Bart

This is a few years out of date, but I had a great and interesting meal at Lotus of Siam (Northern Thai). https://lotusofsiamlv.com/ It's off the strip, and I think the prices were reasonable/normal. The online menu doesn't have prices for some reason. I think I heard about this place via Antony Bourdain and more recently Padma Lakshmi. My recollection is that we had some sort of chef's meal or something were we didn't have to order individual plates, but I don't see anything like that in their online menu.

This surprised me twice. The first was they were closing at all, but then I saw they had been there for 10 years. I assumed that the lease was up and their landlord compassionately jacked up their rent to an unaffordable rate. But in Tom's chat yesterday he posted a comment from the restaurant: I, too, was sorry to see the Adams Morgan fixture close, after a decade. In an email, owner Saied Azali wrote, "We are committed to continue to occupy this beautiful space and to create something truly befitting the neighborhood. It will take us some time." So they are closing a successful (?) and popular (?) place to open up a new restaurant in the same space? Seems weird. Was this place not popular and successful? (I never managed to make it there but I seemed to read about it a lot over the years)

Note to future diners here: You can order half portions of the pasta dishes. It's not listed on the menu, but I was here recently and asked, and they were happy to accommodate.

Have you tried canning them? It's super easy and I'm eating two year old pickles that taste as good as ever. (Probably famous last words, but so far, so good)

Missed you by one night! ;-( I was there on Sunday night before a show at Wolf Trap and it seems like we had nearly identical meals. Perhaps the biggest difference was they had live music on sunday....a jazz piano player and a female singer. I don't know if it was Tom's review, or the live music, or something else entirely, but the place was packed on a Sunday night. I completely agree with your assessment of the Kibbe Nayyeh. Very good! I would have liked a little more herbs or mint or onions to add to the pita, but maybe that's just because they have a lot of that at ilili at the Wharf and I liked it. (But in family meals, we never had any of that stuff!) My fellow diner had never had it before and loved it. I didn't like the fried Kibbe as much. I thought the small size took away from the contrast that the filling usually gives and I wasn't a fan of the sweet sauce. I mean, I liked it, but I wish they were bigger and didn't come coated in the sauce. The stuffed squash was great and similar to what I'm familiar with from family meals, but for $11 I was expecting more than one lonely squash. The Roasted Cauliflower was fine, but didn't have much of a "roast" to it. If I didn't know better, I would have thought they were steamed. We also ordered the Aleppo Batresh, mostly because Aleppo is where my maternal grandparents are from and it was a big hit. It was almost hard to tell that it was eggplant! I may have to go back to Wolf Trap just as an excuse to eat here again, because there were lots more items we wanted to try.

Happy birthday to a fellow Leo!!! You, me, David Crosby and Jerry Garcia, just to name a few.

Amazing pictures as usual, Eric!!! Thanks!!

Had an amazing, but HUGE, meal at the Chef's Table here the other night. Both the food and service were excellent, but damn, there was a lot of food. At one point after a few courses came out, we asked the server where we were in the meal. We honestly thought we were heading for the home stretch and we'd get on large final course. The server told us we were about 1/3 of the way through the meal. We both thought he was joking. He was not! The dishes kept coming and coming! And truth be told, had I known where we were and what was ahead, we would have held off on some of the earlier dishes to make room for some of the later ones. (There were at least 3 dip/hummus dishes early on that likely did us in) We only had a single half-bite each of the final lamb dish and didn't even sample the Fattosh salad because we were defeated by the meal. If I had one complaint it would be there was no description of the dishes provided other than when they were brought to the table. There are a few items that I can't find on the regular menu, and they don't have a Chef's Table menu on line. Oh well, I'll survive somehow. But there was one dish pictured below that was so good that I'd love to have a description of to spark my memory of what was actually in it!!! 😉 It was a thin slice of pita bread stuffed with something wonderful that I can't recall (d'oh!) and topped with cherry tomatoes and spices. The other dishes below were also excellent and unique. One is mushrooms cooked over the fire with a confit egg yolk. This was fantastic as the smoke from the fire really took the mushrooms to the next level. The other is their take on baba ghanoush, in which the presentation matched the taste. The photos don't do justice to the way the dishes looked however. Another cool feature of the Chef's Table was the Madeira presentation. We were just doing wines by the glass and we surprised when an extra set of glasses showed up. A few minutes later the sommelier came over with a bottle and a tall carafe. He poured some of the wine in the carafe and put a cover with a little cup on top of the carafe. He then added some wood chips and blasted them with a mini/kitchen blowtorch. By magic, the smoke went down into the bottle and completely filled the carafe (this was due to the liquid in the bottom being chilled and drawing the smoke down into the carafe). He then poured it into out glasses and we had a smoke infused glass of Madeira. Very cool! If you decide to do the Chef's Table, make sure you are very hungry and you have a lot of time. We were there for over three hours, but the pacing was such that it felt fine and it actually felt surprising that the meal lasted that long. And as a follow up to Pat's comment in the Paraiso thread about not getting acknowledged when you say you are celebrating a birthday, this was a birthday dinner for me which I mentioned on the invite ( I didn't really mention it, but just answered the questions on the Tock reservation). Anyhow, when we got to the host's stand, I was wished a happy birthday. The waiter also wished me a happy birthday and there was a card on the table from the team wishing me a happy birthday. Mercifully, they didn't send out an extra dessert or any extras!!!! 😉 Thin pita/tomato dish Baba ghanoush Madeira presentation Mushroom dish (out of order) Again, real life looked much better than these pics!!

Co-sign on this, big time!! I'm never looking for a freebie either, but I do get annoyed when you answer their questions (Birthday?, Anniversary? etc) and they never mention it during the meal. Like, why bother?!?!

Thanks for the legwork KN but why do these places always seem to only have vegetarian grape leaves!?!?! Can I get some lamb over here, please?!?! 😃

KN: I was just about to post this review to one of you Middle Eastern threads. I was thrilled to see the opening photo of Koosa Mishi in the article. I don't recall seeing that on a restaurant menu around here. Unfortunately, their grape leaves are only the vegetarian type, but that won't stop me from asking for version with meat!! 😉 Either way, I'm psyched to try this place!

Some asked for recommendations for places open Sunday nights, and this was a chatter's response: Petworth Diner 11:40 a.m. Kinship is open on Sunday nights. This has to be @saf, right?!?!?! When I saw "Petworth" and a Kinship fan, my first thought was @saf !!!

KN - When are you going to try this place?!? I need a ruling!

Cranes. Get the Omakase meal. Unique and wonderful.

I haven't been here in over a decade, but Tortugas Lie in Nags Head was a good spot for lunch while killing time for the rental to be ready https://www.tortugaslie.com/ It has a nice, casual beach vibe but also offers something other than fried fish.

Is there only one location of this place or four?!?! And how do you contact them?!? The website lists the Capitol Hill location, a Chinatown location and a Convention Center location but as far as I can tell via Google Maps, only the Capitol Hill location exists. Then there's the discussion up-thread about an H St. location which adds more confusion. The website is bare bones and doesn't appear to be updated since 2020, based on the copyright date at the bottom of the page. Their Facebook page doesn't seem to updated since 2015 and they don't appear on OpenTable, Resy or Tock. Do they take reservations? Is it only via the phone? It's kind of amazing that their web presence is horribly out of date or non-existent! Then again, the brand spankin' new, Shoto, seems to be following their lead! (If you are unaware, Shoto is a new, high end, glitzy place that opened a couple months ago that still doesn't have a website or menu posted online because "they want it to be perfect before going live". SMH)

I'm not the sharpest bulb in the drawer so I need some help understanding this. The first sentence seems like a put down, but I'm not sure why. Is Miami/Coral Gables not a good restaurant market? Or does it mean this place has morphed to just a generic outpost of a once unique restaurant? The line about "adjust expectations accordingly" seems like you need to adjust your expectations downward, but I don't get the Miami connection. The second line seems like a compliment but I don't think it is. I first took it to mean "that feeling I first experienced was fantastic" (as in, the restaurant was new and hot and firing on all cylinders with Fabio behind the stove). But the addition of "seems all encompassing now" coupled with "adjust your expectations" makes me think otherwise. What was the feeling you had in 2018? I'm guessing it was not being overjoyed at an amazing meal and experience? To follow up my own question, I found this (above). [When you mentioned 2018, I went to the beginning the thread and started looking for your post. Little did I know it was just upthread a few posts!] And I think I understand the Miami reference now too: People with more money than sense, over-paying across the board, to go to a hot place to be seen, regardless of the overall quality of the evening.

Cape May is just down the road and although I haven't eaten there in years, I'd highly recommend Louisa's. They do a lot of fresh and local meals with a lot of vegetarian and fish options. Last time I was there, they were a bring your own alcohol type of place which helps keep your costs down. They also seem to be much better priced and much less stuffy than a lot of the Cape May options. If you're into birds or nature, the Cape May Bird Observatory holds bird and nature walks every day. Most are down around Cape May Point but they also do them up in Avalon and other places in the area. There's a small fee for the walks, but it's worth it. The leaders know EVERYTHING about every bird, bug, mammal, plant, etc in the area. Even if you have no interest in nature, I think it would be damn near impossible to not enjoy one of their walks. Bring binoculars or call to see if they have loaners (they used to, but they stopped when Covid first came along) https://njaudubon.org/calendar/category/cape-may-bird-observatorys-northwood-center/2022-07/?tribe_events_cat=cape-may-bird-observatorys-northwood-center&tribe-bar-date=2022-07 If you're looking for other options, Cape May has a ton of events and festivals that happen every week. Sorry for the lack of Wildwood info!!

Excellent news! Thanks for the update.

Great show! If you go, there is free parking until 1pm on the street right across from the museum.

Thanks Eric! I've been to ilili and Moon Rabbit a couple of times and was looking to change things up a little. Never been to Del Mar......every time I look at the menu it seems very pricey. I'm sure it's great, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger on it.

Has anyone been in here in the ~4 years since Tom's review? I need a place to eat at the Wharf on Saturday and was targeting Officina but they are fully booked. (Lots of Yelpers have nice things to say about it, whatever that's worth)

Panda Gourmet is very close. Don't know if that's what you're looking for as far as cuisine goes, but I was there about a month ago on a Saturday night and just showed up (no reservations) and there were plenty of open tables. I used the DR thread as a guide. Dean Gold posted some very detailed reviews of large meals with multiple dishes. If you go, I'd skip their "signature" "burger" dish that's described on the first page of the menu. It was ok, but didn't live up to the write up.

It's a little west of Cascade Locks, but there are great waterfall and hikes all along the river, the most famous being Multnomah Falls. There are short hikes just from the parking lot to the falls, but then there are lots of trail networks where you can get away from the crowds and get into nature. If you're going to do Multnomah, make sure you get there early. It's definitely a tourist trap and gets crowded! But there are tons of other waterfalls and hikes along that road. The town of Hood River is a great place to stop for lunch and watch the wind surfers who gather there. Lots of micro brew/lunch places along the river to eat at. The rest of the town is pretty cool.....an old west town with interesting shops.

If Cranes is still on the table, I'd go there. For some reason that place seems more exiting and different than a lot of high end fancy smanchy places.