The Hersch

I had lunch at El Chalan yesterday. I think the bread is kind of mediocre, but who cares when it's slathered with that bewitching sauce? I had the ceviche mixto, which was a lovely large heaping plate of fish and squid, with one mussel and one shrimp -- which was fine, because the fish and squid are better than the mussel and shrimp. Listed as an appetizer, but more than enough for one person for lunch. But good god the place is noisy.

I also loved smoking cigarettes, although I wouldn't refer to the enjoyment of smoking as "fun" (and I don't think that's what JLK meant back on Dec. 9th, 2005 anyway). If it weren't for the fact that the buggers will kill you, I'd still be smoking and enjoying it. But even before I quit (six years ago next month), I preferred non-smoking restaurants, and was in favor of a ban.

I don't think I've seen necks there, but the Tenleytown Whole Foods often has backs. I don't remember what the price has been recently, but I do remember remarking to myself "wow, that's expensive for chicken backs". As has been discussed on the Stewing Fowl thread, you can get stewing fowl at Latino markets (such as Bestway in Mt. Pleasant and elsewhere), and not only are they not very expensive, they're much better for stock than the backs and necks of fryers.

My advice: Do not grill Man's Best Friend. The bad karma is intense.

Mollusks, not crustaceans.

While Meridian Hill Park, known unofficially as Malcolm X Park, and Montrose Park are both excellent suggestions, the National Arboretum is a splendid idea. It's enormous, and varied, and beautiful, and is (or at least used to be; it's been a while) very lightly visited, so you can usually have a rather large chunk of it to yourself.

Then going by the logic of a certain diner at a certain restaurant at a certain Sheraton Four Points Hotel, it's $0 on the first two bottles, and then nothing on subsequent bottles?

I'm not disagreeing with you, but can you explain how it constitutes an abuse? My gut feeling is that it's bush-league, and I wouldn't do it, but I'm not sure why the restaurant should care (although I suspect that they would care).

Popeye's.

Nice review. Care to explain the beet salad without any beets?

I've never worked in a restaurant and have very little idea how they run. I think the fact that no effort was made to fetch my glass of wine until after the initial acknowledgement of the order screw-up was what led me to blame waiter #1. Also, the same waiter walked by my foodless, drinkless table on his way to deliver the food to another table that ordered well after I did, and ordered the same thing I did. It was a good ten minutes after that before the screw-up acknowledgment happened. He didn't appear to be stoned, but who knows? As for a manager, the two waiters were the only staff I saw in the dining room during my visit.

I'm certainly not going to argue that Washington is strong in Nepalese cuisine, but there was a Nepalese restaurant called Katmandu for most of the 1980s and I think into the early 1990s. It was first located at Connecticut and Florida where Russia House is now, and then Connecticut between Wyoming and Kalorama, where the Pines of Florence is now. I ate at their first location once, and it was pretty good. So NYC has several Nepalese restaurants. How are they fixed for Vietnamese, Afghan, Ethiopian, Salvadoran, and Peruvian, compared to Washington (and the close-in suburbs of Washington count if the outer boroughs of NYC count)?

I think I'll take Dean's karmic bonus points. Cheap indeed at $10.

I looked for an existing thread to post this in, and couldn't find one. Today I had lunch at a restaurant that has been praised here recently, and is generally highly regarded here. I'd rather not name it, because I have nothing against it. I was shown to a table, and given a menu. A couple of minutes went by, the waiter returned, and I placed my order: A recently praised dish here, and a glass of wine. Soon after, a basket of wonderful bread and a dish of butter were delivered. And that was the last I got from the wait staff for at least a half hour, maybe close to 40 minutes. I'm a very patient man, and it takes quite a delay before I'll start to complain about the wait, but I was just about there, when a waiter--not the one who took my order--said to me "it's coming soon!" -- this was the first interaction with the wait staff for well over a half hour. A minute or two later, the waiter who took my order came to my table and said something like: "I don't know what happened, but for some reason your order didn't go in until just now. I've asked them to expedite the order, but I want to let you know that they've only just started it. I'll be back with your wine right away." He came back with the wine a full five minutes later. Another five minutes and my food arrived. It wasn't bad, but it was cooked distinctly more well-done than what I'd asked for. I certainly wasn't going to send it back at that point, as I should have been back in my office by then, and I was only just starting my lunch. And it wasn't bad. I finished eating, and the second waiter, not the one who had taken my order, asked if I was finished, and I said yes, and could I have the check. He said "there is no check, since you had to wait so long". I said thanks. And then I didn't know quite what to do. I'm pretty sure the whole problem was that waiter # 1 screwed up. I didn't know that for sure, but it's what I find probable. It wasn't the kitchen, it was the waiter. But not the waiter who told me the whole meal, including the wine, was comped. Well, the check would have come to something like 20 or 22 dollars before tip, and I left 10 dollars on the table. Even though I sort of felt I was rewarding the very bad service I had received, I felt I couldn't leave nothing without feeling like a jerk. But the more I thought about it, I thought that the waiter had cost the restaurant the price of my meal, but instead of giving the restaurant something for the meal, I gave the waiter more than I would have tipped had I paid the restaurant for the food. This only adds to my distaste for the American tipping system. What would you do in a situation like this?

I'd have to say it was when I was young and feeling that I was falling in love, and invited this person to dinner and pulled out all the stops doing the coolest dinner I could come up with at the time (which wasn't all that great, since my cooking skills were pretty rudimentary at the time) ...and then being stood up. It still hurts, thirty years later.

Well, the website you link to claims only that 21 is the oldest restaurant in NYC named for its address, not that it's the oldest restaurant in the city AND is named for its address, as you wrote above. Not that it matters, and not that I have any idea what the oldest restaurant in NYC is, named for its address or not. What I said is still true: 2941 is a feeble name for a fine restaurant.

Yeah, but that's 21 W. 52nd St.... 2941 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church? 2941 is, I think, the most unfortunate example of this practice in the Washington area. If it weren't such a terrific restaurant, who would care? But geez, couldn't they come up with something better than that?

I finally made it to the Bestway (Waitman's "Big Store") in Mt. Pleasant today, and bought a six-pound old hen. For the record, it was labeled, not "gallina", but "FRESH CHICKEN FOWL". It is now bubbling away in the stock pot, although since it got up to the simmer only about twenty minutes ago it has a long way still to go. Far from being put off by the fish counter, I found it quite appealing. I like the fact that you can inspect and select your fish yourself--they're lying in tubs of crushed ice on the customer side of the counter, and you pick out what you want and put it in a smaller tub and give it to the counter people to weigh and clean. So you can smell it and examine the eyes and gills before you decide to buy. The drawback is that it's a tiny little space with many eager customers. At any rate I bought a couple of beautiful, obviously nice and fresh, little Boston mackerel for tonight's dinner. Among my favorite fishes, these were a lovely $2.49 a pound, which is practically free. The store is certainly very cramped, dingy, and crowded, but lots of fun. Thanks for turning me on to it. ETA: The fowl was $0.99 a pound.

They did? You mean into the Caravela/Vida Loca/Brazilian Grill/Dona Flor space? (If so, I wasn't aware that A Caravela had closed.)

Sounds like a spiffing dinner. But this "bulls blood"...is that the beet variety? A red wine? The actual blood of a bull?

As it happens, I had just opened a bottle of the Rosé de Calon last night, and it was lovely. And it paired brilliantly with the goat-cheese ravioli with a light tomato sauce that I made, which was among the best things I've ever made. Is the screwtop on the Chateau Guiot rosé new for 2005? I had this wine last year and don't remember it having a screwtop. I haven't had the 2005, but the 2004 was very nice indeed.

Lunch at the bar again today. Six littlenecks perfectly shucked. Fried clams as good as any I've ever had, sent over the top by a tartar sauce so luscious I was tempted to use the cliché "decadent". No air-conditioning to speak of, so at least there's something to complain about.

I've always had perfectly fine service at the New Mexico Ave. Balducci's/Sutton Place Gourmet. Usually excellent, in fact, from the meat counter and cheese counter people.

No peach, but Regan's Orange Bitters No. 6 (which I think is superior to Fee Bros) may be purchased at Calvert Woodley, along with Peychaud's and the ubiquitous Angostura. I've often wondered why, when almost all bitters disappeared from the United States for several decades, Angostura continued to be available at every supermarket in the country. What were people using it for? (Just to be clear, here: I love Angostura bitters, and am glad it remained so easy to find.)

I find it hard to imagine dining at Corduroy and not putting it on one's list of favorite places.