DanielK

The NB spots are gone - but we still have 2 spots at our 1789 table on Saturday...

Look uptopic two posts... But frankly, us MDers are hoping that the NoVa residents can steer the gathering in the right direction...

All of a sudden, I have two spots open at a 4-top for both Notti Bianche on Tuesday at 7pm, and for 1789 on Saturday at 6:15pm. If interested, send a PM.

I actually thought the har gow was the best of all the places we visited in the whirlwind tour. And I think we had chicken feet, not duck feet. Other than that, what Perri said. 13533 Connecticut Ave, in the south side of the Aspen Hill Shopping Center. On the east side of Conn, a block south of Aspen Hill Rd. I always thought you could pretty much walk from one side of Aspen Hill to the other, though...

My ranking: 1a. New Fortune - Fabulous dim sum in a giant dining hall. Pluses - staggering variety of items, most of which are perfectly prepared. Minuses - the occasional misfire (why can't they make a decent potsticker), and sloppy service when they are busy. Sit near the kitchen for best experience. 1b. Hollywood East on the Boulevard - More fabulous dim sum in a smaller setting. Pluses - ordinary items, like siu mei, are transcendant. Minuses - half the variety of New Fortune, parking is a hassle, not as close to my house. 2a. Silver Fountain - I can't believe I'd never heard of this place. Well prepared basics - nothing fabulous, but no misses. Pluses - pleasant service, and everyone pushing carts spoke English, so you could get descriptions of things you were unfamiliar with. Minuses - no variety beyond the basics, no BBQ. 2b. Oriental East - same descriptors as Silver Fountain (except for the English part). 99. Good Fortune - a shadow of it's former self. Avoid at all costs. Summary - If you live in central/upper Mont Co, New Fortune should be your regular haunt. If you're more to the east side of the county, you should be familiar with Hollywood East on the Boulevard. If you're really near Silver Fountain or Oriental East, and don't want to drive to New Fortune or Hollywood East, it's a worthwhile diversion, but not a destination. I'm definitely up for hitting the NoVa spots to see if I can recommend to my DC/VA friends to cross the border for New Fortune and Hollywood East.

How accessible is this place for non-Korean speakers? It's 10 minutes from my office. If the menu is mostly in Korean, and the staff isn't great with English, is this a tough sell for a group lunch with colleagues? My friends are a reasonably experimental lot, but it doesn't sound like they've made it easy for English speakers there.

This Sunday, 1pm, at Silver Fountain in Aspen Hill. 13533 Connecticut Ave., just south of Aspen Hill Rd., 4-5 miles north of the Beltway. Note: Googling the restaurant comes up with a street address of 13665, but they have moved in the past year. 13533 should be the current street number, unless the person I called at the restaurant quoted me the old address... Feel free to post here or PM if you want to join, or just show up (and hope we have extra seats available - we're now 8 and counting!)

This is 10 minutes from my office, but you picked the night that I'm heading down to DC after work for the hockey game. Let me know how it goes, as I'm on that street all the time. The Glen Burnie outpost of La Sirenita is just up the street, and I'm pretty much a regular at lunchtime...

We now have two more, which puts us at 5 including my +1, so I guess we're back on. Come on, lurkers, join in!

I'm assuming, that since only perrik and myself have chimed in, that we're cancelling lunch for Sunday...

Works for me.

A peek at my schedule, and a search through the archives, indicates that this coming Sunday was our target date for the last meeting of the Montgomery County Dim Sundays, at Silver Fountain in Aspen Hill. Do we have critical mass for this week?

I passed by this place tonight, and though I discovered it has been there for 4-5 months, this was the first I'd noticed it. We'd just come from dinner and shopping at Yekta Kabob, so I stopped in only to grab a takeout menu. I found this review on the Examiner site - anyone been there yet? Entree prices were around $13-$16, which seems reasonable, but appetizer prices feel proportionally high at $10-$12. The place was nearly empty, so I couldn't judge portion sizes. It's at 1350 Rockville Pike, right across the street and a half block south of the main entrance to the Woodmont Country Club. It shares the building with Joanne's Bed & Back.

Chef Pangaud: Twenty years ago (perhaps longer) in DC, nearly every top-flight restaurant was French. Many, if not most, Americans equated classic French cuisine as fine dining, and everything else was a notch below. Today, the DC area is much more egalitarian - our best restaurants are Italian, Spanish, American, Japanese, and yes, even French. What's considered the best isn't usually classic preparation, but showing us something new, whether it's a new ingredient, a new method of preparation, a new flavor combination, etc. How do you personally reconcile the thirst for something new with a classic French presentation, and continue to please the dining public?

(first, this is DanielK's wife speaking... not DanielK! In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Certified Lactation Educator and am also the mother of two children who were breastfed.) There is an underlying theme that breastfeeding is a wrong or shameful act that needs to be hidden from public view. How very sad! If babies are allowed in a public space, then they should be allowed to eat in that public space (whether they are bottle fed, breast fed or being spoon fed!) Feeding a baby in the bathroom is unacceptable and completely unsanitary. Would you eat your dinner in a bathroom? Would you eat your dinner while going to the bathroom? Would you eat your dinner in a stall while someone next to you was going to the bathroom? It is highly offensive to suggest that anyone do something that disgusting.

Going to the matinee showing of King Kong at the Uptown tomorrow, and then for a late lunch (about 1:45 or 2:00) at the bar at Dino. Definitely going to be some prosciutto going down the hatch...

If you're willing to bend the rules a bit, go for Kitfo at one of the U Street Ethiopian places...

Tues: Notti Bianche Sat: 1789 That's about all the trips downtown from the burbs that I can handle in one week. And a bonus: my soccer team parents bought me a Clyde's gift coin, which is good at 1789, so the meal will be even cheaper!

I guess at $25, I can forgive the occasional misstep, and they are pretty reliably good. For the volume of food that I get, it's a very good value, and it's 10 minutes from my house. At $45, I can go to Ray's for an appetizer and steak with sides, and maybe even dessert. I'm skeptical that I'd prefer Fogo over Ray's, if I'm driving the 30 minutes...

If today's Weekly Dish is correct, dinner here is $45, not including drinks, tax, tip. Holy cow - this is $20 more than Green Field in Rockville. Once you add in driving downtown and parking, I can't see myself making this trip. Unless someone who has been to GF visits FDC, and says it's that much better...

I don't have a lot to add here, other than I thought it was a better bargain. We may have spent $45/person, but that included 1-2 drinks/person, appetizers, entrees, dessert, and coffee. If you'd have held it to an entree (or two appetizers) and a soft drink, you could get out for $20, even including tax and tip. My pisco sour tasted pretty strongly of pisco, so I guess the lesson is that the bartender is inconsistent. I agree somewhat with Larry on the paella - it was good, and the seafood was reasonably fresh, but the tastes of other dishes that I had were much better. The bite of goat stew I apprpriated from mdt was wonderful. Like porcupine said, if I was in the area, I would definitely go there again, but it's not really a special destination place to travel from the burbs.

For those who asked, I have found Glen Garioch in the US at The Wine Specialist. They're on M St. downtown between 21st and 22nd, or you can order online at winespecialist.com (though they can't ship to Maryland).

Two stars from Tom.

Jose gets good press for Minibar in this story in USA Today about "extreme cuisine".

Actually, it looks like we're still at 8 people anyway! mdt DanielK StephenB shogun ustreetguy sshorter porcupine +1 DC in DC (maybe)