Pool Boy

Rockville is not always convenient to Mrs. TJ and I, but we do make the pilgrimage to Joes several times a year nonetheless since the food is so damn good. But I agree, the portions are huge. So order accordingly, or be prepared to take it home with you and eat it for a few days. ;-p

I love the Dreamery.

One note -- it's custard, not ice cream. Close, but not quite the same thing. I think that to some custard can be an acquired taste. I happen to like it a lot.

Ditto. I love it too. Mrs. TJ and I went there right after Cheesetique and had this great cobbler. I think it was cherry-plum, or plum-strawberry or similar.

ohmommawasitgooooood

I forget which one, but Mrs. TJ and I will be attending one of these. heh heh heh

Cheesetique Rocks. Discovered it and went there several weeks ago. Definitely going back for more.

As an aside, some recent cheese favorites have been Humboldt Fog and Roaring 40's Blue

I've been shopping for wine at the retail level more frequently these days (I buy a lot off of wine mailing lists direct from small production wineries, like dinwiddie) since I have fallen hard for Brunellos and Italian wines in general. I usually head to MacArthur's but I also like Circle. CW is usually too crowded and cramped to my liking. I keep meaning to head to Schneider's or WOW on Wisconsin, but I keep forgetting to get there. Cecile's Fine Wine in Mclean is good too. I just recently went to Arrowine for the first time and I liked it well enough.

Up in Howard County, I can recommend Jason's on Rte 40 and Decanter in Hickory Ridge.

I only ever shop at the Total Wine-owned Corridor Wine in Laurel (close to my home) for cheap wines. Otherwise I avoid it like the plague.

I belong to a group that gets together on vinocellar.com.  We call ourselves the DC Cru and meet once a month at a restaurant in DC and all bring wine from our cellars.

We have met at the following restaurants, all of which welcomed us and our wine, and a few (Corduroy, Aquarelle) which prepared a special menu to go with the wines just for us.  Several times we have also purchased a bottle or two from the restaurant's list.

Aquarelle (read MarkK's write up about this dinner in this forum)

Corduroy (fantastic meal and great wine)

The Caucaus Room (twice)

Butterfield 9 (twice)

Kaz Sushi Bistro

Chef Geoff's

Lavandeau (twice, free corkage on Mondays)

Le Paradeu (with Siduri winemaker Adam Lee)

Restaurant Kolumbia (the wine was better than the food)

Gabriel (one of our more memorable gatherings)

Bistro Au Coin

Mendocino Grille (with Mark Neal and Grove Celio of Neal Family Wines)

DC Coast

Equinox (the first DC Cru dinner)

Sesto Senso

In addition, I've taken wine with me to dinner at:

Zyatinya

15 ria

Circle Bistro

Adero

Palena

Bistro Bis

Cafe 15

Taberna del Alabardero

Galileo

701

Tosca

Olives

Orantique

In each instance, we have made sure that the wine was not on the restaurant wine list, offered to share a glass or two with the server and the chef, and left large tips to make up for the fact that we did not buy from the list.

That's DC Crü dinwiddie.

I always call ahead and ask about their BYOW/Corkage policy prior to booking a reservation. I prefer to bring my own wine, but do not exclusively do so. It's always fun to try something new off of a well designed wine list. But, oftentimes, the restaurants out there only have the current vintage (or maybe one vintage prior). I sometimes prefer my wine with just a tad of age on it. Other times, I have wine from producers that are just not on any list. These are usually very small producers with very small quantities of wine produced and I happen to be lucky enough (and well connected enough) to have gotten my hands on some. This is why I BYOW, among other reasons. I always tip well when BYOWing and I always attempt to get the staff a taste of the wine I bring. But most times the staff graciously says thank you but they either decline (they are on the job) or say nothing or say they'll get some later and never do. I also always make sure it is not a wine already on their list. I usually bring two bottles in case one is corked and also on the off chance that one of the bottles is on their list as a recent addition that I am unaware of.

Interestingly enough, I have found a few places in Maryland that will allow BYOW (with or without corkage), but I will refrain from posting that information here publicly as I do not want these places to get in trouble and I want to continue to be able to BYOW there.

Clearly, foodies and wine-os alike are way far ahead of the 'average' us consumption. My pals over at Vinocellar all probably hit the 100 liter mark by Jan 20th.

Mrs. TJ once ordered some cakes from him back when he first struck out on his own, I think back in 2001, for a coworker's birthday. He even delivered it himself. Tres kewl and delicious too. We had a few more cakes that we have very much enjoyed, most recently probably about two years ago.

Hank's Oyster Bar?

 
That's it! Thanks! I need to schedule a night to meet Mrs. TJ after work to try it out. She's very conveniently working just north of the circle. I work in the hinterlands of Owings Mills. Grrr.

There's apparently a place, near Dupont Circle (can't remember the name) that is open only for dinner that apparently has some killer lobster rolls. Anyone know the name of the place? And if so, anyone know if they're going to ever open for lunch too?

Mrs. TJ has been living by the following axiom with quite wonerous success for most of this year.

"If scallops are on the menu, order them."

One of the waitresses from Palena recently surfaced at Komi, FWIW.

Is Kelly still managing the front of the house at Palena?

I don't really want to go over the whole course by course experience, now that I have a few moments to go in to more detail. But I'd rate the whole experience just 'good'.

Seriously.

It is a nice place. It's well designed and tastefully designed. We were well attended to. The food was good. But....just 'good'.

We ate in the Tasting Room. Our 2-top was a little too close to the next two-top for comfortable conversation until the room filled with a bit more noise. The table itself was a bit long, which was welcome for both of us as we are long legged, but it further hindered close conversation.

The food, well, we opted for a 9-course tasting things. It was good. Especially the first scallops course. But after that, well, it was just OK. Don't get me wrong, the food was good. But not wow food to me. Nowhere near. I'd heard this place had been compared to Palena for its seasonality and creativity. This is a rung below Palena, IMHO.

What I look for in a truly wonderful dining experience is well, there's a lot. A nice room, that is not too noisy. The tables are reasonably far apart enough from each other that allows each table its conversations to be at least somewhat private. I expect it to be nicely appointed. I expect the service to be attentive but not too attentive. I prefer a BYOW friendly restaurant, but I can live with a well-chosen and reasonably marked up menu (with a few 'easter eggs' for those with a bit of knowledge can find on the list). And I want the food to rock. I like the food to taste amazing, with layers of flavors and textures and smells -- ideally in a way that best accentuates the ingredients (not overly complex, mind you, or trying too hard either). Not every meal has to do this for me, but when I go out to a very nice meal, I try to choose places that I hope I can experience what I have just described.

My RE experience just did not execute on all of these levels.

It was a reasonably good dinner. But the QPR on it was somewhat not as good as I had hoped (even factoring the wine out of the equation).

For me, I'll probably not go back but not because of just this one experience (only partly so). I live in Laurel and this is a bit of a drive for me. If it truly was great, I'd drive almost any distance. But this wasn't that amazing to me. Each restaurant is different and each restaurant has different ideas of what they want to be and to achieve. Restaurant Eve was good, just not good enough for me to make the trek again most likely.

(made some minor edits -- I have food course comments coming soon (which I will post separately), as I was waiting for Cathal's chat to end per DR's request).

Mrs. TJ works in DC and, in the past, she has come home with wonderful goodies from Marvelous Market. Sometimes brownies. Sometimes gingerbread. Sometimes these fruit and nut crisps (think really crisp 'bread' slices of this stuff -- with salt!). Their stuff in general used to be like food-crack.

So she stops by there last night and is completely dismayed that they had posted a sign that they were now outsourcing their bread production, in part, to a 3rd party bakery. Apparently it is not just the bread.

Grrrrr.

Mrs. TJ and I went to Maestro (one and only mindblowing time) and when they asked what kind of butter we wanted, in opposite unison she said salted and I said unsalted. Baffled at each other, the waitstaff winked and quickly came back with....both.

Corduroy...very nice.

Mrs. TJ and I went to Restaurant Eve on Friday and were mildly disappointed. On my actual birthday (Monday), we headed to Corduroy for a RW dinner.

Corduroy blows RE away, IMHO. Even ignoring price.

Mrs. Tj had the lobster salad (she declared the underlying tomato a perfect touch and the star of the course), the scallops (i was lucky she let me have a bite) and the ice cream (I think Chocolate & Pistacchio -- both great, particularly the chocolate).

I had the softshell crab (whoa!), the lamb and mini-ravioli (very nice, but the scallops blew this away) and the blueberry tart (how do they keep the blueberries so separate and ready to pop?!).

A great meal no matter the price. Add to this that it was at RW prices and that they are also BYOW-friendly and this is a complete no-brainer.

While I didn't attend this particular DC Crü dinner, I am a 'founding member'. Hee-haw. The DC Crü has expanded over the past couple of years to the point that there are almost always enough people available on a given chosen date/event to make up enough to call it a dinner/event. In fact, there are still some newer folks I have yet to meet.

There are two things you can count on at a DC Crü thing..... Great wine and great company.