Mark Dedrick

Agree on the cracklins, they are ridiculously good. I also loved the smoked whitefish salad sandwich. The pickles were just ok in my opinion.

I have reservations as well for the later one. Don, Impala does not currently exist, although they are "close" to opening. My understanding is that they will be opening as Impala Cantina y Taqueria sometime this spring, although I don't recall an official opening date right now. They put some pictures of their "menu" up on their Tumblr (http://impala-dc.tumblr.com/), and a few other things. The space itself looks closer and closer to opening when I walk by it, for what that's worth. I'm very hopeful that this place will be very good. Hopefully we'll get some clarity on Sunday, as well as some good Mexican food.

For anyone interested, Impala Cantina just announced that they're doing a pop-up/menu preview at Toki Underground this Sunday night. Details can be found here: http://impaladc.eventbrite.com/#

I'd agree with DaRiv18 on this point, I think that the H Street dining guide has Liberty Tree way too high, and Toki Underground, Boundary Road, Ethiopic and Granville Moore's too low. I have no problem with Liberty Tree, but I will make plans to go to either Toki or Boundary Road, I never go to Liberty Tree except as a fallback plan, or in an instance where we really don't know what else to do for dinner.

This is the first of two posts on my trip to Miami this past weekend. Thanks to some research and some great recommendations we were able to find some really good cocktails this time around. Broken Shaker - This was our favorite spot for drinks on our entire trip. It's a bit north of the main section of South Beach, and located in a hostel (The Freehand), and does not have the feel or the clientele of the South Beach spots just a short distance south. The cocktails we had were fantastic (both off of their menu, and I can't remember the details), and they were $11, which for Miami felt like an absolute steal. The bar itself is pretty tiny, but very cool, and there's plenty of seating out by the pool. A real gem. Regent Cocktail Club - This was recommended to me by a friend, and then again by the bartender at Broken Shaker while we were there. He described it as the other side of their coin, and that feels about right. Regent Cocktail Club is located in the Gale, which is right at the corner of 17th and Collins. It is much more formal feeling than Broken Shaker, the bartenders are wearing suits and ties, and the decor is more fancy hotel bar or supper club than shabby beach bar. Similarly, however, great cocktails, extremely well prepared. My favorite drink here was the Rattlesnake (rye, lemon juice, egg white in an absinthe-rinsed glass). I have heard that it can get very busy later on a weekend night, which can compromise the experience. We went when they opened at 7 pm and loved it. Bar Centro - This is Jose Andres' bar at the SLS (Bazaar is his restaurant there, and we did not try it). We attempted to visit after dinner at about 11 pm on Thursday night and it was absolutely slammed. Since at that point we just wanted to sit down, relax and have a cocktail we did not stay, but instead returned the following day at around 6 pm. We enjoyed it. The cocktails on their menu tend towards the fruity side, which makes sense since you are sitting a few feet from the pool, and a stone's throw from the beach. When I put myself in the bartender's hands, however, he made a version of an old fashioned, so they do fine with boozier cocktails as well. The bartenders were very professional, and really know what they're doing, and take the time to make their drinks properly. Or at least they do when there are only six people sitting at their bar. I have no idea how they would keep up on a busy night. The Raleigh - The bar inside the Raleigh makes me feel like I went back in time to the 1960s. I really like this place. I've never found the bar to be overly packed, the bartenders are extremely professional, and they make the classics, or at least the classics on their menu, very well. Again, every single one of these places will add at least 18% gratuity automatically, so be aware.

The Fatty Crab is fantastic (although I've only been to the West Village version). I echo the High Line as a tourist option, and if you wanted to you could combine it with a very affordable dinner after at Co.

Yeah, I've recommended the PDT Cocktail book to a number of people asking for just a single book. Not being spiral bound is probably my biggest complaint after using it pretty extensively for almost a year. Well, that and the fact that it is so pretty that I don't want to spill bitters all over it, which is inevitable.

Love the virtual beer tasting idea. Both Hopslam and Lagunitas Sucks were available at the Silver Spork (former Marvelous Market) right next to Eastern Market. Of course, given that this was the third place I had heard had Hopslam that I visited on Sunday, and the only place that still had it in stock, they may well be out. Cost was, I think, $24.

I'm still completely undecided on this show, but I'm also hopeful that it will pick up a bit now that they've eliminated enough of the contestants to get down to a manageable number. But we'll see. My expectations are quite modest.

My concern with 14th Street would be actually securing space. Since Bar Pilar has added the second floor I actually think they could accommodate you, but Cork/Estadio/Birch and Barley all get pretty slammed. You could do Pilar and Masa 14, although I'm not really a fan of Masa.

Yeah, I was extremely hopeful for Church and State when they opened, and I do really like the space. The problem there is that the cocktails are among the most expensive in the entire city, and they have the problem of not being, well, good. Smith Common is hit or miss, but can work for a cocktail at that end of H Street, depending on how busy they are and who is bartending.

Very much agree with this comment. The Atlas Room is aslo by far the best spot for cocktails on H Street, and has a very pleasant bar at which to enjoy them.

My wife didn't love the crabcrake the first time she ordered it at Rappahannock River Oysters, which was probably shortly after they opened. Given how much we enjoy other things on the menu, that was enough to prevent us from giving it another shot. Until yesterday, that is, when it looked so good on another diner's plate that we added one to our order. The crabcake here is delicious. Almost entirely crab, nicely seasoned and cooked, one of the finest I've ever had. I strongly recommend it.

Only the food portion is a pop-up. The current Hawaiian food will stop being served at the end of this month (I believe) and will be replaced with a different concept, which I believe is Jewish soul food. Hogo will continue to serve delicious rum drinks throughout.

I don't choose to post every time we head to Granville's, but some time over the past year it has become the place on H Street that we hit up the most often. On nights like last night when it was about 8 pm, we didn't have anything at home to cook, and we wanted to eat in the neighborhood because it was cold as hell and lots of travel wasn't a pleasant thought. Granville's has replaced the Queen Vic and Toki because the food is way more consistently good (in the case of the former) and we can pretty much always snag a couple of seats at the bar with no wait (in the case of the latter). The lack of a wait is only on a weekday, I don't think I've tried to eat at Granville's or Toki on a weekend night in a long time. At the bar we consistently have good service, our Tequila Lime Moules were great, although they would be slightly more to my taste with a bit more heat, and as always the frites were fantastic. The bartender is extremely helpful in describing the beers they have on their rotating taps (Belgian beers are very far from my are of expertise), and I enjoyed my Mad Fox The Funk a great deal. Light, and a bit citrus-y, and delicious. Anyhow, not a ton to say here, but I'm very glad they're in my neighborhood.

I had also not been in a couple of years before we stopped in for lunch on Monday after encountering (not unexpected) 90 minute plus waits at Hill Country and Jaleo. It was a great choice for our group of folks. I completely echo the praise for the crispy brussels sprouts from Pool Boy. I loved them, and two self-proclaimed Brussels sprouts haters both tried them because they looked so good, and loved them. The crispy eggplant was also great. The only thing close to a miss (and it was still solid, just not great) was the cauliflower. Solid service as well. We need to make it back sooner next time.

My wife and I are headed down here in a couple of weeks. Any strong recommendations from folks who've been there recently? We're definitely going to Yardbird, and are probably going to grab a meal at Pubbelly as well, but very interested in breakfast/lunch-type spots, and Cuban food recommendations. And any recommendations on where to grab a decent cocktail. Thanks.

That is too bad to hear about Harvest Moon Grill. I ate their twice during my various trips there last year, and both times were great. Granted, the last meal I had there was the week before the Convention, so I clearly can't comment on any slip in food quality since then.

Ess-A-Bagel definitely can be a zoo, although the line typically moves quite fast. I have dreams about the salt bagel, however, so I'll brave the lines if I have to.

In my searches in New York, Ess-A-Bagel has consistently been the winner. I love Russ & Daughters, but not so much for the bagels, which we like but don't love. Murray's is quite good.

This is probably late for the person asking for recommendations for this weekend, but in the Cosmo I would recommend China Poblano. We had a good meal there on my last trip, and it is a fun place to dine, and quite affordable. The Vesper bar downstairs at that same casino is also worth visiting. It is one of the few casino bars I've been to that actually takes their cocktails seriously. I agree 100% with the Lotus of Siam recommendation. That was one of the best meals I had in 2012. If you're looking to get a steak, probably the best steakhouse steak I've ever had was the Fiorentina for two at Carnevino. It is not a cheap dining experience, but it is an awesome steak.

Oops, sorry, didn't see this until now. There are two restaurants that I would absolutely recommend without reservation, which are Harvest Moon Grill and 5Church. Harvest Moon Grill is attached to a hotel of some sort, and is very stereotypically "farm-to-table" and it is fantastic. I ate there twice during my time in town. 5Church was brand new when I dined there, but I would say it produced the best meal I had during my time in Charlotte. Not on the same level, but also good, and worth visiting if you've exhausted these two other options, is King's Kitchen. There was a barbecue place (Queen City Q? I can't remember) that I also remember as being rather solid. I apologize for not have more recommendations. Unfortunately I was very geographically constrained to essentially the Uptown area near the basketball arena and convention center, and Matthews, NC, where I was staying. I was also working absurd hours for much of this time, which frequently limited my dining to whatever I could find open late at night. In my experience there was nothing near Matthews, NC worth visiting. I went to Azteca, a Mexican place, at least three times. It was edible, they had cheap beer, and I could walk there from my hotel.

I saw last night that Wright Thompson certainly didn't like it.

In Keith Law's write-up here - http://meadowparty.com/blog/?p=2615 - he makes the point that Josie's dish was obviously quite late, and that Josie's dishes had also been late in two of the more recent challenges, suggesting that she was in fact to blame. The existence of LCK makes me slightly less angry about this than I ordinarily would be, but the elimination of the strongest chef in the entire competition still makes me less excited about this season as a whole.

On off-menu ordering, I got the sense that they would accommodate you if they had the ingredients and had the time to make it happen. My friend really wanted a Blue Hawaiian for his birthday when we were in, the waitress said she would ask, and ultimately they made him his drink.