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Kibbee Nayee

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Everything posted by Kibbee Nayee

  1. Kibbee Nayee
    Your suggestion was the reason we went to BRABO instead of Vermilion, and I owe you a debt of gratitude. We went to BRABO on Thursday night, and it wasn't crowded at all. The out of town guests were staying at the same hotel, so it was an easy walk downstairs for them. The next night, my son checked in on Vermilion and there were no reservations available. Maybe it was because Friday night in Old Town is hopping....
  2. Kibbee Nayee
    I have to give BRABO high marks for the meal we enjoyed with out of town guests this past week. The dining room was about half-full on a Thursday evening. The staff was gracious throughout. We were seated at a circular 6-top, and conversation was easy. The appetizers that landed on the table were the grilled octopus, fois gras terrine, and the French radish dish. Not a flaw anywhere, and that radish dish blew me away. My main was the perfect steak frites with the 8oz bravette, and Lady KN selected the sea bass. We emptied our plates, and we weren't all that hungry. We accompanied the meal with 4 bottles of their featured wines at about $54 a bottle, so the final bill of $630 all-in with tax and tip seemed like a bargain for 6 of us. That was a damn satisfying meal in a pleasant setting with a great deal of ambiance and comfort. And the food was really very good, perhaps some of the best food in Old Town.
  3. Kibbee Nayee
    They don't know yet, according to the friendly young lady at the other end of the telephone at Afghan Bistro. If the owner knows, she continued, he hasn't told anyone yet.
  4. Kibbee Nayee
    It's been awhile since Lady KN and I checked in with George and Lily, and Lily reminded me of such with a nice voice mail last week wondering if I was OK. This being the holiday season, Lady KN and I packed a bottle of El Massaya arak in a gift bag and headed to see George and Lily for lunch today. After the greetings and hugs and family catch-up chit-chat, we sat down to a pleasant, if gut-busting, feast. We shared a combination platter of kabobs, along with small orders of hummus special (with meat topping), labne drizzled with olive oil, lubee (broad beans with tomato sauce), sauteed spinach, and a plate of pickles, pickled turnips, and olives. All of this was accompanied by bread from their oven, so hot it had to cool off for a minute or two before we could rip off pieces to serve as our dipping scoops. The food was outstanding. A true mom-and-pop serving up some of the fare of its kind in northern Virginia -- still on top of its game after nearly 17 years. Count me a very enthusiastic fan. Don't expect luxury here -- you're eating off styrofoam plates with plastic utensils in a small grocery store. But do expect some of the best Lebanese food in this area. Before we left, I picked up some shankleesh and olive oil, the latter because it makes for ideal holiday gifts, and the former because eggs and shankleesh are a pairing sent to us from Heaven.
  5. Kibbee Nayee
    Does that mean the Wharf has no parking?
  6. Kibbee Nayee
    I was going to ask a similar question, but I'm more interested in the Maine Avenue Seafood Market -- where does someone park who's lugging 5-10lbs of fresh seafood?
  7. Kibbee Nayee
    Aracosia is coming soon to McLean! It's nice that the Afghan Bistro owners are spreading out. If they do it like the one downtown, they'll actually close the Springfield location for a few days to get the McLean location up and running with family members and quality staff. Afghan Bistro is in Springfield, Bistro Aracosia is in Palisades, and now Aracosia will be in McLean. It's opening at the end of March, and it's going to be at 1381 Beverly Road, where Il Borgo Italian Restaurant once stood. From Northern Virginia Magazine: As the owner of two critically acclaimed restaurants—the first, Afghan Bistro in Springfield, and the second, Bistro Aracosia in D.C.'s Palisades neighborhood—Omar Masroor often gets approached by leasing agents and developers to open a third spot. It's finally worked. Masroor plans for a spin-off with Aracosia to open in McLean in March. Where Bistro Aracosia expanded the menu and upped the formality of Afghan Bistro, Aracosia will be another step in that direction with white tablecloths, servers in ties and classical Afghan paintings. "We don’t do modern industrial looks," says Masroor of the minimal-and-metal trend long dominating restaurant interior designs. Instead, there will be rich colors like lapis lazuli, burgundy reds, mustard yellows and olive greens. Aracosia's menu will overlap with the offerings of its sister restaurants, with a few new dishes, including large hunks of meat: a tomahawk chopan, a 36-ounce cut from the ribs meant to feed two or three people; goat shank; goat ribs; and lamb neck. Vegetable-forward dishes showcase okra lawaan (yogurt sauce), okra Mughlai in a spicy tomato-masala sauce with eggplant and Thai chili peppers and a bouranee platter (roasted vegetables with a yogurt drizzle) with the likes of turnips, zucchini, carrots, quince, cauliflower and okra. Opening in the usually cold month of March, there will be warming dishes of tosh payra dumpling stew, oxtail soup, lentil soup and homach soup, a thinner porridge-like dish made from oatmeal and barley. The cuisine is a departure from Masroor's first visit to the restaurant at that very address more than 20 years ago. Masroor tells the story of taking his wife to Il Borgo Italian Restaurant and remembers admiring the upscale decor and the air of formality and said, "If I ever do a restaurant, it will be something like this.” // 1381 Beverly Road, McLean
  8. Kibbee Nayee
    With a name like "Stable" they should have horse on the menu....
  9. Kibbee Nayee
    Does anyone know Roberto Donna's ethnic heritage? I ask because my signature picture is a birthday dish of kibbeh nayyeh to Roberto Donna from the Abi-Najm family of the Lebanese Taverna Abi-Najms....
  10. Kibbee Nayee
    We may be veering off track, but I understand the Big 4 demographic quite well. They may be employed by the firm that occupies that building, but these millennials are onsite at clients earning their keep, and might get called to a random meeting in Tysons on rare occasions. Of the hundreds or thousands of millennials employed by these firms, less than 10% are anywhere near the Tysons offices at the lunch hour. Which brings me back to my original confusion.....I don't understand the business model for this concept in Tysons 2.
  11. Kibbee Nayee
    I'm not an expert on food halls by any means, but I know this Tysons space from working in the area for decades. The mostly millennials that work in the tech industry will stand in line at Sweetgreen for a salad, or will splurge on bad coffee at Starbucks, but I can't see them understanding and flocking to Thip Kao or Donburi at the lunch hour. For happy hour, they'll pack the bar at Wildfire or Maggiano's, but mostly because cheap (or free) snacks are passing around. What am I missing about a food hall concept succeeding in a low-traffic upper crust setting?
  12. Kibbee Nayee
    For those of us that can't get past the paywall, is there a summary?
  13. Kibbee Nayee
    Lunch with companions yesterday was nice. We started with the spicy cauliflower and the fried pickles. Whatever batter they use on the pickles is just right -- thin enough to offer some crunch and avoid being greasy. The cauliflower was a treat. My main was a southern Cobb salad with fried chicken topping, and it was so-so. The greens were a bit tired, with the telltale signs of the ribs going brownish-white, as if they came from a bag instead of being freshly chopped. Toppings included lazy cherry tomatoes -- you can still get pretty good tomatoes at this time of year -- and a bit too much bits of bacon. The chicken was fading, as if not entirely fresh out of the fryer. I might not order this dish again. My guess is that the salad mise is prepared ahead, rather than a la minute. One companion's Appalachian pork chop was devoured and declared quite good. Sweet potato and collard greens sides on a few of the plates were highly complimented. I would definitely return to sample some of the other items on the menu.
  14. Kibbee Nayee
    I've been more than mildly impressed by the lobster roll at PassionFish.
  15. Kibbee Nayee
    And then you're kind of stuck in a situation where you can send it back, in which case they might do something unmentionable to your order, or suck it up and eat what arrived in front of you....
  16. Kibbee Nayee
    I had lunch at the Eleanor, in the NoMa area under Elevation apartments. I'm nor recommending it, by any means, but it isn't terrible. It's just unremarkable, unless you want to go bowling for some reason. Let me say up front that I hate any waitstaff that doesn't write down an order. I have NEVER received my exact order from someone who just listens to your order and thinks they can remember it well enough to convey to the back of the house. Thus my burger, ordered medium rare with an egg on top and a side of salad, came out medium well with bacon on top and a side of fries. (Note -- the fries were very good.) Two of my companions ordered the rib eye, which at $26 should have been thicker than the 1/2" slices that came out. One companion ordered what looked like a reasonable lobster roll, but he wasn't raving about it. The menu has no rhyme or reason, and certainly no central theme. It's a hodge-podge of dishes that don't fit well on the same menu, like Greek salad, General Tso's wings, the aforementioned lobster roll, and "mussels and fries" (better known as moules et frites). Let's see -- Greece, China, Boston, and Belgium...?
  17. Kibbee Nayee
    That's the one!
  18. Kibbee Nayee
    And local (and visiting) VIPs. I remember a few years ago, I was walking in the front door, and walking out the same door at the same time was Mark Warner. We brushed each other slightly and I said an automatic "excuse me...." and then realized who it was, and immediately added "....Senator." He gave me a big smile and a nod.
  19. Kibbee Nayee
    No reviews in 3 years? I was hosting a group of millennials at my firm for lunch, and they chose Bangkok 54. I was the check-picker-upper, and I didn't dissuade them -- Thai Square is only a few blocks away, but what the heck, I hadn't tried Bangkok 54, so why not? I would say it was OK. My dish was the lunch special chicken krapow with a fried egg. I was a little surprised that the fried egg was demolished to the point of being a McDonald's-type hard chunk of yolk, and also with over-fried edges. The flavor of the chicken krapow was good, and mixed with the dome of rice it came with, was a decent-sized serving for a lunch. The egg was a puzzle. Maybe I'm missing a Thai nuance here. One of my companions was native Cambodian, and he enjoyed the same dish better than I did. Another companion was native Nigerian, and he had a "Thai-spicy" drunken noodles with tofu. There were mostly empty plates all around.
  20. Kibbee Nayee
    There is a big piece of our dining scene missing these days -- the all-you-can-eat roast beef establishments. I remember 101 Royal, which was behind but attached to the Holiday Inn in Old Town -- now the Virginian. All-you-can-eat roast beef plus salad bar for $15.99. Of course, that was 30 years ago. Tom Sarris, Sir Walter Raleigh, even Blackie's on occasion -- these places don't exist any more. It may be economics, because they certainly exist in Las Vegas. Why don't we have these delicious destinations anymore?
  21. Kibbee Nayee
    Three of us dined here tonight, and it was the same place it always was. The decor is vintage Old Town, there was the obligatory VIP in the back room, the prices are on the high side, and the veal was spot on. We all three enjoyed the Veal Landini, as unimaginative as that may have been, but the meal was quite good. There are many other Italian establishments in Old Town and everywhere else in the DC metropolitan area, and quite a few of them are better than Landini Bros. But there are darned few that have Old Town charm oozing out of its pores more so than Landini.
  22. Kibbee Nayee
    If my hazy memory serves me, there was a Blackie's outpost in Springfield, and I availed myself often. In the '80s, Blackie's in Springfield and Sir Walter Raleigh on Rt 1 in Alexandria were on the affordable side of my family's beef fix. Throw in Tom Sarris in Rosslyn and you have some wonderful memories of which there are darned few these days....
  23. Kibbee Nayee
    I can tell you that the one in Springfield is a separate entity.
  24. Kibbee Nayee
    I am aware of the thread for Hai Duong in Eden Center and Loehman's Plaza. The Hai Duong in Springfield's Brookfield Plaza appears not to be affiliated with the others. Lady KN and I had a very nice lunch at the Springfield Hai Duong today. They have been open for about two years, and the place always caught my eye as I drove through Brookfield Plaza in the past. Quite a lovely and clean place with an expansive Vietnamese menu that claims authenticity. It's certainly now in my Springfield Vietnamese rotation -- Springfield is not Falls Church, but it's certainly the high minor leagues to Falls Church's major league of Vietnamese cuisine. I had the crispy spring rolls (cha gio) - plenty of flavor and texture, if a bit greasy - and the pho house special combination - beefy broth in the middle of the scale of richness. I really don't like the noodles, but I worked around them. The bits of beef cuts were pleasant enough to make me come back in cooler weather for sure. Lady KN enjoyed the lotus roots salad with shrimp and pork, plus the baby clams with pork over rice in a clay pot. She raved about how refreshing the salad was, and we had to bring home the clay pot dish because we were stuffed. A few tastes of it confirmed it was good. The downside is that they have no liquor license. That seems to be the case with many of the Vietnamese restaurants in Springfield -- Saigon City has wine and beer, but Le Bledo, Pho 495, and Pho Hong Anh are dry. Again, the menu is expansive -- one table's bird's nest seafood combination looked delicious -- and the claim of authenticity will be explored at length over time.
  25. Kibbee Nayee
    I like how this thread has explored iconic Philly sandwiches. A few miles west in Lancaster, there are a few semi-iconic sandwiches that you'll rarely see anywhere else. Liverwurst, or braunschweiger, with onion and mustard on rye -- that's a Lancaster sandwich. Lebanon sweet bologna with mustard on white bread is also a Lancaster classic. Or fried bologna/scrapple/ham loaf (your pick) with onions on a bun. I post this on September 27th -- Lancaster was the capital of the United Staes for one day on September 27, 1777.
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