laniloa

I suspect that more than one kind of brownie would be welcome (mine are plain, plain, plain chocolate goodness).  Besides, I have no problem divving up the leftovers.

Mine are dark chocolate cinnamon. OK - I'm switching to those. No such thing as too many brownies.

Barbara beat me to brownies so I'll go with either a green bean salad or a spicy pineapple salad.

Funny thing, I started drafting a thread on Ray's the Steak this morning and had to stop because I got busy with something else.

Anyway, I understand from hearsay evidence that it is difficult to get a reservation at Ray's the Steaks.  Some people seem to think that I have connections with the owner.  Without admitting or denying the truth of any of these rumors, I'm willing to organize a dinner at Ray's the Steaks. Is anyone interested.

The dinner would probably be during the middle of the week about three weeks out.  At a past dinner, we had a prix fixe sort of affair that was quite nice with a couple of choices of steak.  We could try to keep the wine to under $50/bottle. Even split on the check. 

Is anyone interested.

You already know my answer is yes.

Someone at work forwarded this info to me about a $0.05 martini special running at the Jefferson Hotel:

Through May 13th you can get a martini for a nickel. Made with Grey Goose vodka and Arrowood Riesling wine and garnished with a strip of lemon peel, the Jefferson Martini is reminiscent of a French aperitif -- dry, slightly citrusy and well-balanced. (The ingredients were chosen because of Jefferson's Francophilia and his experiments with wine-making at Monticello.)

There are catches, of course:

You can't pay with any old nickel -- the bar will only accept the new 2005 nickels with the larger portrait of Jefferson on the front and a bison on the flip side.

You have to order the drink between 5 and 5:55, Monday through Friday.

One nickel martini per customer, per day. All subsequent drinks are full-price.

I can probably make either date with slight preference for the 15th.

maybe they are super special giant clams

I had a very good dinner at Komi last night. It started well with an amuse of roasted eggplant and Greek yogurt served with melt in your mouth crackers. We were told the moussaka was unavailable as it was still being prepared. It was around 7:15 at that point and I found this odd. And disappointing because I wanted to try it. Next time. I skipped an appetizer because they seemed too heavy to me (at least my options and I admit to being something of a picky eater). I ordered the tea smoked pork served with huckleberry sauce (on the side -- nice touch since this struck me as something easily being a personal preference about amount kind of thing). The pork was very tasty but somewhat dry and I was glad for the sauce. The sweet-tart-smoky contrast worked well. I would get this again but ask for it to get less fire. It was accompanied by some brussel sprouts cooked with apples and bacon that went well with the smokiness of the pork. My companion ordered what was billed as a king salmon with langostine and cockles. Since I don't eat seafood, I couldn't groundtruth his assessment which was OK. When our waitress brought his plate and ran through the ingredients she said it was Atlantic salmon. The difference didn't click for either of us until after we'd left so we didn't get to ask if that was just a slip. It had the brighter color you expect from wild salmon but with the various natural supplements they feed the farmed stuff these days I'm not sure I'd go by that.

I thought the simple space had a nice feel and even with tables close together they did an excellent job of spacing people out so that no one felt too close for too long. I'm not sure how I'd feel during a more crowded night. The service was well executed.

Looks like we all have a weekend 'homework' assignment!

Define homework? Do you mean trying to recreate at home or do you mean getting over to Corduroy to sample said steak? If the latter, I could get on that bandwagon.

Not being a seafood eater, I prefer this type of shrimp

OK - clearly that isn't the preferred way to attach photos.

You rang?

Check the photo gallery on our website for many wonderful fish and other sea critters. It includes our favorite (you have to use a magnifying glass to see the nut).

The monkfish is a great suggestion. We could work our way up the food chain. Definitely need to pull in one of the big cruisers for the higher numbers, something like a bluefin or a swordfish.

edited to include saner sized picture

I am a fan of both turkey (preferably in summer to have tomatos too) because of the combo of thick slices of carved white and dark meat turkey with spicy mustard that make it feel like a great Thanksgiving leftover sandwich and the pork bbq with coleslaw because of the great tangy zip the vinegar and crunch of the slaw add to the sandwich. I have not liked their gazpacho but that is personal preference and not poor execution. They serve a chunky style and I prefer a smooth puree with blended flavors.

I have caught a glimpse of their cooking show and kept on surfing when I heard their accents. You can take a girl out of New York, but... I feel somehow validated by hearing they aspire to be the next Olive Garden.

I'm meeting a friend for dinner at Komi at 7 (woo hoo) but could easily be persuaded to go early and have a drink with you guys if you wanted to go there. Or anywhere else in the vacinity.

Please explain this 'pork flavored' steak for me.

I wish we could! I don't know if this is a great example of your brain influencing your sense of taste and the power of suggestion (after the first person said it tasted like pork, we all tried it and tasted the pork) or if there is some wonderful but strange chemical reaction between steak and grapeseed oil that mimics the taste of being cooked in pork fat. Besides curiosity about being able to recreate this at home, I'm not sure I care to know. Anything is possible in the world of illusion and all that.

I had a very nice work lunch at Poste about a week ago. One of my companions kept going on and on about the bread. We asked about it and they get it from BreadLine.

The steak was out of this world good. Someone mentioned elsewhere that it was in the same league as Ray's, and I agree.

But of course the piece de resistance was the company.

I'm still dumbfounded that there was no pork used in the preparation of that steak. We all were fooled. Who knew that grapeseed oil + great steak = rich pork flavor?