sandynva

the post about the cauliflower mac and cheese reminded me of a recent horrible purchase at trader joe's. in the refrigerated section they have a container of ditalini with cheese, cauliflower and kale, which says on the label that it's like the best mac and cheese you've ever had. it is not. it is straight up awful. it tasted mostly of kale with a creamy sauce that somehow tasted like neither dairy nor cheese.

does anyone know if they will do vegetarian versions of things? the menu looks delicious.

i love this place but was disappointed by my carry out last night. We had tofu laab and the crispy rice--both of which we've had literally dozens of times--and they were both off. the portions and presentation were good but it was like someone had left off half the seasoning. i added salt and was tempted to add lemon and cilantro from my fridge (i didn't, but just because i was feeling lazy). confusingly the khao poon seemed as good as ever, though slightly salty. i really hope this was just a one off because i love this place.

the green giant broccoli and cheese tots are pretty good too. not quite a tater tot, but fills the same craving for me at least. The cauli-tots are good too, but i like the broccoli cheese better.

The St. Louis bread company was the first " real" bread I'd ever had, and the moist elastic crumb , and chewy crisp crust were a revelation compared to the shelf stable sliced bread I was used to

I enjoy their breakfast soufflés and every once in a while will idly wonder if there's a way for me to make them at home.

does anyone eat their beets without peeling them? i'd like to make them more often but for whatever reason i really dislike peeling them, even after they're cooked when they are easy to peel. also, at zaytinya and jaleo i've had some great beet salads where the vinagrette somehow soaked into or permeated the entire beet chunks, which was great. is there a trick to this, or do you just toss them with dressing and let them sit?

surely i wasn't the only person who read this and thought "Amen! thank goodness someone is starting a discussion on this issue"? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/going-out-guide/wp/2017/06/21/why-its-so-hard-to-spend-less-than-100-for-two-at-dinner-in-washington/?utm_term=.dfe5a05c4fad I'm not delighted by the high prices in and of themselves, but what bothers me most is the lack of value. i've had way too many mediocre or worse $14 cocktails or $20+ entrees that left me both hungry and nonplussed. It's one of the reasons i value this website--you all have helped me avoid some costly mistakes, and made sure that in the increasingly rare times i do get to go out i actually enjoy it.

had brunch here yesterday. i'm not sure i see what the fuss over the avocado golguppa is about--it tasted like standard dahipuri to me, i thought the avocado would add more but i didn't taste it much at all, only the yogurt and date chutney. that being said the puri themselves were absolutely perfect--a great size, delicately thin, no unpuffed hard edges--i would love to have these filled with the traditional stuffing and water. The pao bhaji was quite good. though the spices were good i think what distinguished this version was the texture- i think they use cauliflower instead of the more usual potato or something because this version seems lighter than the other versions i've had. the best dish we had, hands down, was the egg uttapam. it was two thin uttapam each with a layer of egg/tomato masala stacked on each other like a napoleon, with a bit of potato curry on the side. first, that potato curry was amazing. I've had a lot of it in my life--it's one of my favorite dishes--and both my husband and I thought it was among the best we've ever had, the texture was somehow lighter than usual (the potato seemed fluffy!) but the flavors of the spices were so strong and clear. they really should offer that as a separate dish. and the egg/tomato masala was really good too. it was mild and almost sweet, but that contrasted beautifully with the uttapam's sour flavor and its toasty bottom. really good. The service was nice and very attentive as well.

has anyone had luck growing honeyberries/haskaps in the area? i'm always on the hunt for plants that may fruit in shade, and the descriptions in gardening catalogs of these seem almost too good to be true--shade tolerant, fruit in a year or two, pest-free, etc. on another note i'm excited that i may get my first tomato of the year soon, a cluster of sungolds is ripening, and i've found that anise hyssop does well despite shade (it's like 3 ft high!) and tastes delicious in salads.

they sound really interesting. where did you get them? the gumdrops on the page you linked to sound fabulous.

the food and drinks here are excellent. One thing i really appreciated is that they have a number of mocktails and interesting lemonades, all of which sounded fabulous, and actually more intriguing than the cocktails. I agree that the lighting should be turned down, it's actually a pretty space, but the lighting just makes it seem too hotel-ish. We really enjoyed the food, though i agree with the earlier poster who said that the small plates are not as good in terms of value. to make the patatas bravas they take paper-thin layers of potato and stack them with butter in between each layer until they are a bit more than an inch high and bake. then they cut them into one inch cubes and fry them, so the edges crisp and separate, like potato chips, while the middle is creamy and buttery. they then top with a great pimenton aioli and micro cilantro. so good! though for $12 you only get 6 one inch cubes. The smoked merguez is a small dish filled with a potato leek stew and topped with barely cooked egg and a sausage. i didn't try the sausage (though my husband said it was very good) but i tried a bit of the stew which was fantastic--spicy with a really rich flavor. We shared the vegetable bomba which was delicious, perhaps in large part due to the liberal application of that same great pimenton aioli. the texture of the rice was wonderful--completely done, yet with the grains separate and chewy and bathed in sauce. the only thing i wished is that it had been crisped on the bottom at all, which it wasnt. the chocolate custard dessert was great--mousse-like custard, topped with pieces of very dark chocolate cake with cherry ice cream drizzled with caramel. we had the opposite problem in terms of service--our waiter (actually our second one, one came first then was replaced by a second) didn't mention that half portions of rice were available or the special till prompted (and then by his own admission forgot some of the elements of the special) and then was completely awol during dinner--in fact at one point i would've actually ordered an additional order of patatas, but he never came by, nor did anyone come by to refill my water which emptied halfway through the rice. and we literally waited about 20 min between finishing our entree and being offered dessert. he did, however, start hovering most solicitously right after he brought out the check which was amusing. we didn't get an amuse, but the check did come with two tiny cardamom sandies which was nice. overall it was a great meal. when we left at 8:30 saturday the room still wasn't full, which surprised me.

We had a wonderful brunch here yesterday. If you're an admirer of Chang's food, you should definitely go, and I say this as someone who was initially put off a bit by the prices and lukewarm reviews above. I go to the rockville location of peter chang often and the food i get there is all about ma la, cumin, coriander and a bit of sour. what surprised me (and my dining companions, who also like Chang's food) is how different what we had yesterday was, yet it was still great. we deliberately stayed away from ordering things we get at the other restaurants, and ended up focusing on the dim sum, which incidentally seems like it might be a better value than the dinner menu. for example, on the regular menu vegetable dumplings are $8 for 4, and duck bao are $7 for 2. i think the barbecue pork bao on the dim sum menu were $5. most of the dim sum items were $5-6 and you would get 2 larger items (like buns) or 3 smaller (vegetable rolls or soup dumplings). (apologies for not taking a picture of the dim sum menu) We ordered a lot, so much that i can['t remember it all, but this is what i do remember- barbeque pork bao-i didn't have these but others enjoyed them taro puffs, soup dumplings, hot and sour wontons--supposedly all excellent, though as these had meat i didn't try them. my companions said the texture on the taro was particularly good vegetable rolls--the soft noodle crepes filled with vegetables--most places only have meat versions, so i was very happy to have these, the chewy texture was great. vegetable and noodle stir fry--a simple stir fry of fresh vegetables with chewy broad noodles almost like the ones in drunken noodles--simple but lots of that fresh wok flavor, more so than any dish i can remember having recently. i don't know that i'd get these again--there are so many other things that were absolutely great and in general i prefer strong flavors to subtle--but these were very good for what they are. schezuan noodles--angel hair with a hot and numbing sauce with a nice note of sourness. very good. summer squash emerald noodle--GET THESE. green linguine with thin noodles of zucchini in a curry sauce. I add zucchini to pasta quite often to make it healthier. This was totally different--the ribbons of squash somehow made the noodles juicy and really contributed to the texture and the sauce was absolutely delicious. so good. vegetable dumplings (off the dinner menu)--the dumplings were very good, the translucent wrapper nicely chewy yet tender, and the dumplings flavorful, and came with two sauces, one chil garlic the other some sort of soy mustard thing that was delicious. vegetable box--as people have said this is great. i mostly enjoyed the sauce, which didn't taste of mushrooms as much as pure umami. the little envelopes of stuffed tofu skin are nice (though a little hard to cut) but the dominant flavor is that sauce, which even the mushroom haters liked. i think we all would've been happy to have a bunch of that sauce poured over anything. this is a pretty large plate, with four palm-size tofu envelopes and a lot of bok choi The service was great, really friendly and attentive, and very solicitous of our infant, and when our waiter heard we were fans of the chef, he had him come out and meet us, which was so sweet. We'll be back again, and soon.

This menu sounds awesome! Thanks for posting

got carryout two weekends ago. sadly, the liang pi noodles weren't great--the seasoning was mild and they seemed to be lacking in the vinegar (or whatever made them tangy) they used to have. the hot oil noodles were similarly not as good as before and could have used more sauce and seasoning--i had many mouthfuls of barely seasoned noodles. however, husband loved the dumpings in sour soup, said they were excellent.

the fava bean crostini are back! the suppli we had yesterday were better than they've been in a while--really flavorful and well seasoned. My margharita was great as always, and husband really liked the special sausage and artichoke pie they had. And the ice cream yesterday was awesome--delicious orange campari sorbet, and a chocolate hazelnut ice cream which was lighter on the hazelnut flavor than i would have liked (as i find many chocolate hazelnut things are, maybe it's a hard flavor to infuse?) but had an amazing texture and the chocolate went nicely with the orange sorbet.

I've gotten carryout from here twice, and both times it's been very good, definitely a step up from most places. for me what makes this place are the sauces, which are very flavorful and different than those i've had at most places, including in hyattsville. The excellent salsa verde made the chilaquiles here the best i've had in the area, and possibly the best i've ever had, and my vegetarian burrito mojado was very good as well--the beans and rice that filled it were quite flavorful, and the salsa roja covering it was nicely complex. My husband thought that the mole (on the enchiladas) was complex, but too sweet for his tastes, but quite enjoyed the enchiladas verdes, The black beans that come with the enchiladas are very flavorful, you could make a very good meal out of these and rice alone.

The mapo tofu is very good, very flavorful but not that spicy

if you like cauliflower, you should try the roasted cauliflower and cheese ravioli in the refrigerated section. the filling is quite tasty, i wish they sold it alone as a side dish.

We had a very nice dinner there this weekend. the cauliflower and the leeks were, as all have said, wonderful. i was also pleasantly surprised by how good the smores dessert was--very chocolatey with a hint of salt, and hot and cold and soft and crunchy all at the same time and the perfect size to share. Overall we liked the appetizers/cold plates better than the mains--husband found the coq au vin chicken good, but not amazing, and while i enjoyed the squash vadouvan, especially the olive cake, next time i think i'd opt for second app/cold plate instead.

had a great meal at the Rockville location yesterday. The fried eggplant and grandma noodles continue to be excellent. The hot and numbing tofu shreds were better than they've ben in a while, and slightly different than they used to be--the spicing is more mild, and somehow wetter, there was noticeable celery in it (which was nice actually) and the shreds were somehow fluffier than before. though I wish they'd return the heat level to where it was before, it was overall an improvement over what I've received the past few times. they also have some new appetizer size noodles for $5. We tried the dan dan noodles without beef (only ok) the spicy bean noodles (which were great, very flavorful and the noodles themselves had an interesting flavor and texture) and the spicy sesame noodles which I'd describe as a very good version of the standard sesame/peanutty noodles you find everywhere. if you like the dish generally, this is a very good version, with more spice and stronger, more subtle flavors than what you get at other places, but those who don't like the dish (or sesame) generally may find it too peanutty in flavor (as some of my dining companions, who generally dislike sesame and tahini, did) .

We had a nice meal there a couple months ago that I forgot to write up. I'm not sure I understand the dislike of the place that is evident in the thread above, but maybe they've listened to online critiques and, by the time I went, had improved it? I think that Tom's ranking of it was far too high--I wouldn't even put it in the top ten in dc--and the prices on everything could be a $1-2 less. but it was a solid meal. My cossimo pizza was packed with mushroomy, cheesy goodness, and while it's crust was wider than I would have liked it was significantly narrower than those shown above. and the Brussels sprouts, while pricey at $14, were at least a huge portion, and while it's not a revolutionary treatment--so many places fry Brussels--it was well done, and both the horseradish cream and togarashi spice were delicious with the sprouts. I had been very excited about the rainbow cake, as I love rainbow cookies. I enjoyed the cake, but I think it could have had a bit more almond flavor, and the texture was a bit firm. the orange cheesecake was wonderful though, and our service was good. For example, our waiter noticed that we were running low on crostini for the straticella bruchetta (which was fine, not exceptional) he brought us more, unasked. I'd be happy to go there again.

Golguppa is another name for pani puri

You're right about the time required. Grew up doing this every single weekend-my family would devote an hour or two to making the chapati ( which we call rotli) for the week, as we ate them with dinner every day. It goes pretty quickly if you have one person rolling, and another person manning two stoves to cook them. If you butter them, they keep reasonably well in the refrigerator for a week and freeze OK too ( even the refrigerated ones are clearly not as good as fresh made, but still acceptable to eat ) so they're definitely one of those things that if you make them, you should make extra while you're at it to keep for another day.

Though I generally don't love Tom, I really respect him for championing jaleo. There was a time, maybe 10 or so years ago, when Jaleo seemed old hat, no one talked about it, or really seem to respect it. And then Tom came out with a great review of it. I remember being shocked when they when the review came out, and then being convinced to go again and then being very pleasantly surprised by what I had. Does anyone else remember this? I think it took guts to write a rave review of a place that was seen as sort of passé at the time and more than that, he was totally right. It is great. I haven't had top us anywhere else in the US, but I definitely think the food is better than estadio, and I think the tapas and gazpacho are as good as what I had in Spain