treznor

As I stated, I was (and am not) certain of who placed the link on Wikipedia. Typically on Wikipedia commercial links such as that are placed by the business or someone associated with the business. There is no harm done as I removed the link from the External Links section (which anyone can do) as it is not appropriate for Wikipedia, nor is it the intended use of Wikipedia.

I would highly suspect that someone associated with the restaurant put in the link in Wikipedia as it was an anonymous editor that did it and the only change was to put that link in. That's not even remotely the purpose of Wikipedia, so I had it removed (if anyone goes looking for it and wonders why they can't find it). I thought I had okonomiyaki at the sushi place in Bradlee Center which I forget the name of. At the time I asked Escoffier about it as I wasn't familiar with the dish and he lived in the area and I thought he listed a couple places that had the dish. It could be that I'm thinking of a different dish though :-)

I can think of another winery that could probably be said about, Oasis Winery. I did not like their wines at all when I was out at their winery. Granted I didn't try their sparkling wine, which is supposed to be among the best made in the US but based on their other wines I had no inclination to pay extra to try it. Their grounds however are gorgeous and they host many weddings on them. Being near the Marriott Ranch probably doesn't hurt. It isn't a good sign to see a winery focus most of it's attention on event planning, but if it's a way to subsidize the winemaking operations and bring in cash during lean times it certainly can be a boon (which is probably one reason why so many Virginia wineries do offer event planning in at least some format); you just hope that it isn't their primary focus.

My parents have had a standing request for me for years that I haven't been able to fulfill: A microwave that opens opposite every other microwave in the known universe (i.e. it opens such that the door hinges on the right instead of the left). They use their microwave very, very rarely (leftovers mostly, melting butter sometimes) but because of the way their kitchen is laid out the microwave is inconvenient to use with the hinge on the left side. Has anyone seen such a microwave?

When I'm in DC (about every other week or so) I stay in Crystal City somewhat frequently; last week was such a week. I've been into Bebo about once a month or so since it opened, sitting at the bar everything past the first since I'm always dining alone. I had been awaiting the firing of the pizza oven so made it into Bebo when I finally could. The salumni was good (soprassata picante), the wine decent (a friuli merlot I believe), the company interesting (the whole side of the bar I was on were friends with Roberto or the manager I think...). But to the pizza, the main reason I had gone in. After hearing others complaining of the wateryness of the sauce on the broccoli rabe pizza I almost steared clear, but it really was the pizza that struck me best; broccoli rabe, sausage (veal? I forget now), and garlic. The pizza came out not watery at all, the crust perfectly cooked with just a bit of charring on the outside and nicely crisp throughout. The sausage was nicely spiced to give it a little zing but not so spicy that it detracted from the play of the cheese and the broccoli rabe. I was very happily impressed with the pizza and didn't notice any of the problems that others have noted. Roberto was at the pizza oven himself so maybe there are still training issues if others are doing the pizza cooking, but with Roberto at the oven the pizza was truly very delectable.

You know, all your talk of where to go in Winston is going to get me to go out there sometime or another. Winston is almost as close to Charlotte (both just a bit over an hour away) from where I live now and sadly Charlotte has no equivalent of DR.com and is under-represented on eGullet (compared to Raleigh, where I travel to for work often) so finding places to go on the occassions we feel like going to the city for dinner can be a bit tough. Though Charlotte does have the fact that I fly into it every other week so we're already in town going for it.

That was basically the -exact- same comment that popped in my head when I took a look at the list. There were also a couple of restaurants that I recommend very frequently but that weren't on the list, but that also didn't fit the apparent "feel" of the list. Dino and RTS both come to mind. I recommend both frequently but neither has the high-class feel that this list exudes.

Having had the sushi there before for lunch, you didn't miss much. It was fine but certainly nothing particularly special.

There's a guy doing something similar in Durham, NC... it's in a thread in the southeast eGullet threads. The legality is questionable there as well so I won't directly link... Basically you pay for the ingredients and he puts on the meal at his place. Not quite the same as what the original poster was looking for but similar. He's not doing it for a profit but instead doing it to get some experience but the results have been quite good based on other's comments.

Technically you would need approximately 12.60% as much H as O. Gases are typically sold by weight so even though you need twice as many H atoms as O atoms the O atoms weight approximately 16 times as much as the H atom. Thus for your 265.5 grams of oxygen that you bought (i.e. the 1*10^25 atoms above) you'd need around 33.44 grams of hydrogen. I wouldn't want you to get taken advantage of by those ruthless hydrogen dealers and buy more hydrogen than you need...

Unfortunately I don't think it was a fluke. I've been in a couple times on weekend evenings and the dining room was at best 1/4 full. To my mind RK has the largest disparity in food quality versus people showing up in the area. The last time I was in a couple weeks ago it gave me a chance to catch up with Carolynn and Jamie for a little while, but honestly I'd like to see them busier so they can rake in more cash :-)

I haven't been to Viridian, but I'd choose Butterfield 9. I've been twice for RW, both times for lunch with decent-sized groups, and have been pleasantly surprised both times. I say surprised because I thought the food quite good for a place that essentially has no "buzz" and that I hadn't heard of at all the first time we went. I'd agree with JLK that Indique is probably too cheap... might as well go to a place that's more expensive since you can go to Indique for around that price pretty much anytime you want.

I honestly could eat gallons of their "mac and cheese". I put it in quotes because nothing that tastes like that should just be called mac and cheese. I'll agree on the not sitting in the room with the dishes as well. We sat in their one time we went and it was more than a bit annoying.

Or use yellowpages.com :-)

Any those critics evidently read dr.com :-) Check out the bottom paragraphs now in the update.

At one point we considered moving in order to be inside the delivery radius of Lost Dog.

My parents have a glass cooktop and seem to like it alot. It's not as good as gas by any means, but it's better than the electric coil stoves since you have a flat contact surface. I'm not certain what kind of pots/pans they use, but I know they are heavy bottom pans.

What's wrong with drinking 5 to get in your daily requirements?

The only one I can think of in Loudon county (sorry, nothing in Fairfax county) is Tarara. They often have events at their winery that involve food of some sort. A number of places have cheese plates or sausage and such, but it sounds like that's what you're trying to stay away from. As far as learning opportunities go, a number of places also tours and whatnot, though after one or two of these that start to sound repetitive.

Wine Spectators listings are somewhat useful, but not overly so. In particular you have to submit your restaurant to be considered and some of the best restaurants just don't submit. Galileo is closed for renovations (same chef owns Galileo as owns Bebo BTW). As well, Wine Spectator doesn't differentiate between wine service and wine-by-the-glass. A place with wide variety of wines isn't neccassarily going to have a wide selection of wine by the glass. I'd second the Dino recommendation.

Okra is best sliced into about 1/4 - 1/2 inch slices, floured, and pan fried. It also goes very well in vegetable soup if you should choose to make some with your CSA share.

Without the larding needle, how is he going to shove all the extra fat into the pig? One would think that the guy that invented the Caja China would know what he's doing. I'm predicted (yet another) loss for Flay.

Pearmund - I tried Pearmund's once and just didn't like it. Maybe it was because I had heard some hype that it was among the best in VA, or maybe it was just an off day (for the wines or for my palate) or something else, but it didn't wow me at all. That having been said, I would definitely suggest including it on your tour. Too many people have said their wines are good so it must have been something going on when I tasted their wines :-) Rappahannock - On the other hand I do really enjoy Rappahannock's wines. Some of them are a bit bland, but I especially enjoy their Meritage. It was the one place I joined the Wine of the Month club from when I lived in VA. They don't ship to NC, so I had to drop them when I moved. Naked Mountain - I would second dropping Naked Mountain. Grey Ghost - Grey Ghost has some wines that I like quite a bit. In particular I like their dessert wine (Adieu) quite possibly the most of any of the VA dessert wines. I think it's worth visiting. Linden - A favorite of mine, I like their sparkling cider as well. Can be crowded though and limos certainly couldn't make it up the driveway, nor would they have a place to park. Others in the area: Oasis - Expansive grounds and they certainly allow limos. Supposedly one of the best sparkling wines in the country, though I've never tried it. Unfortunately I think the rest of their wine is pretty bad. Unicorn - Run of the mill, towards bad. Wouldn't bother. Tasting room isn't exactly inspiring either, basically being in a trailer. Also keep in mind that at each tasting room a tasting will be around 30 minutes or so. Hitting 6 wineries means a solid 3 hours or so of drinking wine. There's a good chance that you could be quite tipsy after that... Being driven by someone else (not partaking) is definitely a good idea...

Post in NY Times Diner's Journal

I honestly don't know if I could create a website that bad if I made a very strenuous attempt. It's like they took every rule of good website design and did the exact opposite... and then came up with a few rules that no one had thought of and broke those as well. Between making the links that you are supposed to click on move (okay, you don't have to actually hit the moving part, but that's no obvious at first) and making it non-obvious on how to back out of menus that you enter into, this website has broken new ground in ways to suck.