DPop

Yes, what was served was most certainly not what Julien described in his post. This was a small bowl of straight up thick, white mayo.

I was a bit surprised to see that there were no posts on this restaurant, as Fabio has historically been a figure that has sparked conversation on DR. My wife and I went last night to a mostly full restaurant that is styled very similarly to Fiola Mare, although this space is much larger than Fabio's place on the Georgetown waterfront. Our first observation is that there are a lot of people working on the floor at Del Mar. Including the 2 women working at the host stand, we interacted with 6 different people in our first 2 minutes after being seated. Some people find this style of service attentive; my wife and I feel smothered. My feeling is that if I haven't even opened my menu, any question other than the type of water that I would like is premature. Especially questions about wine from the sommelier before I have been given a wine list, but I digress. After the service staff dispersed, I delved into the menu, which was organized by rather short sections of 3-5 dishes by different types of raw and cold dishes, hot dishes/appetizers, mains, and plates to be shared. We kicked things off with 6 oysters from New Jersey that were described as "briny and succulent", which is right up my alley. Unfortunately, while the oysters were succulent, I would definitely not describe them as briny, as they were a bit flat and not woken up by the Escabeche Vinaigrette. Another sauce was also delivered with the oysters, described as an "aioli", which was interesting as I have never heard of anyone having a mayo-like dip with oysters. This sounded awful to me, but my curiosity was piqued, so I tried it to make sure I wasn't missing anything with one of my oysters, and it was just as poorly paired and bad as it sounds. I'm assuming the inclusion was a mistake, as I can't imagine anyone liking what I tried last night. Shame on me for not using my better judgment, I guess. From there we went to hot appetizers, where we chose the Sopa de Castana y Cangrejo and the Scallops, Sea Urchin, and Black Truffles. The soup was far and away the best dish of the night, exactly what we were looking for on a cold night. It felt vintage-Trabocchi, very rich and flavorful, extracting flavors from ingredients and appropriate spicing to deliver a rich, well-balanced dish. We wanted seconds. The scallops were also nice, well paired with the vibrant sea urchin, but this would have been a better warm weather dish as it was very cold and very light. For our main, we got the Arroz Negro de Calamares en su Tinta. I should note here that we have had paella and arroz negro many times on trips to Spain and at restaurants in the US. We have had a couple versions that we really liked, but we often feel underwhelmed by these types of dishes. Maybe we don't love paella (or Spanish food in general)? I'm not sure, but I figure that I would point this out before saying that we were massively disappointed in this dish. It came out and was plated well by our waiter into large portions along with a side of lemon and, yet again, aioli. I asked the waiter about the aioli, to see if there was a particular way to eat the arroz with it as I have never seen it presented this way. He said that it was how "everybody" ate the dish, which confused me because I have had paella in Mallorca and Barcelona and have never seen it come with any sort of mayo substance. Is this normal? Again, I took the bait and put a dab of it on the side of my plate, dipping a bit of calamari and black rice in to take a taste. No. I can't believe that "everybody" eats this dish this way, as it became gooey and added nothing to the flavor palate. I ignored it for the rest of the meal, but again I must not be getting it, because I found the arroz to be bland and rather uninteresting, even with a copious amount of lemon squirted on top. Also, the calamari was somehow grilled and very chewy on the outside, but slimy and wet on the inside, combining both ways that I don't like my calamari cooked into one bite somehow. We were starving, but both of us still left a lot on our plates, as this just did not work for us on so many levels. We were a bit disheartened after the arroz negro, so we decided to pass on dessert and get the bill. For 2 glasses of Cava Brut, a middle of the road bottle of Ribeiro ($65), and the food listed above, the bill came to $232 after tax. I had to look twice, as this was more money than we had spent on any meal since our last visit to Komi, and far from extravagant or particularly satisfying food. At this price point, I can't possibly see us coming back here, but again maybe we just don't like this style of cuisine or we could have ordered better (cold crudo on a 40 degree night, yes that's my bad). I'll be interested to see how this place does over the years, as it really is huge, very expensive, and in the hot new high-rent district of DC.

From the Metier thread in response to someone 'booooing' the no corkage policy. No mention of BYOF, but I think I'm remembering that comment from another conversation years back: That Range Opening List is awesome.

Couldn't agree more. I know that Don has said in the past that corkage doesn't make sense at all ("are restaurants supposed to start letting you bring in your own food at some point as well?"), and I get his point, but the horrific mark-ups basically leave me the choice of drinking a middle of the road wine with my great meal or paying sometimes more than the cost of the whole meal to get a bottle that matches up to the food experience. Sounds like he's doing something right....

I always wondered about this, given all the hype that the list gets. I can only imagine the mark-ups, given the price of the tasting menu....

I actually went to school with JP Lee. Nice guy, but this and his tea business always seemed like flash-in-the-pan ideas. I can't find an actual physical location anywhere, it looks like they do street vendor service for the most part around NYC (including a spot in the lobby of the PwC NYC office).

I'm not going to go that far, but I'm with you in being disappointed that the prices from the Capella/Rosewood have traveled with Frank. $26 for a ham sandwich is up there with the $50 truffle gnocchi at Fiola Mare in terms of blatant gouging.

My experience was the same. For the price, I can name at least 10 other seafood-centric places in the area that I would rather go than Conosci. And with regards to Sietsma's experience, I've found at more corporatized, celebrity-chef driven restaurants like this one, if you go in the first few months that the place is open, the All-Star team that they have there to get good buzz and reviews always knocks it out of the park. After those first few months, however? It's anyone's guess, but usually the quality takes a pretty significant nosedive in my experience....

People really like making something out of nothing these days

To get back to the food at The Source for a second...... I, like many others, have always found that this place was a purveyor of very fine (authentic or not) Asian-inspired food. My wife and I don't get nearly as many nights out as we used to, so we have to choose a bit more wisely when we go out. One of the few restaurants that I find us going back to in lieu of trying new, exciting places (Hazel, Tail Up Goat, etc) is The Source, and more specifically, for its Whole Roasted Duckling for Two. My wife and I love roasted duck, and find ourselves ordering it more often than not when we see it on a menu. The Source has proven to be our go-to, cut and presented in 3 styles; the breast sliced and accompanied by hoisin, 10 Spice salt, picked cucumber and radish, green onion, and last night a very nice blood orange salad in place of the usual huckleberry/plum mixture; the thigh and legs stir fried with baby bok choy in a black bean sauce; and lastly a largely forgettable duck bone broth soup and a solitary dumpling (rest assured that no one will be paying $16 for this tiny bowl of soup if it ever makes it as a standalone dish on the menu). This entree is huge, and more than enough food for both of us, especially since we usually order it with a side of their fantastic Drunken Noodles. If you're a fan of Drewno's food but are turned off by the price tag of some of the other dishes on the menu, go try this combination next time, which is a large amount for under $100 for 2 people. Also a shout out to our server Jose, who we have had the last 3 times that we have dined and is very gracious and helpful. He always brings out an extra basket of their delicious scallion flower rolls after my wife and I scarf them down within seconds of getting the first ones. The place was somewhat empty, with only 5 tables including ours being served upstairs at 8:30. One of those tables was Kwame Onwuachi and a friend, who I was surprised to see at first, but then I remembered that his calendar on weeknights had recently opened up! (Badum Bum)

Late to the party here but I'll put in a vote for Seki. Daikaya is a fun place to get a drink and snack on some of their shared plates, but the culinary experience of watching Chef Seki work his magic behind the counter and introduce an admittedly poorly-versed American like me to delicious things I have never eaten before is, for me, definitely superior.

I've been 3 times for lunch in the last year and a half, ordering something different each time, and none of those experiences has come close to what Don described in his review. Now, I don't know if Amy was in the kitchen any of those times, but the food has never struck me as anything that a skilled cook couldn't execute well with or without the Chef present. Maybe a dinner is in order here, but that's a tough sell for me when we have so many great options available to us now in this city, and in my opinion, a much better restaurant in the same category just a couple blocks away (Casa Luca).

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I remember loving the eclectic menu when GPB first opened, with those lovely ox heart reubens and the different take on fried chicken along with things like rabbit cake and poutine. I went with a few friends the other night and the menu was timid by comparison, replacing those reubens with fried chicken biscuits, the rabbit cake with meatballs, and the overall theme of the menu shifting towards familiar American with several dishes moving to $30+ (I don't remember anything over $20-22 a few years ago, but again my memory might be failing me). I got the Bacon Cheeseburger after reading some of the praise on here and being informed that the special that night, a hearty sounding meatloaf, was sold out for the night at 7:15. As a quick aside, what's the deal with this? We went to the Riggsby when they were running their Sunday night duck special and were informed at 7:30 that they had run out and, if we wanted to partake, that we should get in before 6:30. I understand that restaurants don't want to over-order components of a dish that they'll have for only 1 night, but running out before 8pm? A bit frustrating. Anyway, my burger didn't hold a candle to what The Riggsby is currently putting out, as I learned when I was told that I was not getting any duck. It wasn't bad, but I found it to be really greasy and cooked a couple minutes past the requested medium rare, which gave it an overly charred flavor that was a bit offputting.

Wow, of all the dramatic openings and closings that have happened in this city since I've lived here, this has to be in the top 5. Maybe not quite Roberto-Donna-level drama, but in the same ballpark.

I'll take your word for it. I was not a fan at all, and I can't imagine many people liking what we were served the other night.

I'm happy to say that either someone is reading some of the negative comments that I've seen online the last couple months or whatever was going wrong in the kitchen has been sorted out, because based on my visit last Friday, All Purpose is still putting out solid NE USA-style Italian food. We were out with my daughter, so we ordered a bit more cautiously than we may have otherwise if it was just my wife and I. We opted for 3 appetizers to start, the Garlic Knots, the Sicilian Tuna Mousse, and the Fried Brussel Sprouts. I found the garlic knots to be as good of a version of a dish that I've enjoyed since my childhood. These were bigger than what I'm used to, as the garlic knots of PA/NJ are typically slightly larger than golf balls, whereas these were more similar to a cinnamon bun in both size and appearance. Another key difference was the replacement of the traditional marinara dipping sauce with a very nice parmesan fonduta, acting as both a nice lubricant and a fragrant complement to the rather rich knots. My daughter loved the very soft inside dipped in the fonduta, eating the majority of it of each while my wife and I focused on the delicious, crunchy outside. We wound up ordering a lot of food, and this was the only thing that we finished completely between the 3 of us, for perspective. The tuna mousse was a last second order when we saw it travelling to another table, and I'm really glad that we did. This was a fresh, aromatic version of a dish that can be heavy and clunky in the wrong hands. The mousse came in a small mason jar topped with a salsa verde and finely chopped pieces of baby celery to be spread over the accompanying warm toast. This was just fishy enough, just creamy enough, and very well seasoned. I can't imagine not getting both this and the garlic knots when we return. The brussel sprouts are pretty much the same version that they serve at Red Hen, except I noticed that the price has really crept up at both places as they grew in popularity ($14!). I always love this dish, but it was the one thing all night that my daughter wouldn't go for at all and my wife thought that they were a bit too sour, but I wouldn't hesitate to get this again. For our larger dishes, we got the Eleven Layer Lasagna and the pizza that we always get here, the Duke #7. The lasagna was nice, definitely my daughter's favorite thing of the night, and I was happy to feed most of it to her as we were already pretty full after the apps. This was a nice white version of lasagna, with more subtle flavors coming from the veal ragu and pretty generous shavings of black truffle that adorned the side of the plate. This was the least aggressively seasoned dish of the night, and perhaps my palette was thrown off a bit from the other courses because I thought that this could have used a bit more salt and some herbs to kick it up to the next level. The Duke #7 is still in my eyes the best non-traditional pizza that you can get in DC. The larger crust issues experienced by others in this thread were not an issue here, as we had only about an inch of crust to trim off of the outside to give to my daughter (the parts with the gnuda seemed to get too spicy for her after a few bites, as she started to cough a little bit). We were stuffed to the gills by this point, so we only had a piece each, but I really love the bite of the pickled veggies when paired with the gnuda on this pizza. This also reheated well with a few minutes at 350 in my oven the next day, the crust sturdy enough not to get dried out and too crispy. I'm all for Don keeping this in Italics in the Dining Guide, this isn't haute cuisine or traditional neapolitan style pizza, but that's OK because it doesn't have to be. I'll take all of the food listed above and a couple of really good beers for under $100 any day of the week.

My wife and I went the other night and we fell on the side of being unimpressed by the experience. We started with an order of the Gyoza, which tends to be a hard dish to screw up in my experience, but somehow Bantam King missed big time. The gyoza were soft and a bit mushy in my chopsticks, which surprised me as I'm used to these having a bit harder shell due to the pan frying prior to service. These desperately needed that crunch, they were very one-note with regards to both texture and flavor. The chili oil/butter swimming pool that they rested in did not work at all for me either, I don't know if the oil had somehow gone bad, but the flavor was simultaneously greasy and acrid. 4 gyoza came in this order, and 2 were left on the plate. I got the Fried Chicken for my main and again, I must have gotten a bad order of this, because my chicken didn't resemble in appearance or description what I read above. One bite into the thigh and all of the breading came immediately off of the chicken, a soggy mess doused in the soy honey dashi glaze mixture that I found totally unecessary. The dark meat inside the chicken was moist and carried flavor, but I was totally thrown by the breading debacle. The side of rice with chicken drippings was fine, but I agree witht the poster above that I could not detect any of the chicken drippings and it was impossible to stir the bowl up to see if I could get anything off of the bottom. The star of this dish was the very nice miso soup, which worked well for my palate as compared to more traditional miso soups. My wife went with the Shio Chintan Ramen, which was by far the best dish of the night, but still left us wanting a little. We had been the Toki and Haikan in the past month, and the broth in the Bantam ramen just can't stand up in any way in terms of richness, complexity, and consistency to what is on offer at both of those places. We will occasionally catch movies at the Verizon Center (has anyone seen La La Land?), and this will be a nice, quick cheap stop-in for ramen in the cold months, but I don't see us becoming regulars here any time soon.

We got takeout last night for the first time in a while and almost 6 years later, this place is still putting out solid, low-price food. They have inexplicably taken the Beef Samosa off of the menu, however, which took a little of the air out of my balloon

Good post, although I'd take issue with characterizing the Truxton Circle/Bloomingdale neighborhood that the new DCity is in as "god awful". I've lived in DC for the last 14 years, 6 of those in Bloomingdale, and it has been my favorite place in the city to live. The location would certainly not be a reason not to visit the restaurant, as it's located a stone's throw away from the popular Anxo Pintxos and a couple short blocks away from one of the city's best restaurants in Red Hen. I haven't made it to DCity yet because of the reasons you listed about the quality falling off of a cliff after Rob left, but will take this as a prompt to give this new location a try very soon.

Steak and cheese on naan sounds really good. Definitely going to stop by next time I'm in the area.

Doomed from the start. It's probably not worth it to hope that something of true quality comes in its place, as I'm sure the sky-high rents will demand a cover factory that puts ordinary food filled with butter, salt, and sugar at extraordinary prices.

What was the reading on the decibel meter, Tom?

DCity was never the same after he left. They are now a Kirk Cousins long bomb away from my new house and I can't get excited for it opening anymore after my last couple visits before it closed, unfortunately. Hopefully the Federalist Pig scratches the itch, DCity was really good when Rob was there.

It's funny, I had it figured out before this little hint after knowing you (virtually) all these years. I'll give another one; the word rhymes with "Smothertrucker".

I'm being shuttled here for a dinner with a colleague next week (against my will), but the reviews above sound encouraging. Is the corkage fee outrageous?