dinwiddie

I go to the one in Burtonsville on occasion. They make the best steak salad I've ever had. It is huge and I love the horseradish dressing you can order with it. They also make great fries, the thin crispy kind that I love. Pretty good roast chicken too. I also like the fried oysters.

I doubt it will catch on, but I could be wrong. I still have a can of Wolfgang Puck's expresso in a self heating can on my desk, I just haven't gotten the guts to pull the tab and see if it works.

Shame on any restaurant not haveing a changing space in the bathroom. I remember changing diapers on the space between a couple of sinks in the men's room when my son was an infant because there was no place else to do it. Now I see changing tables on the walls of mens rooms all the time (soemtimes times do change for the better.) However, I agree, you shouldn't change a diaper on the table or near food in a restaurant. On the other hand, when I was a social worker (over 25 years ago) I kept a box of Pampers in my desk and was constantly changing diapers on my desk, but then I had to deal with newborns and young mothers who had no clue on a daily basis.

Male, of an age over 50, and parent (son is now 19) here. I think Joe had the right comment, times change. When I was young, a woman wouldn't think of breastfeeding an infant in public. Now it is an acceptable act among most folks, me included, and doing so discretely in a restaurant is no big deal. The only guys who should have a problem with it are the ones who haven't grown up enough to realize that exposing a breast to an infant is not a sexual act.

I guess it is a matter of personal taste. I loved the tater tots wtih onion, but can't find them anymore. My wife even commented on it the last time I brought home a bag of tater tots for the freezer. She preferred the onion ones too. As to baked vs deep fried, I always bake them at home, but love them deep fried if they have been properly drained. They are crisper and take less time to cook. Of course I don't do any deep frying at home, just too much trouble and mess. (Except when I'm making fried chicken, then the trouble is worth it.)

I love tater tots, and even the school cafeteria couldn't ruin them for me. We still keep a bag in the freezer for those days we just can't decide what starch to make with dinner. What I miss however, was the tater tots with onion. I have not been able to find them in any local grocery in several years.

All three bottles that Pool Boy, jamietowne and I had last night were fantastic. However, my personal favorite was the the 96 Shafer Hillside Select. I must admit however, the 99 Clos des Lambrays was absolutely fantastic.

I vote for Urban, but be sure to get some of their wings, they are killer.

We're going tonight. I hope you left us some decent wine.

You have to ask for them. You should see the face of the young man who was the server when I asked for them the last time I was there. This time he just said I was weird and told Dean that I eat duck feet. Dean gladly informed him that my kid does too, and has since he was about 5 years old.

Hey Dean, you folks didn't happen to order the duck feet, did you. They were pretty good yesterday.

Actually, the style was developed when bottles were hand blown. The typical "export" bottle (the exported it from St. Louis to the west after pasturization of beer was developed and beer could be shipped and stored easily) was developed to ease filling since it allowed more control of the head or foam. Bottles in those days were rare and usually refilled often, and often with things other than beer. They developed from the experience of making wine bottles, expecially champagne bottles, and needed to be strong enough to have a carbonated beverage in them and still be easy to stopper. When machine blown bottles were developed, the shape was fairly standardized and is still in use. Of course, better glass and machine blown techniques now allow for different shapes, but the long neck was the most common from about the 1870s on until the 1960s or so, and still is very the prefered style for smaller bottling lines.

Actually, decanters can be almost anything that doesn't impart any flavor to the wine and allows it to get air. I know people who use all kinds of things, from crockery pitchers to $300 hand blown decanters. The primary function of the decanter is to allow air to get to the wine and allow it to "breathe." Since my wife is so kind as to buy me nice decanters, I use them and think that they lend "cachet" to the wine drinking experience. But by all means, use whatever is appropriate. What we are trying to impart to the OP, decanting has a favorable impact on wine when the wine in question needs to "air out" a bit in order to open and show all of its flavor and aromas. But, decanting very old wines (except for old fortified wines like port or maderia) can cause the wine to break down more quickly. James, I beleive you were at the dinner where Dave opened and decanted the 1985 Insignia. It was fantastic when first opened, but an hour later it had deterioriated quite a bit. We probably shouldn't hve decanted that one. On the other hand, several years ago I was at a dinner where the 1998 Cape d’Estaing Shiraz Kangaroo Island and/or the 2001 Mitolo Shiraz GAM had been decanted for over 6 hours and still sang and were still opening as the evening progressed.

Well, my wife has started buying me decanters that she likes. I think there is a certain cachet to using a Riedel Cornetto or Amadero Lyra. At many of dinners that my fellow wine geeks have the bottle is set behind the decanter on the sideboard, and the lineup can be very impressive.

I used to go often when it was in Laurel, (in fact I spend a couple of hours there each Wednesday talking food and wine with Eric while my son was in Hebrew school) but have only been once since he had to move. I found that his new location was hard to find, and being in an office building made it less appealing before you got inside.

I find that decanting is especially helpful for Australian Shiraz, CA Pinot Noirs, and almost any young red wine. I always decant those. I like to decant because it lends a certain cache to the wines. In fact, many of the huge Aussie Shirazs benefit from many hours in a decanter. However, I agree with Mark and James (but then why wouldn't I, they are two of the most knowledgeable wine guys I know personally) that decanting really old Burgandy (or even olf Bordeauxs or CA Cabs) is not necessarily a good thing. They are often decanted to make sure the sediment is not present, but I find that many of those older wines tend to go downhill very quickly once they have been exposed to the air, and if you can refrain from decanting them, they will last a little longer since they exposure is less.

It could be worse, a friend of mine came out of the restaurant to find out that the guy he gave his keys to was not in the employ of the valet company and his car had been stolen.

Every time I've been there on a Sunday (what other day would I possibly want to go) they have carts and servers walking around with trays.

My son's favorite show. He wants to go to Singapore, Osaka, etc. He also wants Tony's job, but then he doesn't see all the boring, tedious part of doing the show.

Somewhere in the mess that is the cookbook drawer, there is one of those church cookbooks that rural churchs used to publish with recipies from parishoners. It was published in the 1930s and has a couple of my grandmother's recipies in it. It is interesting to read the recipies, lots of lard, some ingredients that I have know idea whether they still make, etc., kneading dough forever, but they are fun and occasionally we make something from it.

If you are there on the 29th and see a table with way, way, too many bottles on it, that will be the DC Crü trying to get their fill of Burgandy.

Oh yes, the old Tung Bor, how I miss that place. It was the first place I ate dim sum in the DC area after moving back in the early 80s. And while the sesame ball is probably not that unusual, I have not seen it at other places I frequent for dim sum.

There are several meals that have been passed down from my grandmother (I'm in my 50s so they are quite old) that we cook on occasion just to remember them. Of course, we no longer make our own egg noodles like I remember doing when I was a kid at my grandmother's house, but every once in a while, my extended family gets together and we make some of the old standbys that we enjoyed as kids, and now are teaching to our children.

Karen and I decided to have dim sum yesterday (not an unusual Sunday lunch for us) and instead of going to Silver Fountain in Aspen Hill as we are wont to do (hey it is close and not at all bad) we went to Hollywood East on the Boulevard. In a word, fantastic. It was crowded, but what good dim sum place isn't on a Sunday at noon. We did not have to wait long however, about 5 minutes. And as we sat down, the carts started passing by. In addition to the normal carts, several servers come by with special dishs on trays. Most of the servers were young, obviously well Americanized (but all speak Chinese too) and very polite. We ordered as the whim hit us, sticky rice in lotus leaves, abalone dumplings (very tasty),steamed shrimp dumplings (excellent), baked roast pork buns, shark fin dumplings, scallop dumplings, peanut and cilantro dumplings (yum), crispy taro cakes, tofu wraped pork, roast duck in soy, spare ribs (with garlic and peppers, not black beans, very tasty) and much to the server's amusement (and amazement) I ordered duck feet (one of my favorite dim sum dishes and the one I tend to judge dim sum restaurants by) which was excellent. We also had a couple of dessert courses that were unusual. The first, black sesame paste balls were fantastic, much like a normal sesame ball but the sesame seeds and paste were inside instead of a bean paste. I loved it. The other was the rice dough dyed orange and made to look like a carrot. It was filled with custard. Not as good as the sesame balls, but very inventive. (I've probably left a few things out, and we did have some of it packed up to take home to the kid when he got off work.) We had forgotten just how good HECOTB was, and will definitely be back for dim sum. And in light of some of the unneeded back and forth in this thread, I'll point out that when it comes to Cantonese food, I only go for dim sum, normally I much prefer Hunan or Schezuan when eating Chinese food for dinner, the spicier the better.

They have now opened an outpost in Rockville Town Center. We have been twice, and in a word, ordinary. (Hey the kid wanted to go again, just to make sure it wasn't just an off night the first time, it wasn't.) One thing that we did have fun with was the sangria. We ordered the Sangria La Tasca (red wine, cinnimon and apples) and the kid said that all it needed was walnuts and it would be Charoset