With City Paper’s Best of Baltimore 2008 coming out soon, we thought it would be fun to see how our members’ favorites match up to some of their award categories. Also, while we’re on the subject of awards, we need your help to win Best Baltimore-Related Website! Show your 600block love by nominating us in the City Paper Reader’s Poll. We’ll love you forever!

Vote for 600block as Best Baltimore-related website

If 600block members were picking, the winners would be…

• Best Neighborhood - Fells Point
  From Waterfront Hotel to Pitango and more, 600block members sure love Fells!
• Best Cheap Restaurant - Chicken Rico
  The “crack chicken” had Joel B. “reenacting the Meg Ryan orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally.”
• Best Local Beer - Brewer’s Art
  Travis T. raves about their “awesome self-brewed beer in the Belgian style, which means high octane, knock-you-on-your-ass-when-you’re-not-looking tasty brews.”
• Best Park - Patterson Park
  Corey P. sums it up nicely with “my dog enjoys pooping here very much!”
• Best Movie Theater - Senator Theatre
  Joseph M. can’t get enough of its “wonderful, enormous screen, fantastic sound equipment, and brilliant architecture.”
• Best Local Furniture Store - Su Casa
  Brent H. recommends it “when you’re ready to furnish your real house with real furniture…the value and style are both great.”

Tell us your Best of Baltimore picks in the comments. And don’t forget to nominate 600block for Best Baltimore-Related Website!

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!

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

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