JBag57

Not food or drink related at all, but I once, on a trek from MacPherson Square Metro up to ChurchKey, passed a scene in which I witnessed an "urban" (i.e., black) couple (read the article, I am neither a bigot nor a racist) having their picture taken by a professional photographer at what I thought (without much thought given) was to be their new condo in a really cool part of DC. I later realized, after the Brandon Banks incident outside the club, that the couple may have met there or who knows what, and they were memorializing that. The building, when dark inside, looked like a very expensive and small condo building, and at the time I was envious of this couple being able to live there. What a rube (long time suburbanite) I felt like after realizing that this was a club, not a condo.

I seem to recall that it was a Lum's originally, almost certainly not a Pizza Hut.

With my family out of town, I ventured to the Fairfax location to see what all the hype was about. Chips-good. Salsa-mediocre-ymmv-a little too much onion for me. "Chuychanga"--roasted chicken, etc., in a fried flour tortilla. I knew I was not ordering the healthiest thing on the menu, but OMG. 40-45% of it was the flour tortilla, another 40-45% was some gloppy cheese inside, and I am being extremely generous to sat that there might have been about 10% chicken inside. How the chicken tasted is not something I can even comment on, as it was totally overwhelmed by the cheese. If anyone remembers Chi-Chi's, their chicken chimichanga would run circles around the one I had tonight at Chuy's. Even if no more or no less healthy, it at least had some flavor beyond the cheese. The place smelled like the fajitas might be good, but I am in no hurry to go back. Also, for the second night in a row, while there was one good bartender, the other bartender was more about cleaning glassware, etc., than waiting on customers. The place last night is at a price point where that behavior is really not acceptable. I felt like Chuy's might have to take what they can get.

There is now a second location in the Great Falls Shopping Center (intersection of Walker Road and 193). I haven't been--I spotted it while on my way to the Old Brogue last weekend. My SIL gave it a general "thumbs up".

Don, if you look at your own "Help Wanted" thread, advertising for a bread/pastry genius, you will see that they are hoping for a March opening at this point. There are apparently a couple of structural issues with the building that need to be addressed. You might get a good insight as to what the restaurant will be offering from the classified ad that they posted on the website. I am all in for the bread program at this point, as well as the food, possibly, but definitely for the beer, which is promised to emulate and maybe expand on that offered at The Light Horse in Old Town.

My bad, I should've noted that our reservation was for 7:00. We had no intention of ringing in the new year at the restaurant, although we were wondering if we were going to have to.

My wife and I went with our neighbors on NYE, with a 5 course prix fixe dinner featured. The menu was well-conceived, and every course was very good to excellent. I waited a couple of days to post, in that I did not want my emotions to override the overall good experience we had. Fortunately, we and our neighbors can carry on a conversation for quite some time. However, even after a couple of days, I can't help but think that we would have had a much better time had it not taken three full hours to experience our 5 course meal. While I appreciate not being rushed out from our 7:00 reservation on a busy night, we sat for many fractions of hours in between courses, seemingly needlessly. They seemed to be a little short on staff, but it seemed more that the kitchen was in the weeds most of the night. The place was pretty full, but I have to believe that they were counting on that, and probably should have been better prepared. This place is out of our way, generally, as we came in from the Virginia suburbs. I would like to go back under less stressful conditions, but coming in from the 'burbs, it is going to take a considerable amount of energy to pull the trigger on this.

My wife and I chose this place tonight over the more-or-less equidistant Legal Seafood at the Galleria. Seeing open seats at the bar, and the Caps game on (a tough OT loss after fighting back from a 3-0 deficit), we were treated to some excellent service on the part of the bartender, whose name I failed to get. I am not much for seafood, other than shrimp, an occasional crabcake, or some clam-o's, so I had the seafood gumbo, after being assured by said bartender that it would not be overly fishy, and a side of mac-and-jack (plain, no lobster or crab topping). It was an excellent meal for me. My wife had the snapper, from the catch of the day menu (North Carolina, the menu said), which comes with one side, she chose spinach. She had an excellent meal also, which included about a third of my mac-and-jack. Overall, a very positive experience. One thing that surprised me, though, and I don't go here very often, is that the snapper entrée was $37, with the other similar entrees being in the same ball park. The serving of the fish looked to be about 6 ounces, and was prepared simply, and the spinach side did not seem very substantial (other sides, like the mac-and-jack I ordered, may be more so). This seemed a little high to me, but again, I am not often out there at the higher end seafood establishments, so maybe I just need to be a little desensitized to the current prices. I would have guessed that something like $30-$32 would have been the right price for that meal.

C'mon, now. Springfield TC has a lot more image makeover to tackle than having to deal with the random chance that someone would be living in the confines of the Yard House that just opened there! I know the post was meant in jest, but I think that STC is a high-risk venture, at best, and needs to be treated with kid gloves.

I am so glad that you posted the menu from the closing night! We went, for the first and last time, about a month ago, in celebration of my wife's 55th birthday. The "we" included our two children in their early 20's. All together, it was an incredible experience. I am not as adventurous as my wife and children in eating (thankfully, the kids chose the better path), so they had the six course tasting menu, while I "dumbed down" with the four course meal. The reason for the thanks in posting the menu is that the first course listed was also the first course the rest of my family had on our visit. (or at least very close) The "sashimi of skuna bay salmon" (photo #2 above) was a dish that our two young adults (with the generally short attention spans of those their age) kept talking about then and for days later. The reaction to that dish caused me to promise them that we would take them to Chef Ziebold's next endeavor. I, on the other hand, had some sort of clam sashimi (I think the menu had it as a sashimi, but it was sort of pickled like a ceviche), which I had chosen as a "lesser among evils" of a seafood-heavy first course list. Wow, am I glad I did, it was revelatory, just as the salmon sashimi was to the rest of my family. So, what's up next for Chef Ziebold?

I have lived on the outskirts of Vienna (i.e. Vienna mailing address, but not the "Town") for almost 30 years. As suggested above, the demographics have changed drastically within the past five years. I feel there is a pent-up demand for better dining venues, as evidenced at least by the huge success that Pazzo Pomodoro has experienced (despite the general panning of the place on this website). If I had a few hundred thousand to spare and any restaurant experience at all, I might try to pull off something like Clarity is attempting. Trust me, if it is good food at a good value, it won't matter that it does not have frontage on Maple Avenue. There is money in Vienna now that has not been there in, basically, forever. While there are indeed those that are house-poor, as Dr. Xmus notes, there are also tons of lawyers/lobbyists populating the town. (not that this is necessarily a good thing, unless you are an aspiring restaurateur) The only thing keeping these folks back from being regulars at nicer restaurants is that many spend 99% of their time, and a good bit of their disposable income, on pushing their kids into travel sports, advanced ballet, or whatever. BTW, I will use this opportunity to ask whether Jason Maddens was also the guy who launched Bungalow Lakehouse a while back. The name sounds familiar, and if he does something close to replicating the original menu from there, they will likely do well in Vienna.

I appreciate that Bart came to my defense, and that is essentially how I felt when leaving the place. I am glad that the bartender did not get fired, and I don't know whether the relegation exactly fits what I, last night, considered to be indifferent service. I did post with some emotion, after feeling a bit like I was "fired" as a customer. RJ, that is a huge list of demands you put on your servers, and I respect that you ask that much of them. I also appreciate your sharing these with us. I think that my post conveyed that he did not fail on #1 and #35, and, ultimately, those may probably most important. I think that #41 and #81,and the attendant aftermath, were not up to my expectations. I am not sure I should lock horns here with somebody with the reputation of Mark Slater, but I guess I will: I am somewhat tempered in speaking my mind normally, which might be taken as being shy. I felt that I was being polite in not interrupting the bartender's work at the register. So I did not say "excuse me" when he was at the register directly in front of me. I guess I was somewhat dumbfounded in his leaving the register to look over what seemed to be checks for tables on the floor, and his movement up onto the dining floor, without even so much as saying "I will be back with you shortly" or some equivalent eye contact connoting something to that effect. At those points, my "excuse me" would have likely been heard by a considerable number of patrons, and would have made me feel uncomfortable. I am equivocal about whether I should have just mentioned to the manager why I was leaving, as opposed to posting the reason here. I tend to not fare well when making irritations known on site. I did not anticipate the minor s-storm that ensued. I want this restaurant to succeed in the long term, because I am old and want to have RJs fare available out in the suburbs, without requiring me to go downtown, except when that moves me. In particular, I am having a craving for the chicken fried steak that is apparently only served on the brunch menu.

Tonight was my third visit to Gypsy Soul. First visit: Somewhere around early October. My wife and I, and a longtime friend of ours back home from California. (the three of us each grew up less than two miles from what is now the Mosaic District). We got the pimento cheese dip and chicken skins for starters, both of which were very good. I may be in the minority, but being on blood pressure and cholesterol medicine, for the chicken skins, the juice may not be worth the squeeze. Main courses were crabcake, rabbit, and, for me, the GS burger. Sides of corn and mac and cheese (plain). Reports were good on the crabcake and rabbit, and my burger was one of the best I have had in a long time. Service was handled mostly by a floor manager, as our server seemed pretty clueless. In fact, I had to talk our friend into going here, invoking RJ's reputation as a chef, because she had read a number of reviews on Yelp complaining about the service. We might have been in that boat were it not for an attentive manager. Second visit: Just me, about a week later, back for the GS burger. I sat at the bar, and had a very attentive bartender, even though the bar was pretty much full and he was painstakingly making those fancy cocktails. The burger was once again great. I ordered it without onions, and Chef RJ overheard me, and said that the bun had onions in it. I noted that I was aware of that from my previous visit, and that whatever amount was in the bun would be fine. (I am not allergic, I just don't like them, and on the first visit, I pretty much ate the burger without the bun due to having ordered apps and sides). He tried to talk me into trying the onions, but I resisted. He still had a small plate of them sent out with my burger, which I tasted, but opted out of. I can see, however, that an onion lover would probably go nuts over these. Third visit: Just me, tonight, with the GS burger as a backup plan, and thinking I would try something different. I sat at the bar again, and was greeted reasonably promptly by the bartender, who provided a menu, water and a place mat. My sip of water was pretty good. That was as far as it went. I sat for about 10 minutes, which seemed longer because I was the only person at my half of the bar (and there were only four people at the other half of the bar, which was manned by another bartender), watching my bartender meticulously attend to matters other than waiting on me. He did some work on a couple of checks and carefully studied his work product while standing no more than five feet in front of me. I had meanwhile studied the menu, was ready to order, and had my hands together resting on top of the menu. Without even looking up, he moved over to mid-bar, where the food is run to the tables. He reviewed the checks he was holding for a little while longer, and then went up into the table area. After waiting a couple of more minutes for him to return, I decided that I had chosen the wrong night to eat here, and got up and left. If it had been crowded and had it looked like he had a lot of balls to juggle, I would have hung in there at least for some additional amount of time. Did I mention that I was the only one seated at his half of the bar? Oh, yes, I did.

I went to the original place tonight for a takeout sub. I got the "Philly" which does not show up on the online menu. The capicola ham, which was good but nothing to write home about, overpowered whatever genoa salami was on the sub. I asked for light hot peppers, not realizing that that meant I would get an overabundance of sweet peppers, which were good, but I do no like them on subs. Looking back at the online menu, I see that they have a spiced capicola ham on the Capri, which I would have likely ordered, but I would swear that the in house menu board listed only prosciutto and genoa salami as the meats on that sandwich. Good, but not great. I will have to try again and see if the Capri matches up to what is indicated online. Also, I got the soft roll, which was mediocre. Is the hard roll the better vehicle for their subs? The Hot Sicilian (dry coppa, Sicilian salami) at The Deli in Herndon (ordered with single serving of meat, the default is double) is much more to my liking, when they have someone who knows what they are doing making the sandwich.

We are going on November 8--for the first time, probably unfortunately, since there will not be a second. For my wife's 55th birthday. We seem to have let this one slip by for too long.

Finding myself near Merrifield this past Monday, I decided to stop in at B Side, the new restaurant neighboring the Mosaic Red Apron. I read somewhere this past week that the vibe was hipsterish, but I felt that it was only slightly so. It sort of has the look, but the patrons cut across a pretty wide cross-section of ages, etc., although skewing quite a bit younger than me. The charcuterie menu works something like the menus at sushi places, which you mark up with a provided golf course pencil noting the items you wish to order. The choices were so plentiful that I decided not to try to navigate the menu this time around, even though the various items are grouped in various categories (spicy and smoky were two of them, I believe), not unlike Greg Engert's beer categories used at most of the NRG establishments. Instead, I had the Italian Beef Burger, which is, I believe, the Red Apron two-patty burger, with fontina cheese, and a bottom layer of Italian Beef (appropriately thinly sliced) and giardiniera instead of lettuce, tomatos, pickles or whatever. The bottom half of the bun was dipped in the au jus from the Italian beef, which ultimately led to mounting a valiant effort to eat this thing like a normal hamburger. (I experienced the same difficulty eating Italian beef sandwiches in Chicago, so not a big surprise) The burger was very beefy and tasty, but I am not sure that the Italian beef itself added much, although the au jus and giardiniera certainly did (I have never had the basic Red Apron burger to compare beef taste). At $12 with no sides, it seemed at first a little pricey, but it was very filling. My backup plan was to order one item off of the charcuterie menu if the burger did not fill me up, but that was not necessary. The menu did have a few sides that could be ordered a la carte, but the fries would have been way too much on top of the burger, and I was not in the mood for the veggie, which I think was steamed broccoli. Their mixed drink program is something they seem to be focusing on, but that is not my bag, so I went with a beer (BFM Abbaye de Saint Bon Chien Grand Cru), which, at $13 for a 10-ounce pour, seems a little expensive, but is not really much of a markup over the equally expensive retail price for this line of beers. They have, I believe, 12 taps, which skew toward the more expensive offerings in the several styles. They present a pretty extensive bottled beer list, as well. The one sort of gripe that I have about that is, based on seeing a few people order bottled beers (I had a seat at the bar), I think that not many, if any, are kept chilled, and they use some sort of chiller once the beer is ordered. To their credit (might as well own up to it), they let those patrons know that the beer was not chilled, and that it would take about five minutes to get them their beer. I surmise that the bottle list matches the inventory list from Red Apron next door, and that when a beer is ordered, they go next door (internally) and grab it off the shelf, and put it in one of those bottle chillers. I will be going back to explore the charcuterie offerings, if I can resist ordering the Italian Beef burger, that is. The pork belly pupusa on the appetizer menu will be ordered sometime soon as well. P.S., sitting near me at the bar was none other than Tom Sietsema, who apparently was checking out the mixed drink program that evening.

I am terrible with directions, but if anything, I would have said about a block "South" of the 50/Annandale Road intersection. 50 runs pretty close to East-West there, and you would access the shopping center from Annandale Road.

DC Deb, you are making me feel better about my recent experience at G Sandwich. Also in the first inning, I approached as there was only one person at the register, making me first in line. I asked for an Italian sub with no onions, and was told that that was not an option. They had about 30 premade subs of whatever variety sitting behind them, and apparently (based on the seeming refusal to make me a sub while I waited) that was the sandwich inventory for the day. I did say first inning, didn't I? Oh, yes, I did. Maybe, based on the dryness you experienced, they are making these well beforehand. The truly perplexing part was that I had the option of getting the Italian sub with or without mayo. I guess they had some of both made already, all with onions, but it seemed that they were hell-bent on not making me a special order sub even though they had cashiers and others (and I assume sandwich makers) sitting around doing nothing. Is it possible that they only intended to sell those 30 or so subs that day, or would they have had scores of others in the back, also already premade? Either way, they have lost this prospective customer for good. I don't even usually eat at the park, and was not especially hungry at the time (4:00 game), but I was willing to throw $14.00 their way to see how their Italian stacks up against some other locals.

The licensing notion, as mentioned by RWBoone above, and as contrasted with franchising which generally yields a fairly standard product, would seemingly be a good reason to downgrade the overall rating, and then let the posts in the thread advise us as to which of the locations are better than the others. I have not been to any of the locations, but hope to try this stuff soon. After my college-age son recently had a positive experience at Honey Pig, I came on here to check out the current status of Bon Chon, so that possibly we could experience this together. The information presented here is very useful, and I would be looking to try one of the better locations, and maybe not the one that is most convenient to us.

Yes, this does not sound like a new lease problem, but rather struggling under the current lease, and maybe with a looming rent increase, causing the decision to shut down operations.

Yeah, the "how much I care for you both" comment had me thinking of Restaurant Eve as well, but I didn't think Old Town would have been one of the markets where rents are skyrocketing (although the recent "sale" of the Yacht Club probably is having the effect of opening the floodgates to massive redevelopment).

My wife and I went once a couple of years ago. It did not excite us, so we have not been back. Like at least one other poster, maybe we should give it another shot based on recent reviews. If we go, I will report back.

I tend to believe the landlord when it says that the opening of the Fresh Market grocery store in the shopping center was not the cause of this. Fresh Market hopefully learned a lesson about trying to muscle out independent, local retailers when it leaned on a landlord to kick Norm's Beer and Wine out of its location in Vienna, next door to where a Fresh Market location was to open. The community spoke, Fresh Market capitulated, and Norm's remains in its original location.

I'm pretty sure I cut through there as recently as 2011, but my calendar is not as reliable as in the days of old. I have heard from the caretakers of Westgate Park, where the Little League fields are, that there is going to be some realignment of roads in that area to adjust for Metro traffic. (please don't press me for details at this late hour).

Our neighbors and we have a reservation for Tuesday evening (New Year's Eve) at Meaza, as we were all recently reminiscing about having enjoyed Ethiopian food several (many) years ago. It appears, though, that Enat may now be the frontrunner in the Virginia suburbs. Has anyone eaten at both recently and have an opinion one way or the other? We are not trekking into DC on this occasion, so it comes down to these two, unless I have overlooked somewhere else in Northern Virginia. Ambiance is secondary to food quality and taste.