Restaurant Review: Acqua in Linthicum, Maryland

Acqua, in the BWI Hilton in Linthicum, is a fairly new restaurant and it is easy to tell for two reasons: It is miraculously uncrowded for the quality of the food, and the service is not quite up to snuff yet.

The first thing you'll notice when you set foot in the restaurant is that it is pretty. The décor is meant to remind you of ocean waves, although you are miles away from the Bay. It features a plethora of curves and soft blue lighting, which is rather soothing in itself. Too bad you are broken out of your serenity by the sound of 80s easy listening hits playing throughout the main floor of the hotel.

Once you're seated at one of the tables, which are unfortunately square, not befitting the Acqua theme, you're handed a menu and a wine list. My menu had coffee stains on it, which didn't really go with the classy theme either. But never mind that. There is a good selection of tasty sounding food, including their signature "salad mosaic" where you choose your greens, toppings, sides and dressing. It's kind of like a full service version of a salad bar.

There are also many seafood selections, because Linthicum is the first town many see in Maryland, and they want their promised crab cakes. I settled on the gulf shrimp and tomato wrap and my companion had the crab sandwich. We also ordered an appetizer of spinach and artichoke dip, since we were pretty hungry.

After we had finished ordering our food, our drinks we had ordered earlier arrived. We knew this didn't bode well for the timeliness of the rest of the meal. However, we decided to remain optimistic. After all, our server was very pleasant and we were the only people in the dining room.

However, after 30 minutes of sipping our water and staring at each other, my date and I were starting to wonder where our appetizer was and started grumbling amongst ourselves. It finally showed up, with our meals, at about 45 minutes in. I'm sorry, but nothing bugs me like getting an appetizer at the same time as the meal. It defeats the purpose of an appetizer in my book. I felt like an idiot taking bites of the artichoke dip at the same time as my wrap, and it didn't do much for the mealtime conversation.

My wrap was good and it was very healthy. In fact, this restaurant has several healthy options on its special "Eat Right" section of the menu. The vegetables and seafood were very fresh, and the salsa on my wrap was the best I'd had in a while. My companion was a little surprised that his soup, watermelon gazpacho, was served like a drink in a martini glass. A soup spoon was not even provided. He did enjoy his sandwich though.

After the server cleared our dishes away, and left them on a tray by the window, in plain view, for the rest of our meal, I decided my healthy meal justified my ordering a little something for dessert. I wanted to go with the chocolate lava cake.

Unfortunately, our server had other plans. I don't know if she wanted us to get the heck out of Linthicum, but she arrived with the check before even giving us the option of ordering dessert. Determined to have my chocolate, I persevered. And, I was glad I did, as the cake was moist and wonderful, especially the fudge filling.

I don't know that I would return to Acqua again, due to the quality, or lack thereof, of the service. I wouldn't want to miss out on the food though, so maybe I will order take-out.

Entrees are around $15 to $20 and there is plenty of parking at the hotel. So far, reservations are not necessary.