treznor

I know, though I tried to nail down earlier what "Southern style" means at Chubby's and didn't get a complete answer. Having not been to Chubby's at all I have to kind of make some generalizations based on the way I think the meat is more than likely cooked. There are so many styles of BBQ (even just in the Carolinas) that calling something Southern pulled pork could almost be useless as it could be any number of preparations.

To be fair, if you don't like vinegar or mustard, you will NOT like Carolina BBQ and more than likely won't like the potato salad that typically is served with it. Doesn't mean you shouldn't like the ribs and whatnot. All Carolina BBQ is vinegar based; the differences in the sauces are what other things are tossed in (ketchup/tomato paste, mustard, etc.). I don't know how that pork is cooked at Chubby's, but with Carolina BBQ the pork it typically doused in the same sauce while it cooks as you serve with the BBQ. In a crock pot (like I unfortunately have to use at home) that means the meat is cooked directly in the sauce. In a more traditional pig cooker that means the cooker is opened every hour and brushed liberally onto the pork. Either way you're going to pick up the taste of whatever sauce it's cooked with regardless of what sauce you serve it with, and the sauce that it's cooked with will more than likely be vinegar-based. If this basting isn't done, you'll end up with dry meat. Basting using water instead won't produce the same flavor. Anyway around it if you don't like vinegar you're either going to dislike Carolina BBQ or end up with inferior Carolina BBQ :-) I haven't made it to Chubby's yet, but more than likely will the next time I go by on my way up to PA. I doubt that I'll end up with ribs anyway as I've never been a huge fan of ribs (maybe I've just had too many that were cooked tough and hard to eat?), but I've eaten my fair share of pulled pork BBQ :-)

Is this the newish place on King St? I ate there once maybe about 2 months after they opened (which was maybe 5-6 months ago now). We thought the sushi was okay but not great so we haven't really had a reason to go back. Usually if I'm in the Old Town area and looking for sushi we head over to Tokyo Japanese Steak House near the water, not that it's really all that special either but it always does a fine job for my tastes.

Bring it back to local wines a bit :-) Went out to Breaux and Windham today as we were looking for something to do and it was a gorgous day (though that changed by the time we got out there). Windham was sued by Wyndham Estates and so is in the process of changing it's name to Doukenie (which is the name of one of it's more popular wines). Most of the Windham wines are in the $13-$18 range and fit pretty well there. We liked the Doukenie pretty well as it's made with Traminette and isn't something we see in Virginia all that often. Overall we liked most of the Windham wines fairly well with only a few that we didn't particularly care for. Not unexpected since we've been to both Breaux and Windham a couple times. The Breaux wines we didn't think were as good as we remember them normally being, not certain if it was because we were there late in the day so the bottles may have had some times to sit out (though I don't think that's the case as they were fairly busy when we came in) or what. Their two sweeter wines (Chere Marie and Sweet Evangeline) are on the cheap end ($11-$13) and at that price point they aren't bad. We picked up a bottle of the Chere Marie (which is just slightly off-dry at 2% RS), a hunk of Manchego, some herbed salami, some bread, and sat around and enjoyed the scenery, even if it was raining a bit at that point (though the patio umbrellas solved that). Both places had a 2005 Viognier that was decent, but not wonderful. A bit odd as a number of wineries in Virginia have very good 2005 Viogniers (Horton and Rappahanock come to mind). I do think though that Virginian wineries need to bite the bullet and start to grow the varieties that work best in our climate and terrain. Virginian Cabernet Sauvignon just isn't going to compete with the best Cab Savs around, even if the winemaker talent is present as the climate just doesn't seem to be there for it. Granted I know little about the vageries of growing wine, but it just seems like Viognier, Cabernet Franc, Norton, and a couple other varieties seem to grow so much better in Virginia than some of the other varieties. I understand why wineries feel they need to grow the old stand-bys (so people can have wine varieties they know), but at the same time it's good to see alot of VA wineries at least branching out into some of the other varieties that fit well in Virginia.

From what I've read about corked wine (so take it with a grain of salt), it's caused by TCA, which can be present at the winery (similar to brett). So even Stel-Vin enclosures can be corked. However, cork is the primary source of the TCA which is why it's much more prevalent in cork enclosures as compared to screwcap enclosures.

I missed this thread the first time around. I've stayed at the Capital Hilton a number of times, maybe 20-25 times for a total of 60-75 nights. Back when I lived in Charlotte and commuted to Washington during the week (which was 3 years ago or so) it was where I stayed. The hotel is nice-ish in a decent location (though at 3-4am it happens to also be where the street walkers are at, a fact that we found out one night coming back late from Atlantic City and looking for parking...). The food there is pretty bad though. Fran O' Briens was the better of the two options (the other being Twiggs), but I never had a meal there that I really liked (3-4 times or so) and there was never a huge crowd of people. Usually ended up walking over to K or M street somewhere or going to Archibald's/Fast Eddies (which is fine if you stick to the side that's food only...). I could see why Hilton would want Fran O' Briens out to try and get someone in that would have a better draw. Of course, I don't know that's what was going on or not.

That's correct. Even in non-dry aged beef, such as the run of the mill beef you'd pick up in a grocery store, there is very little actual blood in the beef. Since very little blood is actually absorbed into the muscle (compared to overall blood volume), most of the blood of an animal drains very quickly during slaughter. A couple hours after slaughter there very likely is little blood left in the muscle of an animal. The liquid that is found in steaks is the water and other juices that are slowly released by the muscle over time, colored by protein. Which is also why dry-aged beef has less juice to give out as most of the water that's going to be easily given up by the beef has already drained out (which is why weight/volume of a steak decreases a decent bit as it dry ages, and why dry aged beef may have a "beefier" flavor as it's being diluted by less liquid. All that having been said, the liquid looks enough like blood to make some people squimish :-)

Man, that might make playing golf worthwhile :-)

Another option is a pig cooker, i.e. a very large grill. General Method Something like this Takes forever to cook (start cooking around 6-7am or so you'll probably be done around 4pm or so), but it's good. Just like regular-sized grills you can find them in propane and wood-burning. I have no idea if they are something you can rent and, if so, if it's something you can rent around here. I know the one my parents used to have got borrowed alot.

I had heard the same thing prior to my first time eating at RTS and thus ordered my first steak there medium rare (instead of my normal rare). A mistake. Everytime I've ordered a rare steak at RTS (had pork and crab when we went to RTC so don't have a direct comparison there yet) I've gotten exactly what I consider to be a rare steak. Of course I also think that almost every other restaurant that I've ordered steak at overcooks their rare steak...

If they actually said that I'd probably flip. The price that I "should be paying" is the price that is advertised and that the item is priced for on the shelf. If the manager tells you different, he has no idea how to run a store. Of course, that's fairly evident by the fact that the prices are consistently wrong, on the same items, for extended periods of time. I'm fine with prices being wrong every now and then, I understand how it happens. But if a price is wrong and the manager is told about it and -still- doesn't do anything about it, then I have no idea why they wouldn't understand that you get upset with them when you pointed that out to them.

Jolt Cola was made with real sugar (though not anymore) when I used to drink it, but it's tough to compare it to normal cola as all the caffeine made it bitter (though that was fixed by adding some Captain Crunch... um, don't try this at home...).

I absolutely agree. I've only been in to Vidalia once (we keep meaning to go back but don't get around to it), but I made certain to try the pie as I had heard it was wonderful. It lived up to everything I had heard about it, absolutely wonderful.

I wouldn't take it too personally, BBQ is very much a personal thing what with all the regional variation and all. I love NC-style BBQ and barely even consider the other kinds of BBQ you have as BBQ at all (ribs? brisket? please, that's grilling not BBQ :-) ), so everyone is going to be different. For johnb, western NC does have BBQ, it's just a bit more difficult to find. You won't find too many BBQ places too far west of Lexington (which has some of the best BBQ) with the exception of maybe Sonny's in Charlotte, which is passable but nothing special. However, particularly in the rural areas in the western part of the state, you can find BBQ just about every fall weekend at the churches, Lion's Club, Ruritan club, Kiwanis, etc. My parents church (about an hour north of Charlotte) has their own smoker building that holds, I believe, around 10-15 whole hogs and maybe 20 pork shoulders, used once a year. On whatever weeekend they have their annual BBQ fundraiser they start cooking the pigs Friday afternoon/evening and then by Saturday mid-morning or so they open up and start selling. Lines out the door to get in to eat there, lines of cars for pickup, many people buying quarts at a time as well to eat later, etc. I've lived in another part of western NC though and that didn't seem to be the case, so it may just be something a bit more local to near where my parents live. For the most part though, NC BBQ is very much a rural, home-grown tradition. Most of the best BBQ I've eaten wasn't at restaurants which have to focus on serving a set number of people whenever they show up, but rather at pig pickin's where you eat when the pig is done (which granted you can gauge pretty well, but it still could be variable by a bit) and that pig is watched over by a team of guys just sitting around, drinking beer, and making sure that pig is as good as it can be (though of course only opening the lid of the pig cooker once an hour). I realize this has turned into much more of a discussion of BBQ versus the specific merits of Chubby's. I promise to try and stop in the next time I go up 15 though!

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that HFCS vs. cane sugar would make a difference in the Pareve status of the food (not that I really know very much at all about Kosher law) so I hadn't considered that being a possibility.

Yep, that's the thing. So now at least I know what it's called :-) One thing I've seen cream of tartar used for is to make buttermilk out of milk. Could be the function it's serving here, though usually for that you need to let the milk sit for a couple minutes.

Interesting. If I make the trek up to Silver Spring again I may have to try it out. I'm not quite old enough to remember the taste of cola made with cane sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup.

Guessing, I'd say it produces about 8-10 biscuits or so. When kneeding biscuits was first mentioned I thought to myself "No way", but then reading bioesq's description I realized that's exactly what I do :-) Basically it's only kneeded enough to make sure everything has come together. It's easy to kneed too much and then you're eating rocks. I'll definitely agree about the butter, it needs to be softened if for no other reason than you'll work the bejesus out of the flour working the butter into it if it's not softened. I've never tried using knives, usually use a, umm... cutter? I honestly have no idea of what other use the thing has than cutting butter into flour for biscuits :-) It's basically a handle with 4-5 semi-circular metal bars that have an edge but aren't sharp. If I don't have one of those handy a fork will do, dragging the fork hard through the bowl to really cut the butter into the flour. I was always taught by my parents that getting the butter cut into the flour was the toughest part. I learned to make biscuits from my dad, who uses recipes for very few things. The flour, salt, baking powder, and butter I could always handle as it's not an exact science to start with and I could always add a pinch more of whatever to get it just right. But not being able to say "add 1/2 cup milk" always vexed me. If I added too much milk I couldn't very well just add a pinch more of everything else to get it right. So I ended up adding milk little by little and it took forever, making the biscuits harder than they should have been. It took a couple years but I finally got the hang of it :-)

Emmitsburg is on 15? Then I'm definitely in sometime or another! I have to go up 15 all the time to go to Pennsylvania so it'll be nice having somewhere to eat on the way.

It is in your signature, we'd probably notice you owned the place :-) BTW, welcome to DR.com! As a native North Carolinian, it's my duty to ask... What does "southern style barbecue" mean? Is your pulled pork whole hog or shoulder-only? Vinegar-based sauce? Tomato in the sauce or no tomato? Cooked over wood, charcoal, propane, or electric? Details man, we need details! :-) I'm a huge fan of BBQ and grew up going to pig roasts (an all-day affair of course). I'm still in NC so I try and get BBQ there a decent bit. Been looking for a place around DC that has decent BBQ (at least as good as some of the mediocre places in NC...), but haven't really had any. You're clear on the other side of DC from me, but I may try and make it up there sometime.

What soft drink is he serving then? I rarely drink soft drinks when we go to a nice restaurant so I'm not even certain how common it is not to serve coke/diet coke. It seems like a restaurant would need it though at least to make jack & coke, rum & coke, etc.

We had originally intended to stop by Saturday evening since I didn't know if they were open for lunch yet. My GF had to go into work in Old Town Saturday afternoon though so we stopped by Eamonn's (after calling to see if they were open). We were pretty impressed. I'll have to say I like the decor, it fits. I hadn't been able to check it out previously since I haven't made it into Old Town all that often lately. I liked the Fronch with my chips, my GF not-so-much. I liked the taste of the curry, but not really sure it does much for the fish or the chips, but if you like curry sauce, Eamonn's taste like it's done well. GF had the Chesepeake, which we both thought was the best of the 3 (though the Fronch was a close second for me). I thought the cod did come away from the batter a bit easily, but evidently I was using the fork so I wasn't eating it right :-) I love a good fry, and Eamonn's satisfied my fry (er, chip?) urge. The fried Milky Way really is something else. I'm not sure what I'd do if we came for dinner though. Granted I'm a bit of a husky guy, but I'm not sure the large cod and chips (we split the large chips) would do it for me for dinner. For lunch it hit the spot perfectly. Has anyone had the fish of the day? Any idea what fish we'll be seeing in the FOD? I'm guessing sticking with a meaty white fish (shark, halibut?) but was wondering how adventurous they may get.

Even if he moves, it's doubtful (or has he said he definitely won't be?) bring the Laboratorio to Crystal City.

Actually the swastika, or a symbol very similar to a swastika, appears in many old cultures and typically means something along the lines of "well-being". It was stolen and perverted by the Nazi party. Most people don't realize that the swastika is much older than the Nazis and the meaning of the symbol is nothing like what most people would think. ETA: Not that I agree with the name, I think it's deplorable. Just giving some background on the much-maligned swastika symbol :-)

I'm sure it's the case with many chains, but I've found Giant's in particular to be very spotty from location to location. There are two Giant's within 2 miles of where I live, one on King Street at Bailey's Crossroads and one at Bradlee Center. I absolutely refuse to set foot in the one at Bradlee Center any longer as it always takes years to checkout. However, the one in Bailey's Crossroads is, while not a pleasure, at least not painful to shop in. If only there were a Harris Teeter nearby... I grew up with them in NC and think they are probably among the nicest "non-niche" grocery stores. The one in Pentagon Center is somewhat convenient as we are in the area a decent bit, but getting in and out of their is such a pain in the butt!