Ericandblueboy

Meaning the product could be confiscated after the fact? The fish is already dead at that point. I was hoping we'd arm Green Peace and let them take out poachers.

As a practical matter, even if there is a ban, who enforces it? Will our navy blast poachers (be they Japanese or otherwise) out of the water?

I believe they're closed for good as of tonight. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

The amuse was the pork heart - delicious. Not even the best beef anticuchos I've ever had is better (but I only eat hearts when I have my Indiana Jones hat and whip). Based on the food we had, this is one of the top 10 high end American joints in DC to me (although it wasn't very expensive, $85 for 6 courses and drinks before tip). But with a small menu (6 apps and 6 entrees), I urge everyone to check their updated online menu first.

The food we ordered were remarkable. 4 out of 5 dishes were fantastic. One wasn't but I'll explain why later. Chicken Fried Tongue, Artic Char, duck confit, guinea hen - perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned. The tongue was soft and luscious, how you make tongue meltingly soft, I don't know but that's how it was. Arctic Char with fish roe, really brought out the flavor of the fish. Confit - just delicious (but it's duck confit, you don't need to order it here because it's t not unique). Guinea hen - flavorful and juicy. The one dish that wasn't great was a pan seared monkfish. I'm not entirely sure how you can make a pan seared filet of fish really tasty. I personally have never had any that I considered really good. So the one dish I didn't like is a dish I never liked anywhere. I like whole fish, with head and tail....but that's just me. Even so, the fish was cooked nicely.

Question about Hooked. Is it generally busy on weekends (right now Open Table shows plenty of availability)? What are some really good dishes?

Google search comes up with (non-chains) - O'Faolains Irish Pub, Cheng's Oriental Restaurant, Los Toltecos, Ned Devine's, and Pollos Inti among others. Are any of these good? I'm leaning towards Pollos Inti just based on their website. http://www.pollosinti.com/

I told my wife to keep the fresh dozen at work because I don't need to gain any more sympathy weight. She and her co-workers love the cookies. Even the week-old ones I tried were still very good.

I guess I need to add some back story to my cooking to make it taste better.

Tell us how you really feel about the cake

I'm curious about this article but I'm too lazy to get a free copy myself. If anyone feels like copying and pasting it and e-mail it to me at ericandblueboy@gmail.com, I'd really appreciate it.

According to the the sensor I locked on her ankle, she's no longer in the business, unless she's running a restaurant out of her house. [i'm just kidding, I don't know what she's up to nor do I care]

Carole Greenwood? Just a guess, I don't know her and don't think I've ate at any of her restaurants. I think Spike Mendelsohn is overexposed.

I don't really understand how we can participate. Do I make a reservation with Mio as usual (for example, on March 12 or 13), show up and there will be a special menu that we will order from?

Happy B-day Waitman. So how twas the food?

I feel like a moron (can't use the "r" word) after missing the $150 pet charge on Residence Inn's website. I looked but apparently not thorough enough. The manager was nice enough to cut it down to $75 but that's still more expensive than Lowes (only $25 per stay). Incidentally, we called The Muse (a Kimpton Hotel in NYC where we'll be staying later this year) and they confimed there is no pet charge. So if you travel often with pets, keep Kimpton in mind. Onto the food: I assume the above description from Philadelphiaweekly.com is correct. Our Chifa chicken is flavorful but the end product does not resemble Peking Duck. Our bird did not have crispy skin at all. I can certainly taste the star anise and soy sauce, which are not used on a Peking Duck. Chifa chicken tastes like it's been pressured cooked and not roasted. It's more like 3 Cup Chicken than Peking Duck. So is it good? It is....but we fed most of the chicken to our dogs because we also had the soup dumplings (where's the juice?), humita, pork ramen (nice, tender, flavorful pork), chicharrones (a large uncrispy piece of fat), and yu choy. The only thing that I would recommend out of that bunch is the pork ramen. I think the concept is to induce people who are not particularly familiar with Asian or South American food to try an exotic concept. That certainly was part of the reason why we went to Peru. At least the food wasn't ridiculously expensive, with 2 beers (they have Cristal and Cusquena) we spent only $84 (before tip). As for DiNic's and Herschel's - we weren't bowled over by either one. I'm no expert on deli food but I thought the pastrami really lacked flavor at Herschel's. Steve's Prince of Steaks do not chop up their steak, so you get a sandwich of well done thin but chewy slices of steak. It's not bad but I don't see why it's any better than Geno's. I personally like the steak chopped up and I still prefer Jim's. Chink's is closed on Sundays and I didn't have room to eat more anyway. The photos are soup dumplings, chicharrones, and chifa chicken.

Wonton does not mean eating clouds. There is another name for wonton that does mean eating clouds. Hope that clarifies the confusion. I don't think wonton means anything.

Cause it's fun and people have time to waste? It also allows me to calibrate my taste with those of fellow posters. This is really important since I can then weigh the various posters' opinions. For example, I recently asked for a list of top 5 pizza joints. People who posted their five favorites are much more helpful than people who simply nominated one pizza joint. I happen to love 2 Amys so I'm more likely to follow the taste buds of people who also love 2 Amys.

My understanding is if you're in North Korea, you'd eat boiled shoe soles in the winter. Anyway, my Korean friend tells me that Koreans don't usually eat family style in restaurants? Is he out of his mind? By way of example, I told him when we (i.e., my family) order soon doo boo, it's always shared like any other soup but says most Koreans don't share. He thinks I'm nuts when I go to a Korean joint and end up ordering BBQ, pancake, japchae and soup.

I sometimes have navel lint. Went to Jasmine Garden (Rt. 50 and Gallows Rd) with a Korean friend for lunch. He couldn't eat meat so I ordered spicy fish filet (H21 on JNH menu, they also have the dish known as H20 on JNH menu), stir-fried baby bok choy, and seafood pan-fried noodles. At authentic Chinese restaurants, you can find a variety of seafood (crabs, clams, squid, various types of fish -fried, steamed, braised, etc.), whereas most Americanized Chinese joints only serve shrimp. Go to Hong Kong Palace and get the cumin fish - it's fantastic.

Going to Chifa, Jose Garces' Chinese Peruvian restaurant in City Center. We love Peruvian food but we've been spoiled by eating 5 meals at Gaston Acurio's restaurants in the last 2 years. And we were on a cruise where every meal was personally prepared by Pedro Schiaffino (lucky for us that he happened to be on the ship that week). Did the Gino's vs. Pat's - we think it's a tie there, but we prefer Jim's over those two. Out in the 'burbs we've been to Chubby's and it's good. This time I'll be in Steve's/Chink's hood so I might as well try them out. We roadtrip with our dogs when possible and we've stayed at Lowes before but this time we're staying at the Residence Inn (cheaper than Lowes).

Amada only had a 5:30 table when I looked and it's now all booked. Unfortunately my wife has to work on Sat morning so I scrapped brunch plans on Sunday at El Vez in favor of visiting the Reading Terminal (after all, our hotel is only 2 blocks away). As it stands, we'll do Chifa on Sat. night (and I'm ready to hate it because I don't think anyone can do a "research" trip to a foreign country and presume to cook its cuisine, and I don't think the restaurant offers much in the way of Peruvian cuisine), taste as many things as possible in Reading on Sunday morning - Dinic's, Herschel's deli (pastrami and bialy?), and then try Chink's and Steve's Prince of Steaks in the afternoon while my wife visits her friend. I don't eat scrapple and couldn't care less about sweets, so what else must I try in Reading?

We didn't get the Cookies on time (Fedex blamed the snow) and Uncle Chip's fully refunded my order without my asking. In additon, they're sending some fresh ones free. I had to post because this is exemplary customer service (unlike Fedex which gave my wife the runaround).

I'd suck it up as a learning experience. It's happened to me and I never thought to ask for my money back. I take responsibility for my own mistakes.

I was in Ohio this weekend, somewhere between Akron and Canton. There's not much around but fastfood and chains so I made a visit to Quaker Steak & Lube. Apparently there will be a branch opening in Manassas, VA. As for the wings, my medium wings were fried crispy initially but doused with too much sauce (which is also a bit creamy, weird for buffalo wings in my opinion).