dinoue

"Mintwood Place Has a New Chef: Citronelle Alum Jordan Lloyd" by Anna Spiegel on washingtonian.com

2 hours ago, DPop said:

My wife and I went the other night and we fell on the side of being unimpressed by the experience.  

We started with an order of the Gyoza, which tends to be a hard dish to screw up in my experience, but somehow Bantam King missed big time.  The gyoza were soft and a bit mushy in my chopsticks, which surprised me as I'm used to these having a bit harder shell due to the pan frying prior to service.  These desperately needed that crunch, they were very one-note with regards to both texture and flavor.  The chili oil/butter swimming pool that they rested in did not work at all for me either, I don't know if the oil had somehow gone bad, but the flavor was simultaneously greasy and acrid. 4 gyoza came in this order, and 2 were left on the plate.

Sui gyoza is a different style from pan fried gyoza. They are boiled. Sui means water.

On 1/10/2017 at 2:56 PM, DonRocks said:

China Chilcano - not "pure sushi," but should fit the bill. Of the ones you've listed, Sei was your best bet, but it's not what it was when it first opened.

I don't think China Chilcano is any more deviant from "pure" sushi than most other sushi places in the US. I had the spicy tuna roll when there for lunch once and I think they have regular nigiri as well. The only places I would say do "pure" sushi in DC are Taro and Ogawa/Sushi Capitol. Haven't been to Makoto in too long to know about them, but they were also very traditional.

20 hours ago, fuzzy510 said:

$25 for a plate of chicken and waffles?!?!?!

Curious if that's for a whole or half chicken. Totally puts in perspective the $56 whole chicken at Kinship if you get half a chicken fried at a place that is not putting in nearly the technique and effort that Kinship is doing and charging roughly the same amount. The smokehouse chicken is listed as a half for $24. I have not yet actually gotten the chicken at Kinship, but commenting based on the raves of everyone who has.

14 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

If you make some weird fusion food, it could justify a higher price and people will eat it up.

But won ton noodle soup is an actual Chinese soup, just not a true straight up won ton soup as he seems to peddling it. Also common in Japanese ramen as wantan men.

I think the problem here is summed up in another article  I read online about the outrage over Rob Schneider, yes, the actor, posting a picture of the "paella" he was making for dinner. The article mentions Jamie Oliver posting a recipe for paella which was considered significantly inauthentic, as are many recipes posted in English for paella. Key is the responsibility of chefs, particularly non-ethnic ones representing another ethnicity's food to do it correctly. If they are goingt o change things, don't call it the original, note that it is fusion or altered. What Drewno needs to do is call his soup wonton noodle soup, not straight wonton soup, and it seems it is more a Japanese stlye wantanmen than Chinese wonton soup with noodles. Nothing wrong with that, but needs to be clear, otherwise he is misleading those not as knowledgeable into thinking he is selling what should be thought of as "authentic" won ton soup, which it clearly is not.

Now, as for whether I would be willing to pay $16 for a bowl of soup, see my previous discussion about Momofuku ramen.

dcandohio, I'm sure you can appreciate this. Back in college we were in FL for spring break with a friend who lived down there. On our way out, after having made a detour to see his GF one last time, we were driving down a pretty major street, probably 50mph when I spotted a Skyline chili in a strip mall. Went from 50 to a right turn into the mall parking faster than a Subaru station wagon should be able to. Anyway, that was a great chance to have Skyline before going back home in the summer at the end of the school year. Was never happier to have had to make a detour before making a long drive home.

If the Momofuku FC is on the table, how about Kinship's roast chicken, just get two of them? Maybe add a whole roasted foie gras?

On 12/6/2016 at 9:01 AM, Simul Parikh said:

Anyone try the newer home models? Joule seems to be getting good reviews.

I have the Anova, got it about a year and half ago. I find that what I use it most often for is when I decide I want steak for dinner, but haven't defrosted one. I can put it a couple steaks form the freezer in a gallon ziploc with some garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper and thaw it out straight to medium rare doneness before throwing on the grill or pan fry for nice crust on the outside. Its as simple as you can get with a rotary wheel to set temperature and that's it. I haven't used the app yet. I like the smallness of the Joule, but having to get the phone out to operate it seems unnecessarily complicated for something that shouldn't be.

21 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

I'm a jackass and I'm okay.  

I sleep all night and I bray all day.

Actually you were right. As Don notes, Chinese is often unnecessarily complicated. The tea does use the characters that literally mean Big Red Robe, or at least according to Wikipedia, so it does mean big red robe, but also refers to the tea in this context.

I was fortunate that mom was paying for the food so I can't comment on prices, and with dim sum, never even opened a menu. 

All meanings could be correct depending on tones. Always thought the red envelopes were hong bao with a b, but could be mistaken. My kids Mandarin after 3+ and1+ years at Yu Ying is already better than either my Cantonese or Mandarin ever was from college studies. Anyway, just put the characters in Google translate and assuming I transcribed correctly, it came up as big red robe.

Our son's favorite restaurant now, over Urban Butcher, chose to go here for his birthday dinner last month and again last night to celebrate his first concert performance in the DC youth orchestra. I cannot reiterate enough how great a deal the meat board here is for $16. Ours came with generous servings of fennel salami, andouille sausage, bresaola, pate, and a huge chunk of bleu cheese. 

They were out of brisket which forced me to venture outside my ordering comfort zone and try the philly cheese steak, which while definitely not going to win as an authentic philly cheese, which I was not expecting, it is definitely a delicious sandwich with good quality beef and a nice blend of onions and peppers and melted cheese to hold it all together on toasted bread.

Surprised no one has written up Da Hong Pao. Went for dim sum Saturday in short time we had between kid holiday season activities. Arrived right at 11:00 and there were about 8 tables open. Within about 20 minutes, every table seemed to be full ad 40 minutes, there was a sizable number of people waiting, though not as long as the lines at Oriental East in Silver Spring. 

The strength of Da Hong Pao is the variety. They have a lot of different things, rivaling some places in Chicago Chinatown, but not as  many as the more extensive NYC Chinatown places. Definitely more than any place else I have been to in DMV.

Had our usuals of siu mai, ha gao, yu choi, shrimp cheong fun, lo bak go, and stuffed tofu. The steamed dumplings were all well done. The lo bak go was disappointing in that it was stone cold. By the time it came, we had requested it, we were pretty full anyway, so we ate half and packed the rest to go, figuring we can microwave later. Stuffed tofu was interesting in that it was fried like Japanese agedashi tofu, with a crispy corn starch style crust. We also got fried shrimp balls which I enjoyed, but since the kids surprisingly did not like, I ate two and a half which get pretty heavy. 

Highlight for me was that they had the crispy roast pig. Got my week's animal fat intake, and am very happy for it.

Finished with egg custard tarts for dessert which are nice and light and come  as three small ones rather than two larger ones as most places seem to do. 

Service is generally pretty good and they are responsive with keeping tea filled. Carts that come around have mostly the steamed items, and the rest, you request using the pictures on the menus. My son liked the pictures so much he wanted to take it home. They were gracious enough to give him a clean one.

This is definitely above average for DC dim sum, and head and shoulders above the rest for variety.

On 12/9/2016 at 2:47 PM, Marty L. said:

They still have the Shio Chintan (or did a couple of weeks ago; it's just not on the menu . . . 

Had lunch/brunch today and the Sunday brunch menu has a kids ramen (waiter wasn't even aware there was such an item) which seems to be a shio chintan broth. Tasted the kids' soup and it was a good chicken soup taste. I had the shoyu chintan and drank every last bit of soup. Egg was perfect with a nice runny yolk. Sui gyoza were a little disappointing as they were not quite hot when they came out. Perhaps I am too accustomed to steamed dumplings at dim sum places which are still piping hot from the steam cart. 

Waiter also noted that although no longer on the menu, vegetarian is still available.

On 12/6/2016 at 3:53 PM, kitkatpaddywak said:

Skipping ahead of the line,and not reading all the previous reviews, how far are you willing to travel? And knowing , I may be the single voter for this establishment, it doesn't hurt to throw my hat into the ring. 

Maison in Lancaster, Pa warrants consideration. 

Ugh, I just realized I never did a review of Maison when we went there two summers ago. It was a great dinner, though going in didn't realize it was BYOB so had to run out to a wine shop around the block. We followed that meal up with ice cream at the food truck park down the street. Another good meal was John Jeffries and we did a couple breakfasts at the crepe place. Maison is very good, but don't think that it is enough destination dining to warrant a special trip just to eat there. It is a definite stop if in Lancaster.

Generally parking is available on Georgia Ave. It is metered right in front of the restaurant, though if you go a little north of the library it's considered neighborhood parking for 2 hours without Ward 4 parking permit. I can't imagine not being able to find street parking.

Went for my birthday a couple weeks ago, sorry about the delay in posting. Rather than get the kids their own a la carte dinners, we tried the omakase and had them split it, which turned out to be a good move, with some extra support from our gracious hosts. Starter dish of three appetizers included a small piece of fish which the kids loved. I ate half of mine and let them have the rest. They loved the crab shells for the crab appetizer. Fortunately for me, they didn't eat so much of theirs so I got to eat more, so long as they got to keep the shells, which were nicely cleaned by the kitchen for us to take home. We had discussed maybe getting some tempura for the kids, but decided not to, with the thought we could add it later if the kids did not eat enough of what was in the omakase. Can surprised us with complimentary tempura for the kids, which was a nice assortment of vegetables. The sushi came in two waves with a nice assortment of both common and not so common fish. Rice was really good, nicely vinegared and just the right balance of stickiness and also amount relative to fish. Dessert was done nicely with birthday candles for both my son and me, his birthday was also just a few days before mine, so this was actually a double celebration, though he elected to get salami for his birthday dinner a couple weeks earlier, though that decision was also made knowing he could get good sushi a couple weeks later. (I also made some sushi for the kids a couple weeks earlier too)

Can, and the rest of the staff were wonderful hosts, as always both here and at Sushi Capitol, which made this a great place to spend our special occasion. 

A new carryout place just opened in Shepherd Park. It's on GA Ave between Geranium and the library. They did a soft opening a couple weeks ago and we tried stopping in but chose the one night they closed to work out the kinks learned during the soft opening. We happen to have some friends who have done extensive traveling in Nepal and benefited from them getting some carry-out tonight and bringing it over for dinner, we live just a couple blocks away from the restaurant.

Our friend went in hoping to speak Nepalese with the owner and found that the owner is Pakistani, but was told all the other staff were Nepalese, though none were there at the time. They ordered pork, beef, chicken, and vegetarian dumplings, though for some reason, one of the chicken orders was switched to beef. Our guess was that they ran out of the pork as the dumplings are probably made ahead of time and reheated as ordered. They also got two orders of chicken curry which came with rice and chickpeas.

The dumplings were all good with nice seasoning, more than one gets from most Chinese dumplings. Even though a little spicy, as noted by the kids, they still loved them. The fillings are predominantly meat, without a lot of other filler. I personally, prefer a little more vegetable mixed in, and these were really filling. They provide three different dipping sauces, a spicy sauce, more traditional (so we were told by our friends) tamarind sauce, and then a light sesame dressing sauce. I used a mix of the spicy and tamarind sauces. Our friend's assessment was that the dumplings were authentically Nepalese style in taste and of average quality.

The curry and chickpeas was pretty much what you might get in any of the Indian restaurants around here. The rice though was a blend of rice and various other seasonings and additions, not plain white rice. It was flavorful enough to stand on its own.

Unfortunately, since we didn't pay for the food, I have no idea about the price. We will definitely be going back on our own as it's just a couple blocks away. Probably not something to make a special trip for, but if you're in Silver Spring and want to make a little detour for carry out, might be worth a try. It is definitely a nice addition to the area which seems to be oversaturated with Ethiopian restaurants and I think given the option of dumplings here or McDonalds across the street, my kids might actually go with the dumplings.

One warning if you are taking the food far, with the new regs on carryout containers they use a cardboard based carryout container that does not hold up to the curry at all. When we opened up the bags, the curry containers were close to total deterioration. The dumplings came in tin containers that probably should be used for the curry as well.

Moh-Moh-Licious Facebook Page

18 hours ago, lion said:

That is historical problem that I've seen with the high end sushi restaurants in DC. NYC has many more direct flights from Tokyo so the transportation issues are not the same. If they are bringing down fish everyday from NYC in a van that just adds to the cost. 

Daily fresh fish is overrated. Any good sushi place knows how to care for the fish so it will last a couple days. When I worked at a place in Columbus, in one of our late night drinking sessions with the owner, he explained that all the places in Columbus got their fish from the same supplier. The difference was in what each place did with the fish once it was in the door. There are some things that need to be used immediately, but most will keep. That said, it was flown in from NY typically three days a week. 

19 hours ago, franch said:

>:(. unbelievable. manages to diss Sushi Taro (w/ a Star), Sushi Ozawa, and Sushi Capitol at the same time as offering a view of DC restaurants that was last accurate about 10 years ago.

Nakazawa is welcome (and amazing), but DC doesn't have a lack of good expensive omakase places. it has a lack of quality cheap sushi in the 3-rolls-for-15 vein that is such an essential NYC staple.

Yeah, just posted this other article on my FB page and noted that I'm perfectly happy getting my sushi fix taken care of at Ogawa and Taro, probably will be close to if not as good, and likely for much less price too. 

"The Trump International Hotel's Next Restaurant Will Be Sushi Nakazawa" by Becky Krystal on washingtonpost.com

If only this were not in the Trump hotel. They are trying to distance themselves from Trump though.

Here's the Equity Eats page to buy VIP gift certificates, or whatever it's called.

13 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Chang brought ramen to the masses in the U.S.  He also brought baos to the masses in the U.S.  He's never been creative, he was simply a person who introduced some undiscovered good foods to the U.S.  I don't think he's a great chef, but he's no caricature like Fieri.  Last I checked, Chang doesn't called Momofuku flavor town, and Momofuku never got a zero star review.

My point, comparing Chang to Fieri is insulting to Chang, like comparing a Republican politician to Trump.

But he didn't bring ramen to the masses, only to those who are willing and able to pay for it. Maruchan, Cup-o-noodle, etc already brought ramen to the masses. I will grant that he elevated it beyond instant ramen, but as I tried to put forth above, that has more to do with appealing to certain demographics of making things trendy and therefore expensive. Ramen is so much more than the instant crap, but there is no need for it to be a luxury good either.

I think Chang in the past was a truly passionate and dedicated chef to his craft, but now he is more marketing and corporate empire than attentive to the details of his food. Your example seems to actually support my comparison as though most Republicans are not as extreme as Trump, they certainly are not going out of their way to denounce a lot of the crap he says. Also, it was a lot of the demagoguery of the mainstream Republicans that led to Trump. So in many ways, the analogy actually supports what I have said. They are similar in their approach, just different in the extreme to which they will take it. 

Here's the article:

"China Garden in Rosslyn is Planning To Close, Permit Application Suggests" on arlnow.com

I recently used a few years worth of points accumulated on a Chase United Visa for 4 tickets to Japan. 70,000 points per ticket which had I purchased, would have been around $1600 each. That's a conversion rate of 2.3 cents per mile/point, though about a quarter of those points were from anniversary and sign up bonuses. Just got a new card that has no transaction fees for international purchases and got me another 70k miles for signup, basically another free ticket to Japan. 

I do have one cash card, the Chase Freedom, which I use only for purchases at the 5% bonus merchants which change every three months.

Sorry to post what might be considered something inflammatory and then not log in again for a few days. I stand by my Fieri comparison because I think what they are fundamentally trying to do is similar. Fieri's based his career on the concept of dive restaurants where one can presumably get good food in an unexpected location, and tending towards more homestyle/stick to your ribs. Chang is trying to do exactly this by promoting ramen as something costing three to four times what one can get in Tokyo. Yes, you can actually get a bowl of ramen in Tokyo for under 400 yen. I didn't try it, but was shocked that it is possible, and Tokyo is not exactly known for reasonable rental rates. Yes, its only a few dollars more than Daikaya, but that few dollars is more than 25% more, that's the thing when you're "elevating" what should be a cheap quick meal in price, but not in the fundamental quality of the food itself. You can't get a 25% increase in quality to justify that increase in price. 

Chang has done some great things with some of his restaurants and in one of his interviews he was pretty emphatic that he didn't want to do the greatest hits, and wanted to be creative at Momofuku DC, but I don't see that happening. He is becoming a caricature of himself, a lot of self promotion, particularly of a specific image he thinks will appeal to his perceived audience. Seriously, the only time I drink watery beer is when it's the happy hour deal for $2 at All Set. He claims to drink it all the time.

In my opinion, Chang has become a caricature of everything he has always claimed to be against in high end dining, but still thinks he speaks for the essence of pure food. The food might not be as bad as Guy Fieri's, but the marketing concept, which includes the location and it's accompanying high rent, driving it is more powerful than the culinary concepts.

Finally tried this out for lunch and I doubt I will be going back. Momofuku ramen was good, but at $17 for the bowl, total ripoff. Even if he is paying kitchen staff decent salaries with benefits, that does not justify that price for that ramen. 

Noodles themselves were very good, about as good as many I had on our trip to Japan last month. Soup was good and I drank every last drop, since it was so expensive i figure each sip was worth about 50 cents, though I didn't feel it was any better than one of the 500 yen bowls I had in Tokyo. This is where I think the focus on specially sourced ingredients gets out of hand. You could probably use cheap stuff to make that broth and it would taste just as good as the heirloom pork bones, or perhaps they ARE using the cheap stuff but charging us for the expensive. 

Two types of pork in the soup, pork belly which was basically fat, and shredded roasted pork which was way too salty. Still ate it when I thought how much it was costing me. Again, going back to the supposed quality of the ingredients, why put so much salt on the meat if it is such high quality? Don't you want the quality of the meat to shine through?

Don't get me wrong, the ramen was good, but at $17/bowl, I expect transcendent and better than perfect. 

I finished the meal with a blueberry/cream cookie which was OK, but overly sweet and gooey, the latter being not necessarily in a good way. It was as if the fats and the sugars were separating in the cookie. It was just a little off.

I think the most interesting thought I had through all this was that this is what Guy Fieri might do if he opened an Asian restaurant, prepare a good $12 ramen because that's what the "everyman" wants to eat and charge a premium for it since his name is on it so maybe he can trick people wtih money into trying to latch on to his trendiness and common person ethos. I guess David Chang is now the Asian version.