Jump to content

Kibbee Nayee

Moderator
  • Posts

    2,324
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    53

About Kibbee Nayee

  • Birthday 05/29/1954

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://
  • ICQ
    0
  • Yahoo
    bruce_brody@yahoo.com

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    Eating, cooking, eating, drinking, watching Anthony Bourdain and eating.
  • Location
    Springfield, VA

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Kibbee Nayee's Achievements

  1. By coincidence, I went with a group to the Stanford Grill in Columbia last week. The Rockfish special that day was excellent. I didn't taste the rest of the menu, but I would return if only for the Rockfish when it's offered.
  2. I'm planning to have the same sequence of dishes at Bisto L'Hermitage in Occoquan in the near future. We'll compare notes.
  3. 3-alarm fire at Mike's American Grill forced evacuation on Valentine's Day. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/large-fire-at-mikes-american-restaurant-in-springfield/3280157/ I hope they keep the employees and move them to the other GAR outposts.
  4. Springfield has a few decent Vietnamese options, but right now, Brothers Bistro blows away the competition. I've eaten my way through less than 10% of the 100+ item menu, but OMG, this is good food. It opened recently in the former Pho Hong Anh space, which provided respectable pho in its day. Brothers Bistro, with a chef from Saigon, is a really good Vietnamese restaurant. I had the Pho Bo today, brimming with powerful flavors of carefully prepared broth, with plenty of varied cuts of beef-tendon-tripe-steak-meatballs, and my lips are still coated with the gloss of the collagen. Wife had the Seafood Pho, which came with its own delicious broth and plenty of chunks of identifiable and quality seafood. We also scored the Shaking Beef, the Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Pork and Cha Gio, and the Quail appetizer, all of which were incredible. The menu is vast, but this kitchen is on top of it, and the food here is as good as Vietnamese gets this side of the Eden Center. A few other observations.....the Springfield Dining Guide is very out of date. Just a few examples -- First, replace Pho Hong Anh with Brothers Bistro. Coco Rico has moved from the corner of Springfield Mall to a more expansive space on Commerce St. where the hideous Blue Pearl Buffet once resided. And Yard House, a very bad chain in the very bad Springfield Mall, deserves a separate entry while the Bozzelli's flagship doesn't? El Sabor Boliviano is under new ownership, Bonchon and Makchang Dodook are two nice Korean additions to Brookfield Plaza, and Nah Mor Hot Pot also moved into Brookfield Plaza. Happy to assist with field inputs. Not to worry, Afghan Bistro and Cervantes Coffee Roasters will remain at #1 and #2, but watch out for Brothers Bistro climbing that listing. Another observation.....Springfield Plaza, once known as the K-Mart Plaza, has been undergoing a mostly-positive renovation. The old K-Mart building was repurposed into the nicest of the local Giant food stores, and in what was the former Giant on the other side of the Plaza is about to become the world's largest and newest Whole Foods. It certainly looks impressive from the outside. The Whole Foods down the road at Rolling and Old Keene Mill will close and be transformed into a Trader Joe's, replacing the smaller Trader Joe's in Springfield Plaza. Along the side where Brothers Bistro now sits, there is respectable lineup of Springfield Butcher, which might be the best butcher in Virginia, along with The Halal Guys, Bob and Edith's Diner, Gong Cha Bubble Tea, and the new Brothers Bistro. Watch this space. More to come....
  5. Don -- Yours is the tale of chain expansion with reduced emphasis on quality control. It's everywhere, although I do find that In-N-Out has done a better job than most. The first "flagship" of every chain had a certain something that couldn't be duplicated or scaled to dozens or hundreds of outposts. The quality and passion that went into the flagship has been subordinated to corporate profits to pay the investors. Or so it seems....
  6. The family went to the Chantilly outpost of Habit Burger yesterday, and sadly, it wasn't the California version of this chain. Setting aside the obvious difference in weather, the burger was too salty and the bun was fall-apart flimsy. The sweet potato fries were flaccid, but the tempura green beans were a solid hit. I was disappointed, primarily because this is easily the best hamburger chain on the West Coast, despite the cult-like following for In-n-Out Burger. The East Coast expansion is not up to the standards of the West Coast Habit Burgers, at least not yet.
  7. We need more places like that around here. My co-workers and I would decompress after a day of wallowing in national security crap by hitting the bar for a basket "Cajun Popcorn" (fried crawfish tails), plenty of Dixie beer, and a few oyster shooters, before retiring to the absolutely perfect blackened lamb chops in the dining room down below. I miss the experiences, but most of al, I miss that food.
  8. Thanks for posting this, Don. It's a really nostalgic trip back through Memory Lane. 1980 is when I landed in the DC area. Bamiyan and Kabul Caravan were my go-to's for Afghan, and Bacchus and Mama Ayesha's were where I chased down Lebanese fare until I discovered the original and (at the time) little-known Lebanese Taverna in Arlington. "Clyde's food is more famous than good" is an interesting take in 1980. Crisfield is the restaurant where time stood still. If I could conjure back a few oldies but goodies, they would be New Orleans Emporium in Adams Morgan, where the popcorn crawfish tails at the bar and the blackened lamb chops downstairs were excellent, plus Vincenzo for Italian and seafood and Italian seafood, plus any of the Blackies for reasonable steaks, plus Queen Bee for Vietnamese when Clarandon was the center of Vietnamese eating in our area....
  9. I can't thank you enough for helping me scratch this one off my must-visit list. It's already a long list, so knocking one or two off the list is welcomed. For $400 my wife and I would be able to enjoy multiple pleasant meals elsewhere.
  10. Could be one of those retirement communities where they invite you for a presentation over lunch....
  11. Saturday night check-in at Zenola produced some highs and lows, but this is still the best place in northern Virginia for a Lebanese taste of high-end cuisine that is not very traditional but very good. The highs? Well, deliciousness was one, and uniqueness of capturing Levantine flavors was another. Again, this is far from a Me Jana or Lebanese Taverna traditional Lebanese menu, but rather, it's an accomplished chef taking these flavors to new directions and dimensions. Highlight dishes were the kibbe nayyeh, which is the best version around (albeit a spare serving), Aleppo Batresh, pan-seared sea bass, and grilled octopus. The lows? Noise should be managed better than the 85 decibels that prevented easy conversation across a 6-top round table in the middle of the dining room. Service was spotty, and occasionally disappeared, but evened out with other servers jumping in to take orders and keep the plates moving. The list of four specials became a disappointment when the chicken livers were unavailable, but at least the sardines were there. Cost is high, such as in $22 for kibbe nayyeh, which is absolutely scrumptious but a mere 4-oz disk of meat with not much garnish, or $7 for a plate of about a dozen olives. Then there was the poorly-timed arrival of two baskets of fresh bread, right at the end, just prior to ordering dessert, with nothing left to scoop with the bread. Most portions were on the small side, such as a single tentacle of octopus or a smallish stuffed zucchini, but most prices weren't. We like this place and will continue to return, but the prices will make our returns more occasional. Zenola is certainly a welcome addition to the growing abundance of northern Virginia flavors -- Afghan, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Italian, Chinese -- and that list is growing more interesting all the time.
  12. Johnny's is still slinging it. With the arrival of an outpost of Pupatella in Springfield, it's worth pointing out that the only real competition for best pizza in the area is Pupatella and Johnny's, the former in Springfield and the latter in Kingstowne. Slices are available here, and the selection is varied. The vegetarian is loaded, as is the sausage with onions and peppers. These are high quality slices. The linguini with shrimp fra diavolo and the linguini with sausage and peppers are really good too. You can pick your pasta and the topping will be added to order. Salads are top notch too. Wife and I had the Greek salad with grilled chicken, and it clobbers the competition from local mom-and-pop Greek restaurants. This plaza lost Lucky's to the pandemic, but is recovering -- Kumo has surprisingly good sushi for delivery, Shawarma Guys moved in successfully, and Amazon Fresh is the recent anchor establishment. Johnny's is about as good as it gets for fast-casual suburban Italo-Greek. Or is it Greco-Italian?
  13. Yes, you had a completely different experience, and we would have been thrilled with your experience. You were armed with some foreknowledge and you had the benefit of a helpful server. We had none of that, plus we were freezing from the heater not being on, and the annoyingly loud music track, and a server who had no interest in drawing our attention to the hidden delicacies on (and off) the menu. We will never set foot in that place again, because the joys you extoll were simply denied to us. I'm not sure how to explain how or why, but what you enjoyed should be available to all of us.
×
×
  • Create New...