Hannah

I've had two comments just today from experienced users of this website, essentially saying 'I now need a user's manual to navigate dr.com.'

The letters surprised me a bit, because other than the fact that the new look is (temporarily) ABOMINABLY UGLY, I don't really see what else has changed in terms of day-to-day use. Can someone make this clear for me so I can work on it?

Thank you!

Rocks

One thing that's been particularly annoying since the change is that you can't simply click on a thread title and drop back into the thread where you were before - Invision 3 doesn't seem to use the "last visited" info like Invision 2 did, and if you click on a thread title it'll drop you at the very first post of the thread unless you specifically click on a page number or on the "x minutes ago" last post indicator, which on a particularly active thread means you end up backtracking one or two pages to figure out where it was you stopped reading. (and yes, I know the "view new posts" button is supposed to take care of this, but I don't like it.)

Kudos to the staff and management at Passionfish for handling the unusual number of asshats they seemed to have been inundated with tonight with considerable aplomb.

We were seated between one table with vastly unreasonable expectations of how long it should take food to be delivered at prime time on a Saturday night (as in, not just as you're finishing your appetizer), who were at least polite. Then there was the other table, who were convinced they were far more familiar with the concepts of inventory and management than the restaurant's GM, and expressed their supposed expertise to him at significant length and volume, because their preferred fresh fish entrees were 86ed by the time they were seated, at 9:15, on a busy Saturday - apparently the concept of "our fish is fresh and when it runs out we can't just pop into the freezer and thaw something out for you" was completely new to them. They also were not particularly nice about their objections, unlike table 1.

Everything we had was spectacularly fresh and delivered in a reasonable amount of time given that every single seat in the entire place was filled - if you go to dinner at Reston Town Center on the Saturday of the Reston Festival, you expect all the restaurants to be packed and plan accordingly. We were going to have a word with the GM on the way out to make sure our server didn't get blamed for any of the evening's idiocy, but he was last seen trotting up the stairs to the other seating area, undoubtedly to deal with further idiocy there.

Leopold Bros are going to start distributing their liquors in the DC/VA/MD area and will be hosting a series of tastings in the area. There will be a tasting TONIGHT (Wednesday) from 5-7pm at Napa 1015 from (1015 H Street NE). Tasting will include vodka, blackberry whiskey, and absinthe, and they're offering cocktail deals on drinks that include any Leopold Bros spirits.

Full disclosure: Lisa is friends with the owners and asked me to post this. I will say that we do enjoy their gin and tart cherry liqueur. I'll try to post more of their tastings as they happen.

Schneider's has carried a few of their products for a while, and I can personally vouch for the peach whiskey - it's sweet but not overly so, and has a nice balance of fruit to whiskey flavor, which bodes well for some of the other offerings.

At the moment, I'd say either one of the pair of Wild Honey or Arbutus (the two restaurants share an exec. chef and ownership) would be most similar to Komi food- and atmosphere-wise. Wild Honey is the newer of the two, and has gotten slightly better reviews, but the cooking styles and pricing are basically the same at both. As you'll see from the linked reviews, they're considered the "foodie's choice" restaurants rather than having any sort of see-and-be-seen allure. They're also pretty reasonably priced for the level of cooking, which is a nice bonus.

Food and beer sucks at Summers, but they subscribe to every futbol package known to mankind, and will open at all hours of the night/day in order to show matches around the world live.

During the larger international tournaments, and I don't even mean the World Cup, they'll charge a cover, and they'll still sell the house out. They're always on the lists of "best soccer bars" in the US.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the cover charges now that Setanta's lost the EPL contract, since they were the ones who required the ridiculous cover charges ($20 per person for rugby broadcasts, presumably something not quite so ridiculous for the Premier League since it's a bigger draw).

But ALL chaps are assless! It's like saying ATM machine...

I've been arguing this point for years with no success - just give up now. Here, they are and will always be "assless chaps."

I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other on the dress code issue generally, but, having gone to Zaytinya before a concert at the Verizon Center, it occurs to me that this might be a place where t-shirts (including band shirts) might be expected to pop up on certain evenings. I imagine it's something the management there and at other places nearby know they will be dealing with.

If a restaurant has a stated dress code, I follow it, but I'm not too concerned about how other people comply.

As far as that goes, I've worn the appropriate smart casual to pre-concert dinners at Corduroy and changed into appropriate concert attire (t-shirt and shorts/jeans) in the loo after dinner. This was far less puzzling to the staff in the old space, but it seems to work for everyone.

We were in for lunch on Saturday, and had some of the same problems with waitstaff not knowing the menu ("I'm sorry, you can't order those separately (looks at menu) - oh, hang on, that's changed!"), unexplained delays, etc. I think there's potential there - I really liked the bacon roasted almonds and the ham cracklings that are available as snacks, and the burger with gorgonzola met with spousal approval.

On the other hand, I think Barton Seaver and I have a fundamental disagreement over the concept of "gravy" - I'm reasonably sure that when you describe something as gravy on a menu and don't put it in Thomas Keller-style ironic quotes, there ought to be some sort of liquid component. Thus, my crispy grits cakes with mushroom gravy should have appeared with some sort of mushroomy liquid accompaniment, not with lightly sauteed, barely glistening chunks of mushroom with no gravy to be seen. The cakes themselves were good, they just needed some actual gravy to go along with them. It didn't occur to me at the time that the kitchen might have forgotten a component of the dish, since the mushrooms were there, so it may be that I was supposed to get gravy and didn't.

Like I said, I do think there's potential, but there are some kinks to work out.

Bumping to note that as of tomorrow, June 15, Eastern Market will be closed so that the vendors can move back into the renovated South Hall. The outside market will go on as usual next weekend, and the grand reopening will happen on Friday, June 26th. Details here.

[in this thread, you guys can babble on as you see fit.]

Never mind YouTube, the man himself is playing Blues Alley this weekend. A local venue, where they serve food. Now, how's that for on topic?

Just don't ever try to unsubscribe from the email; they are incapable of removing your address from their list. I've been trying for months now, including calling the registration number and asking to have my address removed, and have finally just resorted to filtering the address so I don't see the emails any more.

Looks like there's going to be a Pitango in Reston Town Center as well, so yeah, there ought to be a thread both places.

BTW, Jake mentioned this last night, the bread at Pilar is so perfect for what it's used for - the white anchovies, the sunnyside up egg with salmon roe, goat cheese, conveyance for mussel sauce. Mmm...

I don't think we've been to Pilar without ordering the anchovies - the bread-plus-anchovy combination is just spectacular.

FWIW, I think that last drink on the list should be SMS, not "sans."

It's a bit of a small trek for me to Herndon, but has anyone been to KSB Cafe? They claim to be NY bagels.

I am happy to report that KSB's bagels are very acceptable indeed. They've got a proper crisp-but-not-shattery crust, a nice chewy inside, and they toast up nicely if you prefer your bagels toasted (we got one sesame toasted, one untoasted for comparison purposes). Their scallion and salmon cream cheeses are also very good, which even if the bagels weren't better would give them a substantial leg up over their main Herndon/Reston area competitor, Bagel Cafe.

I'd have to give them another shot before I say they're worth trekking out from DC or Maryland, but I'd certainly recommend them to the Northern Virginia folks right now.

It's a bit of a small trek for me to Herndon, but has anyone been to KSB Cafe? They claim to be NY bagels.

Hmmm, very interesting. Will investigate and report back forthwith.

Wegman's has been carrying these for about a month now, and yeah, the chocolate chip cookies are pretty spectacular. The oatmeal raisin aren't bad either - great texture, but a tiny bit too much cinnamon for my taste. I have the ginger snaps at home as well but haven't tried them yet. Wegman's are also selling lemon sugar and plain sugar varieties.

I've been meaning to ask on the Baltimore forum if anybody knows if Otterbein's are commercial-only, or if there's a storefront somewhere? If there is, it's likely worth a visit.

I've tried meduim-rare, medium, and medium-well Hell-burgers, and prefer the medium & medium-well versions. Melting the fat a little more makes them more flavorful. The trick is not to press them so that they lose said fat during cooking, and the grill-masters there know what they are doing.

I'd love to know why The Hill name checks Spike but not Michael in this:

The Hill.

Clearly they're not very bright, because it still says Ray's is in Alexandria.

Via The Hill:

The Hill’s White House correspondent, Sam Youngman, informed us minutes ago that the president and vice president left the White House for their weekly lunch, and headed to Alexandria, Va. for lunch.

According to one Twitter user, President Obama and Vice President Biden are continuing in this administration’s affinity for cheeseburgers, dining at a burger joint in Virginia.

The Washington Times’s Amanda Carpenter tweeted Tuesday:

So Obama and Biden are eating at Ray’s Hell Burger. That’s a block from my house. But I’m at work. No fun!

(Not sure why they have it located in Alexandria...)

I'm totally new here. I missed something. What is the Retro Pepsi sweetened with? Sugar? Cane sugar? I thought those were the same....different from High Fructose Corn syrup. Please explain. Thanks.

Sucrose (sugar) isn't always produced from sugar cane; it can also come from sugar beets. Pepsi/Dew Throwback are just saying "natural sugar," so which source they're using isn't specified, although most of what we see in the US is cane sugar.

Wow. The sound guy's either deaf, or she's killed him by constantly shouting into the mike like that.

The entire point of the star system is to provide a way to differentiate the restaurants from one another - when every other restaurant gets two and a half stars, they might as well go back to not having stars anymore.

That being said, the review, yet again, doesn't read like two and a half stars - he likes the food, he likes the service, everything is great and fab and groovy except for the one pasta dish he didn't care for and the stuff the restaurant can't help (the economy and the fact that someone didn't want the valet to park their Aston). He either needs to get better at reading his own reviews, his editor needs to talk to him about syncing the star ratings with what's actually in the review, or a bunch of people need to start writing letters to point this crap out every time it happens.

Zora, why haven't you reported back on the new Fleur de sel caramel? Saw pints recently in grocery stores.

Think this was created as a presidential homage?

Probably not, since it was introduced in April 2008.

The Portland location was featured on Food Network's Secret Life of . . . Pancakes. The Dutch Baby looked interesting, if not moderately unhealthy.

You slather it with butter, shake on some sugar, and squeeze a lemon over the whole thing.

I don't suppose I could get this in Falls Church?

Yep, it's on the menu at all of them.

You're forgetting Denny's, which is even worse. You're right about Waffle House; much better, and sort of along the same lines as the lamented Toddle House. According to the Waffle House website, the closest one to Washington is in Dumfries VA, which would be rather a long way to go for eggs and bacon late at night.

There's also one in Manassas - apparently there's some sort of bacon-grease and hash-brown rampart along Business 234. You've got to love a chain that's gone to the lengths of having special songs recorded about themselves to add to the selections on the jukebox, including "Special Lady at the Waffle House."

What do I miss?

Shakey's Pizza in Bethesda, near the metro and across from what was the Hot Shoppes (now Chevy Chase Bank HQ).

The Shakey's in Annandale didn't close until '02 or '03, and could still crank out highly acceptable pizza.