DPop

jiveturk, having not been to D'Acqua in a while and not being familiar with the menu, they could have adjusted the menu a bit to help ease the cost burden (it's been said here and other places numerous times that RW is generally not a week that restaurants turn a huge profit) or they could be looking to try out a new item when they have a larger than usual audience in the restaurant to gauge the response. While I will admit that the second is a particularly risky idea, the proprietors might have felt good enough about the dishes that they wanted to showcase them now to show that they are about more than just fish. What did you and the people you were with have?

The Williams Brothers Joker is gone, replaced by a Heather Froach. Unfortunately, the surly bartendress informed me that they had not tapped the keg yet so I did not get to try the beer this afternoon, but I am looking forward to a trip back for a glass.

Why don't we talk more about Tosca? Are that many people turned off by the high prices? I can understand being reluctant to shell out $75-90 on a prix fixe menu on a regular basis, but Rocks laid out how to do Tosca at lunch or for a fair priced dinner and still leave full. Also, as mentioned above, their "Dine at Dusk" pre-theater deal is a steal at $35, and is even more admirable now that they are donating 10% of every meal to "Food and Friends", a local charity that delivers meals to less fortunate individuals. We were naturally excited about RW at Tosca because it gave us a chance to move away from the Rockwellian approach to trying some of the main courses without shelling out too much cash. Our fervor was quelled a bit when we saw that the spicy seafood linguine was not on the menu and, Jay regrettably informed us, would not be available for substitution. My fiancee pouted for a couple seconds, but this turned out to be a good thing as it forced us to try a few different things. First Courses: Nantucket bay scallops and baby octopus warm salad on top of shaved fennel, diced potatoes and Swiss chard sauce was a great starter, light while carrying plenty of substance. The thimble sized scallops were perfectly textured, remaining firm without turning into chewy little balls. The baby octopus were diced into tiny pieces and were cooked but again not so chewy that it threw off the overall soft texture of the dish. The Swiss chard sauce was good enough to sop up with the onion foccacia, and the delicious olives scattered through the dish were a tasty surprise. Half moon shaped pasta filled with olive poached grouper, brown butter caper sauce, toasted almond, fried capers and fresh marjoram would have been a great pasta dish with a little fresh ground pepper and some parmesan, but it was my fault for not flagging Jay down to get this before devouring my half sized portion. The ravioli were tightly packed with the moist grouper, whose texture worked in perfect unison with the al dente cooked pasta shell in which it was encased. The brown butter caper sauce and fried capers gave the dish most of its flavor, a lightly salty sauce that also needed to be sopped up with the foccacia. Mains: Risotto with 30 month old organic Parmesan cheese with lemon juice and parsley pine nut pesto was the best risotto dish I have had in recent memory, although it might have been better as a half portion because the full size was too heavy for any normal human being to finish. This 10 lb bowl of cream, rice, parmesan, and pesto oil is ideal comfort food; salty, buttery, cheesy, and enough to drown any hangover. My fiancee aptly named this dish "Artery Clog", but I have to say that I was happy to scarf down as much of this as I could (less than half the plate). Roasted Mediterranean sea bass with a balsamic vinegar sabajon and sautéed spinach with pine nuts and raisins was the exact opposite in terms of density and flavor of my entree. It was light, tangy, sweet, and wonderful. The pieces of skin-on sea bass were small and just slightly overcooked, but were an otherwise outstanding plate. The bed of spinach and pine nuts upon which the fish rested provided more moisture and some substance to the dish, meshing quite well with the flaky sea bass. Dessert: Vanilla flavored panna cotta with almond milk sauce, toasted almond and milk foam was surprisingly light for such a lactose-tolerant dessert. The vanilla flavor was faint but most definitely present, and while this didn't compare to my fiancee's dessert, it was actually a nice finish after the heavy risotto. Dark warm chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate ice cream and kumquat compote was heavenly. They were out of the white chocolate cake that was on the menu, but it would be hard to imagine that it was better than this secondary option that we were offered. Rich, not too sweet chocolate cake liquid pours out of the crisp exterior when you dig in for your first bite, oozing out onto the plate and mixing quite well with the ice cream and compote. Not quite as good as the incredible chocolate cake we had at Mendocino on NYE, but not that far behind either. This restaurant, which is usually dismissed as being overpriced, is ironically the best deal in town for the quality through January 20. We paid $99 including tax for 6 courses of great food, a half bottle of a nice Chianti, and excellent service from Jay and Massimo, who greeted us from the kitchen at the end of our meal. After telling him how excellent the food was, we admitted that we were a little disappointed by the omission of the seafood linguine from the RW menu. He told us to wait for a few minutes at the bar and reappeared with a to-go container of the pasta made extra spicy for my fiancee. How can you beat this kind of service from a busy chef who had just gone through the first hectic night of Restaurant Week? You can't, in my opinion, and that is why you should go out and support this great chef and restaurant.

In the wasteland that is the shopping center at the corner of Lee Highway and George Mason, there is a small Indian restaurant that is owned by a very friendly couple. Their menu is huge for a vegetarian-only place, featuring several of my favorites (Dal Makhni, Cholle Puri, Masala Dosai, etc.) All portions are generous and there is not a dish on the menu that is over $10, which is great if you like trying a few things and not paying dearly for it like at Heritage or Rasika. With that said, this is obviously not at the quality of the high-end places in the area, but should not be ignored as a delivery option or if you are in the mood for a lunch buffet, which is available for $6.99 every day of the week except Monday, when I believe they are closed. Website

It is definitely unique and worth going at least once, but Komi has remained a notch higher than every other restaurant I have been in DC, so naturally I am inclined tell someone who has not been there as opposed to anywhere else. Either way, you don't go wrong with any of those options, Dan.

I have never been to Eve, so I can't comment on that, but out of the rest of the group above I would definitely choose Komi for a birthday meal. CityZen, while outstanding and perhaps the best overall food experience in this city, is more of a place that I want to go for just that; to sit and enjoy food. Komi is the type of place I want to go and be pampered with incredible food and wine service, try a lot of great little things, and spend a special night enjoying myself. It is also one of those once-a-year type places, whereas CityZen is the kind of place that you could potentially go once a month or so and sit at their bar and have that incredible deal, which has honestly turned me off from going the more expensive route in the dining room. minibar is also a cool experience, but I did not enjoy it nearly as much as Komi.

Likewise, I should be there with a rather large group on the 28th, except we will probably be surrounded by different types of bottles than your Cru....

To be honest, I feel bad about posting this because the owner actually travelled to my fiancee's apartment to apologize about it, but I had one of the worst delivery experiences I have ever had at Wasabisito last Friday. I will not go into the full story, but we wound up waiting over an hour for our delivery to arrive (her apt is in Rosslyn, no more than a 10 minute drive from the restaurant) after having to receiving several clarifying calls from the restaurant about our order and the location of her apartment, which is in by far the largest complex in Rosslyn. When it arrived, there was no wasabi, soy, ginger, utensils, or napkins. We called once again to express our issue with this and did not hear from anyone until the owner showed up about an hour later with the items and a promise of a 50% discount. We were told that the confusion centered around us providing the wrong address of the building, even though all of her mail comes to the specific address that we gave and all other restaurants in the area recognize the apartment by the address we gave. I understand that it was an honest mistake and really appreciate the effort of the owner, but I did not think that it was appropriate for him to tell me that the reason that it took over 2 full hours for us to receive our order was because we gave the restaurant the wrong address of the place that my fiancee has been living in for 3 years. Again, I do not feel particularly good about posting this, as I root for places like this to succeed as opposed to the next franchise that could potentially move in in its place. I just hope that they work out these types of issues going forward.

It's funny that you say that, because a little birdy told me that they would be closing some time soon.....

I don't know if this is the right place for it, as it is not an emergency, but I am looking for brining/marinating suggestions for a 3 lb bone-in rabbit loin that I got at the market. Having never cooked rabbit before, I am looking for some prep suggestions that some of you may have used that come out good. Just as a note, I'm planning to cook it indirectly over medium heat unless someone has a better suggestion. Thanks for the help!

Things may have changed, but I was told by an employee of the restaurant 2 months ago that the building was being torn down.

It is being torn down for new construction on an office building.

A lot of free time on your hands? 1. Go for a special occasion to the Restaurant Eve Tasting Room 2. Finally go for a full dinner service at Proof (it's amazing that I have not done this yet) 3. Lose 25 pounds before my wedding in July 4. Save money (which will unfortunately mean eating out less) 5. Get a Global 8" Chef's knife and learn to use it properly 6. Try at least 10 things from my new grill cookbook Happy New Year everyone!

Any word on where Hartzer might end up next?

- I had it with only a few hours left in the year, but the Eco-Farms Braised Rabbit at Mendocino is the best dish I have had of its type. - All of my experiences at Proof - Stinging nettle gnocchi and veal two-ways at Maestro - Best dinner of my life at Komi - Grouper with the Marie Rose sauce at Eamonn's - Pork sausage at 2 Amy's - Pulled pork sandwich at PS7s - Spicy seafood pasta at Tosca - Corned Beef sandwich at Central - Pad see ew at 1Gen - Kabob Karahi at Ravi Kabob - Every RTS and RTC visit I could go on and on, DC has really become a great place to eat.

Friday night was the best meal I have had at EatBar. The stuffed peppers were dead on, the bacon wrapped figs were little sweet, fatty lumps of delicious, the corn dog the best version I have ever had, the mac and cheese worked for me (although it is absurdly priced at $7 for a bowl so small it was hard to dip my panini in), and the baby burger was right on. Ironically, the only miss was the BBQ panini that has gotten so much love on this thread, which was dry and lacking flavor, so much so that I cut the sandwich up in small enough pieces so that I could dip it in the mac and cheese to give it some life. It would be nice if they could keep this quality up as this is such a great spot in the middle of Arlington. It would also be nice to see them lower the prices a bit, especially on the beer list ($6.50 for a Flying Dog!)

We stopped by last night at the bar for an early dinner while we were downtown on the way home. I was interested in sitting in the dining room after reading some of the good reviews on here. Unfortunately, they were booked for an hour and a half and we were hungry, so we opted for the bar. To our dismay, it appears that they no longer serve the dining room items downstairs at the bar, so we were limited to the lounge menu, which did not bother us too much because it sounded great (General Tso's chicken wings!). We grabbed a couple of seats at the relatively empty bar, which I think is very elegant without coming across as pretentious. Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA was great on tap and her Wieninger was nice with the variety of food that we ordered. We started off with the Olive Tapenade and Hummus and the Wings. At $12, I do not know what we were expecting out of the Hummus dish, but I do know that it was something much more than what was delivered. The hummus was pretty good, don't get me wrong, but absolutely no better than the packaged product you get at Costco. The tapenade had a very intense flavor, but it almost got to be too much after a few bites and we found ourselves just putting a little on each piece of the bruschetta. The wings were about the best version of General Tso's chicken that I have ever had, with that nice kick of spice that you get at the end that good Chinese places tend to have. Again, though, the downside is that you only get 6 wings that are the size of broccoli florets for $11. Next we decided to try a couple of the great sounding pizzas on the menu, the Shrimp Pesto and Spicy Chicken. She does not eat pork, so sometimes we feel a bit limited by the items on a pizza menu, but both of these sounded perfect for both of us to enjoy. The Shrimp Pesto was the best thing we had all night, as they were not stingy at all on the shrimp or goat cheese and were are both a bit obsessed with pesto, so this really hit the spot. The crust is not what I would call "thin crust", however, as it was described by the bartender. I think it is closer to Red Rocks or Italian Store in terms of thickness as opposed to Comet or Bebo. Because we were under the impression that the pizza would be thin and not as filling as it was, we decided to order a second (the Spicy Chicken) and were disappointed that we did. My fiancee described it best when she said "this tastes like the pizza I get at the airport", referring to the Chipotle Chicken pizza they have at California Pizza Kitchen (and in your local grocery store). Again, the toppings were generous, but even though we saw them bake it in the oven to the left of us, it still had the taste and feel of something prepackaged. Fortunately, the shrimp pesto was more than enough to fill us up, so we only at a slice each of this pizza and took the rest home. My overall verdict is that nothing here was bad outside of the chicken pizza, but nothing was good enough to get me to come back, especially at a $100 price tag (with tax and tip). Service was friendly and the shrimp pesto pizza was certainly something worth ordering again, but when I have Comet, RR, 2Amy's, etc, I would not see a need to come back here specifically for that. Actually, I would venture to say that unless I have an office function or a birthday party of a friend here, that I will probably not make it back to the bar at Source unless prices drop considerably, which I do not think will be the case based on the size of the crowd when we left. The upstairs is definitely near the top of my list of places to visit some time soon, though.

PS7s keeps making changes for the better. I stopped in today for a quick bite at the bar and saw that they have taken the concept of pricing everything on the bar menu at $7 at lunch much like they do at HH. The catch is, it is not the small appetizers at lunch, but rather a list of 2 entree salads, 4 sandwiches, and a couple of desserts. I went in today and had the best pulled pork sandwich I have had in DC and an Arnold Palmer for less money than a salad with protein at Chop't. Crazy to think that PS7s, a restaurant that I felt was one of the most overpriced in the area a year ago, now has probably the best cheap (good quality) lunch deal in Chinatown.

Linguini with a seafood assortment in a lightly spicy tomato sauce This description, while accurate, does not really do this dish justice. It sounds relatively simple but the bowl we received was so well executed and had a nice variety of complimentary flavors. We asked for it extra spicy and Massimo walked out to the kitchen to ask us how spicy we wanted it. We gave him direction (spicy, but not so hot that you can't taste the tomatoes) and he managed to get it exactly how we hoped it would be. The seafood assortment is very generous, with an almost equal distribution of mussels, calamari, and shrimp to the amount of pasta. Also second the recommendation for the veal and prosciutto ravioli. Creamy and buttery without a taste of grease or oil.

I saw the waitstaff literally attempting to hail cars into the parking lot to go into the restaurant the other night on the side of Lee Highway. It has looked empty every time I have passed by it as of late, but maybe they will get more visitors when they get a real sign out front to alert potential patrons.

What are all of the ingredients that go into this, if you don't mind me asking? It sounds a bit odd, but something that might just be great if executed well.

I revisited this place last night after Don mentioned it and I am glad I did. The last time I ordered pizza from Pietanza was around 6 months ago and I found it dry and relatively flavorless. Last night's was a different story. I ordered my customary Meat Lovers on one half (pancetta, meatballs, and spicy italian sausage) and got chicken, spinach, and feta on the other side for the lady (not a pork eater). Both sides were very tasty, but I was surprised to find that I liked hers better than mine. The ingredients really complimented the very tomatoey sauce quite well and made for a nice slice without being too overpowering. My only issue was that the crust in the middle was very soft and could use some more stiffness, but the outside crust was pretty charred as it was and I am not sure what the result would be of leaving it in that oven even longer. Either way, this place is no Comet or Red Rocks, but a nice option for a quick bite if you're in the area.

ML, I tried to PM you but it says your inbox is full. I will be in tomorrow night and would love to try either the sidekick or a between-the-bones cut. If I ask the bartender (his name escapes me right now), will he know what I am talking about or should I try to find you if you're in house? Thanks.

We made it to Mendocino last night for a late dinner after reading all of the praise heaped on it in the last couple weeks here. First off, I want to say that it's very refreshing to go to a restaurant in DC and get excellent service from the bussing to the sommelier. I did not catch the waitresses name, but she was exactly what we were looking for in a server, and Nicole's wine pairings and explanations were wonderful as well. The wife and I are making an effort to start our meals light so we can stay hungry enough for entrees and possibly dessert. We chose to go with the Mendocino Salad over the tuna carpaccio and were pleased with our choice. The salad was huge and perfectly dressed in a shallot vinaigrette with enough accompaniments that the wife thought it would be good enough for a light meal on its own. For our entrees, I have to say we came away wanting more. She got the Poached Maine Lobster with Oxtail Raviolis in Oxtail Consomme and I got the special, Braised Lamb over Mashed Potatoes and Fall Vegetables. Sound great, don't they? Well, both were a bit disappointing, especially at the prices we paid. The lobster was in desperate need of salt, pepper, butter, or something to give the dish some flavor. The oxtail consomme had more of a warm water taste than oxtail, but I found myself thinking that that would not have made it any better after tasting the raviolis. Maybe my palate is too immature, but I cannot for the life of me understand the pairing of the lobster and the oxtail. The claws themselves were great pieces of meat, however; tender and cooked perfectly. The lamb was a little better, and saved in some ways by the great Merlot that Nicole poured for me to go with it. I guess I was hoping for something a bit more like the braised short ribs that I had at Restaurant 3 last week, which were lightly marinated strips of meat that were very tasty by theymselves. The lamb I had last night was coated in a thick brown gravy that completed dominated everything it touched on the plate, including the nice light mashed potatoes underneath it. In no way a bad dish, but certainly not something that I would consider ordering again. For our cheese course, we chose one each of sheep, cow, goat, and bleu cheeses. I loved all four, especially with the fig spread accompaniment, and the wife was obsessed with the port that Nicole paired with the bleu. Then, the highlight of the night. Apple Beignets. I don't know what to say other than "HOLY SHIT". If you go to Mendocino and can only order one thing for dessert, get these. If you are within a 20 mile radius of Georgetown and can get away for a bit, go get these. If you are on death row and are choosing your last meal right now, GET THESE. Best dessert I have had this year hands down, and that was not just the wine talking. Overall, we had a great time last night despite the missteps on the entrees and will certainly go back at some point. I thought that the prices were a bit high ($225 for two with tax and tip), but I think next time we will most likely sit at the bar and order one salad, one (different) entree, and two desserts, which appeared to be the forte of the restaurant along with the extensive and fairly priced wine list. The wine flight for $40 is a hell of a bargain if you are going for a full meal, by the way, as the pours are generous and Nicole will take care of you.

I think it is a noteworthy post, youngfood, and I agree with everything said. It is rare to find a staff as committed, from Mark down to the waitstaff, to the happiness of the people eating in the restaurant. Proof was a real welcome addition to this neighborhood, and not just because of the great wine and food!