darkstar965

Deer in the headlights look, nod, half-hearted apology.   

What I feared. I love Frank Ruta but, that aside, have to diverge from Don here. What you experienced is seriously no bueno.  Hope someone there is reading this thread.  Too many fans with shaken confidence lately.

This post just deserves a bump as the Nats suddenly have decided to play some fantastic baseball with shockingly big offensive output the last four days. 3-game win streak and 29 runs plated in the last 4 games. Nicely done. The team may be for real, after all.

Caps equalize as Ovi joins in. I may have to start paying a little attention to these guys if they can get past the Islanders.

Don, I don't disagree.  But I didn't need it to be perfect.  I just needed to not be invisible.

I don't think my expectations were too high because it was Frank Ruta in the kitchen. They may have been too high because of my previous experiences at the Rye Bar.

And sometimes in the middle of a crappy day, week, month, year, life, you just lose it over something that might ordinarily be inconsequential but in the moment tips you over the edge.

Sigh...

How did the manager respond to you? I agree that's just pretty unacceptable given the prices of everything. I don't think it has anything to do with Chef Ruta but a crazily high-end hotel just can't have that kind of incompetence in service.

To me, the substance of the managerial response would mean a lot.  Just a nod and half-hearted apology...no bueno.  Sincerity and maybe something compensatory...different story.

Despite the service and other issues reported recently, I just made reservations for a bit in to the future back in the dining room. This despite my desire to get to the bar for the burger.

You're a brave man. Okay, not really given your strong and obvious bias.

Sincerely,

It takes one to know one

I can do this...and would love to.  In.

Someone read this post to me, and I spit out my coffee.

Hopefully not Joel's coffee. 

After a big lunch today and just cooking for one with my +1 out of town, defrosted some of my not-so-famous but really-good broccoli/parmesan/lemon soup with slices of BreadFrust levain and kerrygold. Perfect.

Shemali's Cafe, in the New Mexico Ave. office building that houses Ace Beverage has a vertical grill for chicken schwarma, which they serve either as a platter or rolled in a flatbread with lettuce and tahini sauce.

Guessing it's really good?  Don't think there's a thread here yet for that.  Their website here.

We need to get one of the site's better gardeners on this case.  DIY is clearly the answer!

LPerry maybe? Porcupine?

Tweaked figured out how to grow pineapples indoors.

Here's the supplier. I called and they say we're a bit north to pull this off but a pot could be brought inside for winter or raised indoors.  They also have experts on call to advise. This would be a cool project. I'm actually surprised there aren't greenhouse operators in this region doing this. Maybe there are?

I'd bet any amount that Tweaked, LPerry or others here could pull this off.

Boo.  But there's always Game 2 redemption.

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick post to let you know that we're going to close down this chat with Joel on Monday, the 17th so this is LAST CALL to get any unasked questions in about coffee, roasting coffee, coffee shops, the coffee business, beans, the countries that produce those beans and all that goes with that, and whatever else related to this historic and fascinating beverage. Did you know coffee dates back to "at least the 10th century" and has figured prominently in so much of the human experience since on nearly all continents?

Joel is a rare type of coffee professional in that he shifted from a well established career driven majorly by his intellectual and emotional interest to perfect something that can't ever be truly perfected. But, he has clearly made huge progress toward that aim.

In any event, please ask away and Joel will field whatever final questions before we close up shop on Monday.

Enjoy the weekend!

Joel, Wow, what a great guide to Seattle Coffee Shops. On behalf of any readers, now and in the future, Thank You! I'm curious whether you noted which roasters better rated shops (maybe just Tougo falls into that category) represented? And, on a related topic, do you even have preferences for certain national and regional roasters (i.e., CounterCulture, Intelligentsia, Ritual, PTs, Heart, Coava, Novo, etc.) or is the roaster less important a determinant given the primacy of freshness?

Don, is it possible to put a copy (not move) of Joel's travelogue in the Seattle topic and as a new "Seattle Coffee Shops" topic for the coffee SubForum?

I have quite a few cookbooks and this may be my very favorite.

 ...

Herb-Braised Short Ribs of Beef (pg 220). I love short ribs more than anything.  They're my signature dish.  I've made many different recipes and this is one of my all-time favorites. It's fantastic and very easy to prep.  The beef is falling off the bone tender.

 ...

Have to ask. Laura, what is your favorite local source for short ribs? And, what a great book recc--thank you!

It is true, making traditional `Turkish Doner` is very labor intensive. Layering all the thin slices of beef and lamb takes time. There are also layers of fat added to give more flavor. I also find it interesting why she would not use oily meat.

Very interesting, Ferhat. The place is in Newton, MA and I think the proprietor is Eastern European. Everything is made from scratch and is excellent but, when I asked about the doner, she lit up with pride affirming they were made from scratch but then waved me off with a bit of a frown when I asked about beef or lamb variants. I'll ask next time there. She's actually very nice, my description here notwithstanding.

Just a pause in our regular programming to make an observation.

What a quirky but wonderful website where one can immerse in debates about condiments, find the best burger and 5-star joints, learn from experts about composting and gardening and read about great composers, athletes and Abraham Lincoln.

It's a real Winchester Mystery House with multiple cellars, attics and additions.

We went here twice but not in the past two years. Loved it both times but I'm a little surprised he's still operating since 1) he has had good success and 2) I thought the goal was to use it to raise enough capital to open a more traditional 6-day restaurant. Seasonal Pantry was initially a lower cost way to put out a shingle.

Hmmm. Drew wasn't there long. What is it with the turnover here?

Wow, great compilation, Don. But not sure how much this helps me with my occasional brain freezes when I need a good burger place. Too often, when the need is urgent, I think Ray's (which is great but not always convenient), Saint Ex, which I thought top 3 a decade or more ago (and may not be anymore...or closed now?) and then get stuck on Palena since that is closed.

We need a DonRocks/DCdining Top 10 Burgers list since kind of consistent with your Dining Guide, serves a real need and more reliable than all the posers above. :-)

Just to close the loop here, this was in a place outside Boston that is great for lunch and I'll include in a summary post on the Intrepid Traveler thread shortly.

It is real. The proprietor makes them daily and sounds pretty labor intensive. She also told me she doesn't make them with lamb or beef because those are too oily or difficult to work with...or something like that which didn't totally make sense to me.

I'm not sure about "Best. Post. Ever." for me but sign me on for "What an awesome post!"

And, Al, nothing personal but I'm hiring Don if I ever start an uber-hip Online Old Cartoon Deconstruction Company. Our IPO would be way more successful than Groupon and Yelp combined, man!

The fielding has been atrocious.

True! And the throwing, from SS in particular where our guy leads all MLB...with five errors...in the first week.

That's no bueno. No bueno at all.

Thanks so much for the reply. I hadn't even considered the fermentation time of the whole bean prior to drying as another factor--good gracious is this complex! I suppose to some extent, chocolate could be an analog, in that both are agricultural products with several post-harvest processing steps that play a huge role in the final flavor and quality. I'm sure that there are other examples, as well.

Your point about coffee being closer to fresh produce than most would consider is a good one, as well; the freshly picked vine-ripened tomato is (for me) enough to eat on its own, perhaps with a little salt. After a few days, it still is fantastic but blends nicely with mozzarella, basil and balsamic in a caprese. After a week or longer, it can still make a fantastic quick sauce, a gazpacho, or a salsa. All great, but all showing the change in flavor and other characteristics as the chemistry changes.

Comment and question for Joel prompted by your interesting exchange, SVT. It's about the analogues since I think them critical for communicating and understanding a still very much evolving drink.

Joel, you liken coffee's characteristics and challenges to produce. I understand that of course since a coffee cherry/bean is, itself, a fruit. But, I've always liked the wine analogy better since, like coffee, it isn't fruit but, rather, a complex drink made from a fruit (grapes). Unlike say, bananas, bell peppers or lettuce, coffee requires real skill, equipment, knowledge and experience to convert fruit to a delicious but multifaceted beverage. From marketing and consumer education standpoints, wine is better understood as dependent on harvest-time weather, terroir, storage and numerous winemaker decisions before it goes into the bottle. With wine, there is boxed, mass-market stuff as there is for coffee in grocery and other mass market channels. Great wines benefit from great writing and interpretation like Don or Jerry Dawes can do. Coffee, which may be still developing its own Robert Parker type guides, benefits from expert interpretation and education as we see you can do here on this very thread.

Maybe the upstream stuff (farming, harvesting, processing and even roasting) is more easily compared to general produce but downstream (brewing, serving, pricing, cupping, packaging, distributing) is more analagous to wine? What do you think, Joel? Maybe it depends on what one is trying to explain or teach or sell?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.   I *think* you are, and don't want to look like a boob, but I don't want to leave an earnest question unanswered just in case.

Once again, I sacrifice myself for the good of the community ...

In the off-event that "no," Groupon and Living Social?

I'm the only boob lookalike here, Don. Yes, was being sarcastic. We should adopt the s/f convention (for: sarcasm font on) convention here since can be hard to tell without tone and facial expression sometimes.

Just thought it funny and interesting that more businesses are adopting the approach taken by GRPN and the steadily contracting LS.

Real wasabi has always been a litmus test for me for Japanese restaurants. Like other litmus tests including these three, in decreasing order of reliability

- real maple syrup at breakfast places not in the northern maple-producing regions

- Reggiano in Italian restaurants

- a Marzocco (or Slayer) espresso machine and hand pour service in coffee shops