mrbigjas

thank you kindly. it's not so much the turpentine aspect of them that's delicate--it was the aftertaste. the jetfuel flavors dissipated pretty quickly, and for a good 30-45 minutes i could taste what was like the concentrated essence of moscato grapes.... it was amazing.

dean, would you by any chance be able to provide a source for some of those grappas you get? i was at dino on saturday and had that bertagnoli moscato, and the memory has been haunting me ever since. but unfortunately i live in philadelphia and a weekly trip to dino for snacks and grappa isn't in my cards right now, so i was thinking next time i was in town i'd get a bottle for taking home (the PALCB doesn't carry it--it does have some of the berta grappas, but they're special order only).

i had that lamb last night. i hadn't read this thread beforehand, but it looks like i ordered the right thing--the chunk of pulled lamb, the big ol slab of... well, of the fat cap basically. lordy be. lord have mercy. the oddly cold tomato bread pudding was a little weird, i have to admit--considering the rest of the meal's quality i have to assume that it was purposeful, but it was like, uh, wha? it just seemed like it should be warm. but it tasted damn good. man oh man that was good stuff. edited to say: oh yeah, i forgot about my appetizer of the polentina soup with bbq duck breast. i was expecting something like a runny polenta with slices of duck breast, seared with a bbq sauce of some sort. boy was i wrong. it was a thinish but ridiculously rich and meaty broth (i assume duck-based, but it could be anything) with the polentina floating throughout, and also spread throughout were the bits of duck, which was... if i say almost jerky-like, y'all won't take that as a bad thing, right? just awesome. and like nothing i've had before.

in case y'all are wondering, we did indeed make it over there on friday night after about the easiest drive we've ever had to DC. got in slightly before 7, had a nice meal with no problems. thanks for the pm's and info and whatnot.

i'll theoretically be heading there tomorrow evening with the in-laws, assuming travel goes as planned (we're coming in from philadelphia), etc. i'm interested to see what the experience holds, for several reasons. they haven't been to CK so far in part because of the no reservations thing. the MIL is disabled, and the FIL generally doesn't want to go anywhere that doesn't take reservations; he gets huffy when things don't go smoothly, and it's gotten worse as he's gotten older. i believe if he knows what he's getting into things should be fine, but it makes me edgy when they're like that. but now they want to go in part because their neighbor's kid is one of the servers. siiiigh. all i wanna do is go eat good stuff, and i don't care if there are service issues or waits, generally speaking. if only i could get over there without them, i suspect the experience would be much more to my liking. oh well. anyway, on a friday night, how long, generally, is the wait for a table if you get there earlyish, like 6-630? (1st post over here, how y'all doing, i'm james or jas, from philadelphia)