sandynva

I agree with the praise for the mapo tofu. it's great stuff, way better than anything else i've had in NOVA or DC, though i have to admit i've never made it to joe's or HKP to compare.

I've had their croissants twice and thought they were excellent. You can definitely taste the butter. yum!

In addition to Ted Drewes I'd reccomend a trip to Global Foods, a really amazing food store. Their produce is great--they often stock things like green almonds and wax apples--but their selection of imported goods is even better. http://www.globalfoodsmarket.com/

Chef, First let me say that I love your restaurant. I started going there during grad school (I had to save up to go there as a special treat!) and have loved it ever since. I have especially appreciated two things--1) that you have for the most part consistently offered a proper vegetarian option, not the steamed veggies or thrown together plate so many places had 10 years ago and still have, and 2) that when my friends and I were in our early 20s and went to Vidalia we were always treated well, we felt welcomed and never felt that we were treated worse than more mature guests. On recent visits, the service and graciousness of your staff have been as wonderful as ever. However, I was sad to see that the vegetarian option was the blue plate. It's not that the plate isn't good, and I'm sure there was a solid reason behind the change. But for some reason getting a bunch of sides on a plate rather than an entree makes me, as a vegetarian, feel unwanted. I don't know why this is--perhaps it's a carryover from being treated poorly by restaurants in the past, from years of getting steamed veggies or hastily assembled plates of random sides from places that clearly couldn't be bothered to try to make a meatless plate--but I know I am not the only vegetarian that feels this way. And I know that I am going to Vidalia less than before, and when I do go, I feel a teensy bit let down each time. I still very much enjoy my visits, and the blue plate is objectively good, it's just in comparison to past entrees that it suffers. You mentioned earlier in the chat that you were in the process of changing the menu a bit. If the pilaus or risottos reappeared, I'm sure a number of your vegetarian guests would be thrilled! They were really, really delicious. I do want to emphasize that I find every other thing about Vidalia delightful. I sincerely thank you and your staff for many years of wonderful dining experiences, and thank you for taking the time to do this chat!

I agree, that to appear to be totally uninvolved with what is coming out of the kitchen and going on in the restaurant is less than tactful, given Citronelle's price and the fact that for so many of the people there on a given night, it's a splurge or a special evening. i think that it's quite possible that some of those people feel slighted--i believe that most people (perhaps naively) have an expectation that a chef with one or two restaurants is generally attending to the kitchen in some way. So, if they saved up for a special meal they might feel a bit disapointed, feel that if they'd come in on a different night Chef Richard would have been in the kitchen himself, and thus they did not get the full Citronelle experience. And I also agree that this would not be an issue if you had been happier with your experience that night, if you'd had an amazing experience, you wouldn't have minded so much. I too have had less than amazing experiences at Citronelle. Granted, i'm a vegetarian and have only been there 3-4 times, but i've never had a meal there that i really enjoyed. They've all been just ok, not bad, but certainly nothing i'd have paid for or even agreed to go to had i had any input into the restaurant selection. The only good part of the meals, for me, have been the desserts, and even those didn't wow me.

this is the place: http://www.deltaweb.be/restaurant-De-Mauri...-Olivier+3553+f though if the prices are current, it might not count as a non-splurge meal....

I was there recently and had a lovely dinner at a place which i think is called Maurice et olivier. It's a lovely little place tucked behind a bookstore. I'm not sure of the price range though, as I wasn't paying, but i don't think it was too horribly expensive.

I've had fried pickle chips at the bar at Acadiana, and they were very good. I'm not sure if they're actually on the printed menu or not, but you can definitely order them.

I was at Hook yesterday and the mushroom risotto was excellent. The vegetarian risotto that was the vegetarian option at vidalia for a long time was always wonderful, but sadly, when i was there a couple months ago they'd changed the veg. option to a blue plate special, a mix of vegetable sides. So, i'd check the vidalia website to see if they are currently offering the risotto. But the one at hook was really good too, if you, like me, really like mushrooms and don't mind a risotto that really has a lot of them in it. when i went to bebo, they told me the risotto was not vegetarian, but they might have changed it since then.