JeffC

I voted for Oct. 7th (Sunday), but I can come to any of them. My wife, who really wants to come, is not available on 9/30 or 10/2. I like Sunday because it precludes the possibility of last-minute work glitches.

I implied nothing of the kind, other than that it has a very high butterfat content. I like it....and eat it frequently. If you do a search on Moorenko's, you'll find that I've praised it from the time they opened in Silver Spring.

Yep, butterfat city. But delicious, with some unusual flavors. I highly recommend the ginger--if they still have it--as well as the blueberry. For a lighter ice cream, York Castle (Tropical) near Georgia and 16th is hard to beat.

The 23rd and 25th work for Geri and me. She's out of town on the 30th, but if that's the date that works for most, I can still come.

Major artery clogger, but oh so good! And the original at the Brown is the best. (I'm from Kentucky and have eaten hundreds of hot browns.) Great shot. Thanks.

Sudhir, Geri and I are in! (I'll be out of town from 10/17-10/30, so here's hoping that the event is not scheduled during that time frame.)

Sudhir Seth, owner/chef at my favorite Indian restaurant (Passage to India), once told me that he won't do a lunch buffet because he will only offer his customers his best. Food that has been sitting on a steam table for an hour or two, sometime including yesterday's leftovers, will never reflect the best a restaurant can serve. I eat plenty of Indian buffets, including some very good ones--Haandi, Woodlands, sometime Udupi Palace--but none of them offer what comes when you order off the menu. Haandi in particular comes to mind. Their murg makhani (butter chicken) is exceptional when ordered a la carte, but it is merely OK from the buffet.

I think it's sometimes a matter of the moment. Who spiced the curry, etc. I've had vindaloos at Haandi--Bethesda, not Falls Church--that were hot, but nowhere near what landed on my plate at Heritage India that night. But I've had murg makhani at Haandi--I always ask HOT, so they send it out with a couple of conspicuous peppers in the gravy just to let me know they honored my request--that makes me sweat. I've generally found that if I want serious heat at Haandi, I have to ask for it. Rocks, I swear what happened to you sounds like an anomaly. Did you tell Haandi what happened?

The lamb vindaloo at Heritage India--or at least the one I had four or five years ago--remains the hottest thing I've ever consumed. I love hot food, the hotter the better. But this was another dimension of hot, much like the vindaloo Rocks describes from Haandi. It was delicious--I could tell, because there was a nanosecond of rich goodness before the explosive heat overwhelmed the flavor--so I somehow managed to wrestle the beast to the mat and defeat it, but omigod it was painful. The raita was the only reason I walked out alive that night.....

Heinz Organic for me. I've also done the side-by-side and the difference is just as MsDiPesto described. But if I'm putting something on a hot dog or hamburger, nothing beats Gulden's Spicy Brown. Heaven....

The smell of hard boiled eggs--and sometimes egg salad--remind me of flatulence. So much so that when a woman who has a taste for them at work opens up one of her eggs, my first thought is that someone cut the cheese. To her credit, she tries hard to have her eggs when I'm out of the office. I also like my bananas green. If I see any brown, I won't eat them. Fried plantains, OTOH, are an addiction. Go figger... Eggplant...I used to like it, but I got violently ill after eating eggplant once in South Asia. Never again. Organ meats, including various intestines, gizzards, etc. Again, a friend in India once made me an elaborate curry which I attacked heartily, but was brought up short by the soft crunch of the first bite. Curried goat brains! I struggled through the rest of it--didn't want to offend my host--but it was about the most painful meal of my life. My mom used to love chicken livers, but I was never required to eat any kind of liver. Tongue. I hear it's good, but the idea of it doesn't work for me. Soft-shelled crabs. I've tried, but that's another one that grosses me out. Hot-house tomatoes. If they aren't heirloom, I'm pretty much not interested, except in salsas and sauces. And my number one food phobia.....soggy bread! How I would love to know what a great bowl of French onion soup tastes like. But the soggy bread is like having to conquer a pit bull to get to the treasure.

I saw that the other day, as well. I wondered if the work got a little ahead of the permitting process.

Good idea to update.... Lunch: La Bamba Mandalay Woomi Garden buffet Samantha's Woodlands Pho 75 La Limena Chick-fil-A--I'm addicted to the basic sandwich! Dinner: Dino Mia's Pizza Passage to India Samantha's Would like to have in regular rotation but too far away: American Flatbread

A friend of mine roasts his own--using Sweet Maria's beans--but he can only do it on the outside porch, as his wife won't let him do it inside. I watched him roast a batch and there was surprised by the amount of smoke and odor generated. But it's fascinating to watch--you have to listen for the "first crack" and "second crack", then get the timing right as to when to stop. He gave me some of the beans he roasted and the coffee was first rate, better than anything I've bought locally.

Check out Coffee Review, a website that reviews coffees from many online retailers. One of my favorites is Paradise Roasters, one of many linked on the Coffee Review site. I recently ordered two 14-ounce bags of Ethiopia Biloya Special, a coffee that received the highest rating that Coffee Review has given. Coffee Review rates coffee in much the same way that Parker rates wines, on a 100-point scale. I've also ordered coffees from Intelligensia, Counterculture Coffees (where Murky Coffee gets their beans), and Willoughbys Coffees and Teas. All good and well worth the effort.

Based on the reviews above, my wife and I made the trek from Silver Spring to Ashburn. It's late, so this will be brief. It was worth the drive, even with the eight bucks it cost to drive the Dulles/Greenway toll roads. The pizza is a special as advertised--we had a "split" pizza, my half being the sausage, hers the basic three cheese with organic tomato sauce. Both sides were delicious, but I particularly liked the sweet flavor of the sausage with the just enough mushrooms,carmelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes. Geri likes her pizzas simple--wherever we go, she always gets the basic tomato/cheese pizza--and she loved her half. We shared the salad special, the greens with basil/lemon vinagrette. I'll break the tie on the two above reviews and give the salad a big thumbs up. Delicious, especially the dressing. Tonight was a perfect top-down night for the roadster, so the drive out was a pleasure. How often we'll feel like making the drive remains to be seen, but the pizza is so good that it'll be hard to stay away.

Thanks, all. A little late on this, but I hadn't noticed the thread 'til now. My wife and I enjoyed a terrific b'day dinner at Dino, in the cabable hands of "B", our bartender/waitperson for the night.

It's on the east side of Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring, between Silver Spring Ave. and Thayer Ave. It's next to the old Half Moon Bar-b-que (soon to be Olazzo, like the one in Bethesda.).

My co-worker and I dropped in for lunch and, being in a hurry, ordered from the lunch specials. She had #9, coconut milk-based green curry (chicken) with eggplant. She loves this dish, to the degree that the waitress looked at her and said, "Number nine"? I had the red curry equivalent, chicken in a red curry with red and green peppers. I believe it's #8. It's a little sweeter than the green and seemed to be a little more fiery. Both choices were absolutely delicious, so much so that I found myself eating the left over red gravy as if was soup. We both chose the spring roll as the side. At $6.95, it's one of the best deals in town.

Joe, I ate at Flo's last night. It was as I remembered it--funky, friendly, and the food was decent. I had fried green tomatos--yum--some good hush puppies with honey butter, and blackened catch of the day. The hush puppies were addictive, but I've always been a sucker for those little fried calorie balls, and the fish was pretty good. But I had a table on the porch that overlooks the marsh and spent some time just drinking in the atmosphere....and not a few beers.

I go for the lunch buffet from time to time. Since buffets are never a good measure of what you can get from the menu, I'll not comment on any of it EXCEPT the fried chicken--yes, friend chicken, on an Indian buffet! That chicken is magic, some of the best I've had. I usually end up eating a dollop of this, a dollop of that, and making two or three extra trips to the buffet for more chicken.

The choices are limited, but Kirsten's Cafe--across the street from Woodside--is my breakfast choice in SS. The omeletes are good, the prices are reasonable, and they have REAL maple syrup.

Where'd ya get the Blenheim? Is it sold locally, or do you have to order it? (For those who don't know, Blenheim is, IMO, the world's finest Ginger Ale, made and bottled in Blenheim, SC.)

I have eaten lunch there several times. While not on the level of Ruan Thai, some of the dishes are quite good. And the lunch deals are a steal! You get all you can eat for $7.25. The selection includes tofu-based veg dishes, green curries, red curries, various traditional beef dishes, spring rolls, etc. I think the selection varies each day, with a few staples--the curries--available every day. It's not self-serve, so you really have to stay on top of the guy who serves it to keep the portions managable. I invariably end up with too much food, and have never failed to eat all of it. Most of the dishes are well-spiced, and a few are even fiery. I'm in Silver Spring a couple days a week around lunch time and it's part of the rotation--Mandalay, La Bamba, Pinto Thai, and Negril. (I like the cheap eats.) Pinto Thai is even more spartan than Ruan Thai--just a few tables, mostly bare walls, and steam tables in the back where you order and pick up your food. Go ahead and try it. You'll surely find something you like.

Well, Chef Clark, I hope you read the part about some of us being VERY excited about your new venture. Our house was built about the same time, so I'm guessing the original builder got his mail and goods at your restaurant-to-be. Our house was originally a farm house in the middle of nowhere and is still surrounded by a hardwood forest.. We love the neighborhood and hope to be here for a long time.....and hope you will be, as well. This is a pretty long thread about a restaurant-yet-to-open, so I think you'll be very happy to see what happens when you finally open your doors. You've chosen a prime location, in a neighborhood starved--literally--for a good local place to go for a drink and something good to eat. And that development at the old Academy is going to bring a huge number of people to our once quiet little burg. You can believe that people are truly excited about your new venture...