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Pool Boy

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Posts posted by Pool Boy

  1. We dined here this past October with friends and were able to sample a lot of the menu. We enjoyed it, but I found it overpriced for the whole experience. I am not saying I would not go back, I'd give it another go for sure, but I'm not in a rush to do so.

    • Like 1
  2. Was here in November for a wine-o group dinner - always fun and delicious and reasonable corkage. Lots of champagne and pinot noir were enjoyed with all of the delicious food from Kaz's menu.

    Still recommended and I'll be back for sure.

    We got to Kaz as well when we were seeing something at Kennedy Center too - that was just my wife and I and also enjoyable and delicious.

    PS: We also ordered carryout from here twice I think during the dar days of the pandemic. The food traveled the best of all of the DC carryout we got (we live in Laurel, so a bit of a drive).

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  3. I was here this past November for a meet-up with friends and sat at ine of the bar booths.  Food was good (enough choices for everyone including our resident vegetarian), but I have to say the service was quite slow. We were not in a rush or anything, but it was just slow service from the bar staff - and we ordered not just food but a number of beverages over 3 hours - it was just so odd. It wasn't like the bar was super busy, maybe 3-4 other parties always during out time in there (It was a lunch think like 1pm to 4pm).

    Anyway, it's a spot in Bethesda proper that is the agreed upon general area to meet due to us all living in different directions from there so it's centrally location acceptable.

    I'd still go back, but maybe next time we get seated in the dining room instead.

  4. We have been back a few times (I think maybe 6 or 7)  during and post pandemic. We dined outside a couple of times, went for Thanksgiving in 2021 and agaian in 2022 and dined there inside a few otyher times just because.

    I call out both the 2021 and 2022 Thanksgiving experiences because they were the same but different. It's hard to please everyone for a Thanksgiving dinner out, but when I think of the two dinners, the mains and so on were very, very food, but the sides in 2021 were far more interesting and creative and delicious. In 2022, remembing the 2021 sides experience, well it was the main reason we were back, but in the 2022 dinner, the sides were just, ok. Not bad, but nothing like the 2021 experience.

    Anyway, I'm still a fan, I still love the food when we go there for non-holiday related times and have great service and do on. So I still recommend it and will continue to dine there with some frequency - maybe I'll remember to take pictures next time.

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  5. We ended up going here for a small 'Friendsgiving' this past November - We shared nine different dishes and enjoyed them all - so good and we always manage to score one of the window both spaces.

    If you have never been here before, go. It's a bit out of the way and parking in a bit random (sometimes super easy to find a spot, other times oddly all parked up) - but it is worth the effort to get there and enjoy this food.

    Still recommended and hell yes I will be back.

  6. It had been some time since we'd been to Tosca, so we wanted to get there for Christmas Eve (Feast of the Seven Fishes and all that), but then, after dodging it for almost 3 years, my wife and I got struck with covid (17 days - ugh). Anyway, we vowed to reschedule and went later in January.

    We took no pictures, and their menu on the website is already different fro what we had. But I do remember enjoying dinner quite a lot and we had some good wine, and it was great to be over covid, out with my wife ad enjoying dinner here in such a nice space.

    Will I be back and do I recommend Tosca? Yes and hell yes.

  7. I've been here a few times over the years, but it'd been a while. When my wife realized one of the couples we dine out with with some regularity (they are fun, smart and will eat anything), had not been to Cafe Berlin, they set up a date and so we went.

    A lot of fun, lots of beer and we ordered too much and were stuffed. Good service and apparently they will be soon retooling the space and sorting out where hte new front door will be and make the space work better for the folks dining there as well as the staff - not sure when exactly they will be doing that but our server did mention that.

    If you're looking to scratch the itch for soome good beer and German food, this is a solid choice. Plus, parking was super easy.

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  8. I have a very good friend that lives in Columbia (I live in Laurel) and I know he's very busy, has a kid, and suggested he propose a date for us to do dinner in Columbia whenever he had time and we'd make it happen.  He suggested Stanford Grill, which appears to be on the site of what used to be a Longhorn steak house that must have closed.

    Well, they gutted the place and it looks very similar to Woodmont Grill in Bethesda. I assume they must be owned by the same company. It's in the middle of a mini office park an nearby retail and is convenient to 95 (like a mile away). The service was OK (it was acceptable all evening, but we had to flag down our server because they forgot to charge us for some stuff - we didn't want anyone to get in trouble). I can't remember the starter I had by I enjoyed the prime rib that my friend talked up - perfect temperature (right between medium rare and rare) and for $27, kind of a steal. Drinks and wine choises were acceptable, but they really should offer more of a list. When we were there, they even had a live 3-piece jazz group playing and it was a recent Wednesday. Nice space, good hum to the room, but not loud (I do not like very loud restaurants).

    Anyway, would I go back? Sure. Would I seek it out? Probably not, but it is convenient and tasty enough and if I happened to be in the Columbia area nearby it is not a bad option.

  9. When casting about, recently, to secure a reservation to a place we had not been to in a while (pre-pandemic for sure) we settled on Corduroy because it had been just too damn long. So we scored a reservation and off we went.

    Note - the parking situation in that area has gotten pretty bad since they have both converted lanes for bicycles and also for outside seating for a variety of restaurants. It used to be much easier to find street parking there but no more. We gave up and found a garage and walked a bit.

    We got seated at a table in the front near the windows - a first for us and was amusing to see the comings and goings of people walking by. Great service by our server as well as the sommelier. Plus the spaces is so inviting and with comfortable seating. And the noise level in the restaurant was great (I really do not enjoy very loud, brassy places - Corduroy does it right IMO).

    Not sure I remember everything we had, but here's what I remember. We started with some oysters (yum), then I had the red snapper bisque and my wife had the tuna taratare. Both were very, very good, but HOLY COW the red snapper bisque is so delicious and is one of the best dishes I have hd in quite some time. Wow. We moved on to the antelope - so great, especially the chestnut puree underpinning it all - so good - and the duck confit (mmm). We finished up the remaining wine (as I recall it was a Turley single vineyard with a bit of age on it) with with some cheese (nice selection).

    Would I go back? Hell yes. I need to get Corduroy back in to my more regular rotation again. Definitely recommended.

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  10. My wine-o's group picked here for a recent wine dinner (they allow bringing wine for $35 corkage). It's always great and delicious. The somm/bev manager, Jack, ws very helpful in decanting a number of bottles for us and providing rotating sets of stemware as we moved through all of the wine over dinner. The rest of the staff was also great. Only issue was table space management with all of the food, wine and stemware but a good problem to have!

     

    Biscuits, Oysters, bacon, blue crab deviled eggs, salmon collar, ribeye, grilled potato salad, brussel sprouts and more. Ooof.

    This was the first time I recall having to now pay for parking - they have signs up but no Park Mobile number for specific areas so found one and car didn't get ticketed so assume that's the one for the whole area - just a heads up.

     

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  11. With Pasta Plus at first closing, but then re-opening, my wife and I sought out a variety of other places to source a regular dinner of ours on Fridays - pizza.

    We tried a variety - Three Brothers (because it is super close to us in Laurel - It's OK), Coal Fire (In Ellicott City, we alway enjoy it, but it's a hoof fro us), Bertucci's (Columbia, when I need a Sporkie fix), Trattoria e Pizzeria (In columbia, a schlepp, but it's near our vet and doctor's office so we hit this with some frequency - always very good), even Ledo (close to us in Laurel - my wife needs a fix every now and then - I am not a fan as their sauce is too sweet, but their pepperoni is well flavored).

    But my favorite of the non-Pasta Plus places is Facci. Excellent crust and char, and their Franco Palma pizza is excellent. We never really dine here, certainly not during the pandemic, but generally if we're going out to dinner, we usually end up in DC or close in.  Anyway, recommended. PS. My wife has had some of their pastas and gnocchi and gives these thumbs up as well.

    PPS: We do now get a Pasta Plus pizza fix (only on Wednesdays, the only day they are open), and it is still as good as ever - just it's on a Wednesday (and my wife and I now have x # of days back in our respective workplaces to points south so the desire for PP pizza only on Wednesdays make it more complicated to pick up your assigned time due to the randomness of DC traffic delays.

  12. There's a small group of friends and I that show up when we can for a lunch every 2-4 months. We've settled on Bethesda (plus maybe a mile or two or three radius around it) as central to where most of us live (I can't convince the guy in Frederick to make it in to DC proper no matter how hard I try).

    Anyway, we'd originally planned to go to Barrel & Crow, but the day before, looking at their website (since they don't do ressies) I realized they were not open until 3pm (this was well past the 1pm start time everyone agreed to meet). So I secured a reservation over at Woodmont Grill as we'd been to Black's the time before and honestly I didn't want to think too hard.

    So we went here - still looks the same. Good service overall (minor misstep in that they delayed us getting seated until 10 minutes after our reservation due to slowly departing tables). Food is good - they had options for the vegetarian in our group, my chicken was quite good (though the breast meat was a smidge past done), the spinach and artichoke dip was solid (but pales in comparison to my memory of what it was like in the 90s - I ate here when it was then called Houston's probably 50 times (my boss at the time expensed all lunches and she liked going there) but memory is tricky.

    Would I seek out to eat here with great abandon? No. Is it a spot where good, long time friends can get together for a decent lunch and adult beverages to catch up? Yes indeed. I should note that the staff never rushed us along, we stayed for three hours.

  13. A few of my friends get together on a regular basis about every month or two. With folks coming from Frederick, MD, Laurel, Silver Spring and Arlington, we've settled on BEthesda generally being the mutually agreeable central location.

    Anyway, it's been about 6 years since I worked in Bethesda. Last time we made it to Black's Bar & Kitchen. It fit the bill because they serve lunch, there's a reasonably wide range of food and price points (one vegetarian in the group), and they have an OK selection for wine, whiskey and other adult beverages. It's a group of 4 so easy enough to find a table generally.

    I wanted to try something different but have no current suggested places that fit the bill. So the only requirements are - can handle a 4-top, decent selection of food at a few price points, have at least some vegetarian, and ideally a 'good' selection of whiskeys, wine and beer, but certainly at least average.  No real limit of cuisine or style of food, ideally that should be tasty. We usually hang out for about 3 hours kibbitzing and catching up.

    Any suggestions are much appreciated.

  14. 4 hours ago, Toogs said:

    Ahh yeah I just meant the parking and the quality of the strip mall.  They never had any trouble getting customers but I have to think the value of the building isn't too great.  I hadn't thought about the idea of razing that strip and building something else there though, so that's a good point.  That stretch could really use another drug store :rolleyes:

    or another used car lot haha

    I was expecting more of the Konterra development to have been completed by this point to perhaps bring some more population and disposable dollars to Laurel, but those folks are really dragging their feet. Seems like they missed a massive opportunity for the last 3+ years when interest rates for mortgages were ridiculously low. 

  15. On 9/10/2022 at 3:43 PM, Toogs said:

    They have re-opened for carryout pizza, calzones, and wine, and only on Wednesdays.  Orders are so backed up already that they have turned them off.  I assume this is inventory reduction of the wine, but remain hopeful that they will turn this into something else.  Rumors are that they wanted to sell but couldn't find a buyer.  I am surprised because the pasta dishes and few other things were good enough that they should be worth something as trade secrets, but that location is putrid so I get it.

     

    https://pastaplusrestaurant.square.site/

    It is not a great location from a 'hey that's a great environment ', but it is at the nexus of two major roads and between a major interstate and BW Parkway, so it is easy for people to get there and with them owning the buiding parking is not bad.

    I was crushed when they closed. We continued our regular amost once a week ordering carry out from there. During the pandemic I routinely tipped 30-40% as well for those carry out orders.

    But this re-opening, even if it is only temporary, is refreshing and makes me so happy. I'd love to see someone take over the business and buy it and the trade secrets (their tomato sauce is unique and delicious for example), but I suspect the price may be too high since they might be wanting to sell not just the restaurant but the building itself. Maybe if they de-couple the transaction and sell the restaurant first, they could then take their time finding a buying for the strip mall.  That said, anyone buying that strip mall would likely tear it down for some new or different entirely.

    Thing is, they have the order window so locked down right now, they sell out the following Wednesday orders in less than an hour. Time opens the Thursday before at 6PM and blammo they sell out - every week is like this.

    • Like 2
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