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DaRiv18

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Everything posted by DaRiv18

  1. DaRiv18
    Had the OG Pastrami for dinner today. The bread is tasty, but I think Smoked and Stacked wins on the protein by a large margin. Babka ice cream sandwich though is really good.
  2. DaRiv18
    Good luck Chef! Have fun your next 6 months at minibar, and then in Europe!!
  3. DaRiv18
    Clearly 2016 has sucked for a lot of reasons, and I care about those other issues a lot more, but wow it keeps piling on.
  4. DaRiv18
    Hat tip to Jake for nudging me to this "real good" spot: The Wallace. Smart crowd but decor is tasteful and comfortable. Started with a spinach salad with grilled portabellos and blue cheese which was very nice and straightforward. Grilled Japanese eggplant over lentils was next, and possibly my favorite dish of the night. Lentils were smokey and delicious! Spouse ordered the squid ink pasta with Uni bescamel and ikura. Tasty but a bit too rich for me. And yet hypocritically I loved the next course, foie gras three ways: terrine, mousse, and grilled. All fantastic, with the exception of the mousse which was spectacular. It was served over what looked like crumbled feta, but was actually dehydrated foie gras! We shared a carrot cake that delivered. Many tables ordered a mushroom tartine that looked really good. Cocktail was an apple brandy and a duck fat rinsed orange liqueur with bitters. Very nice. And the wine was all good as well. Fun place! Service got weeded here but we enjoyed ourselves and had no subsequent commitments.
  5. DaRiv18
    Lots of updates on their Facebook page recently. They will soon open a second location in Brookland. And, they are featured in the Michelin Guide for 2017!
  6. DaRiv18
    In honor of Michel Richard, who left California I understand because diners ignored his menu and instead asked for healthy blah food like grilled fish on a bed of lettuce, my first stop in California was for a nice burger. Father's Office definitely delivered, this is a serious burger. According to wikipedia and consistent with my own memory, it is the "Office Burger, a patty of fine dry-aged beef topped with caramelized onions, Gruyère and Maytag cheeses, applewood-smoked bacon compote and arugula served on a soft roll." I also got a side of sweet potato fries, which represented quite well. It was fairly brisk on a Tuesday evening. The place is a bit dark (that's why I couldn't identify everything on the burger) but definitely worth the stop in Santa Monica.
  7. DaRiv18
    I've heard when it's still "laughing at you". But maybe that's just my self-esteem issues projecting themselves again.
  8. DaRiv18
    I can't imagine this would be effective to keep a cocktail chilled, but it does have a sort of "that looks cool" factor to it. IMO, it is important to have a stem on your cocktail glass, and to hold your glass exclusively using it. Otherwise, the warmth of your hands (I am very warm-blooded) will heat the glass/drink faster. I have no empirical evidence, just my observations. Whenever I drink a cocktail, I attempt to leave as few fingerprints on the glass as possible, so that the drink remains colder longer, and that there is less evidence of my presence should anything nefarious go down at the bar
  9. DaRiv18
    Bump. I know lots of downtown places do Thanksgiving, but my memory escapes me.
  10. DaRiv18
    My heart is still racing 36 hours later after I ate the Foie Gras Smorgasbord at Boundary Road. Bring a friend or make a friend, but definitely share this dish ($18). Foie three ways: a whipped butter version, a smoked foie then ground into a liverwurst (I think that's right), and then a straight-up seared version. My favorite is the foie gras liverwurst, served with a surprise ingredient for crunch! Luke has outdone himself, including getting 40 others to participate. Ok, I'm off to get a salad, I'll try some other places before this ends Wednesday.
  11. DaRiv18
    I am not a big fan of the decor, the lounge is half sports bar, half cheezy club IMO, but the food was quite good last night. Fritto Misto was a nice starter, and my daughter enjoyed her bucatini pomodoro. The son inhaled the cheese pizza. I had the eggplant parm, which was heavy on the cheese (mozz), so not much subtlety there. Wifey had the shrimp in spaghettini, and enjoyed it. A side of roasted mushroom. Everything was seasoned aggressively, which we like, and the pastas were very good. I will probably skip the eggplant next time since the other dishes were so good. Our server said pastas were modestly sized and meant to be shared so we could entrees, but we our pastas were definitely enough for a meal for one person. The pizza is very small, I could eat three of them. We finished off with some ice cream, which was very nice as well, Trickling Springs dairy. I think the food is a step up from Alta Strada, still prefer Dino's, but the vibe is not my scene.
  12. DaRiv18
    Stopped by the Dupont Circle BGR for the first time in a long time. Got my root beer out of a standard machine . . . bye bye Freestyle.
  13. DaRiv18
    I sat at the Bidwell bar the other day for the first time in probably over a year. A couple rounds, a bar snack, and everything in the glass and plate was in line with what I experienced previously. But the striking thing was clientele, or really, the community assembled in Bidwell. I have underestimated the importance of this restaurant, based on the deaf community (presumably Gallaudet University) that I saw in full force here that day. I have been seen many H Street bartenders and servers who know some rudimentary ASL, and some bars may have closed captions on their TVs, but I haven't seen so many people signing openly before at any other venue. Everyone seemed comfortable here. Clearly not everyone was a gourmand, but I saw black, white, the well-heeled, the modest, the straight, the gay, the older, the younger, all signing and having fun. I see Bidwell now in a bit of a different light.
  14. DaRiv18
    I hope things look up soon, we all have been there. Maybe that's why we love food and drink so much?
  15. DaRiv18
    I mean, H2M closed about 10 months after Adam started at Bar Pilar, 8 months after Cork opened, and Gina didn't start at PS7's until 2009. I lived at the Central's bar back in the day, so of course Justin invited me. But I don't think of DC bartender's guild as an exclusionary type of group. And if there are secret cocktail places now where they go, then I have surely fallen out of favor, too. If anything, it's like everyone wants you to come to their shift??
  16. DaRiv18
    I had a Cubano (we also ordered the beef in tomato, and the roast pork) at the Mi Cuba Cafe last week. The bread was really good, and the cheese was nice and funky. The ham and pork were different than others have described, they were basically deli meats, sliced thinly. Definitely not the same roasted pork served in the entree. A nice sandwich for $8.
  17. DaRiv18
    I also nominate Bidwell, given its Michelin recognition.
  18. DaRiv18
    What definition are we working under? The sandwich had been toasted, too, if that brings it any closer.
  19. DaRiv18
    Little Red Fox.
  20. DaRiv18
    Oh Wow, this is really expanding! Congrats!
  21. DaRiv18
  22. DaRiv18
    Stopped by today for lunch and unexpectedly ordered the fried chicken plate ($12) featuring a new recipe. A quarter chicken (choose white or dark, and I like the latter) brined for 12 hours and served with a soy honey dashi glaze (I think). The sides are Japanese-ish, miso soup (with potato no tofu), rice with chicken drippings and scallions, and a slaw garnish. I am a bit tired of fried chicken around town, but I found no fault with this one. I did like the actual chicken, both the taste and the mouthfeel which often fall short for me. The glaze reduces the crunch somewhat but the taste is worth it. Like I said, I am no real fried chicken guy outside of Korean style but this is distinctive and well worth trying.
  23. DaRiv18
    Oh man, what a bummer. I am not sure there is anything on their menu that I wouldn't order, unless I had a personal preference against a specific ingredient. How TS gave Comet Ping Pong the same amount of stars as 2Amys is just way beyond me, it isn't even close. The only thing I didn't care for was the fork and knife aged burrata, the texture is totally different than the normal style. I think that dish is an acquired taste that I am not ready for yet.
  24. DaRiv18
    So now it is rosemary ham, citrus pulled pork, a healthy portion (or unhealthy portion?) of melted gruyere, Dijon mustard, and house pickles on crusty bread. No spice, although I will add a splash of their house hot sauce next time. Damn tasty.
  25. DaRiv18
    I actually agree with everything that I have read here in this thread. But I can't think of any solution that could be humane. If the issue is, we need to cap the number of lives on this planet at any given moment, for the good of the planet and future (human) generations, then just singling out babies seems to be pretty biased. Plus, not too many octo-moms out there anyway, so is that really even a material source of the problem anyway?
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