Walrus

(psssst...hey, you...wanna burger? go to evening star and get the speakeasy burger -- burger with a sweet tea glaze and truffle butter, on a waffle for a bun, topped with cheese, bacon, and a fried egg...no joke! -- just ask for the aardvark...you can thank me later!)

Eagerly anticipating brunch here on Sunday -- if you haven't had the egg breakfast sandwich yet, you don't know what you're missing! Eggs, bacon, cheese, in a grilled sandwich. Nothing will banish the dreary day better!

When I win the lottery, I'm eating at Eve every day. Lunch, dinner...bar, bistro, tasting room -- doesn't matter. Once a day!

I've been hearing good things about Le Christine -- anyone here know anything? TIA!

Don't know if it's open, but we had a totally acceptable meal at Cinghiale, the sister to Charleston...

We ate here last night and had a great time. We loved the black mole, which seems to have had more flavor/spice than others have experienced, and Tripewriter enjoyed the grasshoppers. We also shared some spiced shrimp that made me think I might like shrimp after all. Service was friendly, food was good, atmosphere was very relaxing. Casa Oaxaca is officially on our list

Any updates or new information? My parents are visiting soon (!) and asked me for recommendations...they like to sample good, but not super fancy, super pricey, meals, preferably in the local style. They are specifically looking for good tapas, Basque food, Catalan food, and paella. Thanks in advance for any help!!!

Rats -- I would have loved to have gone, but this weekend's totally booked. Phooey!

We've eaten at Vetri and at Osteria (more than a few times -- the butternut squash pizza is a favorite dish!) -- this guy has it going on!

Good for Nate! Any idea what "the next little while" is?

We also thought that their gougeres were the best we've had. I think that the only thing that keeps us away is, sadly, the furnishing/decor. The food is excellent -- we've never had a bad meal there -- but when we've dined there in the past, it's felt to me like dining in a cheesy hotel conference room. Maybe I'm just not seeing it right, and I'll be more than happy to return, but I think that's why it's been at the bottom of my list for so long...

We love Envirocab!

Looks like they're moving fast! Elevation Burger Expansion

We've tried to call to make reservations but have yet to get someone to answer the phone. When we contemplated going without a reservation this weekend, the line was down the block.

We took our houseguests here for their last night on the town. We had a great time and some very good food. Highlights were the goat cheese kulcha, the palak chaat (of course! But a real revelation for the two who hadn't had it before), the butternut squash, and the duck. I had the lobster dish I'd eaten before -- I just LOVE that sauce (and so did everyone else around the table). Service was excellent, as always.

Well, I am quite delayed in posting about our meal here. We ate at Inox on March 13 -- but the memories of the meal linger on I wasn't sure what to expect, as the last time we were at 2941 we didn't really have a stellar meal, and we hadn't seen John Wabeck since his first days at New Heights, but we had a lovely, lovely meal here. First, the free valet? Rules. SO nice to be able to pull up, get out, and not worry. We were greeted immediately and whisked away to our table, so I got only a glimpse of the bar, but the loungey area looks quite cool, with funky white sofas. Our server was friendly and knowledgeable and took excellent care of us. I'll let Tripewriter post more about the food, but let me just say that the bread was divine, the lobster was amazing, the pairings were intriguing -- Arrowine is already on the job, getting us the sherry we had with dessert -- and it was just so nice to see Rissa and Wabeck looking so happy and engaged in what they were doing. You all deserve the best, and it looks like that's what Inox is offering.

I was surprised when I searched for this thread that I was the last one to comment on Evening Star -- are DR.com-mers really not going? Or just not posting? Because I'll tell you, Chef Will Artley is doing awesome things and just seems to get better and better. We took our guests here for our first meal out with them (the first night we had pizza and subs from the Italian Store...mmm...), and we all left exceedingly full and exceedingly happy. Chef sent out some amuses to tickle our palates, two of which were real stand-outs. The first was a perfectly seared scallop in a "gazpacho" of yellow tomato and sherry vinegar. It was tart and tangy and utterly delightful. One of our guests suffers from childhood trauma stemming from frozen scallops, but she said that scallops like the one we had here could convert her. Not even the diablo scallops at Ray's did that! So you know it was good. The other amuse was insane -- a perfectly -- perfectly! -- fried oyster on a mini chive biscuit. These are apparently going on the menu next week. We will be eating them. It was unbelievably good. My mouth is watering right now just thinking of it. For mains, I had a burger, which was divine, as did one of our guests. The other guest had the barramundi, and Tripewriter had the roasted chicken (with the mac and cheese...which he let me finish -- ah, love! ). It was a wonderful experience and a great meal. What an awesome way to start the week!

We're going here for lunch on Monday -- we usually take our visiting guests to the Tasting Room, but when we realized that they had never eaten in anything BUT the Tasting Room, we knew that we had to correct that error. We will try to mobilize early and maybe snag some of that inordinately tempting pork!

We had a superb dining experience at CityZen last night -- from start to finish, it amazed, impressed, and astounded us We had guests in from out of town, and this was our "fancy" meal of the week. And what a meal is was. We started with cocktails for the others (kir royale and a manhattan) and an Albrecht rose for me. Just the right way to start a night of decadence. After some decision making, we all chose the tasting menu, though one guest and I asked to exchange desserts, as banana desserts just aren't to our taste. We had two amuse bouches that set the tone for the meal: a mushroom fritter in a mushroom sauce -- crisp yet velvety, it made a lifetime mushroom-disliker very happy indeed. The second was a perfect little cylinder of rabbit confit with a creme fraiche dill sauce. Delicious. Before I get to the meal, let me first comment on the breads -- I love the foccacia. Love it. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I love the crispness and the salt of the crust and the mouthfeel of the bread. Yum. I'm going to resort to the menu for the real names for our dishes (as otherwise you'd be reading about "that fish thing that was so good"). Our first course was a merlu confit with a brandade canneloni. I loved the textures of this dish. The merlu was slightly crispy, and the brandade was creamy. Both were delicious. This was followed by a beef carpaccio -- more specifically, a Kagoshima Kurobe beef carpaccio. It was accompanied by pickled baby leeks, really cool marinated mountain potato, and fried shiitake mushrooms. I thought the mushrooms were divine -- crispy, salty, with a great flavor. One of our guests had never had a carpaccio before and was entranced by the texture and the flavors. One of the dishes I was most anticipating was the next item, the butter-poached lobster. The claw meat in particular was perfectly cooked -- so tender it dissolved in your mouth into an explosion of butter and lobster. As much as we enjoyed the lobster, though, and particularly the sauce (oh, the sauce!) that it was served with, the star of the meal for me was the lamb. According to the menu, it was a pan-roasted rib-eye of Elysian Fields Farm lamb, with toasted pine nuts, cauliflower florettes, a crystallized orange slice, and Merguez oil. Oh, the lamb. It was perfectly, inimitably cooked, and the oil gave just the right amount of spice, while the pine nuts and cauliflower added a little firmer texture and a toasted flavor that added a richness to the dish. The lamb was so tender, you could have cut it with a baby spoon, much less a fork. Like the lobster before it, it also melted in your mouth. This dish, I think, is the one that had me almost dancing in my seat. The orange slice was particularly interesting to several members of our party -- crispy like it had been fried, but clean, with a powerful orange flavor. We asked and were told that the chef slices the orange on a mandolin, brushes it with simple syrup, and then oven dries it. I have a feeling that several of our party are going to try to make these slices at home (but little faith that they will be as good as the one we had last night). We had a great time selecting cheeses from the very nicely done cheese cart. Three stand-outs for us were the Rolf Beeler Alpenzeller, which some of us had experienced before, but which all of us agreed was a perfect accompaniment for the meal; the Rocbleu French blue brie; and the Bayrisher Bavarian blue, which may have begun to convert me into a liker of blue cheese, rather than an avoider. For dessert, two members of the party had the dessert listed for the tasting menu -- a black bottom banana pie with thin slices of banana bruleed a la minute. One member of the party had the dessert listed for the vegetarian tasting menu, which was a sticky toffee pudding. I -- being the most difficult, of course -- had something off the regular menu -- the pineapple with cardamom and angel food cake croutons. I can only speak for myself, but I thought my dessert was best I did get a taste of the banana tart, thanks to Tripewriter's generosity and tendency to look away from his plate every once in a while, but as mentioned earlier, I'm not much of a banana lover. Bananas = yes! Banana food = no I wasn't able to distract the diner who had the toffee pudding, so I can't report on it, other than to say there wasn't a crumb left. We ended with some delicate and delicious petit fours -- my absolute favorite being the cinnamon macaroon. A huge flavor for a wee tiny cookie. The final taste was moscato d'Asti and ginger shortbread. And then we knew that we could die happy. A note about the wines. All perfectly paired -- of course! -- and three that really stood out to me. First was a Virginia wine, which was both delicious and a surprise because it was a delicious Virginia wine. It was a 2006 Horton Vineyards Petite Manseng from Orange County, VA. The riesling, a 2007 Meulenhof, Erdener Treppchen, Riesling Kabinett, Mosel, Germany, was a star for the whole table, and the Elio Perron moscato d'Asti was a lovely finish. The other wines we had were also very good and excellently paired, but these three are the ones I'm going to ask Arrowine about We've been eating excellent food all week, and will continue to do so until our guests leave on Wednesday, but this meal was one for the books.

I actually prefer getting a breast and a thigh -- I prefer dark meat, so like getting a variety instead of only one thing. Plus, it's been a long time since I cleaned my plate at CommonWealth -- any more food and you'd be getting three meals on a plate instead of just dinner and then lunch the next day.

I agree -- the pairings have always been great for us.

We had a very pleasant meal here last night. We had our cousin with us, who had never been to Corduroy and who was very excited about trying a place she'd heard so much about. We started with cocktails and champagne. I had the lemongrass cocktail -- it seemed strong to me at the beginning, but by halfway through, it seemed just right We opted for the 3-course menu with the addition of a second first course for each of us. I had the vif rouge d'temps soup -- which although not blow-me-away good, was certainly delicious. I may be committing sacrilege here, but I felt it could have been a bit thicker -- more pumpkin-y. It was followed by an appetizer portion of the lamb. Oh wow. This was a real star of the meal -- I got confused and shared two of my three pieces of lamb (!) but thus didn't have to share any of my sausage. It was all just really, really, really good. The lentils were the surprise hit of this dish, with all three of us just oohing and aahing over them. My main was the braised beef -- really fabulous. It was SO rich, and the sauce and beef had an incredible complexity to it that just blew us all away. Tripewriter's getting the rest of beef for lunch tomorrow (unless I luck out and he forgets to take it!), and I'm regretting giving it up a bit! Dessert for me was the pistachio bread pudding -- most and succulent, with the white chocolate ice cream, it was the perfect end to a great meal. Tripewriter started with the oysters, followed by the beet salad -- I still love the presentation, with the goat cheese in a thin disc on the plate -- and then the duck for his main. This duck was great -- a little sweet (with a fig sauce) and very, very tender. Perfectly cooked. His dessert was the chocolate sabayon, which we all tried and enjoyed. I love that dessert, but it's so rich -- I don't know how he finished it! Maybe because all of us were helping him My cousin started with the beet salad -- she enjoyed it very much except for the onions hidden in the greens (she doesn't eat raw onions) -- followed by the burrata, which was very nicely salted and peppered and oiled. She had the whole fish and loved the flavor but was put off by the multitude of bones. I had a taste of it, and the flavor was excellent. She had the tarte tatin for dessert but wasn't able to finish it. We had a great half bottle of Tablas Creek 2006 Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc for the first half of the meal, and I fell absolutely in love with it. After tax time, I think we're going to be bringing some home The food was great, the company wonderful, and service impeccable. Yet another restaurant we wish we could visit more often...

Any of those dates except June 7 works for us as of right now.

In my opinion, there's not as much interest about R3 because the last time we were there, the menu hadn't changed since the place had opened. However, the items you're mentioning, BookGuy, do sound new, and the steak I had there was actually one of the better steaks I've had...still haven't found a non-Sysco dessert there, but maybe the doughnuts can help...I'd be willing to give it another try.

We were there Monday, too -- LOVE the mac & cheese! I actually finished that before I even started my chicken (I know -- shocking!). I thought the asparagus was also really good -- nice texture, great flavor. We really like the lemon trifle for dessert -- a great tart, refreshing end to what has been for us always a rich and delicious meal.