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Rants In E Minor


monavano

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I thought I'd start this thread after having a "are you kidding me?" moment. Maybe you've had one too. Mine was this: My husband and I were talking about perhaps having my (75 year old) mom over for the long 4th of July weekend. She'd be comming down from Philadelphia.

I know she could not hang around the mall et al to see the fireworks, so I started thinking of where we could go to view the event from afar. Well, not due to it's culinary, but rather it's scenic attributes I called the Marriott Key Bridge. Hey, OK food but a helluva show on the 4th.

I was surprised to find out that they had room to fit us in. In fact, they had a "special" menu. 5 courses. Wow. Hmmmmmmmm.

Get this...............$180.00pp

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??/

thank you, she said nicely. buh by.

Edited by monavano
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I thought I'd start this thread after having a "are you kidding me?" moment. Maybe you've had one too. Mine was this: My husband and I were talking about perhaps having my (75 year old) mom over for the long 4th of July weekend. She'd be comming down from Philadelphia.

I know she could not hang around the mall et al to see the fireworks, so I started thinking of where we could go to view the event from afar. Well, not due to it's culinary, but rather it's scenic attributes I called the Marriott Key Bridge. Hey, OK food but a helluva show on the 4th.

I was surprised to find out that they had room to fit us in. In fact, they had a "special" menu. 5 courses. Wow. Hmmmmmmmm.

Get this...............$180.00pp

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??/

thank you, she said nicely. buh by.

Holy #*$%! I'm choking on my wine just thinking about it! Give me a good restaurant and a flat screen TV and I'll be happy.

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no way!!! how was it resolved?

Ordering a bass and soft shell crab dish at a new restaurant (mentioned in today's Weekly Dish) and having the dish served without the softshell crab!!!

Are you kidding me?

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Ordering a bass and soft shell crab dish at a new restaurant (mentioned in today's Weekly Dish) and having the dish served without the softshell crab!!!

Are you kidding me?

Mmmmmm, crab smoothies! My favorite.

It wasn't in DC but in Reno over the weekend. We bought a spectacular platter of seafood on ice at Oceano at the Peppermill casino. I would order it again in a heartbeat, but with one variation. It comes with oysters, oyster shooters (we chose tequila, lime, cilantro, japaleño), giant prawns, Dungeness crab, and Alaskan King crab legs the size of baseball bats. Fantastic. That was only $15/person, so we ordered the add-on lobster tail for another $7.50/person.

Except that it was a small lobster tail (no biggie, still delicious) not really worth the extra $$.

What is this dipping sauce? "It's drawn butter."

Try "movie popcorn butter compound." I can taste the chemicals.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Like I said, we'll go back and we'll order it again, because it was piled to the ceiling and everything was perfectly prepared. But we'll forego the lobster and the "drawn butter."

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Mmmmmm, crab smoothies! My favorite.

It wasn't in DC but in Reno over the weekend. We bought a spectacular platter of seafood on ice at Oceano at the Peppermill casino. I would order it again in a heartbeat, but with one variation. It comes with oysters, oyster shooters (we chose tequila, lime, cilantro, japaleño), giant prawns, Dungeness crab, and Alaskan King crab legs the size of baseball bats. Fantastic. That was only $15/person, so we ordered the add-on lobster tail for another $7.50/person.

Except that it was a small lobster tail (no biggie, still delicious) not really worth the extra $$.

What is this dipping sauce? "It's drawn butter."

Try "movie popcorn butter compound." I can taste the chemicals.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Like I said, we'll go back and we'll order it again, because it was piled to the ceiling and everything was perfectly prepared. But we'll forego the lobster and the "drawn butter."

That should go under the "crimes against lobsters" category. Blech :lol:

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Ordering a bass and soft shell crab dish at a new restaurant (mentioned in today's Weekly Dish) and having the dish served without the softshell crab!!!

Are you kidding me?

Well.... How was the rest of the meal? You cannot say you tried a new place and then not give us a full review!

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I work in the Watergate.

There's a lot of money here. I don't know how much, exactly, only that Condi Rice and Bob and Elizabeth Dole are among my neighbors, I'm told. And I think Monica used to live here.

Also, there's a law firm and a couple of Embassies, including the Saudis across the street.

The Saudis have a lot of money, I'm told.

We're all together in the middle of nowhere, though the river is very pretty.

We have restaurants here in the middle of nowhere, where there's lots of money. We have multi-ethnic restaurants, here, in the middle of nowhere. We have a Mediterranean coffee shop, an Italian place that makes its own pizza, Chinese take-out, a bakery, and a grocery store with a deli. I tried them all on the days I forgot my lunch, and I've found tastiest food for those days:

CVS sells Stouffer's Lean Cuisine, and there's a microwave in the office.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

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I work in the Watergate.

There's a lot of money here.  I don't know how much, exactly, only that Condi Rice and Bob and Elizabeth Dole are among my neighbors, I'm told. And I think Monica used to live here. 

Also, there's a law firm and a couple of Embassies, including the Saudis across the street.

The Saudis have a lot of money, I'm told. 

We're all together in the middle of nowhere, though the river is very pretty. 

We have restaurants here in the middle of nowhere, where there's lots of money.  We have multi-ethnic restaurants, here, in the middle of nowhere.  We have a Mediterranean coffee shop, an Italian place that makes its own pizza, Chinese take-out, a bakery, and a grocery store with a deli. I tried them all on the days I forgot my lunch, and I've found tastiest food for those days:

CVS sells Stouffer's Lean Cuisine, and there's a microwave in the office. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Cool, "babka",

I worked at the Watergate for 8 years total. I worked for 6 years at Jean-Louis at the Watergate in the 80's. I live 2 blocks from the Watergate, so that is my local Safeway (unfortunately). At J-L, the staff meals were so atrocious most of the time, we ate the salad bar at the Safeway. The sous-chef at the time was Eric Ripert. Chen's is a good place. The food that you order is always tasty. The lunch buffet is, well, a lunch buffet. The Italian place has good calzones and stromboli. I always take these home and cook them myself. An interesting bit of trivia about Jean-Louis, the restaurant was formerly the lunch club of the Democratic National Committee (the guys who almost got bugged starting the Watergate scandal). An interesting feature of the restaurant was that you could whisper on one side of it and the guy across the room could hear every word.

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Here's one from this weekend.

Watched a line cook in an open kitchen at a nice restaurant replenishing the contents of the squeeze bottles at his mise during dinner service. He was very awkwardly refilling one squeeze bottle with white wine from a Franzia box. Ew!

This might fall under the category of things I probably would never notice or care about - unless I had to sit and watch it in front of me as I ate!

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Here's one from this weekend.

Watched a line cook in an open kitchen at a nice restaurant replenishing the contents of the squeeze bottles at his mise during dinner service. He was very awkwardly refilling one squeeze bottle with white wine from a Franzia box. Ew!

This might fall under the category of things I probably would never notice or care about - unless I had to sit and watch it in front of me as I ate!

Come on, at least give us a clue...

Forgot to add. While getting pancakes at a breakfast place on the Jersey shore I spotted an item called a Texas something or other... a hotdog with cheese wrapped in bacon. Why do that to the poor bacon?

The pancakes with the side of scrapple was good though.

Edited to keep on topic... :lol:

Edited by mdt
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Guilt

This morning I stopped into Le Matin de Paris to grab a cup of coffee to assist me in my Route-1-esque drive down Little River Turnpike. A small cup of drip coffee was $2.50, and a large cup was $2.95. For a stinking little cup of coffee! Are you kidding me? I often deliberately bypass BarfSucks to support locally owned places, but today I actually made a beeline for the nearest one - a virtual tumor-within-a-tumor, as there was one sitting inside a Safeway down the street.

Miso Horny

And I noticed that one of my previously favorite places to get kimchi at 4:30 AM - the old hideaway Man Po Myun Oak - has reopened as Miso Cafe. It was shuttered up so I couldn't really see inside, but they have the little plastic sushi things going in the window, so I assume this is a Korean-owned Japanese joint - their bright green-and-red sign should attract more street traffic than the previous establishment.

Cheers,

Rocks.

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Cool, "babka",

I worked at the Watergate for 8 years total. I worked for 6 years at Jean-Louis at the Watergate in the 80's. I live 2 blocks from the Watergate, so that is my local Safeway (unfortunately). At J-L, the staff meals were so atrocious most of the time, we ate the salad bar at the Safeway. The sous-chef at the time was Eric Ripert.

Trust you mean Ripert was at J-L and not Safeway :P

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I work in the Watergate.

There's a lot of money here...We have restaurants here in the middle of nowhere, where there's lots of money....I tried them all on the days I forgot my lunch, and I've found tastiest food for those days:

CVS sells Stouffer's Lean Cuisine, and there's a microwave in the office. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

notti bianche, and a bowl of chilled tomato soup with rock shrimp, pine nuts, and basil marscapone, is just around the corner from the watergate.

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I, too, work in the Watergate misery-plex and I'll add that the recent additions of Coggins, Pita Pit, and a Jamba Juice at the Marvin Center of GW don't improve the lunch scene at all. It's so bad that there used to be a contest in my building known as "The Chen's Challenge," wherein you could eat nothing but the Chen's Lunch Special for 30 days. We lost a lot of good men to that contest.

Today, after sweating through the eight blocks to Breadline (worth it for the glorified Oreo of chocolate cookies and marscapone filling alone) and cursing the absence of the Grill for the next two weeks, I am all the more determined to try this chilled tomato soup.

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Unbelievable that Whole Foods will package some of mealiest, white-hued watermelon into a quart container and try to charge you $7. It's peak production season and this region produces.

Are you joking? It makes me want to steal from the vitamin aisle.

Edited by Meaghan
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Today, after sweating through the eight blocks to Breadline (worth it for the glorified Oreo of chocolate cookies and marscapone filling alone) and cursing the absence of the Grill for the next two weeks, I am all the more determined to try this chilled tomato soup.

more shameless self-promotion...

since there are a number of rockwellians stranded in the watergate, i would be happy to put together a "relief" luncheon some friday in the future. anybody interested?

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more shameless self-promotion...

since there are a number of rockwellians stranded in the watergate, i would be happy to put together a "relief" luncheon some friday in the future.  anybody interested?

Since I occasionally work in Foggy Bottom, can I tag along? :P This place is a lunchtime wasteland.

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This is a question I am raising because of an experience I had last night. I am not going to name the restaurant, because it is not the most relevant factor. I'll just say that it is a "dressy-casual" neighborhood place that is highly regarded here. I ordered an entree from the specials list that centered around "dry" scallops. The price was $24. A large plate was set in front of me. Centered on it were two pan-seared scallops and one scallop-sized cake of crusted risotto. There was one stalk of baby fennel, about the size of my ring finger and a few halves of red and yellow cherry tomatoes. A few spoonfuls of broth (?chicken probably, it didn't have much flavor) completed the dish. Now to my astonished eyes, this was a small plate portion on a very large plate and at a highly inflated price. The risotto was probably left over from the previous night-- cakes are what you do with leftovers, right? Kind of dry. The scallops were sweet and fresh--cooked a tad less in the center than I like, but not enough to complain about. After all, I do eat scallop sushi and these were very fresh. But $24? Come on. High quality dry scallops RETAIL for about $20 a pound, and you get 8 to ten of them. Where were the labor costs? Other dishes that were sent to the table were fairly pricey but the portions were reasonable and involved more prep work. So what think you all? Should the price reflect the costs, or is it reasonable to artfully arrange a plate and charge a lot because it is an entree? The food tasted fine-- I didn't feel justified in complaining about the quality. I sure would not have ordered the dish if I'd known what the stingy portion would be. How do you complain about that, other than to ask the waiter about the size of the portion? I will do that if I ever go back (it was my first visit).

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That's an "are you kidding me" entree. I realize that it's not just the price of the food that you're paying for. It's also the knowledge, skill and experience of those preparing it among other things.

But two scallops an entree? No way. It's hard to complain if the food is good and tasty, but I might have passed on to the manager that they ought to rethink the portion size of said scallop entree and that I'd not order it again for the reason that I felt the portions size did not justify the cost. Good food, bad value. It needs to be more equitable. I like to feel sated, not stuffed after a meal and in fact large portions turn me off. However, after paying 24 dollars for a meal I would not expect to go home and make a PB&J.

I believe that to be fair and honest feedback.

Edited by monavano
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LETTING YOUR WORK GET TO YOU!

From this week's New Yorker (p. 84):

David Pasternak, the chef at an Italian seafood restaurant in NY called Esca ("Bait"), was interviewed on the Today Show. He said, "When we talk about oil, we talk only about extra-virgin olive oil. Because it's like the Japanese put the soy sauce, us Italians, we put the olive oil."

According to the article, "When he got home, his father, who had been watching, called and said, 'What's with this "us Italians" business? We're Jewish. Remember?"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

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off the wire:

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Police have been looking for a disgruntled McDonald's customer who ran into two other customers with her car after a dispute over who was next in line.

Melinda Ann Thomas, 34, and Linda Ann Thomas, 51, were standing in a crowded line around 8:30 a.m. Saturday as they waited to order breakfast, police said. A cashier opened a new line and they stepped to the front of it - a move that angered another customer who was waiting to order. According to the report, the unidentified woman started yelling at them and threatened to kill them.

The woman then left the restaurant before the Thomases and stayed in the parking lot, sitting in her dark blue Jeep Cherokee, witnesses told police. As the Thomases made their way to their car, witnesses said the woman pulled out of her parking space and sped toward the women, striking them both with the passenger side of the Jeep.

Neither woman was badly injured, the police report said. The woman is being sought by police on charges of aggravated assault.

Over a McMuffin - Are you kidding me?

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Precious desserts: a few weeks ago, at a very expensive, high-end, and generally well-regarded place I had a dessert of peach poached in Sauternes with peach ice cream and peach sabayon. The sabayon was two teaspoonsful tucked into two half-dollar sized wafer thin cookies. The ice cream was about a soup spoon's worth. The actual peach was about 1/4 of a very small peach. Price was somewhere in the double digits.

Earlier this week at one of this forum's sacred cow restaurants, I had a cobbler that was about three bites of fruit with some pastry crumbs, albeitt tasty crumbs, with another soup-spoon sized serving of ice cream. Also priced in the double digits.

Usually - mostly - my complaint is about desserts being too large. But four bites for fourteen dollars? Are you kidding me?!

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I had one of these experiences on vacation (sorry this isn't local, but you may have run into something similar).

We went to a highly regarded restaurant in Bend Oregon. We had made reservations earlier in the afternoon when we were walking by. Upon arriving at the packed restaurant and asking for our table, the hostess enthusiastically explained that we had the exclusive honor of sitting at the "Chef's Table". Naturally I assumed she must have recognized me for the sophisticated Rockwellian semi-regular that I am and we began preparing for the royal treatment. Well, this table was one of those bar-height round tables with the tall chairs that was situated in the middle of a sort of waiter's autobahn area in the joint. Staff zoomed closely by our table every 15 seconds. Additionally, one of the table legs was unstable and at one point during our meal the table tipped a few degrees nearly spilling our wine.

WTF? Chef's Table? I didn't see no freakin' chef. :lol:

Food was pretty good though. :)

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Precious desserts: a few weeks ago, at a very expensive, high-end, and generally well-regarded place I had a dessert of peach poached in Sauternes with peach ice cream and peach sabayon. The sabayon was two teaspoonsful tucked into two half-dollar sized wafer thin cookies. The ice cream was about a soup spoon's worth. The actual peach was about 1/4 of a very small peach. Price was somewhere in the double digits.

Earlier this week at one of this forum's sacred cow restaurants, I had a cobbler that was about three bites of fruit with some pastry crumbs, albeitt tasty crumbs, with another soup-spoon sized serving of ice cream. Also priced in the double digits.

Usually - mostly - my complaint is about desserts being too large. But four bites for fourteen dollars? Are you kidding me?!

I sent a co-worker to what I think is the same place and while she raved about the food, the tiny cobbler had her ranting about portion sizes. She did say it was tasty though.

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Usually - mostly - my complaint is about desserts being too large. But four bites for fourteen dollars? Are you kidding me?!

That's totally unfair! You're not factoring in the cost of the dessert plates, and those cute little spoons, and the extra laundry costs generated by thousands of gooey smears on sundry fine linens, and ... oh, sorry, I thought I was in the "Wine Pricing" thread. :)

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Someone was interested in where I had really nasty sweetbreads ...

It was Cashions Eat Place, some time in the last century.

Sweetbreads require careful treatment ... soak in cold water several times, clean, blanche etc. ...

IIRC, what arrived at my table was a nasty, raw mess, with none of the prep work done.

Why this happened, or who was responsible, I don't know.

There, I feel better now. (Not quite ready to forgive Cashion EP, however).

Mission accomplished, post will self destruct in three, two, one ...

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At an unnamed Irish pub here in town that I worked at off and on for four years, they knocked down a storage shed next to the pub that had been home to hundreds (and I mean HUNDREDS) of rats. After closing we would sit at the bar enjoying our shift drink(s) and hear the "lads" sprinting back and forth in the heating ducts over our head. After the exterminator finally came, sealed the place and gassed them, we had groggy, dying rats appearing in unexpected places at unexpected times. One unfortunate evening, a customer had just finished complaining about a ketchupy thumbprint on the edge of her plate when the rotted ceiling tile directly above the table crumbled and two listless rats fell on the table. Kind of placed the thumbprint in the proper perspective.

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Last May while vacationing on Florida, we tried this cute little place called The Patio for our anniversary dinner. The place was the size a shoebox. We drove by earlier that day and made reservations for that evening. When we arrived the place was packed (all 8 tables) plus they were catering a large birthday party out back. We should have taken this as a sign to turn around and run....but alas, we didn't.

First, we were squished into a tiny little table next to the front door. We waited over 15 minutes before anyone came to the table. When someone finally arrived, we ordered a bottle of champagne. Were told 10 minutes later that they were out but would gladly substitute the one kind they had left, Asti Spumante. Uh, no thanks. We asked about a bottle of red wine. 10 minutes later, we're told sorry the big party out back used the last bottle of red but they did have a nice house we could get by the decanter. Sure, why not.....how bad could it be? (pretty bad it turns out.....it must have been a bad day for boxed wine at the vineyard).

We then proceeded to order an appetizer and the Chateaubriand for dinner. Nearly 30 minutes later the appetizer comes out and we're also told the the chef is too busy (with the party out back) to be prepare the chateaubriand. UGH! So we politely order other entrees. Normally we'd be peeved at this point but the cheap ass wine has kicked in and we've mellowed a bit.

I ordered beef wellington but what I got (45 minutes after we ordered) was equivelant to the tongue of a well worn shoe tucked inside pastry. I forget what Jim got but it was equally disappointing.

Throughout the meal our server was as apologetic as she could be. She comped the wine (phew, that saved us two bucks) and offered us dessert. And the dessert my friends was the highlight of the meal. Not wanting to spend anymore time there, we ordered their chocolate cake to go. When we got back to our place, we opened the box and the angels above sang with joy. Dark, dense, insanely rich cake that made my cheeks flush. It was delish.

Nowadays we can look back at the night and laugh about what a major trainwreck the evening was and it is certainly an anniversary dinner we'll never forget.

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Last May while vacationing on Florida, we tried this cute little place called The Patio for our anniversary dinner. The place was the size a shoebox. We drove by earlier that day and made reservations for that evening. When we arrived the place was packed (all 8 tables) plus they were catering a large birthday party out back. We should have taken this as a sign to turn around and run....but alas, we didn't.

First, we were squished into a tiny little table next to the front door. We waited over 15 minutes before anyone came to the table. When someone finally arrived, we ordered a bottle of champagne. Were told 10 minutes later that they were out but would gladly substitute the one kind they had left, Asti Spumante. Uh, no thanks. We asked about a bottle of red wine. 10 minutes later, we're told sorry the big party out back used the last bottle of red but they did have a nice house we could get by the decanter. Sure, why not.....how bad could it be? (pretty bad it turns out.....it must have been a bad day for boxed wine at the vineyard).

We then proceeded to order an appetizer and the Chateaubriand for dinner. Nearly 30 minutes later the appetizer comes out and we're also told the the chef is too busy (with the party out back) to be prepare the chateaubriand. UGH! So we politely order other entrees. Normally we'd be peeved at this point but the cheap ass wine has kicked in and we've mellowed a bit.

I ordered beef wellington but what I got (45 minutes after we ordered) was equivelant to the tongue of a well worn shoe tucked inside pastry. I forget what Jim got but it was equally disappointing.

Throughout the meal our server was as apologetic as she could be. She comped the wine (phew, that saved us two bucks) and offered us dessert. And the dessert my friends was the highlight of the meal. Not wanting to spend anymore time there, we ordered their chocolate cake to go. When we got back to our place, we opened the box and the angels above sang with joy. Dark, dense, insanely rich cake that made my cheeks flush. It was delish.

Nowadays we can look back at the night and laugh about what a major trainwreck the evening was and it is certainly an anniversary dinner we'll never forget.

All I can think of is the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch. "It's not much of a cheese shop, is it? It's certainly uncontaminated by cheese." :)

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