Hannah
-
Posts
610 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Articles
Dining Guide
Everything posted by Hannah
-
The newest Ramsay restaurant is the York and Albany, which opened this fall and appears to be pretty reasonably priced compared to some of the others. If you're looking to save money, go at lunchtime - a lot of London restaurants will do a reasonable fixed price lunch that will give you some highlights of their menus. (Unfortunately, Ramsay's main restaurant is not one of the ones that does a cheap lunch - you'll definitely get charged full price there!) In the mid-price-range, MBK mentioned Maze, which is another good bet; there's also Boxwood Cafe, which is slightly more casual modern British than RHR or Claridge's. He's also taken over three historic pubs around London, one of which, the Narrow, has gotten really good reviews, but you could easily drop into one of those for lunch without booking a table.
-
If it was a few years ago, there wouldn't have been anything that sold housewares next to Carmax, so you're probably thinking of the Fortessa outlet just off Sterling Blvd.
-
This must be the Year of the Parsnip - I'm having a hell of a time finding them at the moment. I got the last 3 the Dulles Wegmans had, and while Whole Foods does have them, theirs are tiny and thoroughly unsuitable for roasting.
-
Cafe Constant in the 7th is marvelous, and very reasonable (I think we got out for under 120 euros with wine), but the opening hours/days seem to be a little random. We had to try a couple of times before we caught them open, and I noticed upthread that someone else had tried to go on a night they were supposed to be open and found them closed. It's totally worth the effort, though, and literally a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower if you want to go see the lights after dinner.
-
Artisanal is pretty close, and is very reasonably priced for NYC lunch - 21.50 for a 3-course prix fixe, or lots of sandwich/appetizer/soup options.
-
Sous Vide
Hannah replied to kwhitney's topic in Shopping and News, Cooking and Booze, Parties and Fun, Travel and Sun
I'm reasonably sure that if someone sous-vided one of the books on my desk in clarified butter and shallots for a couple of hours, then grilled it, I'd at least give it a try. -
This parsnip and carrot mash is really, really good, although I end up putting in more parsnip than it originally calls for now that I've made it a couple of times. I'd also second or third the recommendation for parsnip roasties - you really can't go wrong with root veg and large amounts of goose fat/duck fat/lard/etc. I also ran across this parsnip gratin recipe a couple of weeks ago that sounds pretty tasty, although I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
-
Jamaica Jamaica in Herndon also carries their ice cream.
-
Staunton We stopped here on the way back up I-81 yesterday - the burgers are good, and the onion rings are really, really, really good. They also have one particularly evil sounding dessert lurking at the bottom of the ice cream menu - the "Wright's Wheelie" consists of a glazed donut topped by a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream, and your choice of sundae topping. I didn't try it because I needed to be able to drive without vibrating out of existence, but someone else may want to take one for the team at some point.
-
I was not able to convince the parents to go to Hong Kong House this week due to the recent epic health inspection fail. It appears they did improve to a passing grade of 81 on the reinspection, but since the restaurant inspection report is one of the most popular features of the Knoxville evening news, HKH's business isn't going to be very good for a while.
-
While E&C are so corporate as to make one's eyes bleed, the Londoner whose rants on the subject I perpetually have to listen to rates their fish and chips over Commonwealth's. Apparently their fish has the proper batter-to-fish ratio and the chips are significantly less wrong, although Eamonn's still wins out overall in the chipstakes. And they do have Fuller's on draft, although why someone in this town can't manage to acquire kegs of some variety of Young's is beyond me.
-
Yeah, my grandmother's fried pie recipes are all for tree fruit, no pumpkin. I'm willing to be convinced, though - the pictures do look good.
-
My burger on Sunday was awesome, as was the spouse's. There was rootbeer. There was particularly fabulous cole slaw. No umbrage here.
-
Just for a dissenting opinion, we ate at Ford's back in August and thought it was excellent. Very good charcuterie and cheese, lovely salads, interesting entrees, a nicely creative cocktail program, and, for dessert, one of the most evilly genius things I've ever tasted - Toblerone ice cream. It's not fine dining, but it's not trying to be - if I had to describe it in terms of someplace around here, it would be as a more casual version of Sonoma.
-
They still do - saw it on Friday.
-
As well as a special thanks to Timo Glock and Ross Brawn for not changing tires when everyone else did.
-
I expect this one will be a little better staged than the dress rehearsal of Carmen that served as my introduction to opera. My one vivid memory of that evening was seeing Carmen get stabbed squarely in the backside.
-
The reopened 2nd Avenue Deli in New York brings out a dish of gribenes for pre-ordering munchies. They're insanely good.
-
Blanco's clear - much nicer if you prefer your margaritas not to be brown. Any subtlety you might be gaining with a reposado is likely to be drowned out by the citrus if you're mixing with it anyway. I've been using Herradura Silver for margaritas at home for the last few years - it seems pretty well received by all and isn't wildly expensive, although it doesn't quite make the $25 cutoff here IIRC.
-
If people haven't taken advantage of this yet, they really should - the pork chop is particularly wonderful, and the soups and springrolls are excellent as always. I realize it was Monday and times are rough, but we were the only people in the bar for a while, and that's kind of scary.
-
Mmm, yes. I just came in from standing outside for a fire drill, and this is getting on towards pie weather. You'll undoubtedly be familiar with saveloys as well, then - another of those foods that only really seems like a good idea when you're basking in the glow from the glass case in the chip shop.
-
The beef tallow chips are the true standouts, but even the places that have switched to vegetable oil but still have the giganto-vat can generally manage a much higher standard than we get over here. I'd assume that there's a much smaller temperature change when any given amount of spud or fish is dropped into one of the giganto-vats than into your standard Frialator, and that the difference there must be noticeable in the end product.
-
And then there was this: They're not fries, they're chips, and they're supposed to be large and somewhat squishy. His "tablemate" is an idiot. That being said, the chips at Commonwealth aren't appropriately chiply either - the size is fine, but they're overly dry, like they were oven-baked instead of fried. Eamonn's chips are still the closest approximation of a decent post-pub bag of chips available in the area, and they're not quite right either - current spousal theory is that OSHA/Dept. of Health regulations don't permit the truly gigantic vat of oil necessary for the production of proper chips.
-
I remember a comment from him several weeks ago about Vidalia "straying from its roots," which seems to me like a not-so-subtle way of saying he doesn't like the changes in the menu. There may be more variation in style and ingredients on the menu than there used to be a few years ago, but you can say that about pretty much every other place in town as well. And, certainly, making the best possible use of what's available is firmly in the tradition of Southern cooking, modern or otherwise, so I fail to see how that's a diversion from their "roots". If someone's wedded to the shrimp and grits, they're still there. If they want to try something else, they have the option. I don't get it either, but I also don't get how Bar Pilar doesn't make the wine-and-nibbles list along with some of the other places he listed.
-
No - the questions that are asked and answered in one thread don't always get transferred to the other, so there's always going to be duplication and/or omission. If it's a special event, there should be one thread for it in Events and all the discussion before the event should happen there - that way the people who just want to look at the restaurant thread don't have to wade through multiple postings about the event.