thistle

Salads are great- maybe black bean/corn/tomato in a vinaigrette? & marinated cucumbers.  I also appreciate a cheese plate, w/ seeded crackers & bread. I am not an asparagus fan, but I saw a recipe yesterday for Old Bay pickled asparagus that tempted me.

After neglecting this for awhile, I’ve restarted my fermenting. In the last week, I’ve refreshed my kombucha & kefir, started rye sourdough starter, have oats fermenting for cookies (http://www.beetsandbones.com/fermented-oat-cookies/ -I love this site, I’m also eating kefir flaxseed porridge), & tomorrow I’m going to experiment w/ fermenting green papaya salad-wish me luck.

I’m going to the Springfield location tomorrow, to browse for T’giving cooking, but realize I will probably will come home w/ triple ginger cookies, lots of salsa, & maybe pumpkin spice body butter if they still have that.

Since I got my Instant Pot, i’m cooking lots of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (chicken-veg soup or chicken adobo), but I have an old KA microwave that came w/ a browning pan? & I love to cook chicken breasts w/ Old Bay- great cut up on top of salad or to make chicken salad w/ lots of pickles.

First time staying at home w/ just the kids, instead of visiting extended family, still don’t seem to be able to cook for a small group, but leftovers are good....

That's a shame, I got food at Rolling Rotisserie at the NoVA brew fest a couple of years ago & it was very good (maybe it was the beer that slanted my judgment?). I did see the truck/business was for sale at some point, so it may not be the same proprietors.

I ate here today (near Huntington metro)- seriously small, we got the only table (although there was also an outside table & bar seating inside) & shared the appetizer sampler w/ baba ganoush, dolma, cigar borek, ezme, & mucver.  No bread, but I loved everything except the ezme (tomatoes, onions, peppers, parsley-just personal taste & it was cold). The mucver (zucchini fritters) were great.

I got the grilled chicken sandwich (loved the bread), my companions got the durum sandwich & the doner sandwich.  Everything was wonderful,  I'm just sorry I waited so long to try this place.

Those are great looking breads.  I've also tried baking bread again recently, using recipes from, "Rustic Ruropean Breads from your Bread Machine"-in the last week, it's been Pain a L'Ancienne, Jewish Rye, & German Style Whole Wheat.  I try a couple of slices & then the pups beg for the rest (bread is probably not good for the dogs?). 

I just saw this-https://www.facebook.com/epicurious/?fref=ts I have some of these & I plan on looking for others.  The Cajun cookbook mentioned is "Cooking up a Storm" by Marcella Bienvenu.  The only Cajun cookbooks I have right now are Donald Link's "Real Cajun" & "Down South"-both of them are excellent.

Thanks for moving this over to a separate heading, I am flipping hopeless.  This is the kind of place I wish I had found sooner, plan to continue to go to, & worry about it closing down because it's in such an out of the way location w/ no word of mouth.  It's a lovely room, across from a hotel (lucky guests), a lady (who I believe is the owner) came by our table & chatted with us, & talked about how guests feedback impacted the dishes they wanted to add to the menu, (& gave us a little info about Filipino food, how it's different in every place).  We asked about 'chickarrones' which I think are fried bits of chicken & chicken skin, may have to try them next time. I was pleasantly surprised by maduros (sweet fried plaintains) on the side of the doboritos-no one in the family but me can tolerate plaintains, but these tasted like fried bananas.  

I didn't buy the glasses-

http://lifehacker.com/forget-special-glasses-the-best-views-of-the-eclipse-j-1797949429

On 8/14/2017 at 1:08 PM, NolaCaine said:

Oh this looks good. Anybody been?

Bistro 1521

I planned on having lunch with my kids today & considered going here, since it's close to where my son lives.  But, being lazy & not wanting to drive & thinking it might be crowded after the review in WaPo 2 days ago & not having too much experience with Filipino food, we decided to try The Corner, a Filipino restaurant in Lorton that's been on my list.

I wish I'd gone sooner, it was very good-totally out of the way location with 3 other tables occupied while we were there. We split an order of the lumpia shanghai & the pancit bihon w/ shrimp, E ordered the chicken adobo, T got the kare-kare (which came w/ a large pile of shrimp paste!) & I got the doborito sliders-Filipino chicken adobo in plantain buns with MASH’s garlic-mayo sauce, served with maduros.  Everything was delicious (we shared) w/ the chicken adobo being the universal favorite (less soupy/stewy than other chicken adobo I've tried).  Although I was stuffed & not really a dessert person, I tried the turon (maduro/jackfruit springroll w ube (purple yam) ice cream.

This wouldn't be a good choice for vegetarians, but I enjoyed the dishes I tried & plan to return.  When I eventually make it to Bistro 1521, I'll have a benchmark.

Thanks for the suggestions, Shamsiry or Lebanese Taverna sounds the best (do they do a good lunch?), but when most of the other options are 'won't kill you', I'd probably opt for fast casual, is there a Cava in the vicinity?

Has anyone visited 2 Brothers Soul Food on Rt. 1, Alexandria?

Where would you have lunch in this area?-only constraint is trying to keep it at or under a hour.  I'd love to hear of someplace amazing, but will settle for solid.

& dinner yesterday w/ another friend that I wanted to share this place with-I'm a creature of habit & tend to get the same dish over & over.  Here it's chicken thigh kebabs w/ rice & sabzi (greens) instead of potato bouranee.  They seemed to have quite a few new menu items that I was tempted to try, a cold avocado/yogurt soup & a salmon entree w/ the sabzi, but I stuck w/ my favorite (& was too busy talking w/ my friend to eat & took most of my meal home).  I'm happy that I can continue to meet friends here for meals & I wish them the greatest success in their new location. 

I had lunch here today, & I was so happy to share this place w/ a friend-she loved it!  It was packed, as always.

Limited experience (2-3 times) & a bit out of the way - Arepas Capitol in Woodbridge.  My friend & I had lunch there, got there at opening & were the only folks in the restaurant & the food was great- got an arepa reina pepiada & an empanada pabellon - both were amazing, but alas, my friend has moved away.

My first visit to Wegmans was at the Fairfax store right after my son Tom got his license (you actually go in to court & witness it)-it was sort of like 'Willy Wionka & the Chocolate Factory'.  & the parking lot was very scary. (It was around 5:30).

In & out of the Fairfax Wegmans in 30 minutes? You win...

Adding my most recent dining experience-after taking Lizzy to GMU orientation on June 22nd, we met her brother at Waraku, a newly opened restaurant in the Twinbrooke shopping center on Braddock Rd.  It's new, we were all exhausted, the kids got various sushi & rolls, Tom got a poke bowl, & I couldn't decide & got Thai fried rice w/ shrimp- we all agreed mine was the best.  Service was a little scattered, but the food was pretty good. & then I tried to take my leftover fried rice home in a weird clamshell bowl & crunched the bottom of it...

We had Lizzy's grad dinner at Afghan Bistro a few weeks ago, 9+, large for the space, but we had an excellent experience, food was amazing, service attentive, & we were all sharing.  I'm having lunch w/ a friend next week & I'm sure it will be just as good, I'm so glad I found this place & can share it w/ friends.   Although they are probably ready to move to a larger location, I'm being selfish in hoping they don't move too far away.

Ha, ha! When I get pulled over on a bs violation (which rarely happens), I don't go to the trouble of looking up the officer's record, I'm happy you were able to acknowledge his accomplishments.

Lizzy & I were going to check out The Block today, but I am past the 'sell by' date-I will let her explore that w/ her friends.  Besides, I was interested in Nua Haus's Yelp reviews (overwhelmingly positive)-I thought it was good, but I've been to lots of good & great Thai restaurants, so while I thought it was good, I can get good Thai closer to me.  But I am thinking about checking out the Corner Q in Lorton (Filipino)-I have NO experience w/ Filipino food, other than that they sell frozen bangus & lumpia in the commissary.

My son tricked me into watching this & after the first dog was killed,I started screaming at him.  He promised there wasn't anything else like this, but there was (I've watched enough horror movies to tune things out, but cruelty to animals finishes it for me). Now he wants me to watch 'Veep', should I be scared?  Just joking, I probably let him be exposed to much worse things, & I love Julia Louis Dreyfus.