Confession time: When I was a little girl, I took every doll that was given to me apart. They were so much more interesting that way, I thought. My parents, of course, were mildly horrified at what I did to Barbie, but the folks at The Papermoon Diner would have understood. Dismembered dolls, along with action figures, Pez dispensers, and hundreds of retro playthings populate the walls, ceilings, floors, and every surface of this laid-back yet bizarre little diner.
The theme starts outdoors, where (apparently) a frustrated plumber with a flair for gardening and a bondage fetish was given free rein. Ferns and flowers spill from toilets and sinks, while a nude mannequin sporting chains and padlocks is artistically planted in a bathtub. However, even the unconventional exterior of the diner--painted in sunburst hues of yellow, cerise, blue, and lime green--didn’t quite prepare me for the visual explosion within.
I’ve indulged in an amateur psychoanalysis of the diner and have concluded that the decorator must be have been deeply affected by the "Mr. Bill" clips shown on "Saturday Night Live" during the 70’s. (Remember those? Each episode featured the impossibly sweet puppet encountering misfortune and mayhem, as the narrator crooned, "Oh, noooooo…! Mr. Bill!") In short, whoever decorated the Papermoon has a thorough understanding of how toys lend themselves to emotionally primal themes. Baby doll tableaux enfants vie with epic mini-battles (toy robots vs. superheroes), oddly poetic arrangements of armless mannequins, accretions of Happy Meal toys, and cast-off furniture (nailed to the ceiling) for the patron’s bedazzled attention.
All this would be so much window-dressing, however, if the food at the Papermoon weren’t as unconventionally appealing as its décor. The menu, featuring both meatloaf and mesclun, strikes a happy balance between comfort food and trendy cuisine. I ordered a grilled tuna steak sandwich with avocado, tomato, bacon, and melted havarti cheese, an interesting variation on the standard BLT. The sandwich was simply enormous, with the tuna grilled to flaky perfection. My sole complaint was that it was such an inelegant thing to manage, with tectonic slabs of avocado, tuna, and tomato shifting in contrary directions.
I had asked for sweet potato rather than regular french fries, but received huge portions of both, much to my "Are you going to eat all that?" husband and son’s approval. The latter, whose entire nutritional philosophy can be encompassed in two words, "hamburger" and "Coke," happily demolished chicken quesadillas, while my husband was in head-nodding raptures over his "Turkey Powerhouse Sandwich," featuring baked turkey breast, lettuce, tomato, sprouts, and honey mustard sauce.
Service was predictably relaxed; there’s no tiresome "Hi! I’m, Jason, your server today!" spiel here. Patrons are encouraged to get up and help themselves if they need extra napkins, ketchup, or whatever, and many of them do. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this is definitely the place in Baltimore to go when both mind and stomach are rumbling.