captcourt

Grilled ribeye, adjusted wedge salad (used up the last, starting-to-wilt romaine heart in the fridge) with bacon/blue cheese dressing/extra blue cheese/little tomatoes), salty baked potato. Beverage of gin, elderflower liqueur, and (I think) seltzer. Too exhausted yesterday to really focus.

Gotta say, as a longtime non-baker, that the bagel recipe from Serious Eats (https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/homemade-bagels-recipe.html) has worked out really well. Highly recommended. I wasn't trying to hop on the quarantine baking bandwagon; bagels just sounded really good to me, we had enough flour to spare if I totally f'ed it up (as in, we wouldn't have used the last of our precious flour and yeast that apparently could have funded our retirement if we had sold them), and we have sesame seeds as well as Everything seasoning. The recipe held up even on the batch where I tinkered with the size of the bagels. Did I get lucky? Probably. YMMV.

My +1 and I live within Thai Square's limited delivery range in Arlington, so we ordered in from them for the second time during this pandemic. We totally overordered, and gave a heavy tip, in hopes of keeping them around (though I think future development of that shopping area may be a bigger threat). Dinner was: sun-dried beef, fried tofu squares, laab gai, crispy duck, pad kee mao with chicken, and sticky rice with mango. If my wife and I were both pregnant - not a possibility for multiple reasons - and starving, we still would not have finished it. All the food was totally on point, great heat, and especially great wok flavor on the pad kee mao. I really enjoy making pad kee mao myself, and I often avoid ordering things that I can make at home. Not in this case. --- Salads (steveeat12)

Looking forward to a trip to Annandale soon for carryout!

I picked up from Hong Kong Palace in Falls Church last night - they were closed for two weeks while they figured out how to operate. The order: spicy wontons, meat panfried dumplings, Chendgdu spicy cold noodles, the chicken with stuffed peppers "special," and the homestyle bacon "special." (Our usual order is all of that minus one of the dumpling/noodle dishes, so yes, we perpetually overorder because we love them so much.) It was a joy to walk in there, a joy to be greeted warmly, and a joy to sear my taste buds, which I will do again shortly with the leftovers.

FYI, all, I was just able to reply in the Hong Kong Palace thread.

Back up and running! I went last night and got a big grin when I walked in the door to pick up my order ("I knew it was you!' - I am one of the non-chinese who orders specials off the chinese wall menu, thanks to the DR crowd, and gets mostly spicy food).

Not actually dinner, but today I made bagels (sesame and Everything) using a recipe from Serious Eats, after having obtained a can of barley malt syrup in Seven Corners. My technique needs some work, but the crumb, the flavor, and the SMELL throughout the house were all excellent. Highly recommended if you've got some time on your hands and want to put it to good use. I'm a very reluctant baker, and I found this to be fun. https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/01/homemade-bagels-recipe.html

About a week and a half ago I got a hankering for Chinese so I went to the Hong Kong Palace website and it looked like they were closed. Fearing the worst, I freaked out for a few minutes, and then ordered from Peter Chang, promising that I would follow up. (Peter Chang was fine, but there were about two dozen Doordash-types hanging out with me outside waiting for their food. Everyone was surprisingly polite and space-respectful while the PC staff were overwhelemed trying to keep up.) Today, we were near Seven Corners and stopped by to check on HKP's status. The door was open, and they now appear to be on Doordash and other delivery services. Since I live no more than 10 mins away, I will be picking up rather than supporting a delivery service for their food, but am SO SO SO SO SO glad that HKP isn't Closed with a capital C. That was my biggest fear, because I don't know what my life would be without the Chicken With Stuffed Peppers wall "special." Seriously. Padaek appeared to be closed (small c). While we loved ordering takeout from Little Serow (spectacular), Komi (very good) and Rose's Luxury (excellent), on those occasions where we order in - we've also been doing a ton of cooking and I'm gonna try to make bagels tomorrow with barley-malt syrup we got from a hole-in-the-wall next to the Sears 1960s architectural monstrosity - I think I'm going to be voting more often for the less-fancy places, to do my part to keep them going and maybe be able to distribute my food $ to more places. Opposing viewpoints welcome, of course. --- DC Brau (Pat)

Since this thread is open (for the time being) - where has everyone been ordering food [ OR FINE ART, just to stay on-topic ] from? Obviously, all the places need help, but anything in particular you'd like to report?

https://www.arlnow.com/2020/04/21/food-trucks-branch-out-into-arlington-neighborhoods/

I am sleuthy. 😜 Also, was taking a break from WFH, saw Don's April 1 post, saw that pretty much all of the forums are read-only, and then saw that the Fine Arts thread was still open. Perhaps I have missed my true calling in life, although I'm not sure that I really want to be a private detective of any sort.

No, not Woodward Table Food...WTF? I'm off the site for a couple of weeks, and, to quote The Good Place....What The Fork? Say it ain't so. Say it's an April Fool's Joke. Or tell me that the only thing we can talk about here is Fine Arts...

Not accepting credit cards keeps prices lower...at least in theory. YMMV.

Having been underwhelmed by both Sushi-Zen and Endo Sushi, and having perused the boards but not finding any moderately priced, non-fancy sushi, but nonetheless wanting takeout sushi tonight, I figured I'd post and give it a shot. Any suggestions? Takeshi seems to be stronger on the ramen front than the sushi front.

Just stopping by to chime in that Reren is often the dinner stop when my wife and I are going to an event at Sixth & I. We've enjoyed some things more than others, but I don't recall ever being dissatisfied with something.

I was in NO for a conference a couple of weeks ago, and snuck away for a few good dinners to offset corporate conference food. Herbsaint was definitely our top meal. We haven't been to NO in quite a while - two visits ago, our best meal was at Root, with August as our second best (yes, Root was that good, too bad it's now gone). Didn't make it to Elizabeth's for breakfast this time around, sadly. I also got lunch delivery to my hotel from Juan's Flying Burrito, which was pretty good.

About 35 years ago, I got to spend 8 months working with Eliot Coleman (one of the deans of organic farming), and I am sad that the discussions haven't changed very much. I'd support a red meat tax, but I can afford to pay it.

Just got back from the little brick-and-mortar on Sycamore St. I've lived in Arlington for 25 years and somehow had never been in this general area - not a hotbed of activity, but I would gladly return for the moist brisket and bean sides. I got a platter with sides of the grits with jalapeno (not spicy, whether by design, heat-defective jalapenos, or ??) and the texas caviar (basically black bean and corn salad, which had nice tang to the dressing). The brisket was moist as advertised, with a helpful but not overbearing fat cap, tasted terrific and I am now very, very full after being very, very hangry. If the meat from the truck is better, then I'll be following that truck anywhere.

That looks far more fun than a government financial management conference...

Heading down for a conference tomorrow through Wednesday and just wanted to say thanks for the recent recs. I'll likely be eating a fair amount of conference food 😑 but will get at least a few good meals out of it!

If you're interested, or know of someone who's interested, you can contact Mariam Raz Razavi on Facebook, or I can connect you if you prefer that route. Feel free to DM me; I don't know any details about the positions, but Raz is a longtime friend and good egg.

Just to add to the "what do you buy at Costco" part of this thread...there are two of us + one pup, and we have a good amount of storage space: - nuts (as mentioned above, great deals, have to freeze or refrigerate most of the bag, we got a full-size standup freezer years ago for free through Freecycle and that's been one of our best finds, ever; - packages of feta; - coffee for during the week when we just want caffeine (they have big bags of Peet's on sale regularly, and bags of Mayorga and not-completely-overroasted Starbucks); - household goods when on sale, like big boxes of tissues; also, Kirkland TP and paper towels; - dental chews for the pupper, which are basically candy and I should probably search for something else; - ground beef, prime-cut meat; - frozen shrimp, though who knows where they come from; - prescriptions for the pupper. Well-priced and if you're just picking up the prescription(s), you only need to stop there, you don't need to go through the war zone of the registers. Given that Pentagon City is my closest store, that's a huge bonus.

This feels a little ghoulish, but just about everything from Kapnos Taverna in Arlington is being auctioned off here at Rasmus Auctions. So if you need a giant pizza oven, or several sconces, they're here! On another note, seeing all of the equipment and organizational items, as a restaurant consumer, not someone in the business, makes me realize to a small extent just how much goes into opening and running a restaurant.

Lots of the new condo/rental developments in the corridor have yet to fully stock up with residents, so I'm guessing that the Ballston Quarter establishments are hinging their fortunes on the not-quite-finished buildings. Though that potentially may not help with the lunch crowd. Also, the failure of the Rixby building next to the new Marymount buildings may be a harbinger of things to come (or of poor building management, or...who knows?). OK, enough rambling.