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funkyfood

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Everything posted by funkyfood

  1. Brought some out of towners here last night. My brother with a broken leg also joined us, and they were very accommodating by giving us a table big enough so he could prop his leg up (I had told him in advance). I did find it odd that they called us at 7:32 to ask if we still intended on using our 7:30 reservation. The restaurant itself looks like a Cheesecake Factory, I hate to say. Very, very bright and chainy, with loud dated pop music playing (think Train and Justin Timberlake) quite loudly. The environment seemed a bit incongruous with high end Asian food to be honest. Upon asking about a bottle of wine, our waitress referred us to the somellier, who seemed like a nice enough guy but also seemed a bit inexperienced in his demeanor (he forgot to top me off after serving me the sample and filling everyone else's glasses). ONTO THE FOOD: thankfully very good and fairly priced. I'm on my phone so I can't see the menu, but we all really enjoyed the crab curry (lots of crab), the giant whole fish with tons of flavors and meat ($32, very reasonable), and the adobo chicken (tangy and good portion). The raw fish dish from the Korean section didn't quite work for us but it wasn't bad. They forgot our order of seafood egg noodles, which I suspect was the symptom of new restaurant kinks. They also served us delicious sticky rice ($2 a bowl) to sop up the juices. Finally, we shared a really excellent sticky rice, mango and ice cream dessert that was remarkably restrained on the sweetness, which I loved. We paid $50-55 per person with tax and tip and left full. It's easier to fix the environment, service and music than the food, so hopefully they'll take make the tweaks needed. I'd go back sometime. Edit: forgot to mention that the cocktail menu was really unappealing. They may have been trying for kitchy but they just looked too sweet and uninteresting, especially for $15
  2. New record for most expensive chicken in the city? BTW, Convivial' s $41 poulet rouge, which comes with a delicious tarragon sauce, veggies and some fancy mashed potatoes is excellent. Not QUITE kinship-good, but cheaper and almost as good.
  3. I had both chicken sandwiches and the gravlax dish here a few weekends ago. All of them were very good, but none of them were great. I'd go back if in the neighborhood, but don't feel a need to drive over there often.
  4. Thoughts on this place: 1. The food was great. 2. The meal was interminable. More than 3 and a half hours for our party of 6. 3. The place is too fuckin' twee. Even with the food, I had a headache from rolling my eyes so often. Not rushing to go back
  5. FYI, those Twitter posts are 99.99999% fake. Either for clickbait or as some other scam. If it's too good to be true, etc.
  6. Gotta love the "I admit to not knowing what I'm talking about, but here is some advice I'm nonetheless confident in" approach
  7. I know this was satirical, but it really misses about every point, though I admit that Bitcoin zealots can be overbearing.
  8. Even at the very bottom of a downswing, each bitcoin is worth about $9,000 right now. Hardly a collapse.
  9. Glad to hear this place is still as reliable as ever. You say you didn't have their phone number, but why didn't you just look it up on your phone?
  10. Convivial now has a 3 courses for $40 menu Sunday through Thursday. You pick one item from three of five categories. Notably, you don't have to pick a dessert, so you can get a snack, starter and entree. The delicious poulet rouge is counts as two entrees.
  11. we got dinner at the bar last night. Everything was great (the hostess even scouted out two seats for us when it was full) but two main observations: the drinks here are much better than they used to be and that chicken is not only still by far the best roast chicken in DC, it's also on the very short list of best dishes in DC.
  12. In the same vein as the above, it boggles my mind that there is not, to my knowledge, a single third wave coffee shop in all of downtown Bethesda. First place to open there will print money.
  13. I forgot to write-up our Valentine's Day meal at Chloe, but I suppose better late than never. In all, we liked the place a lot, but aren't desperate to go back. Per my request, we were seated at the chef's counter, which provides one of the best views of an open kitchen in the city. In fact, I can't think of a DC restaurant with a better view of the kitchen--even including omakase bars. Everything we had was good to very good, including the beef hummus (which, as some others have mentioned, tasted like delicious "taco beef", but the hummus we had recently had a Shaya in New Orleans was far superior, in our opinion). Our waiter said the chicken was the best he had ever had, so we ordered that as our large dish. It was good, but a tiny bit dry, even when pouring the Vietnamese-inspired sauce over the top. Kinship's version still reigns supreme. Our pannacotta dessert may have been the best part of the meal. One small note: we did notice the waiter's attitude seem to take a noticeable turn for the worse after we let him know we wouldn't be getting a second drink. May have just been coincidental but we both noticed it.
  14. They're notable to me because their Dupont location is open 24-7 (I believe). Very few half-decent places are 24-7 in DC long-term. Many open as such, but quickly abandon the plan.
  15. Yes, good analogy: it is standing only like a corner pizza joint. That said, I found the staff to be kind and professional. I wonder if they could accommodate you somehow. This place takes its drinks very seriously and the bartenders know their stuff inside out and backwards, but it is decidedly NOT pretentious (you'll realize this the second you walk in). I went with some people who were wholly unfamiliar with bitters and asked some silly questions, but the bartender was happy to talk then through their options. The same bartender got into the weeds with me equally smoothly. All the drinks were fantastic. Edit: some of the photos of the place online (and indeed a post in this thread) show/reference barstools but I could swear there weren't any when I was there
  16. This is also my favorite bar in the world. The vibe is perfect, the bartenders are great, the drinks are outstanding and bitter, and the standing-only vibe is perfect for a night cap. Did the bar inspired by this place in Smoke & Barrel survive? We went there once and found quite sweet drinks--the opposite of these.
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