Jump to content

hopsing

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    450

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    7

 Content Type 

Everything posted by hopsing

  1. hopsing
    Does any place serve H&H bagels anymore? They were the closest to the Brooklyn bagels I grew up with. Brooklyn Bagels, despite the name, does not do it for me. I used to get H&H at Calvert-Woodley or Arrowine, back in the day.
  2. hopsing
    Hmmm. I was thinking of going their for my birthday in January since I saw in the Post Dining Guide they served sea bream (dorade). I will now rethink my decision.
  3. hopsing
    Another shout-out to Greek Taverna. Last night, a month after coming back from our Greece vacation, we went. I always get the Taverna Special but this time one of the specials was a whole grilled branzino. Oh my!!!! We ate a lot of whole fish on vacation, but I was not expecting this fish to be as well-prepared or better-prepared than what we had in Crete -- and yet it was. Succulent, flavorful, big, fresh! The owner says they flew it in from Greece that day. With potatoes and green beans as sides, a salad, and the olive bread, it was a fantastic meal--$29 but worth it. As long as they have a fresh whole fish as the special, I won't be getting the Taverna Special for a while.
  4. hopsing
    They may have a quality control issue. The first 2 pies I ordered were great, although they messed up the toppings a little on the 2nd pie. 3rd pie was burnt and topping messed up. Awful! I complained and they gave me a credit for a pie. However, I've had maybe 5 dine-in personal pizzas over the past year that were terrific (one as recently as this rainy Wednesday). However, most of the dine-ins were at the Columbia Pike location. BTW, it was on the strength of the dine-in personal pizzas that I ventured to order from them again after decades when the Italian Store phone was out of order. My husband really likes them too and we never agree on pizza. I like Pupatellas, Bronx Pizza, Wiseguy, Piola. He doesn't like any of them and only tolerates Piola. He likes Joe's Pizza and Sicilian Pizza (near Columbia Pike) but I don't.
  5. hopsing
    I find Lost Dog pizza a little crave-worthy. Their toppings esp. the kalamata olives are fresh and tasty. I used to order from them years ago and had a couple of bad pizzas in a row and quit going. Recently, I wanted to order from Italian Store in Westover and their phone was out of order. So I ordered from Lost Dog instead and found their pizza now to be better than Italian Store or Joe's Pizza and Pasta. Plus you can get delivery from GrubHub; Italian Store doesn't deliver.
  6. hopsing
    I will have to try it again as well. I had a couple of slices at the Bailey's Crossroads location when it first opened a couple of years ago and judged it awful. Maybe they had a bad day. I remember it being super-salty. Will try again - - I also like plain cheese slices.
  7. hopsing
    I couldn't resist the $8 margarita pizza special, so we went there tonight. I thought the pizza was really good, esp. the crust and the sauce. Even better, they brought back the pork belly and polenta app and it was better than ever. It is such a casual setting but the food is A+. Note to self: go there more often!
  8. hopsing
    I walked by there today. So sad to see the patio stripped of its furniture.
  9. hopsing
    I will miss their gougeres, fish and chips, layer cakes, cookies, portabello fries and so much more....
  10. hopsing
    I had a burger in the Brooklyn Heights location a couple of years ago after Michelle Obama made the chain famous. Burger - not memorable. Fries boring. I also did not understand the buzz.
  11. hopsing
    I was a fan of the old Pizzeria Orso, but still a fan of the new one. Some dishes (fried calamari, spaghetti and meatballs) are even better than before.
  12. hopsing
    A group of us ate at Kapnos Taverna for Restaurant Week. Based on today's lunch, I'm not planning a return anytime soon. The smoky eggplant spread did not taste smoky and did not taste like eggplant. It tasted vinegary or astringent. My shrimp entree was pretty good but not WOW! The baklava was dessicated. I tried to cut off a piece with my fork and the whole thing broke apart. If I blew on it, all the nuts and pastry would fly away. The only WOW was the mandarin sherbet - now that was good! In all fairness, my fellow diners all liked their food. Not sure if they were being polite or it was the truth.
  13. hopsing
    I'm glad China Wok is getting a little recognition for its Peking Duck and its colorful carver.
  14. hopsing
    We went again and bumped into some neighbors who were there on their first visit. The guy said the chicken marsala was the best dish he has ever had. He didn't say best chicken marsala dish or best chicken dish--he said best dish he has ever had! I'm trying it next time.
  15. hopsing
    I agree. My old company moved to Tyson's Corner when the subway stop opened up, so I am having lunch more often at Tyson's to visit with my ex-colleagues. Totally agree with the restaurant landscape in that basement. Had a horrible "pizza" at Brio, mediocre meal at Seasons 52, and boring burger at Gordon Biersch. Coastal Flats definitely is the winner in that group. I did have an okay couple of meals at the new Barrel and Bushel upstairs, but still prefer Coastal.
  16. hopsing
    In a nutshell, our meal at China Garden was terrible. Maybe we ordered too American because there were plenty of Chinese people there and a huge banquet going on, so maybe they are ordering something better. We got shrimp toast - we got spoiled with the shrimp toast at the long-gone Ruby Restaurant in DC Chinatown. My husband said this was the worst shrimp toast he has ever had. It is as if they had made it during the week and re-fried it to serve to us. Hey, it doesn't work. We got pan-fried meat dumplings. Horrible. The meat tasted very old and it seemed to have been pan-fried in rancid oil. We left a few and I didn't bother to take it home. The chicken (炸å­é›ž) was okay, nothing to write home about. The meat was dry-ish but the skin was tasty. It came with shrimp chips and they were the worst shrimp chips I have ever eaten - sort of like eating styrofoam peanuts. The picture shows the dish after a few pieces were eaten - forgot to take the picture when dish first arrived. My husband ordered triple delight and he said it was blah. The one highlight of the meal was the banana fritter that came with our check and the obligatory fortune cookies. The fritters were fantastic - but not good enough for me to ever return to China Garden.
  17. hopsing
    I'd been meaning to visit Bar Civita if only to experience my erstwhile favorite dish at Liberty Tavern - the mussels with smoked tomatoes and fennel broth. However, having to drive into the city and deal with a bad parking situation, I put it off...until last night. I got a TravelZoo coupon for the place so that was enough to get me off my butt. The verdict: we will be back. Not only do the mussels remain addictive, but my husband totally loved their spaghetti and meatballs. I had the NY strip, which was fine (perhaps had cooled down too much before being served), but will try something different next time. The menu was pretty small (compared to Liberty Tavern) but there was enough interesting stuff for us to choose from. Service was fine. And the parking situation? We drove straight to Cleveland Park and parked where we normally park when eating there and walked along Conn. Avenue to the restaurant (~15 minutes downhill). However, while walking, we did notice some free spots along Conn. and side streets. We wondered if this was normal availability or everybody-is-out-of-town-in-August availability. Time will tell.
  18. hopsing
    My first stop will be China Garden in Rosslyn. Why? Because it is not far from my house and it has it on the menu: 金牌炸å­é›ž Golden Roast Chicken - Cantonese Style. The first 2 characters mean gold medal or something like that, says my Taiwanese friend. After my Wiseguy pizza lunch today, I walked over to confirm that they had it, flashing the characters with my Blackberry. Yes, every day, the man said. On their website, they have a variety of banquet set menus and on several of them was the Golden Roast Chicken. That gave me confidence that they made it often and knew what they were doing, as opposed to a few years ago when Full Kee told me they needed a day's notice to make it (although I understand that it is on their regular menu now). It also gave me hope that it would be fresh, as opposed to the time at Fortune Seafood where it was on their dimsum menu and it tasted days old. I complained and the manager gave me a bunch of shrimp dumplings (har gow è¦é¤ƒ) to make me go away. I hope to hit China Garden this weekend. BTW, if you are in NY Chinatown, Amazing 66 has damn good 炸å­é›ž.
  19. hopsing
    The TJ Maxx strip mall of the Greensboro stop is where China Wok is. Try their Peking Duck.
  20. hopsing
    My exploration right now is limited to the NoVa area, mostly due to laziness and Beltway-phobia. Excellent. Added to my list. What a great article. I found myself alternately chuckling and nodding my head. As a current Chinese language learner, this article was like therapy (I'm OK, you're OK). I think most menus in the US use traditional characters so the last (your 6th) character (chicken) would look like this: 雞. The character with X and a line on top is the simplified character for chicken. On China Garden's menu, the dish looks like the attachment. The first character I think means "gold". Don't know what the 2nd character is. Will find out from my friend tomorrow.
  21. hopsing
    Actually, they both mean the same thing: chicken. 鸡 is the simplified character used in mainland China. 雞 is the traditional character used everywhere else (Taiwan, Chinatowns, etc.) 炸fried å­young 鸡chicken I will add China Garden to my list. Thanks!
  22. hopsing
    Ha! You can see how long I've been working on this. Obviously I work pretty slow. Funny you should mention that. I'm also a big fan of Peking duck. Last October I went to China on a special group tour to visit my parents' villages (Taishan is not a big tourist mecca). I researched all the Peking duck places in Beijing where we would be headed afterwards. Every day in southern China, we had delicious chicken, duck, or goose...to the point where when the tour ended and my sibs and I went on to Beijing, I was sick of poultry so I never had the authentic Peking duck. Oh well, next time! Cool! I'm going to limit myself to NoVa for now, but if I don't get satisfaction, on to DC and MD!
  23. hopsing
    Ha! You can see how long I've been working on this. Obviously I work pretty slow.
  24. hopsing
    Don encouraged me to start a "mini-blog" about the search for my favorite chicken dish 炸å­é›ž. It generally translates to crispy fried chicken but literally means "fried young chicken." It looks like this. This is a popular dish in NY Chinatown but hard to find here. Years ago, my mother wrote down the Chinese characters so I could show it to the waiter because on menus it can be called many things in English. Also, different waiters speak different dialects so verbalizing it in my own dialect could get me nowhere. A couple of years ago, I flashed the characters asked at Full Kee. At that time, they said they could make it if I ordered it a day in advance. This is not surprising in a non-Chinatown restaurant because the prep is not trivial. Check out this video. Now I understand how the meat can be juicy and succulent yet sport a delicious crispy skin. My quest is to find and try out this dish in NoVa. Candidates to explore so far include China Wok, Lotus Garden, Mark's Duck House, XO Taste as well as what will be my starting point, Full Kee. I will keep you posted on my 炸å­é›ž experiences.
  25. hopsing
    Based on Don's review, I am re-motivated to pursue my quest for 炸å­é›ž (crispy fried chicken). This is a popular dish in NY Chinatown but hard to find here. I made my mother year's ago write down the Chinese characters so I could show it to a waiter and see if they had it because on menus it can be called many things. Years ago, I made that request at Full Kee. They said they would make it if I ordered it a day in advance. I've never done so but will try to do so soon. If Don is going to survey Peking Duck places, don't forget China Wok on Route 7 in Vienna (TJ Maxx strip mall). My favorite chicken dish 炸å­é›ž looks like this. Usually served with shrimp chips, which are also addictive when not stale.
×
×
  • Create New...