giant shrimp

there are some bakers in town who could learn a few things about cupcakes by dissecting the baltimore lemon cake at palena. it transcends the form, and you can pounce upon it as soon as the plate hits the table. after devouring the scottish hare terrine i went home and watched a movie about a scottish island concerned about sustenance that sacrifices a virgin police officer who is investigating the possible murder of a young girl. when he exhumes the body, it is a hare!

our children were generally well behaved in restaurants because they were so deprived at home. i recall one time, however, where the peace was threatened at a french cafe in adams morgan, when the waitress offered our four- and six-year-old sons refills on their hot chocolates, not once but twice. of course they took her up on the offer, and we didn't say anything because we knew that a terrific scene would have followed with the youngest if we had interferred. at that age we never allowed them to do the ordering themselves, but this one time we got a taste of what the check would look like if we had: half of it was for hot chocolates. whether she knew it or not, probably not, the waitress was playing with fire.

was zola ever three stars? maybe, i guess, but it's never been in my galaxy. we just didn't hit it off right. i'm assuming there has been a sea change at obelisk; even if he kept the stars in place tom formerly had some negative suggestions about obelisk if i remember correctly. of course, there was another italian restaurant in the neighborhood where the stars came out again just as the chef had some sort of disabling close enounter in the kitchen.

if you want to go to obelisk soon, you had better act fast. weekends are difficult, and the earliest reservation we could snag was for thursday. it sounds like it is worth making a commitment (although you never know until you know.)

thanks, i am definitely going to put duff's cakes on my list of things to check out in baltimore.

what would happen if i came in and said all i wanted was a bowl of spinach?

it's typical of the warren brown program that the emphasis is on the visual at the expense of what's good to eat. ann amernick's mouth-watering desserts were given just a glimpse and described as uncomplicated, or something like that, before moving on to the sugar painting business she has mastered. It was interesting, though, to watch the paint being mixed with gin and the assembly spread out over tables in the back dining room to produce mini-canvases you would want to put on a shelf or hang on a wall. i wonder if anyone in the restaurant has ever bitten into one of these, which would be pretty out-there. warren seemed to be more diligent than usual in his apprentice work, although he has a lot of catching up to do judging from the cake overpopulated with clumsy chocolate butterfly cutouts that ended the show. in general, the confections on his program typically look hard to eat and last night it was because the sugar was pretending to be glass. smart brides will forego the $8,000 wedding cake for something more reasonable and order porcelain flowers with the savings.

within reason. what kind of attention would two people receive who came in and asked to split a salad nicoise with glasses of water? just curious, i'm always a lot hungrier than that but even if i weren't i would be afraid to try it.

if they were selling duff cakes on u street i'd be down there in a flash and nobody would be worried about warming them up. here is the tour: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/ i wonder if there are any secret ingredients in the hidee-ho cake.

tabard inn seems to be making a comeback in terms of good press in recent weeks and todd kliman yesterday even suggested that you can find bargains there, which is a bit misleading. mihn's has been popping up often as well. but how about obelisk? back from the dead? we couldn't get a reservation last weekend, and we can't get one this weekend. i haven't forgotten how small it is, but is it really worth planning ahead to find out what's going on there these days, especially when we can walk to two amys in five minutes?

warren brown seems capable of taking care of himself and doesn't need anybody's sympathy. i don't know what he did to get where he is on television, but i wouldn't say his appearances are any more unfair than for the majority of the other people on these shows. as a faithful watcher of two episodes of sweet tooth, or whatever it's called, i will say that the emphasis is decidedly on cakes that show well and cost a lot -- fantasy fare. supposedly, taste is the prime criterion, but it doesn't really make any difference when you are watching it on television. as for his cooking instructions on the show, they are pretty dumbed down and they function basically as a binder for the flashier segments. it's hard to tell whether he knows how to bake or not, but when he is visiting other people's kitchens, he is usually inept in learning new things, maybe for comic relief.

even dining in the lower depths, wherever that might be, isn't hiding the wine bottle under the table a bit precarious? and what if cockroaches climb on it? wouldn't it be easier for everyone to just order cokes and then sneak a flask of rum around the table when the server isn't looking? at the coffee houses in amsterdam they let you pace the whole thing and you can order a meal backwards, starting off with the brownies. at the places around here where we go for the highest levels of dining i do kind of mind when other people at the table start slugging down their wine so they get more of the bottle when the server comes over for the next round of pours, but i realize that's really my problem and i try to get an understanding with everyone ahead of time not to try to hog the bottle.

you probably don't remember when that space was tila's, emanating from houston. we saw the robbs on the escalator heading up once. anyway, i wish tila's was coming back, although maybe my taste buds have grown up in the many years since then.

a little bit off the track, but we loved el patio despite instances of insane service and have tried following hector guerra all around town but always seem to hit the place just as he's leaving and i wonder if that's not going to be the case with cabanas as well, which i am just now hearing about. i am talking maybe 20 years ago, so wonder what's the scoop on the interim.

equinox will be the priciest of what's been mentioned here so far. i would go to corduroy, cafe atlantico or poste, which is in a historic building in roughly the same neighborhood. i like what they did with the lobby and on a nice day you can go outside there as well without sitting on the street the way you do at cafe atlantico. of the three, corduroy has the best food. i wouldn't worry about going to any of these places. i'm not that wild about zola, but only went there once. actually, it's been way to long since i've been to equinox.

we spend more money than we should on ordinary restaurant fare that could be duplicated at home and i do a fair amount of okay cooking at home, but my wife does the cleanup. the prices at "everyday" restaurants around washington are getting too high to eat at those places more than occasionally, and they are definitely not where you want to be for a special occasion. (at dahlia two people could probably go for pizza and a glass of wine for under $50, but that can be done just as well at home, maybe the crust won't be as good, for much less and you can drink the entire bottle.) anyway, dahlia is nestled into a neighborhood where all the homes cost more than a million dollars except for bungalows which are $700,000 or $800,000 (actually most of NW washington is getting this way if you sprinkle in some way-overpriced condos), so it should be easy enough to take out a second mortgage (i guess they don't call them that anymore) to fund dining out at places like dahlia for an entire year. i am glad you mentioned quinces last week. i found some at the farmers market on sunday, am not sure exactly what i am going to do with them, but the fragrance that had taken over our kitchen this morning was better than flowers.

based on one saturday night visit, this seems to be a cheerful, reliable source of well prepared american food, with a lively bar scene and tables adjacent to the main dining room. comfortable burgundy leather banquettes line three sides of the smallish main room, contrasting handsomely with pale yellow walls and abstract autumnal photographs shot out of focus, which little did we know would turn into one of the amusing themes of the evening. corner tables are tight to squeeze in and out of; the crowd of doctors, lawyers and indian chiefs who seem to have taken over the place is convivial and their chatter rises to a fairly loud buzz; and diners tended to congregate into groups of four or more, with couples interspersed. white tablecloths are dressed with small glass vases of petite white and red dahlias and thin votive candles are floated in water. the restaurant felt a bit short-staffed when we were there, although employees were hopping all over the place. table busing was frantic even when the crowd was dying down, with a dash of manuel from fawlty towers, though reassurance was provided by the chef cruising the dining room, sort of what used to occur at dish. the meal started with four slices of honest bread accompanied by a tapenadish olive oil infused with olives and parsley. martinis were stiff but definitely strayed from classic ingredients; booze hounds would probably be able to figure out the misunderstanding, but we didn't even try. my wife's salad of frisee, shaved fennel, walnuts, blue cheese and sliced pear was amply portioned, as is just about everything here, and apparently hit her spot. a deep bowl of squash soup, accompanied by intensely flavored, dark squash croutons mimicking ham, was correct in every way, with enough complexity to carry me happily through to the last spoonful, though following a recipe that i am almost certain is no match for what you can get at zora margolis' house. soup, salads and probably pizza (i didn't check out the separate pizza menu) appear to be the sole nods to vegetarians, though you would expect them to be able to conjur something else up; the kitchen is serious about seasonal produce and displayed a consistent ability to make the most of it. veal bolognese gets straight to the point with a mound of fennel-and-tomato- tasting lean ground baby cow generously tossed with just-right fettuccine. you can try this one at home, probably successfully, one more reason that you don't have to travel to rome to get it. sauteed ray was delicious, firm flesh fanned around a heavy dollop of somewhat dry pureed potatoes and parsnips, spiked with plump capers and even plumper cooked red grapes that didn't add anything convincing to the fish, though it did remind me that it's been a long time since we've had a picnic. (we had spent the radiant november day foraging for wild nuts along the second and third, less strenuous stretches of the billy goat trail instead.) the skate also comes with a few jolts of garlic, which is fine by me. the salting of the entrees risked going too far, but never quite fell over the edge. there are some asian fusion-sounding ingredients on the menu that we avoided, including soy sauce (chicken) and wasabe and creme fraiche (tuna). they are no doubt fine in this melting pot restaurant, but japanese and italian in the same culinary neighborhood make me nervous. there are eight white and eight red wines on the wine list, all but one (le tuffeau chenin blanc) available by the glass. (maybe there are two wine lists?) we ordered glasses of a citrusy les chailloux sancerre and a cairanne cotes du rone. our waitress attempted clumsily to set a glass on my wife's empty bread plate. she took a couple of stabs at it, before finding a more stable purchase. (fortunately, there are some ace eye doctors just across the street that can help correct this problem as the restaurant settles in.) our empty martini glasses were also invisible to the staff. mine was eventually removed from an increasingly cluttered table and i was asked if i wanted a refill (with a glass of wine sitting right next to it.) also, under the spot lighting above our table i could see where my large white plate had been wiped off on one side and many fingerprints on the other. without any fbi training, once you catch on you can start finding fingerprints all over the dishes. this is not a serious complaint; however, the service here is not entirely smooth but the goodwill of the place goes a long way toward evening it out. unfortunately, we didn't have room for dessert. we didn't find anything amazing in the cooking here, but it is more than competent and we enjoyed our meals. as for the prices, they are roughly the same as those at chef geoff a couple of hills away and this is a much better alternative, although it is not going to be able to accommodate a stampede.

ben and jerry's, if you ever tour them in vermont, is a perfect example of how the values of a small business fairly quickly get sold out. the commitment to local farmers, community, whatever become the wrapper. you are more likely to cut into something good at a restaurant that is not a chain. but just because a restaurant is not a chain does not mean that it doesn't have to answer to the money that set it up. i don't think the chains are going to put small restaurants out of business. when you add it all up, there are a lot of people going to the independent restaurants, including those in hotels. independent book stores are another matter. why are there mob scenes at borders? beats me, although the alternative these days is to go visit chapters in the intensive care ward.

didn't have a chance to taste anything when octavia butler was there to talk about her vampire novel a couple of weeks ago, but the place was packed and appears to already be a regular haunting ground for more people than i would have imagined. blood would have been appropriate, and although i doubt anyone thought to add it to the daily specials, both the busboy and poet sides of the operation appeared to have their acts together. i sat under the mothering gaze of bella abzug.

i don't doubt that you and others have experienced poor service at heritage. we have too, but it has been the exception, not the rule. actually, my experience is that when the service is sour the food goes south as well, not sure exactly why. however, the staff here is friendly and is accommodating and even smiles -- most of the time, in our experience. (by "here" i did not mean people posting, but the restaurant. one question i have about heritage (and passage) is why they don't use UV glass to keep their photos and prints from fading into oblivion.

there can be quirky service at glover park, but even when there is it has not been enough to turn us off from the food. one time, apparently, our server was reprimanded for carrying out the entrees shortly after we were served our appetizers and abandoning them on a tray behind the table. (I had my back to everything that was going on.) anyway, he was replaced by another server for the remainder of the meal, but reappeared as we were leaving at the top of the stairs glaring daggers at us. he looked like he was ready to throw a punch. in early summer, our young waiter sulked through the entire meal. we assumed he was on his college break and forced to work there by relatives associated with the restaurant. however, he improved steadily and the last time he served our table he was so good that we assumed he must have been kicked out of school. overall, however, i would say that reports of bad service here are rather exaggerated. usually, it is quite professional, attentive and even friendly. i haven't heard much about the bad service at passage to india, yet that is where some of the surliest floor staff from heritage are now to be found. on a recent rainy saturday night for a 7:00 reservation the passage manager had us wait 20 minutes standing by the bar, and he was not friendly. the few customers who came in without reservations were shooed off until 8:45. two tables for four were open at the time, and only one of them was eventually filled. several tables cleared about the time we were seated and several more tables opened up during the duration of our meal, whicy, by the way, was good, but not quite up to the standards at heritage. ordering from the south off a menu that is divided into four directions. shrimp were small. stewed cabbage brought out pancake flavors in the nan and the pickle tray provided an unfamiliar assortment. the calamari here was tender and perfectly cooked, which is often not the case at heritage. actually, the service at passage was on the decent side once you got past the feeling that you and others were a small imposition.

i guess it is far too early to tell whether tom should be sending diners in the vicinity of the convention center to vegetate. i thought it was a joke until noticing that it was mentioned by todd kliman in his chat yesterday. you can't tell much from the menu online, but they don't have a liquor license, they say, because of opposition from the shiloh baptist church. what are you supposed to drink with the cheese plate? milk? so this is the thanks the proprietors get for cleaning up the human excrement on their block?

they always make up a birth date for me, shaving at least a decade off my age, and i am a frequent wine purchaser. however, i have been carded a few times. personally, i think there is way too much emphasis on policing this at stores and restaurants and the drinking age should be restored to 18. incidentally, most of my time is spent in the district and i am usually impaired with a blood alcohol level of 0.0.

i don't mind the occasional aphid. they are spicy.

on halloween, during the days of the national tylenol poisonings, and around the time someone was sticking pins in the pizzas at our local giant on newark street: at the open door of one of his trick-or-treating visits our hyper-alert almost-four-year-old son screamed to his older brother, "No, don't take it!" and went tearing down the walkway back to his mother shrieking that the man had announced that he was handing out pins. actually, as the perpetrator frantically explained to my wife, he thought it would be a good idea that year to hand out pens in light of the food-tampering scare. halloween has never been one of my favorites. i started out on the wrong foot when at a very tender age my mother decided i would be Aunt Jemima and proudly escorted me in drag and burnt-cork black face through the neighborhood. i seem to be the only one who thought it was strange at the time. i also recall almost drowning bobbing for apples at a friend's halloween party.