ol_ironstomach

So I'm browsing maps for roadfood (as is my wont) and casually notice that Google tabulates this country restaurant's customer review scores as 29/30. Even normalizing for the Frederick County countryside reviewer, this suggests some solid "modern Southern" cooking might be going on. The menu isn't groundbreaking, and I'm not expecting an Ashby Inn sort of experience, but everything seems to be either well-sourced or made in-house. At the least, it seems like an interesting alternative to Monocacy Crossing. Has anybody been? http://www.alexander....com/restaurant http://www.frederick...?StoryID=139406

Unfortunately, the Popeye's that used to be at Atlanta-Hartsfield Concourse B is no more. This was the friendliest Popeye's location I've ever encountered, where you could count on a cheerful "hon" from the ladies working the line, and volume was high enough that your bird was likely to be hot off the frier, and your fries definitely were. The new International Concourse F is a bright, shiny, airy space which occasionally makes you wonder if everybody speaks a foreign language in the afterlife, but is also home to a new branch (opened May 2012) of The Varsity in the upstairs food court. Your choices are few - dogs and/or burgers, fried apple or peach pies - but by focusing on a few high volume items, they are able to recreate that late-night college calorie uptake experience in a premium atmosphere. Not really worth the cross-terminal ride, unless like me you just need the novelty factor. ATL

Stumbled onto this local site/blog today which seems a bit low of traffic, but aims to incubate small food businesses in the DC area. http://upstartfoods.com

Any current and specific reccs from the Ribera Sacra DO (which are known to be imported here)? And, as long as I'm asking, how about from Priorat?

1725? Impressive...moreso if they've been able to keep the same location since 1725. However, in Suzhou, Deyueluo (得月楼) has been a restaurant for over 400 years, having been established sometime prior to 1566 during the Ming Dynasty, although it's only been in its current location since 1982. (I also happen to agree with this commentator that the food there is better than at crosstown rival Song helou, which to be fair has only been in operation since 1757.) Gerry, great to have you do a chat with us. One of the things that struck me about dining in Spain was that it took center stage in the development of molecular gastronomy and its techniques, when it already possessed an unbelievable richness of cuisines, being the crossroads of the Atlantic, the Med, and North Africa. I never got the sense that even their modernist chefs were trying to revolutionize or sweep away the old, nor that they had become overly entranced with the methods to the detriment of the food. Can you talk about the role of tradition in the recent evolution of Spanish food and wine, and how that affects their willingness to really explore crazy ideas? On a more mundane note, the debate Stateside about tipping rates always seems to fall back on the argument that placing servers on a more salaried basis leads to awful service, yet Spain seemed to me to be blissfully immune to this problem. We ate absurdly well, for reasonable amounts, with good service, all over Catalunya. How on earth are their restaurants able to stay in business with only one unhurried seating per night?

Maybe not, but what will you care once you've achieved unglaublich Trunkenheit?

Phillips Longboat Chocolate Porter, from Victoria BC. Ahhhh, I deserve this pour. Thanks, David!

Rockville's Far East opened in 1974, I believe in the shopping center next door in what has recently been the Amina Thai space. Stanley, once the young man waiting your table, is now the venerable owner. Unfortunately I've forgotten the exact year in the 1980s that they moved into their current building, with its large banquet space upstairs, but likewise I can no longer remember how many wedding banquets I've attended there, including my own. And does UMd's Turner Lab qualify, dishing out ice cream since 1924? (I still miss the little parking area out front facing Rt 1, removed probably in the 1970s.)

I also lived in Laurel for a while, and this was for me the hands-down best restaurant in that town. Max's brother Sabatino used to run a sibling restaurant in the old Bowie Mall with a near-identical menu, called Mare e Monte, until that closed in the mid-'90s (and - this is academic now - I thought the cooking was *just slightly* better in Bowie, but don't tell Max that). This is a place where the dining karma strategy of "go with the unfamiliar items" pays off. I don't get out to Laurel much these days, so stopping in for a meal has become at best a once-a-year thing. But my go-to items are still on the menu: the crêpe dishes (scrippellé in busse, crespoline), and the salsiccia Calabrese. The timballo alla Teramano is also worth a go: an unusually thin-layered lasagna, vaguely reminiscent of Trabocchi's vincisgrassi, except with familiar lasagna flavors.

Note that the Flint Hill Public House and Inn has reopened under Managing Partner John Gruber and Chef Marvin Swaner. I can't speak to the new menu, but with the renovation the entire operation has been very nicely appointed, and they seemed to attract a fair number of patrons this weekend. Website: http://flinthillva.com

Serendipitously, this afternoon I discovered "foodshed" magazine, published locally out of Front Royal, and was told that it was a reboot of Flavor magazine, which had supposedly run into trademark trouble over its name. I can't speak to the credibility of that story, but Salatin and Burros are contributors, and the content is well worth a read. http://food-shed.org Volume 1 number 1 "Autumn 2012" is on sale now, with Tarver King as the cover story.

Your daily history break: The first recorded appearance of ice cream in the New World occurred in Maryland in 1744 at the table of Governor Thomas Bladen, as chronicled by one William Black of Virginia. Bladen served a strawberry ice cream in May, to the astonishment of his guests. http://www.idfa.org/news--views/media-kits/ice-cream/the-history-of-ice-cream/ http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IceCream/IceCreamHistory.htm http://historymyths.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/myth-ice-cream-was-introduced-to-blank-by-blank/

Julia Child's kitchen will serve as the first gallery for this new exhibit, which opens November 20, 2012 at the National Museum of American History. http://food.american...edu/exhibition/

This time, it wasn't me...I had to cancel at the last minute to attend my sister's birthday party. Plus, I was just going to mull cider. Possibly it was AGM?

Family Meal is not Volt. It's not even a Volt substitute. But it might well be the second best restaurant in Frederick County...it's certainly a surprising value. I had tried to stop in for a meal back in the beginning of July, but was apparently a couple of days too early for the public opening. We ducked in for a meal around 4 today, and were happy to find the very reasonably priced lunch menu was still available. By our departure around 5, the dining room was approaching full, as parties began to arrive with increasing frequency. Not everything we ate today was a knockout, but it was all well made, and supported by very good service from the floor staff. I wasn't that enamored of the goat mac 'n cheese for the same reasons that ad.mich mentioned, and the spinach greens could have benefitted from some salt. Duck fat fries were good, but nothing remarkable (although I give them bonus points for the third dip, which appeared to be spicy mayo). But the chicken pot pie fritters were do-not-miss, capturing all those flavors in a tiny block of fried bechamel and bits of carrot brunoise. The soup of mixed mushrooms was impossibly smooth and rich, with a float of peanut foam and a drizzle of peppery oil that set it off. The greens wilted with bits of pork bbq were basically a refined take on collards. The fried chicken is a revelation, and at $13-something for half a small chicken it's a steal. No, it's not the crunchy traditional chicken best exemplified by Gillian Clark's work...think more like Peter Smith's fried chicken, but even better. It undergoes a lengthy brine that results in the moistest white meat I've had anywhere. The seasoning is subtle, and more herbal than spicy...I'd swear it has a celery seed note to it. But the hot sauce appears to be applied afterwards, and only sort of poured lightly over parts of the pieces, and the result is that each bite tastes slightly different. I don't know if that was intentional, or if it was just a fluke of the order I had today, but I found the effect to be kind of magical. I'll let you know if I still think so after the next few times. The chicken is served whimsically in a chicken-shaped ceramic pot along with some corn biscuits and a small dish of some potently vinegary pickles. I'm also very impressed with the execution of the place. Voltaggio and Staples have taken what appears to have been a glass-walled car showroom and turned it into a very pleasant bistro with almost Californian flair. I don't know how else to say this...it looks comfortably refined and efficient, which is also a fair description of the service. Go now, go early, go often.

Chevy Chase was long the place you went to find esoteric stuff after one of Bob Tupper's tastings at the old Brickskeller, before the domestic microbrew category really exploded. North of the Potomac, don't forget Gilly's Craft Beer in Rockville (2009 Chapman Ave, just off Twinbrook Pkwy next to Urban BBQ). http://www.gillyscbfw.com/beer.html

I finally tried the pan bagnat and it might be my current favorite riff on the tuna sandwich...so long as I'm not scheduled to speak at a meeting any time afterward. The anchovies and olives push this solidly into the salty/savory category. I do like that they bake their croissants to a darker, crispier level than most, and the outermost layers flake apart beautifully. The fillings are a bit skimpy however...enough so that I prefer the messier and softish almond croissants from Bonaparte (available at the Bethesda food coop). The bargains would appear to be the caneles (often sold out), and the pear and almond tart (only $10 for an entire 8" tart).

Checking for vital signs in this thread, since I'll be lunching in southern Rockville for the foreseeable future. Who's still in the area?

I guess the important question is *what* is it about pasta that you crave? The flavor? The chew (thick, or thin)? A particular shape? As a vehicle for sauce? That was going to be my pick too. In fact, I used one tonight, in what should otherwise have been a spaghettini dish. You might be able to adapt layers of dried bean curd sheets for lasagna-esque purposes, but they're not very good at absorbing liquid. The other noodle-shaped non-noodle food that I crave is an order of the "fish noodles" from Grace Garden.

Those pork rib cutlets from the EcoFriendly stand (one Ossabaw, one farmer's cross) were the best damn cutlets I've cooked in years. (Dusted with five-spice, salt, pepper. Inverted broil - 7 minutes moderate oven in preheated cast iron skillet, rested while broiler got hot, 2 min per side to brown.) Just wow. Thanks for the pointer, CrescentFresh.

You can buy logging meters but they're not exactly pocket change, and you still have to learn how to use them properly. Back when I was a lazy undergrad, slumming it in an auditory signal processing research laboratory writing data acquisition systems (as one did in those days), we were partial to meters from Brüel & Kjær...nowadays one handheld meter plus some PC software is vastly faster and more capable than what we needed two racks of equipment plus an NSF grant to do.

I cannot in good conscience utter any of them here, and thus mock some of the most wonderful and unappreciated musicians out there. Also often unheard, not to mention unseen: hidden behind those big, theatrically bowed cellos being furiously sweated on by a bunch of agonized Yo-Yo Ma wannabes. And not at all like those accursed bagpipers, who are always farther away than they sound, because they intentionally keep their distance in order to foil your windage estimate as you try to take aim. But let the evidence speak for itself: in this collection of humor, there are typically five or six jokes per instrument, but three pages devoted solely to viola. Also, Don is right. Heed Don's advice.

Check your PM! And be prepared to hear a lot of viola jokes. :-)

Dude, I love pecans as much as the next person, but _none_ of those other nuts have anything to compare to a silky piece of Italian gianduiotto. That's my desert island chocolate.