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southdenverhoo

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Everything posted by southdenverhoo

  1. southdenverhoo
    I'm firmly Team Waybourn/Myers, but I'm not sure it is accurate to say The Plains "governs itself in a normal fashion." Maybe "normal" for The Plains. I love The Plains, grew up about 6 miles from there, played baseball there (for the Warrenton Lions against The Plains Cardinals), always stop at least once at The Front Porch when home, looked at one point at buying a little building on Bragg St. for a nano-brewery, so this is not a criticism, just a statement as to village life in the Virginia Piedmont. To be specific, the original, dating back many years ago before either party had an ownership interest in their respective properties, shared parking "agreement" is perhaps a little sketchy in terms of its compliance with the Town's own ordinance and may be vulnerable in this upcoming July appeal, is all I'm saying. I'll just note that, strictly judging from the signage behind the businesses, there is also at least some tension between The Rail Stop and its neighbors (across the street from The Front Porch) over parking as well. I always just park as far up the street as necessary to avoid annoying anybody; the walk is good for me anyway.
  2. southdenverhoo
    Big news in Fauquier County hospitality, if not mentioned elsewhere (I looked, but perhaps not effectively): "Noyes Selling Red Truck Bakery to the Operators of Field & Main" by Trevor Baratko on fauquiernow.com
  3. southdenverhoo
    Flint Hill VA: Griffin Tavern, per Facebook post today by the owners, sold to Mark Kirwan who (I believe) owns or owned a favorably reviewed Irish pub in Old Town Alexandria, https://www.donrockwell.com/topic/3208-daniel-oconnells-old-town-alexandria-irish-pub-without-freezers-on-king-street/#comment-40085. Looks like it's gonna be called the Dark Horse Irish Pub. The Griffin Tavern's Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=griffin tavern flint hill va (scrolling down only a few posts I see a high school classmate Vincent Day posting about a musical night at the old Griffin)
  4. southdenverhoo
    Just heard (via somebody who should know, local blues singer and guitar player Cathy Ponton King) that Ledo has closed. Story she linked indicates there was an almost-sale in May which fell through, that Tommy Marcos is in bad health, and that they decided to close. Apparently the rest of the franchises will continue, as the franchise chain has been under different ownership for awhile. But this is curtains for a 65 year old establishment.
  5. southdenverhoo
    My family moved to Warrenton in 1959 and this place apparently opened per its website in 1979, which is the year I left Virginia for Denver. I feel like there was a seafood place there before that, maybe going back to the mid 60s. It was a little rougher, more of a beer joint that served seafood. My father worked in Gainesville for a defense contractor, so he went to the predecessor a few times and hated it. So we never went. He and my mother went to this incarnation back in the 90s and pronounced it OK but nothing special. So in my frequent, but brief, trips back I’ve never been. (He’s from the Tidewater and is a bit of a seafood snob) But Facebook tells me that this a very popular spot with all the folks I went to high school with...for a nice, if not anniversary-level, night out. That plus your review means I’ll finally give it a try, so thanks. PS are you, like, living in Fauquier County these days?
  6. southdenverhoo
    Sometimes people don't know what their voices sound like, or how aggressive their body language can be, or even how repetitive the exchange has become, when they believe they are communicating calmly regarding a matter in dispute. Especially when they believe with some justification that they've been 'hard done by,' as the English say. That said, even in the face of some emotion, a host who has made an exception to a long standing rule and then denied that same exception to a party who was standing right there and witnessed said exception, should have more in his arsenal than "You know what, I'm not going to seat you." Perhaps his true calling, which I'm sure we all hope he finds, lies somewhere outside the host/maitre d' arena.
  7. southdenverhoo
    Kangaroo walks into a steakhouse, takes a seat at the bar. Orders a "Cauliflower Steak." Bartender says "That'll be $32, and you know, by the way, we don't see very many kangaroos in here." Kangaroo says...well, you know this part.
  8. southdenverhoo
    oh god, i just read an article about this in the Bon Appetit in my surgeon's office that made me never ever want to eat or even see this again...
  9. southdenverhoo
    I just want to say, the hidden jewel in this dusty ol' cowtown was, is, and will always be Potager at 11th & Ogden. This is their 20 th anniversary year. Spring menu just posted (Link). (The radishes, a small thing I guess, I have had over the years and when I saw the menu posted on the window on my morning stroll was very happy to see them back...just a plate of radishes with sea salt and butter, slightly smoked...simple, perfect.) Don't let the low prices fool you. Owner Teri Ripetto was doing farm-to-table before it was a thing around here, and everything has always been executed with gracel and the utmost respect to the ingredient in my experience, which has spanned the last 7 of those years, since we moved three blocks away. We are just slightly further away, but still an effortless walk, from more hyped, and very very good places, such as Alex Seidel's Fruition or Frank Bonanno's Mizuna, Luca d'Italia, and Bones, but rarely go to any of them. So we vote, with our feet, I guess, for Potager.
  10. southdenverhoo
    Ah..I understand better now, thanks to Lisa Fricano and DaveO.
  11. southdenverhoo
    have more words ever been written on this site about a place that served so few meals? no insult intended to the principals, in whose shoes, though less publicly and dramatically, I have stood...
  12. southdenverhoo
    LOL, and I read the post over 3x before posting, that was a line I could have done better with... I have had a lot of bad BBQ sauce in my time! "Not awful" is not as faint praise as it would seem...my own, and I have fiddled with it quite awhile, is only "not awful" in my opinion. BBQ shouldn't need more than a light toss w/ an eastern NC vinegar-and-pepper thing IMO, and the sauce usually is a distraction and a minus. But BBQ Country's dryness, in my experience, the last of which was admittedly over 2 years ago, requires some sauce for much needed moisture.
  13. southdenverhoo
    I have friends who like this place but I have given it 3 tries when home and really regretted the second two, because of the way, the first time, the proprietor weighed my pulled pork (dry, like Mountainfried's) on a little scale before plopping it on the bread, so as to make sure he didn't give me a fraction of an ounce more than the (quite mean,IMO) 4 fucking ounces the establishment deemed appropriate for a sandwich. Sauce wasn't awful, in fact had a nice tangy-ness (my preference is tangy with low sweetness) but the smoke was low (and I prefer a subtle smoke, but this underwhelmed even me). On the pro-side, there was a legit smoke ring, and the wood used appeared to this amateur to be all hickory, and absent the dryness the flavor was good. But for the meanness of the portion-I mean he actually pulled a scant tong-full off the scale and dropped it back in his hotel pan-I might have called it "OK." Which I know exposes me to the Shecky Greene (I think) line about the food is so terrible here, and such small portions... Second and third tries mirrored the first. This place got a, like, top "5 or 10 in the South" (I forget which) from the Charleston southern lifestyle magazine "Garden & Gun," which has made me extremely dubious about every other word ever written in Garden & Gun. They may have liked the proximity to Clark Brothers Gun Shop, an absolutely 24 carat honest-to-God southern landmark, which actually is "worth a detour," to (mis)appropriate the Michelin lexicon...
  14. southdenverhoo
    A friend posted a picture of members of the O'Bannon family (who owned the building before, next to their hardware store) seated at a table "celebrating the opening of Field & Main" on facebook so I assume the opening is imminent and this was some sort of friends and family thing... sincerely, your Denver-based Fauquier County correspondent.
  15. southdenverhoo
    In Vail proper, for lunch or dinner, I like Mountain Standard. Good local beer list which means possibly more to me than many others. Years ago we liked Campo de Fiore if it's still there, but I haven't been in years. For breakfast I like Northside Kitchen in Avon, probably pretty good lunch too. But it possibly exemplifies the Yogi Berra line, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's always too crowded." Hip Vail-ites may have better options that haven't been over-run....
  16. southdenverhoo
    another reason for me to make more frequent trips home. I was hoping for a Ben & Mary's renaissance but this will be a better building if I remember which one it is. and not all that much further from the house I grew up in. Certainly closer than Paris. Waiting with bated hreath...
  17. southdenverhoo
    Per http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/beer-fueled-fight-in-fairfax-prompts-officials-to-look-at-state-farming-law/2015/05/09/af3c202e-ef7c-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html?hpid=z3 it looks like the owner your wife spoke to, who also owns Trattoria Villagio, has withdrawn his plans.
  18. southdenverhoo
    comments to popville link suggest new place from Bardia coming to Vermont & U...per ANC agenda...
  19. southdenverhoo
    Same chef and bar manager though. But for the fact that the last guy forgot to renew the liquor license the place might have stayed open continuously, but they had to re-apply and used the time waiting for the new liquor license to spruce the place up a bit. I believe Mr. Moliere always owned the building and was heavily invested as a backer of the former "owner", to the extent that he controlled the situation and had the power to boot the guy.
  20. southdenverhoo
    wow, a reporter from the New York Times thinks Denver winters are "brutal". BTW, the first "farm to fork" exponent in Denver was the inimitable Teri Ripetto at Potager, Denver's best under-the-radar restaurant since it opened in 1997. Folks like Eric Seidel of Fruition, given top billing in the quoted NYT piece, frequently acknowledge that fact, but Ms. Ripeto's almost pathological avoidance of any form of self-promotion or, really, even minimal advertising for her restaurant means it's the fortunate out-of-towner indeed who finds his or her way over to 11th and Ogden. I know I'm responding to a 3 yearn old post but dcs and Dino's posts brought this back to the top, and I also realized I haven't responded to any of the "Intrepid Traveler" posts to which this might have been a helpful response! And I'm eating there tonight, so it's at the forefront of my consciousness...
  21. southdenverhoo
    I think some brett stains can at least get "tart" but I don't disagree with pras's point. (Edit to add: I guess TedE already said this, clearer than i...) Do you folks get entries from Crooked Stave from Denver CO in your market? If so I would recommend their "L'Brett d'Or" (excuse the ignorant-of-french-grammar name) which, though it mentions brett in its name, has all sorts of pedio and lacto and other wild things that impart the sort of sourness I think you guys are talking about.
  22. southdenverhoo
    You're going to love it. You have to do it. I went, May 7-May 13, hit Cantillon in Brussels, St. Bernardus and Westvleteren/St. Sixtus in Watou, Orval near Florentville (Villers-devant-Orval I guess) and Drie Fonteinen in Beersel, along with a bunch of great beer bars. Unfortunately turned away at the restaurant connected to Brasserie de Blaugies; it was Mother's Day and we hadn't thought to reserve. (I didn't even know Mother's Day was a thing in France, and this was in the very-much-French province of Hainault) Don, St. Bernardus used to make the St Sixtus beers until the brothers at St. Sixtus decided it was more appropriate for the beer to be brewed within the monastery, back in the early 1990's. As a result, the beer now named St. Bernardus Abt 12, readily available in the US, is EXTREMELY similar to Westvleteren 12 (to me anyway). But not quite, you know? Both caramelly, rum-raisin-y, malty but with a little bit of hop bite. (the revelation to me was the enormous number of hop fields in West Flanders and particularly around those two breweries, in the Watou-Poperinge area) The St Bernardus tour guide told us that St Bernardus still uses the yeast they used to use when they were making St. Sixtus under contract with the Abbaye, before 1992; while, according to her, Westvleteren now uses the Westmalle yeast and has since the termination of the old agreement.
  23. southdenverhoo
    I think Warrenton proper could support at least 1 more higher-end place. And maybe 3-4 more, in the county. Surely someday somebody with the talent to make it happen will agree and the right building will be available. Saw a "biz-buy-sell" ad for a place that sounded like one of the few other places not mentioned in this thread where at least decent food may be found. Won't post speculation since not 100% positive. But it would suck if they were gone.
  24. southdenverhoo
    Joe--unless I am mistaken they are now disassociated from the Columbia restaurant and operating as "The Bridge Restaurant", but still in that lovely building at 29 Main St in old town Warrenton. I've actually heard that things have improved since the split or buyout or whatever it was. (I think maybe the management team bought the place from their erstwhile employers, or something like that...i.e. there's some continuity between former and current)
  25. southdenverhoo
    This seems like one of those situations where we need to turn to wise women for guidance, in this case, the Marvelettes, from 1964: Don't want nobody that don't want me (too many fish in the sea) Don't need nobody that don't need me (too many fish in the sea) or Mr. Jagger: You can't always get what you want... May I point out, without pissing anybody off, that--hey, look: the Waitman don't wanna wait! (it's one of them irony things, unless I've mixed up my tropes, a la Ms. Morissette) I'm 60 now and I'm probably not going to stand in line at a no reservations place for more than a half hour to 45 minutes, so I get where Waitman (not-gonna-wait, man!) is coming from. If bar dining is not available, abundant, and quicker, I'm usually just gonna have to wait (not in line but, like, elsewhere) until the hot restaurant of the season cools off over the period of a couple years...or go at off peak hours. Waitman knows this, his posts over the years indicate he's neither stupid nor is he entitled, he's just saying, in his opinion, it sucks. I don't hear him blaming the restaurant, or suggesting they ought to change to fulfill his expectations--just saying it's off-putting to him personally, and when replicated throughout town, an off-putting trend, an opinion he certainly has the right to hold.
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