Joshua Grinnell

Lalibela on Columbia Pike is a sister restaurant of Lalibela on P St., but the Columbia Pike location is even more packed with cabbies. If you measure the greatness of your ethnic food by the number of typos on the menu ("row beef") instead, you're still well served there. It's quite good and not as expensive as some of the fancier DC stalwarts.

We only ate around Old San Juan, but I would definitely second La Bombonera. Maybe for breakfast, as the butter bread+egg+cheese combo is a thing best worked off during the rest of the day. Also, looking back upthread, the rum bar Cana is no longer at El Convento and was replaced with a pizza place. $@%&. Otherwise, if you don't already have lodgings I would really recommend El Convento- there's an evening gratis wine and cheese reception. Enough free wine and manchego on the balcony can make the fruit bats buzzing you seem almost friendly and welcoming.

Saran was pleasantly busy tonight; we were also the only non-descendants of the most awesome of subcontinents there. Had the Methi Paneer, which was a darker, smokier version of palak paneer which had a fair amount of fenugreek mixed in with the spinach, and the Sitafal Curry, which is a thinner version of the kadu from Bamian (if you've had it, you know exactly how good that is) with a couple more sticks of butter in it. I still haven't had anything that wasn't fantastic here and the menu is around 80 items long. Hell, there are 19 different items in the bread section. The website will lead you astray, as Saran hasn't been open the past two Monday nights I tried; a more social person would do the decent thing and call ahead.

Burger Identification Quiz I'm ashamed to say that I only managed 50%, which means I should have my ventworm status taken away and killed in front of me. Rockwellians, test yourselves! Will you be weighed and found wanting?

That was very interesting- he's completely right about soaking the fries (from past experience in a sub shop) but that does seem to clue the reader in that quality control went down with franchising, as the owner feared, because damn those fries have gotten greasier of late. On the other hand, I will cheerfully eat at the first Five Guys in Abu Dhabi, maybe have a t-shirt printed that says "The Best Things Come from Arlington" with a picture on it of a Five Guys burger, Sandra Bullock, and the DARPA logo. Hometown pride always trumps too-greasy fries.

They're definitely working out some kinks- our food came out late, but brought personally by the chef so he could explain that he wasn't happy with how one of the cooks turned it out the first time. Got a free orange juice out it, but the personal explanation was easily enough. Had the Pede, which are thin flatbread pizzas that I'm having a difficult job describing. The dough looks like a very crispy crepe, with the edges folded up around the sides to make it generally football shaped. The lamb pede was the thin bread with a thin spread of ground lamb and spices, which I thought was excellent. The sucok pede was essentially resembled a pepperoni and cheese pizza, but with sujok sausage and salty mediterranean cheese. I preferred the lamb, though. Both were a little greasy and salty, but sometimes that helps get you through the day. Worth checking out, especially after they find their legs. The sit-down restaurant next door looks like its coming along quickly.

I find myself arguing on behalf of Five Guys because we go way back, to halcyon days of high school special trips when there were only two locations and I could only afford to get a soda after someone would spot me their empty styrofoam fry cup. However, if they have stock, buy it. I'm blanking on the specific term, but what Five Guys is doing is pure consumer psychology, the creation of a semi-upscale upgrade. Poor people go to McDonalds/Buger King/Wendys in the consumer consciousness, so if you want a burger but don't want to feel like you're slumming, there's Five Guys to give you slightly higher quality for slightly higher price. The expansion might seem reckless if you're worried about their watering down the brand, but I imagine they're trying to pull a Starbucks- Americans like coffee, feel a little guilty about getting it from 7-11, so Starbucks offers the "upgrade" in price and quality. It's such a successful idea that your only hope is to completely saturate the individual markets before someone beats you to it. Americans like coffee and cheeseburgers. If I had the seed money, I'd start a slightly upscale version of KFC/Popeyes and watch the money come rolling in. Monetize a guilty pleasure, help the consumer feel like they're aspiring to something more upscale, and beat everyone else to the corner with it. Now, this doesn't stop people like us who take our food and drink very seriously from saying, "well, I actually don't care for Starbucks coffee and the fries at Five Guys are greasy." I have Java Shack and Hellburger, but even if they wanted to (I really don't think they want to) these places couldn't pull off a multi-state expansion because the quality would suffer and quality matters there, the respective markets are already saturated, and in the current economic climate I'm not sure people are willing to make one more jump in price and quality to feel aspirational. So the Five Guys wave will keep rolling west until it hits the Great Wall of In-N-Out Burger and rolls back. Maybe then you'll see a Starbucks-style closing of redundant stores and consolidation, but not before some people get very rich off of melted cheese addictions. So, my beloved Five Guys is dead. Long live zombie expansion Five Guys, though, whether we complain about it here or not. /rant

To start with, it was a dire day. The river was overflowing its banks, the wind was howling the last of the storm clouds away, and I was either going to have a crepe or collapse in front of a GUTS bus and let it run me over. Ah, but there was Choupi, forming a corner of an equilateral triangle with the GUTS stop and the Vamoose bus. I had the $3.99 ham and cheese- I can't vouch for summer, or even spring, but today, when the wolverine teeth of winter have sunk into your calf and just won't let go, a hot bubbling crepe (roughly a half-pound of heft to it, though I was there late in the day so they may have decided EVERYTHING MUST GO and handed it to me), the crepe moist and reminding you that it was once batter not long ago but has now grown up into something very bad for you with pleasant toasted spots. I wanted to lurch around the corner, holding the crepe in front of me like Sweeney Todd with a razor, shouting "You, sir! There, sir! Would you like a crepe?!?" because everyone looked miserable without one. To be fair, the crepe itself was good enough that I don't remember much about the filling other than it being "Ham" and "Cheese" like when you have a mutt and people ask what kind of dog it is and you can only say, "He's a Dog. That's all." It was Ham and Cheese that got the job done and didn't wait around to take credit or be thanked. I'll, of course, be back to try the waffles.

Maybe too late, as you've already got a place in mind, but as far as quiet goes I could totally arrange a murder in Siroc. Excellent food (though I haven't had much luck with the seafood) and very kind service.

The boneless chicken kabob was delicious, very tender from the yogurt soak. Also, the chickpeas 'n' gravy go awesomely with a grape Fanta. I was struck by a weird bit of "time marches on" while reading the 2000 Tom Sietsema review on the wall, in which he identifies the restaurant as Persian and the bread as pita. It's possible that he was just making the place more accessible for diners or hell, maybe there are Parsis in Pakistan (Freddy Mercury! Whoo!) and I'm just being too technical in distinguishing between my meats on a stick; but for those that have been eating in DC longer than I have, were there not a lot of Pakistani places back then? Second historical note- back in the 90's, mom was on a diet (which meant we were on a diet. Sigh.) where she was advised to try pita for sandwiches instead of wonder bread. Mom didn't know that you could split pita into pockets, so our lunch sandwiches became two loaves of pita with peanut butter and jelly. This was awful. Not that cramming the filling into the pocket would have made it better, but it was really way too much dry-ass bread. Time marches on.

With that date, me and +1 are in. Maybe we can all get our picture taken and put up next to Helen Thomas and Queen Rania!

I've often passed Mr. Landrum whilst walking about Arlington and never really known what to say that wasn't banal, like "hey, great steaks, man!" would just make me cringe afterwards. Now, though, I can step resolutely in front of him, say "Japanese Anal Method," raise my eyebrow, and walk away.

I may have mentioned this in a pretzel-making thread a while back, but Heidelberg has authentic laugenbrotzeln (dark pretzels) that can only be made that good by boiling them in lye (most recipes use a baking soda bath). My mother, who had a local German baker where she grew up in upstate New York, never visits me without calling ahead to Heidelberg to have them make several dozen for pickup. These are distributed to other family members like high fives at a frat party.

Housed in the former headquarters of Wesley Clark's presidential campaign and until recently a palmistry establishment, Chickpeas is probably doomed. This is a shame, as it certainly deserves a shot and it could be a welcome surprise for those who have traveled in the Middle East and have gotten a taste of things beyond the Lebanese and Persian staples. For example, the desserts listed on the menu go beyond the usual baklava and helva with Um Ali (creme pudding with toasted butter beans on top), Balah al-Sham (fried date cookies), and Basbosa (semolina almond cakes) but unfortunately I didn't see them in the dessert case and you can't really whip these up in a hurry, so perhaps they'll be available in the future. The same goes for the vertical shawarma spits, which are empty at the moment. I had the combo platter to get a feel for what they could do- the kofta (ground beef and seasonings) kabob was excellent, the chicken kabob was tender but underspiced, and the steak kabobs had some tough portions. Very good felafel here, fried to order and creamy on the inside. The hummus and salad were also quite good. Chickpeas is reasonably cheap (the platters are almost all under $10 and that comes with a lot of food) and I think with some more outings I could find where they're solid, but as I was waiting in the booth for my order I began to grow sad- even if the rent is cheap enough that a psychic could pay it, there is no foot traffic on that part of Lee Hwy other than people going to the 7-11 next door. It's not that people who had a hankering for an eternally rolled taquito wouldn't mind a felafel now and then, I just worry that people are unlikely to go the distance to try this place when you could go to Me Jana or the new Turkish/Tunisian place or Tarbouch instead. On the other hand, Tarbouch isn't really convenient to anyone and there's a party going on there every night for the narguilah. I've seen lots of families eating there, so perhaps they would like to escape the "let's seduce our Eastern European waitress" vibe there and head up the street. Or perhaps Chickpeas can open up the alley behind the 7-11 for narguilah as well, which would be oddly authentic. If they can concentrate on what makes them different (more Egyptian and Syrian dishes) and maybe trim some of the odder ideas (buffalo wings, "Texas Po Boy Sandwich") it's possible that Chickpeas could go beyond a spot for an extremely small neighborhood. It's also possible that it was so dead when I went because Ramadan had just started. Either way, I wish them the best and hope you can give them a shot in a tough economy.

Harold Balzer, from the article- “Not going to happen,” he told me. “Why? Because we’re basically cheap and lazy. And besides, the skills are already lost. Who is going to teach the next generation to cook? I don’t see it. “We’re all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next American cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that’s the future. All we need now is the drive-through supermarket. I may have floated this already on the board, but I think the effect that Alton Brown has had on male non-chefs (especially those coming into the kitchen after college) could have been addressed. Pollan touches on his work on Iron Chef while eliding Brown's own show, which used to have its own prime-time slot; we haven't had cable for a while now, so I wouldn't be shocked to find Food Network had shunted it off to Sunday afternoons. I'm working anecdotally from a collection of other nerdy white males, but Alton Brown has been the progenitor of a dozen male foodies I know. Of course, as Mario Batali is quoted in the article, it's all a matter of TV niches and I suppose Alton fills that particular geek chef slot, but deep down his show is about skills and theory more than recipes and post-completion money shot. He devoted an entire show to knife skills that has kept my blood out of countless onions, I eschew marinades for brines now because he explained how they work, etc. A strawman would argue that Sandra Lee showing how to batter a chicken breasts with Maypo is a skill, but at least Alton Brown would explain how (if) it works. The point of the article is that his sort of show isn't as popular as the voyeuristic virtual-participatory eating of the other food shows, but my inner fanboy would have liked to see Alton acknowledged as an outlier.

This is weird enough to be unhelpful, but the garden center in merrifield sells the plants- a small bushy thing that has proven impossible to kill. The main issue has been finding things to do with it- simple syrup, kaffir lime spritzers, etc. Ours even had a couple of tiny lime-lings that I can't really recommend eating. At all.

Looks like they might be branching into Moby Dick-esque specials- today was persian potato salad (with chicken) which is essentially a good chicken salad, plus creamy potatoes, and a good deal of dill. This is served with toasted slices of the persian bread, which are kind of neat. I think they might be ironing the wrinkles out- the chicken kabob was flavorful and moist (did you get the spiced tomatoes in yours previously?) and the "two meats in a box" was a lot of food for the money, especially with the fries on the side. It's more of a takeout deal (hence the box) but we sat outside for the hell of it and at least three passers-by hummed the timberlake "#@$% in a box" song. I don't know if that part of Falls Church is ready for an un-ironic love of MIAB, but I think they deserve your business, maybe a nice place to call ahead and pick up dinner on the way home from work. Also, the baklava portions would choke an entire hive of bees and the ice cream sandwich is delicious but impossible to eat- two scoops of saffron ice cream between sugar wafers that channel everything to the easiest path to your shorts. Again, delicious, yet dangerous. Pack a spoon and a gun, plus napkins.

I believe this was the same gentleman who stopped me from munching on the radish rose garnish for my "cow wandering mournfully in the field" (the dish names are hard to remember, yes) because of the vivid red food coloring they used. The cow was fantastic- little marinated chunks of beef with a garlic and pepper sauce that has a nice slow heat to it. On the downside, the house music seemed to be "Dr. Demento does the chart-topping hits of the 60s, 70s, and 80s in Esperanto with engine noises."

When you order the spicy pork belly (number three? possibly number 7...) the waitress may give you a look of "No, no silly man. Far too spicy for you." They're about a four on a ten scale of spiciness- the fat from the pork mixes the spice up well. The only problem is that if the overhead vent isn't venting too well, you can get a floating cloud of vaporized pepper sauce in the face. Fantastic experience- it felt like we ate six pounds of meat in ten minutes and didn't suffer for a second.

The least interesting thing, actually, but still quite good. A nice light pork and veggie broth, bits of pork and pickled cabbage with a little tangy bite. There may have been various other pickled veggies. Wish I could be more specific, but it was soup.

Not much to add on the food, I would only echo that it's quite excellent. More interesting, though, is watching a saturday night in georgetown crowd try to work out communal seating when it's crowded and hungry.

Well, a light meal before judo turned into the 3 meals and a soup (we're gluttons, yes, but also wanted enough for lunches) that were amazing. I preface this with a caveat that I've never been able to order actual Chinese previously, other than some identically wonderful dim sum at A & J, so your mileage may vary if you've been ordering the real stuff for years. That said, we had the cured pork with garlic sprout, taiwanese style crispy chicken breast, basil eggplant, and pork+szechuan pickle soup. The cured pork was dry cured slices of thick bacon, a black beanish sauce, and garlic shoots. The chicken involved incredibly tender cutlets, pounded thin, breaded, and fried. I'd love to know how they did it. Comes with a similar sauce to peking duck. The eggplant and basil is close to what you might find in a Thai place, but with a much richer sauce. Give it a shot- we enjoyed it immensely, plus bubble tea and I believe free wi-fi.

Nando's wasn't bad- had the spicy quarter chicken, fried halloumi, and butternut squash/cranberries/onion dealie. The spicy was indeed spicy- not painfully hot, just flavorful. Once I'd eaten the spice off the skin, tried the garlic peri-peri sauce. A little of that goes a long way, as the garlic is pretty strong. Actually, top that off with the pickled cloves of garlic that come with the spiced olives appetizer and it's a good thing I'm not likely to sweat until March. Two complaints- most chicken joints ask whether you'd like your quarter dark or light. It's my fault for not stating that I prefer light (my wife thinks about adopting to prevent my genes from poisoning the world with another person who prefers the front half over the back half, so I've suffered enough if you're planning to pile on me) but dark appears to be the default. Second twinge- the extras seem a little steep. Three dollars for a portabello cap? I know I'm cheap, but still... Otherwise, looks like a fun place for lunch or dinner with non-adventurous relatives.

Generally found in the food section off to the side of the cafe are the Kakor Chokladflarn- salty oat cookies sandwiched around dark chocolate. They're fantastic. Some of the other candies, though... did the world really need anise-flavored marzipan logs, Sweden?

Three theories: Bilderberg Group. Illuminati. Motley Crüe. At one point he may have been the head of all three, but that was during a time of extraordinary bloodshed, treachery, and precisely paired wine.