edenman

That's why you sit at the bar, where the feedback loop is tighter, and your bartender can tell you about new stuff that's come in. God help you if you are sitting upstairs on a weekend night. The thing is, even with the availability and service issues that you can encounter at the Brickskeller, it's still a massive list and can be a great place to have a beer, and that means it will be on these sorts of lists as long as it's open. Honestly, I think those 6 DC-area awards are spot-on (and not just because I work at one of them ). The rare stuff you can get at Beck, the great tap list at Birreria, the stellar stash at Chevy Chase, etc etc. Anybody got a link to the list itself? I couldn't find it anywhere in a brief search. Would be interesting to see what other cities are well-represented.

Old Dominion Brewpub in Ashburn is closed. "We apologize for any convenience this may cause." hahaha

Ghoulish Goulash?

I looked it up on the list, and turns out it wasn't Champagne, but Domaine de Martinolles, Blanquette de Limoux, "Le Berceau," Brut NV. Good stuff. And you were right about the burrata, I just didn't know what it was called.

Great little stint at the bar yesterday. Got there at 5:30, before the rush...it was really starting to get going when I left around 7. Old-Fashioned Whiskey Sour Champagne (can't recall the producer but it was tasty stuff) Heirloom Tomato Salad Chicken Liver Bruschetta House-Cured Trout Brioche Sandwich (Prosciutto, Fontina, Egg) Everything was great, but the trout and tomato salad deserve special mention. The trout was firm, meaty, with a great salty-sweet-herbal cure. And the tomato salad was a wonderful homage to tomato season: simply dressed with balsamic reduction, with a few leaves of basil and some mild (goat?) cheese. So good.

Cork, 5:30.

All of the Sundays in October (except the 5th) work for me.

Chatting with a friend this hungover afternoon and she said this "evil article. evil evil. getting hungry and hedonistic" after I sent her that. I couldn't agree more. I want champagne and oysters NOW.

You should see it without the bandage But yea, thanks for the well wishes. I'm hoping it gets better too. Hobbling around in flipflops is starting to get old.

Beer is too much of a percentage of my drinking, so I only have a list of 5 for now: 1) Anchor Genevieve (sipping) 2) Plymouth Gin (mixing) 3) Willet 23yr "Velvet Glove" Rye (sipping) 4) Rittenhouse 100 Rye (mixing) 5) Vya Sweet Vermouth (manhattans) If I could please trade the other 5 for a never-ending tap of Bell's Two-Hearted, that would be just dandy.

Something is fishy around here.

Cooking alot more than usual this week, due to a toe injury: Monday: Roasted Beet Salad (sliced beets, goat cheese, cara cara orange slices) Whole Trout Meuniere, Grilled sausage, capers Wednesday: Seared Sea Scallops, Grits Oven-roasted Black Sea Bass, bed of Chard, Heirloom Tomato, Red Onion, Guanciale Lardons Tonight: Green Grits (grits mixed with a puree of guanciale, red onion, and edamame) The Green Grits were an experiment driven by not wanting to spend any more money at WF than I have been. Not bad, but the texture was a bit too chunky...maybe omit the onion/guanciale next time and flavor with creamier ingredients (guanciale grease + onion powder? seems a bit odd). I've been reading James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish, which produced the inspiration to try whatever whole fish looked good at WF. Was a bit thrown off by the trout's sliminess, but the book tells me that's normal, so we're good. Photos

Rehoboth Never eaten anywhere but the Dogfish Head brewpub, and don't see any need to eat anywhere else, either. I don't go to the beach for fine dining, I go for burgers and beers. And I don't go to Rehoboth for the beach, I just go for Dogfish.

Pretty hilarious defense of McDonald's. I don't need abs, I just need salt and pickles and stuff.

~22" high. base is ~11" wide and ~8.5" deep.

Mdt let me borrow one of these for a few months and it made things a breeze. When he took it back, it wasn't more than a couple weeks later that I ordered my own. Love it (and fwiw, the 11lb model is plenty sufficient for my needs).

I can't bring myself to ever order anything other than the Capital here (pastrami, corned beef, beef tongue) and it's great. The sides have been consistently all mediocre to bad, though...i tried the avocado slices ($1) today in desperation and they were not ripe. $13 for a sandwich pre-tax, pre-tip means this is still an occasional visit, especially since it now requires a metro trip from the office.

Because of the salt content? Or because Thomas Keller inspiration would betray your RR affinities?

It was up for sale on craigslist a couple months ago. I guess maybe somebody gobbled it up?

Breakfast of yogurt from the yogurt/marscapone guy and blackberries from the one of the north-side veggie places, followed by frittata with eggs from the "come back and see me" egg guy, cherry tomatoes from toigo, sweet italian sausage from cedarbrook, spinach from the lettuce folks. Very expensive, but great.

If you have room and time, the kitchenaid meat grinder does good work on chuck roasts, and allays many of my fears about ground beef processing. I use this method anytime I'm making burgers and have the forethought to pick up a chuck roast at WF. I guess there's still the possibility that the surface will be infected and my grinding will still distribute it through the meat, but it makes me feel better about taking that risk. I guess theoretically you could sear the outside to kill buggies, but then you're left with crispy bits in your burger (or loss from carving off the now-seared bits before grinding). Anybody done anything like this?

A day in Alexandria: Cod and chips at Eamonn's: when they call large fries, i call a potato feast. Massive. Great stuff, but a bit messy for eating while driving. Dinner and drinks at Vermillion. (full disclosure, I work at Rustico, in the same group) Great house-cured charcuterie (chicken parfait! country pate! saucisson-sec!) and a solid lineup of lounge menu stuff: hanger steak, softshell creb, braised pork sliders, and a nice cheese plate to finish. 60-Minute on tap.

Good luck. Maybe try Penzey's or My Organic Market, but I am doubtful that you'll be able to find anything. Your best bet might be to see if you can borrow some from a chef or fellow nerd who does his/her own. If I wasn't so busy today and tomorrow I'd offer some of mine.

Oh, yea. About that. Apparently the humidity being up that high initially was enough for some buggies to get in there, and despite the CaCl, both legs were covered with bad-looking mold after about a month. I pitched 'em. Will try just one leg next time to try and not overwhelm the fridge. It was a sad day when I decided to give up on them, but every failure is a lesson (maybe I should've used some nitrite/nitrate in the cure, and I definitely needed to be more proactive on the humidity). And on the upside, I finally tossed them out one night after a shift at Rustico, at like 1am: the thought of one of my neighbors witnessing me carrying two huge pig legs out to the curbside trashcan still makes me laugh

How can I live without Twitter? I can't live without Twitter! I might as well talk to people in real life then. Do you know how tiring that is?