KeithA

The big duck is indeed good with a great hoisin sauce. You can also get it as a half a duck ($17) which is an ample one person serving. Another hold over from the more upscale Yanyu is the honey sea bass which I had at Yanyu and it was great. Never had it at Spices but my guess is it is the same quality dish. Recently, I had the shaky beef which was rather tasty too. Also I just saw Don's comment in the Peking Duck thread - the Spice Big Duck is a full serving off of a whole/half duck. They still bring it out to you for show and carve it in the dining room. So no skimping at all and they usually ask if you want to take the bones home for duck soup. I think it is a pretty good value. Also, to the question of cucumbers - they do give them to you but it is in addition to scallions. You could easily pull off the cucumers. I kind of like the added crunch, but I can see why others would like the more traditional accoutrement only.

Everything I've read and seen when driving by is that Malgudi is in Glover Park - however, when I drove by 17th and P street recently, I noticed a similar Heritage India upstairs and Malgudi below. Is this the same restaurant? Has anyone been to the P street one and is it similarly good? I've never been to either but had been planning on going and the P street is much easier to get to by metro (few blocks east of Dupont).

First time here today for lunch. I had 3 tacos: the fried squash blossom filled with cheese special, chicken, and lamb. The squash blossoms with the tomatoey ranchero sauce was the best followed closely by the lamb with pickled vegetables, chopped onion and cilantro. Both were well-made, fresh and well seasoned generating lots of good flavor. The chicken was ok, it had some spice to it, but needed some of the tomatillo salsa to wake it up a bit. The food was quick, cooked well and relatively cheap - under $9 for 3 tacos. Later when driving home, I passed by Pica Taco off Columbia Road (a more traditional, hole in the wall hispanic place) and decided I had room for 1 more and it might be nice for a comparison. I had 1 barbaco beef taco which came with chopped onions and cilantor and a lime wedge. The taco was fine but seriously lacked flavor - the meat was tender but tasted almost like nothing. Tacquiera Nacional for the win today.

Tried out the newish Duke's Grocery today for lunch over in Dupont on 17th street. First a few odd things: 1) it is not much of a grocery - they have a few baskets of produce for sale, but it is really a restaurant, 2) its menu consists solely of sandwiches, a few sides and a bar menu - but for now they do not offer carry out sandwiches (concerns about too long of a wait when they have a tiny open kitchen and basically one (maybe 2 sometimes cooks), 3) it looks like it'd be a place for counter service, but they have bartenders and waiter?/food runners so it is unclear whether tipping is expected. I sat at the bar where you order on the ground floor when you enter - but they have an upstairs with tables and some other ledges and stools around on the first floor too. Overall, I think they are still trying to figure out what their concept really is. Nevertheless, the bar is nice and 2 young bartenders were very friendly and nice explaining the menu and chatting. Now onto the food. So the price/value is great here. All of the amply portioned sandwiches are just under $10 with tax included and despite my gluttony of finishing my whole Brick Lane Salt Beef monster, it easily could be shared by 2 people. The other couple of sandwiches I saw come out were equally well-made, fresh in the kitchen using mostly homemade ingredients in small batches and likewise large. The sandwiches come on a variety of breads from Lyon Bakery including rye, ciabatta, etc. I've never been to the UK nor had Salt Beef but it was described as less salty corned beef. It had thick cut soft white bread that was good and then piled high large chunks of tender beef (not melt in your mouth, but soft). The sandwich is slathered with sinus-cleansing Colman Mustard (think horseradish or chinese spicy mustard without the heat) and house made dill pickles with bit of onion laced within. I said next time I'd get the sandwich with less mustard and more of the good pickles. The sandwich was good and definitely well made with quality ingredients - but I think the mustard overwhelmed the somewhat lightly seasoned meat. Probably go back and get something else or maybe the salt beef on rye with sauerkraut and dilled mustard (Ruby on Rye). Besides these 2 options there are several pork ones, a chicken salad, and a vegetarian aubergine/eggplant sandwich - but check/call before you go if you want something particular as most of the menu changes according to the staff.

Went last Saturday night for first time and had some good food and good/bad service issues. Upon checking in for our reservation we were told they were running 15 minutes behind and so after waiting at the bar for about 15-20 minutes, we finally were seated at one of the several tables that had been sitting empty for about 15 minutes. This was the hint, later confirmed, that they have service issues to work out. For such a big busy place, you would figure they would be rushing to turn tables and seat people waiting, but rather we saw this rather long delay between quick cleaning of tables and finally seating waiting partners at the idle tables. Service issues continued after we were sitted and then simply ignored for 10 minutes (no water, no menus, nothing). Finally, the sommelier spotted us and asked us if we'd like some water and poured. Again, odd service as we were in the middle of the dinning room with waiters, busboys, runners, etc whizzing around us constantly. After the sommelier also had someone bring us menus, then we were able to quickly get his helpful advice a bottle of wine. Then, after we've never seen a waiter and waiting now about 20 minutes since being sitted - I flagged down a waiter and nicely but insisted that he send our waiter over. Luckily that was the end of the service issues - the waiter apologized and comped us the excellent mushroom tart (really a mini mushroom pizza like thing on puff pastry). The bread basket that people have raved about was good in that it had a decent variety of well made bread (but none were so great that I would ask for seconds). I enjoyed the duck breast entree which was a large portion and definitely on the sweeter side in terms of sauce and the accompanying figs but balanced with a nice peppery crust. My wife had the steak frite which came with a huge mess of thin, crispy salty good fries (enough fries really for our whole table of 3). I tasted the hangar steak and it was well cooked and tasty if a bit bland (maybe it would have benefited from the matre' butter she left off). Our friend really enjoyed the large onion soup but she felt the ravioli appetizer was nothing special. The chocolate napoleon dessert was very good - nice layering of different chocolate flavors and textures (thin chocolate wafers, different mousses, and a chocolate chip cookie/cake like base and a scoop of ice cream) - definitely a delight for the chocoholic in me. My wife loved the profiteroles and I thought they were ok. My issue with both desserts was the ice creams which seemed less creamy and more watery. Overall, we had a good time which would have been better without the early evening service issues - but the staff's finally stepping up helped to correct any ill feeling.

A few weeks ago I snagged a bunch of red okra at the Ballston farmers market and made this dish (various versions of the recipe are everyone on the net). Unfortunately, I think I sliced the okra too thin and ended up with mostly fried crunchy slivers without much okra taste. I also have the remaining okra in the process of pickling - should be ready in a few more days. The funny thing about red okra is that it is almost as if the redness is painted on - when you cook the okra it turns back to green and in the pickle jars I now have green okra and reddish water. Should be interesting.

Stopped by the 19th street location for lunch today - first time at this place. I was lucky and had a hit with the grilled chicken chermoula sandwich and fries, but my wife's curry chicken salad and potato salad were not so hot. We go to Breadline pretty regularly and it doesn't surprise me that this place started out with Furstenberg's help as it is very similar in concept - the fries are also very similar as are the cold salads. So many choices it was hard to decide, but I went for unusual with the chicken chermoula and was rewarded. Very nice grilled baguette loaded with grilled chicken that was chopped up and marinaded in a garlicky herb sauce and topped with roasted tomatos. I don't do pork so I skipped the bacon on the chicken and I don't think I was missing much. Now having read the thread above, apparently the chermoula is one of the go to items for others too. Definitely another worthy lunch option for sandwich lovers in the area.

Went back to Union Market last weekend when the Crafty Bastards festival was going on in the parking lot. The festival was nice and draw, the downside was that parking was a bit tight even with the other lot open on 6th street. As for the food, the DC Empanadas were pretty good especially with the good cilantro sauce they offer with them. Generally, I haven't found that much worth a special trip EXCEPT Neopol the smoked fish stand has some really tasty products. I got a 1/4 lb each of the carmelized smoke salmon and the peppercorn salmon. This is whole sided of hot smoked salmon with these toppings/crusts (not lox-style). Really excellent stuff. I can't wait to try the thai rub and other stuff. I did have a taste of the whitefish salad, but it was only ok.

Last night at a wine tasting event at Oya, I had the excellent yet unusual sparkling pineapple wine, Hula O' Maui from Tedeschi vineyards in Hawaii. It was fruity, yet not cloyingly sweet and very refreshing. I saw that you can order direct from the vineyard, but the shipping costs are rather high from Hawaii to DC. Anyone know of a retail store in DC that sells this wine?

Last night, my wife and I grabbed a quick dinner at the bar. You know something good must be happening at Proof when it is a Tuesday night around 9pm and there is still a 20 minute wait for a regular table, luckily the bar was available immediately. My wife also had this goat cheese dish which we thought was excellent. It comes with a little salad and some very fresh warm, flatbread/pita to spread the goat cheese on. I thought the honey added the perfect sweet note to complement the cheese's tanginess. For a starter, I had the mushroom bisque which comes with one large aranchini - which was very filling and nice. I then had the duck confit with corn/scallion hush puppies. The duck was a good rendition, but the hush puppies were really great. I would love a basket of them. I had to fight off my wife's fork after I gave her a taste ;-) My wife had the gnocchi with corn and cherry tomatos. The gnocchi were really good, but I thought there was too much of the thin, but tasty sauce on the plate. Overall a very delightful last minute dinner choice.

Chipotle is cheap and tasty and fast. You can't beat that combo and their food is "healthier" in the sense that they offer brown rice (which I get and tastes rather good) and better meats. Healthy is in quotes because the portions are huge - definitely better to make it into 2 meals instead of one unless you are really hungry.

Earlier this week I had the lamb sandwich and would recommend giving it a try. Unlike most/all? of the other sandwiches it comes on a house-made pita which is very good and held up well when I ate it with my hands. The lamb was roasted and then reheated on a grill so it was very flavorful but also had some crispy bits (maybe a bit less time on the grill would be better). It is also a generous portion which seems to be the MO at G. The lamb is topped with tzatiki, pickled onions and fresh dill. Unlike other reviews I've read, I didn't find there to be too much dill, just right. By only minor complaint with G is that they wrap up all of the sandwiches to go even if you are eating there (and they have plenty of seats and tables) - this was annoying with the lamb sandwich because a bunch of the the tzatiki sauce got spread all over the paper wrapper instead of the sandwich - probably not an issue for the other hoagie roll sandwiches. So far I've enjoyed both of my trips to G and plan to return.

True to my word, had the Pastrami to go today with some dill pickles - excellent. Meat is just spectacular - a bit spicy, moist, just the right amount of falling apart and good mix of fat and lean meat on the sandwich. The pickles are very crisp yet well flavored from the dill and lots of garlic. Definitely worth the trek

We've been picking a variety of stuff at Larriland for years, but this Saturday we couldn't help ourselves and picked a ridiculous amount of peaches, blackberries, and gala apples. Soon we realized that we'd need to make some jam or ice cream, etc ASAP. So a neighbor taught us how to can and now I have 20+ small jars of peach, blackberry jams and some quarts of ice cream. What are your favorite jam recipes? (we mostly did basic fruit plus sugar but spiced peach jam was really good too).

I didn't try them at Willow, but they are macarons (one "o") and very different from coconut macaroons. Your description is spot on and they were making a buzz about a year or so ago as the next dessert trend but have since faded some. They often come in different filling flavors. I'm sure there are several french or french-ish bakeries around town where you can buy them (often as mini-one bites or larger full cookies size).

Finally had a chance earlier this week to try Willow for the first time at lunch. We both had the burgers which were rather good. The bun is nice, burgers were cooked to correct medium rare and had a different, but nice smoky taste to them. However, I didn't think the dijonaise was that great and should of just had regular mustard (they do serve it and ketchup on the side for you to spread yourself which I like). Also, the slightly pickled (read closer to raw) onions didn't add much of anything because of the strong smoky meat overpowered them (I say this as strong lover of onions in all things). So I think with a few tweaks it could be better. The duck-fat fries were a deep brown and extra crispy while still being soft inside - excellent! Despite the pretty good grub, we had some odd service/food issues. I ordered by burger without cheese and was brought one with cheese. It was quickly ushered away and a new one was returned a few minutes later, but it didn't have the onions. So after I asked for them, they were brought. This is somewhat minor as they quickly fixed the issues, but it showed the wait staff wasn't the most attentive (also weren't when we sat around forever waiting for the check). Other and oddest thing was the lemonade they served my friend. It was basically lemon juice with ice - SO tart with no trace of sugar to be undrinkable. Again, they fixed it when brought to their attention, but again a mistake that really shouldn't have occurred. It is worth checking out the burger if you are nearby, but not worth a special trip. Also, a few blocks away behind the Westin hotel, Big Buns (a very casual burger place, not a strip club despite the name) also offers less expensive and very good juicy burgers with lots of topping choices. Big Buns' burgers are not as gourmet, but they are good and cooked to order (thick patties - not like Five Guys) so I'm not sure if I'll be back much to Willow for the burger unless it was a work lunch. The fries are definitely better at Willow, but BBs are tasty too.

Amsterdam falafel has been my go-to falafel place for years now. Today's lunch was good with fresh, crispy but light balls and the usual large array of fresh toppings and good fries. However, why oh why did they start using shitty pita bread. It was extra small and thin so it was hard to fill with toppings and lacked any flavor. They used to have pretty good more pillowy pita bread (factory-made I'm pretty sure, not homemade), but I guessed they changed. This is a real shame because it would otherwise have been a pretty perfect meal. What is up with the lack of decent pita bread at casual Mediterranean places (or Dutch here) in DC? The two med places in Cleveland Park have awful, thin pitas that get soggy and fall apart. I'd love fresh made, Israeli-style pita, but I'd settle for the decent King of Pita brand from VA that I can by in the grocery store.

We are additicted to the chicken kabobs at OC Kabob in the Gold Coast Mall at 115th. We have been coming to OC Kabob for about 4 years now. Along with the other perennial and much better known beach food, we always head to OC Kabob for lunch kabobs most days when we are at the beach. I just returned from my 3rd weekend this summer in OC and we happily at OC Kabob about 6 times in 8 days. The chicken kabob sandwiches are our favorites - it is a large amount of perfectly spiced and moist chicken (not dried out like many kebob places) with very good tzatiziki sauce. (although my wife thinks it is even better without the sauce to taste the chicken better). The great thing about this place is the consistency of their cooking. The things that are really good are pretty much always good - even year to year. Other things we like are the kofta kabob, fresh made baba ghanouj, couscous, and baklava (made here with more honey than other places which is nice). These are all great. A few items that could be better - falafel could be crispier and have better spices. Fries (which we still always get because who doesn't like fries) have no salt and sometimes could be a bit crispier. Vegetable kabobs are ok - but need a bit longer on the grill - onion chunks come off somewhat raw sometimes. So many of the beach restaurants serve junk or poorly cooked food - go here and get some chicken kabobs you won't be disappointed. We usually get carry out, but they have a nice set of booths and larger tables for groups and friendly service too. We look forward to eating more deliciousness on our next trip in a few weeks. We also continue to go to Dumser's Dairyland (location at 123rd street) which doesn't seem to change. Amazing rich ice cream, huge sundaes and awesome hot fudge. Root beer floats are good too. Lately I've been really enjoying the peanut butter fudge flavor. Unfortunately, we've also been going there for dinner, pre-ice cream and the non-dessert food is pretty meh. The one shining light sometimes is the fried chicken. One time it was wonderful, another time not so much. Tried the new Rosenfeld's Jewish Deli at 63rd? street right next to where Coastal Hwy meet Rt 90. Full disclosure - Warren Rosenfeld the owner is an old acquitance of mine and I wish him the best on the success of having a real Jewish deli in OC. He is a real mensch and deserves it. As his website says it is the only Jewish within a 2 hour drive. For those familiar with the good, not great deli of Parkway Deli in Silver Spring, this place will be very familiar. The woman who was the old manager of Parkway for years settled down in OC and now is working here too. We had carryout so things would have probably been better fresh in the restaurant which has a few seats inside (as well as a takeout counter) and a nice outdoor shaded patio with a good number of tables. We had a very good kasha knish and great whitefish salad (made in store), but the ____'s Guilt sandwich was only so so - it is a non-homemade potato knish split and piled high with corned beef. Like Parkway, the pastrami and corned beef come from Saval, which can be good as I'm a fan of Parkway, but meat was kind of meh on the sandwich and the knish would have been so much better if it wasn't the square, frozen type you get from a cart in NY (one brand of this style is Gabilla), but a homemade more rounded knish with fresh pastry on the outside (like the kasha knish here). Also, this dish definitely suffered from being carried out and steaming in its box. The other good thing we had was the baltimore-style Coddie (shredded cod fish/maybe salt cod with a bit of seasoning, rolled in bread crumbs and fried). If you've been to 2Amys and had the cod croquettes - this the same idea, but less refined but still declious. I didn't try sandwich on rye, but the bread looked good and the sandwiches are piled pretty high (three different sizes you can order from - 8, 10 or 12 oz). They only opened this season, so hopefully they'll work out the kinks and keep serving up good Jewish fare. Despite the heavy emphasis on the Jewish nature of the deli in its literature - it is NOT kosher, but does have kosher Hebrew National salami and bologna. Fisher's Popcorn - oh how I love thee. Just get it and eat up this delicious caramel popcorn where they haven't changed their practices in years - making fresh caramel in copper kettles and mixing with fresh popped popcorn. However, next to the Fisher's in Fenwick across from Rt. 54 - you can skip the Grab a Taco stand that they opened. We had two fresh fried rockfish tacos and a cheese quesadilla and it was a shame they were weak all around.First, the gals in the kitchen could care less about cooking. Orders piled up and people just waited and waited for food that should be pretty quick to make. It didn't help the service or taste that the cook let the tortilla get over cooked on the flat top. This somewhat ruined the cheese quesadilla (which is pretty tough to do for such an easy dish we got for the kiddies). The fish in the tacos was very fresh which was good - but otherwise the taco lacked flavor. Fish wasn't seasoned, oddly it came with thin guacamole (we misunderstood when they called it "green crack") that wasn't tasty, and the cabbage slaw was basically plain chopped cabbage. The whole thing cried out for salt, pepper and a squeeze of lime. The roasted pepper salsa was basically a portion of canned peppers in their can juice - no spice or acid whatsoever. While this place has promise since it is serving fresh tacos which I believe are otherwise unavailable in the OC area - it isn't worth the trip till the recipes and cooking are revamped. Such a shame. My father-in-law told me about a fish place in Bethany called David's Camp, i believe, and we plan to check it out next time. Anyone been? We need some new kid-friendly places in our limited rotation.

The emphasis on vast variety as well as local selections was apparent at the Ballston location when I went a few months ago. At that time, they were still bringing in delivery food from other places, so I don't know what types of food or kitchen they have now. I'm sure the Reston one will be similar in terms of variety.

See I see this statement as problematic. Even if a professional journalist or chef with lots of experience (let alone the more occassional diners who make of the bulk of this board) said I disagree with another person's assessment but I haven't even eaten there myself, I don't think that is fair or helpful. Food and restaurants are fickle, personal experiences - we all have our own personal tastes and places/chefs have on and off nights. All of the non-paid foodie reviewers such as those who post on this board all bring different levels of experiences/backgrounds with food and different approaches to their reviews (just like the paid reviewers) so I think the only way to sift through it all is to take it with a grain of salt, learn what you personally like and whose opinion you think to rely on and go taste it for yourself. Some people post reviews on this board after only 1 visit or even to say they are excited about something based on past experience with the chef or even the type of dish (myself included), whereas a minority seem to post reviews only after multiple visits checking on consistency (like the paid reviewers). Is one review better than another? I think it depends on what aspect of the restaurant you are looking for. All of that being said, I generally think it is unhelpful and unfair to share one's judgment about a place in a post here without having eaten there - it is a false judgment without basis on experience. Now, plenty of times people will say I've heard great things about X place or Y dish - which may be helpful, but broad generalizations about the quality/star rating/etc of a place without any experience there is a waste of space and can be misleading. I don't generally see a problem with this on this site, where people regularly preface statements saying their post how much experience they've had eating at a particular place (first time/multiple times recently, only heard from friends, etc.) - but Don's statement worries me - hence this rant. My thought is to continue to be transparent and not make subjective judgments based on a eating/subjective experience unless you've had the experience.

I too am mostly a wine drinker and never have been very fond of beer - but I recommend you give the World of Beer a try. I went for a work happy hour to the one in Arlington and really enjoyed the fact that they have a really extensive beer list with lots of variety. They also are happy to give you a decent sized taste of several brews so you can find one you like. While the servers aren't trained sommeliers, if you tell them you like a lighter or fruiter beer they can steer you in the right direction. I discovered that the lighter tasting, but higher alcoholic content Delirium Tremens isn't half bad and the blueberry brew can be tasty on a hot day. I'm still not a beer drinker, but this would be the perfect place to figure out if you are. As for the food, I didn't eat anything made in house so I can't speak to it. Also, I was much more impressed with World of Beer than the wine bar, Grand Cru around the corner from the Arlington/Ballston location where the food was so so and the house wines pretty weak.

I stopped by and tried this place for the first time today for lunch. I had the wood-roasted goat sandwich and found it to be pretty good, but in need of some tweaking to be great. The menu's description says roasted goat, harissa, lemon potatos, and oregano. In fact, the harissa is more of a mayo spiked with mildly spicy harissa and my sandwich also had pickled onions (delicious - but I love onions) and fresh herbs (parsley, mint, and dill - see Night Owl's picture of the lamb sandwich). First, the bread was very good - nice large sesame studded sub roll which looks like they use for many of the sandwiches except the lamb which apparently is on pita (see comments above). The ingredients were super fresh and definitely given a lot of thought. As for the tweaks (and yes I'm being picky): maybe this is just my experience as I haven't eaten a lot of goat, but the meat was tender with only a small amount of fat but it wasn't as flavorful as I was expecting. The texture/consistency was similar to pulled roast lamb, which I love, but it didn't have that oomp from gamey lamb or richness you get from beef. So maybe it was just goat or my guess it that it needed more seasoning. The fresh herbs were nice but they overpowered the flavor of the meat so one bit I tasted lots of mint and then lots of dill. The potatos were lemony and rather soft so they blended into the sandwich - but they ended up being this extra unnecessary filler. So if I were making this sandwich, I would keep the bread, spice up the meat itself, give the mayo hints of lemon another with the harissa, keep the pickled onions, and cut back the herbs to just a pinch or two vs. the tablespoon on so use (there wasn't alot but they were very fresh and strong - full leaves, not chopped). As for the herbs, maybe drop these and switch back to fresh oregano. I also got a side of the spicy marinated mushrooms which were only so so. They are cold and probably taste better warmed up per the Mushroom Panino on the menu. The mushrooms were a mix of good types with lots of mustard seeds and bits of cherry pepper (mostly just added color, not flavor) - but again not so seasoned and I didn't detect any spicy heat at all. Note that the online menu is already being adjusted as the blistered peppers were not on the instore menu and other small changes. Regarding the noise, it is all hard surfaces and I can see how it could become very loud if it was full (it was mostly empty when I went), but I think the real issue is Mike Isabella's music tastes - heavy metal. I think they were playing a medley of Metallica today and it was similarly loud/rough sounding music when I went to Graffiato. While I even like some of that music, it surely doesn't create a calm experience. I think it may be a misguided attempt to create a lively atmosphere but there is plenty of up tempo music that can achieve that which sounds less grating/off putting to many diners. Overall, despite my picky complaints, I do think it is a nice place putting out quality food, and I look forward to trying the other sandwiches. They are made to order so it does take 5-10 minutes even when there is not much of a line.

When they renovated the CP location a few years back they updated the decor a bit and made slight additions to the menu but the food and service were generally the same.

Saw a new-to-me food truck, La Tingaria, in Ballston for lunch today. They seemed to be doing authentic mexican tacos/tostada, etc and had a long line. However, I also saw they had elote loco - crazy corn. This was my first time trying this traditional, messy corn prep - where the corn is cooked, then covered with mayo, queso blanco, and lime-chili seasoning. Unfortunately, it disappointed - maybe because the corn wasn't real hot or just the mayo wasn't to my taste - but as I ate it I realized I was enjoying the bites with less coating. When I did get stronger bites of the lime-chili seasoning that was interesting, but not a wow factor. I didn't try anything else at the truck so I can't comment on it - I opted for my main course to get the excellent native american fusion taco with chicken again from the Urban Bumpkin BBQ truck parked nearby.

The overlay is the same reason why Palena has a market which in the past year or so went from selling gourmet products and baked goods to only baked goods. Its sole purpose is to get around the overlay issue so it could expand the Cafe into the old Magruders space. Of course, the irony is that Palena has a huge "frontage" onto the shopping center sidewalk - but that doesn't count for the overlay because it isn't a public street sidewalk. Enough of my rant, I wish Sugar Magnolia was back - not enough good places in Cleveland Park are open for a weekday lunch.