Nadya

That's for you to decide. Personally, I never tell about my donrockwellianism unless questioned. I think it is tacky. Edited to add I think it's OK to say you learned about the restaurant from XXX, but to extend it to "I AM FROM..." is preposterous. Furthermore, I have wet dreams of sitting at the bar someplace, and overhearing someone make that statement, so that I can bust their bottom by administering a 10-question on-the-spot quiz of the "How many posts does it take to get to hammerhead?", "Who's a kitty sniper?" and "Where was the 2005 fall picnic held" and watching them squirm uncomfortably and weep into their Bud Light.

There are evenings when the setting provides the perfect frame for the experience. The patio at Poste on a summer Sunday night is a lovely oasis from the downtown bustle. The hotel walls wrap around the courtyard blocking out the noise and the traffic, the reasonably comfortable tables and chairs are liberally spaced, leaving you to smooch in relative privacy, and the starry inky sky says it is summer and you are far away from the office. The summer feeling is picked up and carried on by the delicate, tightly edited menu that delivers the taste of summer as beautifully as the setting. Try oyster shooters in gazpacho-like tangy liquid prettily packed in short test tube-like glasses. These babies are so good you don't want to shoot them. Try heirloom gazpacho with mustard ice cream, so sharp and rich but never heavy. The scoop of ice cream gleaming through the dark pink liquid offers such an unexpected but lovely infusion of flavor, you'll have trouble choosing. Should I scoop out the gazpacho and enjoy the rich creaminess on its own? Should I keep chipping away little bits to tease me? Or should I yield to my abandon and mash it all together? It's delicious either way, and you'll have fun picking yours. The ostensible simplicity of the heirloom tomato salad is belied by its presentation. It arrives with a customary stacks of tomato and mozzarella slices, both of them perfect, but also with a palate-cleansing scoop of cucumber sorbet, and the plate is lined with tomato water jelly. It's a grown-up, sophisticated rendition of this summer classic that adds a delicate frame around the headliner ingredients but doesn't overshadow them. My steak tartar and his steak frites were perfectly competent, and I admire the restrained portion sizes that let you enjoy your entrée with no apprehension of the diner's curse known as No Room For Dessert. And you'll want to leave room, because my chocolate pot de crème was a beautiful ending, with its layers of chocolate mousse, milk jam and chili pepper something. You will also want to introduce yourself to Todd Wyss who minded the kitchen on both recent Sunday night visits, because the man behind a lovely dinner like that needs to be known. He's very cordial and will gladly answer your questions and if you're very good, show you their very own vegetable garden. Mid-July, Sunday night, Poste courtyard. See you there next time.

Well, the bar at Agraria is pretty damn awesome, physically, and this is based on my extensive bar research. It's long, it's smooth, it's gleaming, it's seriously sophisticated, and if someone cared to cultivate it and fill it up with rows of smartly dressed people sipping sidecars and tucking into their plates, I am sure this can be arranged. But then again, maybe noone cares about cultivating that type of clientele.

Having spent an hour there two Saturdays ago drinking wine in which the primary flavor was acid, I fully concur.

Dearest pumpkins, I appreciate your support as always. The comments are of course amusing, but then again, any reaction is a good sign. They didn't really say too many nasty things. Could use some editing? No speaka English too good. Highbrow and masturbatory? I can't really claim alienation from either. Seems like enough people enjoy it, and for that I am grateful. P.S. I floated the idea of running The Best of From The Trenches Thread as Restaurant Week approaches...let's see what the reaction will be to THAT.

Revolution Number Nine

Wow. I think that's the single most critical review I read from Tom, who tends to kill his subjects with faint praise, (see Viridian's "watermelon thing gets old fast", I love it.) I am glad to see the boy is as talented when it comes to reaming crap slophouse fare with pen and paper as he is with multi-adjectived praise. Let's face it, writing sarcastic and critical shit and staying entertaining is a lot harder than being positive. Take it from me.

Did you know? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6072501108.html Rocks, please move at your discretion. Just didn't want folks to miss it.

Quality time clocked at Agraria bar last night. Very handsome space, beautiful bar counter. Lovely drinks, attentive and heart-warming service. When hunger struck, the following conversation was had with a bartender: "If I order a burger, will they fuck it up?" "It should be good." Discuss.

Please..don't remind.

Oh good grief, another thread to respond to and forget as always. My name is Nadya, I drifted here from egullet.org that encouraged my till-then dormant interest in eating and blabbing. I am famous for my ability to work the word "bottom" into every sentence and the knowledge of many adjectives. From 9 to 5, I'm a nonprofit health communicator who gets paid to make using condoms sound like fun. At night, I'm either fronting the door at Bis or walking into the door some place else. I write a column for dcist which some people say is masturbatory. Well, the real truth had to come out eventually, you know. Typing with one hand ain't easy. Also, I grew up in a very tough place with actual breadlines where at times food was so scarce that we had no bread and had to eat our caviar straight out of the jar.

Like anyone needs a reminder. Gluttony and indulgence: Komi Monday night: Palena Sushi: SushiKo or Kotobuki Anytime, anywhere: BdC Fab pasta at bar: Tosca Dreams that rarely come true: Eve Chocolate fix: Corduroy

I don't make these kinds of decisions. If my GM instructs me that a certain person is no longer welcome, I will enforce that policy, but our management, bless their hearts, tends to shield us from confronting the customer and thankfully picks up that unpleasant bit of business for themselves. On a more realistic level, it seems that the heart of your question goes to: "Can negative info in my OpenTable profile within an individual restaurant influence how I am treated in this restaurant in future?" And the answer is: absolutely. If your history says, 19 reservations, including 12 cancellations and 3 no-shows, why should I reserve a nice table for you over a regular who I know will show up? If you threw a hissy fit on your prior visit, there will be a record and waiters will be alerted. If there is some other unseemly behavior on the record, OF COURSE it will be reflected in your experience. If you yell at the person who sells you stamps at the Post Office, you think they will serve you cookies when you happen to drop by next time? I should note that people who act normally on their subsequent visits are likely to have their record cleared. How? Like so: "Hey Joe, table 87 is a PPA (pain in ass.)" "OK, thanks." An hour later. "Hey Joe, how's 87 treating you?" "Oh, they're fine. Low maintenance. Tipped 20%." "Great, let me go unclick that PPA box."

The OpenTable rep did not contradict what I wrote in any sense. I never said restaurants share information on their patron. Only that they are capable of keeping records of individual customers - within individual restaurants.

No. There's nothing suave in the Just-Left-The-Kitchen Look, unless you're talking to a starry-eyed 20-something chef groupie who just committed the entire volume of Kitchen Confidential to memory. Just Left the Kitchen has easily identifiable (by color and smell) stains all over his clothes. Just Left the Kitchen reeks like a 'ho after payday. Also, Just Left the Kitchen doesn't own any decent street clothes so his taste and fit suck. Johnny, on the other hand, is a very rare breed who is a brilliant cook and very cool person without trying too hard (like building a superhip website. Or getting highlights. ) So, I just don't buy that he would pick a look that's contrived in any way.

In the middle of the helter-skeltering, bubbling, crowded downtown eateries where the lines of low-ridin' denim ostentation pack in five deep at the bar with their little beaks open wide in search of pomegranate margaritas, there is a tiny oasis of peace and quiet with deep orange scumble-glazed walls, warm smiles from the staff and no wait - no wait! - for a table on Saturday night. The name is Bistro d'Oc. If for nothing else, you have to love BdO for the wild, unabashed gutsiness of dishing calf brains that one simply can't find anymore, what with mad cow and all that silliness. So the brains were there and packing quite a hefty portion, or else that calf would have been a national SAT competition finalist. Cooked perfectly to let you sink your teeth into supple, elastic flesh generously sauced in lemon and capers. Very satisfying, I can easily make a meal of that dish with a glass of wine at the bar. The rest of the meal was serviceable but did not match the pure, gluttonous pleasure of polishing the plate of brains clean with a piece of (too) crunchy, crumbling baguette. The duck pate was a bit bland, the duck confit almost too homey, and the steak just good. But do give them a try next time you don't want to fight the crowds in Zaytinya. At BdO, the ambience is warm and inviting, the staff genuinely try to make you feel at home, the food is comforting and occasionally delightful, and the list of specials almost as long as the regular menu. They deserve to be more popular.

Not a chatroom. Not a database. A social club with an eating problem.

Congratulations, Johnny!!!!! Cannot think of a more deserving candidate. Also cannot think of anyone who would care less about awards. Over the last two years it's been fascinating and lovely to watch the restaurant take the direction and vision that the chef so very clearly has in mind. It's also been easy to forgive the harder and harder game at getting a reservation. I would suggest that we all need to be grateful to our good fortunes for having a restaurant like Komi exist and survive in Washington. I can only admire Johnny's singular dedication to the vision that is fully his own, and be happy that it is apparently - as showcased by their full book - finding a following deserving of its brilliance.

Just a quick note to say I appreciate everyone's support very much. I had no idea so many feathers would be ruffled. You'd think the Segway thing woulda taught me something But seriously, y'all's appreciation is a big motivation to keep going. Plus, being called masturbatory really rocked.

Corkage, Schmorkage Big fat thank you to everyone who helped me fight my own ignorance on that one.

Personally, it's hard for me to relate to anyone who needs and craves cigarettes. HOWEVER, I very much enjoy retiring to the bar for a fag and a digestif after a good dinner. I can testify that the way it feels in my mouth at that point is fun. Bloody good fun, too. Cosmopolitan and wordly. So while I feel for those whose health was damaged by tobacco, I feel sad about losing that particular avenue of pleasure.

Well, short of a completely ridiculous scenario under which a restaurant would deliberately block their prime time slots, these times are indeed booked and what you see is what is available. I find it a bit hard to believe in Washington, where you can almost always get a table almost anywhere, but for a very popular place that may be true.

Drinking has a poisonous effect on the liver??? Damn. Better slow down or something.

How true? I don't know of any instances of canceling anyone's reservation. That's just, I don't know...what's the word...unprofessional or something? But have to differ with regard to splitting the difference between 7:15 and 7:30. Because of this: "Hi, can you accommodate four at 7.30?" "Let me take a look at what we have, please." Brief look at the spread uncovers the following. 7:15 - six covers. 7.30 - twenty-two covers. 7.45 - nine covers. Add any more to 7.30, and the kitchen will start a mutiny. No, they won't all come in, sit down and order at the same time. But why make the house go through that pacing exercise when the guests arrive, hungry and eager, vs. when they call up first?? "I'm afraid we're fully booked at 7.30, but I can do 7.15 or 7.45. Yes, you're welcome to come early, and we'll seat you early if we can, but as of right now, 7.30 is not available." Do you think it makes us difficult?