Mark Slater

I ate there twice in the past year and was totally unimpressed. I thought the $62 crab cakes were terrible.  I've never left crab cakes on a plate before.

Even their Burger was unimpressive. Good service though.

My favorite thing from Mr. Chen's are the Peking Duck Rolls. 

Interesting clarification from DC's Attorney General's office: 

Consumer Alert: DC Restaurants Are Prohibited from Charging Deceptive Fees

11 hours ago, reedm said:

We watched "The Menu", and it was completely different than I expected. No spoilers, but it quickly went off the rails for me. The beginning of the movie made me laugh quite a few times...

I tried watching it. Agreed, the beginning was amusing to me , having worked in that "Yes, Chef!!!!" atmosphere, but I turned it off after the sous chef thing. 

I had a wonderful holiday lunch this week at L'Ardente. Calamari couldn't have been better, with lots of legs in the mix. Fried cauliflower was crispy and delicious. Even the green salad was extraordinary. We then had Margherita pizzas, which we should have shared instead of each getting our own. Lots of leftovers. The showstopper was the Tiramisu. A chocolate globe is doused with flaming rum which melts it over the custard and cake. Its dramatic and utterly delicious. 

That is just flat out poor training. In busy restaurants, waitstaff can get really full of themselves. We've all seen it. At that pricepoint, pushiness has no place. Dover Sole at La Chaumiere is $42, by the way. 

I have a special place in my heart for Vienna. I was lucky enough to spend my junior year of college there living in the Erste Bezirk (first district-the old city). My favorite schnitzels were at the Gosser Bier Klinik, a restaurant that was several hundred years old at the time. The opera was the nightly entertainment (standing room was free for students at my school). We had daily coffee and Topfengulatchen (cheese danish) at the Aida pastry shop. 

20 hours ago, Kibbee Nayee said:

Was it an off night? Or has this place really fallen? Wife and I had tickets for the Lincoln Theater last night, and dining options in the area of the venue are limited. Alero for bad Mexican fare? Ben's for greasy counter fare? The Smith closed, or at least consolidated and the U Street outpost was sacrificed. So Izakaya Seki was the choice.

In a word, it was poor.

Start with the general ambiance. From the outside it comes across as a dive bar, and it sort of is a dive bar. The bathrooms are down the hall on the ground floor, but getting to them requires quite a bit if shimmying past the end of the food bar and takes a lot of effort not to dip any body parts in the vat of tempura frying oil. Climbing to the upstairs dining area, which is as spare as a high school cafeteria room, the first thing we noticed was how cold it was. "Can you please turn on the heat?" we asked, and a few minutes later, so did one of the diners at another table. The heavily accented response was unintelligible. Menu? Scan the bar code and try to figure out the handwritten scribbles and Japanese characters. Music? A bit too loud and ranging from Grateful Dead to Indy poetry reading. So let's give the overall ambiance a grade of D.

On to the food, which we sort of blundered our way through. Highlights were the whole squid, and the tiny chunks of dark meat chicken on skewers -- 2 little skewers with 6 little pieces for $9 -- and that's about it. Fried oysters -- 3 to an order for 2 people? -- were a little "gamey" and greasy. Chicken meatballs on skewers weren't cooked all the way through. Yellowtail collar was tasty but loaded with bones and scales, as was the whole sardine and the whole mackerel. Bones and scales everywhere, and with just some wooden chopsticks and a single napkin provided per diner, a wet nap or finger bowl would have been nice. Food gets an overall grade of D.

Wine was ridiculously expensive. So was everything else. Overall grade for $300 worth for 2 covers was a D, maybe D-.

We won't be returning here. Please offer us some good dining options within walking distance of the Lincoln Theater, which is one of our favorite music venues.

Wow, that sound awful. I wonder what happened. 

Unconventional Diner has their brunch menu everyday of the week. The food is quite good and plentiful. David has that playful approach Michel Richard had. The prices are very moderate. Its always busy, too. 

Glad you liked it! Trovatore really does have a hit a minute.  Here's a sensational performance of  my favorite part, the Trio from Act 1 :

Ben Kuna is the brains behind Le Vintage. I met him when he was the somm at Proof. 

i live a block from La Perla. I went once when it was fairly new. Once was enough. From the atrocious service, to the terrible food to the tacky decor, I've always scratched my head how it survives. 

Yikes. That's really expensive. I remember seeing a dining guide from 1964 that listed the Jockey Club as "very expensive" because the rack of lamb was $4.95. 

A few years ago, Nooshi sent a flyer to my zip code advertising their new promotion called "FUNKY SUSHI". I never took them up on that one. 

https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/09/01/soft-foods-hard-liquor-a-dining-dispatch-from-jon-taffers-just-opened-dc-tavern/

According to EaterDC: https://dc.eater.com/2020/5/18/21262400/dc-restaurants-permanently-closed-covid-19-coronavirus-crisis

Robot food. Cool. 

On 8/12/2022 at 8:53 AM, curls said:

Has anyone been here recently? Any recommendations? Thank you.

I see the steak tartare is still on the menu. That and the onion soup makes a great meal!

22 hours ago, Bob Wells said:

The recent price hike is probably making reservations easier to come by too. https://ny.eater.com/2022/7/7/23198636/eleven-madison-park-tasting-menu-price-increase-august

Holy conspicuous consumption, Batman!! This is a ludicrous price to pay for fine dining without any of the traditional ingredients of luxury dining. Is this all ego driven? Imagine paying a month's worth of grocery shopping for 1 meal. I don't get it. 

Michel Richard used to say "Truffle oil is for lazy chefs".  He used to make thick fries fried in clarified butter. They were extremely labor intensive. They came with the enormous Cote de Boeuf. When people asked for sides of fries without the Cote de Boeuf, the answer was always NO. 

I think Georgetown Butcher on Grace st. can help you find foie gras. 

Marcel's !

Remember when Chowhound and eGullett were going strong. That was 20 years ago. 

One of my VERY generous friends was in town last weekend. We had a marvelous time at Marcel's Saturday night. Like always, we sat at the bar. Fernando, who has been there many years, took great care of us.  My friend couldn't resist the Osetra caviar presentation. It comes with classic accompaniments, plus freshly made blini and buttered toasts. We followed with the sumptuous lobster bisque en croute. Boy, was that good! then, the ever changing presentation of the mussels gratin. Main course was the boudin blanc, good as ever. We finished with some Epoisses. The wines were fun. A good time was had by all. 

I got it at 25th and L store. They also had Langres and Tete de Moines. The Ricotta is a real treat. The Langres, unlike most of their washed rind cheeses was in good shape- soft and creamy.