Josh
-
Posts
779 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
34
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Articles
Dining Guide
Everything posted by Josh
-
After the rain chased us out of Nats park last night, we decided not to waste the babysitter, and headed over to the soft-opened RedRocks on H St. NE. The space is pretty amazing. Very open, lots of exposed brick. It will definitely be loud once the long bar gets hopping (and it will). Tons of room upstairs as well. We sat at the bar and had a couple beers. The draft list is largely regional brews (DC Brau, Flying Dog, Devil's Backbone, Dogfishhead) with a number of other craft brews from around the country. Happy to see they didn't get lazy with the drink options. We weren't planning on eating, but the smell of pizza + a couple beers got the better of us, and we ordered a pizza. We chose the Toscana (tomato sauce, salame, red peppers, mozz). The crust was cooked well, but was quite dense, with a more pronounced cornicione than I like. They also used waaay too much cheese for the pie, which is an odd thing to complain about, but here we are. For pizza in the NE quadrant, I prefer Menomale, but we'll still be back at RedRocks, given its proximity to our place, and the stack of highchairs I saw ready for deployment in the back corner.- 71 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- Local Chain
- Pizza
- (and 1 more)
-
I would agree that it's technically "Hill East," but there really aren't enough restaurants in that area to warrant its own label, so I'd lump it in with H St.
-
In PA for a wedding this weekend. Looked at us a bit funny as 3 families with kids strolled into a pub for brunch, but frankly not much else was open or looked good...plus all the parents needed a beer. Great draft list. I had a local bitters on cask (Yards ESA, I think). Po-boys were tasty and filling, and the fried green tomato BLT with Benton's bacon hit the hangover helper high points. Definitely a solid brunch/lunch option if you're in that neck of the woods.
-
I believe it's the same folks who own Matsutake in DCA...which despite its airport setting, is not bad.
-
Late to the game, but I'll add some thoughts for future searchers. We spent a week in San Sebastian, and ate ALL THE TAPAS. But first, the fancy stuff (pro-tip: hit these places for lunch, and you're set for the day...maybe a couple pinxtos and a glass of wine for late dinner. And the chefs are actually there, and come out to chat during lunch, so you're not being slighted in the least): Etxebarri: The defining dining experience of my life. Will likely never be topped. I knew we were in for it from the first bite of grilled bread topped with about 4 tablespoons of freshly made goat butter (from a goat we saw on our walk in). We drove from Bilbao and stopped here for lunch. If you are in Basque country, DO NOT MISS. Akelare: Beautiful view, great experience, but frankly, a bit too conceptual for my tastes. I think it suffered from being in such close temporal proximity to the very primal meal at Etxebarri, but we still had a great time. Arzak: A great balance between the bare-bones food+fire of Etxebarri and the high-concept of Akelare...whimisical dishes prepared with a lot of soul. Both Juan-Mari and Elena came out to greet guests. Incredibly gracious, and we will most certainly be back. When he found out we had come from DC, Juan-Mari asked if Jose Andres had sent us...they are apparently quite close. Now for the tapas: Frankly, you can't go wrong hopping from joint to joint, grabbing a pinxto or 2 and a cana of beer. Our faves were La Cepa (this acted kind of like a central hub for us), La Cucharra de San Telmo, A Fuego Negro, Astalena, El Legar Bodega, Zeruko, and million others.
-
It really bums me out that low expectations are the name of the game when opening a new restaurant in our hood. Makes me love gems like Boundary Road and Toki that much more. In my selfish worldview, I'd rather you just not open a place than open a poor one. I'd really hate for H St. to be seen as a place to dump mediocre restaurants that will survive because they meet the same level as the other mediocre places on the strip.
-
Well, as I said, my hatred is irrational. My main issue with the place is just that it isn't good. It's passable, and if I got their sushi from a takeout container in Whole Foods, I'd be fine with it, but for a sit down sushi restaurant on a strip that only has Sticky Rice, I should've hoped they would aim higher. I also find the setup to be beyond strange. Why give up an entire floor to a dimly lit "lounge" setting? That setup leads to issues with flow as well, seeing as they have no dedicated host/hostess area to direct people where to sit. Same thing once you get upstairs...stand awkwardly for several minutes, unless you're lucky and one of the waiters sees you to direct you to a seat. I expected much more, given the fact that this isn't the owners' first sushi place. I feel the same burn I felt when I realized how minimally Vendetta was going to be focused on putting out good food, but Hikari doesn't have the strong bar program/bocce court draw to fall back on.
-
I am filled with irrational hatred for this place. After suffering in a sushi desert, we were really thrilled about a place opening within a block of our house. Awful. We will make the trek to Sushi Ko, or for cheap takeout, hit up Nooshi on Barrack's Row.
-
I'll preface this by saying I haven't been to Atlas Room in almost a year. Before that we ate there 3 or 4 times. What ultimately stopped us going was the lack of any real seasonality to the menu. That wouldn't normally be a problem, except they claimed to be changing with the seasons, but we just didn't see it. Same basic dishes with a few tweaks here and there, but not really all that different from month to month. Maybe that's changed along with the change in format. The cocktails were always amazing, and I've been neglectful in not going there just to have a drink. With that out of the way, I would agree with your critic and say that Liberty Tree, while nice enough, does not belong high on the H St. list. Neither, for that matter, does Big Board...a place that does merely OK burgers, and pretty tasty sweet potato fries. Good neighborhood joint, but certainly nothing more. Granvilles suffers from some inconsistency, but overall is an H St. gem. Great atmosphere, amazing beer list, and solid food. Le Grenier is a good neighborhood bistro, except when it isn't. I've had 1 great meal there, and 1 terrible one. The great one was the most recent, so at some point we'll be back...hopefully not to repeat Don's experience. Sadly, Queen Vic has been taken down a few notches after the chef shuffles. Smith Commons isn't even in the running food-wise, but the beer selection is excellent. I still have a lot of love for Ethiopic (even with my newfound infatuation with Zenebech), and would still rank its Ethiopian cuisine highly. Boundary and Toki are my favorites, hands down. I love the whole atmosphere at Boundary, and have never had a bad meal there. I've had a couple of "great" meals, and a lot of "pretty damn good" ones, with only one "meh" one. The ramen at Toki is better than any of the 6 ramen shops in my old NYC neighborhood, although Erik is going for a different style, so I probably shouldn't compare them. With my current perspective, if I were Don for a day, here's what my list would shape up like: Boundary Road Toki Underground Ethiopic Atlas Room Granville Moore's (+/- italics on this one...) Le Grenier Liberty Tree (could be ahead of Le Grenier depending on the day) Queen Vic (used to be tied with Granville's) Shawafel Taylor Charles Steak & Ice Taylor Gourmet Chupacabra Big Board Argonaut (in a fight with Big Board for best sweet potato fries) Chicken and Rice Smith Commons Vendetta Hikari (total disappointment) Inspire BBQ (not bad when they actually have the item you want) Cushbah The rest
-
Just finished an absolutely fantastic bowl of ma po tofu at Sichuan Jin River. Perfect balance between the spicy, numbing, and rich flavors. I dont know who is back there, but this was serious cooking.
-
I didn't see a topic on this already, so feel free to move if one does exist. What place or places in the area are serving your favorite carnitas? I purposely steered away from ordering it at recent visits to La Placita due to less than stellar reviews from folks here, but I could really use some more fatty, crispy pork in my life.
-
7 tacos in 2 (consecutive) days. I am ready to pronounce this place the real deal. Frankly, tacos as good as I've had in Oaxaca or even the "sweaty market town" of Pochutla (as described in Lonely Planet). Yesterday was al pastor, cecina, lengua, and barbacoa. Today, cachete, cabeza, and costilla. The only less than stellar in the lot was the al pastor, which was sadly devoid of any crunchy bits. The tortillas are fantastic, and raise this joint over my previous favorite stateside taqueria back in New York. I will no doubt be back many, many times, and I'm thinking I'm going to need to draw up a playoff bracket to determine my favorite filling.
-
I actually was going to post about this as well...I contributed to the campaign, and will weigh in once it ships later in the year.
-
Went back for a repeat last night...the wife was suitably impressed. We had the kitfo and fish dulet. The kitfo was excellent, but the fish dulet stole the show. We will be back and back and back again as we work our way through the menu. I learned my lesson, and the little dude stuck to kik alicha and collard greens this time around. Somehow he must have gotten the memo on Ethiopian eating habits, as he refused to take anything from his spoon, only accepting things served with injera. Messier, but definitely more fun.
-
I had lunch there yesterday. Allow me to further assuage the fears...the broth was killing it.
-
Hell, you don't even have to go all the way to Paris. After living in NYC for years, it was always a shock to visit family in Texas.
-
I don't think it would be a cilantro-type reaction (which, man...life sure would suck if I couldn't enjoy cilantro). To see if maybe my taste buds have gone wacky in the past year, I just grabbed my szechuan peppercorns out of the spice rack and ate 5 by themselves. Definite numbing and spice, no saltiness. More research needs to be done, so I suppose I'll be going on a ma po tofu quest over the next few weeks...not that I mind.
-
Hmm...Well, I would differentiate between "spicy" meaning hot and the numbing effect of the peppercorns. My suspicion is that Joe's tries to tone down the "hot" spicy factor and doesn't alter the other seasonings, resulting in (to my palate at least) really unbalanced dishes. It really is the only Szechuan place I've eaten at that has posed such a problem (including a few in China).
-
I've eaten at Joe's a number of times now, and actually came searching through the boards to see if someone had experienced what I had and lo and behold, here was xcanuck's post. Any dish I have at Joe's with szechuan peppercorns tastes unbearably salty to me. Strangely, this seems to be limited to versions at Joe's. Yesterday I had the Ma Po Tofu, a dish I've had many times at Sichuan Jin River, and I couldn't finish it because of the overwhelming salty taste. In the past at Joe's, I've run across the same thing with the spicy and tasty tofu...so much so that I sent it back once. To be clear, this isn't a spice level thing...I regularly enjoy the Lao hot at Bangkok Golden. Nor is it a "numbing" thing, since the same dishes at Jin River don't cause the same reaction. At this point, I guess I'll just stick to Jin River, or give HKP a try. Has anyone other than Canuck and I had a similar experience?
-
Ventured across N Cap to the dreaded NW, and had a fantastic lunch at Zenebech. I've been trying this new thing where I eat vegetarian until dinner, so I ordered the vegetarian sampler...and a side of keye wot. What can I say...made up for it with vegetarian dinner. For $13 ($10 for the sampler and $3 for the wot) this was a ridiculous amount of food...all of it great. I committed an unforced error and fed the boy some spicy lentils, leading to a near complete meltdown and a minor scene. He'll be sticking to the kik alicha and gomen from here on out. I will be back, probably within a week for the kitfo. Has anyone had the dulet or fish dulet here?
-
Lazy Friday dinner in anticipation of smoking a whole brisket this weekend. Za'atar-spiced flatbreads with hummus, grilled eggplant, harissa, and a touch of goat-cheese. Simple grilled radicchio with Aleppo pepper Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat Newsroom. Terrible television for sure, but at least it's terrible television with a script written at a 9th grade level rather than the 3rd grade of everything else on TV.
-
All this talk made me ignore the leftovers I brought with me for lunch today, and head over to Pasta Plus since I was in Laurel. The burrata was tempting, but I wasn't hungry enough to tackle that and a pasta (plus the salad that comes with). I went with a special - fettuccine with Aurora sauce and crab. As always, the pasta was perfect. The sauce was pretty heavy, but not bad, and the plate was bursting with crab. And for $13.95, a hell of a deal. I asked for sparkling water and was looked upon as though I had asked to drink from the toilet. Strange they wouldn't have Pellegrino or something similar on offer. Next time I'll have to try hard to branch out from the pasta and try the veal parm, but I don't know if I have the inner strength.
-
It's turned into a meatless week for whatever reason. Tonight: Grilled squash, zuchhini, and onion marinated in what was left of my garlic scape pesto Grilled polenta All topped with a fresh batch of Marcella Hazan's butter and onion tomato sauce and a little basil. I could have taken down the entire pot of sauce myself.
-
Love it...one of my son's first solid foods was kik alicha. He loves the stuff.
-
I wouldn't expect that a business should stand watch for pregnant women, the elderly, or whoever may need immediate cover from the elements, but maybe, if the doors are open and they happen to walk in, letting them stay wouldn't be so bad. (I'm not saying that happened in this case.)
