blakegwinn

I am a poor student again and I only have the budget for one upscale meal over the next month or so. I am going to be in NY and DC and I was thinking of either doing Mendocino while I was in DC or Blue Hill when I was in NY. Any thoughts or comments from people who have been to one or both recently or even have other suggestions? (BTW I have been to Mendocino but it was probably 3 years ago so probably irrelevant)

I love Attman's because I always got two meals for the price of one. I am a big-eater but even I always had half a sandwich wrapped up and saved for later (disclaimer; I did usually have a side of some type of salad and or pickle but still the sandwiches are ridiculously stuffed). Great pastrami. I actually like the turkey pastrami a lot and I am usually not a big fan.

Spoons. It is in Federal hill though. Maybe a 20-30 minute walk from the inner harbor mall and they have board games for the kiddies.

Bob, do you have a law blog by any chance?

The last time I went there my waiter was wearing a matching black addidas track suit with the white stripes all the way down the side. I feel like that is a relevant detail somehow but I don't know why.

I wish you could buy the tea cured salmon they serve with the eggs. I like smoked salmon just fine but don't really ever crave it. The stuff at teaism is the exception. I do the same as you do with the french toast, I go in with intentions to order something else but when I finally get to the register and it is my turn to order I always panic and blurt out "Cilantro eggs and salmon". There is more texture, a little chewiness bordering on toughness, than the often soft/mushy smoked varieties I get at other places and in stores and I really like that. I don't get the tea flavors though. But I always eat it with the eggs and any subtle tea flavor is probably crushed by the heavy dose of cilantro. Either way I would definitely keep the stuff in the house if it was available retail.

I love Peter's Inn. There are a handful of places in Baltimore that I could never really find a DC equivalent for and this was one of them. It is very unique, the food was always good and it is one of the few places that offers decent wine bottles for under 20. (I haven't been there in a year or two so the prices might be higher now but they had a real nice Spanish red that we used to get for 18$!!) The only reason I would avoid the place is if I was entertaining a picky eater. The small menu can be somewhat limiting.Quick edit: I just went to the link above and it looked like they expanded the menu a bit. I seem to remember when Beth and I used to go there were usually 2 or 3 entrees and 3-4 appetizers.

I have had an obsession with their black bean hummus for 3-4 years now. I have tried and tried to recreate it but as simple as hummus is there is just something I haven't managed to recreate. And now that I live in NJ I can't go in for any more investigative tastings. When my brother and I used to live around the corner, one of us would always stop by and pick up a couple of to go orders of the hummus when we were having people over. The other thing I loved there was the Lebanese celebration. I don't know what but there was something seriously addictive about that dish. For awhile, instead of getting multiple mezze, I would just get 2-3 orders of the celebration. Also in the probably close to 50 times I went there over the years, I never once had to wait for a table. Service, yes but never a table. Granted my brother and I both being in the industry ourselves, we were usually in there at pretty odd times but there just never seemed to be a huge crowd.

Despicable. As a waiter of many years I hate hearing stories like this. It must be the same way an honest city employee feels when reading about the tax scandal or an honest car salesman feels when he hears about someone getting a major screwjob from a sketchy dealer. People like that are a parasite to the industry. They suck tip money out of peoples' pockets while killing the trust level in all the rest of us servers. A lot of times we complain about "bad" customers but a decent amount of responsibility for the sometimes adversarial relationship between customer/service staff rests on punks that do stuff like that. It may be good for an EXTREMELY short term boost to the check but this kind of behavior has intimidated so many people from getting into good food and wine. When one of these people decides to sink back into their Applebees/Chilis rotation because they don't like feeling inferior at "nice" restaurants who really loses in the long run? Sorry for the rant, I don't know why that just touched a nerve with me.

Do you ever get the feeling our appetites for inside information threaten to overtake our appetites for actual food?

Nick, I don't suppose you know the model numbers that fall after this problem was fixed?

Spoons, in Federal Hill. By the way, is it just me or does Baltimore do breakfast better than DC?

I think you only needed the first and last sentences.

For pilsner I have to go with Scrimshaw. You can usually get it at Whole Foods. The Brooklyn Brewery also makes a Pilsner which is nice. I don't know if you can get it in DC but it is in ready supply up here in NJ. As far as lagers go, I am not sure if this is available anywhere out east but I brought back a sixpack of Great Lakes Brewery's Dortmunder Gold Lager from Ohio. If I had to choose one day-to-day lager this would be it. It had maltiness but still had a definite taste of hops. It was light and easy to drink but still had more body than most commercial american lagers.

Disagree when it comes to BBQ. So much is dependent on whoever is minding the pit as well as the pit itself. Case in point is my favorite back home in KC. Arthur Bryants on Brooklyn is WORLDS better than Arthur Bryants at their other locations. Just saying...

You know how most good chefs occassionaly take sabbaticals abroad to go on tasting tours and to look for inspiration? I think a lot of Kansas City chefs do that in NYC or Chicago instead. I have this image in my head of the Bluestem chef reading through 4 year old Per Se menus ala McDowell in Coming to America.

I love southwest blvd. Eating at Ponak's (although not my favorite Southwest Blvd choice now) used to be a New Years Eve tradition when my brother and I were little kids. Aside from all the good mexican joints there is also a pretty good tapas place called La Bodega, I believe. Just like the posts above though, I wouldn't expect anything you haven't seen before. The menu is probably identical to Jaleo's from 2001 but I enjoyed the few meals I have had there. Any chance you have heard of this BBQ place Fat Charlies? It is a little trailer type thing with a huge pile of asasorted wood out back that sits in a Sav-a-Lot parking lot out near the stadiums on 40th and Blue Ridge Cutoff. Perfect for a pregame bbq feast. Bring gloves if it is cold though because you either have to take it with you or eat at the picnic table they have. My dad is a cab driver and if people ask him for good BBQ he usually takes them there or to Arthur's. For all the non Kansas Citians who want to try some BBQ you have to try Bryant's but if you are headed to a show or something and are dressed a little bit nicer I would definitely go for Jack Stack. It is a cool area and a little "classier" than the slightly rundown (proper state for a good BBQ joint in my opinion!) stand in line style of Bryant's. By the way I quoted you on the Bluestem comment because I couldn't agree more. I was going to take my sister there last time I was in town and after looking at the menu and reading some review or something where he was talking about "testing culinary boundaries" we opted for Re:Verse on the plaza. Great great place to have a few cocktails in nice weather. They have giant windows that open up (like ceviche in Silver Spring) and the cocktails are all pretty good. I can't speak to the food because we just got an assortment of small plates due to a large lunch.

Any of you other KCians have any recommendations for a cool loungy type place for drinks? I am thinking like Tabaq Bistroish? I want to grab a few cocktails when I am back in a few weeks and don't have much experience with the bar/going out scene.

When I started at this restaurant up here in NJ we had what usually was in the range of 2-4 minutes of menu recitations at each table (that doesn't sound like much but have someone talk to you straight for 3 minutes!!) I felt so ridiculous doing it, especially when most people were obviously tuned out after the first 30 seconds, but if I didn't the owner/manager would have fired me on the spot (or so my trainer told me). Telling people that the chicken in the chicken parm was free-range organic yada yada, fine. But when I had to recite the names of the farms where we got the tomato and basil in the sauce? Borderline. A legit question from one of the service staff quizzes, name the farm where we get the mint for our mojitos. The funny thing is I didn't care for the atmosphere and went to work at another restaurant shortly after and they sourced everything from the same people for the most part they just didn't feel the need to tell everyone about it. I did eventually find out that the owners/managers of the first restaurant were well known around town as legendary blowhards.

Look I never faked it, never had to. For many years I was at Deluxe and you are right, it wasn't that important, even though I could tell you where we got just about everything. I have also worked at places that had 30 minute shift meetings because we had to memorize producers and daily suppliers. I was what I callled a good server, I knew my shit. But if you fired every server who at some point bs-ed something like that you would probably have 50 servers left in DC. I am sure some chefs would be angry but I am sure there are just as many chefs who would yell some naughty language at you if you started playing twenty questions about farms during the dinner rush on Saturday night. My whole point is if I can't taste a significant difference why does it matter? The reason I said airline pilot is because the work of one is probably indistinguishable from another. If I see an Oliver Stone movie I can pick it out instantly from a Tarantino. I think the examples you mentioned make more sense for chefs. You could probably tell the difference between a Cathal dish and a Richard dish almost immediately. I think farmers are more like the grips. Just like I don't stay around to see who the "best boy grip" was in a movie I don't really care which farm produced something. If I had a personal relationship with a farmer, sure. But then they would probably tell me who they sourced and you wouldn't have to hear it from a waiter. The whole thing just strikes me as marketing. We had a small apple orchard outside Kansas City when I was growing up ran by my grandpa and we supplied to several local restaurants during the fall and I could care less if we got any credit. Maybe I am going to lose my foodie card over this.... The funny thing is it doesn't really bother me at all, I just kind of snicker to myself when I am reading over a menu like that. I just thought it kind of fit on the trite list because everyone is doing it and in most cases I find it silly.

But for the small minority who do care (if it is a split decision on this board you KNOW it is a small percentage of the dining public as a whole) just ask your server. They should be versed on that if they are a decent server and when I was a waiter if there was ever something I didn't know I had no problem <making it up AHEM> excuse me, I meant asking the chef.Plus does naming the farm where it is produced mean anything? Its like when pilots tell you their names. Who is like, "OH James. I like his work. He is a GREAT lander!" Ican't tell one farm from another and wouldn't remember the name for more than a minute anyway. And as far as exposure for smaller farms, for all I know they could be traded on the NYSE, supply produce for the entire Giant chain and using strichnine for fertilizer. The exceptions (other than the obvious I already stated) I think the country of origin is often relevant, geographical history on seafood as well as descriptors about its harvest/storage methods (dayboat, wild caught, farm raised, Chesapeake, etc.) I guess my point is that I like the ones that an average person could pick out if they tasted it again but when servers start rattling off the farm names it seems like douchebaggery in the second degree.

I have to admit I am getting a little weary of the obsessive naming of where things came from. If you have a tremendous piece of sea bass or a beautiful tomato, by all means ask the chef where it came from. But do we have to list the origins of every freaking ingredient? I understand some titles make a big difference in some products, heirloom tomato, heritage turkey, berkshire, neiman etc. but is it necessary that I know a carrot came from Joe Farmer's Produce, 3rd row of the carrot patch (much stronger terroir than the ones in the 4th row!) in Sudden Valley PA? I read a few of the recent articles on this trend and I agree that it is a bit tiresome.

I am headed to LV for a short week this Friday. I wanted to second the question earlier about Rosemary's, anyone have a ballpark on the prefixe prices? How much would two be looking to spend there (and bonus points if anyone knows cab estimates from the strip)? I have no concept of what cab prices would be like in LV. Also we are looking to do one nice meal on the strip. We are willing to spend some money (250ish all in, maybe not much for Vegas...) but not big name blow out prices (Mansion). Also we would prefer somewhere without a very restrictive dress code (ie jackets required, if dressed up denim would be comfortabel, even better). We are already planning on going to LOS one night.

I think if you rinse the turkey real well before putting it in you shouldn't have a problem with the drippings being too salty. The last few years I have made kind of a base with roux and chicken/turkey stock. Then I deglaze the roasting pan with white wine and add it to the base. It has always turned out real nice.

Wasn't there an identical thread about a year ago with quite a few suggestions on it?