tentimesodds

Am I the only one for whom unread topics are no longer showing up in bold?

If we are lucky enough to snag some tickets for the NHL Winter Classic (Caps vs Pens) - we will be in PIttsburgh for New Years Eve. We will have a mixed group of adults and teens - so are looking for a place to eat that would not be a romantic, stay-till midnight drink champagne place. Since I went to school in Pgh, you would think I would have some ideas of my own. but I was a broke grad student and my idea of a big night out was 25 cent Iron city at Squirrel Hill cafe followed by a trip to Primantis after the bars closed. Consequently my dining experience in the steel city is somewhat limited.

We will be staying near Pitt and CMU if that helps at all...I'm guessing there will be plenty of activities going on in town for First Night Pittsburgh - so that should keep us fairly well entertained!

Thanks for any advice!

Really good idea to ask this question--we're going to try and go to the game as well. Do you think tickets will be a problem? I'd think not given that NHL arenas seat ~18k and Heinz Field seats 70k...

the thing I've always liked about ray's is that it strives to serve as many people as possible and to do that it means that they need to be as efficient and turn as many tables over as possible. While I can understand not wanting to be rushed out the door before you're finished eating, you can't offer first come first serve seating in half the restaurant and have people linger, it just doesn't work. I've never been there any time after 5 where there wasn't a wait and a long line of people waiting for tables. I've been one of those people and I'm always really happy when I finally get my table.

Didn't the old in-person reservations policy at the original RTS have "seatings" at 5, 6:30, 8 and 9:30? (or 5:30, 7, 8:30 and 10?) The point being that they were contemplating the meal (including paying the check) taking less than 90 minutes? (I could be totally wrong here, blasted memory)

I'm surprised (nay, amazed) somebody hadn't already posted on this, as Hell-Burger Too has been up and running for at least a week. Three of us stumbled upon it last Friday. We didn't try the game nor turkey burger, but our "classic" Hell-burgers were as good as ever, and the new veggie option was a much-welcomed hit. Also new is a (slightly) smaller 1/3 lbs. burger option. Table service is another nice change of pace.

Thank God for table service. The Bethesda vultures that populate the original are ridiculous. One of the best burgers I have ever had, but having to fight for a table makes the experience unpleasant. I will visit this incarnation shortly.

Edit: I softened my tone slightly because the behavior of its diners is not the fault of the restaurant or its staff.

And altbough this may not help with the 3D aspect, Washingtonian published a list of good places to watch soccer here.

ArlNow.com also has a good rundown of specials in Arlington here.

May I have your attention, please, for an important announcement:

I had three pizzas tonight at Pizzeria Orso, and the third-best pizza of the evening was the third-best pizza I've had in the past two and a half years.

Cheers,

Rocks.

Would you care to enlighten us on three menu recommendations, good sir Rocks? Also, what was the eclipsing pizza 30 months ago?

I haven't been there in a while but when I was averaging 10 or so times a month, uhhh, it's probably for the best that I stopped going so often. :-)

Well, you are the mayor on Foursquare, and I tried unsuccessfully to unseat you for damn near two months at a time.

The $15 steak special, of course, does not compare to what RTS does on Monday nights just a parking lot away.

That said, I agree about the nachos, and good bar food here in general. The potatoskinadilla is a guilty pleasure, and the hummus plate is good. Also, this place has the friendliest, best neighborhood bar service I've ever seen.

It seems that Vidalia will now be delivering lunches. From Facebook:

There' s just one problem...

Argh. My office moved from 20th and M to 21st and K last year. The wrong side of K.

Just went for the first time, and since I've never been to their cart (wish I worked in Ballston...) it was my first Pupatella pizza. I will say this--it is not enough to say that this is the best pizza in Arlington. It's really fantastic. I think everyone above has discussed all the flavor and texture elements that you need to know, but just go get a pizza and you'll know what they mean.

We had a margherita, margherita with pepperoni, two Mexican cokes, a glass of fizzy wine, and two gelatos (chocolate and chocolate hazelnut) for around $37.

The operation is clearly new, and as such none of the following are gripes, as they are to be expected when opening a new restaurant. I was going to comment that they need to get A/C and an ice maker, but lo and behold the power was actually out when we went, as it came on right as we were leaving. So clearly just a case of bad luck and not their fault. That said, the restaurant had no ice for the drinks from the drink cooler (which were of course now warm due to the power outage), no plastic utensils for to go orders, and one lonely Heineken as the beer selection. These would be easy areas to improve that were only lacking because of the unfortunate circumstances.

It appears as if the gnocchi (which I was going to get) is no longer on the menu, which is a shame because I love gnocchi. Perhaps it could be a special once a week or month, like is done at Piola.

It would not surprise me if this restaurant becomes incredibly crowded as word spreads. It's really quite good, and I am thankful to its owners for opening it.

Last Monday at the Courthouse location:

Delicious focaccia bread. Spiced cashews. Two cups of the best soup in the world (crab bisque). Two huge (way larger than the advertised 10 ounces) top sirloin steaks. Mashed potatoes, creamed spinach. One of the best desserts I've had in years (key lime pie with strawberries, and I don't even like key lime pie at all), on the house for no reason. Two huge glasses of wine. Two Boylan's sodas.

$50.14.

This is the best restaurant deal on the entire planet, and the best restaurant in the Commonwealth, in my book. Kudos.

Thanks to those of you who have come to see us in our new digs. If you have ordered food, you're more than likely aware that we are still...adjusting. Going from 70 seats to over 300 with a menu that has nearly doubled has completely destroyed a kitchen that had a scant few days to practice before opening--my new chef, Pino, is my hero. We're trying like hell, however, and we are making strides in service every day. My apologies to those of you who may have come in only to wait too long for the food. Hey, at least we have draft beer! That said, I hope you will all come by and see us sometime. We've worked very hard to assemble a terrific staff front and back, and as they learn their way around the bar, they'll get better every day.

My brother Ben, whose photography still hangs in the dining room, has moved on to a day job and the domestic bliss that comes with being home to his beautiful wife every day by 5, but the management that we have is doing a great job of filling his big shoes. Please introduce yourself sometime to our Bar Manager, DJ Suan, or our Floor Manager, Emily Wroten. Both were cornerstones of the original SK who have been promoted to handle new responsibilities. I'll handle the General Manager duties, and I hope you'll say hello--and give me your most brutally honest feedback--if you decide to swing by.

Meantime, the new menu is on the web site here. The Virginia ABC, in their sad, outdated, hyper-bureaucratic brilliance prevents me from mentioning--or in their mind, advertising--my happy hour specials, so if you're curious, send me an e-mail here, and you will get an auto-reply.

Nick, did you kill the pork burger? Because honestly, I had it one time, and it was gross. The fries were amazing though, and I like what you are doing enough to come in to sample the rest of the new menu. I don't mean to be an asshole critic, I just thought the pork fat burger was kind of nast. Cheers for the expansion

Just returned from the Virgin Islands, and on St. John, Ms. Lucy's is an island institution. Its on the eastern side of the island, so you will need a car to get there, and they don't open for dinner until 6 pm. We mostly enjoyed sitting on the patio there, but unfortunately the mosquitoes were out in full force, and by the time we left, I had about 50 bites on each arm (seriously, it looked like I had the chicken pox or something). The conch fritters were good, and the fried fish platter included several island specialties including an okra corn bread called fungi ("foon-gee"). My husband said the paella was nothing special.

Was there anything good in Cruz Bay? We aren't going to have a car but are staying at Caneel Bay and figure we'll be in Cruz Bay a lot.

Going to St. John in April for my honeymoon. Have incredibly generous parents, so am staying at Caneel Bay, but have little cash left over for food/drinks. Any hidden gems or beach bars worth checking out? Thanks

Most of us have had the experience where we imbibed a bit too much, and rather than risk the dreaded DUI arrest, we cabbed home and left our car behind. I recently saw on a bathroom wall a poster for a service that provides a ride home in your own car for the cost of a round-trip cab ride. How convenient! If only I could recall the name of the service or the bathroom where I saw it, I could program it into my Blackberry for just such an occasion. Can anyone help?

Drivers Incorporated is I believe what you are looking for.

Michael, you can get as mad at me as you want to but frozen french fries do NOT compliment the hamburger you are serving. Whether you do duckfat, vegetable oil or lard at least use fresh potatoes. I just don't think of you as a frozen french fry kind of guy. Need I note that In-n-Out uses fresh potatoes?

I'd never claim to be half the aficionado of any of you that read this board. But it seems to me that in order to appropriately judge a dish, even french fries, one needs to actually, in fact, in the flesh, eat the dish.

And In-n-Out's fries suck.

Not exactly correct McDonald took Chipotle public and sold.a relatively small portion of their stake to the public markets. Chipotle's distribution system is all McDonalds, and their executives are hand picked by McDonalds. You'll start to see changes, like less food cooked onsite at each location, more reheat and serve, kids portions, and less relaince on high food cost proteins.. Look closely, it's already started... For the record I happen to love Chipotle. But change is a comin!

McDonalds spun off Chipotle and divested completely in 2006. Not owned by McDonalds at all...check your facts.

The sushi bar at Sticky Rice is a joke, with ugly-looking seafood being manipulated by second-rate amateurs. I waited for my Salmon Sushi ($5.00 for two pieces) this evening, and saw one of three distressingly skeevy-looking dudes pick up the salmon, pick a black fleck off of it, and proceed to make my order. In its defense, I've had worse sushi rice before, and this at least had some ill-applied vinegar and wasn't completely turned into porridge, but the salmon itself was painful. There was a second black fleck that made it onto my (carryout) order, and I examined it, praying it wasn't what I thought it might be. It smelled like sesame, so I'm assuming it was an errant seed.

Children should not be making and serving sushi.

Though I am not a sushi guy, the food and service I've had at Sticky Rice in Richmond has been terrible. I don't know why so many people were excited when this place opened in NE. The tater tots thing is so overdone at this point that they should really just move on to some other hipster-friendly fried item.

Summers does a surprising amount of business. I don't care for it but from what I understand it kills with the soccer crowd.

I go to Summers about three times a week during NFL season. I don't think it does very good business, apart from me. The soccer crowd might come and watch EPL at 8am, but they're gone by noon, and they don't eat or drink much. On Friday and Saturday nights there's never anyone there. They need to combine the daytime business they get from showing sports with some kind of night-time crowd, something I've seen chain sports bars like Buffalo Wild Wings achieve, but never Summers.

Also, they never have any decent specials, a must to get that type of bar crowd. I've seen it packed for Sunday NFL games but everyone leaves immediately after the game.

Velocity Five has been fairly crowded every time I've gone there.

I think this is important, because there was never anybody at King Street Blues, it just takes a fresh makeover (and some serious cash investment) to get people interested in a place.

There's restaurant space in the hotel that's going in across from Me Jana, and there's an empty Camille's Sidewalk Cafe next to Jerry's, I'd have to think those are sites you're considering (I'm not familiar with others in the neighborhood). If I won the lottery, I'd buy Summers--totally underutilized, great location.

I just picked on you because you did the thing of calling people who notice their surroundings and sometimes expect them to reflect the occasion a "snob" which is simultaneously very tired, pretty juvenile and a logically (rhetorically? it's been a few years) fallacious. But you, and other posters, surely put your manhood on the line with the "I'm not lettin' The Man tell me how to dress," line of argument.

Finally, and this should be apparent even to you, if you and I are in the same room, our business overlaps quite a bit. You're a lucky man if you've never had a dinner ruined by the table next to you (though I can't claim to have had one ruined by their clothing).

What I did was suggest that people who get up in arms about what other people are wearing at restaurants are snobs. I refuse to believe that the posts complaining about t-shirts, shorts, zubaz, tourists, Manassas and trailer parks were really motivated by anything other than a feeling that the common folk don't deserve to share a table or a room with the poster. I fail to see where anything I've said is logically fallacious (and I can assure you that nothing I said was intended to be fellacious) or any of the other sharp adjectives you used.

Also, I didn't say anything about The Man or how people should dress, so please address concerns with that idea to those who actually expressed it. When I go out to eat, I obey dress codes, say please and thank you to wait staff, and tip generously, because I think it is the right thing to do. I just don't get my panties in a bunch because someone next to me doesn't share the same behavior, because at the end of the day, fuck, there is so much more in the world to be worried about than shorts and fanny packs. Get over yourself, your elite dining experience is just not that vital to the rest of the world.

Really? So there's no problem with the table next to you farting and belching eh? I'm with Waitman on this one.

OK, OK, fine, I would have a problem with fellow diners vomiting on my table, stealing my girlfriend, exposing themselves to passers-by, throwing things or yelling at me. But if a fart from across the room never reaches my table, should I really give a shit? Obviously the behaviors you describe cannot be ignored, but a t-shirt can be.

People who follow rules that aren't written down are wimps. People who follow rules that aren't written down in part because their actions might make life incrementally more pleasant for another human, are pussies. People who expect them to behave that way without being slapped, or handed a rulebook, are snobs.

I didn't call anyone a wimp or a pussy. I just implied that people should keep to themselves and mind their business. If your perspective is of a restauranteur, expecting your patrons to show you the respect that you show them, fine. If your perspective is as a diner, the table next to you owes you nothing.

What we all need to do here, before this discussion continues any further, is first, to decide with whom we identify:

Judge Smails-click

Al Czervix-click

Ty Webb-click

Danny Noonan

Carl Spackler-click, click

Spaulding-click

Lacy Underalls-click

Maggie O'Houlihan

Mitch Kumstein

Dr. Beeper

Once you have determined your sympathies, announce them at the start of your comments, and then espouse the view which corresponds to the relevant character.

Like in all things, life is merely a macrocosm for Bushwood Country Club, and the truth lies herein.

No love for the gopher?

I don't think we are questioning the right of a restaurant to set a dress code (at least I'm not). I was more coming at it from the point of view of a diner. If a mid-to-high level restaurant wants to let the guy in with the shorts and t-shirt because these are hard economic times and they don't want to turn anyone away that is perfectly fine with me. That is the choice of the establishment.

But as a diner I do notice when I took the time to dress up, and most people around me are looking nice, and then there is a table wearing shorts, sneakers and t-shirts. As I mentioned before. It doesn't flat out ruin my experience but I also question why they wouldn't try to figure out the dress code first. And trust me, I 100% realize this makes me sound like such a snob. In most other instances I am so not a snob, but for some reason proper attire in certain restaurants (and as I mentioned before, at the theater) really get to me.

It's ridiculous that you even care about what people at other tables are wearing (assuming they are not bothering you or naked or something like that). Is it possible that the reason you don't like it when people at the table next to you wear shorts is that you feel that you're better than them and they don't deserve to share the establishment with you? It does make you sound like a snob that you aren't focusing on your table and your meal, but somebody else's--indeed, it makes you a snob. My point in discussing the restaurant's right to enforce a dress code is that it's up to the owner who he wants to serve, and it's only up to you whether you want to dine. You don't have a right to demand that a place be exclusionary just because you think the food is high class.

..and they should get the same quality and service of food to match their attire...

I'll make sure to show up to your house for dinner in white tie, no matter the occasion.

Some of the attitudes here are a little ridiculous. A restauranteur should set the tone she wants to set at her establishment. If the Prime Rib wants to require coat and tie, they should. If Michael Landrum wants to own a top-notch steakhouse that doesn't care if you wear jeans and a polo, he should. Neither choice is better than the other.

Alas and alack, I may need to seek the safety of the arras.

Sadly, I must report that it does not appear that Ray's The Catch will be opening anytime soon (meaning probably not this summer). It's not all bad news, though, so don't kill me. Yet.

The increased demand at Hell-Burger from President Obama's visit shows no sign of tapering off--in fact, it continues to increase, week after week, incessantly and relentlessly. And despite every effort to increase efficiency, proficiency and quality, it has become impossible to maintain a satisfactory level of service and guest accommodation at 1713 Wilson alone. Not only have we been running the risk of alienating and failing our long-term clientele, we are constantly pushing up against our own breaking point, personnel-wise, production-wise and at the systems and physical plant levels.

This is a situation that requires top priority and an immediate solution.

Further, at this point it would be irresponsible and a real disservice to the guest were we to embark on a new endeavor while existing guests are not being served or accommodated as well as they deserve in the current operation, as long as an immediate solution is at hand.

Consequently, this week, perhaps as early as Woden's Day, we will be shifting our regular Hell-Burger service to 1725 Wilson Boulevard (the erstwhile location of Ray's The Steaks, and still-future location of Ray's The Catch) and 1713 Wilson will become The Hell Express, for take-out, overflow and ice cream, floats and (maybe) shakes. It will still be counter service at 1725 and no, there will not be beer or wine, and no, Jake, begging will not help. But there will be more and better-spaced seating and better bathroom access in addition to hopefully shorter lines.

What does this mean for the future of Ray's The Catch? Well, perhaps by the end of the summer the madness will die down (fat chance, I know, unless we decide to intentionally suck (as opposed to occasionally and unintentionally sucking now)) and the simple transition to Ray's The Catch will occur at 1725 early Fall. Or the madness will ever ensue, in which case Ray's The Catch will have to wait until a new location of Ray's Hell-Burger is opened, thus drawing off demand sufficiently to proceed with our previous plans--an event which is already in the works and in a most surprising location (for me at least).

It seems that once again I am foisted on my own petard, so feel free to have at me if you so please.

Michael, a quick question about the news that the current Hell-Burger site will become Hell Express, and the old RTS site will become Hell-Burger. Will Hell Express have any tables at all, or only takeout? I try to patronize as often as I can for take-out (I live two blocks away), but the crowds (and, to be honest, the unsurpassed rudeness of a small minority of your customers) have turned me off a few times. A dedicated take-out window would be well received, at least by me...