DrXmus

Good article for the youngsters getting into better drinks than Everclear and Kool-Aid in a trash can. I'd quibble with some choices, but that goes to opinion more than fact (i.e. no love for Flor de Cana rum? Cheap. Delish. ABC-accessible.) My one correction is that Patron is misspelled as "Padron".

It's written on their online menu. Agreed that VA ABC regulations are daunting.

Cool. There are too many options for a steel noob like me to know what to get. Can you spell out what you got from them? Is there any reason to be concerned about food safety if it's not being made for cooking?

Blackfinn Ameripub, in Merrifield, "sells" growlers but say the beer must be drunk in the restaurant and they're not allowed to let it go home. Weird. These used to be called "pitchers".

Yeah, it's gross. A few months ago I heard that the USDA was considering allowing Chinese chickens to enter the US food chain. Is that still in the works? I didn't realize, but they've been used in pet foods for years. Personally, I will not willingly eat a chicken from china.

I keep meaning to e-mail the food section to let them know how important his column was to my personal cocktail renaissance. I have numerous bottles I never would have purchased if I hadn't read his column. The multiple amari on my bar are directly due to his turning me on to the digestif. Ferrand curacao? Wilson's fault. Four Roses bourbon and Flor de Cana rum? Wilson. That I read multiple cocktail blogs and web sites now to keep up with trends and to get new ideas? JW.

Aaarrgh...to post that exact line is why I opened this thread!!!! Damn you, B.A.R.!!

I love Derek Brown's line about $14 being a reasonable price point for a cocktail in DC, including tax and tip, and that anything over that had better be a damn good drink (paraphrased by me). I'd certainly be willing to drink the barrel aged Manhattan Rye Bar made, but there's no way I'll pay $22 for it. Having said that, enough people DID pay that the barrel was drained in a few days, so good for Rye Bar.

Generally, I don't have pictures of male junk in my mind, so thanks for that, Don. For those of us in the Chosen Tribe, are we missing Rosslyn?

Thanks to all the great info I've gleaned from this thread, we've made some major decisions!! Now to move on to the next phase of questions:-) I plan on getting the 42" Vent A Hood for the 36" rangetop, but I'd like to place it 33" over the cooking surface, not the 30" they recommend. It involves getting a custom duct cover, but that's not the end of the world. The question is whether those three inches are really going to adversely affect the collection of heat/smoke/etc. Mrs DrXmus and I are a little taller than average and are sick of banging our head into the hood we have now, which sits at 22.5" above the surface.

Great idea for a thread. Good job!! I don't know if this is splitting hairs or whether it's a typo, but Little City Gourmet's web site says they're in Arlington.

Mrs. DrXmus and I have been dying to try Bahn Mi, but it just hasn't happened. One reason I haven't pushed it, too, is neither of us knows what to get and she doesn't eat beef/pork/scary items. What I'd like is to be told what to get. What suggestions do you Bahn Mi experts have for us?

Never say "never", right? Well, we went back last night because some friends wanted to try it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We were still mostly alone in the restaurant. Admittedly, we were there at 6:30 or so, but we were there until about 8 and I think there were only 3-4 tables filled, and one was the chef's wife and son. Still there's no "white meat" option like at Bon Chon (my closest comparison) and what chopped up white meat breasts were in the 1/2 chicken option were unpleasant for my bone-hating wife to pick through. The changed menu was a shocker to me! Ultimate Chicken Bistro should now be called "Some Chicken and lots of Beef". I don't remember all the allusions to "UCB" when we were there before, so they may be rebranding the Bistro. All the specials were Korean beef options and a fair bit of the much shorter menu was non-chicken (beef only, IIRC). The menu is 1/8 of what it was last year. Gone are the Italian chicken dishes. Mostly gone are the Japanese chicken dishes. I don't remember the other types of ethnic chicken dishes that used to be on the menu, but if they're not Korean fried chicken, assume they're gone. Now, getting to the KFC. I think none of the four of us were excited about the chicken we got. None of us have been to Cheogajip, so I can't say if their KFC is like UCB's or not. We essentially got 1.5 chickens and an order of popcorn chicken. On the plus side, the chicken is coated with a sauce now, which, upon reading my previous review, i realized wasn't the case before. We had a split of soy/ginger and hot/spicy sauces. The soy/ginger was tasty and was sort-of glazy like Bon Chon. The hot/spicy was spicy, but contained tons of 5-spice and was twice the amount of sauce needed to gently coat the chicken pieces. I'm thinking they have a generic fried chicken that they then sauce like Buffalo wings before plating. The heat in the sauce is a very different heat than Bon Chon. It dissipated much more quickly and while did have a kick, wasn't as pleasant, in my humble opinion, as Bon Chon. We were next to a table with the chef's wife and son, I'm assuming. He brought them a couple of beef dishes that she made into lettuce wraps. I'm thinking, if you like beef, then Ultimate Chicken Bistro may be the place to go.

Interesting. I just assumed it'd be a butcher with raw/cured/cooked meats to purchase by the pound, not a take-out joint, too. Surprisingly, Mosaic's Facebook page hasn't publicized Red Apron's opening like it has (almost to a fault) the other storefronts.

I haven't watched it since it was live, but my favorite line was something like: "Give a man what he loves the most" and, at the same time, one model says "champagne" and the other says "head". Still makes me chuckle.

I used to love Trinacria when we lived near the Senator Theater. It was the first Italian grocery I'd ever been in after leaving rural SC so the memory has stuck with me over the past 25 years. Maybe things have changed, but the area was very sketchy back then. I hope it's better for their sake.

Well, I always questioned how a rotisserie chicken in a grocery store can cost less than what I can buy it for uncooked (or something close to that). I think I'd pay more if for no other reason than to feel like I'm getting some sort of a service. Is Red Apron open now?

I was thinking the same thing.

We're using OHI for the second time for our upstairs remodel. Four years ago they also gutted our downstairs and made it livable. I'd recommend Ray Gabler to anyone who asks. He's a great designer, gives good estimate and is very easy to work with. Great contractors overall, too.

I guess we glanced at them. I can't think of why they didn't stick out (maybe they didn't have a conv. micro/oven combo?), but the KA and Bosch seemed more to our liking. I think we're going to get the Bosch combi. We first saw Vent A Hoods at Ferguson in Chantilly, but it was our first appliance/bath/faucet/cabinet outing and were overwhelmed with the decisions we had in front of us, so neither of us really noticed them. We also talked to Blake at ABW in Rockville (he used to be in Ashburn primarily, apparently) and Bruce in Ashburn's ABW. The contractor is installing the unit but it's our responsibility up to then. We were definitely sold on the Vent A Hood after talking to Blake. He's very persuasive, but too talkative for me (I'm an introvert so he may not bother others as much). Very nice, though. Bruce in Ashburn was also helpful. We went to Ferguson for the 2nd time just to hear the Vent A Hoods in action. Holy crap they're quiet!! That night, I actually had a bit of a stress dream that the hood wasn't effective and we had to replace it. I would appreciate hearing from you Vent A Hood owners confirming that they work as well as other hoods which are much noisier.

Love having a Taylor Gourmet so close to my house in Merrifield, but I'm getting less and less enchanted by it. 1) I can't seem to get any vinegar flavor on a sandwich no matter how much I stress "extra vinegar". Now I either bring my own or ask for a cup of red wine vinegar when I pick up the 'wich at the counter. 2) There's so little sharp provolone on these subs that I sometimes go a whole sandwich without getting that sharp bite. 3) I have an issue with dry subs and these guys are a struggle for me. Up-thread there was some controversy about which was better, Primo's or Taylor Gourmet. Now that I've sampled both (several times!) I'll vote for Primo's. Having said that, I wish Charles Steak & Ice were in Merrifield because I thought that chicken sub beat them both.

Wow, you all have been a valuable resource!! Thanks to you, we've decided to go with a BlueStar rangetop (with griddle, although the consensus is that it's not worth it) and a Vent-a-Hood. Also, I think we found the sweet Delta faucet from monavano's picture above and we'll be getting that. I really like that particular design and the heft of it was much better than others we looked at. We're probably going to get a convection microwave/oven combo and the Bosch seems to be winning out over the KitchenAid at this point. We're still undecided on the flooring and the fridge. Next questions: -Do all wall ovens pump hot air into the room or do they just radiate heat like a typical range? Several reviews of the KitchenAid combi-oven complain about a fan blowing heated air into the room which made for uncomfortable cooking outside of wintertime. No one bitched about this in the reviews for the Bosch version -Do you have a thought about Bosch oven reliability? -Does anyone have a pushbutton switch for the disposal? This seems to be the new "hot ticket". Useful? Meh. If you have it, is it better than a wall switch? What happens when water gets into it? Thanks for all the help!!

Wow! That's quite a change from before to after!! Congrats. Beautiful.

Wow! Cork can look like THAT?! Are these square tiles? All cork floors are cork on laminate tiles, right? They're laid like a floating floor, right? Beauty of a floor, regardless.

What would you do differently, Porcupine? I was thinking about the 36" with either 6 burners or 4 with space in the middle. No griddle. This brings up another question I had. Griddle or no griddle? Seems very cool, but will I use it long-term and is it worth taking up that space? Is a cast iron two-burner griddle better/more flexible?