Tweaked

hmmm, I minced half a scape into a homemade salsa...they have an overpowering flavor and a surprising amount of heat, basically ruined the salsa.

I remember having an excellent meal at Aditi...but then again that was back in 1995

I don't know, the strawberries I've bought at New Morning Farms have been rather watery and tasteless. They did have garlic scapes yesterday...Not sure what to do with garlic scapes, but I bought some anyway!

Waiting List Please..and I vote for two tables

During my recent trip to India we bought mind-blowing good mangos at the market in Mysore, I think we bought a dozen for about $2. even the grocery stores in Bangalore carried 4 or 5 different varities of mangoes. sigh.

Just got back from a wedding in the Caymans. We stayed at The Reef Resort (http://www.thereef.com) on the East End of Grand Cayman Island. The resort was adequately nice, nothing fancy but did the trick for a couple of days. The Reef Resort bills itself for people who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of 7 Mile Beach and George Town. Basically the area is comprised of two adjacent resorts with a shopping plaza across the street with a bakery (not very good), gold store, liquor store (mmmm, rum), and a small grocery store (not enough local food stuff). And That's It. Heavy traffic on the two lane "highway" meant three cars driving by. Since we were part of a wedding group we got breakfast vouchers and the kitchen did a decent job making bacon, eggs, pancakes, etc. etc. Otherwise we basically snacked off the bar menu, fish tacos, conch fritters, and the quesadillas were all above average on the bar food scale. The pizza was not. The resort catered the wedding, many of the passed apps were sitting on crostini which quickly became chewy in the ocean air. The ceviche shooters and seared tuna with seaweed salad and pickled ginger were good. In the finest British tradition, the chunk of roast beef at the carving station was excellent. The rehersal dinner was at Portofino (http://caymanislandsdiscounts.com/PortofinoDinnerMenu.htm), which appeared to be pretty much the only sit down restaurant on the East End serving dinner. We had a set menu and thus nothing special to report...except the location, situated on the water, we took over the outdoor balcony...yeah it did not suck! Other highlights included: The patties at the Runway Bar in the airport Snorkeling, fishing, kayaking and drinking Not being in washington dc Our driver Apollo Cuban cigars! Lowlights The Tortuga Rum Cake, this is the islands biggest export??? Major disappointment Caybrew Beer Missed-lights Not trying the roadside jerk stands...Best signage "Buy One Jerk, Get One Jerk Free"

The mother of all fully certified organic restaurants, Restaurant Nora...apparently they are not open for lunch but their website says they will do private luncheons by appointment. http://www.noras.com/nora/about/

As someone who has eaten more then their fair share of Cap Lounge Grub (and lived to tell about it) the menu doesn't look that vastly different. There some new apps, the addition of mussels, and some new sandwiches and pizza options. They have been slowly upgrading the place for months, redesigned the basement, expanded the beer offerings, etc. etc. Now maybe the food quality will get an upgrade as well. As long as patrons can kill rats in the bathrooms, it's still going to be the Cap lounge, filled with Hill staffers on the weekdays and locals on the weekends.

I was in India recently and after several drinks, we convinced the tandoor chef to make us grilled cheese sandwiches over the tandoor oven. Place several long tandoor skewers over the oven opening, thus making a grill, place sandwich on top. The oven runs so hot that the bread "grilled" in about 30 seconds...unfortunately that did not give the cheese enough time to melt. Our efforts to make cheese naan were a little less successful.

Another over-priced steak house in a hotel...yawn.

I swung through the New Morning Farm around 11am Saturday, they were doing a nice amount of business but still had plenty of produce to go around. I love this place! Picked up strawberries, tomatoes, asparagus, red leaf lettuce, spinach, spring onion, baby bok choy, squash blossoms, and some sticky buns! Saturday mornings in Van Ness just got a whole lot more fun!

I was buying a sixer of beer at a corner store on the Hill, two blocks from my apartment, so usually I just walk it home sans bag. Then one purchase they insisted that they bag it and when I said no need the store owner responded that it was the law. Apparently the day before someone had walked out of their store carrying a bagless sixer and a cop saw it. The cop went into the store to inform them that alcohol needs to be bagged. Then again I have also thrown sixer or bottles of wine into my backpack and no one cares.

wow, this just might be the best post ever on DR...

Not sure where to buy them but I sucked down several hundred at the Tulane Alumni Association Crawfish Boil this past weekend...yum!

Picked up a sixer of Duck-Rabbit's Milk Stout ($10) at Van Ness Liquors last night...interesting brew. It actually tastes milky with a roasted toasty stout flavor, slightly undercarbonated...can't say that I loved it, probably wouldn't buy another sixer at that price, but a worthwhile experiment. http://www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/index.html

Build out started a couple weeks ago for Kababji Grill, street level of the SEIU building on Connecticut Avenue (S. Dupont) next door to the Big Hunt. The slick promo photo spread outside gives it a corporate/chain feel, but can't find any websites... Considering the space use to be a computer/office/print shop type place and there are a tangle of wires and duct work hanging from the ceiling, I'm guessing the build out will take a while.

strolled through the Penn Quarter Market last night around 6pm. decent amount of people wandering around, many of the vendors appeared to be low or completely out of goods, esp. veg and cheese vendors and the quesadilla guy. Picked up a tomato plant. We then walked past the Zola Wine and Kitchen shop and popped in for a small wine tasting featuring New Zealand's Yealands Estates Wine (http://www.yealands.co.nz/default.asp). Made for a lovely evening down in Penn Quarter.

Anthony Bourdain, Alice Waters, Duffy Goldman debate organics at the Connecticut Forum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-falnvgzUk

Just got back from a quick juant to Bangalore India. Since we were there for a wedding we did most of our eating at wedding related events...Indian wedding food does not suck! The day of the wedding we ate at the wedding hall three times (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and all three meals were excellent. Breakfast and lunch were south indian veggie served tiffin style. Lots of little dollops. The dinner was served buffet style and again southern indian veggie and again excellent. we even asked around, saying that in America wedding/event food is the butt of many a joke, but that we thought the food here was excellent and even the Indians agreed that it was good. we hit a couple of restaurants: Royal Afghan at the ITC Windsor Hotel. An outdoor restaurant situated poolside. Excellent food here, kabobs galore...great prawns, paneer, lamb. Shiro in the UB City Mall. Apparently this place has made a huge splash on the Bangalore dining scene and it is a beautiful restaurant and lounge. We ate outside on the terrace and the setting was hip modern pan-Asian...the sushi, not so much. Yes we dined on sushi in south central India...and survived! But the fish was definitely on its last flipper. tuna was grey. the rest pretty flavorless. The selection of dumplings and other apps were enjoyable...esp the crunchy spicy avocado roll. Coconut Grove Church Street, next to MG Road. Closed for lunch so we had some snacks on the outdoor beer patio. Two beers on tap and a menu of belgiums. Mishmash of western and india snack food. we enjoyed two selections off the "roll" section (think mini-wraps), a paneer and veggie wrap and a lamb wrap. Hit the spot after some shopping on MG Road. However the best eating experience was the insanely fresh mangos bought in the Devaraja Market in Mysore...mind blowingly good!

The fish guy at Eastern Market had "fresh Greek sardines" a couple weeks ago. Cooked them for a couple minutes aside on a grill pan with olive oil, lemon, s&p. They were excellent.

At that price point you can sneak in the 2 courses + dessert ($58) at Palena...or splurge a little and go with the three course + dessert ($67). Chef Frank Ruta is a former White House chef. http://www.palenarestaurant.com/MENU.htm Take her out for something she probably would never eat in Korea...Ethiopian along U street. Another meal option if you are touring around DC is Saturday or Sunday brunch at the Tabard Inn. Beautiful outdoor patio.

Eastern Market has them for around $6.

Kaz Sushi Bistro is walking distance from the "dupont south" area.

Swung past the fishmonger at Eastern Market this weekend...Greek Sardines (I think they were running around $7 a pound), bought them gutted with head on. cooked them on my grill pan with a toss of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Simple and delicious.

It was my understanding that Montsouris failed because of a falling out amongst the ownership group (at least that's what they claimed). It also occurred during the P street construction when it seemed like the store front was continuously blocked by construction material.