John William G

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 10:36 AM, ICD said:

For those needing a biscuit fix, Viscious Biscuit just opened in Mt. Pleasant.  I really enjoyed the chicken biscuit with pimento cheese.  Fun place.

I ate at the Viscious Biscuit on my recent trip to Charleston and thought it very nice.  A nice variety of biscuits, plus sides like sausages, and eggs, and so on.  Warning:  when we left after our meal there was a crowd of about 20 people waiting to get in. I suggest you go early, like right as it opens.

I like the onion soup at Chez Francois. I had a bowl there on New Year's Eve and it was very, very good.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.  We decided to try Mon Ami Gabi. We had never eaten there before. We had a very nice brunch.

My wife and I were visiting the South Carolina  Lowcountry last week and ate at a restaurant in the Frogmore area, The Foolish Frog, which is on St. Helena Island.  Here is a photo of the outside of the restaurant:

We ate on the terrace.  Here is the view from our table:

They have a variety of seafood dishes, smoked ribs, steaks, sandwiches, and, of course, hush puppies.  The food was very, vey good.  I don’t know how many Rockwell members will ever visit Frogmore, but if you do you should seriously consider the Foolish Frog for one of your meals.

9 hours ago, reedm said:

I live in Ashburn, which is close to Dulles. What time and day of the week will you meet your friends?

They will arrive on a Saturday, and the plane is due at 10:30.  Our assumption is that they will be ready to leave the airport by 11:30.

We have friends that will land at Dulles, and have a short time before they leave for Harper’s Ferry.  Any suggestions for restaurants where we might meet them for brunch, or early lunch?

There is a very interesting article in today’s NY Times about which chain restaurants are the worst for your health.  There are some real surprises in it, at least for me.  For example, “Hungry for a hearty breakfast? You could … try the Cheesecake Factory’s Breakfast Burrito: ‘warm tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, chicken chorizo, cheese, crispy potatoes, avocado, peppers and onions, over spicy ranchero sauce.’  Nutritional information: 2,730 calories,… 4,630 milligrams of sodium…and 73 grams of saturated fat…You’d have to eat seven Sausage McMuffins from McDonald’s to equal the cardiovascular and waistline damage done by one burrito…”

8 hours ago, dracisk said:

TRIO Grill?

That is correct.

4 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Not just the "T," but the shape of the "T," right?

The shape of the T might well mean something to a person with more knowledge of the restaurants in Virginia, but not to me.  But starting ow I will look more carefully at the shape of letters on restaurant plates, etc.

2 hours ago, dracisk said:

I think I figured it out from Yelp, but I kind of feel like that's cheating? (I don't think it's Tuscarora Mill or Trummer's on Main.)

Well you are correct, it is not either of those.  Which one do you think it is?

 

The scallop dish was delicious.  The restaurant is in northern Virginia.  That fact, combined with the T on the dish, is a good hint as to the restaurant. 

Where did I dine?

Let me add my thanks to those folks who did the work for the picnic.  It was nice to see some folks I hadn't seen since the last picnic, and to meet some new folks.  The food, of course was all extremely good.  I especially appreciated the work that astrid did to bring the tomatoes and cut them so we could taste a variety.  I think I sampled about 10 different ones, and my favorite was the Azoychka, which I had never heard of before.  

I will certainly be there. Really, really looking forward to another Rockwell picnic.

My wife and I were downtown last week and decided to have lunch at Rasika.  We had heard a lot about it, and since we both love Indian food, we were happy to give it a try.  We arrived at the restaurant shortly after 11:30 and were able to get seated without a reservation. We tried the onion and sage bread, the Chicken Tikka Masala, Sweet Potato Roast (“red chili/caramelized onion/black pepper”), and Makkai Kofta (“sweet corn/cashew nut/garam masala”).  All four dishes were very good, but the Makkai Kofta was easily our favorite.   

In addition to the food we were pleased with the service.  The chairs were very comfortable, which is important for people our age.  Only one visit, but I would still rate it a bit above the three Indian restaurants we most often visit in Northern Virginia: Raaga, Saravana Palace, and Woodlands.

If you are near Walnut Creek, CA and like Spanish food, then you must visit Teleferic Barcelona.  This is a "branch" of restaurants in Spain with the same name.  See TelefericBarcelona.com for a description of the restaurants, and the menus of the one in Walnut Creek. We tried 6 or 8 of the items on the menu, and all of them were wonderful. Here is s photo of my favorite, chicken empanadas:

 

It is Trout Almandin, but not at La Cote D'or  or Pesce .  Hint: It is a Virginia restaurant.  And here is a photo of my wife's main dish:

My wife and I just returned from lunch.  Below is a photo of my main course.  Where did we dine?

 

I recently took my annual trip to Charleston, and had meals at three good restaurants.

The Drawing Room:  The Drawing Room is a fairly new restaurant in the Vendue Hotel.  For an appetizer I had “Harder’s Asparagus Bisque, 1885” which according to their menu is a combination of “lump crab, cured yolk, sc buttermilk, grilled rice bread and Lemon.”  There was a bit too much lemon for my taste, but all in all not too bad.  For the main course I had the Pan Seared Scallops, which were very good.  It is a very nice restaurant.

The Fig:  The Fig is in my opinion one of the best, if not the best, restaurant in Charleston.  If you want to eat at the Fig it is almost a requirement that you call for a reservation four weeks in advance.    For my entre I had “Suckling Pig & Carolina Gold Rice.”  It was absolutely delicious.  The pork was the tenderest, most flavorful I have ever had.   I highly recommend The Fig if you are going to be in Charleston.

Rodney Scott’s BBQ:  For years the Scotts have had a well known BBQ restaurant in Hemingway, SC.  A few years ago Rodney Scott left the business in Hemingway and opened Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ in Charleston.   If you like pork BBQ, this is the place to go. In addition to various kinds of pork, they serve BBQ chicken and fried catfish fillets.  As a side dish to the BBQ, they have first rate hush puppies, something you can only dream about if you live in the DC area.

I miss the Don Rockwell picnics. 

I visited my daughter in Atlanta last week, and we were lucky enough to get reservations at the Staplehouse (www.staplehuse.com).   This restaurant has gotten a lot of rave reviews (e.g., bon appétit said it “is the number one best new restaurant in America in 2016), so I was anxious to try it.

The menu when we were there listed eleven items.  The items are individually priced, and one can order just a few of them; however their recommendation is to treat it like a tasting menu and order all of the items.  Which we did.  All of the food was excellent.  To me the three best items were the “duck rillette, sweet potato, fennel, pine,” the “beets, dandelion, elderflower vinegar, benne,” and the “green garlic agnolotti, morels, koji, arugula.”  The only disappointment was “grandma lillian’s potato bread” which was rather ordinary. The service was excellent, and they have a reasonable selection of wines and beers.

 

Here are a couple of the items we had:

This is the turnip, carrots, barley, aged beef fat:

This is the chicken liver tart, burnt honey, blood orange, almond:

I ate at the Mosaic district Sisters yesterday and thought it was very good. And they do serve beer (I had one) and I think they also have wine.   

Leon Russell, great song writer, piano player and singer.  Here is one of his best songs, “A Song for You,” which he first recorded in 1970.  Russell was one day older than me.  So many people I have known and/or admired are dying.

On 9/20/2016 at 10:49 PM, Kibbee Nayee said:

This is news. For years, Bazin's had the rap of being deafeningly loud. Does someone know if they added sound absorption features. If so, then kudos to them. I wish more restaurants would do that.

I stopped by today, and took this photo of their ceiling:

I’m certainly not an expert on this stuff, but they look like sound absorbers to me.   

Here is the photo.

I ate at Bazin’s for the first time last Sunday.  It was an early meal, around 6:00, and the restaurant was not crowded.  There would have been no problem getting a table without reservations.  I had the Crabmeat Spring Roll as a starter and the Maple-Miso Chilean Sea Bass for my entrée.  The Spring Roll was very good, and the Sea Bass was wonderful.  One of our group had the Potato Gnocchi, and she was very complimentary of it.  No one had any complaints about the food.

The service had a slight hiccup as the waiter kept coming to see if there were any plates that he could take. I have never understood this desire to clear the table of a dish as soon as possible.

One feature of restaurants that I have become more and more interested in with every passing year is if the restaurant is satisfactory for us older people.  The two main issues are, first, is the restaurant quiet enough for conversation, and secondly, is it comfortable.  Bazin’s passes both tests.  The chairs are padded and comfortable.  The ceiling had sound absorbent panels on it.  Although it wasn’t crowded when we were there, I am certain it would be relatively quiet even when full.

All in all a restaurant I recommend.