JPW

Love the idea, porcupine! I'd be happy to throw in my favorite spots from SS and the Rockville Pike corridor.

USA-Canada was the best soccer match that I have seen in a long time. My crush on Megan Rapinoe continues to grow (yes, I know).

Do yourselves a favor and catch a replay. I'm going to watch it a few more times.

BIlly Mills 1964 10k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5vOhMwRQwI&feature=related

I had forgotten all about mongomania. That was a collection of highly disturbed hilarious people.

I still poke my head in at Mouthfulsfood from time to time, mainly for Florida Jim's wine tasting notes.

I'll never forget when I found out about eG. There was an article in the WaPo food section about the controversy of Rick Bayless consulting for Burger King in 2004(?) that mentioned eG. I think that I was on the site for almost a day straight. As time went on things changed (as they always do).

I'd say that the vast majority of my friends in DC are people I met through eG and that migrated over here after the infamous new "Events Policy" kerfluffle and Don founding this site.

Just did a quick check, and there have been 8 posts in the DC forum at eG since the beginning of June.

Got power back at about 2:30 pm yesterday. A lot of eating out in downtown SS which, thanks to the HQ for Discovery, has underground lines and close to the most reliable electricity in the DC area. Spent most of the weekend in Montgomery Mall with the rest of the power vultures looking to plug in somewhere. Slept on an air mattress in the family room (coolest room in the house). Listened to a lot of WTOP.

Worked yesterday from the Starbucks and Panera in Cherry Hill. The people at Starbucks were great. The folks ("customers", not employees) at Panera were among the biggest asshats that I have ever run into in DC. I say customers in quotes because half of them didn't even pretend to buy something to justify squatting at a table for multiple hours. Tossed about $100 worth of food and haven't yet cleaned out the downstairs fridge. Really not looking forward to tossing the baggies of frozen homemade chicken stock.

I see a long overdue meeting of the RPLC (Rockville Pike Lunch Club) happening soon.

At the expensive end my vote would go to the Oval Room for consistently having the best service.

At the inexpensive end I'm too biased by connections and familiarty to give an honest opinion about most places.

For example, when I walk in the door at Joe's, they know what I want before I do.

At both ends I won't go back to places with bad service.

Can someone explain the difference between pan frying and deep frying chicken and why one is better than the other?

From an old Good Eats -- I remember that AB mentioned something about the extra caramelization that you get from chix being in contact with the bottom of a cast iron skillet as the main benefit of pan frying.

"It's all about the bread" is as close to a po-boy stake-in-the-ground as you can make

Something about this reminds me of another sandwich debate that happened some time ago....

In related news - the space formerly occupied by the unlamented late Againn in Rockville is slated to become another Chef Geoff's.

Then again it's hard not to be a fan of a guy who goes out of his way to bash speed cameras AND who is married to the delicious Norah O'Donnell.

Dude, you forgot the 90 minute limit.

Chuck Brown - get better soon.

And the thing with that lean beef is it must be cooked rare-ish for it to retain any flavor at all. Seasoning helps too.

Were your fries soggy and terrible also?

Not terrible, but soggy in the way that Five Guys fries are without the benefit of being fried in peanut oil to add to the taste.

But you can't say I didn't warn you .

You did. And it was craptacular. Not seasoned one bit, WAY too lean, and cooked to death.

The funny thing to me was the ability to immediately identify what they stole from Shake Shack (instead of an open bag, they wrap in paper with an open end) and Five Guys (put fries in a container, place container in paper bag and dump some more fries in the bag). I'm sure that there are other things that they stole from other of the burger chains, but those are the two that jumped out at me.

I've heard that the Whole Foods that recently opened in Foggy Bottom has a burger bar. Competing with the likes of Shake Shack, 5 Guys, BRGR, Flay, et. al. - I sure hope they cook 'em better in DC than they did on Bowery in New York where I had my first, and most likely my last, Whole Foods' burger sometime last week.

The WF in Rockville/North Bethesda has a burger bar as well. One look at the painfully thin patties has led me to stick to the salad bar. (Well, that and their god awful pizza) Now that you have brought the topic up, it looks like I'll have to take one for the team and try one.

Discovery - Thanks for the fly-by!

Lebanese Taverna - the winner in my mind by a long shot.

It was, and if you looked hard enough, you could still find a few bottles of ORVW 15 around.

The obvious catch with this plan is that one's inventory of commemorative plates doesn't mysteriously decrease while being held, neat, in a glass, in a warm hand...

Remember when VW FRR 13 "A" was a sale item in the $30s at Montgomery County liquor stores? I should have socked away a case. Wolfe was right: you can't go home again.

I got one at the SS store. Loved it so much that I went back in to buy some back-ups a few days later. One unidentified customer had cleaned out the entire stock of a case or two.

Now unfortunately, all of this Brobdingnagian brouhaha has kept me from sharing the real exciting and fun news for the day.

And that is, at Ray's To The Third--that's the one with a bar but not the one next to the original Ray's The Steaks, which is really the new Ray's The Steaks with Retro Ray's next door which is kinda like the real original Ray's The Steaks but up the street from the old Ray's The Steaks, across the street from which is Ray's To The Third, which unless I've confused myself, is the one I'm talking about in this post--we will be serving free snacks at the bar and at the bar high-tops Sunday through Friday, 5:00-6:30.

Good snacks. Sunday-Friday. 5:00-6:30. Free.

Aaaaaaaaaand my head just exploded.

Mine would too if I lived in or frequented Arlington with any regularity.

Thankfully, Ray's the Classics, although a much different restaurant than when it opened, is still in the same place with the same name in downtown SS. There are no other Ray's in SS, making life much simpler for me. My favorite bar stool is still third from the far end. It has been since I walked in on opening day.

'66 Chapoutier Hermitage Le Sizeranne

'66 Revol Cote Rotie

It's always great to eat at Bern's.

Any good? I need an <envy> emoticon>

Hank Dietle's?

My Iranian/Persian research analyst says that the two are fairly interchangable. And that Persian is still used mostly to hide the stigma of being associated with Iran.

Amusingly, Iran (or some variant) has always been dominant as the local name for the area and Persia was most used by the Greeks. Internationally, most used Persia until the shah formally asked the rest of the world to call it Iran.

Persian comes from Fars or Pars the province that contains Shiraz and is the homeland of the Persians. The "P" got changed into "F" (as with the language Farsi) when the Arab speaking Muslims invaded. There is no "P" phoneme in Arabic.

Start your engine, turn left.

Except for Watkins Glen and Infineon.

As a marketing tool for Murray's book it's great. As anything else, it's utter crap.