hungry prof

I love how their current slogan is "Unthink." They mean it as in, "Unthink what you thought about KFC" (in reference to their new grilled products). To me, "Unthink" connotes something completely different in this context.

I couldn't find a previous thread on KFC, but reports of their new sandwich, the Double Down, nearly made me lose my breakfast: "KFC is now offering a "sandwich" which consists of bacon, two kinds of cheeses and sauce between two pieces of fried chicken. That's right, fried chicken as a bun instead of bread." Points for creativity, I guess. Who's up for a lunch outing when this thing shows up?

I assume you are talking more about complexity of flavor than complexity of technique. Either way, I'm not sure that Bayless was that much less impressive. His 27-ingredient mole literally left the judges speechless. That pork dish struck me as technically very difficult and seemed to have a complex flavor profile as well. I will grant that Keller wins on presentation, but he also served raw garlic, as pretty as it was. Incidentally, did anybody else notice that James Oseland really did seem to have it out for Chiarello? I hadn't noticed it until Michael did that schtick with the Saveur doilies, but then Oseland only gave him 3.5 stars in the final judging. Even if Michael had gotten 4.5 stars, Bayless still would have won, but it was a bit strange.

I just spit coffee on my computer screen.

Agreed. I thought this was a terrific episode with a terrific challenge. All in all, I thought Top Chef Masters was much more successful than I expected. I feared that it was going to be a cheap ripoff, but in many ways, I found it more interesting than the original. And I'm happy for Rick Bayless. I ate at his wonderful Topolobampo once--on the day that I received my PhD--and I can honestly say that I have more memories of that amazing meal than I do of the graduation ceremony.

Chiarello tries to explain himself. Not much remorse. . .

How many people who eat at Spike's restaurant know who Spike is? To lots of people, I suspect it's just a burger joint on Capitol Hill with good shakes.

Indeed, but I think (and hope) that Michael Chiarello is going to cringe when he watches that episode back. He came off as a real doofus. He also got higher scores than the comments on his dishes suggested. I guess the Top Chef editors felt the need to add some suspense about who was going to be eliminated.

Yes, while introducing the dish, Art Smith said that there was chocolate drizzled on the brittle. Decent episode. I'm not so sure about the Top Chef claim that Good Stuff Eatery is a "favorite" of Michelle Obama's. She has eaten there. That's about as much as we know, I think. But a little exaggeration on Bravo never killed anybody. Incidentally, given the nature of the challenge, was I the only one who didn't understand why all the chefs didn't want to do dessert? Vegan, no-soy, no-gluten would seem easiest to do with dessert when fruit and chocolate can both be options. Then again, Art Smith managed to screw it up.

Looks like the Times has thrown in the towel on the effort to have an unrecognized food critic. Pictures of this guy are readily available, and according to Eater, he's well-known in NY dining circles. Gawker is already having a disguise contest for him.

No, and unfortunately, you might have to wait a while. Her restaurant, Annisa, suffered serious damage in a July 4th fire. A real shame as I'm sure her success on the show would have been great for business.

Agreed that last night was really Top Chef at its best. No silly interpersonal drama. Just interesting cooking by interesting people. I, too, was most impressed with Rick Bayless leaving his comfort zone. One of these weeks I'm guessing they're going to do the blind ingredient taste test as the quickfire. It's certainly one of their recurrent challenges. That might be interesting since, among the five remaining chefs of varied backgrounds and styles, I'm guessing they've tasted just about everything at one point or another.

If one were going to open a cupcake and ice cream joint in DC, could there be a better location than the same block as 2Amy's and Cactus Cantina? Carved out of what used to be half of an antiques store on Macomb St., Something Sweet is the latest contestant in DC's cupcake pageant. It's brought to you by the same people behind Jetties in Foxhall and the still-humming-along Surfside in Glover Park. In addition to the cupcakes, they also serve ice cream, though I only tried the cupcakes yesterday. Given their location, Something Sweet could probably serve turdballs as their cupcakes and still succeed with the hordes of young children dining on that block (whose parents don't realize that there's more to 2Amy's than the pizza). Luckily, they are not actually serving turdballs, but the cupcakes are unfortunately disappointing. We tried a variety pack ranging from carrot cake to mint chocolate (the special of the day on Saturday) to plain old vanilla to chocolate-on-chocolate. The cake ranged from dry (vanilla) to gummy (carrot cake) with none of them hitting exactly the right note. The icings were consistently underflavored or just poorly flavored. If you're going to charge $3 for a cupcake--roughly the going rate in the high-end DC cupcake market--I think it should be better than this. If I pay $3 for a cupcake from Baked and Wired or Georgetown Cupcake, at least I feel like I'm getting a good product. As I said, we didn't try the ice cream, and that seemed to be more popular on this day. In particular, a gaggle of teenage girls was taken with Something Sweet's version of the chipwich--a choice of ice cream flavors slathered between two large chocolate chip cookies. I'll have to go back to see if the ice cream and cookies deliver something more satisfying than the cupcakes. Something Sweet is still new, so we'll certainly be back. I'm a fan of both Jetties and Surfside, so I'm hopeful that they'll get this shop headed in the direction. I just hope they don't take their built-in market for granted.

Am I the only one who needs a cold shower after reading that?

Via Eater, this doozie of a kerfuffle over a blogger's review of the NY restaurant, JoeDoe. The review strikes me as a pretty standard takedown, but the chef/owner fights back (aggressively) in the comments section. I don't know what to think of this--some emails/comments/blogposts are probably better typed for catharsis but never published, but then again, this is this guy's livelihood. . .

At least in Firefox, CTRL+Click will open the page in a new tab.

The blue ones still run. Just saw one literally ten minutes ago on M St.

Good burger, but worth the wait? Wife, son, and I stopped by tonight. We enjoyed the food. The burgers were correctly cooked and pretty tasty. Bun fell apart a little toward the end, but not a huge problem. The fries were crisp and hot. The staff was also helpful in fixing one problem I caused with my order (forgetting to order fries) and one problem that was theirs (forgetting to put bacon on my burger). And the outdoor seating is a nice option. Only problem: everything was sloooowwwww. The line to order food was agonizingly slow. It seemed to take about five minutes per customer to get the orders in. The food took even longer to get out of the kitchen. I didn't complain to a manager because if I had done so, it would have been on behalf of everybody in the restaurant. There were a bunch of different families out on the patio, all of the dads simultaneously looking at their watches wondering where the heck the food was. It's burgers and fries. It doesn't seem like it should take that long. Not sure what happened. Maybe just an off night. But this was about 6:00 on a Saturday night, and it was neither empty nor real busy. What happens at 7:00 or 8:00? We'll be back, but we may call in order ahead of time so we don't have to wait so long. By the way, their current burger of the month is called the "Raise the Bar"--tongue firmly in cheek, a burger advertised to be larger than you know whose.

I don't know why, but this thread has always intimidated me. Until tonight. One of those meals that you just feel good about yourself for having cooked: Soft-shell crabs. Big, meaty, delicious buggers from Black Salt (alive in the store--I think; cleaned well and quickly by the fish monger). If you want to treat yourself ($8 per), get thee to Black Salt and pick up some of these. Lightly breaded in seasoned panko bread crumbs. Sauteed in butter to a golden brown. Garnished simply with lemon. Vine ripened tomatoes (from WF) with pesto (basil from the garden) and buffalo mozzarella cooked under the broiler for a few minutes. Maryland corn-on-the-cob. Raspberries and blueberries with Black Salt vanilla ice cream and aged balsamic vinegar. 2004 Chassagne Montrachet Les Embrazees Premier Cru, Bernard Morey et Fils. From my beloved Burgundy snob father-in-law. Absolutely delicious, perfect with the soft-shells, and since my wife is pregnant, all for me. What a great summer meal, if I do say so myself. Seriously, go to Black Salt, and get some soft shells. A cook is only as good as his ingredients, and these crabs were just out of this world.

The proliferation of these places is unfortunate. My experience at a couple of them now is that they stink. Just stink. So-so food at silly prices with clueless service. My wife picked up dinner at the one in Spring Valley a few weeks ago, and for $30, we got an unremarkable salad and a greasy lamb stew of some sort. At the Bethesda location, it took fifteen minutes and three different servers to finally get this brilliant answer to our question about the contents of a special vegetable quiche that they had that day: "Vegetables are in the vegetable quiche" (I'm not kidding). Can this insidious toothpaste be put back in the tube?

Is it just me, or did Ludo Lefebvre seem like a character that Disney would create in a cartoon about a French chef?

A few months ago, Sietsema was asked in his Wednesday chat if he ever changed his mind and decided not to review a place after initially planning to. In his response, he suggested that it had, in fact, happened recently with a place that was so disappointing that it was only going to get a First Bite column, but no subsequent full review. Tom wouldn't divulge which restaurant was the culprit, but I'm pretty sure it was Kitchen. The timing was right (the harsh First Bite came a few weeks later), and there hasn't since been a full review. Sounds like he missed an opportunity to give out the rare goose egg.

Yes, though it's not too hard to figure out why Chef Tracht has never had a show of her own. Her personality did not exactly jump off the screen. (I know. I know. This should be about the cooking, not the personality, but I'm just saying.)

Just so I'm clear on this: Where can I and where can I not wear a shirt like this when I eat out?

Not that easy, Spill (welcome aboard). If a restaurant has an established and publicized dress code, do you just willfully disregard it? If so, is that "treat[ing] others with respect and consideration?" In this case, I'm referring to the owners and chef of the restaurant who have requested that you dress in a certain way. Whether or not one dresses up in the absence of a dress code is distinct from the question of whether one does so when a dress code is in place (and I think those two questions have been conflated throughout this discussion).