Beto

Damn, I work literally 5 minutes from there. It's going on the lunch list.

Ryan Jensen, former Murky alumnus and currently with Counter Culture Coffee will be opening an espresso bar in the space previously occupied by Murky Coffee, which you may recall, was seized in February by the district for nonpayment of taxes.

Link to story

I really like the Monocacy Silver and Ash also. The grapevine ash is a wonderful counterpoint to the mild tang. Spread it over good French bread and I'm in heaven!

The Olney Farmers Market will be opening for the '08 season this Sunday, May 4th. We expect almost 30 vendors to be participating this year, not including special guests. Joan Nathan, winner of 2 James Beard awards for the best American cookbook and James Beard nominee for Best National Television Food Show, will be here for a special appearance.

Make sure and try some chevre from Cherry Glen Farms. It's the absolute best goat cheese I've ever had.

We hope to see you and if you come, stop by our coffee booth and introduce yourself, we'd love to meet some fellow Don Rockwell members!

Olney Farmers Market

The packaging is an evolution of last year’s introduction of the “Smooth Draft Vent Can,” which featured a wide opening that enabled the liquid to pour smoothly like a draught tap. The new vented wide mouth directs airflow into the can to enhance the swigging experience for can drinkers.

This is unreal. When I saw this ad on the Onion, I thought that it must've been satire.

It's not.

Unless Nick's worked out something with DC not to go after the Arlington store, I think DC can still legally go after his assets, of which includes the Arlington store.

The DC and Arlington store are separate business entities, so unless a judge were to determine that the corporate veil had been pierced, I don't think that the Office of Taxes and Revenue can go after them.

I walked past there yesterday and it looked like some construction work was going on, but it's still in the rough-out stage.

On Sunday, March 30th, the Olney Farmers and Artists Market will be holding a social and fundraising event at the Sandy Spring Friends School. In addition to cooking demonstrations and food vendors sampling their wares, the day's events will also include half-hour talks by food experts such as Bonnie Wolf of NPR's Weekend Edition and author of Talking with My Mouth Full; Renee Catacalos,editor and publisher of Edible Chesapeake and publisher Nycci Nellis the "go-to expert" for Washington and beyond with her hugely popular The List Are You On It.

More info can be found at Olney Farmers Market.

Hope to see you there!

A friend of mine and I dropped in at Donna's on Saturday night in Columbia. I've always liked the one on Mount Vernon in Baltimore for a weekend brunch and was surprised at how disappointed I was in this new location for dinner. The Feta Salad was pretty decent with crisp romaine, good cheese, and a light vinaigrette. But the burger was really weak. It was overcooked with something that tasted like bleu cheese but appeared as a sort of long ago precooked blob that was slapped on as it left the kitchen. The fries had no crispiness at all and were just barely warm.

I've been trying to wrap my head around a special I saw on the menu-- Mahi-mahi with goat cheese. WTF? I don't remember the rest of the description because my brain just kind of ground to a halt as it tried reconcile the fish/goat combo. Is it just me or does that just not make any sense regardless of the other ingredients?

That combination doesn't make sense to me either. When I was growing up though, fish sticks and Kraft mac & cheese were a great pairing!

...well, some things haven't changed

Seriously, we finally turned up a couple of gems amongst the smattering of middling-to-bad food. The Red Iguana (736 West North Temple) is a local fave that serves Brobdingnabian portions of Mexican food. Gubeen enjoyed her chile rellenos, but the standout was the assortment of mole dishes. Most of them are over chicken or turkey, and the dishes are pretty simple overall, but the sauces themselves were surprisingly complex, far moreso than I've found elsewhere.

The mole at Red Iguana is the best I've ever had in my life.

¡Fue una victoria total!

hhhmmm ...just 3 coffee houses/cafes? no restaurants serve quality espresso? for a city of this scale i would assume so many more...is DC starbuckized? yuck!

In my experience, most restaurants don't place an extreme amount of emphasis on their coffee programs. There are exceptions though. Restaurant Eve uses a local roaster (Caffe Pronto) and like everything else they do, they do coffee well.

Our coffee is served at Oyamel. If you get a chance to try it there, let me know what you think!

where is a place to get a good espresso/macchiato? does anybody have favorites to suggest?

Murky

Big Bear Cafe

Sova Espresso

The above places are all quality joints.

Has anyone ever tried coffee brewed in a Japanese siphon bar? Sounds interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/dining/2...&ei=5087%0A

With its $20,000 price tag and labor-intensive brewing process, that has to be one expensive cup of joe.

I haven't tried the coffee from it, but I'm working on getting one for a customer of mine (please don't ask me who it is).

That $20,000 price tag is, shall I say it... a little exaggerated.

Wasn't there a whole lot of ruckus about the VA Jaleo's sangria in this thread a while back? Well sounds like the prohibiition-era nonsense is back up for review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

What utter nonsense.

I picked up a bag of the Pinon nut coffee at Trader Joe's a while back and I really like it. Probably one of you smart people is going to tell me it's the coffee equivalent of Twinkies to fine pasties.

I have been bouncing around with coffee methods for a long while and have finally settled on my cheap-o grinder and Bialetti. I did the high maintenance machine thing and it cost me more aggravation than the coffee was worth to me.

You hit it right on the head. It really depends what it's worth to you. Some people are content with premade, jarred pesto and others would rather make pesto by hand from fresh basil, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Drink what you like.

Started at the Ja Gal Chi market on Sunday and have been exploring every market since. An amazing variety of food from hot waffles with butter to fish shaped fish cakes to unknown pork pieces to...well, you name it and if it's edible, you can find it in the market somewhere. A lot of squid and octopus (both live and dried), lots of tanks of live fish ready to be taken home and cleaned and eaten, lots of old ladies selling everything. Makes Costco look small.

Ja Gal Chi is pretty awesome. Here are a couple of must-see places:

Beomeosa Temple - Beautiful temple up in the mountains

Taejongdae - Seaside park with magnificent cliffs

Gwangalli Beach - Lots of little shops and restaurants on the beachfront

There's a large restaurant on the main street that runs in front of the train station that serves nothing but steamed dumplings. They serve thousands and thousands of dumplings a day in the cavernous place. I wish that I knew the name, but if you ask a local, they could probably help you find it. I think that it's in Nampodong and it's fantastic.

Is it cold in Busan....well, it's 1 degree at the moment and supposed to go to 6 so it's about normal for this time of the year. Let me get this on track (slightly) by saying that I've never seen quite so many varieties of fish in so many different forms. I was in the street markets yesterday and there is a huge number of streets dedicated to selling fish, fish and more fish. Also found the street that sells pork and you can buy everything from the snout to the tip of the tail. Hog heads seem to be an obsession with about 15 vendors selling pig's heads, cooked and neatly wrapped and ready to take home. (I think the Westin might be a bit put out if I showed up with a pigs head, however). There is a ton of street vendors selling everything you can think of. Odan is everywhere and all the fish cake vendors are busy...

Oh dang, I love me some o-daeng! Either on a stick, or in broth, it's perfect for cutting the winter chill.

Did you find the street not too far from the train station that specializes in uncured bacon, sam gyup sal? Shop after shop... selling nothing but fatty bacon, ready to slather in soybean paste, wrap in lettuce, and stuff in your face!

I think pretty much the same. I've bought Kenyan several times in the past in the US and I don't recall it ever making such an impression on me. Maybe I just need some freshly roasted from some online source.

Freshness is a huge factor when it comes to coffee flavor. Pretty much after the moment that coffee is roasted, it's a downhill slide. The carbon dioxide begins to escape and the subtle, complex flavors lose their intensity until they become completely dull. The effect is even more pronounced with the high-acid east Africans, such as Kenyans.

Stored in the cupboard or on the grocer's shelf, coffee is effectively dead after a month. I recommend that my customers only buy enough coffee for 2 weeks time. Next time you're in the store, look at the expiration dates on bagged coffee. It might just shock you.

Try taking a piece of the mother and throw it into a sterilized jar with your old wine, cut in half with water. Cover the opening with cheesecloth and put it in somewhat warm, dark place. If it starts to evaporate too quickly, experiment with partially covering the jar with a lid.

Check on it once a week or so, but don't expect anything dramatic for a while, these things take time.

I ran across this, and it sounds intriguing to me. Has anyone tried it? http://www.ibericosmaldonado.com/ingles/productos7.htm

As far as I know, the only company that exports jamón ibérico de bellotas is Fermin. With many thanks to the efforts of José Andrés, Rogers International imports what many consider the finest ham on the planet.

If you want to try it, Jaleo is serving it.

You're not but a few blocks from Puerta del Sol. On the western side at the intersection of Calle Mayor and Calle del Arenal, there's a great little place to get breakfast.

I second the recommendation to prowl Cava Alta and Cava Baja for tapas.

I love how everyone just sits outside and relaxes and enjoys themselves.

I'll also keep vigilant for any stray eggs shooting back into the machine, but it's strange to think that an attachment created for steaming milk could be so easily defeated by milk itself.

Commercial espresso machines have an anti-siphon valve on them precisely to prevent sucking stuff into the boiler. On a domestic machine, it would be advisable to open up the valve to clear out the steam wand before you cool the machine down.

I'm looking for a good carpenter to build some fixtures in my new retail shop. Anyone worked with someone who's retail/restaurant-minded? Anyone who's built checkout counters or bars would be great!

Thanks so much,

Jill

Jill, you might want to give Custom Woodworks a call. They do quality work.

It was distressingly messy to drink, but I freely admit that I may have been doing it wrong.

Did you drink from the corners or the sides of the box? The idea (I've been told) is that it is designed to be shared and each person takes their own corner, for sanitary reasons.