chickenlover

Dino last night. The cheeses, especially the burrata, were excellent. I'm afraid I can't share others' enthusiasm for the cooked food though.

Spring is in the air at Palena. I think it's horribly trite to describe food as (insert season here) on a plate, but their consomme was the essence of spring last night. The broth was loaded with morels, nettles, a quail egg, fava beans and a couple of other things I can't remember. Really great flavors. Fava beans also made a cameo in a nice saute of frog's legs with little mushrooms and baby onions. Service was exceptional as always and we left happy as we always do.

You know, you'd think that somewhere, deep within the core of that cheese, there would be ONE piece without a rind - but I've yet to see any either!

Sister is coming to visit in a couple weeks and she's got a hankerin' for Ethiopian food. Anybody else recommend Lalibela (it's real close to my apt) or should we just walk up to Dukem?

We dined at Montsouris last night, and although it wasn't bad I can't see myself rushing back. We started with bone marrow and salmon tartare. The bone marrow is presented simply with sel gris. It was rich and gelatinous and could have used something besides salt to cut the fat. The salmon was fine and generously portioned. Our entrees were bavette and onglet. The entrecote that Rocks liked wasn't on the menu last night. The onglet was a nice enough steak but it arrived bathing in an assertive pepper corn sauce. I like pepper, but I would have definitely preferred this sauce on the side. The "kobe" bavette was much better, thin and tender and buttery and cooked medium rare as requested. Both steaks were accompanied by good frites. Dessert, chocolate mousse, didn't do anything for me. Service left a little bit to be desired. It's worth noting that we dined on the early side and it was empty when we arrived, but nearly full by the time we left. So, they don't seem to be hurting for business.

In Gallery Place, the Portrait Gallery's restrooms are located conveniently close to the front exit.

Any recommendations for Harrisonburg (JMU) for dinner?

Any recent visits? We're going tonight

I was there in December. I remember really liking the salad they did with roasted mushrooms, frisee and lardons.

Overall, the experience was great and I will go back again and again, it just must be tough to live up to such lofty expectations.

Goose egg ravioli at Palena.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

I can't bring myself to eat rabbit. I have a pet cat. The rabbit looks too much like a skinned cat.

A fucking basset hound-sized Zuni Cafe salt/milk cured Eco-Friendly wallet-unfriendly wascally wabbit that my wife and daugher both refused to eat on vague moral grounds, in a madeira/plum braise that was excellent. I have leftovers, if anyone's hungry.

Saturday Lunch: 2 Amy's. Sliced meats, pork sausage pizza, cannoli. Sadly, the pizza was a little soggy. I think this was due to miscommunication with the server though. She either didn't hear me say well done or just didn't bother to write it on the ticket. I strongly recommend the lomo to anyone looking for a charcuterie fix.

Monday and Tuesday lunches: Lentil soup at Greek Deli, biryani and samosa at Naan and Beyond. Both were OK. I am trying to give up eating meat for weekday lunches and these are some of the better vegetarian options around my office.

Anyone here been recently and have reccs off their current menu?
Headed to Tosca tonight, and am already (of course) attempting to strategically plan out my order for maximum gustatory pleasure... )

The rabbit papardelle is really good. Their stuffed pastas are excellent as well.

I would center my cocktail night around classic movies. For instance you could put in one of the Thin Man movies and make Martini's (buy Miller's Westborn) or Gimlets. Another option would be to get either Coquette or Sleep, My Love and make Mary Pickford's. They look like girly drinks but when made properly they are one of the finest cocktails ever invented (Rum, Maraschino, pineapple juice, and grenadine). How about getting Stormy Weather (if for no other reason to watch the Nicolas Brothers dance their asses off) and making a couple of Dark and Stormy.

Or you could rent The Big Lebowski and drink White Russians.

I'm with Banco on this one - I put Stella right up there alongside Yuengling and Rolling Rock in the "Inexplicably Cool" category.

Cheers,

Rocks.

Come on. Everyone knows the cool kids drink PBR.

I generally give a place one chance, especially an expensive place. Also, I am much more willing to try new places if they fall into the cheap eats category. For less affordable meals I tend to stick to places that I know will like, i.e. Palena, rather than rolling the dice on something new.

I have never been to the dupont market. Sounds like the best time to get there is 10 am. For a noobie, what are the best stands and is it worth going this early in the season?

There's not a whole in terms of vegetables right now, but you will still be able to find apples, root vegetables, hearty greens and some greenhouse lettuce. There's plenty of meat vendors. My personal favorites are poussin from Eco-Friendly, chops from the pork guy, sirloins from the lamb people (can't remember their names) and buffalo short ribs from Cibola. There's also a few cheese vendors and some other odds and ends. I still visit every week.

It isn't the mezzethakia that breaks the camel's back; it's the arrival of the entree after the pasta course, which falls not as a straw, but as a reinforced-concrete girder.

Don, maybe you are getting VIP portions. When I was there I ordered the standard menu and thought the amount of food was perfect. I probably could have skipped dessert though.

Wow. He describes eating at Komi as "torture". This is quite a dig for a restaurant that he gave 3.5 stars and is widely considered one of the very best in town. He clearly doesn't prefer tasting menus, but this piece crosses the line from opinion to agenda. I don't really think it's the role of the critic to be telling chefs how they should be cooking or the public how they should be dining--which is what he appears to be doing.

I remember my wife saying she hoped Ruta would make an entire course out of the beet raviolis sometime and this time he did. Wow. Just wow. I don't know what else he throws in with the beets (mascarpone and something else? what I don't know), but the beets are well roasted and must have been put through a food mill to get it so smoothe and wonderful. Just great.

Do you remember what he served with the ravioli? I had these a couple weeks ago and loved them, but the other stuff on the plate didn't really click for me.

Doesn't that depend on the producer?

I was speaking more to the general practice of listing producers and using sourcing to market restaurants. So, no I don't think it really depends on the producer or the chef. Good food will always depend on good producers, but I think the current practice of emphasizing producers on the menu is driven largely by trend.

At what point will the arugula equivalent of "Angus Beef" infiltrate the menu vocabulary, and when will "produced by Stony Creek Acres Farms" become simply a fashion statement, like the server's uniforms or the art behind the bar, rather than a meaningful eco-politico-philosophic statement?

I think we're already there.

Here's a question about food evangelism that might spark some discussion;

Went to PX Friday night to cap off a late Valentine's celebration. They were finishing a private function, so we hung out in Eamonn's with a fried snickers and lurched up to the door out of our diabetic stupor when our reservation was ready. Classy all the way, love the little window, the bar was gorgeous and I oohed and aahed over the liquor cabinet. My wife loved the corner room we were directed to, the beeswax candles really set the mood well. I ordered a grog and milady got a fig concoction. Both were amazing. The grog could launch a thousand pirates into the Bertuccis across the street.

Then a foursome of hill staffers from Georgia came in and they did nothing but bitch. They mocked the reservation system, exclaimed that "they didn't see the big deal," impugned the hostess's honor, scanned the menu and complained that "I just wanted a margarita or something," when the hand-made drinks didn't come out fast enough one of the darlings said something along the lines of "Jesus, don't they just use a mix?", etc.

The potato chips were "all right, I guess."

The hostess was actually nice enough to ask if everything was all right when we left when our drinks were done. My wife said that the room had gotten too loud, which was politely true. The question, then, is what was keeping us from gently guiding the people in that room to some sort of sense of what makes the PX work. If a place is good enough, at some point you pass from being a diner to being a participant in the general atmosphere. I wore a three-piece suit that, honestly, no longer fit me because deep down we wanted to play dress-up and go to a speakeasy.

Who's job is it to keep that atmosphere going? The diner has to be at least moderately knowledgeable about what they're getting into; who in that party made the reservation without knowing where they were going? I don't think the staff has to do anything extra, as they've got enough going on and no restaurant staff should be called on the enforce "who gets it". We were both too sleepy and too moderately pissed off to do what may have been our job, then, in bringing the good news of handcrafted drinks to these other diners. The other option, which was briefly considered, would be stabbing them in the forehead with a mint julep spoon and snorting around for brains.

I've been seated next to douchebags in all types of restaurants. I don't know what you can do about it except eat at home or maybe move to a city with a lower per capita douchebag population.

Japanese knifemaker "Mac" claims their serrated bread knife is ambidextrous and resharpenable on conventional stones. Color this southpaw intrigued.

Is that the one with reverse serrations, aka 'scallops'? I've heard they stay sharper a lot longer than standard serrations.