silentbob

Not a fan of the day pass admission fee, but we ended up going to Butler's yesterday anyway because Larriland's strawberry picking was merely scattered according to their mailing list. The strawberries at Butler's were better than expected, and our four year-old had a blast on the playground and going down the big slide, so between that, the gas/time saved not making the longer drive to Larriland, and getting to hit up Wegman's on the way out, we decided the $3/person was worthwhile.

We spent a week over Memorial Day in Vancouver and loved it so much. The two places we enjoyed enough to go twice were Meat & Bread (mostly for the porchetta sandwiches) and Thierry (chocolate marquise cake). They're not the best the city has to offer -- we didn't try any fine dining -- but were both fast with lots of seating, even if no high chairs. Although we stayed in Richmond one night, we ended up having more sushi and ramen throughout the week. Make no mistake though, the Chinese food in Richmond was great. It was like being in a suburban Hong Kong, both visually and by smell. We had planned on walking to Aberdeen Centre from the Westin but saw several families lining up before 9 am for dim sum at Tin Tin Seafood Harbour on No. 3 Road. So we joined the line on a whim and didn't regret it. Huge, fresh portions with innovative preparations. For example, the fried taro dumplings had curry powder in the filling and the radish cake was enclosed in a fried noodles (like a bird's nest) and topped with mayonnaise. Dim sum is 20 percent off at many places in Richmond if you eat before 11 am. We had soup dumplings only twice unfortunately. First was at Shanghai River. Not Din Tai Fung good but with delicate skin and a rich broth. Second was at the R&H kiosk in the Lansdowne Center food court. More broth, thicker skin, still decent overall. Neither ramen place where we ate in Vancouver was memorable but both would be top 5 in DC easily. The Ramenman's version offered a rich chicken broth, and their chicken karaage was perfectly fried. The broth at Kintaro was merely fine but their char siu pork slices were sublime and the noodles had exceptional texture. We went to two neighborhood sushi joints, again neither was memorable but still quite good. Loved the special sashimi platters at both places, especially the sockeye salmon. The sushi rice at Kaide in Yaletown was especially fluffy and well seasoned, and we loved the scallop and broiled black cod at Ajisai in Kerrisdale. Kingyo is a popular izakaya on the West End, with a notable bento box on the lunch menu with a dozen items for only $20 CAD. Their beef tongue appetizer is "cook your own" on a hot stone and superb. We arrived 15 minutes before they opened and there was already a long line. The burrata at Bella Gelateria in Yaletown was ginormous and one of the better versions we've had in recent years. The margherita pizza wasn't bad either. We enjoyed our dinner so much that the gelato was almost an afterthought, though it justified the hype. One of the best dishes we ate all week was the chicken wings at Phnom Penh. Perfectly fried with an addictive dipping sauce. Finally, I gained several pounds just from all the desserts. Most notable were the wide variety of cream puffs at Beta5 mentioned upthread, the soft serve with yuzu marmalade at Soft Peaks, the London Fog cake from Cadeaux, and the matcha cake with yuzu at Thomas Haas. P.S. The currently very favorable USD/CAD exchange rate made everything seem like screaming deals.

Now an option on UberEATS. For those of use who work in CC and don't want to trek across Route 1, this is very exciting!

Living with young kids in the suburbs, we rarely get to eat out in DC. There are four options for dinner before our 7:30 Hedwig show that interest me the most: Red Hen (at the bar), Little Serow, Bad Saint, and Tail Up Goat (5:30 reservation currently available). We're willing to wait in line up to 30 minutes before Little Serow or Bad Saint open, but not much longer. Tail Up Goat would be the easy pick due to proximity and certainty if we hadn't been there already last year. We went to Little Serow once in 2011 when it was still new. Really itching to try RH and BS but the logistics have always been too tough. Factoring in likely lines on a weeknight, ease of parking, and distance from KC, which one makes the most sense?

Your statement about marginal value of a run in the 1960s is undoubtedly true, but I interpret this fact somewhat differently. In the PED era, because offense was at such a high level, Pedro's utter dominance allowed his teams to be leading by at least a few runs in the latter innings, which meant that the manager could take him out and allocate more lower-leverage innings to relief pitchers while still maintaining a high chance of winning the game. Whereas high-mound era pitchers likely had to stay in close games much longer for their team to have a chance at winning because relief pitching was not so specialized (nor were most managers as sophisticated) back then. Another factor is that the talent pool in the 1960s was so weak (i.e., only recently integrated racially, few international players) that you could get away with playing all-field, no-hit guys in the bottom of a lineup -- usually from the right end of the defensive spectrum -- whereas that's almost never the case anymore. People in sports disagree all the time about whether teams winning close games or individual players doing well in the clutch is actually a "skill." I've always believed that the greatest athletes not only do well enough in close games when necessary but are so good that their teams don't have to play as many close games in the first place. After all, a point/run/goal scored in the first quarter/inning/period is worth just as much as one at the end.

One thing that Seaver has over virtually all other SPs is longevity. He's top 10 all-time for sure. That said, I don't think Pedro Martinez gets nearly as much credit as he deserves. His peak was far more dominant than Seaver's and Koufax's as well. Keep in mind that Seaver pitched in an era when teams averaged 4.2 or 4.3 runs per game, and Koufax racked up most of his stats in the high-mound, dead-ball era when teams were scoring in the high 3s. So an ERA in the 2s, while certainly impressive no matter how you slice it, was still less valuable in the 1960s and 1970s than in the PED era when teams were scoring in the high 4s and even over 5 runs per game. It also bears noting that Seaver and Koufax pitched half of their games in notoriously strong pitchers parks while Pedro's peak was largely spent at Fenway and other offense-inflating AL East parks. For this reason, once you account for era and park, Pedro comes out much more favorably in stats like ERA+ (where 100 is league average), where he's 2nd all-time among SPs at 154. Meaning that his career, park-adjusted ERA was 54 percent better than league average. Clayton Kershaw is currently first at 160, all the more amazing given the "penalty" he gets for pitching at Dodger Stadium. Koufax is at 131, Seaver is at 127, and Mussina is at 123. All-time great SPs who rank more favorably in ERA+ include Lefty Grove (148), Walter Johnson (147), Cy Young (138), Randy Johnson (135), and Greg Maddux (132). The best ERA+ all-time is Mariano Rivera, at a mind-blowing 205! Even in his five years of peak dominance, Koufax's ERA+ was "only" 143, 159, 186, 160, and 190. Pedro had five seasons of ERA+ over 200, including a 291 (!!!) in 2000. Maddux has had two 200 ERA+ seasons. This is all a long-winded way of saying that Mussina deserves to be in the HOF given who's already in, but he's unquestionably a notch or two below the all-time greats.

We had an early Mother's Day dinner here recently. One-third of what we ordered was dim sum, all of which was at least as good as Silver Fountain if not better. The prices are $1 more at dinner, and I don't know if that's reflected in the much larger-sized pieces of food than what one often gets at dim sum restaurants. The fried taro dumplings and the salt water dumplings were ginormous. And both perfectly cooked. Radish cakes may have stayed in the pan for a few seconds too long, though they tasted quite fresh to me. The big winner among the Hong Kong/Cantonese-style dishes was the fried fish filet with spicy salt. Perfect in every way. I would've eaten a whole order myself if not stuffed already from the dim sum and roasted meats (which were fine, the ginger scallion sauce was actually a bit too salty). And FWIW, about 80 to 90 percent of the customers appeared to be of Asian/Chinese descent.

I had a really good dinner at Tinto, but that was like 10 years ago. I would've suggested Osteria before Vetri sold most of his empire to Urban Outfitters. There are also many great places in Fishtown if you're willing to venture that far out. We really enjoyed our lunch at Stock earlier this year. Pizzeria Beddia is supposed to be a must-visit but they don't take reservations and have super-long lines.

Yeah, I think they are called "bolo bao" and sold in much larger form at most Asian bakeries in town. I like the ones at Bread Corner just fine, but anyone ever traveling to Asia should try the ones at BreadTalk if possible.

They sure didn't waste any time expanding in DC. Now open in Union Station too.

The dishes with five peppers next to them, the dim sum platter mentioned above, kumquat beef, and "guai" (translates to strange in Mandarin) flavored chicken casserole are all intriguing to me.

Anthony Bourdain just did another San Sebastian episode the other night and returned to Etxebarri (plus Arzak, Elkano, and others). He broke out the "I would die/have my last meal here" bit again. Not that he's wrong. We may have had a better meal at Mugaritz, but our lunch at Etxebarri remains my all-time favorite and inspires the fondest memories. Especially the hand-made goat butter on toast mentioned upthread, grilled Palamos prawns, and baby octopus. Our Garmin GPS steered us the wrong way into a random stranger's driveway where nearly a dozen of his barking dogs surrounded our rental car. Although he spoke no English, once he saw the Google map print-out showing that we were headed to Etxebarri, he personally escorted us with his car so that we were able to reach the restaurant in time for our reservation. Also, I was careless and kept our headlights on during the meal, so the battery was dead by the time we left. Fortunately, there was a woman eating at the restaurant who spoke English and called her dad, who then showed up several minutes later to give our car a jump start. Folks in the Basque Country were universally friendly on our honeymoon, but we were so pleasantly surprised by these selfless gestures.

Raku, Monta Ramen, and Sweets Raku -- all in the same shopping center on Spring Mountain Road. Chada Thai (LoS alum) is supposed to be very good too.

Unfortunately, my parents agree. Every time we eat at one of his restaurants, they comment on the prices and imply that very few of their friends would ever go. Also, there definitely don't seem to be many "banquet"-like menu items. P.S. Then again, my parents say that about any nice restaurant where we take them, always citing how it would be much more cost-effective to eat at a Chinese restaurant and/or do carry out "so you don't have to tip as much or at all" (sigh).

You may be describing things northbound but this has not been my experience southbound. When things are super-congested, you may be flying past the non-toll traffic initially, but a mile or so before merging back in at Stafford, things really clog up. By the time you finally get back on with everyone else, the amount of time saved is sometimes minimal if any (and if lots of folks chose the express lanes, you may actually end up losing time).

Soft opening is this weekend. I skimmed through menus and it looks like many items already served at his other restaurants are $3 more at Q. Lots of unique stuff here though.

Anyone been here in the past year? We're thinking about going next week. The authentic menu looks great!

I agreed with 99% of what you wrote up-thread, except for this part that confused me -- I thought the demographics of San Francisco (i.e., majority minority) made it one of the most diverse cities in the country?

In the context of run-scoring in baseball, 5 percent is a lot more than you think.

No offense intended -- recent history suggests that it's crazy talk and I think the chances are virtually zero because they don't play in the AL. No NL team has scored 900 runs in a season since the 2003 Braves, in the midst of the PED era. Now that MLB isn't rampant with cheating, NL teams haven't come close to 900 in quite a while, not even the Rockies. Even the dominant Cubs last year barely scored over 800 and the Nats offense this year isn't as good from top to bottom. So yeah, even if their start is real, I'll be pretty shocked if the Nats reach 850 this year.

The Nats aren't going back to Coors this year unless both teams make the playoffs. In their 18 non-Coors games this year, the Nats have averaged 5.17 runs. Project that to 158 games, add the 50 they scored in Coors, and that gets them to 866. I'd bet somewhere in the low 800s is most likely though.

Reston is urban?

Agreed, and sigh.

So glad that you posted this! We went last week and got the spicy and wasabi kinds, both quite enjoyable considering the quality of fish that one can reasonably expect for a suburban Costco (and with the right amount of kick). $17/pound seems to be the going rate most places and probably not much more expensive than buying sashimi-grade ahi elsewhere and making it yourself. Adding the rice ourselves at home was easy enough. The fish is obviously not as fresh as what we had at Ono Seafood in Honolulu but it will do and we'll definitely be buying some more on the regular.

Laduree had a soft opening party in Georgetown last week, rumor has it that the public opening will be next week. I wonder how the macarons will hold up in the DC summer heat and humidity?