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BookGuy

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  1. BookGuy
    I was there last night. I had walked past it so many times as my dentist is down the block and didn't realize that it was there. It is a large rather forbidding place and my companion requested a quiet place. My guess is that there isn't any to be had. I had the crab cakes because the Post food critic raved about them in his Fall Guide and I thought they were excellent. My companion had the salmon which, as a person who always orders salmon, she found excellent. We shared a bowl of fairly rich mashed potatoes. For the appetizer, we both had the butternot squash soup.which was similarly good. We finished off by sharing three flavors of sorbet served in a large glass from which we each took what we wanted. It was, barring the noise, an excellent place to dine and i would certainly go back. It does raise the question of whether expensive places should spend a little extra money on noise-deadening acoustic tile.
  2. BookGuy
    I note that the burritos are so big that you can easily get two meals out of one. I live in downtown Rosslyn where fast food chains are the norm and, even though I am predisposed to like Chop't, another of those two or three meals out of an order places, Chipotle is pretty decent compared to the competition. Panera Bread is coming and it might be worth looking into, but I know nothing about it now.
  3. BookGuy
    I ate at this restaurant last week with my goddaughter and her mother. Mother tends to overorder and had the mixed grill, half of which she took home. Goddaughter and I both ordered the salad Romana and the rigatoni with sausage, purely coincidental, and we both enjoyed them immensely. Consdering that this part of Montgomery County features mainly chain dining, Il Pizico is a welcome change from the norm. I had eaten rigatoni with chicken livers the previous week at Osteria in Philadelphia and was really looking for another rigatoni fix. The sausage was an excellent substitute.
  4. BookGuy
    I was there the other night where guests, who had arrived early, availed themselves of the happy hour menu which they enjoyed. We were in the main dining room taking on shrimp and grits, frogmore stew, and ahi tuna, all excellent but in smaller portions. My experience with Vidalia goes back to its opening when it was much cheaper and the portions were larger and, although as I have aged I tend to eat less, I still thought an extra ounce or two of food wouldn't have been so bad.
  5. BookGuy
    I was at a Buca de Beppo in Gaithersburg a few weeks ago and I got the sense that its popularity is due to huge partions of slighly edible food. I have also noticed that a lot of these chain restaurants overdo the seasonings, mainly salt, and apparently that may be what draws in the customers who don't carry large bags of potato chips around with them. I do live within hailing distance of this place and, although I will not go in, I will remember that it was once the home of Restaurant Three and a fairly decent Greek restaurant before that,
  6. BookGuy
    I think that the secret to buffets such as Cozy's is to be quite selective and go back for the stuff you like. My dining companion fell in love with the crab dip and I was pleased with both the fried chicken and the stewed tomatoes. Judging from the people eating there, there are a lot of families with small children and people who come to pig out once again. They have a small but pleasant Camp David museum and might be considered a decent enough place as the destination for a pleasant weenend drive to the country. It is really quite cheap, three people for about $47.
  7. BookGuy
    There is also a place called the Golden Bull in Adelphi that is still there and I was taken there once in the late 1970's. Are the "Golden" places linked up somehow?
  8. BookGuy
    I was at the Bombay Club on very lower Connecticut Avenue earlier this week and the place is remarkably quiet with tables spaced reasonably far apart.
  9. BookGuy
    I made it to Hershey's last night. Some friends have moved to Germantown and I noticed the place by the side of rhe railroad tracks that carry the MARC trains toward Frederick. II looked the menu up on the internet and they had Southern style chicken livers and fried chicken. So we went there last night. I did have the livers and the chicken and they were both excellent. The place has a very red neck bar look (although the clientele are not) and you enter through the porch where people are smoking. The service is OK but we did get served. Let's call it "good honest food" and be done with it.
  10. BookGuy
    I really should have remembered Gusti's. When the building came down, there was a plaque put up placed on the new building. I will have to check to see if it was still there. Anna Maria's was one of those place's that always looked more pretentious than it actually was. The Cantina was probably the first upscale Italian restaurant in the District, Northern Italian rather than Sicilian. Of course, none were "Famous" as Luigi's was.
  11. BookGuy
    Luigi's is a vestige from the days that there was only one Italian restaurant downtown and one of the few with pizza. AV was too far away and was about the only other Italian around. Now, when you can't walk a block without finding another purveyor of pizza, we are going for whatever pleases our tastes because there is no longer just one choice. When I lived around Dupont Circle, a then girlfriend told me that Luigi's made its own sausage and that kept me going back. Now I live in rustic Rosslyn and there are too many good pizza choices, in many formats, within a short bus ride of where I live.
  12. BookGuy
    I made it there with some friends for Friday dinner about 8:30. The place wasn't crowded at all. The prices of dishes are in the mid-twenty dollar range. I had fried oysters which actually tasted quite good. There was one older waiter who would have fit in at a standard New York deli. They do have a fairly large parking lot behind the place. If you get to go there, it is fine, although I prefer the variety of Portobello across the street.
  13. BookGuy
    I was there for Saturday dinner for the second time. As someone was celebrating her birthday, she splurged on the Peking Duck which she very much enjoyed at the forty dollar price. I had the dish with lots of noodles with chicken, beef, and shrimp which is advertised on the menu as having a large portion. What I took home shoud make three meals. The hot and sour soup was one of the best in the area. The place, a favorite of the first President Bush, was quite crowded and obviusly is reaping the benefits of success, looking like it started small in a nondescript shopping center and now being fairlly large. The service is fine and the owners circulate to see how you are doing.
  14. BookGuy
    Clarendon does have a classic dive bar in Jays' on North Tenth Street. I am not bragging about the food which is cheap and edible but they do have a quite eclectic batch of customers. In an area where everything is upscale cocktail lounge, Jay's is is worth the walk over.
  15. BookGuy
    Last night, I was at the Royal Mile Pub in Wheaton which changed ownership in the recent past. The current owners appear to be Asian but the food and beer seem to be the same as it ever was. I had fish and chips, both of which were good enough.
  16. BookGuy
    I remember when Gaulois was on Pennsylvania off 22nd and I liked it very much. On our last vist in the great long ago, we brought up rumors that it might close and were told that they were there forever. A few months later, they were done and moving to Alexandria and were replaced by Jacqueline's. Jac's was there for a few years and then moved up to M NW where it was ultimately replaced by Vidalia. It is curious to me that I remember restaurant locations and can't remember what the hole in the ground across from my apartment was before they obviusly tore a building down.
  17. BookGuy
    I was there once to celebrate a birthday and, because the birthday girl wanted the tasting menu, all of us at the table, including a 12-year-old, had to get it. All of us, including the previously mentioned 12-year-old, had the wine pairings. The food was expensive and really good. The most talk was about the pork belly and the whole fish. The youngest was given an array of fruit drinks in various types of cocktail glasses which was a nice touch. If you can afford it, go whole hog on the tasting menu and have a fine old time.
  18. BookGuy
    I live a block from the China Garden which is one which is big enough to serve several bus loads of tourists, most of them Asian. It is across the street from where Tom Sarris's Orleans House used to be and I would walk past there as buses dropped off slews of senior citizens from what I like to imagine was Nebraska getting to eat in a sophisticated Washington DC place. "It has to be good, Mary. They have a salad bar."
  19. BookGuy
    I haven't been there either although I checked its menu online and it seems to be an old style steak and seafood place. I have been past it innumberable times and have never seen anyone either entering or leaving it. It reminds me of La Perla, a reputed Italian restaurant near the bridge into Georgetown, which has been there for a long time but with absolutely no word of mouth as it whether it is any good.
  20. BookGuy
    I was at The Third on Friday night and was somewhat diappointed. I had a platter with both chicken and shrimp and, although they were OK, I should have stuck to one of the steaks that I really love. One of my companions had the steak and cheese sandwich which he really liked. The best thing I ate was the cole slaw. Since this Ray's is walkable from where I live in beautiful downtown Rosslyn, I will be back for the steak.
  21. BookGuy
    There was a Hamburger Hamlet on Wisconsin Avenue about two blocks below Western Avenue. When I had less sophisticated firends go out for dinner in the early 1970's, I would take them there.
  22. BookGuy
    I happen to like the pan-fried chicken livers as chicken livers are an enthusiasm of mine.
  23. BookGuy
    This is a biref note on dollar dog night on Wednesday when all franks were a dollar each. I bought two and felt that they were almost decent when slathered with mustanrd but do wish to note that it seemed that the franks were not fully cooked or warm when delivered to the customer in the foil wrapping. So, it was worth a dollar and not much more!
  24. BookGuy
    I was there last night with one adult and one twelve-year-old-girl. The place is fairly small with a counter with ten seats or so with another couner along the winter. We had curried chicken and the kid did two meat pies besides her chicken. The adult who was not me has a whole red snapper that she liked immensely. No alocoholic drinks but a nice assortment of exotic soft drinks in two cases. The cost of all of this, including two dinners to go, was seventy-three dollars. If you don't mind unfancy, it is a fabulous bargain.
  25. BookGuy
    I walked past the place the other day and barely noticed it. I was walking up Clarendon Blvd to cross Washington Blvd. It is possible that the location is inhibiting people visiting as it is on the other side of the strip park from Liberty Tavern, Spider Kelly's, and a few other drinkers haunts.
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