sandynva

oh no! we love that place and think that their cooking has been even better than usual lately. does anyone know when they are opening in the new spot? or if they'll be selling food from a truck or anything in the meantime? i need my ginger salad and tofu with pickled mustard!

has anyone ever cooked with fresh Sichuan peppercorns or prickly ash? i found some fresh prickly ash berries and the raw flavor is fantastic--there's the numbing action but a lot of citrus/lemon plus savoriness. it really reminds me of the topping/spice powder peter chang puts on his fried eggplant. i was so excited to cook with these so tried smashing some and heating them in oil (i thought they might infuse the oil, like chile flakes or garlic), and then stirfrying veg with them. I was very dissapointed by the flavor, it seems to have vanished or gone down to just a hint. are these things better if they are not cooked? is there a trick to cooking with them or any way to transfer the flavor to another medium that might allow me to disperse the flavor more evenly than just attempting to chop them finely and sprinkling over things? i'd experiment but i only have a scant handful left and don't want to waste them. thank you

with this in mind some of the rhapsodic reviews like the one below are pretty funny. Sometimes the emperor has no clothes. TBH, I feel that this happens with a lot of "premium" offerings, that the people think it will taste better, so to them it does. "Before eating Belcampo beef, I really don't know what the heck I was eating for 50 years. You can almost taste the nutrition in the richness of its' juices, as they permeate and become at one with the salivary flowing juices of my own. The experience is divine! This is truly a beef of substance, for anybody to say otherwise is blasphemy." "This butcher shop serves only the highest in quality meat! Man after eating one of their tomahawk steaks you don't feel tired or sluggish because their cows aren't fed corn!!! This is the best example of from farm to table as it gets" "Prices were a bit higher than buying your meat at grocery stores, but you could tell a huge difference in quality and freshness, very much worth the occasional splurge."

We really enjoyed Volt and were worried when we heard about the new restaurant. However, our meal there this weekend was very good, and it's not as different from Volt as you may expect. Our apps and dessert could've been from Volt. my companion had a gorgeous beet and citrus salad with beets flavored different ways, 3 types of citrus, and fresh herbs. it was so pretty and every bite had a different (and delicious) flavor mix. The little gem salad was very pretty and a very good salad with very good ranch dressing. Dessert was so good--it was called a chocolate-orange "pudding" but it was really like a 2 inch square of the filling of a Lindor truffle accompanied by flavored (earl grey?) chocolate, salted caramel gelato, and a cocoa-cardamom sand. The potato puree was also great, like 50% butter with a definite baked potato flavor--it was like the best bite of a baked potato with butter but even better. the Rye bread was fine, it's neat that it's made from spent grain, but was like a good whole wheat roll, not much rye flavor. you can get a side of herb biscuits alone (they come with one of the apps) and you should. they are excellent, as volt's were. instead of mains we had some pastas which were all very good, especially the goat cheese tortellini, and lighter than you might've expected bolognese and lasagna to be. Service was very nice.

Woodlands Indian restaurant review: A vegetarian menu that deserves to be close to your heart - The Washington Post Oh no! this is tragic, this one really hurts. I love, love the buffet, the vibe was great -- people who didn't know each other saying hi, giving newbies tips on how to eat things, i I don't know why but it always felt a bit like a community center to me, and the food was so good. I think the ultimate compliment to the quality of the food is that one time we went to brunch the people sitting at the next table were relatives of mine from new jersey who had been returning back to jersey--which has the best indian food in the us--and stopped for brunch on the way out because they liked it so much. i haven't gotten much carryout from there lately, but need to change that. They, and their buffet, must return! (maybe they could just have the buffet in jewel of india? ) and thanks to Tim Carman for reporting this, even though I was so sad to read it.

I think I’ve seen these in Indian stores before

A friend posted on Facebook that apparently they will be serving pizzas on some of the weekends in December, So if you’re a fan like my friend is, you have another chance to get their pies!

They have a go fund me, in case anyone is interested in contributing —https://www.gofundme.com/f/sakina-halal-grill-meals?utm_source=customer-andr&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=sms

Got carry out from there again this weekend and it was great as usual. The egg and chive pan fried buns and the Crystal noodles with special sauce were amazing per usual. Tried their hot and sour soup for the first time and was pleasantly impressed – definitely homemade and the best I’ve had in the area Very flavorful.

Has anyone ever managed to get food from this place? Due to the excellent Washington post review we’ve tried repeatedly to get food from here without success. We tried at least three times prepandemic and it was always closed. One of those times, unable to get someone on the phone ( i’ve never been able to get anyone on the phone there) while I was on the phone with Northwest Chinese Food,their sister restaurant, I asked if CB Grill was open. They said they were, but only on weekdays ( our previous attempts to order from there had been on weekends ) Two weeks ago I was picking up food from Northwest Chinese Food and saw the owner, who also owns CB Grill. I asked her if they were open ( because I tried calling a couple times without success ) and she said yes they were open Mondays and Tuesdays and she even gave me a menu flyer that said the same that they were open on Mondays and Tuesdays. I went yesterday and, of course, they were closed. Sigh. What is the trick to getting food from here?

Inspired by Tim Carmen‘s excellent review, we went there a while ago and really liked it. Sadly it seems to have closed. When I went there a couple weeks ago to try to get carry out, a man was waiting by the door and told me that he was opening up a Colombian restaurant in that space. When I called yesterday the number had been disconnected.

https://dc.eater.com/2020/8/24/21354316/punjab-grill-serves-sikh-langar-communal-meals-homeless-people-downtown-franklin-park-d-c

Funny, Martha is one of the few people, along with Nigella Lawson, whose recipes always work for me! I wonder if it’s some thing about the way different people cook or something. In any case, I should definitely look at recipes by those two

All of my herbs have done extremely well this year, including my sage and oregano. I now have large quantities of each and no idea how to use up the bounty. I usually only use the oregano in pasta sauce and Greek lemon potatoes and have found that you can’t just add extra oregano to these recipes as it’s too strong. Does anyone have any (preferably vegetarian) recipes that use lots of either herb? Thank you!

I also live in Montgomery county and love it. They have my favorite version of mapo tofu in the area. Sorry to read about the chefs accident though, and that they might be selling. I feel like they are an underappreciated treasure.

Is there a reason to not just increase all the prices 30%? I think some of what people don’t like with surcharges like this is the semi-hidden surprise, you think something will cost X then it costs Y. Unless the point of keeping it as a surcharge is to highlight what they are doing with it maybe.

I have to preface this all by saying that I unfortunately have never dined at Thamee,, I just didn’t get to it pre-covid— and I may be a bit biased because I’m quite fond of Mandalay in Silver Spring. And I don’t know that much at all about the Business of restaurants, who they employ, how they raise money etc. But, am I the only one who wondered if what Thamee is doing is worthy of a huge Food section article? Or is it just that what they are doing is better packaged and spun? spun The owners seem to genuinely mean well, and have their heart in the right place and for that I applaud them. But is what they are doing that different than what is being done— and has been done for decades— by most “ ethnic “ restaurants? For example the post article calls their restaurant a celebration of immigrant food – in what way is it a celebration of immigrant food that, say, a & j, is not? I would argue that all reasonably authentic ( is not totally Americanized) ethnic restaurants are celebrations of immigrant food. They say that the servers speak nine different languages— is that really unusual in the DC restaurant world? The people in my ( relatively small) workplace speak over 20 languages. Heck, on my little 10 house street I’m guessing there’s at least nine languages. What’s the difference between the Burma Box and the meal kits sold by a bunch of restaurants? And there’s a market place where you can buy foods and ingredients made by black and brown people that novel? I’ve never investigated this, but I’ve always assumed that the majority of stuff I buy from, say, Patel Brothers, 99 ranch or yekta market was made by, or from companies owned by, people of color. And is it really fair to call it a “Black Box”, if only one ingredient is sourced from a black farmer? Again, I really do think that their heart is in the right place. But when I read this article I didn’t understand how what they were doing was that different than what is done, and has always been done, by many minority owned and ethnic businesses and I wonder why they are getting credit ( and press and what is essentially a ton of free advertising!) for it when others do not.

Overall, I think it depends on what you’re going for, there are so many flavors and styles. If you’re looking for a vegetarian version that’s close to Shin, nonmgshim makes soon brand Ramen which is very good. Others in my regular rotation are Indo me nasi goreng ( fried noodle) flavor and Ichiban chow mein flavor. If you can find them, the spicy beef flavor with cheese that various brands have is my husband’s favorite At H Mart in the noodle aisle there’s a section where they sell individual packets. My recommendation to you is to go there and go nuts. I know a lot of people really like Mama brand too, though relatively few of them are vegetarian so I don’t have much experience

Has anyone gotten the Cacio Pepe dinner kit? I wanted to know if they prepared the cheese sauce, or if they just gave you a pile of shredded cheese.

Do you to all of the raves above, we got curio from here this weekend. I’ve never had a Reuben before, but I thought the Ruben was phenomenal, one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time. We thought that the gyro was good, but my husband didn’t think the filling was that much better than that at a good gyro place ( though the bread was very good). The asparagus pizza was, as promised, one of the better pizzas I’ve had, and reheated wonderfully. It is also big enough for dinner for two people, maybe with a side. What really impressed me, besides the Reuben, was the side of large beans with mixed greens. So flavorful, and I think these were the most perfectly cooked beans I’ve ever had in my life end and as a vegetarian I’ve had a lot of beans! Each bean was completely intact and plump and distinct, yet meltingly soft. I have no idea how they did this. The chocolate cake was good, but we didn’t find it special.

Got carry out from red hen this weekend. Cacio e Pepe, malfalde w mushrooms, cauliflower, and chocolate cake. It was nicely packaged, but the portions seemed smaller than in the restaurant, and the pastas not as good as when I’ve been there, they’re still good overall. You order online, pay upfront, then pick up your order from the bar. Parking in the neighborhood was a bit tight FYI

I don’t have a recipe but I know lots of people make pesto with them.

Does anyone know if the Maryland Woodlands is open? I would love one of their dosas but I called and got no answer. Thanks!

Thank you both! I was indeed talking about Alliaria Petiolata and both soup recipes sound great. Incidentally, in case you might be interested, it is also good blanched and then mixed with either oil heated w garlic and red pepper flakes or soy, garlic and sesame oil. ( just sautéed w garlic made it very bitter, almost as bitter as bitter melon)

I’ve discovered that there’s a lot of it ( in an unsprayed spot) near my house and that this early in the season, when the plants are coming up, it is ridiculously easy to forage large amounts of. So now the question is how do I use my bounty? I made a pesto with garlic, nuts, olive oil, salt, and Parmesan, which was good but I thought it was a bit flat. Any hints on things to add to the pesto? Alternately, do you have any other favorite ways to cook this green? I’m thinking of trying blanched leaves in a spanakopita, or possibly cooked like I would normally do mustard greens ( Sarson).