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Bay City offers seafood selections, nautical atmosphere

Created: 01/11/2010 09:47:47 AM EST

Cody Louthian, 18, from Hanover, prepares a table for dinner at Bay City Restaurant in Hanover. (EVENING SUN ERIC DRUMMOND )

Having been in business for 47 years - 18 of them on Eisenhower Drive - Bay City Restaurant knows what it takes to create a great meal, whether it be a quick lunch or night out.

And while dinner may be the busiest time for Bay City, the lunch options and sandwiches available are worth the trek down Eisenhower Drive.

I don't know why we hadn't tried Bay City for a Ticket to Lunch in the time we've been publishing the series, but I sure am glad I got to go.

I went to the restaurant once for dinner with my parents who were visiting from Florida, and ate way too much. Turns out, the same thing happens at lunch.

I ordered a cup of one of the day's soup specials - Alaskan crab chowder - and a shrimp salad sandwich. Although I ended up spending about $11 for both, it was definitely worth it.

The soup came out immediately, and I was shocked to find two giant pieces of crab leg meat inside my tiny bowl. It turned out to be one of the top soups I've had in my Ticket to Lunch tenure.

As for shrimp salad, I've only had a few area recipes before, but was expecting tiny chopped up pieces of shrimp with too much mayonnaise and spice.

But Bay City does shrimp salad the right way, with giant whole shrimp pieces and the right balance of mayonnaise and what else goes in it. The salad was stuffed inside two pieces of white bread with lettuce. When I started to get too full, I just picked at the shrimp inside because I couldn't leave any behind.

Co-owner Kristy Colgan said she some times pares down the shrimp salad for a holiday dip as well. Colgan owns the restaurant with her two brothers. Their father started the business.

My dining partner had the crab soup and hot roast beef sandwich and enjoyed both thoroughly.

Bay City serves all sorts of menu items including seafood, steaks, sandwiches, salads and burgers - which Colgan said are huge.

The restaurant, which is known for its seafood, is decorated with paintings of ships and the sea. Nautical items also hang on the walls.

The setting provides for a nice romantic meal with dim lighting, booths settled inside gazebos, and soulful music playing softly in the background.

Next time, I'll have to find a date other than my FlipSide editor, and maybe get my meal paid for.

Ticket to Lunch is a weekly column featuring local restaurants' meals available during the lunch hour. Reach Katharine Harmon at kharmon@eveningsun.com.