The Doctor

Happy Birthday to Leleboo! As your present, I'm going to finally find out how to pronounce your screen name.

The earliest date this board allows for birthdays appears to be 1911. As someone who works on behalf of older people, I have to say that's ageist!

Has anyone been to the Bon Ton Cafe recently? I'm headed to NO for work this week and it's likely a small group of us will go. The online reviews seem mixed. The location was chosen primarily because of their mention on the Food Network for the crabmeat au gratin.

The bread basket with the mango butter is almost worth the trip alone. The ribs and ceviches are great, too. I would recommend avoiding the chicharrones.

Not prepared enough apparently -- I decided to scope the place out around 6:30. The line was at least 100 long, and one of their reps came out to about the halfway point and said they only had enough lobster left for that many people. The Takorean truck was just putting up a "sold out" sign, and an empty Sweetbites truck was driving off the premises.

Yes, if someone goes tonight, please report back. I was thinking of stopping in tomorrow, but I wonder how they plan to sustain their operation for so long a time when they're usually out for only a few hours a day.

Thanks for sharing the update. The information is good to have when telling newcomers what to expect. Looking forward to trying the prime rib. (Which can be ordered in the lounge when the a la carte menu is available, right?)

It sounds like the lounge menu is being transformed into that of East River. Are the creamed spinach and mashed potatoes being swapped out for other sides? I can understand there being a charge if that's the case. The most startling news is the removal of the dessert from the bistro special. Is the price the same?

They're opening October 1st. From the 1st to the 7th, the menu will be offered at 50% off. From the 8th to the 13th, the menu will be 25% off. They're taking phone reservations now at (202) 408-1600, and online reservations are supposed to start Saturday. I would imagine spots for the first week especially will go fast.

They made their Franklin Sqaure debut today. I didn't get any food, because THE LINE WAS 79 PEOPLE DEEP.

Brabo has made certificates available on restaurant.com. They're offering $25 certificates for $10, but the site is running an 80 percent off sale right now. Enter the code "SHARE" when you check out. I just snagged a $25 certificate for $2. The restrictions are that it must be used Sun-Thurs, two entrees must be purchased, and a 20 percent gratuity will be added pre-discount. Link.

The new lobster truck also has whoopie pies. I haven't tried them, but a few people have told me they prefer Eat Wonky's version. The two pictures I posted above seem to be popular downloads, so below are shots I took of the wonky dog and the wonky fries.

I've attached their menu and a picture of the grilled cheese. Here's a review with pictures of more menu items. The wonky dog is actually only $6 and the wonky fries (aka poutine) are served right on top. When the menu says it's a jumbo dog, they ain't kidding. It's easily the largest hot dog I've ever seen. And by itself, the cost is only $3. The whoopie pies are also delicious. The hazelnut-nutella flavor seems to have a lot more filling than the other two types.

I just saw this post from the Ontario thread and it mentions another Niagara Falls, NY, institution, DiCamillo's Bakery. The pizza bread is tasty.

OK, As said above, there are some decent spots in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I'm not too familiar with them, so I'll let others chime in there. However, when you cross the border in the U.S., there are a couple more interesting places worth checking out -- places that serve regionally exclusive items, as opposed to food that's well prepared but could be found elsehere. The only unique place in Niagara Falls, NY, that I think worth is mentioning (save for maybe DiCamillo's below) is Viola's Submarine House. They have one small outpost elsewhere in the city, but the Military Road location is where you need to go. If driving from the Canadian border to Pittsburgh, you'll pass fairly close to it. Their specialty is the steak and cheese. You could also go away happy with any of the steak combos such as steak & sausage, steak & chicken finger (aka "the stinger"), or steak & capicola. (Here's a story, with pictures, about a guy who liked them so much that his family had the staff flown to Hawaii for a special occasion.) In going from Niagara Falls to Pittsburgh, you also pass through or close to Buffalo. (Buffalo/Niagara Falls is one big metropolitan area.) The two most famous food items in those parts are chicken wings and beef on weck sandwiches. For beef on weck, Charlie the Butcher's is the best all-around choice. They're on Wehrle Drive by the aiport. For chicken wings, the two big contenders in this area are the Anchor Bar and Duff's. (They recently went head to head on the TV show "Food Wars." Duff's won, but the Anchor Bar originated them.) For Duff's, you need to hit the Sheridan Drive location, the original. I'd probably agree that Duff's wings (and bleu cheese) are better than Anchor Bar, but Duff's tends to oversauce their wings, leaving them soggy by the end of your meal. You can request that they go easy on the sauce. Anchor Bar, even if it's second place, is still fantastic, although they've gone through major expansion -- losing some of the original ambience. They're in downtown Buffalo. p.s. Also notable for the sake of completeness: Pizza Junction, in the suburb of North Tonawanda, is a spot that was featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." You can get decent (but possibly bigger than necessary) wings and beef on weck here, but lately I've been impressed by their amazingly delicious beef on weck pizza. Gabriel's Gate, in downtown Buffalo, is worth mentioning because they have excellent renditions of both wings and weck. (Most places do one better than the other, but Gabriel's gets high marks for each.)

The Safeway located at 20th and S Streets NW has closed. I think some may have referred to this as the Secret Safeway or the Townhouse Safeway, although I preferred to call it the Rogue Safeway because it didn't participate in any club card specials. It was also pricier than the other locations.

I went for Chaps, and was glad I did. Fries were good, and all degrees of doneness were available with the beef.

Disclosure: This was my first pit beef experience. I really liked the food that Chaps put out. The beef tasted authentic and you could order it done any way you wanted, from rare to well done. I chose medium and topped it with some pepper, onions, tiger sauce, and pickles. My friend had the beef and sausage and was also pleased. I got scared about the poor fry reviews above, but wanted to give them a chance anyways. I ordered them with cheese because I thought that might make them salvageable if they were bad. In the end, they didn't need saving. They were soft, but in a good way -- they reminded me a lot of Five Guys' fries. (Both are cooked in peanut oil.)

OK, I think I'm headed for my first ever pit beef experience tomorrow. I've narrowed down the choices to Canopy, Chaps, and Pioneer. (I may not attempt pioneer due to their limited hours.) The picture from Chaps above looks like the more delicious sandwich. Yet Don himself gave a pretty strong endorsement for Canopy in the link above. Thoughts?

If anyone knows, does the buffet presentation differ from the one at Mayur? At that location, the food is behind a glass case where an employee scoops the food based on your direction. Once that part of the process is done, you a free to top yourself off with the tandoori chicken. You get a substantial amount of food. Was the chicken curry on the buffet boneless? That would probably be my #1 complaint about Mayur -- even though they're cut up into nearly bite size pieces, there are a lot of bones in the chicken.

Their takeout menu says they'll be opening soon in the old McDonald's space in Cleveland Park. Looks like it was announced about a month ago: click. Edited to add more comprehensive report from the Post.

Here are pictures of the aforementioned $5 appetizers. From left to right: crab beignets with yellow corn, scallions, and remoulade; brandade stuffed piquillo peppers; falafel with pickled red onions and tahini; crispy seafood rolls with green curry aioli; and duck meatballs with anson mills polenta. The selection of the $1 oysters seems to rotate daily. Those in the photo are Wellfleets from Massachusetts and Alpines from Prince Edward Island. Discounted drinks are also available, including a rotating $5 choice from their selection of house cocktails normally priced at $12. The hours of the special pricing seem to vary by menu item, but most of the stuff is available until 8 p.m. — a huge plus in my book. You can find the menus here: http://www.urbanadc.com/menus/index.html

This is my new favorite Indian restaurant in the DC area.* On a recent visit, the Awadhi Dum ke Murg (speciality from Avadh - chicken cooked in rich brown cashew nut and saffron gravy) and Murgh Makhani (charbroiled chicken in tomato cream sauce) were outstanding. I'm on a neverending quest to find the world's best murgh makhani (aka butter chicken) and this version is definitely a contender. Masala Art also impresses me with their option to order side dish-sized portions of the vegetarian entrees for $5. The Baingan Bharta (tandoor roasted eggplant, mashed and tempered with onion, tomato, and cilantro) is the milder of their two eggplant offerings and was a nice way to offset the creaminess of the two chicken dishes. One question: If the chef from Heritage India is now at Masala Art, should I bother checking out the former? I've never been to the Glover Park location. *Passage to India and Rasika are very close to the top of my list, too, but neither kept me constantly thinking about them for weeks after my first visit in the way that Masala Art did.

I picked up some takeout from here tonight for the first time. The curry laksa was decent and I'd get it again. The kung pao chicken, however, was extremely disappointing. It wasn't inedible or anything, but it reminded me so much of something I might have put together back in my grad school days -- when I'd throw sliced chicken and vegetables in a frying pan and add some store-bought bottled sauce. Banana Leaves will get one more chance to make it into my regular rotation.

Keeping in mind that there are no such things as stupid questions, only stupid people who ask the questions: How is "Ris" pronounced? Thank you.