beezy

Hi all - I've been out of the restaurant loop for about 18 months, between bed rest and baby and recession, so I'm not sure what's up. I have a nine month old girl, who sits up, can feed herself finger food and with a spoon (moderately tidy) and is blessedly not a fussy eater. We'd like to get her used to eating out, but also don't want to foist our pain on other diners. Since I wouldn't eat at Chili's, Applebees, etc, she won't either. So far, Baby ReverbBeezy has the following rules - come in early for dinner or other meals - immediate removal upon loud behavior - bring small toys etc for amusement - bring some food if what's available isn't to her liking - ask for a larger space than needed, make a reservation noting child, and asking to be seated away from most of the crowd, even if it means taking a less prime seat - tip well -emphasize indoor voice (yes, babies do know what that means) - do not come in during possible meltdown times (naptime, over crowding, etc) We've been pretty successful with the Cafe Luna franchise (seriously fabulous job of serving both families and the bright young things), Liberty Tavern mafia, Harry' Tap Room and Dino. However, our daughter needs to expand her tastes. Clearly, we're not taking her to Vidalia, DC Coast or other high powered restaurants, but what are some suggestions where she can be introduced to good food, learn to act right in public, and have chefs who are happy to help out (serving smaller portions, chopping up stuff, etc)? What have other folks learned about taking out their kids? Chef and owners, what do you think about having young kids in your restaurant? I feel a bit stuck - I know that not everyone wants a side of baby with their dinner (although the meat is terribly tender). On the other hand, if we don't expose her early and often to the environments where we expect good behavior, she won't know what's expected. Plus, geez, we'd like to have a nice time without shelling out for a babysitter. Thanks, all!

Screwtop is down the street, and quite nice overall, although I don't know how serious wine lovers would feel about their list. They have several small snacks and plates, all very nice, but not quite what we're looking for. They're also pretty baby friendly in the early evening, so little ReverbBeezy has been several times. We've got a serious hate on Rustico in Ballston - we went at opening and they acted like they just couldn't be bothered. Not all. As in, we arrived 10 minutes before dinner seating to a completely empty dining room and no line and staff staring into space, and they wouldn't seat us because the dining room wasn't open. Now, I understand there are things to do, but 10 minutes with staff twiddling their thumbs seems silly.

Mrs ReverbBrad here - Key success points would be: - quietish - I often have to yell to be heard at home, and I need a break - excellent service - I spend my days in service of my tiny master, and need fussing over - really good food - we're still eating well, but no half-assed, frozen food, sauce in a can nightmares. - good cost to value - we don't mind paying for a good experience, but it better not be expensive and suck - not too hard to get in and out - this the inaugural date night, and my worried mommy brain is concerned something will be wrong, wrong, wrong - civilized fellow patrons - no yapping on the cell phone, drunken carousing, or other naughty behavior. I have that at home, too.

How is Black's these days? Still as good as everyone posts? Looking for a place in MD for family to go out over the holidays.

Hey folks - The husband is turning 35 in a month, and wants a splendid birthday cake. He likes chocolate, is not so fond of buttercream, loves chocolate mousse cake. His favorite cake of all time was the cake of the day at the old Majestic, but I'm not sure of its source or if you can even get it anymore. Who are likely suspects to turn out the best cake ever? I'm in Arlington, but I'll travel for goodness. Here's my shortlist: - not Cakelove - husband HATES the icing - Pastries by Randolf, but they sometimes seems a little overrefined - Heidelberg, but their cake can be a little dry. thanks!

Foie Gras Burger: more addictive than cigarettes, coffee, and crack. That is all.

Yep, I chatted with the Taxes the last time I was in there, and the truck has gotten too expensive with the price of gas. So, it stays parked til further notice.

I just dined at Enjera (http://www.enjerana.com/menu.html) on 23rd in Crystal City. I have no idea what the difference is between Ethiopian and Eterian is, but I found the food to be different from my usual neighborhood hangout, Lalibela II (which has turned into a huge Ethiopian disco Friday and Sat nights - traffic on Columbia Pike even gets backed up on occaision). Some people have called it bland, but I thought it was a little subtler. There's this weird musky taste to Ethiopian (to my American palate), especially in the yellow lentils that wasn't present at the Enjera. The food overall was milder, and more savory (dear god, I fear the amount of butter I just ate). I think this would be a great starter restaurant to introduce someone to the cuisine of this part of Africa, then go in for the more extreme flavors elsewhere. Plus, this restaurant is just small and lovely, with a nice balcony. Sadly, a lot of Ethiopian places tend to the dumpy and grimy. Plus, $2 beer!

http://www.metafilter.com/73725/OMNOMNOMopoly Sysco : whether it's Wendy's, Applebee's, the local diner, a fancy restaurant, the cafeteria, or Guantanamo Bay, it's what you eat. Serving over 400,000 businesses, the "Wal-Mart of Food Service" has all the bases covered, from "Unique 3-D technology gives you the look and texture of a solid muscle chicken breast, at a fraction of the cost" to more gourmet offerings. [3D technologies? Ewww]

Al's has their fans, but I think the Broiler's meat is a little more substantial, and I don't believe that Al's has chicken.

Hang on kids, I'm going invent a meme: the black toilet restaurant. There's a whole crop of places that wants to be your new neighborhood bar, yet be refined and upscale so they can charge you $8 for a burger. They remind me of a teenager who wants to impress his date. He focuses on wearing a nice tie, presses his shirt, puts on the fancy jeans, but forgets to not wear his gym shoes. Like any teenager, there's maturity problems. Spider has been open two weeks, and cheerfully admits that they're still fine tuning. I see potential, but I'm waiting for another month for a return visit. Places like this try really, really hard, and under it all, they're really nice. They focus a lot on decor, ambiance, and service, and try to be super cool. Spider Kelley's is no exception. It's decorated like a hipster lair, with that slate gray on the walls, fancy sparkly marble tables, galvanized fixtures, irridescent tile, and yes, a black toilet to go with the marble sink. The service is very enthusiastic, and they're bending over backward at the front of the house. Still, it's too dark in the dining room, the music is about 20% too loud, and sometimes, your waiter can disappear. The food is really, really good, except when it is horrible. First the portions are HUGE - sides really will serve 2-3 people; salads are on platters. We started with a lemongrass beef appetizer (wisely deciding to share after seeing it come out of the kitchen). It was a decent 4-5oz cut of nicely cooked medium rare meat, flavored with traditional Vietnamese spices, service with a nice sauce. It reminded me a lot of the departed Cafe Dalat, except more luxurious. Spider's headlines burgers, including the Spider Burger, featuring a chef's mix of meats, including pork fat (YES!). This is one of the items that seriously needed tweaking - way too heavy on the pork fat, which made the whole thing taste like an old pork rind. The bun was stale, the condiments scanty. I can see how this burger is GOING to be a good idea, but wait til they get the kinks out. All burgers come with astoundingly good homemade-tasting spicy pickles worth a visit on their own. Spider Burger was sent back to the kitchen, only to be replaced with the hands-down best mac and cheese in DC. Eff your effeminate lobster mac n cheese - the 'cardiac' is super cheesy, creamy, and not in the least floury (you know who you are), served piping hot (you also know who you are) with a good crust of cheddar on top. I know some Velveeta is involved somewhere, in the best possible way. This places me at the gym for another 45 minutes, but it's all worth it. We also had the fish, which was a mixed bag. It was a generous cut of fish, but a little overcooked and stale tasting. However, it was topped with a really nice lightly pickled asian flavored mix of onions, peppers and cilantro. Grilled asparagus is good quality, fresh produce, grilled in olive oil with salt and pepper, just until tender. Garlic fries are a good first cut, served with cloves of roasted garlic (peels on - ick). The garlic isn't quite mixed in with the flavor of the potatoes, and the fries are a little soggy, but it's still worthy of eating. Other stuff that looked good were the monster half three day chicken, steak, and all the salads. The burgers look pretty anemic and dry as a whole, but I have hope for the chicken burger. The bar is cozy, and has a small but standard collection of good liquors. Spider's has a lot of potential, but needs to mature. In the meantime, you can sure do worse in Clarendon than dropping in for dinner and beer. I'm waiting til they grow up a little more for another visit, though. http://www.spiderkellys.com monday through friday: 5pm to 2am saturday through sunday: 10am to 2am 3181 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia 22201 tel 703.312.8888 | fax 703.312.8884

My neighbor is the original owner of the Broiler - I'll have to ask him about the recipe the next time I see him out walking around. (He's nuts in an excellent old coot way -he explained to us that he knew the building was built in the 20s from the date stamped on the toilet that they thew out. I'm sure he knows what's in it off the top of his head.) Personally, I hate the pizza (if you want that kind of pizza, go visit Salvo's, across Walter Reed from the Drafthouse), but if you want what frozen pizza is supposed to taste like, get yourself over there. The Broiler is a dangerous few blocks from the house, and it has a great chicken or cheese steak, exactly not-gourmet as it should be. Big puffy rolls, lots of mayonaise, greasy, fabulous- half a 6" is plenty for me. I love their frozen crinkly fries - they always fry them so half of them are crispy and half are a little soggy, which is how I like 'em. They also have soft serve in summer - tastes a lot like the Mr. Softee truck that cruises around the neighborhood.

Mr. Beezy and I headed over for early drinks and snacks during Friday's lovely weather. I will return - for drinks and the view only. The bartender has a heavy hand, and a selection of medium-good liquor, accompanied by the absolutely worst food EVER EVER EVER. We had: - clams and fennel - this turned out to be decent, although the clams were like eating sandpaper - grilled naan and hummus - nann! ha! more like a boboli flatbread unevenly run over the broiler and some hummus that i'm pretty sure came from Giant. The bread was lukewarm in spots to cold, did not taste of garlic at all, and was leaden. Hummus - a little gritty, a little pasty, no tahini. Came with some decent olive oil and a grilled tomato - crab sliders - I was uncertain if I was eating crab or cat food. Or perhaps some gefilte fish that was pretending to be crab. It was terribly fishy and old. Clearly, they hoped it would be disguised by the pickle and corn relish, but it really didn't help. Plus, the bun was stale. - shrimp po'boy - Mr. Beezy reports that this was edible. However, it was served with three shrimp skewered on sugar cane, stuck outside the bun (without more shrimp inside). Drink up, don't chow down.

Can we add another variety of selfish jackassery to this list? The placeholders. The people who come to an unreserved seating area, and proceed to drape all their crap all over the place so the mass legions of their party will be able to join them at some unforeseeable point in the future, while the rest of us must stand/cram themselves into small spaces. Last night at the lounge at Zola, crowded pre-hockey game, there were two ladies who had taken six chairs for some party who were coming in '10 minutes'. Another had two ladies taking up two tables and four chairs, for a full 40 minutes until their companions joined them. 40 minutes! What completely steams me about this is that restaurants do not seem to care. Is it ultimately better for business to have two EAs take up table space, or have the six of us who were standing sit down immediately, linger and order more than the glass of wine that I settled on because it was too crowded? I can see being lenient about this during slow periods, but when it's crammed when there is any event at the Verizon, does it seem sensible to permit this kind of thing? Say what you want about not seating parties until they're complete - at least someone ELSE gets a fair shake. I have to say that I'm with the coat-dumper at EatBar - if I saw a set of couches being used as a coat rack in a crowded bar, I'd be mighty tempted to dispose of them myself. Owners and managers: couldja please, please, please install more coathooks and racks in your bars? Or the height of civilization, the coat hook under the bar? There's a place for my purse and coat, and the bar seat is for my fanny only. Everyone's happy. Beezy, about to become one of those drink-spillers

Thanks to everyone who gave me their suggestions! First, eating cheap in Bermuda is a relative term - you will pay $10+ for a sandwich, and expect to pay $30 for dinner. A candy bar is a $1.50; coke can be $2. It's just a fact of life on a place where EVERYTHING is imported. However, you can eat not too bad for dirt cheap at convenience stores and gas stations. Every grocery and gas station has some kind of hot bar, featuring Jamacian food, fried chicken, seafood and some soup. We got a great selection of goat curry, fried chicken, bbq pork ribs, plus rice and peas and veg for $8/pound in a grocery store in St. George. Bermuda also has a great bakery somewhere on the island that distributes scones, muffins, apple cake, fruit cake and other goodies for $1-3.50 apiece. We did eat out twice: Jamaican Grill, Duck Puddle Road - this is a teensy bungalow tucked behind a limestone quarry off of the South Road. It seems to be run by a family of Jamacians, and the only restaurant that every single Bermudian dines in. $8 for a small (a 6X8 carton of food), $13 for a large gets you a great big box of chicken (bbq, curry, jerk, brown sauce), lamb chops, oxtail, or fish plus rice (rice and peas, rice with callalou, rice with saffron) drowned in your choice of gravy, and veg (a mix of cabbage, broccoli and carrot). We had oxtail, which is braised in a thick gravy, jerk pork with peppers and onions, curry chicken (some kind of curry fricasse), and jerk chicken (oh so spicy and succulent, chopped into little bitty pieces). They had a full case of pies and cakes, but we were too full to sample them. Tea at the Fairmont. We were seated on a huge plush settee, overlooking the ocean, surrounded by moneyed British. The tea comes out on a three-tiered rack - we were advised to start at the bottom and eat upward. So, we started with sandwiches (salmon, egg salad, ham, cucumber, cheese, goat cheese), continued onto pastries (eclair, fruit tart, chocolate strawberry) and finished with sweet bread - scones and fruit breads smothered in clotted cream. We went through 3 pots of tea, lingered for three hours, and were treated kindly, even in our sloppy clothes. I highly recommend it.