Nadya

I did check your post. It said this: "I understand both sides, however I think in other parts of the world it's not really about the profit...They gave you time to enjoy the meal and your wine without feeling rushed between your courses. Our Counrty is different, most people don't have the time to take 4 hrs for dinner, and most restaurants are trying to turn a profit. In Paris most Restaurnts are doing it for the love not profit. I can only think of a few places that I have visited that are doing it for the love in DC..." My reaction to this was that ALL restaurants are doing it for profit, or should be, and that love is, or should be, a necessary element of this equation. Even the restaurants you enjoyed in Paris are trying to turn a profit. It may just not be very noticeable to diners, but the profit margin is built into everything you enjoy there, including an unhurried dinner. If I misunderstood your point, I apologize.

I don't think anyone here is making an argument that opening a restaurant is some quick-rich scheme. The point people like myself are trying to make is that regardless of how much you love food, serving the community, preparing a quality product and displaying warm cuddly teddy bears on your dining room shelves, everyone, every single restaurateur going into business has, or should have, a business plan that produces a bottom line. Do you think the locally owned restaurants you enjoy so much just took a loan out and winged it on "let's see if we can make this work" basis? Of course chefs and restaurateurs have to love what they do, and if they wanted to get rich, they probably would have opened a liquor store. The failure rates are staggering and the perils of this work are too hard to take if you don't feel passionate about your business. The point is that the passion one feels for one's work does not at all negate the need for a business model. Perhaps they are not in it to make a massive amount of money, but they are not in it to lose money either. Imagine Mssr. Vincent from Chez Vincent saying to his produce supplier: "Hey Luke, I want three cases of the best peaches you have because I want to make my peach melbas as brilliant as possible. Imagine how happy my customers will be! And if I happen to be able to pay you next month along the way, hey, that's even better." Or to his hostess: "Hey Nadya, I want you to come work for me three nights a week because I want to have the hottest and the most polished hostess in town who looks stunning in her black dress behind the host stand and answers the phone with just the right mix of sass, accent and reverence. Imagine how happy the clients will be! Won't you love this? And if I can pay you along the way, that's even better."

The idea that some restaurateurs do it for money and some for love is quite daft. Perhaps Chez Vincent, a colorful bistro at let's say, a tiny but chic French Riviera town does not come across as madly efficient as, let's say, Morton's of Chicago outpost. It still doesn't exempt Mssr. Vincent from the need to buy produce, pay staff, replace linens, hire cleaners, and take home enough jambone to make Mme Vincent happy. You may be left with an impression of relaxed hospitality of people who don't care when you leave, but it's really quite misguided to think that the entire dining experience in ANY restaurant hasn't been carefully planned to make the bottom line attractive. That is, of course, assuming Mssr. Vincent plans to remain in business and doesn't just want to blow through the massive inheritance of his Grand Tante Rottschild, nee Vincent.

I can certainly see where both sides of the "pay up and leave" and "entitled to linger" debate come from. I am also sure that restaurants of different caliber and style approach that differently. But here's a few things folks may like to keep in mind: - Let's say a typical restaurant serves dinner 5.30 to 10.30. That's five hours. Discounting a sodding lovebird couple that keeps playing footsie under the table and sucks fillings out of each other's teeth cavities in full view of the dining room long after the check has been paid, most people don't take five hours to eat dinner. That means that the restaurant makes certain assumptions about the time when you will get out (x hours after you begin), and makes reservations on the basis of these assumptions. That means that when you sit down to dinner at 5.30 and don't get up till 8.30, the other couple has been waiting for an hour. Assuming, of course, we are fully booked. If the table is all yours for the night...how is a restaurant supposed to keep going on half the revenue?? - Don't get me started on people who "just want some coffee and do some work, oh, if you have a booth, I'll take it." No. No. No. - On coming for dinner five minutes before closing. Please, before you go into full-on "rules are rules and if you're open, you're open" rant, pause and consider human nature. How do YOU feel when a boss hands you a memo to write at 4.45 pm on Friday? Are you giddy with delight? Or do you curse under your happy-hour-eager breath? The cook and the waiter taking your order at that point can't wait to leave. There are girlfriends. Beverages. General fun after hours. Can you really expect them to be happy? It's just like what Bourdain said about brunch: "No one wants to be there." And if you've been sitting in the empty dining room for an hour all by yourself, and suddenly the lights come on - that's called "a message."

Got a chance to check the place out yesterday, and was v. pleased. It's not too terribly large so the selection can be quite limited, but for what and where it is, I think it does a good job. There are lots of traditional condiments of pickles, Georgian hot sauce (ajika), barbecue sauces made of sour plums, (tkemali and satsibeli), canned veggies like brined slaws, whole tomatoes, and eggplant dishes, etc. With distress, I noted that my lovely honeycakes are made outside of Russia. What up with that? The highlights: - smoked white cheese (suluguni) - canned roasted peppers in tomatoe sauce - eggplant spread (extremely common back home!!) - chocolate candy by the pound. Don't let the kiddie-like wrapping paper fool you - dark truffle matter lurks underneath. Overall, a good reason for a rare trip to the 'burbs, and good for a nice spread of ready-made goodies for dinner if you don't feel like turning on the stove.

I second the Palena barstool praise. I've never met anything friendlier to my bottom. Come to think of it, I sat on it cross-legged many a times and nothing hung down. I too hate these little contraptions from which half of your cheek is hanging down precariously. Also, old Gabriel on 21st and P had the best barstools ever, large and plump and red leather with gold nailheads...bottom happiness.

If you haven't nibbled on the PowerSquashTart out of the best kittybag in the world on your long, lonely drive home after the midnight shift, scattering buttery crumbs and drops of cream on your lap and seat and NOT CARING; If you haven't indulged in long, slowly, leisurely perfectly constructed forkfuls of bite-size venison pieces topped with a smidge of chestnut puree topped with a few drops of gravy, all savored under the baleful stares of your co-workers consumed with Lean Quisine envy; Well then, my darlings, you haven't lived at all. And thanks to everyone - you know who you are.

Chefs are not freewheeling arteestes stuck at a loft creating masterpieces while a Gwyneth Paltrow lookalike hurries upstairs with a fancy capuccino maker. They are professionals working in a business generating a profit margin that should enable them to at least buy drinkies for Gwyneth Paltrow lookalikes (we all look better after the midnight shift) after they're done with service. If 60% of the tickets coming into the kitchen read "steak frites, medium rare," I would argue that the chef should either channel his desire and skill into slinging steak frites, medium rare, or go find himself another place to work.

What, I have to go all the way across the river before y'all give a comrade a break?

I can probably show up but no earlier than 8 pm...y'all will still be going by then?

I have to say that for all the moaning about too much Jose-pimping and the overtures of Big Bad Chain, Jaleo in Penn Quarter has always provided good times for me. Especially if you're there on an off-peak, random time like Sunday afternoon - sit at the bar, guzzle sangria, nibble bacon-wrapped goodies - makes you love life even more and forget that there is a Monday. I love the dates, the goat cheese-stuff piquillo, the chicken croquettes, and I am officially in love with their paprikaed octopus.

Someone else needs to post so it's not all my gushing page to page. But Palena last night!!! You know, every time you think you have it all figured out, and can say with authority, "Ruta is a genuis with pasta," or "Ruta is a genuis with house-made succulent meats", something else comes out of that MagicLab . And you start gushing all over again. And pretty soon every major food group is covered. So, last night. My friend was not terribly hungry. "I'll just have the gnocchi," he said. I remember that gnocchi. Fluffy pillows scattered with delicious crumbs of Castelmagno with a kick of sweet balsamic. Heavenly bliss in the mouth. "Good choice," I said. "I'll have the oxtail." (I can always steal some of your gnocchi.) That oxtail should have been an illustration to a chapter in the food dictionary expounding on the popular belief that the sweetest meet is the closest to the bone. Braised for a hundred hours with fingerling potatoes, pine nuts and raisins, what lands on your plate are three solid slabs of bone with generous chunks of sweet meat still clinging to the nooks and crevices. Carving it out is a huge part of the fun. Mopping the plate for remaining bits of seasoning is even more fun. And as many dishes that come out of that kitchen, this one packs all the deftness of execution and great ingredients in one homey, comfortable plate that could have been your mum's doing. Except much, much, much better. And if not for the rules governing behavior of young ladies in public places, I would have nibbled and licked on that bone until it was white and shiny. My allegedly non-hungry friend, halfway done with his gnocchi (I'm sorry, halfway done? means I actually ate the other half...not that he lingered), watched me with fascination. "You know...this food looks so good. I think I'll have something else." "Of course. Silly you. Have the rabbit." (Why the rabbit? Oh, I contemplated ordering it in the first place.) The rabbit came as a glistening thick slice of rilette with coarsely ground bits of meat and fat wrapped in more meat and fat. Prettily offset with some greens and grainy mustard, that dish was too small for two, but I did steal a bite to confirm what I've already known: Ruta is a genuis with house-made succulent meats. The kitchen was tiffing it big time. Finally, the cookie plate has been updated and now sports a very voidy almond meringue dusted with slivers of nuts with a slightly chewy middle. And if you must go, please pick a friend who doesn't like desserts. Because then, you know, you can get all three that come to a plate. Which would be my recommendation. All in all, another perfect evening, just-right portions of beautiful food, lovely service, and hurry home to watch the free dance. I wouldn't want my Mondays to be anything else. Would you?

I swear to Jesus, all his apostle and cherubs: I drool for Monday night the same way people long for Fridays. It's Monday morning. I'm squirming in my seat, Swallowing loudly in anticipation. Can eight o'clock come any sooner?

Oh, oh, oh. Yes, the burger was a thing of beauty. It caressed the eye, the mouth, and the stomach cavity. Yes, it was worth hauling bottom from vile Virginia. All that richness, and warmth, and melting, and juicing, and mixing in mouth. But then came the payback. Four hours after that lunch, when most lunches would have been digested and excreted, I was at the gym, where I am usually found on Friday nights jumping, kicking and leaping through the studio. Fifteen minutes after hurling self into my ultimate step training, I paused. There was no usual spring in my step and no lift in my kick. My vertical splits were pathetic. My attitude toes went unpointed. The smallest dance sequence felt like over-the-top exertion. The usual look of awe in the eyes of the steppers behind me turned to condescension. I stopped, perplexed, to examine self. I looked deep inside. And there, deep inside, from the pit of my stomach, a fat blob of foie gras looked up at me. "Hello," it said with a gleeful little smile. "Thought I'd be gone by now, babycakes?" I felt betrayed. But the thing kept smiling at me. "For the rest of the night, I'm just going to sit here and refuse to melt. You'll pay. Oh you'll pay." I made a good college try to stay, but it was pitiful. Every liquid in my body turned to goose fat. I was breathing out and sweating out foie. So, maybe in future I will limit my foie consumption to just a smidge. Just a smear. Just a touch. Just a whiff. My tender sensibilities have been shot to ribbons by the shock of the switch from carrot sticks to the richest food known to man. Yes, I've been happy eating it. Oh yeah, I've paid.

OK, let me see: The meat in the burger too lean? What, with a card deck-size of goose fat on it? My arteries have been calling to me for the last twenty minutes. And their cry isn't for lack of richness. They are not saying, "Mistress...send us some fat instead of that disgusting rabbit food we had for lunch and dinner." They are saying: "Baby....I am so clogged I can barely breathe...but damn! that was good."

Plus the expectations that night are just SO MUCH higher. Honestly, what is the appeal of sitting down cheek to jowl with 200 couples that all look like identical twin versions of each other, pawing each other's hands, peering into each other's eyes over cooling lobster bisque, I will live to one hundred years and never understand. Example: just yesterday someone fumed at me, "This is ridiculous", when told that there will be a fifteen-minute wait on his reservation. On any other day, he would have taken his impatient bottom to the bar to have a drink and forget all about it. But not tonight. Everything has to be perfect and superspecial and sugar on top tonight. Hence the disappointment and universal resentment of that night on the other side of the service profession.

As luck would have it, I'm working and we have 220+ on the books. I sense a thread titled "The Reaming of St. Valentine" to be a hit on Wednesday night if anything transpires.

You mean you people don't get out when you get five inches? Wimps.

The Guards in G'town has a fireplace, nice brunch and nearly never crowded.

Just to add more gushing to the button mushroom soup fan club. I was there on Monday night, sick as a dog, and in need of some comfort food. That soup hit the spot. The texture was so fine, almost like a foam, but quite rich, with drops of goodies on the bottom of the plate. And the chicken, of course, is the Frank Ruta chicken, what else can you add? That was my last full meal before the cold annihilated my appetite - don't say it didn't go out with a bang...

To the best of my knowledge what you said is correct: Breakfast service is 7 am to 10 am Brunch service is 11.30 am to 3 pm both Saturday and Sunday. Not sure why you overheard someone ordering three courses - I rarely work brunch so don't know that scene. One option is that perhaps they were eating at the bar area? Really, don't know. As far as I know, there's no service between 10 and 11.30 am except perhaps continental breakfast in the lounge. I will investigate and let you know.

I often come to Bis for brunch myself. As much as I am opposed to pimping, I think our brunch is under-appreciated, possibly on account of too little foot traffic in that area. The deal we've been running for as long as I can remember is three courses (appetizer, main and dessert) for a little under $30. I think that's a good deal and a rather lot of food. Menu is here. And we don't enforce a dress code, and particularly not at brunch. For dinner, most people wear business or business casual.

Mmmm, sounds lovely. Citronelle lounge never fails to get one in the mood.

I think you can go pretty much anywhere for "just dessert", just be prepared to be seated at the bar or a lounge table. Close to Zaytinya, off the top of my head, the bar at Tosca is lurvely (but I miss Kathy!), Jaleo is nice if noisy, Poste brasserie has a very civilized bar, too. What about the new Rasika?

Absolutely true...and a good staff member will say: "Give me a second to check that we don't have a reservation pending on that table." Ten seconds later, a beaming staff members trots back to nice guests who are waiting in the aisle (and not hovering over the table they want) and says: "Yes, the table you requested is available, please follow me." Or, with a crestfallen expression: "I'm sorry, that table has been reserved for an anniversary dinner. Do you see another table that you like?"