edenman

cjsadler answered this question, but I looked it up since I was curious, and the Ricki Carroll book, which also has a "30-minute mozzarella" recipe, says this: Ricki also recommends optionall adding lipase powder for stronger flavor, fwiw. I've made a few other things from the book (my Gouda recipe is from it, and I've tried a few of the soft cheeses too), but never tried the mozz. Might have to give that a try if I can make it to the farmer's market tomorrow for milk.

Similarly low-effort: when I work from home, I'm all about throwing a sandwich on the foreman grill. Usually some sort of decent cheese with basic cold cut and mustard. Occasionally I'll get more fancy, but generally it's the basics when I'm actually trying to do work.

We always went by a different customer rating system when I worked at bars....number of drinks required. "Man, that girl in the white sweater by the window...2 drinks, tops"

But the bars are all smoke-free! I can hear them calling to me, with their undisturbed malt and hop aromas! You can actually smell your beer? Glory! </gloat>

I forgot to post that I made this trek over my thanksgiving break with a friend. I'm from the Austin area but didn't really get interested in good food until I came to DC, so needless to say I had never considered driving out there just for the food before. The brisket was seriously good, but the sausage was actually what I went nuts over. I don't remember in clear enough detail to use fancy adjectives, but I do remember it being fairly oily but just delicious. On the way home we stopped in at Black's to see how the "Best BBQ in Texas" stacked up, and it was really disappointing. Granted, the place had cleared out when we got there (a weekday around 1pm), but it was still really weak. Over the xmas break, I had a pretty decent lunch at Hyde Park Bar & Grill (the fries are great and they know it). Also had dinner with the family at the downtown Kerbey Lane location, and it was very pleasant...the place just screams Austin, and the food (I got a chicken breast stuffed with cream cheese and olives) was pretty good, especially for the price. Oh, and Austin has some great microbrews...Live Oak and Independence both put out some stellar beers.

Anybody been to one of the "Malibu Grill" locations recently? Buddy of mine wants to go there for his birthday because he loves the concept but doesn't want to spend as much money as you spend at Fogo. Their website says the dinner is $18, which is a huge chunk cheaper than Fogo, so I'm apprehensive about the quality.

A number of these bugs have been fixed...if you are still having problems (as listed above or otherwise), either re-post them here or PM me. I'm going to maintain an informal list of oustanding issues so we can work with invision to get back to the functional state of yore. Also, happy new years, everybody. Be safe.

AFAIK, this is because the credit card company generally pre-charges your card when the authorization goes through, and it's not until the restaurant's copy is processed that the credit card company (and thus, the online statement) is updated on the actual amount. Since some restaurants don't process the slips until really late at night, it might take a day or two for this to update. This tends to also be a big source of customer complaints since sometimes the credit companies will authorize an additional amount for tip automatically. So if a table is splitting the bill, somebody who charged $20 on their card might be pre-authorized for, say $23. Customer sees this on their bill and angrily calls up the restaurant. Hilarity ensues. Somebody who works in a restaurant can no doubt correct my details on these, but that's what I understood as of my last bar job.

Not a whole lot of drunken debauchery that I was aware of. The food was pretty good, the company better. Overview: 1) grilled portobello. simple, but delicious 2) smelt. thin little strips of smelt in a vinegar-based sauce. very tasty 3) legant's risotto, with (i believe) mushrooms and some other stuff. 4) barbara's pork medallions. this was the winner of the night, at least of the stuff i tried 5) I got a wild boar pasta for a main...the flavor and the sauce were great but the boar was pretty dry on the inside. All in all, it was a pretty good meal. Nothing to go yelling from the rooftops about, but for reasonably priced italian food near my place, I know where to go in the future. And it's always good to get a sense of where other Rockwellians reside. Good times. ETA: I was feeling un-adventurous and stuck to the moretti (eh), and I don't think anybody tried any grappa, although there were a few bottles of wine passed around

Anybody know if this place is still around? Google isn't turning up anything other than Jack Nicholson references. My only reservation about a downtown pho joint is that there wouldn't be room for nearly as much seating, which would mean they'd have to rely more on the takeout order. I think it's doable, but they'd have to alter their distribution model a little, and of course the prices would have to go up. Still, I think it's viable. Even a base price of ~$7 for a bowl wouldn't be unreasonable downtown, and it's really just a question of how many of the downtown workforce would be willing to dedicate the time it takes to eat one of these things

Had a regular #12 at the Arlington Pho 75 for lunch today. Got a side of the tendon too (was too intrigued...good stuff, a unique texture, falling apart and a tiny bit gummy, but quite flavorful). All told was $7something, and worth every penny. Sumptuous broth with a generous helping of tender beef. This was my first Pho experience...it won't be my last. Now if they would only get one of these downtown...Is there anything like this in Chinatown?

Merry Christmas to you too, Don, and to the rest of you as well. It's a pleasure, and I can't wait to see what this coming year will bring for us all.

Click if you are bringing multiple bottles with you. Otherwise, you'll probably have to check a bag....just wrap the bottle(s?) in a towel and pack them in the middle of your bag.

Side dishes are expected (i'm bringing dessert). Showing up with a main is another matter. Don't want to set up a cooking showoff competition, so I'm sticking to mom's gingerbread cookies and maybe a pie. Goose will have it's turn soon....still gotta find a larding needle

I see bar harbor real ale (yes!), abita xmas (is this any good? never had it), Aventinus (yes!!!) and the Anderson Valley Oatmeal Stout (yes!!), but what are the three bottles on the right?

"The meat has a delicious, smoky, rich flavor. Plus, you can use the molten goose grease, and save it in the refrigerator, thus saving you a trip to the store for a can of expensive goose grease" Is it bad that television has me contemplating a coup at my family xmas gathering? My uncle normally bakes a ham, but now I'm tempted to show up that afternoon with a goose. Mmm, goose grease.

Just re-read this post of mine and thought it was kind of funny that at the Oyster Riot last month, I was absolutely in love with Kusshi oysters, moreso than any of the others in attendance that night. Now I can't wait to re-try Emerald Coves so I can see what my taste buds truly prefer. Edited to add metrocurean's post about Hank's new $1 oyster happy hour: Click. Sunday-Friday, 5:30-6:30. Pretty small window means it'll probably be packed, but we'll see.

I've had mixed experiences with cap city mainstay beers (I dig the kolsch, a couple of the others are decent), but some of their seasonals truly shine. Fuel in particular is fantastic (but another high alcohol brew that jake will no doubt cringe at). I find it's a much better plan to eat before you go there, although I vaguely remember having a passable burger there a year or two ago.

I had this at the winter beer tasting at RFD last week when it was unveiled. Out of ~11 beers we tasted that night, it stole the show. It's got a hop character that is more aggressive than the belgian versions (they used american hops) while still retaining the grassy, earthy hop character of the belgians. It's definitely around 8-9%, though I'd have to check my notes from that night to be sure. It's fantastic, and I'm hoping to get to the downtown location to grab some more before it runs out.

I think the js errors have gone away. I disabled then enabled all my ffox plugins and the complaints seem to have stopped. Maybe the js was updated and my browser was still caching it...who knows. All is well (and for the record, I haven't seen the logout problem since Don's post on the fix)

The "Search titles only" option in the advanced search page no longer has any effect on search results. I tried both in IE and ffox, and in both "All Forums" and a specific forum. Seriously annoying, since that's how I usually do my "does this thread already exist" research. On the upside, the javascript errors I was seeing at work don't seem to be happening here at home. Will check again tomorrow...could be one of the web development plugins I have installed at work that were complaining to begin with. Either that or they actually fixed the problems.

A friend of mine recently went to California and wanted to bring back a bunch of 750ml bottles of beer (yes beer). He asked at a liquor store, and the guy was able to sell him a shippable/checkable styrofoam container that was designed to hold a case of wine. He said it worked out great, although of course he ended up buying more than a case worth and he had to give some stuff away before going to the airport. Eyes bigger than [checkable luggage].

Just got back from a thoroughly disappointing dinner at Bebo. I went in expecting the service to be bad, so I wasn't terribly surprised when it was, but I was expecting better food. The run down: Fried Veal Sweetbreads ($9) - the breading was like something you'd find at a long john silver's. the sweetbreads were quite thin and were flavorless against the onslaught of the fry. I may have been spoiled by the sweetbreads at Eve, but still, very disappointed. Fried Mozzarella ($7) - a HUGE chunk of mozz fried. a bit over-salty on the crust, but otherwise quite good, especially for the pricetag. Seafood risotto ($16ish) - good, but nothing special. there was a decent amount of seafood, but the risotto lacked coherency...i was expecting creamier and more tender. Meringue with chocolate and vanilla ice cream ($6) - again, good, but the meringue looked and tasted like it had come out of a plastic vacuum-packed container. just average. The prices were all very reasonable (with wine, i got out for under 60 before tip), but I just can't imagine making the trip out to CC again considering the disappointments with the food. And yea, the service was pretty miserable. Waiter didn't know (or couldn't communicate) anything about the menu specifics, we got charged for an extra bottle of wine, and getting a new check took forever (as did many things, water refills, etc). Oh well. I'll still be there when Roberto comes back into the city.

lots of javascript errors in Firefox 2.0 on Windows (none show up in IE). Some of the frequently showing up ones: ipsmenu is not defined ipb_skin_url is not defined show_inline_messages is not defined topic_rate is not defined i don't see any glaring functionality bugs as a result of these, but it's a sign that somebody doesn't know what they're doing (or just didn't test on FF at all). and who knows, maybe there are new functionality things missing that i just don't notice. edited to add: Ok so yea, these are actual problems. none of the fancy drop-down menus that you see in IE show up in ffox, and if you click on the username ("view member profile" in the dropdown after you click on a user's name in IE), the page you go to doesn't have any content on any of the tabs "topics", "posts" etc are all broken. One more: quick edit doesn't work in FF. you click submit and it doesn't submit.

mushrooms and polenta at cashion's veal sweetbreads at eve lobster roll at red's eats (in wiscasset, me)