treznor

Just returned from an 8:30 reservation and thought I'd write up my thoughts before sleep obscured them. We arrived a few minutes late (combination of an errand that ran long and making a wrong turn or two in DC) and were immediately sat as soon as we walked in. I didn't get a chance to peak around the place too much as a result, but we were basically over by the bar. For the first few courses it was pretty loud and we were having problems hearing each other, though by the soup or the entree or so the bar had cleared out some and it had quieted down a bit. Cocktail food: Shrimp baklava - Shrimp cooked with shredded, stringy, crispy things on it. It actually reminded me alot more of a Bird's Nest (the dessert, not the thing that Momma Bird goes to feed the chicks in) as it didn't really remind me of phyllo at all. But I could imagine that Bird's Nest Shrimp wouldn't work too well :-) It was a bit messy to eat as the shredded things went everywhere and I'm not sure that I thought the shredded things did too much other than make the shrimp a bit crunchy. Well cooked, but not my favorite. Sausage biscuits - Now these on the other hand were awesome. The biscuits themself were quite good, nice and fluffy with the sausage mixed in, but when eaten with the sauce they were awesome. My GF liked the shrimp better than the sausage biscuits, so that worked out pretty well since I didn't have to stab her with my fork to fend her off from the biscuits. Soup: Crab Bisque - I normally can't handle both soup and appetizer at a large meal, so I've never actually had the RTS crab bisque (though my GF did have it the last time we were there a couple weeks ago) so a comparison would be difficult. This was a rich sherry sauce, almost too thick to be considered soup, with crab meat mixed in. Very good. Entree: Crab Oscar - We overheard Michael talking to the table next to us about the Crab Oscar and how it compared with a place by the name of Jerry's in PG county (where it goes by the name of Crab Bomb). Since he saw we had ordered the Crab Oscar he asked my GF how she liked it and we ended up talking about the dish from there. Evidently Jerry's uses a sieve to sort their crab so only the largest of the lump crab meat goes into their dish and the rest goes into the crab cakes they make. Michael said they didn't have that option so their crab wasn't quite as good as Jerry's but he thought they more than made up for it with the sauce, which he thought outdid Jerry's. It was rather unfortunate that we ordered both the Crab Bisque and the Crab Oscar as they share a number of elements and probably brought the wow factor of the Crab Oscar down a bit but we didn't think about it when ordering. Also, there were some bits of shell in both the Crab Bisque and the Crab Oscar. I know it's tough to sort out all the shell in crab meat sometimes, but it was a bit annoying. Overall though the Crab Oscar was very good with a nice, rich sauce that was similar to the Crab Bisque we both thought. Pork Chops - The portion is two pork chops and the first pork chop was wonderful, the second was very good. The first pork chop was lusciously juicy, cooked just a tad under medium, and with a wonderful taste which the calvados sauce accented. The second was cooked a bit over medium I think and as a result was drier than the first. Still the same wonderful taste. If I didn't have the first pork chop I would have thought the second was wonderful. But I did have that first pork chop, which put the second one to shame :-) Sides: Mashed Potatoes - Pretty much the same as at RTS, which is to say very good Sweet Corn Pudding - I think this was well made sweet corn pudding as I have no reason to doubt otherwise. This really just leads me to believe I don't like sweet corn pudding. I wasn't a fan of this side though my GF liked it, though I've never had sweet corn pudding before. Dessert: Strawberries on a sweet biscuit with chantilly and strawberry ice cream - This was the one dish of the evening that we thought could have been better. We didn't think the strawberry ice cream brought very much too the dish but rather masked the taste of the strawberries themselves. And that sweet biscuit, such a wonderful sweet biscuit with a nice mealy texture and an outside that was slightly firmer than the inside and with a sugar glaze. Wonderful dish, we just thought it would have been even better without the ice cream. Milk and Cookies - I'll say little about this dish as it has been described above. It was everything others had said it would be. The egg creams were smooth and refreshing and the cookies were very good. We had picked out salads as they are listed as complimentary, but as we were ordering we forgot to tell our waiter which salad we wanted and we ended up not getting a salad. Considering the amount of food we had and the fact that we had trouble finishing it already, we had no problem with that :-) But if you do want a salad, make sure to point that out just to remind the waiter. Along with our "cocktail food" we had a couple cocktails as it only seemed fitting and along with dinner was a bottle of the Witness Tree Williamette Valley Pinot Noir. I believe the menu said $48, but it was on the ticket as $40. Not sure if we were served the Russian Valley Piniot instead (which was on the menu for $40), if the price was off or what. Either way it went well with dinner and was very tasty. The entrees were a bit more expensive than RTS, but everything else was ridiculously cheap. My GF actually did a double take when she saw the bill and wondered aloud if the prices were correct. $3 for those sausage biscuits? $5 for two of the better desserts we'd had in quite some time? The soup was also crazy cheap, though I don't remember exactly how much. $40 (or $48) for a good bottle of pinot noir was much less than what we'd pay at most restaurants (well realistically it's about the same as I'd pay at other restaurants but I ended up with much better wine as a result). Overall, service was very good without being obnoxious and in the way. I'm sure there's still a couple kinks to be worked out, but the doors have only been open for 8 days now. For a 4 course meal (5 courses if we'd gotten the salads that we wouldn't have been able to eat anyway), a bottle of wine and two cocktails, post-tax but pre-tip, the total was $150. As someone else said above, I felt like I do most times I leave RTS, like I just stole money from Michael. It's off to bed now for me with visions of black-and-white cookies with vanilla egg creams dancing through my dreams :-)

I remember reading a study in the last year or so about contaminants in bottled water. The generic grocery store stuff varied from location to location as I guess there are a number of suppliers, and it varied from pretty clean to not very clean at all (and even being worse than the munincipal water in the area in some cases I believe). The "brand" names were okay for the most part but had some variability as well. Generally it showed that most bottled water is cleanish, but alot of it really isn't all that great either.

Read: Oyamel Tom's chat

Yummmm, Shiner. Much more a fan of the Bock than the Heffe, but I'll take either. Can it be called regional still though? I started drinking it around 6-7 years ago when I was in Texas for a week where it's pretty much everywhere (or was in San Antonio). However, it's in a large number of grocery stores even here in DC as well as points in between Texas and DC. Haven't really looked for it too much outside of that region though so not sure how wide-spread it is. But yeah, not crappy at all.

So there are specials other than the section of the menu called "Specials"? The only time I was there the server didn't go over any specials at all.

Linden is listed in the Virginia wine guide (virginiawineguide.com), otherwise I more than likely would have never visited :-) Virginia wine guide has a feature that I really like called the wine tours, where they take a number of wineries that are near each other, write up a little blurb on the group and show a simple map of them. When I was first getting interested in visiting Virginian wineries, this feature was a godsend. It made it simple to take a look at what was close to each other so I wouldn't have to go dig through all the wineries to figure it out, and if you're new to all the wineries in Virginia, then where you visit doesn't matter too much... We went out for a couple weekends and basically stuck to the tours they had, or possibly modified them a bit by adding a winery from a close-by tour and/or dropping a winery or two. Now when we go out we have a bit of an idea of who we want to see so I'll just try and find a winery or two near that winery (or wineries) that we haven't tried so we can try something new. However, every now and then we want to do an entire weekend of new wineries so I end up going back to the wine tours in a different area to try and come up with places to visit. The Virginia wine guide may help out the large bus tours to figure out tours they can do, but it also helps out the individuals like me. Personally, I think it probably helps out people like me alot more than the tour companies as once they find a tour they can do, they can stick with it forever for the most part.

I'm sorry... what? What is this secret beer lair invasion that you speak of?

Thankfully there's a bit of an explanation. They are run by the same family. Brothers? Son and dad? I can remember now. I've visited both and tried to remain polite while I was at the winery, but it was some of the worst wine I've had. If you continue past Linden, away from the way that any normal, sane person comes in, there's a gravel back road that literally winds up and down the hills and valleys with a drop-off on one side and a steep hill on the other side of the car. Heaven knows what would happen if you met oncoming traffic. However, in both directions this back road ends up near another winery (though I can't remember which two now). Linden is memorable all by itself, for the wine, for the view, and for the sparkling cider (which I always pick up a bottle or two of while I'm there). It's even more memorable if your SO is scared she's going to die on the way to the winery and you've put the vehicle in 4WD "just in case" :-)

Growing up we had about 50 acres or so of land, about 20-25 of which we planted corn on (primarily to grind and feed to the pigs which we also raised every year), sort of something for my parents to do when they weren't at work I guess. Even after we sold our land and moved we still had ties to the area and the handful of people that farmed in the area and I would always here the stories of what was going wrong that year. I can tell you that something always going wrong is about right from my memory. Either it didn't rain enough or it rained too much (which is also horrible as it doesn't allow for good root structure), or the japanese beetles are eating the leaves, or the deer are eating the whole thing, or gophers are tearing up the roots, or something. Where I was growing up the gophers and the deer were the worst. Deer you can shoot (or *ahem* shoot at but miss of course if it's not deer season) but just what do you do to keep gophers away? To this day my parents still plant a little garden that's probably no more than 20-30 rows of about 100 feet each. It's easier to keep something like that going as you can take more individual care with what you've planted, but there are still some years where something they planted just doesn't come up or it comes up only sparsely. Of course there are other years where whatever they planted comes up so well they have to practically beg people to take stuff from them as they can't can/freeze/eat it fast enough.

I had my parents in town a couple weeks ago and wanted to take them to Ray's as well as a couple of my other favorites in VA. They loved the place but had a similar complaint as silentbob, since we were in Old Town for lunch and had the lickety split at Eve's :-) One of the few times I've been to RTS and not gotten dessert. My dad loved the hanger though as it was the first he'd had the cut.

At Vidalia? Or is there somewhere else that has Lemon Chess Pie and Pecan Pie? Man, I can still taste the Lemon Chess Pie from the last time I went to Vidalia.

Most of the limo tours are actually party buses and are thus a bit larger. I'm sure I've seen a few smaller limo groups at the VA wineries, but I don't know who they went through to set it up. I'll admit it, I'm a Virginia wine fan. I can think of few better ways to spend a weekend day than picking up a notebook (and the printouts from maps.google to tell where the places are as well as the interesting reviews from virginiawinetours.com) and heading out to VA wine country. Yes, the wines are probably a bit over-priced, but the views from most of the wineries are stunning, which always puts me in a better mood about paying a little bit more than I probably should for the wine. In particular the views from Hillsborough, Breaux, Rappahanock, and Linden are some of my favorites. The facilities at Oasis and James River are beautiful as well. Now, of those I'm not a fan of Hillsborough at all, Breaux is fine, Oasis I've always thought was dreck (though I've never had a chance to try their highly touted, by them, sparklers). James River is middle of the road probably and I really like Rappahanock (which seems to not get talked about too much) and Linden. The Rappahanock Meritage from the last couple vintages I've thought was quite well done, especially for Virginia Red. I've had very few of the Rappahanock wines that I didn't like. A couple were very good and the rest were just good, which at times is just fine with me. It means I can more than likely try anything of their's and be satisfied. Another wine that I've liked well enough to have multiple vintages of is the Grey Ghost Adieu, their dessert wine. Sweet but not quite cloying. One of the things that I think VA does very well is the "picnic" wine. Nothing to knock your socks off, but well made, fairly cheap, and refreshing. Of this class, I think the Sarah's Patio (both the Red and the White) from Chrysalis are probably the best examples that I've found. Typically if we are in the area, we'll make Loudon Valley be the stop where we get some food. They have a decent selection compared with most of the other wineries and the wine is from okay to good. We'll stop in at Loudon Valley, taste their wines, then get a glass of whatever strikes our fancy (or a cold bottle if there are others with us) and some bread and cheese. Tarara and Farfelu are both nice wineries to visit, though more for the activities they tend to have than for their wine, which I think is okay at best. Horton is highly touted, and I do like their wine, but I've never made it to their winery as it's a bit further away than I usually make it. Therefore I've really only tried it at the Virginia Wine Festivals, though I did like it when I've gotten a chance to try it. Same goes for Barbousville, of which I liked the Octagon the best. I'm sorry I can't be more specific with particular wines from wineries. I have a pretty bad memory, and the notebook where I keep most of my stuff is at home and I'm on the road. This post probably has rambled too much and doesn't make much sense, and I'm by no means a wine expert to start with, but I have tried a large portion of the wines made in Virginia :-)

Ray's has nowhere to be the overflow place anyway since they don't have a bar :-) I'll have to admit to stopping in and getting a drink at the bar at Guajillo a couple weeks ago when my parents were in town and I wanted to take them to Ray's but the wait was going to be around an hour. The fact that they had pretty decent margaritas that weren't ridiculously priced (though they're probably the only margaritas I've seen served in a pint glass) pushed me over the edge to come and eat after the good things I'd seen in this thread as well.

Two problems I see with that reasoning: 1) Virginia itself may be primarily Republican, but Northern Virginia typically leans Democrat 2) Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon line (which is just the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania), contributed a number of units to the CSA (as well as to the Union), and had a number of Confederate leaning officials during the Civil War. While Southerners wouldn't claim Maryland as their own, Maryland wasn't exactly a staunch Union state either during the American Civil War. That having been said, I do feel like there is a marked divide between Maryland and Virginia (as evidenced by the fact that we're even having this discussion of why people tend not to cross from one to the other), just that the two reason above just don't quite cover it for me.

Did he go into the rationale about why one would want to do such a thing? Even with the hair dryer it would seem that the chances are very good you'll end up with a large enough portion of coal/ash attached to the steak that it would end up affecting the taste. Or maybe that's what he was going for...

Oddly enough, we had no problem parking that evening and when I found what I typically consider to be a primo spot (about half a block away prior to the restaurants) I laughed a bit when I saw no less than three spots in the restaurant parking lot itself. Over the last few days I've found myself thinking about the mole pablano and it's yumminess. I'll be returning sometime soon, but hopefully the service was a one-time blip as the food is probably the only memorable mexican food I've ever had. So, Guajillo has good food, Ray's everyone on the board knows of I'm sure, Pho 75 is supposed to have good pho (which I've never tried as I don't like anise at all and I've heard that is a very prevalant spice in pho). Has anyone tried Village Bistro? Is it on par with the rest of this crazy-good strip of restaurants?

To me it's less about the time spent driving than it is the fact that I have no reason to drive further than I need to. Because of where I live in Alexandria (King and 395) it's as easy for me to get to many parts of DC as it is for me to get to some parts of Northern Virginia outside of Alexandria, so our dining is split maybe 30/70 or 40/60 or so. However, there's little reason for me to go up to MD. There are few restaurants I know of in MD that there isn't something comparable or better either in VA or DC and that is thus closer.

Oddly enough when we ended up at Guajillo (tonight) we ordered the same thing. I had read the thread and was intrigued by the Mole 3 ways already, but my +1 chose the Shrimp and Goat Cheese Enchilada all on her own without reading the thread and without me suggesting it. I'll have to say, we enjoyed the food very much. Both dishes have been described above so I won't go into that much detail. The enchiladas were smooth, creamy, and the shrimp nicely cooked. The moles were very good, with my personal favorite probably being the Mole Pablano because of the earthy notes. The tortilla chips were crispy and light, and the salsa fresh and with a bit of a kick. Which brings us to problem #1 we had. When we walked in were told that we could wait around 20 minutes for a table inside or be seated right then at a table outside. It was a hot evening, but after a brief deliberation we chose to sit outside as we wanted to try and make a movie. We were fairly promptly brought over the chips and salsa... and then left alone for 10 minutes or so. Coupled with the hot salsa and the fact that we were sitting outside, the lack of water was not pleasant. Once the waiter finally came over and asked us for our drink order it did appear fairly quickly and we ordered then. Waiter shows back up after the food is ready and brings it to us. He checked in, I believe, once more during the dinner to refill our water and to get me a second drink. My +1 had wanted another drink but since the meal was almost over she decided against it. Drink shows up and the waiter disappears for a good 20-30 minutes or so, which was easily 15-20 minutes after we had finished. Once the waiter showed back up and asked if we were finished, I thought to myself "Yes, we've been done for 15 or 20 minutes, sitting outside in the heat, with no water or anything else to drink because you haven't been outside in that long" which came out as "Yes." The food was somewhere between good and great, the service was somewhere between poor and horrible. I'm always willing to try a place again, especially if it's not that expensive ($60 for 2 entrees and 3 drinks after tax but before tip) so I'm sure we'll go back some time. But we're definitely going to make sure to sit inside if it's warm/hot because who knows if they'll make it outside to refill the water glasses.

What I find somewhat odd is the user reviews for Le Pigalle. Now granted, usually I just read them to get a laugh as there's always people saying "Best Place EVAR" and others saying "OHMIGOD The food tasted like dog poop", but in the case of Le Pigalle every single review except for 1 (of the 12) were either 1 star or 4 star. Typically there's at least a couple in the middle.

Frozen custard is everything that good ice cream can be, heavy and creamy. The primary difference between run-of-the-mill ice cream and premium ice cream is the overrun. Overrun is basically the volume increase during the production process, caused by air being taken into the mixture. To be legally called ice cream in the US the overrun has to remain at 100% or less (i.e. the finished product has 50% air and 50% ingredients). Premium ice cream is typically in the 30-50% range I believe. On the other hand, frozen custard is typically around 20%. As well, ice cream has to contain 10% milkfat to be labelled ice cream. Premium ice cream typically pushes the percentage up to around 16-18%. However, since custard has eggs in it to start with which acts as an emulsifier the milkfat percentage is kept down to around 10% but the creamy texture is kept. Alot of the information above is found here: http://www.goodberrys.com/html/page_3.html Goodberry's is a local chain in the Raleigh area of NC, with one location in Myrtle Beach. I've never really thought that Dairy Godmother held a candle to Goodberry's, though it's the best we have in the area. Living in Raleigh for a number of years spoiled me for custard as Goodberry's really is quite good, with a fairly wide range of mix-ins. The fact that one of the girls I dated in college worked at one definitely ended up making our relationship last longer as she would bring home a free "mistake" every other day or so :-)

I was very happy to see the Guinness stand as well the last time I was at a game. My GF's company has season tickets behind home plate in the 300 level and it was only a couple sections over to the Guinness stand. Made the game much more fun to watch, especially considering they lost something like 18-7.

From Tom's chat today... Can't wait to see what restaurant it is :-)

Sadly enough, the mistake infuriates me as well and I'm one of the worst offenders. I know it's an easy rule to remember, and yet I can never remember which one gets the apostrophe! Skitt's Law indeed! I had never heard of it, but it is very apropos.

Which I'm fine with as well... As I say, it's when the waiter isn't around to get the check from that annoys me. Dropping the check after dessert is fine with me personally since dessert is always the end for me (never another glass of wine or beer or whatnot, dessert = done :-) ), but understanding that not all people are the same a simple "Would you care for anything else?" or "How was everything?" or anything that would allow me to ask for the check is fine. It's when the waitstaff just decides to up and disappear altogether than annoys me. People that use the word "irregardless" should be taken out in the street and shot, if for no other reason than just making certain the word does not make it's way into a dictionary somewhere. Another word peeve of mine is the broading of the word anniversary. Unfortunately it has been broaded such that "6-month anniversary" is now acceptable occording to Mirriam-Webster, but I'll still maintain that it's not the proper usage of the word. Let me second the welcome to Blake!

Everyone has peeves, and some people's peeve is being called guy. Personally I have two peeves in regards to dining that annoy me above all others: 1) Waiting for the check. If everyone is done eating the check should be on the table, or at least to have come by to ask if we'd like the check. Now, I understand that waiters have other things to do than attend to my needs and to notice the second that I'm done eating dessert. But when the dessert plates have been licked clean, the water glasses are empty, the wine glasses are empty and I've been sitting there for 5 minutes or more I start to get a bit irked. After 10 minutes it turns into a full-blown annoyance. It doesn't happen all that often thankfully since the restaurant has a vested interest in allowing you to leave as soon as you'd like so they can turn the table. 2) Refilling my water or drink (if I'm not drinking) glass. This doesn't particularly apply to wine as sometimes I'd prefer to pace that myself. Now, I realize that I sometimes appear to be a person who has done nothing other than eat 20 pounds of salt prior to dining and as such can make entire glasses of water vanish in seconds. I understand that I drink more water than the average patron and I try to allow for that, but if the server comes to the table when my water glass is empty and it isn't refilled (by them or someone else) a little bit after it annoys me to no end. There have been a few occasions where my glass sat empty most of the meal and I could only get a refill by practically extracting the water from whatever I'm seated upon. My point in illustrating this is that everyone has there peeves and to other people those peeves may sound silly. A good restaurant should try to annoy the obvious peeves (calling ladies guys, making people wait forever to pay, etc.) that may not annoy many, but is sure to annoy some. It shouldn't necessarily be able to anticipate the "odd" peeves (yes, like my water drinking in some instances), but when made aware of them a good restaurant should be able to handle them.