Ericandblueboy

Ordered 5 items for brunch today: (i) clear stewed beef noodle soup (with thin noodle), (ii) fried cruller, (iii) scallion pancake, (iv) scallion filled pastry, and (v) juicy buns (xiao lon bao). The noodle soup had good flavor but not enough salt for me. The same with the scallion pastry, plenty of tasty fat (lard?) to go with the chopped scallions but just not salty enough. As for the fried cruller, I mixed some soy and hot sauce together as a dip. The scallion pancake is thick, much like the way my family would make it and it wasn't lacking in salt. These aren't Peter Chang's puffy magical pancakes but solid hearty gut fillers. Lastly, the juicy buns were just tiny, which was fine since I was already stuffed. $20 with tax and tip. I don't have a clear favorite between A&J and Peking Village. Peking Village has lots of spicy Sichuan dishes while A&J has many more noodle soups to pick from.

A little preview of the food? dumplings and noodles? my wife's picky about her food.

It's been a few months since I last went to Shamshiry. The bread is now served in a zip-lock bag (same thin bread). I thought we use to get a little bit of yogurt in addition to the spicy green sauce, or is my memory just failing? We got the green sauce and some butter. The green sauce here is super-spicy. The kubideh is still succulent and wonderfully spiced, probably the best around these parts (compared to Moby, Rose, etc.); however, the rice was noticeably bland. Rice was one of their strong points before. My wife's chicken kebab was fine but she knows the one at Rose is so much more tender. I think we'll be going to Rose from now on (until we get a terrible meal and then that'll motivate us to try Shamshiry again).

An out of town friend picked DC Coast over BraBeck for dinner to my chagrin last night. I've never been to BraBeck and would have loved the opportunity to check it out. At 7 PM, DC Coast was pretty packed but the service didn't suffer but the noise was fairly loud. I ordered 3 appetizers, of which two were safe. The steamed mussels were fine, the fried oysers were light, crispy and wonderfully seasoned (they've woud've made excellent po' boys), and the crab boudin was fabulous. I believe our waitiress said the boudin is made of shrimp and scallop paste, which is then wrapped around chunks of crab meat. I got a $50 parking ticket for staying past 9 PM a block away from the restaurant, doh!

Washington Post also has it listed as a "sure thing" on its dining guide. So Tom dunno Chinese? I would say mapo tofu with chicken is a sacrilege.

How is it bigotry to locate your business where you can maximize profit? If Michael wants to provide social services, that's his prerogative. It doesn't make other people bigots. If Bill Gates maximize his profits with Microsoft and then gave away $20 billion to his foundation, is he a bigot because he didn't open a Microsoft office in Ward 7?

Are you at least getting tax credit?

There's a reason why there's nothing other than a Denny's there, right? Has anyone actually developed a business plan? I have alot of respect for Landrum but he's kind of a hot-head and I'm not entirely certain he knows how to maximize profit.

Can a restaurant claim someone as its executive chef for simply designing its menu? Seriously, how do we know Donna designed its menu? Cafe Du Parc doesn't claim Antoine Westermann as its executive chef, nor does Westend Bistro claim Eric Ripert as its executive chef. Smacks of false advertisement to me.

WTF! Is Donna really the chef here or did they just rented his name for use on the web-site?

The real estate market sucks and it still hasn't bottomed out yet. Businesses are laying off people but the process isn't done yet. Many of those laid-off will have their homes foreclosed upon, further driving down the housing market.

We stuffed ourselves silly last night at Dino. Two of us ordered 4 appetizers, split a primi and a secondi. The Gamberetti in Saor (rock shrimp), Collo d'Anatra (duck beggar's purse), Salumi platter, and meatballs all arrived at the same time. Everything was good except the duck beggar's purse, which was outstanding. It was duck pate wrapped in duck skin. The pate was roasted until slightly crispy on the outside. I especially loved the skin, which had soaked up the flavor of the pate. My wife did not touch the skin (she's afraid of fat). We ordered the risotto with shaved white truffle as our primi and Storione Selvaggio (sturgeon wrapped in pancetta, pan roasted on a bed of Sicilian flavored cous cous). We were pretty full by the time the risotto came out but we still finished every bite. The sturgeon became dispensable at that point and it turned out to be our least favorite dish. I like pancetta but I've never had fish wrapped in pancetta. It's an odd combination to me. I like Dino for it's diverse menu and ever changing specials. We might go back soon for the feast of 7 fish.

We've only had Moroccan mechoui, in the square in Marrakesh. The lamb is roasted in the ground, creating very moist, tender, flavorful meat, but no crispy skin. Our lamb was served with some bread, and some spices to dip the lamb in. The closest thing we've had in DC is at Komi, but we don't really know where to look.

We like Bacchus of Lebanon (if you're interested in middle-eastern seafood).

Where's Rock when you need a guinea pig?

I'm up for Four Sisters and Korean.

I'm sure I've had it as a kid when attending banquets. Just don't recall how it tastes. Pretty sure it doesn't taste like much of anything. Then again, I've never had a $100 bowl of shark fin soup and that's more of what I'm tempted to try. Also, the shark fin dumpling at some dim sum joints contain miniscule amounts of shark fin - looks like a very thin strip of clear plastic.

My wife looked at B&B's menu (Batali) and decided she didn't like their pasta selection. So now I'm thinking Bartolotta. What about the other Batali joint, Carnevino? She hates mushrooms and doesn't really do seafood (other than scallops, shrimp, lobster and crab).

Braised pork knuckle with fermented bean curd noodle soup sounds good....

Heading to Vegas in January (MLK Jr. weekend). I've had dinner at several celebrity chef restaurants already. This time we will try Batali's B&B. We'll also go back to Diego in MGM for Mexican. Looking for a good brunch place for Sunday morning. I've been to Bouchon and will likely go back unless somone else comes up with a great idea (has to be on the strip). Also, what is the best Chinese food on the strip (especially for something like shark fin soup)? Thanks.

You reference your own dining guide?

We're leaving the night after Xmas and will return on New Years eve.

Ever see Tampopo? Without a good recipe and lots of time, a soup is doomed to fail. Most neighborhood sushi joints don't have real sushi chefs, much less someone who knows how to make good soup. In NYC, there are authentic ramen and soba shops. Not sure if we have any in DC.

very funny, MF. I just checked Spezie's menu. Kinda expensive....maybe we'll do Dino twice.

Is this a good place as warm-up for our impending trip to Venice? We're gonna hit Dino this weekend. Maybe we can do Spezie the following weekend.