Katana

Katana, Clarksville
A pleasing Japanese restaurant in Clarksville, Katana is located on Ten Oaks Road just off Route 108. You can find all things Japanese here, including an extensive variety of sushi, sashimi, lots of regular, hand and specialty rolls, and plenty of teriyaki, hibachi, tempura and noodle choices too. I like to experiment with the various imaginative rolls, and keep coming back to the simple but satisfying udon noodle soups. Katana has a large sushi bar and two private rooms that are good for groups 8 or more.

November '08 Restaurant Events

We keep you up to date on special events at area restaurants.

Monday, November 10: Iron Bridge Wine Company is offering a Tuscan wine tasting with a snack for $20, which also gets you 10% off dinner. Reservations required.

Monday, November 10: Bistro Blanc is hosting a prix fixe Wine Dinner at 6:30 pm.

Tuesday, November 11: Iron Bridge Wine Company is offering a Rhone Rangers Wine Dinner, $80 per person for a four-course meal paired with US-grown Rhone varietals. Reservations required.

Thursday, November 13: Elkridge Furnace Inn is hosting a Wines of Loire Tasting from 6:30 - 8:00 pm. Cost is $29 for the tasting and appetizers, and you have the option of a $30 prix fixe dinner after. Reservations required.

Monday, November 17: Elkridge Furnace Inn offers The Gourmand Club Goes to Belgium, a special five-course beer dinner for $90. Reservations required.

Tuesday, November 18: Aida Bistro hosts its Holiday Wine and Beer Tasting from 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Cost is $25 for the tasting and appetizers, or $32 for a three course meal with wines from the tasting. Reservations required.

Thursday, November 20: Elkridge Furnace Inn hosts an Afternoon Tea with Twins Silver Dream. Have a full English tea and shop for silver gifts from 11:00 am - 2:30 pm for $26.50. Reservations required.

Thursday, November 20: Tersiguel's welcomes Le Beaujolais Nouveau, all day.

Friday, November 21: Elkridge Furnace Inn hosts Murder & Mayhem at the Manor, a buffet dinner and murder mystery from 7:00 - 10:00 pm for $56. SOLD OUT!

Monday, November 24: Iron Bridge Wine Company is offering a Great Wines for Turkey wine tasting with snack, which also gets you 10% off dinner. Reservations required.

Tuesday, November 25: Elkridge Furnace Inn holds an Adult Cooking Class from 7:00 - 9:30 pm for $80. Reservations required.

Sunday, November 30: Elkridge Furnace Inn hosts two Holiday Caroling Dinners, the first from 1:00 - 4:00 pm, and the second from 6:00 - 9:00, each for $40. Reservations required. The 6:00 dinner is SOLD OUT!


All Month Long

Mondays: La Palapa offers 1/2 price pitchers of sangria and margaritas.
Mondays: Victoria Gastro Pub has its Beer Club night from 5pm to close.

Tuesdays: La Palapa offers All You Can Eat Tacos.

Wednesdays: La Palapa offers 1/2 priced appetizers.

Thursdays: La Palapa offers Free Dessert.
Thursdays: Victoria Gastro Pub has 1/2 Price Bottle of Wine night after 5pm.

Sundays: oZ Chophouse offers Sunday Football in the Bar from noon.

Bistro Blanc - Dining Review

Bistro Blanc is a newcomer in the wilds of western Howard County offering fine wines and food. At dinner recently we experienced some of the delights of local ownership, a young staff and ambitious chef working to carve their own space.

The restaurant is in an unlikely little strip off Ten Oaks Road near the construction of new roundabouts and a bridge over Route 32. You may get lost in the roundabouts before you find it, but have patience. Once you do, the interior is attractive, with two seating areas slightly separated from the wine bar and store. You can browse the wines and liquor for sale while you wait, or sample wines from the automated wine tasting dispenser.

Chef Marc Dixon's menu at Bistro Blanc is seasonal and already ahead of what's currently posted on the website. It's New American cuisine with a focus on fresh ingredients and sometimes complicated sauces. There's a welcome emphasis on presentation and texture as much as taste. When all three come together, it's a real treat.

Highlights of our recent visit included a grilled flatbread appetizer with portobello mushrooms, gruyere cheese and caramelized onions that was pizza-sized and ample for sharing. An entree of slow cooked salmon paired with a lobster reduction was exquisite -- it simply melted in my mouth while the flavors were rich and complex. Other diners raved about their entrees of lamb chops and wild rockfish.

Not every dish is a knockout. The clam chowder, grilled shrimp and scallop appetizers have each looked wonderful when they arrived at the table, but were merely good, not great. None of the dishes were misses, exactly, but they didn't quite match up with our expectations.

The desserts made in-house and cheese plates appeared nearly as ambitious as the starters and entrees. We honestly didn't have room for them after this visit, but we'll give them a try in the future, for sure.

On some visits, the servers at Bistro Blanc were impressively professional and well informed about the menu and wines. On others, we seemed to hit the rookie squad. In time, I expect they will become more consistent.

Bistro Blanc is a young restaurant that is still getting its feet on the ground. If you come in with high expectations, you may find some disappointments, but you'll also find some dishes that really hit the spot and offer a solid foundation for growth. It's wonderful to see a restaurant of this quality in western Howard County. It's not yet one of the very best in the county, but it's already getting close. We're eager to see it mature and find success.

Starters at Bistro Blanc run between $10-15, while entrees are between $17-23. An extensive list of wines by the glass are available between $7-25, with most in the $10-14 range. The wine tasting machine works off a $20 card available for purchase, with pours of a taste, half glass or whole glass.

See our capsule description of Bistro Blanc.

Update: Also see our Bistro Blanc - Dining Update posting.

Update: Bistro Blanc regularly holds special dining events. Check for them in our Monthly Restaurant Events listings.

Studio Inspire - Dance and Fitness for Adults

I'm no expert on dancing, though I have carted my daughter to dance classes for nearly a decade. It seems like there's no shortage of dance studios for kids in Howard County -- here's a good list -- and some of them take adults as well. But now there's a studio that focuses on dance and fitness mainly for adults. It's Studio Inspire located on Dobbin Road in Columbia.

Studio Inspire is owned by a friend of mine, Shara Patty Darden and her husband, Ed. They have a full roster of dance classes, including modern, jazz, hip-hop, swing, ballet, line and country. They've assembled a strong set of instructors with impressive professional credentials. The emphasis is on fun, fitness and health. The studio operates on a membership basis that gives you unlimited access to any of the classes, so you can experience a variety of dance styles and have the flexibility to fit your own schedule. It sounds like a great idea to me.

You can check out Studio Inspire at their free Open House and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on November 14 (RSVP by November 12).

Craft Fairs for November '08

Get a head start on Holiday shopping and support local businesses by visiting a local craft show.

The Howard County Craft Spectacular is coming up this weekend, November 7-9 at the Howard County Fairgrounds. More than 200 exhibitors will be there. Hours are 9:00 - 5:00 daily and there's a $5 admission fee for adults.

There's a smaller Holiday Boutique show a couple of miles away at the Glenelg Country School on Saturday, November 8 from 11:00 - 3:00.

The Oakland Mills High School 20th Annual Craft Fair is also Saturday, November 8 from 10:00 - 3:00 at Oakland Mills High School.

UPDATE: The Glenwood Community Center is hosting two Holiday Vendor Fairs on Saturday, November 15 and 22, from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. Fifteen different local craft, gift and home decor vendors will be at each one.

Columbia Town Center hosts its Holiday Craft Fair at Historic Oakland on November 22 from 10:00 - 3:00.

UPDATE: The Hawthorn Center at the Hickory Ridge Village Center hosts a Holiday Craft Shop on November 23 from 2:00 - 5:00 pm. Call 410-730-7327 for information.

UPDATE: Temple Isaiah in Fulton hosts a Hanukkah Bazaar on November 23 from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm. Call 301-317-1101 for information.

Rt. 32 Burntwoods Interchange

Erase two traffic lights from Route 32! The interchange for Rt. 32 with Burntwoods, Ten Oaks and Pfefferkorn roads is now substantially complete and the traffic lights were removed October 30, 2008.

Rush hour traffic on Rt. 32 should be marginally smoother, and local drivers will no longer have to wait at the interminable lights to make left turns. Drivers making left turns from Rt. 32 will no longer have to fear for their lives, either.

We now have a series of roundabouts that can be dizzying and will no doubt be confusing to newcomers. It's already cringe-inducing to watch big semi-trucks maneuver around and over the roundabouts. But in all I think it's better than sitting at the lights wasting fuel.

There is still more than a year to go in the overall construction project -- this is phase 4 of 5. But the most important work is behind us and traffic can start to flow a little more smoothly. Hooray!

Going Solar in Howard County: Battery Backup

If you've ever thought of using solar power, Howard County offers one of the best deals in the U.S., and tax breaks make early 2009 a great time to do it. I'm going to do several posts about it.

One of the coolest unexpected features of solar power for our home is the battery backup option. I didn't know anything about it when I got started, but for us it's proven to be one of the most gratifying aspects of the whole system.

Our home in western Howard County is on well and septic, which means if the power goes out, it can get real inconvenient real fast. Thunderstorms, wind and construction all seem to have an effect on our power supply from BGE. Actual outages have been fairly rare, thank goodness, but we get fluctuations and spikes that can get mighty annoying.

When we built our home, I considered putting in a gas generator, but was never comfortable with the cost or maintenance. I did get the home wired for a portable generator, though, which meant running selected circuits to a separate panel in the basement. I just never got the generator and fortunately the power has not gone out for more than a few hours at a time.

Under normal circumstances, all you need for a solar installation are the panels on the roof and an inverter that changes the solar direct current into alternating current for your home. The AC power feeds directly into your existing home circuitry. If it happens that you generate more electricity from your panels than you are using at any moment in your home, the excess power feeds back into the neighborhood electrical grid and your electric meter actually spins backward (a very cool thing to see).

As an option, you can add a battery backup system that can store several kilowatts of power to drive critical circuits in your home. We got a small one that stores 5 Kw and cost around $6K. The battery backup option does not qualify for the solar tax credits or incentives, but it has proven to be a very worthwhile investment for us.

The great thing is the battery is totally silent, maintenance free, and kicks on within milliseconds. Now, when we have power spikes and hits, the circuits that are on battery backup operate without a hitch. My wife can be watching TV in the bedroom and not even know that something happened. Likewise, our water pump, refrigerator and freezer operate without interruption.

We haven't had an outage of more than a few hours, well within the capacity of the battery. But if we did, the system would be able to recharge at least partially whenever the sun comes out, and continue doing so indefinitely. I'm hoping never to have to go and get that portable generator, or the gasoline and noise that go with it.

See the other posts in this series:
Going Solar in Howard County - My Experience
Going Solar in Howard County - Taxes and Incentives

Going Solar in Howard County: Taxes and Incentives

If you've ever thought of using solar power, Howard County offers one of the best deals in the U.S., and tax breaks make early 2009 a great time to do it. I'm doing several posts about it.

This post is about the important tax breaks and credits available that make solar power so attractive right now. As a disclaimer, I am no expert and you should check with your vendor and tax adviser for more reliable information. But the information below is correct to the best of my knowledge, and reflects my experience so far.

There are four major incentives currently in place to encourage residential solar power in Howard County: federal, state and county incentives and Renewable Energy Credits. I'll deal with each in turn, and also look at two other factors in the payback equation: power usage offset and conservation.

• Federal Tax Credits. You can deduct 30% of the installation cost of a solar electric system from your Federal tax return. There is currently a cap of $2,000 on this incentive, but one of the sweeteners used to pass the $700B "bailout package" was extending the credit and removing the cap beginning in 2009. Since my system was installed in 2008, I'll be taking $2,000 off my 2008 federal returns.
  
  
• Maryland Solar Energy Grant. Maryland will pay you up to $2,500 per kilowatt of solar energy installed, up to a cap of $10,000. That cap was recently raised from $3,000 when my system was installed just 6 months ago. Nevertheless, I've already received a check from the state for $3,000.
  
  
• Howard County Property Tax Credit. Howard County will deduct 50% of the cost of a solar electric system from your property tax, up to a $5,000 cap. Since my system was installed in May 2008, I've received a letter from the County assuring me that $5,000 will be deducted from my 2009 property tax.
  
  
• Renewable Energy Credits. RECs are a little hard to explain because the system is convoluted and still evolving. The basic idea is that the power companies will pay homeowners in Maryland and some other states for solar energy production. But they will do so through "aggregators" that bundle 15-year credits from multiple homeowners. In my case, the state has certified that my system will produce 18 RECs; my vendor estimates each REC is worth $186 so my RECs should be worth $3,348. That transaction is still in progress, though, and I don't have my hands on the money yet...but there does seem to be progress.
  
  
• Power Usage Offset. The fact that you generate electricity from your solar panels means you buy less from BGE or whomever. My small system offsets less than 10% of our average usage, but that represents money I keep in my pocket rather than paying BGE. And as BGE rates go up, that represents more savings.
  
  
• Conservation. Since we installed our sytem we are much more conscious of our energy consumption. You can argue that we should have been more conscious before, but the fact is you do pay more attention when you have panels on your roof and a meter in the basement. And the real-world result is that our electricity usage is down 35% since we installed our system. Your results may vary, but I bet you'll be surprised. I know there are steps we could take to be more efficient, like changing our more light bulbs or getting a programmable thermostat, so perhaps we'll get even better in time.
  

The Bottom Line: This combination of credits more than paid for my entire small system, except for the optional battery backup. Now that the caps have been lifted for the federal and state incentives, you could justify an even larger system in 2009, probably 2Kw or so. Check with a solar vendor! The current package of incentives means they are giving these systems away!!


Check out these websites for more information:
Standard Solar - Available Incentives
Chesapeake Solar - Financial Incentives
Howard County Incentives

See the other posts in this series:
Going Solar in Howard County: My Experience
Going Solar in Howard County: Battery Backup