I ended up deciding to save the Top 10 list I was working on for another time, when it can be incorporated into a larger Baltimore Sun project.
Brainstorming with my podmates, we hit on the idea of the Top 10 best people-watching restaurants in Baltimore.
I was thinking not so much of the places to watch the best-looking people (RA Sushi is apparently Hottie Central these days) but the places with the best table arrangements and sight-lines. The lower level of B&O Brasserie, for instance, is designed so that most people have a good view of the entrance and of each other.
Louie's Bookstore & Cafe, I think, was the best place Baltimore ever had for the pure sport of people-watching -- for one thing, if you were waiting for a table, you could always pretend you were looking at a book.
What restaurants do you go when you want to be be An Anthropologist in Baltimore?
Baltimore Sun photo/Lloyd Fox