Mark Dedrick

Don't want to rain on Ed's parade, but it worked out very well. Initially it worked out terribly (including an incident unrelated to the restaurant that has me laughing as I type this although it sucked very much at the time I'm sure), but we ended up getting seated at around 8:30 pm, had incredible service (as usual), and way too much fantastic food. It's a great and special restaurant. Surprisingly, my least favorite pasta dish this time was the Cacio e Pepe, which has typically been my favorite.

It also gets a lot of business because there just aren't many lunch options on the Senate side, and sometimes you just want the leave the building to get something to eat. Much better options on the House side.

I ate here on like day two, and then immediately went on a long trip, so never wrote about it. It's a huge step up from the previous occupant, and I enjoyed my meal there very much. The service was fantastic. I do think their "concept" isn't fully thought out, and I'd really like to see them put together a better and more interesting wine list. But it's a place that bears watching, and I'll definitely be back. FWIW, I enjoyed my meal here more than DC Harvest.

I'll defer to Dean on all cooking matters. I have, however, had great luck using my mesh grill "skillet" and cooking them on my grill at extremely high heat with no oil. I'll then toss them in a very small amount of olive oil for flavor and finish with some good salt.

I was back in Portland last week for work. Unlike on some of my previous trips, I didn't get out and about much to newer places, but here are a few notes at least: Three Degrees - This restaurant is located in the Riverplace Hotel (now a Kimpton), and is, as the name suggests, right on the Willamette River. When the weather is nice, they've got a great patio with fantastic views, and it's an extremely pleasant place to have a drink. I chose it for dinner with my parents, because my dad does very poorly in loud restaurants. This fit the bill, and the food was good to very good, if not great. I wouldn't seek this place out, necessarily, but also wouldn't be opposed to returning, if that makes sense. Imperial and Park Kitchen - I've written about both of these places before, and I continue to really enjoy them. The chef from Imperial is, incidentally, on this season of Top Chef. Nong's Khao Man Gai - She's now got two food trucks, and a brick and mortar restaurant, but I've only been to the truck in the Alder Street pod (near the corner of 11th). She serves chicken and rice. It's wrapped up in butcher paper, and comes with a small container of broth. And it's spectacular. I don't really know how to describe it, but everything, from the chicken, to the rice, to the sauce, is just perfect. And, despite the fact that she's attained some degree of fame via Chopped, and now has the other locations, you'll still see Nong working her first cart on a regular basis. Le Bistro Montage - I haven't written about the Montage before because it's been a few years since I've been back. The Montage is an ostensibly Cajun restaurant located on the east side directly under the Morrison Street Bridge. We used to go in college because it's open late (the kitchen is open until 2 am on weeknights, and 4 am on weekends), and because there aren't that many places you can go to when you're under 21 late at night after rock shows. I don't think I've even eaten there before 11 pm, so I don't know that I can describe what a "normal" dining experience there looks like (although I suspect that eating there at midnight is essentially a normal dining experience). I like the Montage a lot. I pretty much only order oyster shooters ($1.95 a piece), alligator jambalaya ($13.75 for a large order, and that's essentially the top of the price spectrum here), and cans of Rainier beer ($2). This is the only restaurant where I've seen Mickey's widemouths on the menu, and I have a distant memory of having ordered one or more of those on occasion as well. I see now looking at their website that they have a quite extensive list of wines by the glass, and cocktails, and all of these are under $10 (most of the wines are under $8 a glass). The various mac and cheese options are extremely popular with my friends. The food is good, and I've never had a meal here that I'd describe as bad, yet it's not a place I'd go out of my way to eat at either. It's an experience. All of the seating is communal, service is typically fine, and irreverent, and they wrap up your leftovers in foil works of art, some of which are as big as three or four feet tall. And I can tell you that my jambalaya (although probably not the Rainier) was absolutely essential to my general well being at 12:30 am on Friday morning.

There aren't a lot of vegetable options, particularly non-fried, although there typically is at least one salad. I can't remember with the current menu if there is one on there. I'll also point out that their late night menu, which features all of their mussels, and a handful of sandwiches, runs until at least midnight on the weekends, and 11:30 on weeknights. It came in very handy this past Friday when my flight landed at 10:15 pm and I was starving and looking for some non fast food to eat.

We tried them midweek, and absolutely loved our salt bagels. Great texture, right amount of salt. I'm really happy these guys are there.

Looks like they're finally closing: Edit: And more information.

Welcome Ed. I think you'll like it here.

This is too bad. Ceiba has been my go-to for lunch with clients for many years.

I have to basically agree with Josh. We had a very pleasant meal, and the place is a good addition to H Street, but they need to make some minor tweaks at least before they become a place I'm anxious to rush back to. It's a great looking place, and nothing we had was particularly bad, they just didn't really nail anything either. Service was good, if a little overly enthusiastic at times (and I'm confident we had the same server as you, Josh).

That's disappointing. We've been excited for it to open. I'll try to keep an open mind when we go tonight.

Has anyone been? Going tonight for the first time.

I'd agree with Pat 100%. It's also a chance to get, guaranteed, a group of ten of you into Rose's at a specific date and time. I think you're paying a bit for that as well.

I'm curious to try this place. I will say that I've worked about a block away from there for nine years and haven't been in that space since I started.

I spent a few nights in Portland over a long Labor Day weekend. Bunk - I continue to love their sandwiches. The pulled pork sandwich this last time was great, and the pork belly Cubano continues to be fantastic. I'm glad this place isn't on H Street as I would gain fifty pounds. Swank & Swine - A new restaurant, or combination of two restaurants, in the Paramount Hotel. Swine is the bar, featuring a fair collection of American whiskeys and elevated bar food. Swank is the higher end restaurant on the other side of the lobby. I enjoyed our pre-dinner drinks at Swine. And while we liked our meal at Swank after, nothing really hit. I can't bring up their menu online right now, but there seemed to be one thing about each dish that missed just slightly. So while I wouldn't recommend against going there, I also wouldn't strongly suggest doing so either, if that makes sense. Mediterranean Exploration Company - This is the newest (I think, but it's at least relatively new) spot from the folks that brought you Toro Bravo and Tasty & Sons. Like those spots, it's small plates. This is kind of their Zaytinya to Toro Bravo's Jaleo. It's fantastic. The standouts for us were the Oregon Albacore with a beet-olive salsa, the fennel salad, and the fried chicken with aleppo pepper and honey. But everything we ordered was at least very good, and it was just a fun place to have dinner with a lively atmosphere. We were able to walk right in, but this was on a Tuesday night, the day after Labor Day. That is likely not the case on other days.

A few more Cannon Beach thoughts from our quick trip this past weekend: Cannon Beach Hardware and Public House - It's a hardware store. Yet they've placed tables amongst the nails and tools, and put up a small bar inside. They also have a small patio on the side to dine outside. I believe it's relatively new, and at a minimum nobody in my family had been before. I enjoyed it. The food was typical of most Cannon Beach spots (and other Oregon coastal spots for that matter). Lots of fried seafood, and a few other things. My fried shrimp were good, although the batter wasn't as crispy as I would have liked. Good fries. They have a small, but quite interesting beer list, and they apparently change it frequently. Great service. The Lumberyard Grill and Rotisserie - We were apparently determined to eat only at hardware store-themed spots this time around (although we did grab lunch at the Ecola Seafood Market mentioned above to ruin that narative). This is the an old lumberyard/hardware store, not a currently operating one, and it's located just south of downtown. It's a great looking space. Good sized patio. And the food we got was all solid (which, again, is about the best I've ever found in Cannon Beach). My rockfish tacos had nice flavor, and good spice, and I was pretty happy with the whole experience. Once again, because Oregon, they have an excellent beer list.

I stopped by yesterday after work to meet a friend and try out this new spot in the neighborhood. It's good. I'm glad it's here. First of all, the space is quite small. I didn't actually count all of the seats, but I believe there were only maybe two or three traditional tables (with at least four seats). The rest of the dining room, such that it is, features side by side seating along the wall, as well as somewhere in the neighborhood of perhaps 14 bar seats? Six seats facing the cooks, four seats facing the bar, and four seats along the wall opposite the bar. They're in the process of finishing off what looks like it will be a very nice patio in back, which according to my bartender should be open some time in September. The space looks great. We sat at the bar (every seat is set up for dining, there's not a typical bar, per se), and my one complaint is that they need to get rid of their stools. I can't ever recall complaining about the actual seats in a restaurant before, but these are terrible, difficult to balance on, and increasingly uncomfortable the longer you sit there. We left after our meal to get another drink elsewhere because we didn't want to continue to perch uncomfortably on their barstools. Anyhow, on to the food and drinks. I know very very little about Peruvian food, so please bear that in mind. That said, we liked what we tried. Of the cold dishes, the scallop crudo-type dish was the winner, Sweet scallops, a bit of spice, the right amount of acidity. Loved it. The Nikei ceviche (lime, scallion, soy, yuzu and wonton) tasted good, but all of the flavor kind of blew away the tuna itself. Of the hot dishes (and, by the way, pay no attention to the numbers next to dishes on their website, there's no correlation between those numbers and the actual prices on the real menus, which is frustrating) we had the Octopus Anticuchero (grilled octopus with a potato puree and two different sauces) and Carapulcra (a stew with pork belly, potatoes and beans). Both were really good. The octopus was cooked well, not tough and with a nice grilled flavor. The potato puree was fantastic. And the pork belly stew was our favorite, just wonderful comfort food. On the drinks, the guys behind the bar appear to know what they're doing, and are extremely friendly. The Pisco Sour was great, the other cocktails we tried weren't quiet as successful in my opinion. And the wine list right now is quite limited, although they said that they will be adding a bunch more wines (including a number of Peruvian wines) and ciders in the near future. Anyhow, based on one visit, I'm glad they're there. They're extremely friendly, they seem to be trying to put out good food, and to be doing something different than the rest of the places on H. That's a good thing.

Most of the food at the Hamilton looks better, both on the menu and on the plate, than it tastes. That said, you won't get anything actively bad here. If you like the crabcake at Clyde's I'm sure it will be basically the same, whether downstairs or upstairs.

Just a few thoughts on my trip to Vegas this past weekend. Aria - I typically travel to Vegas about once a year with a group of friends, and we've stayed a number of places up and down the strip over the past decade plus. The Aria might be my favorite place that we've stayed. Location is fantastic (basically right in the middle of the strip, not isolated on one end or the other), our rooms were quite big and with solid views, service was pretty much universally great, and they use the fact that they're huge to provide all of the amenities you could want. They had a number of restaurants strewn throughout (we did not have a chance to sample more than one or two), and the casino floor itself was reasonably laid out. The pools were nice, and if you go the cabana route they are much nicer than at the Bellagio. If you're into sports betting I'd say that the sports book is fine, but definitely a step behind my favorite (the Bellagio, which remains my favorite place for any type of gambling in Vegas). I'd definitely stay here again. Julian Serrano - When we arrived in Vegas we were absolutely starving, so a few of us decided to just grab something small in the hotel, and ended up at Julian Serrano. We ended up being more hungry than anticipated, and ordered a good chunk of the menu. I'd definitely recommend it, it is very solid Spanish food, the standout being the spicy veal and pork meatballs. Sage - The only other real restaurant at the Aria that we frequented (we did eat breakfast at the cafe, which was totally fine, and some lunches at our cabana at the pool, which were good for pool food), we got drinks and an appetizer here one night before dinner. I'd like to return and actually eat here. These were, by far, the best cocktails I've had in Las Vegas. Raku - Spectacular. Probably the best meal I've ever had in Vegas. We had a group of five, and had our own semi-private little room, which was a very nice touch. And we ordered a ton, from all over the menu. The fish dishes were incredible. And the poached egg with sea urchin and salmon roe was probably my favorite thing all night (although at least one of my friends found the texture a little off-putting). We ordered heavily off of the specials menu (which is why I can't necessarily relate everything we had), and relied on our server to recommend both what, and how much we should order. I'd strongly recommend this place. Scarpetta - We chose this place because it was located near our casino, next door in the Cosmo, and because one of my friends had enjoyed the branch in New York. It's really good Italian food. Service was a bit uneven. They left us alone for long periods of time (which cost them at least one round of cocktails at the beginning and one bottle of wine later in the meal). When our server was with us he was extremely opinionated on what exactly we should order. I can't say that he was wrong, as everything he recommended was fantastic. For a group of six we ordered two appetizers (Spanish Octopus and Squid and the Roasted Diver Scallops, which our waiter told us were the only starters worth ordering on the menu), three pastas (Duck and Foie Gras Ravioli, Short Rib and Bone Marrow Agnolotti, and Lamb Ragu Fettuccine) and we then all ordered our own entrees (everybody had either the halibut or the Colorado lamb loin). This was way too much food. From both a volume as well as a quality perspective we should have cut out the starters and just gone with pasta and entrees. All three pastas were fantastic. Heritage Steak - We do a steakhouse every time on this trip, initially because several of my friends were extremely unadventurous in their dining choices, but now out of tradition (I take care of all of the dining choices and reservations, and as a result I simply book us into whatever restaurants I want to eat at and drag them along with me). Heritage Steak is the new-ish Tom Colicchio affiliated steakhouse in the center of the Mirage. It's quite expensive, even by Vegas standards (particularly the wine list). And it's very good. I ended up splitting the 32 oz dry aged Cote de Boeuf, and it was a wonderful steak, cooked perfectly and extremely flavorful. Our experience did get off to a bit of a rocky start when the waiter oversold their Manhattan a little bit, only to have it not really deliver for most of us. One of my friends quite enjoyed it, but then again it was the second Manhattan he'd ever had. Most of us found it overly sweet, and with a smokiness that was a bit out of balance with the rest of the drink. Which apparently came from smoked cherry juice, which wasn't a component we expected. Anyhow, this is a good steakhouse. But Carnevino is much better, so if you're going to spend that amount of money you should go there. And if you do go to Heritage Steak don't order their Manhattan. Cocktails in the Cosmopolitan - The Cosmo sits adjacent to the Aria, and is a favorite of several of my friends. As a result, we ended up here a few times throughout the week. I've seen two bars in this casino named as great places to get cocktails in Vegas, the Chandelier Bar and the Vesper Bar. Both are very much a scene (they are, after all, located in the Cosmo), but the Vesper Bar is actually a serious bar that puts out great cocktails. Order without fear or concern here, they know what they're doing and they will make you a fantastic drink. It is possible to get a decent drink at the Chandelier Bar, but keep it simple. It's much more about the scene and the scenery here than it is the drinks.

This has me very hungry. I have a reservation for Raku next Thursday night.

Yeah, I'm going to hold off on judging Kitty's too harshly before they open, although that's proving to be a tough proposition. I'm hopeful for the Peruvian place, for Maketto, and that these places doing more casual food will do it well. I also should do a separate post on Pursuit Wine Bar, which I enjoyed, at least enough to return. It's good to have stuff open on that block.

A few H Street thoughts that probably make more sense here than in their own post. First, two new places have opened up towards the western end. Micho's Lebanese Grill opened at 500 H Street, and Po' Boy Jim's opened at 709 H Street. I haven't tried either. As stated on another thread, there's a sign up at the former Pho Bar and Grill space in the 1300 block saying that "Thai Cuisine" is coming soon. There's currently no Thai available on H, so if that's decent it would be a nice addition. And there are now signs up in the building on the SW corner of H Street saying that Ba Korean Fusion is coming into that space. I feel like something has been about to open soon in that spot since I moved to this neighborhood in 2008, so we'll see. Finally, a place called Kitty's Saloon appears to be ready to open quite soon in the 1200 block, in the old Souk space. They've got their sign up, and I'd expect them to open soon.

Per @dcvet, a Thai place is going into this space.

We decided to try out the Breslin when we arrived in New York on July 3. It was close to our hotel, I'd heard good things, and we were absolutely starving at around 9 pm when we walked in. Overall, a very good experience, and I'd happily return, particularly if I were staying again at the Eventi Hotel (which I also strongly recommend, it was a great place to stay, and the largest room I've had in New York). We were able to walk right in and be seated at a table with a five minute wait. We could have sat at one of the long tables in the bar immediately if we would have chosen that route. I believe, however, that this is attributable to the fact that New York clears out over the July 4 weekend, and is not a normal state of affairs. Like DaRiv18, we loved the Scotch Egg, which was fantastic. The menu on their webpage seems to have changed a bit so I can't 100% remember what else we had, but the saltimboca was fantastic, salty and delicious. Really the only negative comment I can come up with on this place was that service was at times uneven, in that all of the servers would seem to periodically disappear from the dining room.