Ah, summer is in the air. Oppressive humidity, swarming tourists and the O’s. Need a culinary escape? Follow your taste buds to foodie bliss. That’s right, it’s time once again for Baltimore Restaurant Week. Enjoy a 3-course dinner for $30.08 from a staggering list of more than 100 restaurants.

Having trouble deciding? We’re here to help! Last time, our strategy was to hit the places with the most high-end menu items. Our results were lukewarm at best. This year, we’re aiming to try some expensive places we’ve never been (able to afford). Here are our summer picks:

• Abacrombie - Reopened late last year with new chef. Menu standouts: house mac & cheese, pork confit with peach butter and tasty desserts.
• Bicycle - One of our best restaurant week experiences last time. The menu doesn’t appear until the last minute, but it won’t disappoint.
• Tabrizi’s - Fairly new waterfront Mediterranean dining next to the Ritz. Menu standouts: grilled house-made lamb grape leaves, sauteed baby octopus and calamari, and lamb kabobs with veal reduction.
• Louisiana - One of those places we always want to try, but could never justify the French sticker shock. Menu standouts: Louisiana shrimp and seafood gumbo, grilled lamb chops and bread pudding.
• Fin Steak & Seafood - New upscale spot in the lower level of the Admiral Fell Inn. Menu standouts: little neck clams and summer seafood linguine.

Our honorable mentions are Cinghiale (finally!), Corks and b Bistro. Unfortunately, some favorites are still absent from the list (we’re looking at you Woodberry Kitchen, Salt and Charleston). But don’t worry, there should be plenty of gastronomic delight awaiting you this go round. If only we could figure out why Ding How keeps coming back for more or the reason for that extra 8 cents ($30.08 price tag).

Where are you heading for restaurant week? Tell us in the comments!

Hey Baltimore, happy 4th of July! Here at 600block HQ, we’ve been busy making some final tweaks to the site and now we’re ready to open our doors to all of Baltimore! If you haven’t already, check out 600block.com and start discovering great Baltimore places, specials and deals. There’s already a lot to check out…like our collection of more than 200 food and drink specials from around the city.

So what are you waiting for? Check it out and tell your friends! Big thanks to all the beta members who have been reviewing local places, creating their scenes, and giving feedback. We’re excited to find out what you love about Baltimore. Happy grilling this weekend and we’ll see you on the site!

Congrats to the winners of our $150 Giveaway Contest! For their prize, we’re sending them a $50 gift certificate to a restaurant of their choice. Nice picks, guys!

• Hillary Bartlett in Canton chose Ra Sushi
• Todd Harvey in Lake Walker chose Rocket to Venus
• Erica Fromherz in Canton chose Annabel Lee Tavern

Hampden was the place to be this weekend, hon! Bigger and better than ever, Honfest 2008 was packed with beehives, leopard print and grammar that would make any English teacher blush. Check out the photos, including a hairy hon, the Lil Miss Hon winner, and other odd delights.

View all the photos on Flickr

600block stopped by the very first Harbor East farmers’ market to check out the latest option for buying local. Definitely smaller than some of the other local markets, but the staff promised things will grow quickly in the coming weeks. A fruit stand is coming soon and every week they will have a local chef demonstration and free samples. Benjamin Erjavec, exec chef at the Oceanaire, handled the duties this week, serving up a delicious wild rockfish with fresh fennel slaw and citrus vinaigrette.

The waterfront location is superb and we’re excited to see how this market expands. Come out and support your local farmers!

When: Saturdays - 9am to 1pm (June 14 to Oct. 25)
Where: Harbor East (1000 block of Lancaster St)

View all the pictures on Flickr

Today we’re launching a new version of 600block with some big changes! Thanks to all our early members who have been sending in feedback and new ideas. Keep em coming! Here’s the 411 on the changes:

Better Navigation
We now have three main sections so it’s easier to find what you want. You can check out the entire city view (top places, specials, members), filter down to your scene (updates from favorite places and friends) or just see the stuff you’ve saved.

New and Improved My Scene
We spent the most time enhancing the My Scene section — your personalized city page. You’ll notice a new real-time feed of the latest activity from your favorite city places and friends. Get alerted to new specials at your favorite restaurant, new reviews from friends and more. It’s city updates you care about…all in one place. Of course, your daily specials list and recommendations are still there as well!

New My Stuff Page
We wanted to make it easier to keep track of all the stuff you love about Baltimore. This new section includes quick access to your favorite places, reviews, specials, friends and profile. It’s like your little black book for the city.

Saving Items
If you come across a great daily special or review, now you can save it to your My Stuff page for later. Now that’s handy!

More Recession-Proof Daily Specials
We’re approaching 200 daily food and drink specials and adding new ones all the time. If you don’t see your favorite specials listed, you can add them!

In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding new features that make it easier to post new reviews, specials and photos. We also have a lot of other cool things in the works. Let us know what you want using the new feedback box at the top of every page or email feedback@600block.com!

A little over a month has passed since we first invited our friends and family and they sure have been busy! It’s awesome to see everyone sharing what they love about Baltimore. We’re just getting started, but our numbers are quickly growing:

• 502 number of restaurants, bars, shops and other places listed
• 51 reviews written by our members
• 130 favorite places saved by our members
• 162 daily food and drink specials posted

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions and new ideas. Keep ‘em coming! We’re listening to what you want and working hard on some big changes that we think you’ll like. Getting very close to inviting our waiting list to join the fun…sign up now if you haven’t already!

On May 10, Baltimore hosted the very first SocialDevCamp East, an un-conference for social media and web 2.0. Patti and I were in attendance, along with another 100+ entrepreneurs, developers, researchers, media and other social media enthusiasts. It was awesome to be a part of such a passionate group of webheads representing Bmore, DC, Philly and even NY.

The un-conference rules dictated no advance agenda or speakers. All sessions were picked and scheduled by popular vote during the first hour (how web 2.0). After 45min of friendly shouting and debate, 16 sessions made the cut, covering topics like the business ($) of social media, semantic web, location-aware mobile services, Ruby on Rails, Amazon cloud computing, building iPhone apps and VC funding.

We had a great time and met a lot of smart people working on some cool projects. Dave Troy, who led the location-aware mobile services session, had a ton of insights to share and announced he was launching Openlocation.org to make working with GPS/Geolocation information easier. Bear from Seesmic blew our minds with his sematic web expertise and gave us a bunch of helpful advice and free Seesmic t-shirts!

The most spirited discussion came at the end during the session on attracting local VCs. While everyone acknowledged this is no Silicon Valley, we agreed that this area has a blossoming web startup scene that needs a strong unified voice. This event was just the beginning.

Here’s some of the cool local companies that were there:

• Spot Crime - Google maps mashup that plots crime stats. Says there was an assault with deadly weapon two blocks from me…eek.
• Grow Votes - website to educate young people about their local candidates and get out the vote. Travis, the CEO, told me that picking candidates who have the coolest sounding names is not exactly exercising my civic duty (doh!) .
• CheckmyCampus - For high schoolers who want the real scoop on colleges. Videos interviews with current undergrads dishing the dirt.
• Seesmic - new Valley startup from Loic Le Meur. Some call it the twitter of video…they call it video conversations.
• Blue Sky Factory - Baltimore-based email marketing company.
• Network Solutions - I think they do something with the Internet
• Smart Logic Solutions - Baltimore-based web development shop specializing in Rails and rich apps.
• CollectiveX - Create on-demand social networks for company intranets, member groups or just for fun.
• Cogmap - The wikipedia of org charts
• Advertising.com - AOL’s online advertising unit
• Jobmatchbox - Connecting hiring teams, job seekers and recruiters.
• 600block.com - Hey that’s us!

Check out the pictures on Flickr

We’re extremely excited to announce that today we launched 600block! Right now it’s invite-only, but we’ll be sending out batches of additional invites over the coming weeks. If you want to be one of the first to try it out, make sure you’re on the list.

600block is all about making it fun and easy to find cool Baltimore restaurants, bars, clubs, shops and more. You can save your favorite places, write reviews and find new places with your friends. Watch this space for the latest on what’s happening at 600block. See you in the city.