zgast

3 hours ago, dracisk said:

My husband gave my 6-year-old a big bowl of Goldfish and an orange soda at 5pm. 🙄🤯 Shockingly, she's not hungry for dinner. But still wants dessert!

Sounds like a yummy dinner to me!  Goldfish are the one kid food that I'll still go for all of the time.

32 minutes ago, leleboo said:

International? CRIPES. Where ya headed? We are building a house up the road (different school district) and the Air Force will be paying for our move, and and we rent now so we don’t have to sell this time. It’s STILL stressful. 

Lion, that seems hard for 1st grade. We still (HAHAHAHAH) don’t have our final plan, but the suggestion was that it would be a bit of synchronous time in the morning, and asynchronous otherwise. Plus my 3rd grader gets gifted services, so that’s also supposed to be a once-a-week synchronous pull-out. But spending all day replicating “school” ... that sounds hard. At least you have a lunch break! 

London - which is why I can forgive myself for ordering in two meals today (partly first day of school reasons, too).  Any move is tough though.

I can't imagine trying to supervise virtual school for a six year old. Meals are something that should be simple, simple at that point.

1 hour ago, lion said:

It does seem like a long march with distance learning for kids.

Today, our rising 1st grade son had a video chat with his new teacher. From what she said, the school day will be much fuller than the spring term as they have prepared to replicate a regular school day's activities with specials and different level reading and math groups. 

Everyday lunch will be between 12 and 1, so at least our schedule will be more fixed moving into the fall. At least dinner has fallen into a routine where we rotate thru 7-8 things over two weeks.

 

You could always mix things up by trying to orchestrate an international move and home sale.  Can't recommend it highly enough - it's doing wonders for my anxiety level.....

7 hours ago, DonRocks said:

"These Planter-Like Urinals Are Amsterdam's Answer to the Problem of 'Wild Peeing'" by Jack Guy on edition.cnn.com

---

Arduous Journeys to the Restroom (DonRocks)
Alberto's (DonRocks)

The last line is what got me.  I'm just imagining an old fashioned water wheel that spins around when you pee on it.  You could make it like the carnival game where you hit the base with a hammer to see if you can hit the bell.  Sales of FloMax would skyrocket!

16 minutes ago, Ericandblueboy said:

I don't think anyone is thinking long-term.  You can get $600 a week to not work, so why work if the work pays less than that (and you put yourself at risk)?  When the benefit runs out, you can always go back to your old job or get a new job.  There's not a shortage of lower-wage jobs.  

I guess one way to reconcile the findings is that if you were making more than $600 a week before, then you would keep looking for a new job.  If you were making less than $600 a week before, then why work when you can get more not to work.

I saw the Yale study and had the same initial thought - why did they get those results?  It's not the latter explanation, by the way, 2/3rds of people got more than their prior income in unemployment benefits ($600 federal plus the normal state benefit), and the result was statistically significant, meaning 2/3rds would have been irrational in the short term.  I think what they're actually seeing is people thinking longer term combined with states that threatened to withdraw benefits if people didn't return to work.

Anecdotally, servers and others locally are absolutely making the rational, short-term decision to stay home and accept more money.  I've spoken to several restaurant owners that are dealing with this - I should add that most completely sympathize with the servers, who would see their actual earnings when they return plummet not just from the benefit level but even from their actual earnings prior to Covid.  My guess is that they'll have to return in the absence of a benefit extension and we'll see a second leg down in consumer spending.  I haven't heard this about cooks, though, interestingly.  Perhaps it's the tips (and previously higher take home pay) that make the difference?

I do think though that it's important to remember that all this behavior is exactly why experts argued for larger unemployment benefits - to incentivize people to stay home to flatten the curve.  Framing benefits as a percentage of prior earnings would have worked at a lower cost, but the unemployment systems simply didn't allow for it.  Sometimes policies are whatever works and is implementable rather than what's the absolute best way to accomplish something.

OK - so I'm going to wade into this discussion with a slight variant - best Bagel Sandwich.  Call Your Mother just opened up a trolley in Bethesda (so that us MoCo people never have to leave the county) and I suggested my wife and daughter pick up bagels to start their road trip to NOLA for junior year.  The next few hours were full of random texts about the best bagel sandwich ever and how they literally stopped driving so that they could completely enjoy it.  The sandwich was the Sun City Bagel - everything bagel with eggs, bacon, cheddar, American cheese and spicy honey.  

Well - with those raves, I just had to try this bad boy out. Two weeks (and three bagel sandwiches later), I'm going to jump on the bandwagon.  Damn.  That's an amazing sandwich. I want to be a pig on the farm where they get that bacon.  I'm just imagining those pigs chilling in mud hot tubs with twice daily massages or something.  Ditto for the cheddar.  The American cheese actually works well with the rest too. It's a belly bomb and is not helping me drop the Covid 19, but I consider my indulgences restrained based on how good this bagel was.

There's a variant with pastrami instead of bacon but my bad Jew gene kept me fixated on the bacon.  I'll let you know if I ever try the pastrami before I move.  I did try the Banyan Tree, which is herbed cream cheese with bacon, jalapeño and red cabbage.  Good, but nothing like the Sun City, which should be placed on top of a trophy case somewhere.

We also tried the bagels (3 everything, 3 zaatar, 3 sesame and 3 plain) but we usually freeze ours to eat over the course of a couple weeks and we found that they tended to burn when you defrost and toast them before the insides were totally warmed.  I'm sure that's not how Consumer Reports would test bagels, but it's how we actually eat them so we'll probably stick with Bethesda Bagels because what's the other option?  Leave MoCo?

On 7/25/2020 at 4:54 PM, zgast said:

And all of the above was appreciated as I'm considering a couple nights there next week!

Back from our few nights in Shepherdstown.  Nothing to report on the Bavarian Inn.  We stayed there, but it was PACKED and a number of guests weren't exactly wearing masks so we just didn't feel comfortable dining there at all.  Dinners were at Hecho en Mexico, which was decent American Mexican food, and the Press Room.  A couple really good dishes - the Pork Milanese and our two salads (wedge and burrata over arugula).  Maria's Taqueria was probably the best meal we had there - grabbed lunch and it was just a really solid taco place.  Not horribly authentic (lettuce, cheese and tomato come on the tacos), but the meats were all so wonderfully cooked that it still hit the spot completely.

As an aside, Harper's Ferry was a ghost town. I can't imagine the permanent pain this is going to cause to the surrounding communities.  We went for a hike in the park, which was delightful. For some reason, though, the Parks Service has closed most of the parking lots so many of the best hikes are basically off limits unless you're really willing to work for it.  I'm completely unclear what closing an unmanned parking lot accomplishes besides encouraging people not to get out and exercise in a responsible manner.

On 7/18/2020 at 12:16 PM, DonRocks said:

You know what? I think (I'm not sure, but I think) this might be the first critique I've ever read about the Bavarian Inn, even though I've been hearing about it for ages. Thanks for writing it.

And all of the above was appreciated as I'm considering a couple nights there next week!

There's going to be a bloodbath at the regional and local bank level if rental rates reset lower (and I have a hunch that this is absolutely correct - I know many firms that are absolutely rethinking their office plans now that WFH has been proven effective). Regional banks can basically only compete in commercial real estate.  It almost killed them during the GFC (and did kill those most exposed to construction) and will be even worse if the core portfolios take a hit. Cap rates are absurdly low right now but when the numerator goes down, that's what hurts.

14 hours ago, jandres374 said:

Closed.

"French Restaurant Le Vieux Logis Closes in Bethesda" by Dan Schere on bethesdamagazine.com

The chef was cooking French classics well. I believe there was a death in the family (and restaurant management).  Have to imagine that's hard to recover from even before Covid.  We'll miss this chef and his work.

On 6/15/2020 at 6:59 PM, zgast said:

Sign of the apocalypse #245: The only decent place in this shopping center to eat goes down before Cici's and TGI Fridays.

Cici's goes down next.  As an aside, my wife and daughter had the bagel sandwiches from the Call Your Mother trolley and were raving.

On 7/7/2020 at 11:35 PM, DonRocks said:

Can someone point us to a good, consistent, reliable graph on the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths daily in the United States?

This is the best state by state breakout of daily new cases I've seen.  It's what comes up if you google 'coronavirus map'.   

13 hours ago, Pool Boy said:

I gave up on this show maybe 6 to 8 seasons ago. It's one of the best of the format, but it is just over IMHO.

I still enjoy it.  It's theater, but fun to see what great chefs can do when thrown a curveball.  Even better when they just say - cook a great meal.

I have to say that by the final five or so, I kept thinking how great the remaining contestants were as people (and I'd throw Eric from DC in this group as well).  In other seasons, there were always a few jerks who you actively rooted against.  Who goes on national tv and presents themselves that way?

12 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Even if you don't like McDonald's cheeseburgers (*), I hope you understand the point(s) I was trying to make. I'm certain that you do, even if you might not agree.

(*) Substitute whatever guilty-pleasure, low-quality, industrial, slut food (**) that attracts you at a primal level. A Snickers bar (***), perhaps?

(**) In 1-5, perhaps 10 years, I'll be crucified for using terms like this, even though I mean absolutely *nothing* by using them other than that they (****) sound funny.

(***) Ain't nobody who can tell me that beluga caviar tastes better than a Snickers bar.

(****) I used 4-out-of-5 words with four letters, one syllable, and beginning with "th," entirely by accident.

Cheez Guvnah,
Rocks

Tortilla chips - crappy, industrial tortilla chips.

Oh - and Popeyes.  I've never had Beluga caviar, actually, so can't make any comparison there.

14 hours ago, DonRocks said:

There isn't a bottle of wine, jar of caviar, or lobe of foie gras - anywhere in this world - that "tastes" any better than a McDonald's cheeseburger.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here.  While I do - on occasion - eat a McDonald's cheeseburger, it is not something I welcome or enjoy in any way.  I would put any number of things light years ahead of MickeyDs.  Forget some exquisite taste from Annabelle or Minibar or P&P, I mean even the simple stuff.  

I do agree that simple tastes can be just as pleasurable as the truly transcendent ones, though.  They're just different.

1 hour ago, deangold said:

I don't give Uncle Ben's very much time. 

they actually announced a change yesterday.

4 hours ago, dcs said:

The Entire Staff Quit Over This Coffee Shop’s Racist and Covid-Denying Tweets. The Owner Claims They’re Not His, by Jessica Sidman, June 16, 2020, on washingtonian.com.

I am speechless.

Veering between sharing your reaction and about to explode.  Forget the crazy political and social views for a second, who thinks that treating employees like this is remotely acceptable?  What made them stick around for so long?  Not blaming the victims, but we've got to do better teaching people to out this early and often.

Sign of the apocalypse #245: The only decent place in this shopping center to eat goes down before Cici's and TGI Fridays.

24 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

Yes, because I'd need to train (and perhaps dine with), but a fair amount of the work could be done remotely.

OK - not sure I can help locally.

If the apps are having a hard time making money in the current environment, the business isn't sustainable.  Adding a cool, scalable tech platform to a low-margin, manual business doesn't really change the core business.  What do they say about solving negative gross margins with higher sales?

As to discriminatory pricing, it absolutely does exist.  Here's an article that's more comprehensive, but does include some discussion of that.  There are other, trickier ways to get at the same thing.  Popeye's, for example will include specials for in store that aren't available on their app for pickup or delivery.  

Would the person need to be local?  

53 minutes ago, dracisk said:

Now that you mention it I've heard of them in India, too, but I've personally never encountered them outside China.

I've encountered them in Malaysia as well.

32 minutes ago, steveeat12 said:

My doctor has ordered me to eat more salads.  I am writing this e-mail to see what peoples favorite restaurants they like in Bethesda that offer  the salads.

I think it as "the best of the best salads in town".   If anyone knows a fantastic restaurant that (in your opinion) is the best salad in town please do let me know.

Thank you

Stephen Hosmer

stephenhosmer12@gmail.com 

Honestly, Cava would get my vote.  Sweetgreen is good as well, but you somehow end up paying $18 for a salad, which seems absurd.  Barrel & Crow has a good beet salad, but it's a smaller portion.  Persimmon has a wedge salad that's not remotely healthy but tastes really good.   Maybe Jaleo, where you could assemble some good tapas and call it a salad?  Endives with goat cheese, Catalan spinach, and the Sauteed cauliflower with dates and olives are all good.  The first is actually really easy to make at home.  Good luck.

17 hours ago, DonRocks said:

I heard P.F. Chang's in Friendship Heights has closed permanently - is it that?

P.F. Chang's is vile. So, no.

5 hours ago, lion said:

I've been getting tired of the same toaster oven or big oven pizza at home as well so ordered a 12" BK carbon steel pan to try. Sur la Tab has had discounts of 30-40% off. Unfortunately, recent articles are suggesting that they will end in bankruptcy. 

Just had that awful moment where a restaurant that's been a big part of my life here in DC will have to close permanently if things don't turn around in the next week or two. I work in finance, I know this is all real in the abstract, but hearing it from a family favorite really was just a heart wrenching moment.  What makes this even tougher is that this is a place that does delivery and carryout - and they're still just weeks from the end.  Ugh.  Ugh ugh ugh.