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cjsadler

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Everything posted by cjsadler

  1. Pro Tip: the Cleveland Park location has free corkage on wines bought across the street at Weygandt.
  2. Now that Range is gone, is there anywhere that’s close in markup? Also, a friend is looking to drink a fancy bottle he’s been holding with me; wants to know somewhere nice we can do it with a low or no corkage fee. Any ideas?
  3. If you go to Timber (they own CYM) on weekends, you can get the same bagels without a wait, though there aren't as many options. For two coffees and two egg sandwiches it's like $24 (after tax and tip), though, which is more than I want to pay for this type of thing. I had a danish the other weekend and it was awful, so as tempting as they might look, resist. The bagels are good, but I actually like Bullfrog's better.
  4. I feel like it helps to know that David Lynch had an unwanted baby at the time, otherwise, yeah, I’ve been just as disoriented as you watching this film.
  5. Psst... if you're looking for a place to sit by an actual wood-burning fireplace for happy hour and some reasonably priced, often very good food...
  6. Heading to Charlottesville Memorial Day weekend and had been looking forward to revisiting Alley Light. Good thing I checked here to find out Jose De Brito had left! Everything Simon said above was true-- Alley Light was absolutely phenomenal when De Brito was there. Debating on whether to go anyway and see how it is under the sous-chef...
  7. I was in west Philly a few months ago, sitting outside at Dock Street with a couple of friends when we heard a voice calling "Carrot cake! Carrot cake!". Our waiter could see that we were trying to figure out what was going on. "Oh, yeah, that's the Carrot Cake Man! You should totally get some-- it's really good. Just don't let my manager see". So we called the Carrot Cake Man over... Somehow he's selling large squares of cake for only $1 each. We got a couple of the regular and a couple of blueberry. Damn good carrot cake. So, if you happen to see the Carrot Cake Man, get some!
  8. Steered a group here after seeing Sietsema put it on his Top 10 list in the Fall Dining Guide. Had never heard of this place before that. I feel like I've had some pretty good fried chicken at various spots in the south, but this might be the best I've ever had. The smoked egg yolk sauce really put it over the top. The biscuit it came with was terrible, though-- doughy and bland. Besides the chicken, the other highlight was the "Egg Salad", a bed of delicious smoked, hard-boiled eggs (Takeaway for the evening: more places need to start smoking eggs) with pickled eggplant and greens. Order this. Misfires were the burger, which was as obviously made of quality meat, but very overcooked, and the pot pie fritters, which weren't nearly as good as the ones at Family Meal.
  9. I'd be curious to hear some sommeliers or restaurateurs address how Range can keep its markups so low. Are they fools? A strange anomaly? Someone in that thread mentions them buying in bulk, but that doesn't seem right, as their wine list is quite extensive yet the markups are low across the board.
  10. I'm with you in the very small minority that doesn't love this beer, and for basically the same reason: the strong cinnamon. That made it more akin to a pumpkin stout than I would have expected, and I'm not a big fan of pumpkin beers. I didn't think it was horrible, but I couldn't bring myself to finish the bottle either. I could see this "Mexican" stout thing being good, but the cinnamon and nutmeg would have to be far more toned down for me (or maybe the malt amped up, as you suggest).
  11. Hi Alex, I'm curious to know more about where and how you get your wines. The Barolo blend you mentioned, for example. Was this from an estate that used to bottle the wine under their own label, sell the grapes to someone else, or what? How do you find new opportunities to buy wines for your portfolio? Thanks, Chris
  12. Have seen the sandwich shop Local Foods show up on a few 'best in the country' lists for sandwiches lately. They lived up to the hype. If you need a lunch spot in Houston, this is it. Great local beer selection too.
  13. I see I missed some discussion of this awhile back. I'd only had cocktails here before and never looked at the wine list until the other night. I was shocked. I don't think there's a restaurant anywhere in the area with lower wine markups (If there is, I'd like to hear about it). Even at the low end*, the markups are unheard of in DC. We ended up with a fantastic Tuscan blend recommended by the sommelier (blanking on the name right now). *And you can go pretty low. I think I even saw a sub-$20 bottle or two. One example that caught my eye, as it was recently a wine-of-the-week at Calvert Woodley: Laura Hartwig Cabernet, which retails for about $16. Any other place, this would easily be marked up to $40. At Range: $22.
  14. Didn't think I was going to like this show at all, since I don't have much interest in crime shows, but Justified is very engrossing; some fascinating characters. Seanchai described it well as "backwoods noir". Just found out that Elmore Leonard died this year (The show is based on some of his writings).
  15. No kidding, those parker house rolls are delicious. They came with my chili, which was so-so and a fairly small portion for $6.50. It was worth it for the rolls, though.
  16. I find I like pumpkin beers more in theory, as a fun fall seasonal thing, than I do in practice. I give a bunch of them a try every year, but end up only being able to manage a few sips of most. So far this year... Good Dogfish Punk'n - The one pumpkin beer I really like. More spiced than last year? Southern Tier Pumpking - can be a bit sweet and cloying, but good. Always has a popcorn-like taste to me for some reason (?). Flying Dog The Fear - less spice than most of the imperial pumpkins, which to me is a good thing. Drinkable Devil's Backbone Ichabod Crandall - this is getting trashed on Beer Advocate, but I thought it was a pleasant beer. Southhampton Uinta - for low-alcohol (4%) brews, these guys do a pretty good job (try Baba or Wild by them). Too much spice and/or sweetness for me (I know these are all very highly rated ones... goes to show that this just isn't my beer style) Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Schlafly - I've liked it in the past, but too cinnamon-y this year. Williamsburg Hmmm.... Smuttynose - Was startled by the unusual (for a pumpkin beer) pale-ale/IPA base. I'm not sure how much I liked it. New Belgium Pumpkick - The cranberry sourness was an interesting touch. I found myself sorta enjoying this. PS - Saw an interesting pumpkin collaboration from 21st Amendment and Elysian that just hit the stores. A boxed 4-pack of cans containing 2 baltic pumpkin porters and 2 pumpkin tripels. PPS - Had Sweet Baby Jesus at the DuClaw brewery recently and it was much better than I would have expected.
  17. Smoke & Barrel if she's willing to go back to DC.
  18. Was was able to buy a single of this from the Whole Foods in Arlington (They have a new singles selection that's worth checking out-- wish more places would do this). Most fruit beers don't have a particularly strong fruit flavor to them, but just as Founder's Cerise has a *huge* cherry flavor to it, this beer tastes very strongly of raspberries. It doesn't really taste much like beer, though, but is still good in its own way. Ultimately, it's just too sweet for me. I couldn't manage to finish the bottle.
  19. I love this trend of session IPAs. I've been lukewarm on the recent two I've tried, though: All Day and Lagunitas' Day Time. Something about the balance of carbonation, hops, and malt seems unpleasantly off to me. Detractors say these session IPAs taste like "hop soda". I get what they're talking about with All Day, unfortunately. For me, 21st Amendment's Bitter American does a better job with low-alcohol and hoppy.
  20. A guy I know mixes half 90 Minute and half Festina Peche; calls it the "Adult Arnold Palmer". He made me one on the 4th of July. It's interesting, with the sweetness of the 90 Minute balancing the acidity of the Festina-- try it. He emailed Sam Calagione about it, who replied that he loved the idea and was going to try it himself (but that there would obviously be problems with using that nickname for it).
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