DonRocks

30 27 40 60 2 44 10 33 46 47 7 53 24 55 4 50 23 13 1 51 43 16 5 17 20 9 31 22 32 37 57 19 54 15 36 42 25 61 48 35 6 39 11 59 14 41 62 18 52 58 12 49 29 56 34 28 38 21 8 45 3 26 Edit: Now please give me a few minutes to figure this out.

Okay here goes...

I'll do the lottery this morning at around 11 AM, similar to the way I did it here, using "62" as the upper bound. A direct-link to the random-number generator is here. As before, I'll cut-and-paste the numbers immediately, and then take a few minutes to figure out what they mean in terms of fitting people into the proper slots. Important: between now and 11 AM, please double-check your names and requests for time slots and number of attendees, and let me know if there needs to be a correction. Cheers, Rocks.

62 members have signed up requesting 109 seats. The lottery will be drawn late tomorrow morning, and this is the list of candidates, each row to be interpreted as follows: The number assigned to each person The person's name (1) or (2) people wishing to attend Either 5:30, 8:00, or both, with an asterisk indicating a time preference There are 36 available seats at the 5:30 seating, and 40 at the 8:00 seating. Hillvalley is being guaranteed 2 seats at 5:30 for her work in arranging this, and MeMc is guaranteed 2 seats at 5:30 for the work she put in arranging the W Domku dinner. Both are paying the full amount for the dinner. Good luck to everyone in advance. If anyone wants to witness the drawing, please contact me; otherwise, I'll be doing the same random-number generator that I've done for other events. Cheers and good luck to all, Rocks. P.S. Hillvalley, Please check this list for correctness, as I typed it in by hand from your .xls file and could easily have made mistakes. Thanks. P.S. All people on this list: please check your entry for correctness. There have now been two different manual entries of the same data, and there is very real possibility for human error. Let me know by 10 AM tomorrow if your entry isn't correct, please. Thanks! Rocks. 1 crescentfresh (2) *5:30 8:00 2 capitol icebox (2) 5:30 8:00 3 ustreetguy (1) 5:30 *8:00 4 roo (2) 5:30 8:00 5 moniquedc (2) *5:30 8:00 6 shogun (1) 5:30 *8:00 7 semperaugustus (1) 8:00 8 DanielK (1) 5:30 8:00 9 willyfung (2) 8:00 10 tfbrennan (2) *5:30 8:00 11 JimRice (2) 5:30 8:00 12 jparrott (1) 5:30 *8:00 13 Vandyhoo (2) 5:30 14 Waitman (2) *5:30 8:00 15 Logan Circle (1) 5:30 8:00 16 mdt (2) 5:30 *8:00 17 biotech (2) 5:30 18 johnb (1) 5:30 19 pete (2) *5:30 8:00 20 MODWOP (2) 5:30 *8:00 21 cooter (2) *5:30 8:00 22 cjsadler (2) 5:30 23 StephenB (1) 5:30 24 goldenticket (1) *5:30 8:00 25 V.H. (2) 5:30 26 Erikv (2) 5:30 8:00 27 jm chen (2) *5:30 8:00 28 hannah (2) 5:30 8:00 29 Demetrius (2) 5:30 8:00 30 twinklerin (2) 8:00 31 Porcupine (2) 5:30 8:00 32 brr (2) 5:30 33 Patrick (2) *5:30 8:00 34 Barbara (2) 5:30 *8:00 35 reverbrad (2) 5:30 36 AlexC (2) 5:30 8:00 37 beerman (2) 5:30 8:00 38 mtpleasanteater (2) 5:30 8:00 39 butterlamb (2) *5:30 8:00 40 tross (2) 5:30 41 hm212 (1) 5:30 8:00 42 dcdavidm (2) *5:30 8:00 43 Billy DeLion (2) 8:00 44 Catherine (2) *5:30 8:00 45 MBK (2) 5:30 *8:00 46 New Foodie (2) 5:30 8:00 47 Skysplitter (1) 8:00 48 Lydia R (1) 5:30 49 dcpolicywonk (2) 5:30 8:00 50 bougouni (1) *5:30 8:00 51 edstaut (1) 5:30 *8:00 52 Xochitl10 (2) *5:30 8:00 53 jjshyne (2) 5:30 8:00 54 ol Ironstomach (2) 5:30 55 Escoffier (2) 5:30 8:00 56 lizzie (2) 5:30 8:00 57 otello (2) 5:30 8:00 58 nashman1975 (2) *5:30 8:00 59 acrover (2) 8:00 60 bilrus (2) 5:30 61 tenunda (1) 8:00 62 mhberk (2) 5:30

The March 21st chat (Szechuan Boy alert, and I think his best chat yet.)

Well-honed is hyphenated.

Chefs often talk about holidays and weekends being "Amateur Nights" at restaurants, but from a diner's perspective, that epithet applies to Sunday and Monday evenings, generally the chef's night off, and so it was at BlackSalt, with both an Atlantic Skate Wing, lobster-and-French-lentil cassoulet with lobster glace and a Wild Carolina Rockfish, served with organic mushroom marsala fondue, butternut squash, and haricots verts falling victim to poor saucing and, in the case of the rockfish and the lobster meat, overcooking, until-and-unless restaurants offer warnings or discounts when the backup conductor is leading the orchestra, the same standards should continue to apply, bar service is genuinely friendly and professional as always, talking about a Belgian Quadrupel on the menu at Birreria Paradiso, an undersexed Thor Cheston writes, “Imbibing one of these wonderful ales is like holding a liquor-filled soft caramel in your mouth and feeling it slowly melt,” an Arrosto di Verdure (roast vegetable) Panini ($6.95) comes on a homemade bun but was served cold and isn’t quite as integrated as it could be, Panjshir II is civilized but empty inside, serving healthy vegetarian fare such as the kadu chalow (sauteed pumpkin) and shalgham chalow (sauteed turnip in brown sugar), the Afghan naan here is a waste of calories, but the chalows themselves are guilt-free, perhaps even bland, Szechuan Boy has leapt into the forefront of area Chinese restaurants, with chef Peter Chang back offering up his considerable talents, do not ignore an innocuous-sounding bowl of dumplings in broth, as the dumplings are subtle and complex, and the broth rich and concentrated with chicken stock, “the $45 three-course menu at the bar is the best deal in town on Saturday nights,” Eric Ziebold told me at CityZen Lounge, because the restaurant is closed the next two days, the diner will get more food than on other nights, take your chances and beg the bartender for some Parker House rolls, my multi-year streak of failures at Obelisk continues, with both the furniture and clientele looking as worn-out as ever, the very night they were short-listed for a Beard Award, the chef had left early, even though he had supposedly ‘been there all day preparing the food,’ which was tired and dull, although Obelisk used to be my favorite restaurant in DC (let’s not forget you had the brilliant Pastan and Ruta in the two-person kitchen at one point), I haven’t had one single great dish here in so long I can’t even remember when it was, they aren’t terribly fond of serving miniburgers at the bar at Charlie Palmer Steak, and it’s just as well as the lounge menu is something of an afterthought, the lobster corndogs ($9.00) sounding a lot better than they are, although a little bird tells me that the charcuterie plate ($11.00) is a great deal and enough for two people, ordering from the main menu here is the way to go, a duo of seared duck breast and confit atop root vegetables is everything you could possibly want, remember each table is allowed to bring up to two bottles of American wine without any corkage fees, you can also bring your own bottle at the bar, but please remember to tip the excellent bartenders well if you do, the Torchon of Foie Gras with Fig and Sorrel ($14) at Corduroy is a requirement even though it’s relatively expensive for an appetizer there, Tom Power takes an entire lobe of foie gras, rolls it, poaches it, and cuts out seven helpings, wrapped in a seedy fig roll-up and served with macerated fig bits and a tiny mound of sorrel, it’s one of the purest examples of this classic dish around, late on a crowded Saturday evening, Tom came out and asked me to guess how many of these he served that night, “Two,” he said, and then pointed to my friend and said “One,” and then pointed to me and said “Two,” do yourself a favor and order this, how was your week.

[Here's the way I'm going to do the lottery: if you indicate a willingness for both times, you'll slightly increase your chances of attending, but not double your chances. All names will be assigned one number, and like before, I'll generate a random list. There will be three buckets: a 5:30 bucket, an 8:00 bucket, and a flexible bucket. As the list of winners is traversed, each name will be placed in one of the buckets. At some point, either the 5:30 or 8:00 bucket will fill up (or the flexible bucket will have enough people to trigger distribution), and then the people in the flexible bucket will be placed in the open 5:30-or-8:00 bucket until either it is full, or the flexible bucket is emptied. If the latter, then the list will continue to be traversed until the open 5:30-or-8:30 bucket is filled. In terms of people indicating preference, I'll place them in the appropriate 5:30-or-8:00 bucket if it's not yet full, and into the flexible bucket if it is. Cheers, Rocks.]

Flying away on a wing and a pair. Rocks, off.

Also, for those of you that haven't been there, the sign on the restaurant still says "China Gourmet" (someone correct me if this has changed). Cheers, Rocks.

I wonder if Ruby Tuesday's in Roanoke pools their tips. Click.

Seven Corners, Bailey's Crossroads, what's the difference. I once knew of someone who thought he was supposed to take the BW Parkway, not the GW Parkway. Ouch! Still, you could have taken the Branch Avenue exit off of 495 and gotten to Bailey's Crossroads in an hour! [DeanGold's Fortune post split off into a new thread here.]

If I'm out for dinner, I'll happily have a bad beer (think Heineken) before the kebob and rice arrives. Kabob Bazaar in Clarendon, for example, panders to this need very well. I don't think Moby Dick's Kabob-E-Jojeh pales to Shamshiry's cornish hen (Shamshiry uses cornish hen, not chicken, and offers it on- or off-bone) - Moby's may not be quite as good, but it doesn't pale, either. But the bread at Moby Dick, made from scratch and baked in the tandoor oven - is leagues better to the packaged, industrial stuff they serve at Shamshiry. So it's sort-of a trade-off. Nor am I contending that Moby Dick is "the best Persian restaurant in the Washington, DC area." I'll leave that up to everyone else Cheers, Rocks.

... and really bad industrial bread. The problem with Shamshiry is that there's nothing to do until the protein arrives. You have ice water, hot tea, no alcohol, terrible bread served with an acidic bowl of chopped green chiles, and that's about it. You wait, and wait. Then twenty minutes later the food arrives. The atmosphere is nice, the service is friendly, the kabobs and rice are quite good, but there's just nothing to do before they arrive except nibble and sip. Cheers, Rocks.

I'm not sure, but I did find this on the web. For whatever it's worth, I've only been once - sometime last summer - and a carryout Friends Combo 1 (kubideh and chicken kabobs) didn't leave me with that much of an impression one way or the other. The typos on their carryout menu are breathtaking. Cheers, Rocks.

The following posts have been split into separate threads: Friends Kabob (Ravana) Ichiban (gnatharobed) Shamshiry (Joe H) Bistro 123 (lizzie) Konami (silentbob)

Spring additions: Grosstico Bimbo Spills Lemona Diarrhea Paradiso 100 King-Sized Roaches Night Gallery And last but not least: "Aphid David" Cur-Egg

[Reminder: no personal insults allowed. Cheers, Rocks]

This event is on the verge of being cancelled because not enough people have signed up - we need 25 at the minimum. Deadline is 5 PM today. Send a PM to hillvalley if you want to come, and feel free to bring more than one guest, but make sure it's a firm commitment at this point. Cheers, Rocks.

So dudes, here are my thoughts on all this. Summoning up the group energy required to pull off that second night at Corduroy was akin to eeking out that fourth orgasm of the afternoon - it happened, but now nobody wants to have sex again for another week. Since then, we've had to cancel two events because of lack of interest. I think if we erred on the side of too-few events before, we've probably erred on the side of too-many events recently. This is all open to suggestion and discussion, but I don't want to be announcing events and then having to cancel them, because it doesn't look good for the restaurants. But whatever everyone wants, we'll try and do - this is not some big secretive cloak-and-dagger thing; I just want everyone to have a good time here. Okay, that having been said, I'm pretty stoked about two of these events: the Passage To India dinner with Monica, and the benefit that cjsadler and txaggie are having at L'Academie de Cuisine. There may be another one coming up on short notice that could be quite popular as well. Cheers, Rocks.

This is definitely out of my price range, but if any of you philanthropic gastronauts want to eat and drink well - really well - while lending high-dollar support to two terrific charities, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the AppleTree Institute, then there's nowhere else you should be on June 3rd than at this event. Look for local chefs Michel Richard, Frank Ruta, Eric Ziebold, and Jeff Buben to join Daniel Boulud, Alain Dutournier, Robert Parker, and several other luminaries in an evening of glorious excess. Click here! Cheers, Rocks.

There's a reason the bisque, scallops, and shrimp are so good at Ray's The Steaks, and the reason is Michael Hartzer, former Chef de Cuisine at Citronelle. Michael Landrum will tell you many things, but I don't think he'll ever say he has the cooking technique of Michael Hartzer. You're getting Michel Richard's former right-hand-man here for under $10 an appetizer. Hello... you could make a case for Hartzer being a top-ten cook in the city along with Ruta, Ziebold, Richard, Pangaud, Cam, Donna, and pick three others. Actually, I think Landrum probably can cook steaks as well. Cheers, Rocks.

Eleven months have passed without reply, so I thought I'd report in on the best deal in town right now: the $45 three-course tasting menu at CityZen bar. Eric Ziebold is pulling an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert from CityZen's main menu, all of which are identical to what you'll get in the dining room, and available only at the bar as a $45 three-course. I asked the bartender Matthew this evening how many of these they're serving, and he said "a few a week," and in the winter months, "multiple weeks would pass without serving any." Is anyone with me here? These are EXACTLY what you'd get if you ordered the same three courses in the dining room. That works out to $10 for an app, $25 for an entree, and $10 for a dessert. Get the $8 Sauvignon Blanc and the $9 Giacosa Barbera d'Alba by the glass if you're looking for good value. Do you guys realize just how inexpensive this menu is? There's even an amuse-gueule. Here: Wild Mushroom Fritter with White Truffle Emulsion Sunchoke Panna Cotta with Smoked Steelhead Trout Roe -- Puree of Red Beet Soup Roasted gold beets, braised beet greens, and Perigord truffle mousse Warm Parmigiano Reggiano Chiboust with Herb Roasted Hen-of-the-Woods Mushrooms, Arugula, and Parmigiano Oil -- Herb Roasted Path Valley Farms Shoat with Sweet Potato Mille Feuille and Poached Prunes Pave of Diamondback Sturgeon Sweet carrot, caramelized parsnip, black trumpet mushrooms, and lobster Bordelaise sauce -- Juniper Aperitif with Lemon Sorbet -- Trio of Sexual Stimulii High-speed "Fusee de poche," rotating G-spot Sin-Devil, and organic raspberry-dyed anal beads Torchon of Valrhona Chocolate Burnt orange marmalade and Cinnamon sugar brioche To paraphrase Nima Tashi - you go get. Rocks.

[You need to trust my experience in moderating here. The comment about income tax was okay, but a pre-emptive strike was in order to prevent the discussion from spiraling downward into a debate about income tax policies, which would soon lead to arguments about flag-burning, global warming, the war in Iraq, and eventually end with someone bringing up Hitler. Trust me on this one. Rocks.]

[Please let's not go down this path. Cheers, Rocks.]