ol_ironstomach

I've been hitting the Union Station location periodically, especially on those days when I really just need to get out of the building and walk around a bit. It's been a long, long time since I ate at the original in NYC, but the fond memories of that experience have simply never materialized at the local outpost. The burgers are fine, but seem smaller, or at least of lesser stature somehow, and the whole experience leaves me with the feeling that I've just been sold the tourist-lite version of what a Shake Shack experience ought to be like. In NYC, there was a sensation when you got your food that they had overdelivered on such simple items, kind of in the way a Pat's cheesesteak is far more satisfying than watching it being made would suggest. In DC, the thing you remember is waiting around a bit too long with that little "your numbers has been called" dispatch gizmo, and then collecting a tray of miniature items for which you just paid $15. At least the upstairs seating affords a pleasant view overlooking the mezzanine below. But if I think about it too much, I'll probably realize eventually that it would take me about the same amount of time to drive over to Union Market for something vastly better from Red Apron.

Dunno. I gave up on Smashburger after a few tries because whatever griddle char they were developing was overwhelmed by grease, grease, grease. To me, this is the antithesis of Ray's ground beef, where choosing the ideal fats (max flavor, min grease) are an integral part of the formula. Back in thin patty land, Five Guys does it better.

It's official: Bastille will move next month to a bigger space in Old Town, and la famille Poteaux will revamp the current space into "Bistrot Royal", a more casual concept. Congratulations! ¨New Details Unveiled for Bastille, Bistrot Royale Restaurants in Alexandria¨ by Mary Ann Barton on patch.com

...and wheels out an all-star cast of pols of every persuasion to sing the city's praises. But hey, check out 0:44 into their promo video: http://youtu.be/x00ET1xsWmY

Awesome news! Congratulations to you both! And may I compliment you on your excellent taste in selecting an anniversary date

I'll just leave this here: French Laundry Adopts Ticket System (and so will Per Se) Link to Kokonas's Tock restaurant ticketing system, now positioning itself as an OpenTable competitor: http://tocktix.com/

I clearly remember the GReenbelt 4 on the paper label slipped into the center of our rotary dial phone. No, Don, switchhook dialing was not how you made long distance calls "for free"...you were simply recreating the electrical action of a rotary dial. Somebody upthread has already linked the Wiki entry for pulse dialing. You might also be amused by the tale of how a romantic liaison motivated Strowger, a mortician, to invent the automatic telephone ladder relay in the first place. And to complete the circle, find the answer to "how did 2600 Magazine get its name?" DC, MD, and VA were "special" due to a phantom overlay arrangement that lasted until 1991, when number exhaustion (driven in part by a growing number of modem lines) forced the use of exchange codes that were no longer unique across all three jurisdictions. Maryland also implemented the 301/410 split at that time. However, I *think* seven-digit dialing was only permitted for intra-LATA calls...for most of us, that meant "DC metro" numbers. Since I live in the outer 'burbs, when I first picked my house phone number, I used to pay Bell Atlantic a monthly foreign exchange (FX) fee of about $15 for having chosen an exchange code that was nominally assigned to a different CO, one with DC metro dialing privileges. Amazingly, 1991 was also when the last operator-based switchboard system in the US was retired, in a small town in California. The thing about the 1/0 middle digit in legacy area codes was that the *sum* of all three digits, being roughly proportional to the total amount of time the rotary dial needed to be in motion, was the thing that decided if a code would be assigned to a more or less "important" area. Hence, 212 (sum=5 rotary pulses) was the shortest code available under the original system, and went to NYC. DC 202 (sum=14) was on par with Massachusetts 617 (sum=14). The original plan didn't require any area code with more than 21 pulses, and you can see how they maintained that even with high first digits by scaling back the third digit. While the CO is not quite dead yet, Verizon had been doing everything within their power for the past decade to kill the old copper loop model, in part because of deregulation requirements that forced them to provide ultracheap leases on those lines to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). For a while, it was SOP for them to physically sever the copper cables of new FiOS subscribers, to both eliminate the maintenance costs on the old copper plant, and to prevent other providers from selling voice, DSL, or other services over them. This has been largely mooted by the emergence of VOIP services, and the fact that competitive data speeds now far exceed what those wires could be used for.

PLEASE tell me who retails this in the area, particularly if there's one on the MoCo side of town! I picked up a piece at Zingerman's about 8 years ago; their cheesemonger would not stop raving about it, and they were right. I haven't had its equal in a Comté or Gruyère yet. I've kept the little paper strip label on my fridge ever since ("Comté Marcel Petite Le Fort . Comté de Montagne ."), but haven't found it...this remains a lousy county for cheese lovers.

Not a bad lunch option, really, in a neighborhood that's really looking quite shiny these days. I think the would-be broccoli rabe was in fact broccoli florets, but the requested sharp provolone was nice and sharp on my Toscana sandwich, which is their take on a roast pork Italiano. The pork itself was a touch dry, and maybe an authentic panini would have been more crusty than soft, and Tony Luke's has nothing to fear, but the whole thing was pretty satisfying, and a good excuse to escape the office. Even better, the arancini were crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside (mozzarella and some Bolognese), and only took a few minutes' wait. $5 for three.

Viz the usual NYT condescension regarding the DC dining scene, the lede from Aaron Wiener's spiteful satire for the Washington City Paper is priceless: "As it does nearly every year, the New York Times discovered D.C. dining yesterday." http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2014/10/21/in-a-changing-washington-lots-of-stuff/

Will Artley has just announced that he is leaving Orso, effective immediately. According to Eater, Bertrand Chemel will oversee the kitchen in addition to his duties at 2941.

My late summer obsession this year: boiled fresh corn-on-the-cob sprinkled with J.O. #1 "50% Less Salt" (not the "regular" J.O. #1)

On a related note, at the Ithaca (NY) Farmers' Market, I recently acquired a small quantity of fresh Acmella oleracea flower buds (fka Spilanthus acmella, aka "toothache plant"). These too have a spicy numbing property, and I'm told are found in Brazilian cuisine as jambu. It was suggested that I chop them very finely and experiment with them sparingly on whatever dishes, and also that they dry well. Has anyone here cooked with this herb?

Ha, I thought it looked like something the eccentric Luigi Colani might have designed, and indeed he did. It looks less biomorphic to me than his earlier work, though. If I still played, and if I won the lottery, I'd want a Fazioli, though. Incredible.

You've been waiting years for a chance to play that card, haven't you?

RIP hmmboy . Obituary in The Washington Post.

My, how money and fashion have changed things. I'm sure there must be other price guides out there, but http://bourbonbluebook.com/ is one fellow's attempt to compile a list of insurance values for collectable American whiskeys.

Nautical proclivities? Prandial invulnerability? Maybe both, once upon a time. P.S. loved me some BITNET, but not so much ephemeral university accountnames

Tim Carman had a nice WaPo piece about Bete yesterday. Being kitfo fiends, G and I decided to check it out for lunch today. Forewarned to be specific about rawness levels in the kitfo, we went with totally raw (which rings up as "warm"), plus a vegetarian platter, plus a side of fasolia (green beans and carrots, $2 upcharge). It was as good as we had hoped, maybe even better. Their style of kitfo is minced relatively coarsely, a bit darker and drier than most, yet tender. It was buttery and well-seasoned throughout, and really doesn't need additional mitmita. One of the most delectable I've had. G thought the gomen had a nice, almost citrusy bite to it, and particularly liked the salad. I went straight to the yemisir kikwot; this version was a nice dark brick red, very rich, and well-stewed. Also notable was the azifa that Carman mentioned, which almost had a mustard green character to it. The only dull spot was the kik alicha (yellow lentils) which were rather toothier than I'd like. Many of their desserts are actually vegan, and when you walk in you can't miss the large trays of rustic Napoleons for dessert. The vegan version was surprisingly good, and you'd be hard-pressed to tell that it was dairy-free, except that the custard was a bit sticky. We didn't try the coffee. They do sell vacuum-packed bags of roasted whole Ethiopian beans, as well. While it may not have the traditional decor (read: uncomfortable seats) of some other Ethiopian restaurants in the area, if it's consistently this good, I think we might have our new favorite for MoCo Ethiopian. The location is a bit unusual, a small house set among the midrises and old office buildings of downtown Silver Spring, on the block behind the Silver Theater. There are only three parking spaces in front, but street parking in the area, and of course the city's large garages nearby. As the signs warn you, do not park in the ample empty spaces in front of the liquor store next door.

FWIW, I've only ever heard this pronounced with a leading schwa (rhymes with "dull", not with "eulogy"), which is also what OED prescribes...French loanword etymology be damned. Once you get enough orders of magnitude past the cost of basic physical needs, life is - as an acquaintance of mine put it - performance art.

Useless trivia: for you racing fans, Istria is also the original home of the Andrettis.

Ah, in that case, my original plan (when it was a weekend trip from DC) was regrettably not-very-Columbus: detour back through Pgh and try to get a reservation at Spoon, where Wabeck is somm. You're passing through the country's ice cream belt (IMHO), and Columbus is in that narrow overlap band between Graeter's and Jeni's home territories.

Easy. This: Exploring Calvin and Hobbes at OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum thru Aug 3. In fact, I'm planning a day trip detour from Pittsburgh later this summer specifically to see this and the accompanying Richard Thompson (_Cul de Sac_) exhibit. There is also a feature-length documentary film, _Dear Mr. Watterson_ (2013). This will not be a traveling exhibit, and who knows if or when anything similar will be mounted again? Watterson doesn't seem to have done anything else with any museum since 1991, when OSU and the Smithsonian persuaded him to draw a t-shirt for MoMA, the only authorized C&H t-shirt ever released.

A relative bargain for Oracle, considering the modest premium, and how long Micros has built their business by plodding the slow and steady path. We shared a building with those guys 20 years ago, in what was a nondescript class C office park in Laurel at the time. It'll be interesting to see what Oracle brings to POS land...after using a Ziosk tablet last winter, I think we'll be seeing generic chains jump all over tabletop customer gizmos.

I only ate two lobster rolls last weekend, both gorgeous (and cold-style), but I'd have to give the flavor nod to the one from the Red Shack, next to the pier in Provincetown, over the one from the equally charming Chatham Pier Fish Market. The latter made a chowder to die for, though. It's also a good thing that I had a lobster roll *before* wandering back to check the Provincetown Portuguese Bakery, because (1) they DO have fresh malasadas, and (2) they were fantastic. And consequently, I would have gorged myself to death on them if I hadn't been already mostly full. Rather eggy and choux-like, almost like a gigantic French cruller, but not quite. Otherwise, I mostly pigged out on fried whole belly clams, and ice cream. Kate's Seafood, a suitable outdoor shack along Main St in Brewster, totally hit the spot. Props to the "almond joy" ice cream from Sundae School (Orleans), although I also really liked the coconut from Ice Cream Cafe, another Orleans spot that makes their own.