DonRocks

It's as great as it ever was - an incredible amount of fish, nestled inside a little bamboo lean-to. My love for this dish knows no bounds. Ask for Yao when you go - he's working today, and was probably the gentleman who waited on Zora, JohnB and Pappy for lunch. There's no way to navigate without his help (absent the services of Pandahugga). It's the same name and number for now - unless they're dabbling in voodoo or miracles, I just don't see them pulling off a name change this week. Cheers! Rocks.

Post tax tips

When the florist and greeting card industries took Mothers' Day and invented Grandparents' Day?

[Not only won't I curtail it, I'm making it a separate thread.] To this day, I have yet to get a satisfactory answer about how to tip on an expensive bottle of wine. Restaurateurs, managers, sommeliers, and servers will often hem, haw, obfuscate, and waffle when this subject comes up, basically smiling and saying that yes, tipping twenty percent on the total wine bill is always appreciated. Well, duh. The truth of the matter is: with the exception of decanting, and possibly some extra pouring attention, it doesn't require any more effort to serve a $500 bottle of wine than it does a $20 bottle of wine. And it's no fair bringing up the cost of inventory, glassware, breakage, returned bottles, and laundry service here, because all that's covered in the cost of the wine itself, which is usually criminally high to begin with. But if you tip $4 on a $500 bottle of wine, rest assured you'll be remembered as the single biggest cheeseball on the face of the planet. Now, as for palming the sommelier some cash, that's another matter entirely, and I'm sure Mark Slater will have a thing or two to say about it. Cheers, Rocks.

I just thoroughly enjoyed myself disconnecting my "high-speed" cable modem for the final time, stomping on it, smashing it against the ground multiple times, and then placing it on concrete and having at it with a hammer. Yeah, okay, so now I'm relegated to dial-up, but I guarantee I just had a more enjoyable and rewarding five minutes than you did. Cheers, Rocks.

Oh yes you did. What on earth was that thing, and did you ever find out who was behind it?

What a great post, Demvtr. This is one of the dishes I had last week, and while it was the best course of the evening, it was still gloppy and blah, so much so that I didn't take the leftovers home. If you look at Meaghan's January 16th posting, you'll see yet another opinion on that dish - I was her "panda bud" that evening, so I can vouch for her enthusiastic review. My guess is that this place is a winner five nights out of seven. Cheers, Rocks.

The lounge at the Four Seasons in Georgetown had ESPN on this evening.

Translation: I've been putting "Kick Me!" signs on my rear end, and then when I get kicked I come online and tell people.

Straits of Malaya again fell victim to the absence of its primary cook, with usual standby dishes being gloppy and mushy, on four visits now the food has been, in order, 1) great 2) bad 3) great 4) bad, contrast with Malaysia Kopitiam, which is leaps-and-bounds more interesting than Straits of Malaya regardless of the day, the Achar is downright profound here in comparison, also the Roti Canai is a flatter, less puffy version than you may be used to, the Chicken Rendang has druggingly complex spicing, plus what’s not to like about dishes named Watt Tan Hor Fun and Pork and Mai Fun, GREEK VILLAGE is the largest restaurant in Colesville (granted, not saying much), its tiny entrance belying a cavernous interior seating over 130 people, but this is standard, mediocre, strip-mall Greek fare and not worth a special effort to seek out, the "fresh flounder" may have been fresh when it was caught, but not by the time it arrived at the table, the beers at Franklin’s are some of the best in the area, tending to be very strong and aggressive in their hopping, very good within this genre though I'd like to see a full-flavored lager thrown into the mix, the general store here is unique, fascinating, and worth a visit if you're anywhere near Hyattsville, I always considered myself pretty up on the local dining scene, but I never realized that the antipasto buffet at PISTONE'S ITALIAN INN at Seven Corners is "considered by many to be one of the best in the country," and from the looks of things, all of them have a last name of Pistone, avoid the antipasto buffet if you're forced to go, and stick with safety dishes such as lasagna and basic pizza, chef RJ Cooper at Vidalia is one of the best cooks in town, although he's forced to work with a very conservative dining clientele, there are three levels of dining here: the regular menu, the chef's specials, and then whatever RJ feels like cooking that night, simply ask your server to have him make a tasting menu, I checked and he’ll happily do this for anyone who asks, and it’s the best way to unleash his considerable talent, get the 2002 Heidi Schrock Furmint for $48 to have with your meal, the next time you get a hankering for a double cheeseburger at 2 AM, try instead a carryout order of Hwe Dup Bap at Yechon, slices of fresh raw fish served over chopped lettuce and sticky short-grain rice with a mix-in cup of sweet-hot chili garlic sauce, it’s a large portion and worth a scarf except for the damnable surimi sticks which, even in times of despair and famine, are below the minimum standard for human consumption, how was your week.

There's also a Rooftop Dining thread here (no reason not to keep patios and rooftops in separate threads). Cheers, Rocks.

I call bullshit - this name is too convenient for the story. I would have gone to Kinkead's so I could have consulted with The Bob.

The only time in my life I've had fraudulent charges was when I accidentally left my card at M. Gettier in Baltimore (Michael Gettier is now chef at Antrim 1844 in the Dred-fully named Taneytown), and by the time I figured out it was gone, $2,000 in charges were racked up at Macy's. In the manager's defense, it was prime-time Saturday night, and he was probably taken off-guard by your SOS (significant-other's situation) - sometimes choking in the heat-of-the-moment can be mistaken for indifference. Cheers, Rocks.

[Aargh. I hate to outright delete this posting, because you put so much time and effort into it, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to unless there's a note from a hospital emergency room verifying a diagnosis of food poisoning. Even if you're right (and believe me, I'm not saying you aren't), the ramifications of allowing anonymous food-poisoning postings are just too severe in terms of the potential havoc Enemies Of Restaurants could wreak. Cheers, Rocks]

Tom Sietsema and Todd Kliman have both recently given Bangkok 54 three stars, people here and elsewhere whom I trust and respect have given it glowing recommendations, and after doubting myself and thinking I've been missing something all along, I went back for a fourth visit last week, and have finally reached a definitive conclusion: I'm right, everyone else is wrong, and if you don't agree with me then you need to reform your incorrect opinion. The Issan Combo ($10.95) is a duo of the Green Papaya Salad and chicken Satay. The Green Papaya Salad has been consistently wonderful here, but no longer - iit was thin, watery, and the heat was all superficial. Two little skewers of chicken Satay were so bland they could have been boiled, and the "chili dipping sauce" didn't arrive with the dish, so they were dunked in the water from the Green Papaya Salad which at least lent them some flavor. Part of the $5.00 upcharge of the Issan Combo vis-a-vis the individual Green Papaya Salad ($5.95) is a bowl of sticky rice. The rice arrived fresh out of the microwave - they forgot to take the plastic off, and it was still shrink-wrapped - it's amazing that hermetically-sealed microwaved sticky rice could still manage to be dry, but somehow, after being unraveled from its plastic casing, it was. This year's award for chutzpah goes to the person who wrote the menu description for one of the "house specialties" (on a separate menu) - Salmon with Country-Style Panang Curry was described as being a "moderately hot red "˜Panang' curry" which "is tamed" - tamed! - "with coconut milk and perfumed with kaffir lime leaves and the bright sea flavor of fresh salmon, nestled on a bed of herbed-soy flavor infused green vegetable noodles ($16)." Sounds pretty good, right? The bowl came out, and there was basically a sauceless, green, herbed pasta in the bottom, with a large, dry, lukewarm fillet of salmon sitting on top with no signs of spicing whatsoever. It had the texture of day-old steamed swordfish, and was the single blandest piece of salmon I've had in months if not years. Ladled - or squirted - on top was some sort of sweet-ish sauce which tasted Polynesian. That's it, that's the dish. This is precisely the level of quality I would expect from a Holiday-Inn catered banquet that had an "Asian Night" theme. A more pleasant dish was the 54's Spicy Roasted Duck ($12.95) which was about fifteen bite-sized pieces of meat, seemingly dry rubbed. It arrived warm, not hot, but still retained its crispiness and flavor interest even as it cooled to room temperature. Like the other dishes here, it came with a garnish of chopped iceburg lettuce, cold carrot squiggles, and bad tomatoes. This dish was good, not great, but was the the highlight of the meal by far - it reminds me of a smaller, less-expensive version of Peking Gourmet Inn's Szechuan Beef Proper. And speaking of Chinese restaurants, the Pad Phrik Khing Jae ($7.50) is described as wok-fired "string beans, fresh kaffir lime leaves and mixed seasonal vegetables in a spicy chili paste sauce." Like much of this meal, this dish of uninteresting, sweet-and-vaguely-spicy, stir-fried vegetables (pea pods, chopped broccoli, carrots, baby corn, etc.) could easily be mistaken for something other than Thai, and is emblematic of the confused and pandering nature of the food coming out of this kitchen. Bangkok 54 isn't "bad" so much as it is ordinary - it's certainly the most overrated Thai restaurant in the Washington, DC area right now. If you want Americanized fare that's Thai in name only, go to Crystal Thai on Route 50 or Paya Thai in Vienna - both are better and more satisfying than Bangkok 54. Cheers, Rocks

[Please reread the above! The reason it's "important" (everything being relative, of course) is that too many blank lines will limit the number of postings that will fit on a single page. Not a big deal, but may as well learn this now rather than later. Cheers, Your mother.]

In other words, you are going to raise the stakes. Get him drunk first, Rocks.

[it's a good idea for both of you to move on on this one. ]

It should also be said that there will be no more war, poverty, and disease.

We BS it, e.

This is what the driver of a Mercedes calls the manoeuver when explaining to the officer why he made an illegal 180.

Dude!

Nebergall went there once, thinking he could beat the system. Right when the hourglass was half-drained, he'd furtively flip it over, giggling "tee-hee, tee-hee."

[Maybe we can leave this thread alone until-and-unless Michael wishes to chime in. I don't want to lock it, but hopefully we'll give it a rest. (Please don't reply to this by saying "Amen!" as that will just cause it to continue.) Cheers, Rocks.]

The strategy for the olives is to nibble a few, and then use the rest as pizza toppings - they're non-pitted and much better than the ones that come on the pizzas. Cheers, Rocks