synaesthesia

I stopped by the Dupont location for dinner. It was the first night, and the chicken was spot on. The white meat was moist and delicious. The skin was crisp and with just hints of char. They don't have booze yet, but will soon. The layout isn't nearly as good as the one in Chinatown (there's a weird little angle to the entry way that makes people cluster), but it's a little less bright which is nice for the location. The only thing that was a bit weird was the guy who brought us our food - he seemed really put-upon when we asked for an extra plate for the whole chicken and salad that we ordered. The one thing that I've found really weird is they assign you a table first, which makes it seem like there's table service. But then you have to get up an order. This is a bigger annoyance here because the restaurant has a second level of seating.

I think this post is perfectly fine, aside from perhaps the choice of words in the first sentence. "An incident to report" is a little bit of an alarmist phrase, as if there were some major service issue. I was scared that the server had poured oil on this person's suit. But really this simply could have been stated as: "They put olive oil on my fish. I didn't like it. Did I miss something here?" Maybe they meant to be alarmist... I don't know. But everyone's had their not the best choice of words moments.

I hope these weren't from batches of confit. =D

Thurs night - James Hoban's - chicken tenders with honey mustard - clearly feeling like a five year old, but wasn't interested in anything on the menu. Mio - Jack Rose - heavy on the grenadine and very maraschino tasting. Made with lemon, but I definitely prefer it with lime. LAME. Sun. evening - Cobb Salad at Open City - thick cut applewood smoked bacon, slightly dry grilled chicken but with a nice smokiness. Carrot cake that had been in the fridge too long - hard cream cheese frosting - middling moistness on the cake.

This article from the Examiner about some servers at local restaurants scamming on credit cards... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Se...--42089822.html

I went with a friend last night. There's certainly something to say about it being the first week. The service seemed fine, but the food was a bit of a mixed bag. We had the fried risotto balls with wild boar sausage. They were crisp, creamy and delicious. The other dish we ordered was the oriecchiette with spicy fennel sausage, and broccoli rabe. The oriecchette was a strange mix of al dente and a sort of fuzziness on the outside as if it had been cooked too long. The spicy fennel sausage was ridiculously spicy with no indication as such. I don't know if this was some sort of The Who situation with blowing up the drum set, but this was well above three chili peppers on a Chinese food menu. The sauce I found too thin to be a logical fit with the shape of the pasta. It was also slightly disappointing that we didn't get any bread with our order in the bar, as I'm sure that it's probably fantastic bread. The cocktails could also use a little help. An orviette with strawberries, balsamic syrup, vodka and basil sounds good on paper, but this wasn't very well implemented - not much balsamic and not shaken sufficiently. The top tasted mostly like strawberries, but drinking from the bottom was a blast of booze. Another cocktail with a name I couldn't remember was overly sweet to the point I almost wondered if there was artificial sweetener. It is the first week, and they have some things that need to be sorted out on the menu. I will say the pizzas looked pretty yummy from what I could tell.

How else is he going to run away and leave with you the bill?

I wish I had made it to the Red Iguana during my stay in Salt Lake City, but didn't quite make it. I ended up with most of my meals in the hotels. If you ever plan a meeting with food in Salt Lake, don't have it at the Hilton, which epitomizes every thing bad about catered food - dried out, oversauced and questionable as to whether it actually is meat. I went to The Counter, a franchised restaurant that was reminiscent of Cheeburger Cheeburger in the custom topping department. They are against frozen meat and the like. Well... it might not be frozen, but cooked at medium managed to be an overhandled hockey puck. The choice of cheeses and toppings was interesting though perhaps not always appropriate. I silently chuckled to myself over my server's repeated mispronunciation of gruyere, but kept quiet. Their roasted garlic mayo was the one thing that made this meal not totally suck. The Counter had a number of bottles and beers on tap. The alcohol regulations are not nearly as bad as everyone makes them out to be unless you want hard liquor in which case for now you will have to pay a membership fee (about $4-5 for a temp). Granted the place is so boring that I wouldn't blame you for hitting the booze hard. But they should be doing away with membership fees soon. The best thing I had to eat during my trip was a very good soft pretzel in the exhibit hall at the convention center. It was soft and lightly greased. The Polygamy Porter from Wasatch Brewery is fairly passable as far as porters go (and worth at least getting a picture of), but the apricot hefeweizen has a very strong apricot fragrance with no detectable wheat beer flavor. Salt Lake City is a very strange place. It is a city that lacks any real dwellers within city limits, so most of the people walking around are either tourists, U of U students or the homeless. Within a certain zone, the tram is free, and you will frequently see the homeless riding the trains. If you happen to travel to SLC, make sure to try not to forget things. Things you take for granted like finding a drug store on every corner don't really seem to be easy to find.

According to Chris, the bartender, Logan Cox makes all the bread for the restaurant. Tonight we sampled a country white, cornbread, and some type of brown bread. I loved the warm and downy insides of the country white and brown breads. The cornbread was also very good. It's a nice touch. And with the chicken liver parfait at $9 you could make a meal of the pate and bread.

I know she's a DR.com buddy... Rebecca Cooper did an interview with Monica Bhide about her new cookbook Modern Spice.

Yeah apparently there was a similar problem with organic grapes at Tesco in England a few years ago. Though it was a dead black widow spider.

This was not very good. It was extremely sugary in flavor and had a weird slippery mouthfeel afterward. It was interesting because it had tripe, flank and meatball in it. But yech. I walked out feeling like I smelled funky.

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Spices delivers. Boy, do I know that well...

The mac and cheese that came with the fried chicken plate was superlative. I'm usually not a big fan of mac and cheese. I like that it wasn't too sauce-y and appreciated the broiled breadcrumbs on top. I ate a little piece cold this morning, and it was still awesome. I find that I am still wishing the sticky toffee pudding cake were a little more textured. It's a lot of soft, and I wish that the cake were either a little crustier on the outside or the toffee had a little more tooth-sticking qualities. But I liked that they upped the salt on the toffee. Mmm...

Slightly gloppy chicken with broccoli, and unextraordinary and barely spicy Szechuan beef chock-a-block full of shredded carrots and celery. I'd been curious about Mr. Chen's for a long time. What I found was a standard bearer of American Chinese carryout. Nothing exceptional, but at the same time it's questionable whether you can expect much out of what is listed on their menu. Sort of like starting out with a false premise and working from there. Don't get me wrong though. I LOVE orange chicken. Just have to be in the right mood for it.

Zaytinya (bar menu) since you're willing to go as far as Proof renovated New Big Wong since you're willing to go as far as Nando's

I should have mentioned that I tried one type of Taiwanese fake "chicken nuggets." Not really like chicken, but was pretty tasty in a "chicken salad."

I used to go to the then-much-larger Potomac Adventist Bookstore for snacks when I was living in College Park. They always had good deals on Terra potato chips, amongst other items that I found really interesting. The store didn't end up doing so well, and split the space in half with Staples. I went back today for the first time in five years. Seventh Day Adventists have some stringent dietary guidelines, and many of them are vegetarians. They also celebrate the Sabbath on Saturdays, so the store is closed then. Anyway, there were a lot of prepared vegetarian items, frozen vegetarian meats from Taiwan, and what I found really strange was the Costco-sized cans of vegetarian meat substitutes. A lot of typical Whole Foods-type items though I didn't bother to compare prices. The real find was the bulk grains and spices. Three vanilla beans (quality I'm not sure of) for 58 cents. Different heat grades of cayenne pepper in short tubs for $1. A big variety of grains and grain flours. My guess is it's good for any people who have an allergy to find alternatives. Seeds for lentil sprouts and other types of sprouts.

We didn't feel like marinating the chicken I had bought, but we had some leftover cooked chicken breast. But we also had some Gardenburger black bean chipotle burgers. So I just browned them up on the grill with a squeeze of lime juice, and sliced them into strips. Nonfat yogurt instead sour cream, caramelized onions, red peppers, cilantro, tomato, and some cheese on the tortilla. Surprisingly good.

The one at 7th and E is now Tangysweet.

Stephanie, Thanks for your comments. It's nice that you, as part of the business, come on to explain things and discuss with us. We definitely appreciate it, and I think it's nice to get an insight as to how things work there.

What he really means is "on the bottom level of an underground garage just over the Key Bridge in Rosslyn." Heh heh.

The only thing that comes to mind is Cuba de Ayer in Burtonsville. I can only think of dives or Franklin's as places near Greenbelt.

It is down a set of stairs. So I don't really think so...