LoganCircle

Anyone have a restaurant suggestion for Philippino food? I've only heard of one place in Arlington with mixed reviews.

East Street Cafe, my go-to spot at Union Station, serves up a smattering of Filipino dishes. The pan-Asian restaurant is Filipino owned and operated. While I have had only the adobo from among their Filipino offerings, I will say that several other dishes--most notably the house spicy ginger beef--are consistently good.

Some of their Filipino dishes:

Lumpia

Summer Rolls

Fried Tofu

Chicken Mami

Pork Adobo

Manila Pork Barbeque

Pancit Bihon

So, it's been six months since the flurry of posts regarding The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm curious as to what long-term impact, if any, the book has had on your food buying behavior.

• Were your increased expenditures at the farmers' market sustained over time?
  
• Have you found it difficult to maintain the resolve to distinguish big (industrial) organic from little organic?
  
• Do you still find yourself patronizing restaurants because of their food sourcing as well as their cooking?
  
• What purveyors and restaurants have you settled on as most agreeable with your worldview?
  

I really would love to hear what happened as a result of your reading the book and talking about it at length back in July.

I bought the book in August, read about fifty pages, and then got sidetracked with other titles. I picked it back up over the holidays and was transfixed. My commitment to local, sustainable, and humane food production is stronger than ever, and I want to make food choices that will both bring me pleasure and do as little harm as possible. I hope to increase the popportion of local, sustainable, humanely produced food in my diet from 20 percent to about 85 percent. I expect doing so will be time consuming, effort intensive, and expensive--not an insignificant trial.

I hope your success stories will help sustain my motivation and that sharing your accumulated experiences will make this task less daunting.

Oya has a small soju section on their cocktail menu. I tried one of them last Friday and liked it very much. I can't remember its name--as it came after three Dark and Stormiers--but it was the one with lime juice and black pepper.

Corduroy will be open on NYE, despite it falling on a Sunday, and will offer their regular menu a la carte.

I just booked a party of 18 for 8:00 pm.

Wow.

The O.C. > the French Toast.

What do they charge for an SGC?

$7.00, and it comes with fries.

Our two-top ordered entrees from different ends of the menu--the Super Grilled Cheese (cheese, bacon, and onions) for me and the Spinach Salad + Chicken for him. We both left happy, sated, and pleased that a decent, friendly, and affordable place had relocated to the neighborhood.

On a different note, and for reasons completely unrelated to food, I'm interested to see who constitutes Stoney's clientele a few months from now. Let's just say their patrons didn't match Logan's demographics. I wonder if that will change over time.

Had lunch there on Thursday. The barbeque shrimp and asiago grits were pretty good whereas the roasted chicken breast salad was very good. The skin-on chicken breast was wonderfully moist and flavorful. The show stealer was the mint white chocolate chip ice cream and the bite of pecan pie served as a garnish.

Even with the ice cream it felt like a light lunch.

I've been to Guajillo once, for a margarita before one of the DR.com dinners at Ray's the Steaks. The food looked fine but its distance from the city and my car-lessness meant I was unlikely to give it a proper try.

All the chatter from the the last few days has made me want to make the trek down the hill from the Courthouse metro, even in this extreme heat.

And now I've discoved their cute little website. It seems like it's going to be easy to like this place.

We had 2 bottles of the sauvignon blanc (called THC or TLC?) which went well with the summery meal.

THE (Terrace Heights Estate) sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. I like it.

While I can't match $5K, hearing of Mr. Landrum's generosity has prompted me to get out my checkbook and make another contribution to Emmaus. I'm thankful to have had a wonderful dinner at RTC and for its proprietor's magnanimity.

At coffee shops, quick-prep, takeout, and fast-food restaurants, do you:

• Take a handful of napkins instead of the number you actually need?
  
• Order your food to go and then eat it in the restaurant?
  
• Use disposable cups, plates, and cutlery instead of readily available reusable options? (Like when you're reading the paper at Starbucks on Saturday morning?)
  
• Ask for cardboard beverage carriers when you only have two drinks?
  
• Use an insulated paper coffee sleeve when your coffee's not really that hot?
  
• Not recycle when there are clearly marked recycling containers fifteen feet away?
  

I see people doing these things all of the time and it drives me nuts! I know there are motivational, educational, and attitudinal barriers to addressing the larger issue of resource overconsumption, but there's no reason to be needlessly wasteful. I guess I get my panties in a wad too easily..

I've had a few enjoyable meals at East Asia Cafe (I think that is what it is called) upstairs in Union Station. My fav was a tofu and grilled veggies plate. The tofu had a nice crust to it and the veggies were crisp -- I hate overcooked veggies. I'd ask them to go light on the sauce if I had afternoon meetings because it had a decent amount of garlic.

The House special Spicy Ginger Beef is a bright spot at East Street Cafe, which is on the top level of Union Station. Sit at the bar, talk to Jerry, and you'll find that they'll prepare just about anything to your liking. And they're willing to make things seriously spicy.

There are a lot of items on the pan-asian menu I haven't tried. Feedback anyone?

I second this request. I work at First and G NE and can't stomach the Union Station food court anymore. God bless Aditi--yesterday they even had Keema, one of my favorite dishes of all time--but even that's wearing on me. I wish I could afford to make more frequent trips to Bis.

Lately, I've been having a sandwich and soup from ABP. I do like their honey mustard; it's the very honey-y and spicy mustard kind, a condiment not a dressing.

Just picked up a round of Mt. Tam, a half pound of fromage blanc, and a small wedge of Sottocenere, which is a must-try.

I quite liked the sterile environment. The staff were friendly, generous, and helpful.

Without question, the best cheese store within walking distance

I'm heading home to a Mulderbosch 2005 Sauvignon Blanc.

I'm slightly addicted, and the heat is the perfect excuse.

This really is a fantastic deal.

Amuse: Mushroom fritter with truffle sauce.

First course: I had the pea soup with ham hock croutons.

Main course: I had the shoat (young pig) and hubby had halibut. The shoat was just amazing.

Dessert: I had the peppermint patty, which was good, but didn't blow me away.

We did the course-by-course wine pairing as well, which was generous at $25 pp.

FYI - they don't serve the mini parkerhouse rolls at the bar, although we did have some fine bread and butter. The food, wine, two cocktails, and one espresso came to $225 with tip.

I ordered the same meal you did, on Saturday a week before, and had nearly identical reactions to each course (except I remember the cheese grits served with the shoat ) -- the pea soup and young pig blew me away. The +1 and I asked for the rolls and got shot down. We were also told that there was no wine pairing available, mainly because of Christopher's departure. We got out of there for $176 (food, three glasses of wine, and one Hendricks and tonic). Such a steal..

Mostly governed by what's within walking distance:

Thai Tanic

Logan Tavern

Merkado

Dakota Cowgirl

Alero (U Street)

Whole Foods Sandwich Counter

Matchbox

Au Bon Pain

Viridian

Al Crostino

Creme

Lauriol Plaza

Regent

Rice

California Tortilla

Wrapworks

Pizzeria Paradiso

Ooohs and Aaahs

Hank's Oyster Bar

I live five blocks from Great Wall and had never tried it until reading the article in the City Paper and the reports here. Last night, on my first visit, I ordered the ma pa tofu from the ma-la menu. The staff folk were as nice as could be, they were gracious even though I called 15 minutes before closing, and the woman from whom I ordered told me the twice cooked pork was her favorite. I was excited about this possible new discovery in Logan.

I am disappointed to report, however, that my ma pa tofu was inedible. It was the saltiest dish I have ever tasted, which is a feat given my upbringing in rural Georgia and my love for salty foods. After three chunks of bean curd, I threw the reamainder in the garbage. Even with the horrible overload of salt I was able to taste the nice, slow burn.

So, my questions are:

1. Is this what authentic Szechuan cooking tastes like? I'm not sure I've ever tried the real deal.

2. Was this an accident, like when Miguel on Top Chef accidentally put salt in the sorbet instead of sugar?

3. Have others had similar experiences?

I intend to go back soon to try another dish or maybe the same one. At $8.75--which includes a free can of soda--it's ridiculous to not do so. Just looking to confirm that my meal was an aberration.

I'm scared to even think of what my daily iced venti skim latte carries in terms of mg. Please, no more charts!

You're good. Each shot of espresso has approximately 35 mg of caffeine. With 2 shots in your venti, you're caffeine intake isn't much more than what's in a 12 oz. can of soda. It's the drip coffee that's jacked up off the charts.

edited to reflect 2 shots in a Venti at the 'Bucks instead of 3.

that being said, due to a severe caffeine fit, immediate proximity, and extreme time pressures, i swallowed my hypocrisy and got a large iced americano from the one on spoutrun parkway this morning.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if a large iced Americano quenched your need for caffeine, I think the effect was more psychosomatic than real. Have a look at this table from a CSPI brief on caffeine (they're the folks that told us how bad movie theater popcorn and food-court Chinese was for us). You'll see that a 16 oz. drip coffee from Starbucks has 550 mg of caffeine whereas an 8 oz. Americano has 35mg. Add two more shots to make it a Venti Americano and you're barely topping 100 mg. That's less than 80% the caffeine that is contained in an at-home-prepared, non-gourmet 8 oz. cup of joe.

As a nonregular drinker of drip coffee and an occasional consumer of espresso drinks, I once drank a venti drip coffee from Starbucks (probably ~700 mg of caffeine, equivalent to taking SEVEN regular strength No-Doz or Vivarin) and felt like I'd discovered methamphetamine. I couldn't stop my knees from shaking and my hands from trembling, which made for an unpleasant afternoon in the park. That led me to the aformentione table.

That stuff is like crack. But it'll make you skinny [ever notice it as an ubiquitous accessory in photos of Laura Flynn Boyle, Nicole Ritchie, the Olsen twins, etc.?]

I have not returned to Alberto's in the 2 years since a rock in their pizza cracked one of my molars.

I use Duccini's at 18th and U (202-483-0005/8484) and have been very pleased.

I've eaten dinner at Viridian twice in the last eight days. It would be difficult to improve upon Tujague's descriptions--and there's a lot of overlap in what we've eaten--so I won't try.

Things I'd eat again and again: the perfectly cooked chicken breast with dumpling and gravy (if you, like I, don't regularly order chicken, give this one a chance--you'll be impressed), the pork t-bone, and the seared tuna (even though I did send it back and ask for another 30-45 seconds on the grill). All of the sides were fantastic--curried quinoa, purple sticky rice, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized fennel, roasted potatoes. The salad of duck confit and rocket was notable and the molten chocolate cake is a must have. I also liked the kimchi amuse.

Things that were so-so: mahi mahi with grapefruit, the carrot soup amuse, the carrot cake (muffin), and the caramelized onion and black olive tapenades.

Things I dared not eat that were enjoyed by others at the table: sweetbreads with lemon and capers. No thymus glands for me.

I like the space, the food, and some of the staff a lot. I usually have to add a touch of salt to most of their dishes and it's a a tad too expensive to make it a weekly, neighborhood-y kind of place, but hey, I can live with that..

I'm with y'all.

Seeing espuma, foam , or air on a menu makes me crazy. And there are, what, no fewer than 3 on the current menu at minibar?

protiens come with a small, well chosen accompiement that is meant to enhance the main item but we still encourage you to construct your meal with the inclusion of side dishes.

Looks the entree prices have crept north, in some cases (e.g., the alaskan halibut) almost doubling the flat price ($13) charged when the restaurant first opened. Have appreciable changes been made to the presentation of the mains that would help a consumer understand these increases?

I do look forward dining on the patio; it's a great addition to the neighborhood.