jandres374

Looking to pick up about 6 hanger steaks for a party this weekend.

Any suggestions on the best place to pick these up? Since I assume Michael will not part with any of his.

I saw some at Balducci's last weekend. What about some of the butchers in the area - anyone had any luck. Alexandria or Bethesda if possible.

Stopped by Balducci's today at lunchtime and they are advertising the following:

USDA Prime NY Strip Steak - $9.99/lb (Regularly $25.99/lb)

Wagyu Kobe Beef NY Strip Steak - $15.99/lb (Regularly $45.99/lb)

Has anyone ever tried the wagyu from here? Is it worth the price?

Prices are good from 5/20 to 5/25. Also, there is a $5 off $25 purchase in the Post today.

Just finished off my first Al's cheesesteak and it was a pretty good original for this area. The meat was finely diced with very little fat and and good amount of meat on the roll. The roll was also a nice version of the original and held up well to the steak and onions. I will definitely be back.

I thought I recall seeing some shaved ribeye at Trader Joes a while ago.

I should mention that for the $8.50 at Black Salt they do clean them for you.

Picked up some nice soft shells at Black Salt on Sunday. I believe they were from NC. Not cheap though - $8.50 each.

It has been awhile since we have been here but four of us hit the Georgetown location last night. We arrived around 7 and found about a 30 minute wait, which gave us a chance to sample some beers in the downstairs bar.

We were seated in about 30 minutes in the downstairs part of the restaurant. We shared an app of the crostini (garlic bread with goat cheese, prosciutto and mushroom). It was ok nothing special.

All four had pizza (2 atomicas, 1 margherita with anchovy, 1 paradisio). Everyone had the same conclusion on the pizza - it was just ok. Pizzas were slightly undercooked so they were a little doughy and the crust just seems to be missing something in my opinion.

For my money I would rather head to Two Amy's or Mia's.

Perfect place to celebrate a birthday dinner tonight. Everything was perfect but the best part of the night was when my 5 year old (after devouring 1/2 of the hanger steak) turned to me and said "why have you never brought me to this place before, this is awesome.

I had the bistro special with crab bisque, hanger steak and key lime pie. Also had a NY strip, which was perfect. They were nice enough to split the bistro special for my two kids (salad, hanger and cheesecake). Also had the Las Perdices malbec.

Great birthday meal, could not have asked for more.

I've always been underwhelmed by the food at these places, to the point where they are all redundant (short smoked salmon anyone?) and it's difficult to find something worth eating on the menu. I've been to at least six of them, they are almost always crowded and overly noisy, and finding something to eat other than short smoked salmon on cloyingly sweet salad or too salty drunken ribeye is difficult. I once tried the pork chops at Silverado, thinking they would be a nice change of pace, and they were cooked to an inedible dryness. At least at Clyde's, most of the entrees have different sides carefully matched with the entree. Not at GAR....

They don't pretend to be cutting edge or aspire to be that. They aim to be consistent and offer options that most people are comfortable with and enjoy and I think they are successful in that plan. If you are looking for anything more you will be disappointed. Based on how busy they seem to be even in this economy I would say they have foudn their target audience.

Made a reservation today for Ray's the Steaks on Thursday (easier for us to get there than Classics during rush hour). The little ones have no idea the treat they are about to have. Wish my parents would have taken me to some place like this when I was 7 or 5 years old.

My birthday is this Thursday and my wife would like to take me out to a special dinner. The only catch is that we will also have our two kids with us, ages 7 and 5.

Any suggestions for places to get a great meal that can also accomodate kids. My 7 year old will be fine anywhere but the 5 year old is a little more difficult (pickey eater and not one for long drawn out meals).

I was thinking maybe Palena Cafe, Ray's, Black Salt.

We are in the Bethesda, NW DC area so anything nearby would be helpful as we will both be coming from work and likely will not have time for a long commute.

OK, Go to Pat'a or Jims in Philly and order a "cheesesteak hoagie" , make sure you ask for mayo too and let us know "how it goes"

Not sure about Pat's but Jim's does offer a Steak Hoagie (lettuce and tomatoe).

My go to places for a cheesesteak when I get back home is either Mama's Pizzeria in Bala Cynwyd or Dalessandro's in Roxborough both offer cheesesteak hoagies, although I have never been tempted to try one. Why ruin something so good by putting a salad on top of it.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Classic-Spani...ria/Detail.aspx

This is my family's go-to sangria, never had a complaint, with most people clamoring for more. We usually add other fruits not listed as well. Trsut me, you can't go wrong here, and with 1.5 cups of rum to boot, you'll tie on a nice one

Thanks. This is the version we went with and it was a big hit. We also added some additional fruit. Not really my thing but my wife wanted to make it and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Thanks again to all who provided suggestions.

My wife is making a batch of sangria for a party this weekend. She found a recipe that is supposedly from Jaleo.

What type of red wine does one typically use for sangria. Also, I am a little skeptical of the recipe. If anyone has a go to sangria recipe please send my way.

Heading here for dinner on Friday with some out of towners. Any new interesting wines since the takeover by Slater.

We will have family in town the weekend on May 2-3 and thought we would try an ealry mother's day brunch since it is rare that we have everyone in the same place at one time. We will be 8 adults and 2 kids and looking for something in lower Montgomery County or NW DC. Never really do brunch so I am kind of at a loss for ideas.

The only thing that has crosssed my mind to date is Black Salt.

Not too much in this area. We went to a show a couple weeks ago there and we hit up the Old Ebbitt for happy hour specials before the show.

Seems like this topic won't die. From Kilman's Chog Today:

Todd

Dean from Dino. Using a cell phone in a restaurant, even to send messages, is disturbing to other customers and is a frequent complaint of our customers. This party di in fact make a lenngthy phone call and then both of them were sending text messages for 15+ minutes after paying their boll on a busy Saturday night. I did let them know of our no cell phone policy {clearly stated on our menu}, that there was another party waiting for their table and asking them to be considerate of others waiting. Thanks for the opportunity to respond

Todd Kliman:

Thanks for chiming in, Dean.

If I see a no-cell policy posted in a public place, I assume that it refers to speaking on the phone, not texting on the phone. (Hospitals are different.)

I don't get why people would be put out by people texting. It's silent. It's not a disruption.

"Disturbing"? Really? Customers are "disturbed" by something they can't read or can't hear?

I'll tell you what disturbs me. Sitting next to someone in a restaurant, in close quarters (so many tables at restaurants are about three inches apart these days), and being made to feel as though we are never to make eye contact or look over, or -- heavens! -- strike up a conversation.

It happens a lot in this town.

To me, that's a violation of the social compact. If you want to maintain a cone of silence around you, if you want to have a sense of solitude among others -- stay home. You go out to engage with the world, whatever may come.

I am disturbed by people doing business at dinner.

I am disturbed by braggarts, at restaurants where the food and drink are exceptional, talking loudly about investments and housing prices.

I am disturbed by people who bully waitstaff.

Im assuming Dean from Dino regrets writing in...

Todd Kliman:

I don't know if he regrets it or not -- although I don't see why he would.

People can disagree.

He's entitled to explain his policy, and I'm entitled to explain why I that policy is silly. ; )

re: the Dino comment. :

I cannot believe that the owner would make up those statements, as I am one of the guests, and neither me or my friend made any calls during our visit.

I used my phone to calculate tip, so unless Dean would like me and my horrible math skills to stiff the waitress, I suggest that he overlook the 15 second phone usage. The food is quite good at Dino, too bad the owner is not very customer-service friendly.

Todd Kliman:

See, this is one of the problems -- you can't know what, exactly, someone is doing with a "phone" nowadays.

Thanks for writing in.

Stopped by tonight for dinner with my two kids (7 and 5). Nice space - hardly resembles the old Lousiana Kitchen. Arrived around 6:30 and the place was less than half full but by the time we left if was about 3/4 full. They also have a few tables outside and 3-4 seats at the very small bar. Seeemed to be family friendly as their were a couple tables with small children.

The wine list by the glass is fairly pedestrian but then again it is MontCo. I was able to find a malbec for around $6 a glasss.

Very happy to see they had a kids menu. Typical kids menu - pizza, chicken fingers, buttered noodles, etc. My kids seemed to enjoy their meals - mozarella stick (actually a mozarella sandwich) and pepperoni pizza. My 5 year old stated he preferred the pizza at Mia's over the pizza here. I tried a slice and it was actually a pretty decent kids pie for the price. I think it was around $5.95.

I had the the Sausage Rigatoni $ 12.95 Red wine tomato sauce with sausage, shallots and fresh fennel. I was not expecting much but it was actually above avergae. The sausage in the dish was tasty but did no overwhelm the dish.

In total $40 + tip for 1 adult meal, 2 glasses of wine and 2 kids meal. Fairly decent value for Bethesda where we have gotten used to being overcharged for mediocre food, wine and bad service.

Nice, attentive service. We will be back to try out some other dishes. All in all a nice addition to the neighborhood. Hope they can make a go of it in a tough location. Pizza Zero next door looked virtually abandoned.

Convinced a couple coworkers to hit up the Brabo Tasting Room for lunch today. Not a very large space but decent size with a bar for single diners. We hit a couple things on the menu including the Five Onion Soup ($8), Roast Beef Sandwich ($12), Oven Roasted Chicken Sandwich ($12) and the Mussels ($15). Just going back now and reading the menu on-line I realized that the two of us who ordered the mussels did not receive any frites, not sure how I overlooked it. I don't recall seeing it on the menu while we were there but on-line menu clearly shows that it comes with it. The clear winner was the mussels, nice size portion and very size nice. Had a couple of bottle beers each, no beer on tap as reported by others and confirmed by our waiter that they have no plans to add tap beer.

Service was very nice and pace of the meal was excellent. They seemed to be doing a fairly decent business at lunch.

Man I am bummed I did not get any frites.

Since I work in the area I will have to put this on the regular rotation. Would also like to hit the main restaurant part soon.

On February 17, 2009, 1106 KING RESTAURANT, LLC DBA LE GAULOIS filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Finally had a chance to eat here today for RW lunch - they are not open for lunch and I work pretty much across the street. The place was packed today at around 12:30, although the dining room is not very large. There were 5 us and between us we had:

Apps

Painted soup (smoky chestnut, gingery squash, beet cider)

sourdough beignets | caramelized apples | candied red cabbage

Mains

Tarragon gnudi

cinnamon roasted pork loin | sweet potato | african cabbage confit

Salmon

Dessert

Chocolate espresso cheesecake

Sorbet of some type

Everything was well received by the group with the soup and salmon being the highlights. Did not get to try the pork but it looked very tender and cooked perfectly. Good pace to meal with nice service. Only a few minor quibbles - noticed we did not get any bread like other tables with 4 different spreads and waiter kept mixing up who was getting what dish and he also had same problem with drinks and dessert spoons versus forks.

Really wish this place would open for lunch on a regular basis, even if they only do it on Fridays like Hank's Oyster Bar does in Old Town.

Since I work down the street from the Old Town location we usually hit the place up every two weeks or so. The lunch deal is hard to beat - 2 slices of pizza and salad, drink included for $6. The pizza is usually fairly consistent.

Bethesda has extended its RW to Saturday, Feb. 7, and it's great that lunch is only $12 pre-tax for any two items on the RW menu here. Following MMM, I chose the Warm Spicy Ginger Cake with Caramelized Cinnamon Ice Cream & Apple Date Butter for my second course, with Shrimp, tasso gravy & stone-ground grits as my first course. I really thought the Shrimp with grits (or grits-substitute of polenta today, due to a vendor issue) was going to be appetizer size, so I was all set to choose a main course as my second course, when I saw the actual dish. There was 4 big pieces of shrimp (sorry, but I am bad at shrimp varieties) with plenty of tasso that ended up being very flavorful in combination and individually and very filling. Service was very attentive and warm. Definitely worth a trip here if you can spare time this week.

I am working from home tomorrow and thinking about stopping by for lunch. What is the crowd like at lunchtime - is it difficult to grab a seat at the bar during lunch this week?

There's also a tasting menu option which opens with two seafood items, then moves through fowl and venison, then to an intriguing elderflower soup, and closing with two dessert courses for a total of seven courses, priced at $93.

Wow - seems a little steep granted without knowing much about the details of the menu. By comparison:

CityZen - $110/5 course

Komi - $125

This would put the cooking in the price range with some exceptional company. I look forward to trying it out soon.

Wish them all the best on the opening.

Noticed this place tonight, located on Bethesda Ave next to Pizza Zero. Anyone know anything about this place.

Noticed a few people inside but chairs were stacked on tables so it does not look like they are open yet.