funkyfood

Inspired by an Israeli dish, ingeniously composed and thoughtfully executed with sublime accoutrements! So delicious beyond words!  Chef Dennis Friedman is Genius! 

What is it

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Gotta love the "I admit to not knowing what I'm talking about, but here is some advice I'm nonetheless confident in" approach

the title of this should be Pho Nom Nom (not Nam Nam)

I know this was satirical, but it really misses about every point, though I admit that Bitcoin zealots can be overbearing.

Even at the very bottom of a downswing, each bitcoin is worth about $9,000 right now.  Hardly a collapse.

Last night we had wonderful service from the folks at Ghibellina, despite being the customers from...heck. I always pride myself on not being late for reservations, but last night--arriving separately--both my husband and I were more than 15 minutes late. He drove past the restaurant right on time, but it took him a long time to find parking quite a few blocks away. He still got there before I did. I underestimated the time to get there by metro, left a bit later than I planned, and then turned the wrong way coming out of the U Street station. I didn't have the restaurant's number with me to call and say I/we were late. Score!  By the time he arrived about 20 minutes late, they had cancelled the reservation. (The 15-minute policy is clearly stated on the web site.) Then they gave him a table anyway!  Very nice. I'd also made a fussy request on the notes section of the reservation form, because my cousin was supposed to be joining us an hour after our reservation, so we were pretty high maintenance.  

Anyway, they were all just lovely. Our waiter was fantastic. We had an enjoyable meal and joined my cousin at the bar after we finished eating.  We had the Salsicca Pizza (sausage and onions). It was served uncut and was a little bit soupy, which is how I assume it's supposed to be. We liked it. There was nice blistering/charring on the crust. And the scissors for cutting it were fun . My husband also had the soup of the day which was a tomato soup with carrots and other vegetables. He raved about it. I liked the spoonful I sampled but wasn't really in the mood for tomato soup.  For salads, he had the Insalata Cavola, and I thoroughly enjoyed my Insalata Lattuga.  I also ate most of his polenta croutons. Loved those.

My cousin enjoyed his Margherita pizza at the bar later, and it was great to see him, since it had been almost a decade.  The last time we saw him, we had gone to the Dupont Pizzeria Paradiso...and that was before it changed locations.

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?

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.

I'm a pretty big Taylor supporter but the ChiKo sandwich is a mess, and not in a good way.

what do you mean by you suggesting that we "not order[] cocktails *at that hour*"?

2 hours ago, Mark Slater said:

Cool seems a little easier to say.

That's because you're used to saying it.  Yes, Israelis use the word sababa frequently.  

"Graffiato's New Chapter Puts Restaurateur Mike Isabella back into the Kitchen" by Laura Hayes on washingtoncitypaper.com

2 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

This is the first post in over twelve years here that has left me without any response.

I didn't mean anything snarky by it! Just wanted to share the news since it seemed relevant

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.  

I was at Little Serow a few weeks ago, and Johnny told me he's worked every Valentine's day for 14 straight years, FWIW.

(NB - I hope everyone sees the distinction I make between a "chef" (Johnny Monis, Frank Ruta, Eric Ziebold, Tom Power, Tony Conte) and a "restaurateur" (Ashok Bajaj, Fabio Trabocchi) and/or "figurehead" (José Andrés) - I'm not sure if Mike Isabella is a restaurateur or a figurehead. There's absolutely nothing wrong or dishonorable with being any of the three, but being a "chef" involves running a kitchen. Maybe I'm wrong, but the correct meaning of the word is the standard I use: A "chef" is a position; not a permanent title - Trabocchi, Andrés, and Isabella are all capable of going back to being chefs, but they all chose, perhaps wisely, to leave that profession.)

Not once have I ever wavered on this.

In France, for example, a "chef d'orchestre" is a conductor; not an owner, or PR director, but a conductor who stands up there, in front of the musicians, with a baton, and "chef" is a French word.

Mike Isabella is taking over as full time chef at graffiato soon

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.

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. 

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.

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

Wait, momofuku doesn't have ramen anymore? How did this not get noticed until now

On ‎11‎/‎17‎/‎2013 at 4:11 PM, Nathan Anda said:

This is my favorite bar in the world.  Its a routine stop every time I'm in NYC.  I've been quite lucky to have always managed to snag a seat at the bar too.  Their selection of amaros is so deep.  I tried a Mexican Fernet last time, really good.  

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.