giant shrimp

and almost 1,000 have been sold! you are going to be deluged with customers. Still, this amounts to a $25 savings per table, and i can imagine many occasions, even for two diners, when the specials are a better deal. i have one groupon coupon where i can save maybe $20 at policy, if i use it in time, if it hasn't already expired, so i will probably avoid these in the future. let's assume that a certain small percentage of the certificate holders never use it. how does this work for the restaurant? what's the deal between the restaurant and groupon, or living social?

Staunton which reminds me that i found two worthwhile, moderately expensive restaurants in staunton early this year: zynodoa and staunton grocery. the former pits polyface and ayrshire farms against each other in a pork and chicken appetizer. i don't recall details of the food coming out of these modern American kitchens all that well, but i suspect that i would be visiting frequently if they were closer. both make interesting use of their deep, old storefront spaces. they are located on beverley, the main commercial street going through downtown, within a few blocks of each other. near the train station, the small wine cellar has a nice selection from local vineyards.

he's aging. actually, i thought everyone looked pretty good in the exterior shots, where tony kept saying it was 25 degrees below zero. i would have expected people to be more bundled up and covering their faces. maybe it's not necessary, because i have never been anyplace where it's that cold. i've never had fried butterfly cocoons on a stick, or any way, either, and no one really had anything to say about it other than it tastes good. the extended scene of getting drunk on vodka with the russians was a bit pointless. ditto the ice fishing, though it did seem like a nicely composed scene in a movie.

cork dispenses a cardboard carton (like a beer carton) holding four bottles of wine. they are shockingly exposed, you can see it's wine. i have even had people on the street ask me if it was wine. the bottles can clink. i don't believe i have been charged the 5 cent bag tax for this, although i have never looked. if you have a carton, chances are you are easily carrying $60 worth of wine.

actually, this is an interesting part of town. start with kenilworth gardens (a short walk from the metro), where you can drink wine, discretely. i have seen evidence that you can do even more. take the trail down to the river, where they are paddling in it. i know how to get to a nice cemetery on the other side, but i wouldn't swim across the river. it's rather scenic, but you don't want to get any of it in your mouth.

maybe it is not specifically listed under the exceptions, but i don't believe a bag that is wrapping a product meets the definition of a disposable carryout bag; the purpose of the wine bag is not to carry purchases.

i don't have a citation. read it a few weeks ago in a washington post story on dc clarifying provisions of the new tax. (and i haven't been able to locate that story by googling it.) bags used to contain food items in the store, i.e., the little bags going into the bags that carry the food away, usually plastic in most places, are not subject to the tax. -- or something to that effect. i guess more clarification is needed and i'm not sure of the clarification provided above. the wine bags i'm talking about simply wrap the bottles so they don't crash into each other in a larger bag -- or maybe to insulate bottles that have been refrigerated or cooled down so you can start drinking them in the store. (do they still have those?) i know i have been charged the tax at cork, for a big bag, but not sure if it is applied to the four-bottle carrier they provide. i know i have not been charged the tax at whole foods lately. early on, they stopped providing the paper wine bags period, so the tax was not an issue. worst case scenario: you are charged a nickel on a $10, $20, $30 bottle of wine if it's individually wrapped in a small paper bag. i can live with that. i've got far bigger fish to fry, and if you are looking for trouble, they are easy to find.

i'm sure they could and would if they had to. as someone who has never owned a car, i like the idea. there are two zip car spaces behind my building. but this is not exactly an inexpensive mode of transportation, unless you are comparing it to taking a cab.

not if you are shopping in whole foods, where the bag tax is nothing compared to the prices you are paying. a few weeks ago i paid almost $9 for collard greens (the recipe called for 1.5 pounds but i went over a few ounces because they were selling them in bundles, not by the pound. broccoli was in the $3 to $4 pound range. it used to cost $50 for the ingredients of a ham sandwich, now it costs $70.) when the tax first took effect, i was buying a new plastic bag just about every time i approached the check-out counter, until i eventually realized that this was probably about as bad for the environment as anything. i have a cabinet full of them and they probably wouldn't be too good for the anacostia river if they somehow made their way there. how do the plastic bags get there in the first place? washed down sewers? what's the big deal about paying this small tax for a paper bag? the clerks are starting to calm down about it, but some still act like it's a big deal that you don't have your own bag. i have noticed that they are using paper wine bags at whole foods much more sparingly, even though they are allowed to provide them under the law tax-free. as a result, i have had to endure clinking. i guess my real point is that the price of food these days is far, far more regressive than this tax, whatever its purpose. prices have been going up and up, it seems to me, even while the economy has been going kerplunk. mainstream grocery stores specialize in aisles and aisles of junk food. there are ways out of this trap, if you know how to cook and you have the time and you are careful about what foods you buy. it used to be that shifting away from meat to vegetables was a good strategy, but not necessarily any more. as for metro buses, the only thing they really have to do with this board is that you can't eat on them. however, the latest two designs are terrible, jerky, scrunching passengers in narrow seats, trapping them in the back. i would like to transfer to another bus system. however, compared to most big cities where i ride buses, their cost here is not that high.

in a similar recipe to her cauliflower sauce recipe, marcella hazan, for whatever reason, treats broccoli much more kindly, boiling the stems for two minutes after the water returns to a boil and then adding the florets for one minute after boiling resumes. i cut the boiling time just a bit short, and the results were satisfactory after the broccoli was added to a pan of warm anchovy-infused olive oil for three or four minutes at medium heat to finish it off. i realize if you are using them in a pasta sauce it's preferable for your vegetables to be on the softer side, but in this recipe hazan leans only cautiously in that direction. i wonder if it has something to do with turning up the color of the broccoli to their most vibrant green. (although traditional italian cooks aren't afraid of washing out the color of green beans?) actually prefer the broccoli sauce. it could just be the addition of grated romano that does the trick, but the dissolved anchovies do more for the broccoli than cauliflower.

cauliflower with penne and hot pepper in olive oil the big takeaway in the marcella hazan recipe is dissolving anchovies in the oil, a technique that can be widely applied to vegetable dishes. i know that hazan has some things to say about the optimal texture of vegetables and is critical of the propensity of some modernists to undercook them. but she suggests that you boil your cauliflower for as long as 25 minutes before adding it to your sauce. for that to be sound advice, they must grow awfully hard cauliflower in italy. she does warn, however, not to cook your cauliflower to mush, but that is what mine was fast becoming after less than 10 minutes of boiling. deborah madison suggests two minutes for similar recipes. i look at hazan as the bible of italian cooking, but this is an instance, and i haven't found many, of where i believe she is just wrong.

i have had this before, and totally agree, except the last two times it was heavily charred on the surface, not obliterated and surprisingly good despite the bitterness, but hardly the best ever, and not the best they can make it. what was the best ever, for me, who had only had them once before, were the pig ears. the strands of fried ear were thick enough to provide some chomping through the cartilage, and the pork flavor, when it did appear, was reminiscent of bacon grease. the fries were powdered here and there with red pepper, not raising the temperature of the pig one bit, which cools down fairly fast, before you even have a chance to wipe the slick off your lips. although served as an appetizer, this dish really should be shared. i started losing some interest about halfway through but finished the plate nevertheless; this isn't something you can share with the sort of dining companion who doesn't like eating soft-shell crabs because they remind her too much of biting her nails. mustard might have been nice with the ear, but it didn't show up at our meal until we finished things off with an open-faced pork loin panino, dressed with a sweet sauerkraut and red and green pepper diced small to resemble confetti. pork -- in the form of pancetta -- also appeared on a special pizza, but it imparted a saltiness that drowned out the subdued flavor of the artichoke in the topping. anyway, 2 amys was throwing a veritable pork feast the night we were there, comparable to what palena has been doing lately with veal all over its cafe and back dining room menus. the predominant spice in the caramel ice cream is ginger. the beer selection here is easily giving the tranfomed alliance tavern across the street a run for its money. (from just one visit but several walk-bys, it looks like the switch from wine to beer is an ingenious way to rev up business.) a draft chocarubbica ($12.50, I believe) went well with the food, with both the cocoa and coffee beans pleasantly subdued. it may sound exotic but is a fairly quiet beer and easy to finish. even expanded, the two amy's beer list doesn't run all that long, but it seems driven by the same high level of ambition behind the list at birch and barley, where a few of the offerings even go so far as to redefine beer. they aren't playing that game at alliance, which these days i guess you could call a sports bar.

three weeks in a row with no tom restaurant review does make you wonder what is going on -- behind the scenes. the post magazine is pretty thin in just about every way, and i would assume the review is why a lot of readers even bother opening it.

i like pomi tomatoes, though technically they come in a carton, and most often buy them chopped. they work well with marcella hazan's tuna spaghetti sauce, although, chopped at least, they don't really mix in with the hot olive oil and light golden garlic the way they should. it's a case of slick meets slick. they're on the lowest shelf at the p street whole foods, and sometimes you have to crawl on the floor to reach them. there's nothing in the pomi tomatoes, which maybe disproves the need for the chemical additions that cook's illustrated finds so significant. i find that this publication -- like consumer reports -- tends to study things to death and then reach some conclusions maybe i wouldn't because i guess i must be on a different wavelength. i don't want to knock it, however. i am a frequent subscriber, with gaps in between because it seems like i've barely started my subscription and then it expires. i've never been one to lean this heavily on science in the kitchen, although i realize it's going on in the background the minute you start boiling your water.

crispy chickpeas ($4) are reason enough to come here, in lightly salted fried jackets of flour and cumin, redolent of fresh thyme. winter pizzas, unfortunately, were gone, after a run on them from home deliveries down snow-choked side streets. the mediterranean pizza was good, the topping uncharacteristically stark and light for this place, getting straight to the point with kalamatta olives, red onion and crumbled feta. hummus was supposed to be there as well, though I'm not sure it was, and if it was, it was subtle because we could neither see nor taste where it had gone. it was not a big disappointment, though, that we didn't get to see pizza dough treated as pita, which was what I was half-way imagining. following the pea shoots to a half order of any of the home-made stuffed pastas here is a good way to start your meal, but it's not the only way; the panzanella salad piled with slices of honey crisp apples and gorgonzola ($9) looked appealing from the other side of the table. there's a lot of care that goes into radius; it's a small and relaxing place with a nice glow and swinging overhead light fixtures you can graze with your head if you jump up too fast from your seat; colors that are quaint if you hung out in the east village when patti smith and robert mapplethorpe were an item; an ambient soundtrack harkening back to the good old days of lynard skynard and their ilk; and a good mix of customers and people working there. (on a busy night, tonic's adjacent dining room -- I assume that's what it was -- was virtually empty, serving only one table. walking up to mt. pleasant from dupont circle, restaurant nora, cashion's eats place, the grill from ipanema, pasta mia and a few other spots looked packed for valentine's day, with their insides pressed up against their steamed-up windows. at radius we were able to breathe a contented sigh of relief that we had escaped cupid on his big night out.)

Bathroom humor: Notice how many patrons exit the restroom smiling? When he took over the place, Atul Bhola inherited a bathroom whose two unwalled toilets face each other. He jokes, "I should have added a chess set." that oughta put a smile on anyone's face.

we found dinner time relatively quiet, but the food looked loud, the heaping platters squiggled to death. the kitchen can cook carrots and green beans reasonably well and simply, although the carrots were hacked up into unevenly sized pieces. crab cakes didn't have much going for them, almost indistinguishable in texture and flavor from the potato cakes and sack-of-potato mound overpowering the center of the plate. pepper confetti provided a few hot spots; otherwise the seasoning was bland. those who ordered short towers of fried green tomatoes at the table seemed happy with them, until they were boarding airplanes a couple of hours later feeling queasy. the concept here is so over the top that i can see what lures curiosity seekers, and there may be some things that are actually worth trying (hash), but making your way through the gloppy chow, before you know it you'll be eating like a dog and may hate yourself in the morning, or afternoon. no matter how good you find the food, you are unlikely to be licking the plate. almost everything is stabbed with a large sprig of rosemary, like feathers in seussian caps. (i didn't pick this place, and if you are on the strip, and want to avoid a $30+ cab ride, there is a new outpost at the imperial palace.)

arrow wine continues to have one of the finest selections of champagne in the area, and the new cork wine store has opened with a pretty fine selection of its own.

they had the best pastry counter at the mcpherson square farmers market and i am looking forward to their return.

There remains a great deal of continuity in this skilled kitchen, but you can’t help but notice some subtle changes around the edges now that the previous chef has moved up the street to higher ground in tenleytown. The samosas lately have been packing more heat, though not smoldering, the pastries impeccably fried, crisp and light. The minced lamb and lentil filling in the shammi kabab is being ground into a sandier paste. And intriguing specials are appearing regularly on their own short menu. Billed as street food, but elegant in its simplicity (if there is such a thing in Indian cuisine considering its elaborate use of spices), aloo tama kut ($11.95) was on the menu recently, a lighter, wet alternative to aloo gobi, the potatoes in a spicy tomato sauce. Our aloo were undercooked, not terribly, but still slick and not given enough time for their starch to do its thing. Kadhai chicken ($16.95), which is cooked with some steam, also comes in a tomato curry, though not in the same bath as the potatoes, so you can easily distinguish between the two gravies on the same plate. Without its creaminess, this dish seemed, deceivingly, not as rich as the butter chicken or chicken masala, the cubes of dark meat more transparent. Even traveling on the lighter side of the menu, this was a filling meal. We built up a healthier tolerance for alcohol over the holidays, so our departure down the stairs was easier than usual even though the martinis here are just as mean as ever. A hopeful sign, in two recent visits, both dining rooms have been crowded.

around here, coppi's put nutella on the map, at least for me, with its calzone di nutella, one of my favorite desserts, at least at the time. it was created in the 1940s by pietro ferrero as a way of extending cocoa, which was in short supply in italy , with hazelnuts, which were plentiful in the north, according to the u.s. manufacturer's web site. there are 50 nuts in a 13-ounce jar, along with skim milk and whey, which sound nutritious enough, along with modified palm oil, about which i am not so sure. moms can use it to provide part of a balanced breakfast, apparently. i would have had no quarrel with that as a child, washing it down with tang.

it could have been worse. she could have attempted to climb under your table. or she could have been on top of the table on her hands and knees eating her meal doggie style!

i can remember when there was basically just a chinese restaurant in this neighborhood, on the ho hum side, next to murphys and the enology space was the zebra room (for years and years), so the restaurant additions over recent decades are all improvements. it started with cafe deluxe, then cactus cantina, both of which became highly popular years ago and have since rested on their laurels. the cactus cantina corner is starting to look like a piece of a rundown amusement park and the eggs benedict i recently tasted at cafe deluxe was disappointingly mediocre. have really enjoyed enology the few times we have been there fairly recently, but grazing isn't really my style, and it isn't that difficult to head for 14th street. will miss enology, i guess, but also look forward to the new concept. as for the redevelopment of these few blocks of wisconsin avenue, i prefer an anything goes approach for new development and businesses, which is not going to happen here, although macomb street seems to be open. the surfside ice cream place is the latest arrival. i don't understand the wrangling over giant, the empty spaces, but i do know that i was disturbed by the redevelopment plans i saw here several months ago. i haven't paid much attention to this, but my first instinct would be to fight the plans, which suggest on paper at least a lot of money and not much else. of course, looking up and down wisconsin avenue, it's apparent that nobody has been held to a high standard. when it comes to property along wisconsin, i guess there's too much at stake to accommodate any commercial growth that would start adding to a neighborhood that can't even manage to have a decent chain grocery store. it's hard to imagine the local bookstore and bakery painted on murphy's windows ever coming into existence under current conditions.

Served on a rectangular plate, the shitake oyster mushroom ravioli ($8 for a half portion) is one of the most ravishing restaurant dishes i have seen in a long while, a rustic version of some of the great compositions appearing regularly at palena. two pillows of pasta plumped with minced mushroom sit in a big creamy smear of polenta. two baby carrots, one red, and three baby beets shine bright as jewels. the flavors are sharp, but not too loud,and the vegetables are properly cooked, tasting just about as good as they look, provided you don't bite into the inch-lomg stems crowning the root. those are full of grit. somebody gave the baby a good bath but neglected to shampoo the sandy cap. a "small" roasted local vegetable pizza ($13) is wildly rich, slathered with fontina and ricotta, and dotted with small lumps of parsnip and cauliflower florets, not the place where you would usually expect their flavors to be shown off so handsomely, and fleetingly. in more than a few spots, the bottom of the crust was dark golden. unlike the brussel sprouts featured as a special earlier in the season, the sprouts off the regular menu are harder, still good, and they seemed fresh to me, not frozen. (i also like the sprouts at central, which i assume show what can be done with them when they are frozen and can't be cooked as hard.)

we ordered just about the same, different drinks and wine plus squash soup and sweet potatoes decked out in marshmallow, but were too full to even consider crossing the finish line with dessert. i have enjoyed great thanksgiving meals at both corduroy and vidalia, but the heaping plates of food at sou'wester came closest to replicating the experience of a home-cooked thanksgiving. the deboned turkey leg was worth fighting for and there were some impressively sophisticated twists brought to the table, such as the neck meat. i haven't seen this place in the day, but it was a nice looking, expansive dining room by night, although i'm not sure i would want to be around when the white gourds on the wall start hatching. we were comfortably tucked into a table at the far corner overlooking the glowing dome of the jefferson memorial. i don't get over to this area very often, but i like walking around the back of the agriculture department and the cooling and heating plant. the block runs long and you feel like you're in the vicinity of a production studio. the nearby railroad underpass brought back fond memories to our son of his best years tagging.