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That's funny. I always assumed at work and everywhere else, dress codes were put in place for benefit/education of men. My experience is that 99.9999% of women always dress professionally. It's those dopey men you have to spell it out for....collared shirts, no jeans, no hats, shave and shower before work, etc.

I hate to change the subject away from the dress code thing, but the line about being turned off by Restaurant Eve's (and the rest of their empire's) websites caught my eye. What does your wife dislike about them? I think I may be with her. Not so much the website (although I see some of it there too) but their menus and other written things like facebook pages. For some reason, I really get turned off and annoyed by the cutesy wording on the menus at Majestic and Society Fair and the rest of them for that matter. From the Majestic: Shannon ‘Red’ Overmiller - Chef Edwin Tannahill - Sous Chef Nathan Hatfield - The Baker Maria Chicas- The Oracle- Sommelier Selchuk Once- The Shadow Chrissy Wilson - The Siren- Sommelier Daniel Orkwis - The Wizard It shouldn't bother me, but it does when I see titles like wizard, shadow, siren and oracle. I'm sure some people love that stuff, but for me it's such a turn off I have to use all my powers of restraint not to get up and walk out when I see that. Or, from Restaurant Eve: Todd Thrasher General Manager, Sommelier & Liquid Savant I can barely handle "mixologist" as a title, but "Liquid Savant"?!?!? Check please! Or maybe it's all the flash stuff that makes the websites user unfriendly?

My pleasure. The acutal food looked much better than the photos suggest, including and especially the yak-infused dessert. And I don't know if I made my point strong enough about the soup with dried, smoking grasses, but it was an awesome dish. I've never come across anything like it, but it was a winner on every level. People should rush out there and try it before they run out of peaches.

Here's the cheese course (that I thought was some sort of ice cream dessert): Here's the dessert that was listed on the menu. It looked and tasted much better in person!: Here's the second round of desserts:

Yes I do, but the quality is not that great. Lots of shadows to contend with and I was trying to be discreet so I just took the photos even thought the light was not great. Here are 3 of the four apps (cashews not shown): Here's the pizza with a knife and fork: Here's the grouper: And here's the steak cooking on the rock:

Went to the Ashby Inn last night and had a wonderful meal on the back porch. Perfect weather, beautiful views of the gardens and hills, a friendly and knowledgeable staff and a great meal with a couple of “WOW!” moments. My wife and I got the Chef’s Tasting Menu with the wine pairing and, half way through, convinced a nearby table to do the same. The Tasting Menu is 8 or so courses of items from the regular menu. It should be noted that it seems like they change their menu often. The menu online is from less than a month ago and nearly every single dish is different from what was on our menu! Luckily they sent us home with a printed copy so I have some idea of what we had. The meal started out with four “snacks”. Fried Pickles with spicy mayo (the only dish that remained on the menu from the online version), a long thin radish, that was pickled in vinegar which you dip into some spice mixture, salt cod and potato “fritters” and some spiced cashews. The first real course was a stunner and possibly the highlight of the evening. The menu listed it as “chilled peach soup, ham & oat crumble, malt sabayon, sour cream, hyssop”. I’m not sure what some of those items are, but they all worked together to create a great dish. The real star however, was the presentation. They placed a large, shallow, white bowl on the table that held a smaller, clear bowl. In the clear bowl were a dab of a yellow substance (looked like an egg yolk), a smear of white (the sour cream), some herbs and some crunchy bits. Between the two bowls and visible through the clear bowl were some dried grasses that were actually previously on fire and still smoking when it arrived at the table!! The effect was wonderful - - you got this great smoky “taste” in your nose while you ate the soup. Speaking of the soup, they ladled it into the clear bowl at the table. It was really wonderful – the soup and the stuff in the bottom of the bowl all blended together to create a really memorable dish. Of course the presentation didn’t hurt either! The bowl before the soup was added: After the soup was added: This is one of my favorite things about getting a tasting menu. You’re forced to try things you’d probably avoid. I love peaches, but probably wouldn’t have ordered peach soup because other items appealed to me more, but I’m sure glad I got this dish. The next dish was called “Pizza with Knife and Fork” which was a deconstructed pizza. It had chunks of tomato, bread, basil, soft mozzarella cheese, and some tiny pepperoni cubes with a smear of pepperoni sauce. The fish course was a seared grouper with eggplant espuma, wax beans and tomato and anchovy butter, capers and rye. This was another highlight as the fish was cooked perfectly with a nice golden “crust” on one side while the fish itself was moist and flakey. The next big “WOW” moment came with the meat course. They presented us with a plate with a rock on it sitting on bed of salt. We were warned not to touch the rock as it was 400 degrees. We then cooked a little slice of beef on the rock…..about 30 seconds per side for medium rare. Next was a cheese course, which didn’t look like cheese at all. It was gouda that they turned into liquid and whipped and smeared over the plate on top of kettle corn, along with rosehip gel. It sounds weird but it was very good and a bit of surprise to find that the thing in front of us that looked like some kind of dessert was actually cheese. Two dessert courses were next. The first was “chocolate buttercake, nutella cream, hazelnut shortbread, barley ice cream, salt”. Lots of flavors and textures going on here, but it was really great. It’s unlikely I would have ordered something with barley ice cream in it, but I’m glad I got to try it. The second dessert wasn’t written up on the menu so I don’t have a nice description to refer to, but it was four little bites. The wine pairing were a nice complement to the dishes and 2 courses featured Virginia wines. The dessert was paired with a Hazelnut Brown Ale. My only complaint was that it was over too quickly and/or the portions were too small. I was surprised when the server announced the dessert because it didn’t seem like we ate enough to be on dessert. My goal was not to leave so fat and bloated that I couldn’t walk, but I could have handled another course or two without any problems. All in all it was a great gourmet meal at a setting that has to be one the prettiest in DC area. And the staff were great too. If you go, I’d recommend getting there early enough to enjoy the daylight into sunset time period and make sure you sit outside. It’s never THAT warm in the shade.

Love it! Just made reservations for Aug 14. See you in a week!!

Thanks folks! 24 courses it is! Don't think I can handle the "Rogue pairing" which seems to include a lot of cutting edge mixed drinks. My one and only mixed drink is voda and redbull as a motivator while doing yard work! I'm pretty sure what they serve at Rogue would be lost on me. I think I'll stick with the wine pairing to relieve myself of one more decision.

Wow, thanks! I'm still trying to figure out how many "course options" there are. When I go to their website, I get redirected to another site for reservations (the main R24 site is "closed" because they are on vacation this week). Anyhow on that other site, there's a little drop down menu with dinner options: Progression (listed 3 times), Journey (listed 3 times) and Evolution (listed once). Unfortunately, the drop down window is not wide enough to show all the words displayed next to "Progression", "Evolution" and Journey. I'm assuming they list the number of courses and the price, but it doesn't show up on my (work) computer. Maybe I'll try from home.

Has anyone done the full blown 24 course meal and compared it to the smaller meal? I was reading somewhere (Chowhound perhaps since I don't see it here) that the small meal is more than enough food to leave you stuffed, and that the big meal would just be overkill with you unable to finish (or start) the last few dishes. Anyone have any thoughts or expirence with either?

Ha! You know Mark Ibold?!?!? I had no idea he was a "food correspondent", and I must admit, I didn't get much out of his bologna article, but I did love him as the bassist for Pavement. I always wondered what he did after Pavement broke up. Now I know.

I happend to be in L'Enfant Plaza at lunch today and the Pepe food truck was there. Being a big fan of Jose Andres, I was excited to try it. The sandwich was very good, but I agreee Mary, the price was outrageous for what I got. I told the person at the window that I had never eaten here before and I wanted to get the best thing they had. She suggested the Pepito de Ternera (seared beef tenderloin, caramelized onion, piquillo pepper confit and blue cheese $14). I got it and it was a very tasty sandwich (lots of interesting flavor combinations) but for 14 bucks it should have been twice three times the size (or came with a drink and dessert). To their credit, it was much better than most of my food truck experiences from a taste/flavor perspective, but I don't see myself going back because of the price. The other thing that struck me a little strange was the lack of drinks. They only had Sangria or Pepe Tonic. No water.

My wife and I and a friend went here last night. It was our second visit and again we got the chef's tasting menu this time. I felt just about exactly opposite from darkstar above. I thought it was a crazy amount of food for a low price. For $55 dollars each, we got something like 18 courses/dishes and were defeated by the end. We could only eat about half of the desserts and 3/4 of the final entrees. If you go to Graffiato, get the chef's tasting menu! The amount of food and more importantly the variety of flavors/tastes/dishes makes it all worth it. And they seem to change it up quite a bit. We were last there in late March and most of the dishes were different this time around. Our friend had never been there before and asked the waitress how many courses it was and she said three. I had to jump in and explain that each course had about five dishes! Here's what we had to the best of my recollection (from the online menu): First Course: Broccolini $6 spicy pepper relish, walnut, feta Baby Beets $7 house ricotta, orange Roasted Cauliflower $7 pecorino, mint Charred Sugar Snap Peas $7 lardo, sesame Spicy Pistachios Second Course: Chilled Grape Soup $7 cucumber, ginger Burrata $11 honey glazed onions, nigella Caeser $8 cream cheese croutons Cured Meats: Olli Toscano, VA Biellese Speck, NY Prosciutto Di Parma, Italy With Honey Flatbread & Pepperoni Sauce $5 Pizza: Countryman $18 black truffle, fontina, farmed soft egg Third Course Marinated Octopus $13 romesco, olives, almonds Crispy Lamb $13 favas, yogurt, cucumber Spiced Pork Ribs $11 tomato mostarda Fettuccini $13 blue crab, summer squash, arugula pesto Dessert: Blood Orange Cheesecake $7 passion fruit, basil Warm Chocolate Cake $8 fudge, salted caramel gelato Blackberry Crostata $8 pine nut, whipped mascarpone Everything was very good with one or two exceptions. Highlights included the charred snap peas, the chilled grape soup (like nothing I've ever had before), the caesar salad (with "croutons" that were hard on the outside but were filled with almost-liquid cream chese), the pizza (served with a sous vide (very) soft boiled egg on top that was broken and spread over the pizza at the table), and the desserts. The only misses were the octopus which was a little tough and chewey. (the first time we were there we sat at the bar and were given an extra octopus dish that they mistakenly prepared and it was much better than what we had last night. So they can make it well, we just got one that was maybe a little over cooked). The other thing that was less than perfect was one of the final meat courses (the lamb I think, but it may have been the ribs). It was a little too salty for my tastes. But it hardly mattered as we were so stuffed at that point we could barely eat anything. In conclusion, I loved the place!

I don't see it that way. Surely it's not insensitve for white guys to serve Punjabi food, is it? No, of course not. Then the problem is them wearing fake mustaches and turbans while serving food. I don't understand the problem with that. To my knowledge they're not doing anything rude or crude or negative towards that culture, they're just wearing a costume or a uniform. I think of it the same way I would going into a 50s themed place, or "hollywood" place where the staff is dressed like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe. The staff is dressing up to create a certain vibe for the patrons. To me the whole issue seems like a lot of phony outrage (from the guy who wrote the original letter, not directed at anyone in here)

Maybe I'm dumber than most of you (probably) and maybe I didn't read the entire thread carefully (definitely), but I don't understand the charges of racisim. Is it racist to talk in a fake Irish accent on St. Patty's day? Is it racist to break into an Italian accent when the big plate of spaghetti and meatballs hits the kitchen table? Is it racist to say "L'chaim" when toasting? What's next, do we cry racism because a Spanish guy cooked my Italian meal? Maybe I missed the entire point but I still don't understand what the crime was.

Completely true! Mike himself told me that. No, I don't know him, just ate there once and had a 5 minute conversation with him at Graffiato. I was a fan of his on Top Chef so we flagged him down and told him so. I don't know how it came up, but he flat out admitted that none of this would be possible without the exposure on Top Chef.

DC Food Truck Fiesta is a good one. It tells you where all the food trucks are each day and how far (as the crow flies) they are from you. It also has links to the food truck menus, twitter feeds and yelp reviews.

Thanks! That's pretty funny. He'd probably be one of the few chefs that I would recognize! I could see Jacques writing a letter or making a few calls to get their jobs back.

Does anyone know what happened with Jacques Pepin at the Beard awards? I got a tweet from Anthony Bourdain that said, "Jacques who? Pepin? How do you spell that?.....sorry, you're not on the list" Me no understand.

You know what else you need? An app. I can't believe I just typed that becuase I'm a recent convert to the whole world of smart phones and apps and previously sort of turned my nose up at the whole idea, but I was driving home last night (actually riding) and we as we got near that new high end food shop, Society Fair, I wanted some information on what it was, how it was being received, etc and one of things that popped was a review in Urban Spoon (this was the first I heard of this outfit). They also had a free app, which is very similar to the yelp app. I don't know if you want to go down this road but all the kids today are doing it. Of course this will cost money to develop. Maybe you could charge for it, but that would probably limit the appeal and the traffic. I downloaded Urban Spoon becuase it was free and I'll probably use it in counjuntion with yelp, chowhoud, DR, WashPost, etc. I don't know if an app with further your cause or take you down a road you don't want to travel but these things are the wave of the future (or the wave of the present) for all sorts of things and all sorts of people use them. Might be worth looking into.

Sweet! That was my "gripe" before I joined. I try not to be too impatient, but I've noticed for me personally, that a side effect of the instantaneous nature of life on the internet, is that I'll blow something off if it requires more than a click or two. It's ridiculous, I know but that seems to be the way it is for me (and many others I'm sure). Case in point - if someone sends me a link to a newspaper article I'll read it if it opens when I click on it, but I'll blow it off if the site makes me register first. Hell, I don't even bother with youtube videos on my iphone because they take all of 10 seconds to load! It will be interesting to see it the increased access (even as read only) will increase the membership and participation.

What do you mean about "devolving to something like DC Chowhound"? The thing that Chowhound has going for it is it's ease of use for locals and out of towners. I can imagine a lot of travelers to DC check the various food sites and spend a lot more time on Chowhound because when they search for Komi, for instance, something comes up other than you need to login to see the content. I'm starting to restate my point from above, but it happened again to me last night.....I was using my wife's iPad to seach for something and got locked out/blocked out by the login. I recently went to Miami and did all my restaurant reseach on Chowhound because it was easy. Maybe no one cares about ease of use for non-locals, but I'm sure the same issue drives locals away too. But back to my original quesiton, what's wrong with Chowhound? Lowest common denominator?

I know this thread has moved on, but to address your first question, I had some thoughts. One problem may be the site access. I resisted joining for ages because of delays in getting an account set up. I know it only takes a day or two but almost every other "member site" out there allows damn near instant sign up and access. Another thing that may drive people away is the fact you can't search the site without being a member. When I first found the site, I tried to do a search for say "minibar" and got shut out because I needed to log in first. I said, "screw it" and went somewhere else to find what I was looking for. I didn't end up joining the site until a couple of years later. Maybe that just means I'm an impatient jerk, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been put off by not being able to at least search the site without being a member. I'm sure you have good reasons for a non-automatic membership and a member-only search policy, but both policies slowed me down in joining/participating. Just an FYI, that's all.

I posted this in ChowHound almost a year ago, but I just got a note saying they are getting rid of all their reviews. Strange. Anyhow, I didn't want all my brilliant thoughts, and all that typing to be lost to the ether , so here it is: Bibiana 3-30-11 For my wife’s birthday I wanted to do something different and I’ve been reading a lot of Anthony Bourdain lately and he always seems to be able to walk into a place a have the chef serve whatever is fresh, or his personal favorite, or some type of special off-the-menu items. I didn’t know if a normal person could do that so I asked about it in here and was advised to call the restaurant and ask, so I did. When I called to ask about it, I spoke to Francesco, the sommelier, and he told me they could do whatever I’d like and to ask for him when we got there. He said they could do a meal from 2 to 2000 courses; it was all up to me. Too easy. Right after we were seated, Francesco came over and asked if there was any item we didn't want to eat. Peppers (sweet ones) don't agree with my wife so that was our only restriction. It was also just about the only input we had in the meal. He asked if we wanted wine and of course the answer was YES, and I asked about wine pairings. He actually suggested we just get a bottle because he felt the pairing would be too much wine. When does a restaurant convince you to buy *less* of something from them?!?!? I thought that was really cool and unexpected and left us with a very good taste in our mouths. It seemed to say, "just trust me, I've got your back." A minute or two later, Francesco, returned with two glasses of champagne as his gift to us for my wife's birthday. No charge! The first course was Carciofi Alla Guidia, which was fried artichokes. This was the only thing we requested (based on reviews in Chowhound) and I’m glad we did. The artichokes were fried, possibly deep fried, but they didn’t have any breading or batter on them. They were just crispy, crunchy artichokes, but they were really different and really good. Strangely, the best part of the dish, or the most surprising part was the little bits of fried parsley that was like a garnish. The parsley was also crispy and crunchy but still had that distinctive parsley taste. It was almost like eating tiny potato chips that were parsley flavored. I’d get this dish again just for the parsley! The second course was mozzarella (I think) cheese and beets. It was something I never would have ordered and I was so glad that I left the ordering up to someone else because this dish was another winner. When Francesco delivered the plates he said he picked up the cheese today from Dulles airport and that it was just flown in from Italy. This seemed strange because to me, mozzarella was just something you put on pizza or maybe had with a slice of tomato. Well, this mozzarella was a completely different animal from anything that I’d ever seen. The plate had three little chunks of different colored beets that were (maybe) pickled on one side and a blob of cheese on the other. The blob of mozzarella looked like a soft boiled egg, complete with ground pepper on top. The most amazing thing was that the cheese *acted* like a soft boiled egg too. It was creamy and liquidy in the middle and it flowed out when you cut the outer layer. I don’t know if this a common way to serve this cheese, but I’ve never had it and it blew me away. It was such a weird surprise and very good too. The third course was the pasta course and it was some sort of homemade linguini but it was two or three times as thick as normal. It also had some sort of spice infused/injected/inserted into the pasta. It was cooked very al dente and was really good. Very hearty. It was served with a hunk or two of lobster which was also great. I couldn’t find this dish on the online menu, and I don’t know if it’s on their regular menu since we never saw one, but it should be! This dish also had those amazing little bits of fried parsley. The forth course was halibut over some vegetables. I honestly don’t remember what they were. Sorry. They were some sort of pickled thing I think. Whatever they were, they were very good as was the fish. Light and moist. This is another dish that I can’t find on the menu (the online menu). The fifth course was my favorite of the night and this one is on the menu. It’s called 'Ossobuco Milanese' and it was veal cheek on a bed of mushrooms and risotto. The veal almost had the consistency of pudding and by that I mean it was so tender that you almost didn’t have to chew it. It practically turned to liquid in my mouth. It was amazing and I could have easily eaten 3 or 4 more. Looking back at the online menu, this was another dish I probably wouldn’t have ordered. I probably would have picked the lamb, but again, it was much better that I left the ordering up to someone else because this dish was killer. Next came the dessert and a special (extra) dessert for my wife for her birthday. Both were great. The real shocker was when the bill came. There were only three lines on it. One for wine and two for “Open Hot Food” which was code for our tasting meal. The price per meal was only $72. I tried to calculate what it would have cost based on similar items on the menu and I ended with something about $20 more per meal! This seemed like a great bargain to me and (again) the best part was we didn’t have do anything other than enjoy. No thinking, no agonizing over menu choices, just sitting back and waiting for the next surprise to come. If you’re up for a great meal and a little bit of an adventure, call Bibiana, ask for Francesco and leave it all up to him. We had a wonderful meal, a different experience and a great night. To quote Homer Simpson, this meal was “seven thumbs up!”

Not so Majestic....... After a wonderful meal at the Majestic a few months ago, my wife and I decided to take my parents there when they were in town last week. I wish our recent meal was as good as the earlier one, but sadly it wasn’t. Nothing was horribly wrong or needed attention from the manager, it just wasn’t great. Our server was competent but not polished and had a look that just didn’t belong in a nice place. Scraggly facial hair is not appealing in someone bringing you your food! He also did the old upselling trick on the salads…..”Would you like a house or Caesar salad with that?” My parents both said yes, because where they come from when you’re asked a question like that the assumption is that the salad comes with the main course. I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to spoil the mood (and was picking up the tab), but those salad were an extra 10 bucks each! Had my parents known this, they would have been appalled and not ordered them, or it would have badly tainted their meal. The next bizarre bit of service came when the main courses arrived. Someone, a hostess or manager (not our server), arrived at our table with one dish in each hand, held at shoulder height. She stood there for a few seconds without saying anything and then said, “I need to slide this” in a tone that suggested a bit of anger like we’ve all done this drill hundreds of times. Yes, that’s a direct quote, and no, we didn’t know what she was talking about or what to do about it as there looked to be enough room on the table to put the plates down. Using all my powers of deduction, I surmised that “I need to slide this” was code for, “Could you please make some room for these plates?”, we did and she put my father’s plate (the plate she needed to slide) in front of my mother. Hardly the end of the world, but a little weird and borderline rude. I really hate when a server arrives with both hands full, says nothing and expects the guests to be mind readers. If you’d like me to make some more room on the table, just ask! The meal itself was also hit or miss. My venison was rubbery and chewy except the end pieces that had a little more char on them and were very good, and the accompanying greens were oversalted and most remained on my plate. My mother liked the meatloaf but it was nothing special and either she or my wife could have made a better one. I’m a fan of meatloaf, but wouldn’t order this one again. My father liked the mussels and my wife liked her Restaurant Week choices: butternut squash ravioli, key lime pie and the best dish of the entire evening the appetizer called “Tomatoes and Potatoes”. Onions, potatoes, fried green tomatoes all toped with a sunny side up egg. That was a true winner and worth going back for. The onion ring appetizer was also a big hit. The pace of the meal was also strange. The place was only1/3 full when we arrived, but there were very long pauses between courses where we just sat and sat. Our plates probably sat on the table for 10 minutes after we were all done eating and it was another 10 minutes of waiting for my wife’s dessert. We eventually flagged down our server and asked for it to go. From the service to food, it was one of the least enjoyable meals I can remember in recent years, which sounds horrible, but it’s actually a comment on how many great meals I’ve had lately. This meal was far below what I’ve grown accustom to and really stood out. Do you think the Armstrong’s are getting stretched too thin? Who knows, but sadly, I've lost my desire to return to this place.