Waitman

Nice one crackers!

Um, ok. 

Assless chaps: They're not just for boys any more.

Put me with Bilrus on this one. This board, and others, rarely offer anything other than unrestrained luv for the restaurants that get more than a page of posts. In anyone believes that perfection does not exist on this earth, let them read some of the reviews posted on these threads. Reviews so glowing that it would be churlish to point out that members are regulars, that they know and drink with owners and chefs, that they sometime get special treatment or have special phone numbers to dial for hard-to-get reservations.

Yet, let someone post a negative review, and their taste, judgement and motives are immediately questioned. Anononymous praise is fun. Anonymous criticism, however, is clearly suspect, if not in itself proof of the unworthiness and -- may I say it, moral degeneracy -- of the critic. No wonder the wagons are circled and the critics are driven from our midst, never to post again. They should have known that hyperbole in support of an etherial bit of home smoked bacon, lovingly dressed with citrus foam is fine, but to liken ground veal to Gerber baby food is, well, an outrage. They should also know that, even in a favorable review, the least criticism with be sussed out and held against them and proof of their unworthiness.

.....

Yes, there are trolls and assholes (like Dean's interlocuter above). And I don't much like the anonymous thing. On the other hand, I haven't found a perfect restaurant, either; in fact, some well-loved places seem to have serious problems. People who are charging $50 0r a $100 or more for a reasonable dinner should expect strong and public opinions, positive and negative. It comes with the territory. Nobody like criticism. I don't like it and I get it every day, to my face, from people I like and people I don't. That comes with the territory I chose. Just because I worked hours or days on something doesn't necessarily mean that it's objectively good or that a client will love it, giving me an "A" for effort and hiring me back again.

Isn't the point of the Internet to give everyone a voice, and trust people to be smart enough to sort it out? With calm refutations and support, not emotional personal attacks?

Fly into Nice, enjoy brillant streetfood while jet-lagged and then pop into something with Michelin stars -- there are 5 two-stars within 15 kilometers, and the 3-star Le Louis XV is only about 25 minutes away by cheap, reliable inter-city rail. Then, preferably while in the middle of a pastis degustation at an outdoor cafe, flip a coin: Northern Italy (just around the corner) or Catalonia.

And then report back -- this is similar to a trip I hope to be taking next year and your roll as advance man is important. .

Note also that Also the Med will more likely provide good weather for strolls and touring and cafe-hopping and all the things you need to work the appetite back up, while Paris and Seattle are fogged in. (I went to San Francisco once in July, it was already -- or perhaps still -- fogged in, so November won't be much different).

It must be noted that, although they may be entering triteness, Waitman makes some excellent stuffed squash blossoms.

Actually, it should be noted that Mrs. B is the squash chem, while I merely man the deep-fryer. Perhaps she'll way in on the details...

Apropos of my post upthread that charcuterie plates, while excellent, were getting a bit trite (from Sietsema's 2-star review of Sonoma):

"Suddenly, a diner can't turn around in a new restaurant without bumping into charcuterie, plates of artisanal cheeses and more wines by the glass than Baskin-Robbins lists flavors."

I just bring whatever's leftover and throw it on my desk. Yogurt, pizza, chicken Korma, lentils and pork belly, cold pasta and fresh tomatoes, cheese. Whatever. The need for refridgeration is vastly exagerrated.

If you're really paranoid, you might get one of those little blue freezy things and a six-pack-sized cooler from the drug store and shove them in your fridge every evening when you get home.

Perry's. Especially the roof. It's not just for sushi any more.

But it's a start, and a major improvement over the "crack Giant" at 9th and P where I am usually forced to go after work for "a few things." That place is OK inside and not too bad if you don't need anything remotely gourmet and you have half and hour or more to spend in line, but I usually leave pretty steamed.

Giant put the "Crack Giant" in just off a major riot corridor when everyone with a couple of dollars to rub together was leaving the city as fast as they could. It served a huge swath of very poor DC that was largely reliant on walking and bus service to get their groceries home -- though there used to be a crowd of old retired guys who'd line up out front shooting the breeze with one another and giving old ladies (and me) a lift home for a few bucks. As far as I know, the lines have been slow since the early 80s, when I was shopping there regularly, but the checkers have always been friendly.

And, if it was never on par with the Social Safeway, it was a vast benefit to the neighborhood, and a reminder of how nice it was to have a locally-owned grocery chain that was willing to take a risk in a poor neighborhood-- long before there were $400K condos within walking distance.

I still get in every now and again and always laugh to see the wine section and how many white people shop there now.

Interesting about Seasons 52. A quick look at their website reveals low-calorie meals but salt contents equivalent to dining at McDonalds. 1700 Mgs of salt in a 10 oz. vegetable soup, for example, vs 1000 for my junk fix of choice, a Big Mac (though I usually add more salt). 1100 for a filet mignon vs. 1120 for a 10-piece McNuggets. If you can't use fat, you've gotta torque the taste up somehow.

The real originator of this stuff, though, of course, is Michel Guerard who won three Michelin stars with his famous cuisine minceur in the French spa town or Eugenie les Bains.

Sadly, the English-language site has even less info than the French page -- you can find it if you click around -- the the French page does have pictures of what I want to eat next time I try to drop 10 pounds.

Edit: Oh wait, is this off topic?

Wonderland is actually a new bar in thrift-store clothes -- not that there's anything wrong with that. Its patina of smoke and funk were hard won over many decades as DC's first black gay bar, called Nob Hill (a truly inspired name). The wise decision to leave the skeleton intact is what makes the place seem so welcoming to those of us in the in the dive bar avocation - despite the fact that the place is less then a year old and some punk 30-year-old just punched some band called Soundgarden into the juke.

I need a smoke just thinking about the place...

More, here.

correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't that where tori amos got started?

She played at Mr. Henry's in Georgetown (at one time, I think there were four: Washington Circle, G'Town, Cap Hill, and Adams-Morgan).

I can't speak to the other aspects of the place, but going back to pick your own fish is common practice in fish tavernas in Greece. Personally, I loved that part of the dinner, but to each his own. Generally, if you don't want to parade, you can just tell the waiter "I trust you" and give an idea of the size and variety you want, and they'll take care of it.

thought i would just highlight what a grizzled, old restaurant vet had to say about this whole mess...i think he has it nailed right on the head.

It's not that it's a scam. It's that, when servers become salespeople, trying to push bottled water, appetizers, top-line cocktails, more expensive wines than you want or need, dessert or whatever, it's annoying as hell. If I want that kind of treatment, I'll hang at the used car lot and listen to the undercoating spiel.

Red Lion (usually) and 21st Amendment (always) checked IDs, which Mr. Henry's did not. Which made them slightly less dive-ish, since there weren't a bunch of 18 year olds abusing their livers. Red Lion also had decent beers on tap. Mr. Henry's had Bud, Budder, and Buddest...

You could afford decent beers? Yuppie!

When I was in school many years ago, the drinking age was still 18 for beer and wine, so the ID thing was no hassle. And Mr. Henry's had folk singers -- if that didn't make it high class, I don't know what does.

On to other dives of the past: anybody remember the Las Vegas Lounge back when it was a strip club? And the Great Jazz Dive, One Step Down (according to on review yellowing on the wall "looks like the kind of place that has a 'smoking' and a 'heavy smoking' section").

And, if you're ever in Seattle, I just had a couple of brews and a non-filtered Camel with a drunk, tootheless retired longshoremen and his 300 pound longshoreman son at a place called the Siren Lounge not far from the docks and the mills. Not just a dive, but a dive where you could very well get your ass kicked for just looking at somebody wrong.

Great Darts setup, though.

I'm not sure Bricks qualifies as a dive - that was the place when I was an undergrad at GW that we went to when we DIDN'T want to go to a dive bar. Which, coincidentally enough, was Mr. Henry's, though it was the 21st and PA NW location, which I think is now the PEPCO building.

Huh. I thought Mr. Henry's was the upscale joint and The Red Lion (or the 21st Amendment) was the dive.

Huh.  We used to go to the Zoo Bar quite a lot in the mid-80's early 90's, and by the end of that time it got pretty yuppified.  Has it changed back? 

It has the distinction of being the only bar I've ever been thrown out of....well except for the long-defunct Chaplins (now a Mexican restaurant).

Townhouse is a good pick.  What about the basement of the Childe Harold?  It has a distinctly divey odor.

The Zoo Bar would be a dive even if they were hosting debutante balls. If it smells like a dive (thus, St. Ex is no dive)...If you're too worried about the clientel, go in the afternoon, when the clientel is old retired guys lying about their youth.

Late and lamented: DC Space.

I dig a good dive, but yesterday was a bit much. I was walking down Pennsylvania Ave toward 8th St SE and saw that Thai Roma (wtf is that anyway?) joint with a bar called Conrad's attached to it. I've walked by a million times and had never been in, so I stopped in for a beer. Yikes, is that place a dump! Only two other people sitting at the bar-- some dude who was obviously off his ass (at 5:30pm), and some haggard looking old broad reading the paper and occasionally mentioning to the bartender that she hadn't had an orgasm since the Eisenhower administration.

The beer was pretty good though.

Lightweight.

Try Nanny O'Brien's in Cleveland Park. A too-high yuppie component but, if it smells like a dive, it is a dive.

The Zoo Bar.

Yo- Hillgrrrl, you go!

But, bigger tips when you're in a large party? I will respectfully listen to anybody currently on the floor, but when I was waiting, we used to consider those things cash cows. Much better to run one large party, especially if they have a set menu, than four little ones.

With its scheduled appearance on the menu at Michel Richard's new joint, we must consign the charcuterie/salumi/cured meat-and-artisanal cheese plate to the trite foods list.

Not that they're not great, mind you. Just that everybody's got one, anymore.

Despite 1789's rep as a place to take your parents and to hang out with tweed-wearing horse folk, I think Ris does a great job of brining in different flavors and styles from southern to Asian to the Carribean. It's not cutting edge, but it's far from staid, and the execution is excellent.

Cannon's has gone spectacularly downhill in my opinion. If you're in G'town, Dean and deLuca's stuff is virtually always frightfully fresh -- and you'll pay for it. It's a small fish counter, but they almost always have the best looking tuna in town.

I rarely get as far out of town as Arrowine just to get cheese, but I found myself in the 'hood the other day to see if Aldo was there (as I had heard).

We used to talk almost weekly when he ran the Cheese Counter at DC's Dean and DeLuca, (don't knw if he was in NYC before that, or not) and he's about the best cheese guy I've ever run into. He remembered me, asked about the kids (they still hate cheese) and sold me some great, obscure stuff. Well worth dropping in.

I hear they have wine there, too.

Mrs. B and I had a great meal at Cafe Milano in, oh, 1991.

Every couple of years we get back, looking for the same magic, but the magic has gone.

The tall blondes looking for men with money, remain, though, so maybe it isn't about the food.

Any flavors this works particularly well with then? If peaches are at Takoma on Sunday, I'm going to try and figure out a good peach sorbet recipe.

I think the nectarine recipe above would adapt well to peaches. It, in turn, is adapted from a Zuni Cafe recipe, so the pedigree is good. I think that the key is that stone fruits are juicy enough already that adding sugar in a syrup would be redundant and dilutive (though, what do I know?).

You should be beaten with the crank of an old-hand-turned ice cream maker for even contemplating a citrus sorbet when there so much extraordinary seasonal fruit in the markets! Eat that stuff in January, when the peaches all come from Brazil and taste like chew toys!

More calmly...

We made a nectarine sorbet last Saturday that had the whole table gasping in wonder and it was frightfully simple.

Peel and puree the nectarines. Add sugar (not sugar syrup) until it tastes just slightly too sweet (it will taste less sweet when it's frozen). Squeeze in lime until there's just a hint of back-end tart. Most people won't know it's in unless you tell them; that's how it should be. Add a pinch of salt. (or add a half-pint of rum and some ice) Strain. Cool. Freeze. Eat. Win the respect of your peers.

More generally:

I can see how a density meter would be great, especially for a pro, but I usually get pretty good results without one. Plus, I'd rather determine sugar level by what tastes good than by what the meter reads.

Mkyte's wisdom on sugar and alcohol is, indeed, wise (as always), though I'm against the implication that low-sugar sorbet is in any way a good thing.

If you are using a maker with a pre-frozen bucket, take the time to cool down your pre-frozen sorbet thoroughly -- particularly if you've had to add a lot of sugar or decided to add a lot of booze -- or the cold may wear off before the sorbet is froze.

Adding a hint of tart, herb, or bitter to the mix tends to bring out the flavors of the main fruit. Once grapefruits are in season (not now!) you can stir a bit of Campari into your grapefruit juice, or boil a little thyme in the sugar water before you add the syrup. A little balsamic with the strawberries. A little lime in the mango (spactacular Haitian mangoes are in season now; mango, lime and syrup-- chilled but unfrozen -- make the perfect lake for scoop of almost any flavor of fruit sorbet to swim in).

Trust your taste more than the recipe. Whoever wrote it doesn't know how sweet this batch of fruit was, you do.

Others argue this point, but sorbets are best eaten the day they are made, and are shadows of themselves by the end of the second day.

Don't forget that pinch of salt.

And, finally, if you want to be really hip, forget fruit sorbet. It's very 90's. Tomato, califlower and, for all I know, bacon sorbet is all the rage now.