acevedo81

If it were lunch Cross Street Market in Federal Hill, I think they close at 6pm (IIRC). For dinner, maybe O´brickys (sp)?

Thanks! I just read your review and I loved it. btw, here is a recent picture (3 days old), we just got some snow on sunday

Gerry,

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts and show everyone the Spain beyond Madrid and Barcelona, i can sense in your writing that Spain means a lot to you. I am from the canary islands, moved back home after many years in dc and am curious about your thoughts on wines from the Canary Islands. There is so much tradition here, everyone makes their own wine but they are never mentioned. I have enjoyed the whites here made with old Malvasia grapes, as well as a few reds.

The varietals here are all local as the islands are free from phylloxera and they have just discovered seeds from grapes that date back to the roman empire (so I hear). Whats the good word on canary wine? Thanks!

I insist on Zaytinya's version. Not as creamy as other versions, probably b/c it's not ground as much. Now I am yet to have the same flavors in a kibbe nayeh from place to place. My regular lebanese restaurant in Spain where i now live, has a version that has more of a red pepper flavor and sometimes more cumin (that I would like to have). I still think of Zaytinya's version as the best, which based on the amount of Kibbe nayeh I ingest, is not a traditional version, but my personal favorite.

Funny you should mention. I just moved from DC to the Canary Islands 2 months ago, I live in Tenerife (where I was born and raised). What island are you staying in? For fine dining on the high end there are two restaurants with 1 michelin star in Tenerife (Kabuki in the Abama hotel as well as Martin Berasategui in the Abama hotel), you also have the second outpost of Calima from chef Dani Garcia (who has 2 michelin stars at his restaurant at the Grand Melia in Marbella). For excellent canary islands food you should go to El Silbo Gomero (in Santa Cruz) or el Templete (in el Medano). I can tell you a lot more about Tenerife but not much about the other islands, let me know where you´re going and I will tell you more.

I'm curious to know, did you actually ask to speak with someone? Their host(ess) stand is next to the front door so unless there was nobody around, it puzzles me that you wouldn't have spoken to whoever was around.

There was nobody to speak to. The hostess was not there, the bartender was making eye contact and running away and to be honest it's not my style to ask to be served a busser/runner? walked by three times a server walked by, but nobody went up to us. At the time I was about to go to the bartender my wife told me not to do so, she just wanted to leave.

Unfortunately had a bad experience at Dino sunday night, which left me bothered b/c I was in the mood for that lasagna (ended up renting a zipcar and having a solid dinner at masa 14). I arrived at 8:50pm and waited by the door for exactly 4 minutes without being acknowledged. At that point, my wife showed up and we were now ignored for another 4 minutes (exactly). We walked out after 9 minutes without being acknowledged at all. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I wanted to bring this up so you can address the problem as you see fit with your staff. I know this may seem like a one-off problem based on the acclaim Dino gets on several boards, but I probably won't go back again.

I had a wonderful carryout lunch of Couscous with Chicken ($8.99) yesterday at Couscous Cafe, with the gracious Aziz manning the register, and Chef Ranu back in the kitchen cooking. A quarter chicken, dark-meat, sitting atop a bountiful portion of couscous with all sorts of goodies in it, essentially a stew with zucchini, chickpeas, carrots, butternut squash, and turnips. It was great! When Aziz was finishing with wrapping up the order, he asked me if I liked harissa. Well, yes! So he ran back and got me some of it to add as I saw fit.

He asked me how I heard about Couscous Cafe, and since it was after I paid, I let him know that I had a restaurant website, and that I was looking forward to writing something nice about my lunch (I had already seen what was in the container, and I knew full well it was going to be good). I let him know the name of the website, and his face lit up - "people on Don Rockwell really helped us out early on!" he said. And that made me feel great, having taken a small part in helping a fledgling business that deserves recognition, because there haven't been any posts about Couscous Cafe in a few years now, and this is one place that should be a go-to for anyone looking for a great lunch downtown, carryout or otherwise.

The only advice I'd give them is that their printed menus and website seem to be a dollar out-of-date, both listing my lunch for $7.99 (although I ordered off the overhead menu, which made it clear that it was $8.99.) This is something of a minor detail that is probably in the stages of correction.

Couscous Cafe is a wonderful lunch option downtown, and if I worked anywhere near there and needed to eat quickly, I'd be there twice a week. Kudos to this fine establishment.

Special note to the "Turn Up The Heat" event for Ovarian Cancer: Chef Ranu should be a participant next year.

Cheers,

Rocks.

This was one of my favorite lunch spots when I worked in that area. I would go once a week and get the lamb cous cous with a braised lamb shank, cous cous and the same stew you mentioned. I highly recommend going to cous cous as well

lets add corduroy to the list of closed restaurants on monday

So I'm a huge procrastinator and I need to make a reservation for a monday dinner, but being memorial day doesnt help. I've tried Vidalia and Palena, but they're all closed. HELP!!!

I haven't been in for ages, partially because I moved, partially because my food trips to DC are quite limited in space. Just one suggestion, and perhaps I misread your post, the worst place for a manager in the restaurant is the front door. In my mind, and from my experience, the best place for the manager is to be at every single table at least once during service to ask how service is going and to act as a filter for comments, good and bad directly to their source. In the case of positive comments they should be shared, in the case of negative comments they must be communicated immediately and rectified as soon as possible. The front door is important, but the activity of the restaurant occurs far beyond the front door.

I don't understand your rationale and I assume you speak as a person that has zero restaurant experience. But of course, I can be wrong. You assume how easy it is to be at the host stand, that the market is full of capable hosts, when reality of the restaurant business proves the opposite. The reality is that Managers have to spend time at the host stand in order to ensure tables are seated strategically and in a timely fashion, so reservations can be seated at the stipulated times. You speak of an ideal situation that does not reflect the reality of the business. While ideally a manager should be checking on the tables during the shift, that is just not scalable nor effective since they are not the ones speaking to the tables. Managers should focus on providing extra attention to regulars as well as diagnosing and problem solving sticky situations with tables that are not having the experience the restaurant would like their patrons to enjoy. If you had a manager coming to your table while you were having a good time, you would then probably complain about having people all over you and being overwhelmed by the service and constant interruptions to conversations with your fellow diners. While this scenario assumes that servers are more competent than hosts, in a time constrained environment, I would much rather live by this assumption.

I'm not a huge beer drinker, and I tend to go for the lighter beers (not light beer), that are refreshing and with good flavor. So let me throw this out there, are there any beers in particular I should be looking for?

I'm not into the hoppy, super alcoholic beers (I probably enjoy somewhere b/w 5-7%) and I usually just end up buying Becks or Yuengling for lack of knowing any better, but I'm sure there's better stuff out there. Any suggestions?

I agree, but Banana Leaves is further elevated thanks to it's delivery option. There are basically no other decent (eadible) options for Cleveland Park residents, so I'm glad I can get my fix of grilled chicken noodle soup without having to unglue myself from the couch

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.

I used to get delivery from Mr Chen's, but I switched to Banana Leaves a while ago. I think it's much better than Mr Chen's and covers most of the bases for americanized pan asian food.

As Sean stated the accompaniments were spot on great too. In all it was a great meal and I'm very glad I went back. I definitely plan on returning! I may even bring in some smoked spanish paprika to add to the fried egg added onto my bacon cheese burger. Ummmm . . . Lipitor . . .

Cheers!

Completely unrelated to Spider Kelly's, I agree with you on the smoked spanish paprika, it's addictive and goes well with so much food. I sprinkle it in a bag of regular chips, french fries, eggs, basically anything.

My fingers are crossed as well. It would be nice to have awesome pho in the city limits

In his review of Assagi, Tom mentions that the "kitchen tosses a nice salad". :-)

stopped by and had the beef tartar and frog legs. The tartar, was ridiculously good, with truffles and cardoons. Frog legs perfectly cooked but lacked something and some salt. Tosca is really good and it will no longer end up in second place when i try to figure out where to go for a nice meal

I haven't had a better Kibbeh Nayeh than the one offered at Zaytinya, it's consistently amazing

I think it was fair for Arianne to go. I was appalled at what they (she?) did to the baby lamb, when roasting the whole lamb with salt would have been enough. I guess I'm just beating a dead lamb with this one

what about taqueria distrito federal? Have you been? It's pretty decent

Ate at Hank's on thursday and overall enjoyed it. Ordered:

Taylor bay scallops with shizo and citrus - excellent! you must order this. The scallops were really sweet and the citrus wasn't annoying.

Caesar Salad with white anchovies - the salad was good but they forgot to add the anchovies and after asking a few times for the anchovies, they arrived (not the best, but decent)

Manila clams with greens ham and potatoes - decent dish, but it came without potatoes, when we asked server mentioned they had run out, which was strange since it wasn't mentioned when i ordered it. It may sound odd, but I probably would not have ordered this dish if it didnt have potatoes, i would have gone with fried oysters or clams.

I was a bit surprised to see everything on the check: the late anchovies and the full cost of the clams. In fairness i ate it all and i did not complain, although it was the first time i've left 18% tip pre tax in a loooooooooong time (I know to many people that is a standard tip, I usually tip 20% post tax at least - its the problem with being married into the business).

Jaleo, Zaytinya and Oyamel have gluten free menus, just ask the host.

I have been looking for venezuelan arepas in the dc area forever and tried the arepas de carne mechada at la caraqueña. Excellent, they remind me of past arepas I've had in spain and caracas. I am used to getting them fried, but most people like grilled arepas better, either way this place is a real gem. The tequeños are really good too, especially with coffee.

I forgot to mention, that you should probably get a viuda along with your arepa, since they might have too much stuffing and you can turn one order into two easily this way.

While I understand that some people assume just b/c the bars will be open 2 more hours people are going to be out of control, i don't agree with it at all. I don't even agree with the need to have the bars close by a certain time

(so puritan!). I am happy the bars will be open later and will certainly take advantage of it, lets give the bars, restaurants and clubs a chance to make some money out of this situation. So along with the other "riff raff" I will enjoy a few drinks until 5am without being rushed to finish my drink or surrounded by people trying to get as many shots as possible b/c the bar is closing at 3.