soups and appetizers were $6 to $12. While the entres were around $25. An average meal averaged $40 per person, excluding beverages.
Maryland Tomato Soup started out as an average bowl of soup, but quickly elevated itself to a very delicate, somewhat spicy and textured broth. The proportions of vegetables were healthy chunks with quite a bit of crab meat near the bottom. As with many of the other dishes, the taste improved as I reached the bottom of the bowl.
Other appetizers included the two most highly regarded, and most famous specialties - the Smoked Maryland Crab Cake and the Eastern Shore Rabbit Sausage. The crab was simply amazing. It was one healthy chunk of crab meat. Unlike other places where you expect a mass of bread with a few slivers of white meat, at Pierpoint, the crab cake came flowing and falling apart with a bounty of crab meat. Perfectly laden with a potato-cake composed of corn meal and white corn kernels, it came topped with a remoulade sauce.
Following what seemed to be the pinnacle of the evening was the rabbit sausage. It didn't compare with the crab cake, but did hold its own quite well. The unique and acquired taste of this interesting taste of this dish did not escape this reviewer and his companions. The spinach served with the sausage, however, failed to amuse the taste buds.
The entre samples included rack of Lamb, soft-shelled crab and tenderloin steak. The very tender steak seemed to just "melt in my mouth," as a friend described it. The texture and taste were quite up to expectations. Served with a lump of mashed potatoes and vegetables, the 8 oz. steak was very superb.
The second entre, the soft-shelled crab, came stacked on a beautiful array of finely chopped carrots and chives for decoration. Laden in a rich cheese-like sauce and portabella mushrooms, the soft-shelled crab was as delightful to rip apart as it was to consume. It very well might have been crab at its best. No more needs to be said. Go try it.
Finally came the rack of lamb, served with yet another gracious helping of mashed potatoes. This time, the potatoes had a butternut honey taste that included the skins of the potatoes as well as a sweet, almost yam-like flavor.
An order of well-done rack of lamb somehow turned into Sunday massacre. The chunk of meet could have still been spasming and jerking on the plate, had I not skewered it in half just in time to see my plate overflow with the sweet juice commonly referred to as blood. After being sent back for a second chance at the fiery grill, the lamb returned, thoroughly dead, non-bleeding and non-moving. The meat, having been completely cooked, revealed itself to be one of the most tender and juicy pieces of lamb possible. It was good.
The dessert menu contained a delightful array of ice creams, custards and pie pronounced a-la-Cartman style. One specialty was the chocolate fork, which is exactly what it sounds like - a piece of chocolate shaped like a fork.
Overall, Pierpoint was an amazing experience, the food definitely matched up to the hype. I highly recommend this restaurant as a great place for a date or for whenever the parents are visiting and you feel like a great meal - as if Terrace food wasn't good enough.
