Antonio Burrell

the main thing to remember is that this is an inherintly sp? tough piece of meat that will benefit from any preperation that involves slow andlow cooking. braising, roasting, poaching all would be good ways to cook these. My fav, dry rub, stovetop smoker, oven roasted ro finish at 200 degrees andservedwith collard greens and skillet cornbread.

I hate to admit this, but for years I hated scrambled eggs. I blame my mother, she put gobs of cheese in them when I was young, and I HATED the taste. what was strangewas that I would eat poached, hard boiled and fried eggs, I just hated scrambled, still do to some extent. Rice with sugar and butter on it. Being Filipino, I find this a huge injustice to rice. And finally, milk. I hate milk and always have, have yet to drink a drop in my adult life. Even as a baby, my Mom says they could only get me to drink coconut juice. I do, however, love all thing made with milk, chief among them cheese and butter. Other than that, I'll eat cow balls, brains, kidneys, hell lung if it's cooked right. I once had a sous chef who refused to eat anything with onions in it....he lasted two days.

I trucked up to Rockville yesterday with the wife in tow. I was really excited but wary as the post have been less than enthusiatic lately. I didn't walk away dissapointed but neither was I blown away. There were some good dishes, some okay and nothing was bad. We had the beef tendon in spicy sauce: I loved this and even more so when I warmed it up alittle bit at home, very gelatinous. The boiled peanuts were soso, I've had them spicier and I like the version at A&J more. The sweet and spicy ribs were dry but were tasty nonetheless. The chicken gizzards were also only okay. I was suprised by the fish dishes. I usually don't eat fish dishes out that much but I loved theses. We had the fried smelt and peanuts which I loved!!! The crispy, salty fish with the peanuts, chilies and garlic were awesome, a perfect little bite. I also loved the h20. I liked the lingering, creaping heat of it. I mostly ate the tofu and let my wife have the fish. She thought it was a little bland, however, she ate the fish mostly sans sauce and with copius amounts of rice (what, she's Filapina), I thought it was fabulous and told her I thought she was off her rocker. The scallion pancake was one of the better renditions that I've had. All in all, loved the spice, would have love to see if it was better before or now. I won't make a special drive for it, but if I'm in the area I would definately stop. edited to add: I also tried the pasta with spicy meat sauce, I loved the sauce which was tounge searing, but the noodles were over cooked(big pet peave of mine, I hate mushy pasta).

depends...Robin the batman sidekick? I might sping for half your tab. Robyn your wife? Are you sure you want everyone knowing your kinky little games?;-)loland to make this food related, all small plates are 1/2 price on thursdays.....

The dress code thing is fairly new, but it is only enforced Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings after 9pm. Monday-Wed come on in in anything you wanna wear and we'll take care of you

I LOVE Good's Chips....ummmm cooked in lard....so good for my heart.....That and a sweet bologna sandwich, a cold yuengling and my feet in the cool creek....memories....

I was really disappointed this weekend with CTE. I'm going to chalk it up to a fluke as I usually have good food here but I haven't been for almost a year before this weekend. I ordered the soup dumplings and got a dish that looked familiar except that it lacked a)soup b)the tender wrapper (very thick and chewy, unpleasently so) c) any semblance of flavor, they were bland bland bland!! To follow this up my wife had the squid with black bean sauce, which I thought was okay but also weak in flavor and I had the stirfried crab with garlic and chilies, again zero flavor. Has anyone been recently? Is it an anomoly or has it fallen off of late? Or did I just misorder? I'd hate to think that one of the only good Chinese restaurants in CHINAtown has lost its groove......

you know what's good???? Take a half eaten capri sub from the Italian Store, leave it in the fridge overnight (this is very important). Remember that it's there first thing in the morning. Take out lettuce and tomatoes. Place in medium hot pan and top with 6 other heavy pans. Cook till first side is crisp, flip, repeat. Open sandwich, place handfull of jalapeno chips in center, smash and eat........soooooooo gooooood.

For those occasions when I don't feel like cooking lunch for myself, I wander over to Earl's and have a sandwich, a IPB Rootbeer and a bag of chips. I love the roast beef, pork and had a wonderfully fresh blt there the other day. The sourdough was lightly toasted and chewy at the crust, very well done. I like Steve and what he's doing there and I will continue to make it my goto for a sandwich and a soda. Much better than subway or any of those other places.

It's not often that I wax poetic about something but I feel inspired to share something with all of you. I have firmly been in the camp of people who prefer the other pizza place on Wisconsin to Comet Pizza on Conneticut. I like the other places atmosphere, range of items, prices....but last night there was a 40 min wait for a table of four at 6pm. With two hungry kids impatiently sliding about and generally fidgeting and being kids, I called Comet to find out how long the wait would be if we came over now. I was suprised to find the place more than half empty when we arrived and were seated immediately. While I wish there was more of a selection, we decieded on a cesar salad and minestrone soup. Both decent but not mind blowing. I did like the flavor of the soup that came from the wine, it was very rich. I ordered the #4 special pizza, spicy merguez, smoked mushrooms, garlic, tomato sauce and mozz. I had wanted to add riccota cheese but was told that "We don't allow modifications to the special pizzas"....alright, that's cool, no problem. When I got the pizza, I was slightly concerned that it seemed charred around the edges. But I shouldn't have been, that char was a marvelous flavor that intermingled with everything else. For $13 dollars, I very much believe that this was the best pizza I have ever eaten, period. I was crispy, chewy, perfect sauce, just enough cheese, great merguez with a slight kick, chunks of soft garlic....OMG it was incredible. I loved everything about it. My only gripe is that there isn't enough selection and for 4 people, four pizzas, two apps, two cakes and 4 sodas we dropped $98 dollars with tip (20%, good service)....but even that wasn't enough to deter from the perfect pizza I got.

So to answer some questions 1) Don's bargin was one of two available on monday. The other is any two small plates gets you the half price wine. That's the one we are keeping, which is a great deal. Also, we have $10.99 ribeye's on tuesdays. So we are keeping the specials, just tweaking them abit. 2) the new menus are in, and will soon be posted on the website. 3) Valentines Day special: four small plates, two glasses champagne, one dessert to share $65per couple, great deal!!!

there's another place in Annandale that serves these also. It's called Lunchtime and it's in the basement of an office building next to a McDonalds. One of my Korean friends say's this place serves the best noodles in Annandale. They also have great panfried dumplings.

Damn!!! I gotta get out there to eat, sounds AWESOME!

Hey!! I have a job......

You're such a nerd edited to eliminate triple spacing, I think

Bad Bad Bad...

As well behaved as my kids can be, could you imagine sitting at Le Bernadin and having your kid look at the third course, and as the server explains it, blurting out " Dad....this doesn't look very good and it smells bad."

My wife, who is an Australian citizen, informed me of the quiet, yet steady food revolution that has been going on in Sydney for the past 10 years. Now it ranks as on of the actual cities that I must go to to eat in along with Tokyo and Rome. In all of these cities I don't have any partiular restaurants that I want to eat in, I just want to spend a week asorbing the culture.

I like reducing the juice from a couple of pomegranates to a syrup to which I add some venison stock (beef would be fine) and I finish this with fresh pomegranate seeds. At the last minute I swirl in a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and use this as a sauce for venison. A reduction of the juice with a bit of verjus makes a nice sauce for scallops.

For cheap Latin eats, up 11th right before M (or right after) there is a lttle storefront place called El Riconcito. It's the standard mix of Mex/Salvadorenan with papusas, tacos, combos etc, but in my experience it's been very tasty and cheap and besides all my latin friends say it's better than most in the city and swear if you want good food you have to go to MD. I absolutely love Full Kee (cheap, cash only) but I'll also eat at Chinatown Express and The New Big Wong (don't know if I just like the name?) Big Wong has a fabulous deep fried pork chop that I order everytime. Hope that helps...

Philip was over last weekend and wanted something to read, so he pulled down a couple of my cookbooks (Aquavit and the French Laundry) and kept looking at the pictures and flipping pages asking if I could make those things. Finaly he pulled down two copies of Art Culinare, looks at various pictures asking, again, if I could make those thing, to which I repied, " I don't think they can even make those things..." My kids are also steak snobs, they like it Med Rare also, which I think is just so cute/great because I never new steak had a temperature till I was in college (Dad, "Grey is good for you, shut up and eat")

Going to hit up Kotobuki around 7:30ish for sushi maybe Blacksalt for dessert after or apps at Blacksalt first

Exactly my sentement.....

Trust me, all culinary schools teach you the same things. The CIA has a better reputation, which IMHO it rides on, but I find that it all depends on the students desire to learn. Most kids go to the CIA because it gives them name recongnition, but they lack the desire to make the most of it. I didn't go to the CIA and I know plenty of good chefs who didn't. But the best chefs get more out of the education that they are provided CIA, PCI or J&W.

My oldest (8) used to be interested in helping but now it's the youngest (6). Philip pushes his stool up to the sink, he likes to clean greens, green beans, peeling carrots. He helps to make the meatloaf, he's better than a kitchenaid . They went to the farmers market with me a couple of times this year, and did help out with my demo at the Dupont market on Fathers Day (I love those pictures!!) Philip is way more adventurous than Alex. Alex tends to like rice with soy, fried chicken, pepperoni pizza and ac and cheese. Philip loves ribs, steak, singapore noodles, shrimp, crab, calamari and God bless him, scrapple. He even likes mushrooms, which I didn't eat until I was 10. My little eating machine....