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dwt

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Everything posted by dwt

  1. yes, it's expensive. but every place i dine out now has gotten markedly more dear. lunch today at the Penn Quarter location. do yourself a favor and order the Calamares en su tinta.
  2. Yesterday, when the Nationals chances of winning their game went under water, I walked over the TSL. I've been meaning to try this restaurant ever since it opened but this was my first visit. I sat at the outside bar (glorious weather). Had a few well-shucked but otherwise unremarkable oysters. I ordered the broiled cod with roasted potatoes, spinach, and garlic butter sauce. At first the bartender said that wasn't available (only lunch fare that time of day) but he checked with the chef and was able to put in the order. I was grateful because the fish was wonderful, fresh tasting, and translucent in the middle. The spinach and lightly flavored sauce complimented it nicely. I'm hoping for a return visit soon.
  3. enjoyed several business lunches and happy hours there. food and service always solid. sad to see it go.
  4. Back in November (sorry for not posting sooner) we had a nice lunch at nalusurfbar.com. I was pleasantly surprised. I think all in our party of 5 ordered tacos, so we didn't go deep into the menu, but everyone was pleased with their meal. Choice of beers on tap was limited but good (of course they had one or two Dogfish brews) and the cocktail list was decent. We also dined at the Dogfish restaurant that week and the food there is fine for what it is, but if I had to choose between the two, I think I would opt for Nalu.
  5. happy birthday, mark. glad you got to enjoy la chaumiere, one of my all time favorites.

    1. Mark Slater

      Mark Slater

      Thanks. After a year of lockdown, it was fun. 

  6. Lavandou -- excellent frites and creme brulee. I don't recall tartiflette being on the menu, but it's possible.
  7. I was a semi-regular at the Dupont location. I remember, first and foremost, Sam, the bartender. He was smart, funny, and chatting with him was so much fun. I believe he was employed at the last incarnation in Adams Morgan. I never met Ann but Sam introduced me to Johnny one night and my impression was of a warm-hearted, intelligent person who enjoyed running the business. The food was consistently good: the oyster program, mussels in red sauce, grilled rockfish, and those crab cakes. Yes, they were the size of sea scallops and expensive, but I don't think I've had a better crab cake anywhere. Remember the aquarium behind the bar? It's silly, but I'm still tickled by the beer taps underneath the tank. Other than a single visit for lunch at the Capital Hill location, it's been a long time since I patronized Johnny's. Nevertheless I'm still sad that it's gone.
  8. Why not use our local wholesaler/now retailer too: ProFish.com. They have king and snow crab legs. And they recently added stone crab claws.
  9. Alas, another fail. No, not pizza this time. I made meatballs in tomato sauce and they were dry. I'm not willing to do a forensic analysis by digging through the garbage can to find the ground beef label, but I'm fairly certain that I pulled a leaner pack of ground beef from the store than I'd intended. After all, the 80% lean is right next to the 90%+ in the refrigerator case at our local WF. Next time, double check. At least my two dining companions were kind enough to pronounce them good.
  10. Hey, tell him to keep it going. I've grilled outside with snow on the ground -- manly, eh? Granted it was the gas grill, not charcoal. Halibut was on sale at WF so that's what we had last night, sautéed with lemon/caper/butter sauce. Sides were buttered orzo and fresh green beans. The fish and orzo were fine but the beans were not so good -- fatter, tougher, and not as sweet as they have been lately. I guess the peak season has passed.
  11. My experience is the opposite. Ever since I watched a Jacques Pepin video in which he demonstrates making leek and potato soup, I've been comfortable dealing with leeks (just search his name and "leeks" on google or youtube -- there is a treasure trove of excellent JP videos in cyber space). As saf said, dealing with the fennel core is a pain. Last night was "Stracotto alla Fiorentina." I've made this simple Italian pot roast many times over the years. It's a homey, comforting dish that even I can't get wrong . The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Pino Luongo's "A Tuscan in the Kitchen." I always think of it as a cookbook that treats you like an adult -- no measurements, just a list of ingredients along with cooking instructions. To go with the stracotto I prepared fresh fettuccine with butter and parsley, and Swiss chard sautéed with oil and vinegar.
  12. saf, that's one awesome post and thanks for the pointer to the lasagne recipe -- it sounds really good. Pat, I love fennel but find it hard to cut up (dice or slice). Do you, or anyone else who wishes to chime in, have a technique you can recommend? Or do you just struggle through like me because it's worth it?
  13. Thanks, reedm and KeithA for chiming in. It was lonely out there on pizza dough island. I will definitely look into your recommendations. I did have success, once again, with Anthony Bordain's roast chicken from his Les Halles cookbook. Even I can't mess that one up 😁. That was our Sunday comfort-food dinner and we'll have it reheated tonight. Last night was mediocre Chinese takeout.
  14. Last night: YAPDF. No, not yet-another-digital-document format, but yet-another-pizza-dough fail. My learning curve is, at best, flat. Last time I incorporated too much flour. This time the dough wasn't pliant and I was unable to stretch it to the requisite 12" per pie. I need a pizza dough diagnostic diagram to figure out what went wrong. If you're of a certain age and into cars, something like spark plug reading guidelines -- if it's black, the carbs are too rich; if it's white, too lean🤔
  15. Last night was a simply grilled steak with fresh green beans (they've been so good lately) and left-over spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce from last Sunday's grilled Italian sausages and pasta meal. I used our newish Napoleon gas grill, which produced a nice char (I think our Weber kettle is on the way out, needing replacement. I'm trying to gin up the courage to fork over $$$ for a BGE or equivalent). The steak was a "Delmonico" which I just learned via Wikipedia is ambiguous in the realm of beef cuts. I looked it up because it dawned on me after all these years (slow learner) that the only place I've encountered it is Snider's in Silver Spring.
  16. The food was good and comforting. But I will mostly miss Sergio, his family members and crew. They made us feel so welcome. And I loved how they fawned over my wife and daughter, calling them "bella."
  17. Saturday was tacos with leftover carne asada. I had grilled double the usual amount of skirt steak earlier in the week and was happy with how good it was the 2nd time around. I made guac from scratch but settled for salsa rosa from a jar (Green Mountain Gringo is quite decent. It was the winner in a WaPo taste test earlier this year). Sunday was crab cake sandwiches, with Maryland crab from a recent ProFish order, and fresh steamed green beans on the side.
  18. We had takeout Chinese 2 nights ago, so last night I used the leftover rice to make fried rice. Along side was steamed broccoli florets and sautéed cod fillets with garlic, ginger, lemon and butter.
  19. Running out of ideas? That happened a long time ago. I even got push-back yesterday from my favorite person who complained about the "regular rotation" so to speak. I can't blame her. I'm also getting tired of cooking the same things. And I'm surprised that you, Pat, expressed this sentiment. I'm often jealous of the variety of dishes in just one of your meals (those turkey wings sound good). What I need to do is retire and spend some time with the many cookbooks we have. There are several from which I've made only one recipe. And I've got a stack that I've hardly touched, ready for contribution to the MoCo Library book store. Last night was spaghetti with wild-caught shrimp, garlic, rosemary, and grape tomatoes. I peeled the shrimp and boiled the shells in a little water with bay leaves and added the reduced broth into the mix. Not bad but not really good either. I didn't think the flavors balanced out well. It was funkier, if you know what I mean, than I'd expected, probably because the tomatoes didn't add enough acid. Steamed petite green peas were the side.
  20. Charcoal-grilled burgers last tonight, on brioche buns from WF. I was going to make a small salad with grape tomatoes but when I opened the box of arugula I'd just purchased Thursday I found quit a bit of it going bad😒, so green beans again. The burgers were a rare treat because we don't eat much red meat.
  21. The photo of the dish on that page is enough to motivate me want to make it. Last night was mediocre take-out sushi -- better than no sushi?🤔 Tonight I was planning to grill hamburgers but then the storms starting rolling through our 'hood just before dinner time. Fortunately, halibut was on sale at whole-paycheck and I scored two nice loin pieces which I prepared with a sauce Grenobloise (ok, lemon-caper-butter sauce -- I don't have many opportunities to use my high school French). Leftover linguini with scallop sauce and steamed fresh green beans rounded out the meal.
  22. I've been reading yet another Andrea Camilleri inspector Montalbano novel which led to a craving for pasta with seafood. So last night was linguine with scallops, red pepper flakes, garlic, Italian parsley and lemon juice. Not bad, but I should have added some lemon zest into the mix, which would have better balanced the flavors. The vegetable was a melange of asparagus, sautéed creminis, and grape tomatoes.
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