sheldman

I just spent the last week in Palm Springs, and hope to be spending much more time there over the coming years. What a great area. Here are some notes, which I hope will get the ball rolling on some more updated discussion of eating in and around Palm Springs. 1. Norma's, at the Parker hotel, is a really nice place. It is the sister of a restaurant by the same name in NYC in the Parker Meridian. Not cheap, but the vibe is wonderful. Brunch is decadent and delicious. Dinner is good too, as long as you are ok with (for instance) $20 for some really great fish tacos. What makes it worthwhile, in addition to the good food and nice service, is the place. The Parker is total mid-century (20th, that is) Palm Springs, used to be a spa/resort owned by Gene Autry and then by Merv Griffin. The decor is odd, retro, hip, funny. The main dining area of Norma's is outside, in very pretty surroundings. 2. King's Highway is a renovated Denny's, I think, that is part of the Ace Hotel complex. Apparently this is where hip young people from LA stay when they are in town, or at least that's what the marketers want you to think. The food is good and not too expensive - for instance, a "couscous salad" that is really nice with pistachios, raisins and whatnot, with an egg on top for $9 or with shrimp on top for a little more. And sandwiches, and other things. On Monday night, there is free bingo (with prizes like beers, cupcakes, etc.) presided over by a nice 70-something lady who sings and tells funny stories when she's not calling bingo numbers. 3. During the heat of the summer, the farmer's market moves indoors to an old shopping mall - just a few vendors, at least during August, but delicious stuff, especially fruits. 4. Taqueria Tlaquepaque is a very good inexpensive taco, beer, and whatnot restaurant. 5. Lots and lots of other restaurants - including a couple that I wanted to try that were closed for August. 6. Twentynine Palms Inn, right near the main north entrance to the Joshua Tree National Park, has a cheerful little restaurant with good sandwiches and soups and salads and so forth. Please tell me more.

I think it should do better if you add a "+" to key words like "+zuni"

Seconding the negative comment above re hush puppies. It is hard to believe that there are bad hush puppies in this world. But the proof is here. On the other hand, happy hour oysters were great.

Funny to realize that this is in the old Wilson-Epes Printing Co. building - a landmark for people of my age and older who ever had a Supreme Court brief printed, with great old metal type printing. I will go sit at the bar and have a drink and pretend that I am reading proofs straight from the press.

At a friend's suggestion I had lunch yesterday at Blue 44 (link), which has opened within the last couple of weeks or so on Connecticut Ave in Chevy Chase DC - where Senor Pepper's or whatever it was called used to be, just south of the Safeway, just south of Chevy Chase Circle. I had a very good burger with blue cheese and fried onions, for something like $11. Fried oysters as an appetizer had a really nice crisp outside and really nice juicy inside. Others were happy with their food too. Basically seems like a good neighborhood place, in a neighborhood that desperately needed one. That's about the full extent of what I know, but it was nice and I'll go back. Now back to your regularly-scheduled discussion of Shake Shack.

At the risk of merely being one of the 1000 nonexperts who bog the site down ... Radius is fantastic, every time. This week's fava and pea risotto is brilliant springtime food. The mussels are always better, plumper, more perfectly cooked than ever I get anywhere else in town, and inexpensive, and the grilled bread with aioli that goes along with them is ridiculously grilled-bread-good. And every time I go, there is some new pizza that walks the walk of "farm to table" and "seasonal" cooking. All very friendly, and reasonably priced.

I thought it was absolutely great - the expansion of space and the earlier opening. Together, they made the market a much more pleasant experience. Once we're in the thick of the summer it might not make a material difference, I don't know. Re farmer sleepiness, I hope (and maybe naively assume) that the vendors' views on whether to make the time change were given enormous weight in the decisionmaking.

There is a Taylor Gourmet at 5th and K NW that would deliver or could be picked up. I know there is some non-Taylor-love from some folks on the board, but I still think that their veg sandwiches are awesome (broccoli rabe sandwich, nice) and there are good salads etc. too. Menu available online if you want to look.

Will be by myself in Jacksonville - in what I guess they call "downtown" (Riverfront Hyatt) - tomorrow night. Any place around there that is nice for sitting at the bar and eating good food? Thinking more in terms of pub with friendly vibe and good food, than expense account steakhouse etc. Something in the vein of Bar Pilar or Radius Pizza, though of course oysters would be most welcome. Thank you.

On another topic (but still re Sietsema's online chat) - if he is going to keep having "guests" on his chat, I hope he finds some that are willing to say things that go beyond the extremely cautious and self-serving. Of course, if I were doing a WaPo online chat, I'd probably be cautious and self-serving too! But that is one of many reasons why they shouldn't put me on there.

Of all days for the DR site to be down, it had to be yesterday - the day for my first of many-to-come weekly treks out to College Park on Saturdays ending around dinnertime, and me having no idea of what there is to eat in College Park or anywhere near. So I had to use other internet sources to get the clue to go to La Sirenita, and had not seen all of this thread above. I sure am glad i found it - a fantastic friendly place with some inexpensive and delicous food (and some not-so-delicious, including the ceviche, which didn't really taste like much). Chilaquiles with fried eggs ($10), and beer, what's not to like? And a $2 bowl of roasted jalapenos. Especially with a Norteno (I think, I am not an expert) band playing at the table in the back. If my life is any guide to why more food-lovers from other parts of town don't know about or go to this neighborhood - hell, I'd never heard that there was a "little Mexico" in DC until yesterday - it is just that getting out of NW DC, heading out of town towards the northeast, is ridiculously inconvenient and unpleasant by car. (My theory is that it was designed that way so that communist hordes rampaging in from the northeast would have a harder time getting to the capital.)

The following is a completely non-expert review. Yum. Not just standard-issue American Chinese food. Shrimp and scrambled eggs was excellent, as was everything else we ordered. Pleasant decor, friendly service, fair price. Much better than any Chinese food I've had in NW DC in the last few years

Dinner at the bar, after a too-long absence. The word is that there will be a new bar menu within a few days (maybe tomorrow?), so there will be new things to taste. Meanwhile the things we had tonight, mostly from the "upstairs" menu, were all fantastic. E.g., salt cod croquettes with a perfect accompaniment of fried fish skin. Composed mushroom salad. Mind-blowing squash soup. And masala spice donuts with dipping sauces. These are delicious fall dishes, carefully thought out and beautifully prepared. And friendly neighborhood conversation at the bar, a really nice vibe all around.

I bought some of those "pineapple tomatillos" there a few weeks ago, and the seller said that they were not actually tomatoes or tomatillos but something more like a variety of gooseberry. I am not a botanist. Anyway, they were fun because they were confusing - the tomatillo husk, the grape-ish texture, the pineapple-ish taste. But combining with shrimp and mushrooms, I can't quite get there.

We ate here last week for the first time in way too long. What a great place that receives too little attention in the pop-buzz-of-the-minute restaurant discussion (and, if last Thursday night was indicative, may not get as much business as it deserves). It's no more expensive than many many places in town - and for not that awfully much money (especially if you make a meal out of appetizers) you get a variety of awesome tastes with the trademark Michel Richard creativity. Eggplant gazpacho. Escargot tart. Goat cheese ravioli. Etc. etc. Apps in the $10-15 range, and a couple of those plus desserts will leave most people happy. Very friendly service. Remind me to go more often, please.

If I am correct in assuming that this is Mr. Kliman's own twitter feed, he adopts the word "hypocrisy" without questioning it on a July 9 tweet, and then has a tweet yesterday that (if I am reading it correctly) is a rather obnoxious dismissal of "feedback" on his writing. Pretty lame, in my opinion. (Maybe this is what Don Rocks was alluding to, in a post a few above this one? If so, I am not holding any tweets in esteem or giving them much weight, but they do seem to me to be evidence that the combative tone wasn't just his editors' fault.)

Rehoboth Tuesday afternoons in the park behind the Rehoboth Visitors Center (just west of the traffic circle) - a nice farmers market with sandwiches, ice cream, etc, along with good-looking produce. I had never been to this market until today. Check it out if you are in town for a few days.

Unless I am crazy (which is possible), there was a thread a while back about people looking for coconut m & m s. My wife just returned from Walgreens at 22nd and M with pretzel m & m s (yum) and coconut ones as well (yum also). Maybe they are everywhere. If so, feel free to delete this silly post.

A mixed experience at dinner last night, since everything we ate was delicious but other aspects of the restaurant felt very perfunctory. Shared big appetizer bowl of "singapore slaw" ($16), made up of a huge number of ingredients nicely balanced, from jicama to flowers, was (somewhat surprisingly) worth the price. Kid had a vegetable sushi roll (Buddha delight, $9) and dumplings, and loved them. Salmon with yuzu-tarragon hollandaise ($25) was beautifully cooked. Shrimp and scallops in an XO sauce (c. $25 or so) was different from what you can see on the online menu, and great. Side order of long beans ($6) was an appropriately greasy sodiumy delight. Really, this was all very very good - I know some people hate the word and concept of "fusion" and want to avoid it at all costs, but I am not one of those people and I loved every taste. The dishes were designed well and were also executed well. So what's the problem? I guess it's that the rest of the experience screamed "hotel restaurant." Host who tried to seat us not in the main dining room that had plenty of space, but in the literally empty room reserved for boring and ugly people. (Maybe I am, but please don't make it so obvious.) Boring decor, not sexy or cozy or artistic or anything. Waiter who didn't seem to care much about food. Drinks that were good, but not $14 good, especially since the second one came out tasting and looking so different from the first one. And desserts were uninspiring, at least as described on the menu, begging to be skipped and so we skipped them - a chocolate cake and a creme brulee (tahitian vanilla bean, yeah yeah ok) and so forth. Don't know if they need a pastry chef or just a better copywriter for the dessert menu.

When you say you are looking for a vegetarian restaurant, do you mean a restaurant where a vegetarian could be happy, or a restaurant that is all vegetarian? If the latter, that's going to be difficult.

I got some in the newly renovated Safeway on Wisconsin ("social safeway", upper georgetown/glover park) - in the "beautiful selection of obscure fruits and vegetables that our cashiers have no idea what to charge you for because these products aren't even in the database" section. (at least, that's what the section was, during the first couple of weeks after reopening).

I have only been to Mitsitam a few times. But based on that experience I would say that if I have been really bad in this life, then for eternity I will have to eat lunch there every day, standing in multiple slow station lines trying to figure out what non-meat items look ok, then standing in a slower line to pay, then trying desperately to find my friends at a cramped table in the chaos, and then picking at my now-cold, not-as-interesting-as-promised, food. I should make an appointment with a therapist to figure out why I feel compelled to post this opinion on the internet. [Edited to add: it has been pointed out to me that this last sentence might read as a commentary on other posters' posting habits, or on the whole enterprise of internet discussion. It's not - it's really truly just my own expression of wondering why this particular place, and its generally very good reputation on the internet, bug me so very much.]

A vote against Indian Museum cafe, especially for your situation. I expect that vegetarians would be frustrated by limited choices, and that finding a table for a large group would be very difficult in that crowded place. I would look instead to National Gallery if you want to stay on the mall.

In a couple of hours I will drink to Frank Frazetta; and the 13-year-old in me will imagine himself swinging a broadsword at a demon. link

Good news - this market starts up again this Saturday. I am not affiliated with them, just a fan. Check it out - including Karen Kay's pound cakes, etc. And you can see the brand new Safeway across the street (with designated sweeeet parking spaces for hybrid cars) if you're into that.