Banco

I can't believe you went there. To eat. What villain was holding the gun to your head?

No matter what beer it is, my experience is that it never tastes as good here as it does over there. It's served too cold, the head is wrong, the Pils is tapped too fast, etc. And then there's the question of transport across the pond. For this reason I hardly ever drink beer in the States, but it's the first thing I suck down when I get off the plane in Germany.

Cool! Thank you! I'm bringing szechuan chicken or pork.

Does anyone have a chafing dish or similar keep-warm device that I could use while there? I would be bringing one of those half-size disposable foil serving pans, so I would need only half of a whole standard buffet size chafer.

Wow. Those are some knives!

My cabinets are cherry, so I ordered a Mag-Blok in cherry (one of their standard woods), which I then stained with the same stain used on our cabinets and finished with water-based food-safe polyurethane. (Benchcrafted puts a light wax on the Bloks, so I wiped it down with mineral spirits before staining and finishing.) The custom part was that I ordered a specific length and no screw holes as I planned on using double faced tape to mount the Blok to the tile. I used 3M VHB (very high bond tape) which is used in industrial applications. It is a rock solid bond, even better than screws but also reversible (albeit with a special tool and some elbow grease). I have tape left over if you need some.

Christ, that is worrisome. I mean, a good Moscato can be delightful with certain cheeses or foie gras, but as a quotidian go-to white wine? Yuck!

You are the Prince of Food Porn!

Exciting but scary, eh? We initially worked with an architect but ended up going with a layout suggested by our cabinet designer. Our contractor (who's been doing this on the Hill since the 1970s) also had great ideas. We didn't knock down any walls, as we like the traditional separation of kitchen and dining room, so the kitchen remains about the same, relatively small Capitol Hill kitchen it was before, but it feels much larger because of the more efficient use of space and traffic pattern. Good luck!

No, but it was more than the kitchen. There was a good deal of work in the adjoining office, WC, and dining room as well. Everything was taken down to the studs. But yeah, a long haul. ETA: The knife magnet is a custom Mag-Blok from www.benchcrafted.com. Highly recommended.

The Bluestar rangetop is great. As you probably know, you can remove the cast iron grates to reveal a bowl-shaped recess around the burner into which a wok nestles perfectly. No more wok rings. With 23,000 BTUs on the front burners I can pretend to be Iron Chef Chen Kenichi. That obviously requires commensurate ventilation. The 1200 CFM Prestige hood does that while giving me a facelift if I get close enough. I am less enthusiastic about the Thermador. It is essentailly a Bosch, but I found the build quality and fit and finish to be better. However, when the beep sounds to indicate the oven is preheated, you still have to wait about 20 minutes for it to actually reach the desired temperature. And then it often overheats. We already had the temperature controller replaced, which led to a slight improvement. Still, it is a very feature-rich oven, with good convection settings and a rotisserie. I also wanted something with knobs and not a glitch-prone pushbutton control panel. Thermador is one of the few high-end companies that make them. Our Bosch dishwasher also leaves me a bit cold. It loads less efficiently than our old Kenmore, which diminishes its overall energy efficiency, and is really not that much quieter. Still, it is very well made and the top rack for silverware is nice. We love our 31 cubic foot Kenmore Elite fridge. We had a side-by-side before and I can't count the number of times I flew into a rage while trying to excavate something from the nether-regions of its compartments.

Some pics of our remodel, which took about a year and was finished about six months ago. We're very happy with the result. I'd be happy to answer questions about anything.

We recently finished a year-long kitchen remodel and would be glad to share our past misery and current wisdom. I'll also post some pics over in the remodeling thread.

Me + wife and two kids. I will try to bring something main-coarsey.

Plus ça change...

Any Sunday in October except the 7th is OK for me. (A reminder: the 8th is a federal holiday.)

I'm halfway through a whole30 too, and my experience is similar, though I'm not a big beer drinker. Crunchy savory stuff, which is usually grain based, is what I miss most. And booze.

Plus ça change...

I had never heard of Whole30 until now, so after reading your post I took a look at the site and decided to give it a try. May God have mercy on my soul.

When you want to go out in the city for a special dinner, with inventive cooking, beautiful ingredients, excellent service, and a captivating atmosphere, you would probably think of something like Palena, Elisir or Fiola. But that's exactly the kind of dinner we had last night at Jaleo. We attended an open house for our son's new school nearby and afterwards ran through the rain to catch dinner at Jaleo, arriving a bit wet and without a reservation. We are obviously pathetic old fogeys because we had no idea they had redecorated back in March. We fell in love with the place immediately. I actually think it's one of the coolest places in the city now--swanky and fun without being irretrievably hip and trendy. It reminded me a bit of Tantris in Munich (Joe H?). The fibers and fabrics that cover the walls also bring down the decibel level quite a bit, something I wish more restaurant designers would do. But what surprised us even more was the food, which seems to have become more refined without losing any of its elemental tapas appeal. The Iberico miniburgers, which we had with the optional bacon, were a delectably fatty, sweet apotheosis of porkitude. Not to be missed. An apple and fennel salad with Manchego was conventional enough, but elevated to a new height by the care put into its preparation and presentation, the uncompromisingly fresh state of its ingredients, and the perfect balance of its Sherry vinaigrette. Another salad, served warm, of Brussels spouts, apricots, apples and Serrano, looked like a bowl of glistening emeralds. The leaves of the sprouts had been individually detached and shone a fresh, bright green in a dressing that balanced sweet, salty, tart, and sour to perfection. Another salad--watermelon with goat cheese, tomato concassé and pistachios--featured deep red, ripe slices of watermelon presented and garnished with the skill of a master shokunin. Grilled quail with rosemary sauce has long been a favorite of mine at Jaleo, and last night it seemed even better than I remembered, the honey-sweetened demi-glace spiked with just the right touch of rosemary and permeating the tender meat of the bird--again everything in perfect balance. Desserts maintained the same high level. Chocolate hazelnut cake with praline ice cream and salted caramel, and Spanish custard with oranges and cream, continued the immaculate sense of balance and proportion that went into all the previous dishes, with an elegant and clean presentation that matched or exceeded anything you'd find at Marcel's or Palena. Jaleo has also joined the artisanal drinks trend with a varied program that compares favorably with the likes of PX or Central. The two we tried were perfectly composed tours of intriguing flavors and combinations. On the more conventional side, the Overholt Manhattan I ordered was the best one I've had in recent memory. My wife and I kept telling each other how incredible everything was at Jaleo compared to restaurants we had been to recently with far higher price points and ambition (e.g., Fiola), to say nothing of our lackluster experience at Hank's Oyster Bar on Capitol Hill. This spontaneous dash through the rain ended up being one of the best restaurant experiences, in all ways, that we have ever had in DC.

We came back from a few weeks in Germany last month to find Hank's had opened on the Hill. What a delightful surprise! But our first experience there left us somewhat disappointed. We started off with 18 oysters on the half, split between two types from Washington State. These were exquisite, perfectly shucked and brimming with flavor--some of the best oysters I've had in a long time, better than the generally excellent ones at Senart's. I then followed with an avocado salad. Even in a "bistro" type restaurant like this, not least because of its relatively high price level, I expected some sort of modestly composed salad or otherwise creative presentation of avocado. What I received was some leaves of perfectly ordinary lettuce with a sliced avocado half plopped on the plate, with a well-made "green goddess" type dressing. There was absolutely nothing inspiring or inspired about this dish. It was almost cafeteria-like in its lack of imagination. My wife's ceasar salad was the standard hotel restaurant preparation, with what were supposed to be shavings of Parmesan that looked and tasted more like Gouda. The rockfish filet that then followed was actually a steak from the cross section of the fish, perfectly cooked but otherwise just as unremarkable as the salads. My kids enjoyed the mussels in tomato broth and the grilled octopus, which were no different than countless other versions of these dishes available almost anywhere in the city. I was looking forward to Gina's creations and in this respect was not disappointed at all. I tried three of them and they were all creative, wonderful drinks that made the intrepid ordinariness of the food all the more galling. Our welcome and the service were first rate. The place was completely slammed, inside and out, but we were seated immediately at a table outside that happened to just open up, although we didn't have a reservation. Our waitress was the picture of kindness and efficiency despite the loud and overflowing crowd. I hope the shortcomings I experienced were due to a new kitchen dealing with opening-month crowds. Otherwise there would be no way I would eat here again in view of the high prices charged for such boring food.

I also agree with most of what's been said here, though I won't miss the health/fire/safety hazard the H&D has become. The chain-like growth of his restaurants is not in itself a bad thing, but in an area with a paucity of other good places it soon becomes overbearing and monotonous. Still, it is city officials and ANCs that make the decisions to grant permits for this kind of expansion, so I wouldn't place the blame on Xavier.

I wasn't referring to the sauce in the dishes, but the way they were coated before being cooked. From what I've read, and from my admittedly limited experience eating in China, such coatings are more typical of Chinese-American cuisine than Chinese. And even when they are used in the latter, they usually only give the food a light sheen rather than a thick coating.

This was a lot of fun. I found it especially gratifying to finally have some good Chinese food after all the crap I put up with in China for 2 1/2 weeks. The seafood soup starter and the roast duck were highlights for me. The only thing that put me off a bit was the starchy/gelatinous coating on almost every other dish, which seems to be a hallmark of American Chinese food, though this was definitely more Chinese than American. The atmosphere of the whole restaurant was delightful as was the company at our table.

Sorry and thank you, darkstar. And so there are nine? This is starting to sound like an Agatha Christie novel.