Dispatch Washington D.C.: A Chesapeake Bay culinary adventure

Greetings from LAX, where Jeri spent the day working from Delta’s long-awaited and much-heralded new 30,000-square-foot Sky Club. (That’s more than two-thirds of an acre!)

Spending seven hours in the lounge just to get from Albuquerque to Seattle wasn’t really part of the plan, but when Jeri called about applying an upgrade credit, her noon departure somehow got switched to 6 a.m.

Delta was very apologetic and accommodating when she noticed the error, offering to get it all switched without losing the upgrade. But she decided to keep it that way so that a) she wouldn’t have to worry about a tight connection (understatement of the year!) and b) most importantly, so we would have time to do a report for you on whether it was worth the wait. Hint: It’s a lot nicer than Seattle’s American Express Centurion Lounge.

More on that at the bottom of this week's edition. First, here’s what we have for you this week:

• From crab shacks to haute cuisine, we take a culinary tour of D.C. and its more casual surroundings.

• An unsolicited refund from an unexpected place.

• What happens if you leave your Mac on a plane?

• Flying old school.

• And, of course, the news of the week.

An unsolicited refund. We’re impressed!

As much as we like to rag on the airline industry, we have to admit carriers have been pretty good about extending credits and keeping things flexible during the pandemic. Still, this email from British Airways is one we never expected to get from any airline, ever:

By contrast, it turns out that the “fully refundable” ticket that Jeri booked recently on Frontier to attend her favorite 9-year-old boy’s birthday party wasn’t so refundable after all. When a bad cold forced her to pull the plug on the trip the morning of an 8 p.m. flight, she learned she would have to settle for a credit because she canceled less than 24 hours before departure. Yes, it was her fault for not reading the fine print more carefully. But seriously, it was advertised quite prominently at booking as “FULLY” refundable. We’d say there is a big difference between refundable with restrictions and fully refundable. Shame on you Frontier, and shame on us for taking you at your advertised word

Flying old school

After all our years of flying, we thought we'd experienced just about every possible scenario for delays.

But this week, we got a new one when the Delta Connection pilots announced Jeri would be late leaving Albuquerque because “an unannounced military operation” jammed the GPS.

That’s not really something anyone wants to hear at 6 a.m. when we are on the verge of world war.

Alas, all went relatively well. We took off about an hour late as the pilots went "old school," digging out their calculators, pencils and maps (OK, not really, but Jeri did watch them working hard on tablets to plot a safe route around the activity without the aid of key everyday technology.)

Lost and found: The system actually works!

Ever leave your laptop or tablet on the plane? It’s a major inconvenience, but chances are good you’ll get it back. The bad news is that unless you discover the oversight in time to double back to the gate and get it before the plane takes off again, it could take weeks to see it again.

One of us (ok, we’re going to call out Barb for this one) recently left her Mac on a United flight from Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport (DCA) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD).

Frantic, of course, on discovering it missing about an hour later while enroute to South Bend, Indiana, she immediately tweeted @United, filed a lost and found with United, and phoned a friend at the airline.

Apple's “Find My” functionality showed the laptop situated in Terminal 1, but when she walked to the site she found nothing. She thought she had lucked out when a United O’Hare operations person called to assure her it would be waiting for her. But the robot-like operation that takes over once items are taken off a plane and put into the airline’s automated and outsourced lost and found system made it impossible to retrieve the laptop that day. She tried again two days later before her 9 pm departing flight, only to be told the office closed at 4 pm. She then had to go online, fill out more forms and give a credit card to pay to ship it to her home. Lo and behold, eight days and about $28 later, she got it back.

Jeri’s never left her laptop behind, but her kindle has made a few rounds in the lost and found systems of Delta, American and Virgin Voyages. It once took a whole month to one get back. But all three times it showed up unscathed, and still in her favorite leather portfolio.

Travel Essential Takeaway: Don’t put your shit in the seat-back pocket!

In the news:

• Say goodbye to Airbnb’s pro-consumer cancellation policy. Starting May 31, Airbnb will ditch its relaxed, Covid-era rule that gave guests the ability to get refunds without a penalty if/when they canceled due to covid infection. (The Washington Post’s Hannah Sampson first reported it.) That means abiding by Airbnb's host-by-host pre-Covid policies starting June 1. If you book before May 31 and a Covid situation arises, you might be able to get a refund. And if an Airbnb with a fjord in the backyard sounds cool, check our last edition!

• Spirit Airlines chases away the blues. It looks like the marriage between budget carriers Spirit Airlines and Frontier is back on. On Monday, Spirit said it has rejected a more lucrative competing offer from JetBlue Airways, citing disbelief that anti-trust regulators would allow the union given their heavy East Coast concentrations. Frontier is based in Denver. But as CNN reports, this is not necessarily the end of the competition for Spirit. JetBlue released a letter raising the possibility it could launch a hostile bid for the budget airline by taking its offer directly to Spirit shareholders.

It’s crab season! TE’s opinionated guide to the culinary scene in Washington D.C. and Maryland’s Eastern Shore

When we think about Washington, D.C., most of us tend to think about politics – but not this time of the year. Locals know that April kicks off crab season, and that’s when we become obsessed about the amazing meals we can have from the Chesapeake Bay over the next several months. The largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake is famous for its oysters, rockfish, bluefish and, of course, crabs. For good reason. The brackish treasures make for great eating, whether caught off your dock or served up at a local restaurant or seafood shack.

So whether you’re coming to The District for just one night or you can take extra time to explore Maryland’s Eastern Shore by car, we have a few opinions about where to go.

Maryland’s Eastern Shore. This historic, once-sleepy area about 80 miles from Capitol Hill boomed during the pandemic. When the federal government closed its offices, people began working remotely and Northeasterners came in search of less expensive second homes than the Hamptons. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the bay’s influence on bay-centric cuisine and relaxed lifestyle. Among our favorite haunts for eating and sightseeing:

Oxford - This is where crabs and oysters caught at the mouth of the Choptank River were processed in the 18th century. The oldest privately owned ferry between Oxford and Bellevue used to shuttle shuckers and pickers to work, but today it mostly carries tourists and bicyclists. At the docks, you get a front-row seat to watch watermen dock their slow-moving fishing boats to unpack the catch of the day. Your visit isn’t complete without walking to the Scottish Highland Creamery for an ice cream cone.

Royal Oak - If you blink, you might miss the T at The General Store restaurant, with a tea-inspired, chef-driven menu. It looks like a dilapidated general store on the outside, but inside it has an eclectic-chic vibe and great food. We like it for dinner but it’s also a popular summertime brunch pitstop for bicyclists exploring the backroads.

St. Michaels - With origins in shipbuilding, the charming town dates back to the 17th Century. It’s lined with restaurants and boutiques, and gets busy with Washingtonians and increasingly Northeasterners. Come hungry and thirsty. For Eastern Shore classics, grab an outdoor table at Awful Arthurs, which serves Blue Crab soup, fried local oysters and the fresh catch of the day. Our favorite hang is Ava’s Pizzeria because it’s dog friendly in the huge atrium with a retractable roof and whimsical wall fountain made from beer taps. We recommend the pizzas, salads and home-made, extra crispy potato chips with Old Bay spice. If you go to Eastern Shore Brewing, go for the vibe vs. the beer.

Easton – Get a feast to go from Gay’s Seafood, the iconic crab shack that we love for crabs, crab cakes and clams and super friendly owner and staff. It caters to a steady stream of regular customers who park their cars in the gravel lot to grab hot bags of freshly steamed crabs. Gay’s thinks of everything you’ll need for the messy feast, including rolls of brown paper and containers of Old Bay spice. Get it while you can, because the locally owned business won’t exist forever. It is among the businesses and real estate snapped up by New York City energy mogul Paul Prager, who’s on a mission to convert Easton’s downtown into a mini-Hamptons.

Can't make the breezy 90-minute drive across the Bay Bridge to Maryland’s Eastern Shore in search of the real Chesapeake?

Then book a table at Estuary for an amazing palette of bay experience – in the span of one artistically presented meal.

Situated on the third floor of the ultra-modern, luxury Conrad Hotel, Estuary’s sleek dining room features 20-foot floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase downtown Washington. It’s especially nice at sunset and later, once city lights sparkle.

After a pandemic-period pause, the restaurant opened recently helmed by Chef Ria Montes, one of the growing number of DC's creative, acclaimed and young female chefs who grew up in Queens, New York. In a previous role, Montes was part of the team that earned the first Michelin star for Park Hyatt’s classic, farm-to-table restaurant Blue Duck. She also worked at Mid-Atlantic-inspired No Goodbyes in the Sydell Group’s trendy, church conversion Line Hotel.

Montes’ menu takes guests on a journey through the Chesapeake that starts miles from the actual bay, in the headwaters of the Shenandoah, one of the mighty rivers that flow into the bay. The appetizer choices celebrate what’s found in estuaries and small streams, while larger dishes honor ingredients directly from the bay itself. It’s divided in three parts - brackish, flaura, fauna. We started with ceviche made with delicate local fluke, decorated with edible flowers and revved up with a surprising burst of lemon puree that didn’t overpower the fluke and vinegar-cured onions. Montes calls it “harmonious,” and it was.

For a main course, we were knocked out by a delicious rockfish, which is bay-raised Sea Bass. It came with a dashi-like sauce of kombu seaweed, middleneck clams, delicate baby turnips and -- as Montes shared with us -- a little fat content from kombu-smoked bones. For sides, we would have normally ordered the Old Bay fries – a throwback to Orioles Baseball games in Baltimore – but we have them too often on the Eastern Shore and, frankly, wanted to save room for dessert.

We were glad we did! We ended our meal with a beautiful meringue-topped speculoos pudding and Estuary’s delightful version of the age-old Chesapeake tradition Smith Island Cake, which normally is way too dense and sickly sweet for our liking.

Don’t expect to find exactly the same choices when you come here. Why? Montes thinks and innovates extemporaneously, in unison with her talented team members, and together they share a love of showcasing seasonal ingredients.

“I try to change the menu every two or three weeks, especially in the spring when you get such a rush of new produce that you want to celebrate,” Montes told us.

And finally, our take on Delta's new lounge at LAX

Delta's newest lounge at LAX -- almost as big as a football field -- highlights the airline's goal of winning over premium-paying customers, ranging from local Hollywood elites to Asia-bound fliers. It also represents a strategic play, given Delta's years-long battle to outmaneuver rival American Airlines. This is a high stakes market! Today, though Delta leads with 22% of first-quarter passengers vs. American's 19%, according to data from Los Angeles World Airport.

What we love: All the space! At 30,000 feet and growing, this expansive lounge has a wide variety of comfortable seating choices. From outdoor tables overlooking the runways to hanging bird-cage swings to enclosed booths for private calls, a variety of lounging and eating areas and, best of all, expansive indoor and outdoor bars. There's also a number of private showers for guests getting off those dreaded long hauls.

The food. While not all that different from other lounges, there were plenty of healthy options, along with extra hot choices, including a taco bar and a candy station.

The best part: Being able to play outdoors with a puppy that was traveling home with its new family. Really, what more could you ask for?

Have an idea for a future edition of Travel Essential. Don't be shy! Reach out on Twitter or email us at [email protected].