edenman

Resurrecting an old thread: anybody have recent recommendations for a knife skills class in DC, preferably something near Metro?

Local's Corner is quickly becoming one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants.  Great local seafood, both cooked and raw.  A solid CA-centric wine list and a few good beers on tap.  Tonight I had a couple of small bites: smoked sturgeon, trout roe.  Followed up with a raw brussels sprouts salad with almond breadcrumbs and Capricious cheese.  Finished with a stellar smoked trout terrine that I plan on trying to duplicate at home, having just smoked some trout a few days ago.  It's small, just a handful of tables and five barstools, which makes it perfect for a solo dinner at the bar since the other four seats are invariably occupied by couples.

La Ciccia is nice: I've only been once, but if you're into Sardinian, that's the place to go.

Just ate at Rich Table this week.  Delicious but spendy and difficult to get a table.  Good bread, great pasta, delightful cocktails.  Porcini doughnuts FTW.

In case you're coming to visit, here are some places I like to eat/drink: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V9lxHCdpG1EzgxFVe2mFgD6YMWjkg8GLMA1kc_XNQe0

I see your map and raise:

http://maps.google.c...&mid=1325292031

Did you mean to link to something else? I think that's my map you just linked to.

Trip to Portland booked for Feb 16-20 - meeting my sis and brother-in-law, who live in San Francisco. Yes, Portland in February, brrrrr, yadda yadda. Gotta plan around those Federal holidays. Beast, Le Pigeon, and Pok Pok have already been mentioned as possibilities. Hubs and I are beer geeks and hopheads - any recommendations in that arena? Also, any thoughts on where to stay?

Inn Beervana is worth looking into for accomodations.

And for eating and drinking: My PDX Map

Long weekend in Chicago, centered around girlfriend's birthday-present reservation at Alinea.

Friday:

Hot Doug's - finally made it here. the Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Fleur de Sel was delicious, but the crayfish sausage (no longer on the menu so I don't have the fully details) stole the show. stunning. the duck fat fries didn't warrant the "only Friday and Saturday" hype.

Hopleaf - one of the best beer lists in town. didn't get any food since we had eaten so much at HD, but drank a nice array of sour belgian stuff in bottles to complement the local stuff on tap.

Violet Hour - showed up early enough (6:30ish) so that we didn't have to stand in line. the autumn negroni (with the addition of fernet) was delicious, and we got a fantastic bowl of punch (rum, porter syrup, a bunch of other stuff).

Blackbird - overall a very good meal, but totally dominated by how amazing the duck breast was. seared in a pan and finished in the oven, and apparently dry-aged (you can dry-age duck??). not a fan of the look/feel of the place, but it was delicious.

Local Option - one of my favorite relaxing beer spots in town. lots of great stuff on tap. only left here because the owner/manager person started blasting covers of Baker Street, one after another.

Paddy Long's - nothing special, but if you're in the area, they've got Three Floyd's on tap. most decent bars in town do, but still exciting since we can't get it out west.

Saturday:

Beckett's Public House - pork belly blt, mac and cheese. decent, but not worth seeking out.

Alinea - amazing. no need to go over the details. just fantastic in every regard.

Sunday:

Sabri Nihari - good Pakistani lunch in a very Indian neighborhood.

Map Room - my favorite beer bar in town. also had a decent macchiato, which was pretty helpful at this point of the day.

The Publican - after Alinea, this was probably the meal I had looked forward to the most. being a beer and food person, i was really hoping to see a focus on pairing great beers with excellent food. while the beers were great, the food didn't stack up. blood sausage was tasty but texture was grainy and fell apart. the half chicken was almost as soggy as the fries beneath it. potee was probably the best plate of the night, but still didn't really wow me. the pickles were good, but the rest of the veggies were a sad lot. maybe it suffered from post-Alinea sadness, but whatever it was, I came away realizing that there are truly very few places in the country that do both beer and food greatly. I had heard that Publican was one, but at least on this visit, that was not the case.

Sheffields - nightcap of Bell's Two-Hearted. joy.

Monday:

Bangers and Lace - like hot doug's but fancy, with dinner and drinks. the foie gras corn dog was foie on a garlic sausage, and the entire bun was deep-fried. the most decadent thing of the entire trip, no question. ridiculous. the rest of the food was good (skip the fries, though). great beer list and the cocktails looked good.

Delilah's - even when it's packed full of punk-rock Halloween revelers, this is still one of the best places to drink whiskey ever. the beer list ain't too shabby neither.

Tuesday:

Orange on Roscoe - weekday brunch + wifi. chai-flavored, ricotta-stuffed french toast. schizophrenic stereo.

Revolution Brewing - more wifi, some decent beers. a "double pale ale" that was quite a boozer, and very much a double IPA in reality...but still tasty. english mild that would have made jparrott proud.

Goose Island @ O'Hare - worth stopping in if you happen to be in the VirginAmerica area. most of the Goose Island beers were in bottles, but still. Sofie in an airport is a glorious thing, and they had bourbon county too!

Fin.

Delfina or flour + water get my vote and if you go to Delfina you are near the Bi-rite Creamery for some excellent ice cream.

Seconded. Some other favorites in that same general price range: Nopa, Bar Crudo, Incanto, Frances.

Could also take them to get XLB...not sure if there are any places doing those in the DC area. Shanghai King and Shanghai House are both good in the Richmond, and Kingdom of Dumpling is v good in the Outer Sunset. Bamboo Garden in Mountain View is amazing if you happen to be that far south.

And no trip to SF should be complete without hitting a taqueria or three. La Taqueria for cabeza, San Jose for al pastor, Guadalajara for carnitas. Cancun for sesos if you have time.

ETA: And they don't really do reservations, but Mission Chinese Food is _killing_ it right now.

Franklin's BBQ. Moved about a year ago from a converted trailer to an actual brick/mortar at East 11th and Branch (just off I-35). Best fatty brisket I've ever had. No contest. Just amazing. Go.

Let me nitpick: they did not squeeze the citrus to order that night. The horror.

Click

I had friends visiting SF last weekend, and a couple of them asked me if I wanted them to bring anything in their checked baggage.

The answer: Bell's Two-Hearted.

The result: 12 bottles of pure gold. I have missed this beer so much.

It's also worth noting the shout-out for Estadio's beer list in this great article by Orr Shtuhl. I got to try some of the Surly beers when I was there last fall. Great stuff, and a great find at a restaurant you wouldn't necessarily expect to have a great beer list (unless you knew who was involved).

Neil and I broke down a 210lb pig yesterday and needed to get out of the house tonight for dinner. Sunday night is a notorious SF "restaurants are closed" night, so it took us several attempts (Mr Pollo, Local Mission Eatery, Heirloom) before we finally arrived at Flour & Water (menu pdf). And miraculously got two seats at the communal table (the place is always packed). It's a little too hip for its own good: the candle-holders are miniature graduated cylinders (what were they before they graduated?), the napkins are green-stripe kitchen towels, and the soundtrack tonight included the latest efforts from the Arcade Fire and the National. We had been to the restaurant back in the first week it opened, but hadn't been by since, and I was skeptical. The. Food. Was. Fantastic. Zuppa Di Pesce, with a fantastic rich broth, perfectly cooked seafood, beans, and kale. Pork and Rabbit Terrine, pistachios, dressed with arugula, pecorino, flatbread. Very mellow, perfect texture. Bone Marrow pizza. Perfect, with crispy rapini. Seriously one of the better pizzas I've ever had. Pasta: Mint Chitarra w/Dungeness. The only miss of the night for us. Well cooked, but the romanesco didn't really play with the other ingredients and there wasn't much dungeness at the party. Still, an excellent meal, and (with 2 glasses of wine for each of us) $107 pre-tip. Now, if I could just figure out a way to reliably get seats without a 45-min wait. Recommended.

A friend brought some duck-fat-fried latkes over on NYE. I'd never had latkes before, so I can't make the claim he does (world's best). But they were damn good. Recipe

Diablo Royale (the only not-recommended place of the trip)

Summit Bar

Per Se

Pegu Club

Pain Killer

Counting Room

Cafe Boulud

Zabar's

Eataly

Luke's Lobster

Broadway Dive Bar

Artie's NY Deli

Mermaid Inn

Apotheke

White Star

Cheesy Pizza (ok, this is also not recommended either, but it was late and pizza seemed like a good idea)

Broadway Dive Bar

Soba-Ya

An excellent long weekend in the city with good friends.

DC SAT questions:

Galileo : Brickskeller :: Dining : Beer

Edit: the comparison isn't really all that apt if you just think about the physical/historical details of the actual restaurants, but I'm leaving it up for the symbolic analogy quotient.

Ruth Lafler, Robt Lauriston and Melanie Wong would be a good start, in my opinion.

By the way, we really liked La Ciccia, a family run Sardinian place, & 1550 Hyde (which might have closed).

Yea, I haven't found anything similar to DR.com out here. Chow is the de facto standard, and it's a firehose of information, even if you just glance through the RSS feed like I do.

Lauriston has opened his own place and doesn't post much anymore. Melanie Wong has some great posts. Not familiar with Lafler.

Haven't been to La Ciccia yet, but 1550 is definitely done

After the success of DC Sour Barrel, I recently started a barrel brew with some homebrewing buddies in SF. An Oud Bruin in a barrel that previously house Teroldego (some obscure Italian grape) from a winery in Oakland. Excited.

Doing a tomato dinner this week @gastroclub so I did some oven-dried heirlooms last night, and today making tomato sorbet. The oven-dried only took ~9 hours to reach desired consistency, so ymmv.

are the 4 gal. cornie kegs ok?-I guess you would bottle the extra?

The only cornie kegs I've ever seen are 5gal (perfect for a single batch). If you somehow found 4gal cornie kegs...you could bottle the extra, although that sorta defeats the point of kegging (not having to sanitize bottles and deal with a bottling bucket/whatever). I'd recommend just shrinking your batch size to fit your kegging setup.

I'm reviving this old thread, because I'm trying to start home brewing again-haven't done anything in awhile, but it's just like riding a bicycle, right? Never have gotten around to kegging, but fall is coming & I feel like brewing some beer-is anyone out there?

The kegging investment isn't for everyone, but if you brew often enough to get tired of bottling, it's great. I have brewed enough already this year that I'm going to have to slow down or risk going over the 100gal legal limit

Spent the holiday weekend in Rhode Island and Boston. Had the following over the last two days:

Lobster Roll @ The Shack, Jamestown. Easily the best I've had since touring Maine in 2007. Grilled potato bun, very lightly dressed fresh lobster. Excellent. $15 with chips/drink.

 
Lobster Roll @ O'Rourke's, Warick/Cranston. Way better than expected for a random pub. A bit more dressed than the Shack, but still pretty well done. $17 with fries.

 
Lobster Club @ Cisco "Brewpub", Boston Logan Airport. And another surprisingly good showing of lobster, balanced with tasty bacon and slightly too much lettuce. Still. $16 with fries.

---

07/08/10 - Maine Avenue Wharf (RWBooneJr.)

I felt the lack of French a bit in Brussels especially when my high school spanish flooded back.

There was a moment in Bruge when we couldn't convey water to the waiter in a Chinese place but we gestured our way through.

I found the menus very easy to follow, as I did in Paris, thanks to years of Latin.

I did not venture in to the countryside though--Ghent, Bruge, Brussels and Osteend.

Good luck!

Went in 2007, so this may be old data, but English is usually passable in the major cities. Outside of that, seemed like about a 30/70 ratio of english speakers to non. Had many, many awkward phone conversations with breweries, trying to deduce if they were open for visits/tours.

(Tap, Tap--is this on?) There's a member of our motley community who might wish to add to this thread from his/her new home elsewhere.

Oh hai. Started doing something out here called @gastroclub. We're getting around the pay/tax/etc issue by running it as a "club" where everybody just chips in on food/drink cost. And I don't include the cost of the homebrew, to avoid running afoul of the "it's illegal to sell homebrew" restrictions. So far no issues, but it's all just friends and friends-of-friends. Tends to be like $30-$35 for 4 courses of beer and food. I do the brewing and the braising/curing beforehand, and a friend of mine who is a cook comes in and does the day-of cooking, while I wash dishes and talk to people about the beers and food.

It is a most satisfying undertaking. We recently expanded to two seatings in a night...we'll see if demand keeps up with supply, but at the very least, I now have full place settings for 16