Adam23

I've eaten there a few times in NY and really really enjoy it. Their BBQ is a lot better than mediocre DC BBQ so I think this will be a huge success. It's actually really pretty good. Plus the concept is sort of interesting - You order drinks from a waiter and then you go to stations and order the BBQ and sides. They pull the meats right out of the smoker and carve it in front of you. You pay by the pound for meats and sides are in sizes. Its a great concept as you can try everything and eat as much or as little as you want. Their moist brisket (with all the fat) is particularly outstanding. And they have beef ribs which is nice for a change.

The place is looking great. The butcher block counter he got is unreal and a beauty. Health inspections this week and he's hoping to open a week or two after. He's going to have a wide assortment of cakes, cupcakes, cookies, etc. and will also be serving coffee with the help of Nick Cho. I'm very excited to see this place open soon.

2009 was a pretty crazy year with lots of eating. Highlights abroad - nearly everything I ate at Etxeberri, Cellar Can Roca and El Bulli in Spain over the summer, which significantly skewed my standards for restaurants in the US. Highlights in the US off the top of my head - Corned beef sandwich at Central, corned beef sandwich at Slyman's in Cleveland, onion soup at Cafe du Parc, ridiculously good and rich risotto at Tosca, everything i've had at Palena this year, and the Black Bass cocktail (I think that's the name) at Eve. Lowlights - Spaghetti and meatballs at Lias and every sandwich i've been forced to eat at Cosi this year. Blech.

Nothing is close here. Enjoy it while you are in NYC. Anytime i'm up there, its NY-style pizza and deli for me - two things that are not available here. There really isn't any NY style pizza in DC that i've found and I have been searching for a long while. The closest i've found is the Mama Lucias chain which has pretty good pizza of somewhat a NY style.

I don't really think the sugary cereal aspect will keep the Cleveland Park parents out of this place. Cereal, regardless of sugar content, is a pretty low calorie food. 1 cup of Froot Loops with 1/2 cup of skim milk is a reasonable 160 calories, Lucky Charms is 150, Cinnamon Toast Crunch is 170 and Frosted Mini Wheats is 240 (higher calories being the result of higher complex carbohydrates and protein content NOT sugar). So assuming this place sells bowls that are three times the labeled serving size, we are still talking about 500 calories, which is reasonable. As for sugar, everything is relative. Your typical apple juice that CP parents love to feed their kids has twice the sugar per serving than Froot Loops and three times as much as Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It would appear that each of these bowls of cereal they are planning to sell probably has about the same number of calories and half the sugar as a tall Chai Tea Latte with Soy at Starbucks. This place may actually be a good option for the health conscious CP parents and I think they serve Kashi and granola and all that good stuff too.

If I was never ever to come back to DC, I would go to the following in a crazy week-long eating binge.... Oh, I'll change the 3/3/3 rules to 3/4/2 Cheap: Ravi Kabob - Ravi special with chickpeas Eamonns - Cod and chips Hell Burger - Burger of some sort and mac and cheese Normal: Rays - Strip steak au poivre, bisque Central - Onion soup and something tbd Bombay Curry Co - Butter chicken Present - Anything Spendy: Palena - Anything Eve - Anything

In my mind, Foggy Bottom seems like a way more appropriate location than Cleveland Park for this. I wish them luck. But then again for basically $5 for a bowl of cereal, they don't need to sell much.

Had an extremely enjoyable meal here on Friday night. Happy to say this place is in the top range of my favorite Indian picks in town, up there with Rasika, Heritage (actually it is probably better than Heritage, and way less expensive) and Bombay Curry Co (for butter chicken). The menu is fairly large and has a lot of interesting new dishes that I have never had before, including a selection of tawas. We really enjoyed that you can get 1/2 portions of the vegetarian dishes, which is great for my wife who loves to try different ones. In particular, we found their version of the makahani sauce to be very good. It lacked the depth of Rasika or smokiness pf Bombay Curry's makhani but was very good and one of the better ones in town. My wife found the vegetable curry to be excellent. She remarked how the vegetables still had a little crunch, unlike the mush you often get at other restaurants in town. I also had the Gaulati Kabab With Ulta Tawa Paratha, which was a lamb tawa. It was a few lamb patties, lightly spiced with a little hint of smoke. It served with some lentils and tawa bread (which was excellent). Overall, the prices are reasonable and the food is high quality. I'm pretty sure this will be a busy restaurant in the neighborhood.

We had some pretty superb food in Tahoe and Jackson, WY. I would recommend either of these places for excellent skiing and great grub. My wife and I also went out to Taos for a long weekend last year. Super skiing, reasonably priced and amazing new mexican food in Taos and in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Ithaca; Hector; Trumansburg Finished up a wonderful weekend in Ithaca and the Finger Lakes. Highlights included a wonderful meal at Maxies in Ithaca including delicious crab and corn chowder and a wonderful fish fry. Also had a fabulous lunch at the Stonecat near Watkins Glen. Wonderful smoked beef sandwich, a hearty, flavorful vegetable beef soup and a tasty reuben with house made corned beef. Finally, we had a fabulous meal at the Hazelnut Kitchen in Trumansburg. Probably the highlight of the vacation. I had a very nice frisee salad with poached egg and a wonderful, flavorful, perfectly cooked hangar steak that would give the best steaks i've ever had a run for the money. My wife had a nicely prepared quail for an appetizer and a wonderful trout with lemon butter sauce for a main, served with a delicious local greens salad. Highly recommend the Hazelnut Kitchen if you are anywhere near it.

That sucks to hear those delicious short ribs will be gone. On a different note, I tried the flat iron steak a few days ago which I saw on the menu, I guess a newer item. Very good - extremely tender and served in a mango sauce, though I note the sauce was rather sweet. The grilled onions served with it are a nice touch.

This new kabob place is close to opening in Dupont Circle next to the Big Hunt. Appears to be days away and looks really nice inside. Anyone been to their shops in the Middle East? Supposedly several locations are planned in DC. Good to see some foreign chains opening first in DC rather than NY or elsewhere (e.g., Nandos).

I'm always intrigued by the Chef Geoff's model, pleasant decor, neighborhoody feel and mediocre food for $4 per entree less than the competition. It seems to fill the restaurants and pay his bills, so I guess good for him. I don't exactly know why we went to Lia's on Saturday night. I think it was because one of our guests was a super picky eater, she really wanted spaghetti, Lia's was close, and oh their entrees are $4 or $5 less than elsewhere. The restaurant itself has a nice decor. Service by the staff was pleasant enough and prompt, heavily staffed by young college/high-schooler types. But man, this food is mediocre at best. We started with an antipasti plate which was large and had an assortment of meats, cheeses, and olives. A pleasant enough start, though the bresaola tasted like it was pre-cut, having a bit damp consistency rather than the dryness you typically find. We also had a ceasar salad and the fried rissotto/buffalo mozarella starters. Both were adequate. The ceasar was well dressed and pleasant. The risotto balls were nicely fried but the filling was bland. For mains, several of us ordered spaghetti and meatballs. Several had the pappardelle with the bolognese sauce. Both beautifully plated but lacking in taste. The spaghetti was a large bowl of the most overcooked spaghetti I've had in a while. The sauce was pleasant, but the meatballs were dry, bland and had an off-re-heated taste. Very disappointing and sadly making me wish we had just gone to Olive Garden or worse, opened a can of Spaghetti-Os. The papardelle was similar. The noodles were cooked a bit better but the sauce was bland. We skipped dessert.

We stopped by a few days ago. Interesting place with a very nice tasting counter. Lots of interesting wines, mostly French and some Austrian and Italian and Slovenian, and it looks like he is only selling the wines he imports. It was nice to find that many of the wines he sold are the same ones we sneak back from France whenever we take a trip there, so this will potentially save a lot of hassle. Most of his wines are priced $15+, with lots costing more, so I don't think it will become an everyday place for the typical wine buyer, but it should make a good destination shop for someone looking for something a bit more unique and different than your average store.

I hate when rules change. I guess most of the people in the world won't be eating then. Oh well, we could all stand to lose a few pounds anyways.

Agreed as well. Your parents sound like mine. Du Parc would be an excellent choice. Another option might be the Tabard Inn (though I believe its a brunch on Saturday - but has a pretty large menu).

I personally don't find the controversy between Wood and Pollan to be all that interesting. Wood is very much in the minority. My understanding is that most people in agribusiness merely find Pollan as a noisemaker, but no one is particularly scared of him. At the end of the day, it is all about $$$, simple economics. Agribusiness and small farmers run their businesses to maximize profit. If agribusiness or small farmers can produce a product that people want to buy and make a buck, they will. Look at organic- Everyone wanted it. Now everyone can have it. And if I can charge you 20% more because it's organic, all the way to the bank. If I can make it local, sustainable too, add another 20% on top. Lets even look at one of Pollan's "rules" - "Avoid food products containing ingredients that are (a) unfamiliar, (, unpronounceable, © more than five in number, or that include (d) high-fructose corn syrup." Drum roll.... Pillsbury simply cookies (http://www.pillsbury.com/products/sweet-treats/Refrigerated/simply-cookies.htm) - 5 ingredients, no corn syrup, everything mom would use. Thank you Mr. Pollan! (I'm sure there will be tons of new products that fit Pollan's rules in the coming months and years.) At the end of the day, Pollan can say whatever he wants and believes. If his ideas gain enough traction and someone can make a buck off it, it will become reality for everyone and not the few elites like us who can afford the products he peddles now.

According to the Cleveland Park listserv: "We'll be open for sure by the weekend of (Oct) 24th. We have a great winemaker from Austria coming then, Lucas Pichler. The winery, named after his father, FX Pichler, is considered the greatest in Austria, and is indeed one of the world's great Riesling and Gruner Veltliner producers. Remarkable stuff...and it tastes good, too! We'll shoot for a soft opening on Monday the 19th of October and see what happens!"

That's why I like his cupcakes so much. His icing is nearly perfect and the cupcakes are so moist and airy. Much different from the usual dense, somewhat overcooked cupcakes his competitors serve. Most people at my work prefer his over the dense ones at Hello Cupcake, but I guess it's the classical Krispy Kreme vs. Dunkin debate - airy or dense?

We've had several parties at the Halcyon House mansion in Georgetown. Very nice facility. I think it handles 40 or 50 people fairly well.

My coworkers and I stopped by here last Friday. We all thought it was very good. I had the barbacoa which was similar to Chipotle but less spice. Coworkers had chicken which they remarked was juicier than Chipotle. The size of the burrito is a bit smaller than Chipotle but still very filling, as others have remarked. I found their salsas and guac to be rather good. I particularly thought the tomatillo salsa was very good - it had nice heat and was balanced. All in all for $6 ($7 with guac) it is a pretty solid burrito.

No. Doesn't bother me a bit. I don't take marketing personally. NPR needs to get its funding somewhere and if listener donations aren't cutting it, I don't have much of a problem with Monsanto or anyone else advertising. Unlike "local", the government has provided us with a definition for "sustainable agriculture" which has been around since, I think, the 90s. From US Code, Title 7: "(19) The term “sustainable agriculture” means an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long-term— ( A ) satisfy human food and fiber needs; ( B ) enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agriculture economy depends; ( C ) make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls; ( D ) sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and ( E ) enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole." Monsanto's ad is something to the effect of "Producing more. Conserving more. Improving farmers’ lives. That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto seeds are all about." For the sake of argument, Monsanto has pretty much quickly defined the federal definition of sustainable agriculture in their ad. While some people may not agree with Monsanto's practices and products, arguably their products do allow farmers to produce more food, use less water, which in turn should allow the farmers to make more money, etc. So it seems that Monsanto's products fit neatly within the federal definition. Certainly crop rotations and pest management are one way to do sustainable agriculture, but they need not be the only way and it seems to me that Monsanto is playing by the rules. I think you raise an interesting point that the definition of sustainable agriculture has become somewhat muddled, but arguably those supporting technological methods of sustainable farming (i.e., Monsanto) and those supporting crop rotations, etc (i.e., interest groups like Eco Farm) do both neatly fit within the federal definition. Now if we can debate "local," which has no federal guidance of any sort, i'm all for it. "Local" is a marketer's dream. But we can save that for another day.

Agree with these two recs. Both are nice. Mon Vieil Ami is particularly good and probably my favorite place in Paris. Some friends were there a few weeks ago and were raving how good it was. Plus Ile Saint-Louis is rather romantic.

We buy the prime steaks at the Pentagon City Costco. They always have ribeyes, sometimes strip and filets. Interestingly, last time we were there they had prime sirloins for $4 and change a pound. Really pretty good and flavorful.

I have, but not in DC. Montreal has some pretty awesome kosher food. Morty's Steakhouse comes to mind among others. But Montreal is sadly far away.