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(EMP googling its customers is in a different league, though. That would make me way more uncomfortable than a place having information based on my past visits.)

Does Googling people even really work most of the time? I mean, sure, if I Google Don Rockwell, I'm going to get a pretty clear-cut idea of who he is. But I can't find ME anywhere--at least for the first 30 pages, after which I get bored and stop looking. Unless I include my employer, but even then it only returns photo credits. Am I doing it wrong?

Sigh. I like all your ideas so much! But let this be a lesson to you: take your eyes off the ball for one damn minute and someone else takes charge and damns you to a night at Smith Commons.

I don't know. I'm going to keep an open mind. But that open mind will be hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

Thanks everyone for your great suggestions. Next time I'm asked, I'll be able to come up with a cornucopia of ideas that are good and worthy.

(Anyone got anything good to say about Smith Commons?)

Oh, my dear. So many options, and I'm preemptively jealous of your meals. To start:

The goat at Cashion's

The pastrami at Kangaroo Boxing Club

The palak chaat at Rasika (preferably) or Bombay Club (still pretty damn good)

The outstanding service and romance of Bombay Club

The watermelon/avocado/blue crab appetizer at Ardeo

The cask beers at Meridian Pint

The everything on the patio at Room 11

Enjoy!

A friend and I are brainstorming for a friend's birthday next month. No major blowout, but we were thinking some fun fancy cocktails with 6-8 of the ladies in DC. Small plates would be nice too, since we're probably not going to meet up until 7ish, and on a Wednesday night, moving on from drinks to dinner would make it too late a night. We'll also need a place where we can make a reservation or where our group can walk in and have a reasonable chance of finding a seat (so probably no to Estadio). I thought of Quill, but that might be a bit too expensive for a few of the guests. The Gibson maybe? I've shamefully never been there, but it sounds like it would fit the bill. What do you think? Any other ideas? Thanks!

Oops!

Wow! That's just... Wow!

How do you feel about the stools at El Chucho, or Little Serow? I can tolerate them, but I prefer chairs over stools. The latter suggest short meals or an extended period drifting toward inebriation. It's a different experience toppling from a stool than falling out of a chair.

I am an equal-opportunity stool/chair person, but when I go out alone for a glass of wine, I prefer to sit at the bar. I haven't been to Little Serow, but Maple's bar stools are significantly less comfortable than El Chucho. Apparently the owner designed them. But presumably never sat in them. The seat has no padding, nor the butt-shaped carve-out usually seen in wood stools, so it's dead flat. Also, the seat is fairly small (at least for my size butt), its edges sharp, the foot rest low, and the back so short that it is rendered meaningless for any other purpose than sciatic irritation. The combination makes for falling-asleep legs in under twenty minutes. So the likelihood of me sitting at the bar on any regular basis is pretty thin.

Thus concludes my somewhat creepy assessment of butt comfort at Maple.

Based on this and other similar comments, I recommended the bologna sandwich to a friend at the game the other evening. He said it wasn't as good as the ones his fraternity brothers made at college about four decades ago late at night after a round or several of drinking. I stayed with the $1 hot dogs (special for the evening) and I'm still here to tell the tale. Nats won big, too!!

As a northerner who was raised on cold bologna and cheese sandwiches with yellow mustard, I'm intrigued by this thing. What's on a fried bologna sandwich? Bread or bun?

Rogue 24 is raised to Bold in the Dining Guide.

Why?

[Translation: I miss your reviews. ]

I really wish I wanted to come here more often. The mix-and-match bruschetta is awesome, and the antipasti is solid. I haven't delved into the rest of the menu, but every dish that comes out looks and smells terrific. Wines are $3 off during happy hour, the choices are interesting, and the bartenders knowledgable. The cocktails are well-made too.

So why don't I want to come here? Because the bar stools are god-awful. I honestly think I'd be there once a week for a post-work glass of wine and nosh if the seats weren't so damn uncomfortable. Petty I know, but there it is.

Of the new crop of restaurants on Columbia Heights' 11th Street strip, I've been to Kangaroo Boxing Club the most--four times. This isn't by design, but it's easy, comfortable, welcoming, and has enough high points that it's easy to look past the weak ones.

The pastrami, for instance. I'm no expert, but this is by far the best I've ever had. I mean, outstanding, off-the-charts, off-the-hook terrific. The rye bread holds up to it and I don't know how it's possible, but the mustard makes it all even better. Seriously: get the pastrami.

I'm not as wild about the other meats. The Smokey Joe is okay--too much, too strong, too salty sauce mixed with over-shredded beef that's only remarkable if you get a couple of the awesome smoky end pieces in the mix. The chocolate BBQ on the pulled chicken is also pretty spicy, and the chicken is fine. I don't remember much about the pulled pork (not a good sign, but it was a couple of months ago) except that I couldn't really find a sauce I liked--I think they all were too spicy for me*--and the bottom bun was soaked through with grease. I clearly need to give it another go. Those sandwich buns are good though.

The beans vex me. They vex me so. The first time they were amazing; the second time they tasted like someone had spilled a bottle of vinegar on them; the third time, amazing again; the fourth time vinegar again, plus something else not so good. What the hell? Seems to me that we've got two chefs making two different recipes, and it makes me sad because I've clearly got a 50-50 chance of getting a ramekin of yuck, and those odds just aren't fair.

But when they're done right, the beans are the best side on the menu, along with the johnny cakes. The mac and cheese is pretty darn good, and the greens and salad are run-of-the-mill. The garlic fries are nice, but it's the dipping sauce that makes them dangerously addictive.

I think they only have three beer taps, but they're stocked with good stuff (the Redtober and Mojo are my recent faves) so I haven't explored the bottles. I stay away from the cocktails, which, even when on special, just aren't that well made.

The service is across the board terrific, but the joint is seriously tiny. The bar has been full pretty much every time I've been in, and every seat in the place tends to be taken by 6:30.

*Is BBQ usually this spicy? I'm sort of on the mild-to-medium end of the spectrum, but I was surprised that every sauce was so firey. Sigh. Guess I'll have to stick with the pastrami (poor me!).

Go here, click on "I am under 21," sound on.

Thank you, you fine, fine brewers.

Writing deliberately false, injurious statements about another person's work is libel, no?

I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but if I were this guy, I'd be consulting with one. (I suppose his argument could be "the statements aren't false - I read the books and gave my honest opinions" which we know is BS but it might be good enough. However, I think that signing a fake name makes the statements, in this case, de facto false to some degree because it looks like they're coming from Joe Blow Consumer, but I guess this is why attorneys make a lot of money.)

Then about half the commenters on Yelp are about to be hauled into court.

It's stupid. It's annoying. It's misleading. For him I'm sure it's mortifying. Anything more? Nah. But then I think I'm more of a fan of technology and social media than you.

This story by Christina Ng on ABC News says it all.

The author should do prison time for this.

On what grounds?

I love living in Columbia Heights. On one side of my apartment: suburbia. It's ugly and always mobbed and I'm glad I don't live in the middle of it, but I have to admit that it's nice to live in walking distance from a Target (and Bed, Bath and Beyond, D'Vines, Pete's...). And on the other side, the blossoming 11th Street scene. New restaurants popping up left and right, all independently owned, all quality, all "adult," and all diverse. El Chucho is another one of these great additions.

My evening didn't start out perfectly. I walked in just after the rain had stopped and said I was meeting a friend for dinner--was there space on the roof? She said she'd head up to check, having had to evacuate for the rain. I waited in the tiny entryway for about five minutes, when she came down and said yes. Is the rest of your party here? Uh, no. Well, you'll need to wait. Have a seat at the bar. The last seat at the bar was taken when I was waiting. Oh well...

So there I stood, five more minutes, the seats on the outdoor side of the bar hadn't been wiped yet. Finally a pair got up and I got to sit, and the night began to improve. The waiter immediately swooped in with a water and asked if I wanted something stronger as well. "Oh, yes, please." At which point he grabbed a menu and said to the hostess, "The lady would like a beverage; let's help her out, huh?" (I hesitate to mention this because I don't want to blame the hostess--the place is new and kinks are to be expected--but it made an impression on me because it showed that the waiter clearly wanted me served and happy, despite being incomplete [you know, as a party].) It was busy, but he spent more time than necessary eliciting menu questions and recommending items. Nice.

My mood brightened further with the delivery of a margarita (clasico, I think) with chile-lime salt, which gave it an awesome kick.

Companion arrived, brimming with apologies--caught with no umbrella, she waited out the deluge under an overhang. I got brought the check in a hot minute and we were immediately seated upstairs. I do really like their roofdeck, but it's small and the tables are really close; the servers even have to scoot through aisles almost sideways.

We started with the chips (terrific) and salsa (very good and surprisingly spicy--house salsa is usually on the mild side) and the huaraches. I'd never had these before, but I'll be having them again. Fried corn dough, crisp and not greasy on the outside, soft on the inside, served with crema and a nice mole. At this point I'd also downed a delicious El Diablo, so when the pork tacos came, I snarfed mine so quickly that I remember no details except YUM. The chicken taco wasn't as great a success. When you got a bite with a mix of toppings, meat, and tortilla, it worked perfectly. But on its own, the chicken is tasty and smoky, but terribly dry. Incidentally, I'm one of those poor souls who generally thinks she doesn't like corn tortillas until I run across the rare great one. El Chucho has the rare great ones.

So I'll be back. I'll be there early or with my complete party, either sitting at the bar or out front, but I'll be there.

Maple (2x)

El Chucho

Kangaroo Boxing Club (3x)

Meridian Pint

Mintwood Place

Ceiba

The Hamilton

I am a bad Rockwellian. I promise to do some write-ups soon.

John C. Flood has done really good work in my lemon of a building, from fixing the gas leaks and water leaks to servicing A/C. I'm not sure how their prices compare, but the service on numerous visits has been excellent (one grumpy A/C guy notwithstanding).

I went by Mediterranean Bakery this evening and they do indeed have halloumi, at least two different brands (I remember Christis). Each sells for $10.99/lb it looked like. There might have been a brandless (bulk, perhaps) as well.

Also: Greek festivals. I got some delicious kasseri for cheap at the St. Sophia Greekfest last year.

It was shut down several months ago, after pressure from the brick-and-mortar restaurants around there. Before that, it was a weekend-only arrangement, so you would have been out of luck today in any case.

But it does apparently still exist, now in Columbia Heights.

I'm developing a theory that Pete's Apizza is way better eaten at the store than as take-out. The couple times we have had it as take-out the crust has been flabby and overall a disappointing pie. Whenever we eat at the store it is crispy and delicious. I think the sitting around and then re-heating in the pizza oven actually helps their pizza. Or their pizza doesn't travel well. Anyway, I will be a "dine-in only" customer from now on.

I agree--and it's the same with delivery. But I don't really like their dining room much and I only live a couple of blocks away, so my fix is to order it to-go, but not heated. Then I crisp it in a skillet when I get home or whenever. I know it's an extra step and somewhat of a pain when you want something fast, but I think it's well worth it.

I've only been once, but I think this place is a welcome addition to the retail cluster in Columbia Heights. Chipotle is okay, but not nearly decent enough to put up with its constant, awful lines.

I had the salad bowl with braised lamb. The meat was plentiful, and had a discernibly lamby flavor. It's quite tasty, but not the best choice for a salad--a bit heavy. The eggplant and red pepper dip is a little disappointingly bland, but the crazy feta is fantastic. Like, I'll-be-picking-some-up-to-serve-at-my-next-party-because-try-as-I-might-I-can't-replicate-it-at-home fantastic.

Cheers to them too for having an interactive nutrition calculator on their website. If I'm going to eat take-out from a place with any regularity, I need to know what I'm getting myself into.

To Julia Child on her 100th.

The All You Can Eat blog today has this awesome note:

When you visit

Julia’s kitchen at the National Museum of American History, you’ll notice that Child loved to label and write directions for just about anything that couldn’t get up and move on its own. Why? Because many hands worked in that space, helping to produce three cooking series on television as well as countless dinners for charitable causes. When Post photographer Michael Williamson was on assignment last week, shooting the kitchen, he used a long lens to help decipher the many rows of plastic labels stripped beneath the garbage disposal switch; otherwise, they’re too small to see from the existing vantage points of the exhibit. They are fine examples of Child’s thoroughness and sense of humor. To wit:

DISPOSAL

1. Remove sink stopper

2. Run cold water in sink

3. Start machine

4. Push food in gradually with brush

No grease . . . no fats

No artichoke L’s

No husks

Beware Onion Skins

A link would have been appreciated by we people who don't watch television.

What do you mean? The video is embedded in my post.

I hadn't realized the new season of Top Chef Masters was airing until last week, but it's officially become my favorite incarnation of the brand. Bravo is doing all it can to exploit a few little tiffs, but the collegiality, respect, and cooperation among the chefs make it infinitely more pleasurable to watch than the original, which is being increasingly cast as a pugilistic reality-show soap opera.

The first three episodes are available On Demand if you want to catch up.

Despite the fact that I hate the product, I have a new-found respect for Ragu. This has to be one of the most bizarre ads I've seen air on TV. I kind of love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWD0wUmO8jk

I for one would like to see the ultimate Google Map: the DR dining guide so I can stop having to use Yelp when I'm in a neighborhood and trying to decide where to eat.