clchurch

You want to get the shrimp and grits.  YUM.

I second that!

Fio's in the Woodner and Arbor's wine bar. Where else could you have a glass of wine from cruviner and play connect four?

Has anyone eaten at this restaurant lately or,has anyone cooked in the kitchen. I'm seeking opinions on the food or working conditions.

I had dinner there last night in the Blue Bar. I was really there for the jazz. The food was OK, but I thought it was going to be smaller plates. Had Ceasar and the steak (I thing it was skirt). Not bad, but not great, but the jazz was good.

It's a sad fact of life that, these days, an awful lot of people think a "special" dinner out is to go to Red Lobster or Olive Garden.  Let's not mention Outback.  There is only one place in the entire country that has Ray's or OOHs and AAHs.  Plus, those chains are a LOT cheaper than the places we like.  Folks coming for a visit to our fair city are usually slapped with sticker shock at the prices of decent, independent restaurants around here.

I'm old enough to remember travelling across the country and staying in locally-owned motels (Holiday Inn was too high-class for us) and getting recommendations for dinner that steered us to really good local places.  On the other hand, too many people are non-adventurous when it comes to food and only want what they know.  The chains happily fill that bill.  What can you do?

True story: while deployed to northern Italy a couple of years back, had a particularly memorable meal with a newly arrived Marine pilot. His comment: "That was better than Olive Garden." No irony was intended.

Just read in the Logan Circle ANC minutes that Nora Pouillon is considering opening a new retaurant next to HR57 on 14th St.

Chris

Trouble has been brewing there for awhile, especially after they filed for bankruptcy/reorganization!  Bad concept: 2 floors, 2 KITCHENS (!) AND 2 different dining concepts, but really only 1 chef to run the whole thing...unfortunately, I think the Banks haven't been focusing on running a business, and I think the place was more used for partying then for selling food...I noticed the problem when I held a cooking class there and the chef didn't show up on time, Sharon wasn't prepared and she didn't know the financial deal I had arranged with Jimmie...food was very good though, but this is simply a case where food and reputation can't keep a place alive unless the management is there to run an operation.  Lack of management killed this establishment, assuming it has closed?  The phone number has a strange answer, call for fun: 202-248-6007

The only other time I was there, almost two years ago, I thought the service was pretty bad, but I thought I'd give them another chance since they are talented. Just goes to show that talent in itself does not a business make.

Does anyone know what happened to it? A couple of weekds back I called on a Thursday afternoon to make a Friday night reservation and when I got there, it was closed. Walked by last night around 10pm and it was closed too.

Chris

I've eaten fried locsusts in Thailand.

To clarify my previous post about bugs, I bought a paper cone full of fried locusts in Thailand circa 1986. They weren't bad; tasted like crunchy things fried in sweet sauce. You're are supposed to pull of the heads and wings before you eat them. Maybe it's just something they eat when they have a plague of locusts? They should have thought about that in the Old Testament: when life deals you locusts, eat fried locusts! They also eat something similar in the north of Japan, but they're called inago, and they're pickled.

More places you don't hear much about: Cafe Divan, Bombay Club, Agua Ardiente (restaurant or club?), Arucola, Bacchus, La Fourchette.

Had dinner at Arucola before a show at the Avalon. It was one of Donna's extended empire. The shrimp with my pasta was overcooked and mealy, yuk.

Back to Roaches....in Nawlins (New Orleans!) cockroaches were so plentiful when I lived there in the early 80's, that it would have been unusual NOT to have seen one in a restaurant - literally!  I ate at the venerable Pascale Manales (they've been credited as the originators of "Barbecued Shrimp") where cockroaches of varying sizes climbed up the wall - we didn't want to act like tourists, so we ignored them and ate our meal happily!  Shrimp are from the same family as spiders, you just have to get over cultural biases, I mean I happily ate the cicadas when they were in season last year...whoooops, a photo!

BUT, bugs in restaurant food, well that's a different story!!  Takeout chinese from a restaurant in Langley Park, MD had a cockroach sitting in it, I definitely took that back!  Chopsticks Restaurant in Chinatown here in DC a few years back, my Chinese girlfriend wouldn't eat in the restaurant after the 10th cockroach walked through her menu, we left!  Whole Foods salad greens a few years ago were full of aphids - organic of course!

So who at DR.com actually has tried insects on purpose, fess up???

I've eaten fried locsusts in Thailand.

Churreria Madrid (in Adams Morgan) 1973