ol_ironstomach

More like "Monster Gour-age"! Loved the giant Scotch egg, but I was thinking of doing the same thing with one of those emu eggs...maybe after attempting to sunny-side-up one of them in a paella pan someday. Tip from the Ironstomach Kitchen: panko works great on Scotch eggs.

A salt tasting might be interesting, but...how about (streaky) bacon?! Just how well does Hormel Black Label stack up against Whole Paycheck, various Amish markets, etc etc etc? What say the masses?

"Unbreakable" is not meant to be a challenge, but (limp-wristed?) journalists fail to break samples. No indication of Richard Benjamin sci-fi reunion at unveiling. Link: Mikasa "Open Up" stemware unveiled. Link: Kwarx material.

"Beefmato is people!!"

Any idea which design is stronger - the ubiquitous cast aluminum ones, or the stamped-and-welded sheet steel? The latter ($$, Le Creuset outlet, Leesburg) feels lighter and less substantial, but I did manage to break the handle off one of the cast design after only about two dozen lemons and limes. FWIW, expect to pay around $15 at SLT or W-S, perhaps a couple bucks less at BB&B, and even less at World Market (also a good source for a cheap unpainted tortilla press), or any local Latin grocery. Or Froogle for "exprimidor".

No disagreement from this quarter...the clam juice IS the Caesar's distinctive ingredient. Ironic, really, that Clamato contains barely any at all these days. The added bite of horseradish may not be mandatory, but it is delicious.

Doesn't that make it a Caesar rather than a Bloody Mary? (love them Caesars...thank you Canadia!)

Gifford's? IIRC the location you mention is the resurrected Gifford's, after the chain imploded for a while in the 90s.

I finally ducked into the Germantown location last week, and it was pretty good...a bit more satisfying than Maggie Moo's, I thought. With mix-ins, even the small size is deceptively filling. Ice cream flavor selection seemed a bit limited though, with a preponderance of variations on a sugary cream-colored theme. I chose the French vanilla, with coconut and...oh heck, I've forgotten. It was a bit sobering to realize that not one of the kids working in the place was old enough to have remembered Steve's brief expansion to the area. I think that Cold Stone keeps their granite slab chilled quite a bit colder than Steve's or Herrell's ever did (ate quite a bit of both during my time in Cambridge), and after smushing the ice cream remains somewhat firmer, which is to my liking.

I'm not quite sure what "traditional" bubble tea would be like, considering it originated as street food in Taiwan in the early 80's! I'm just sorry I didn't discover it when I spent a summer there. TenRen still makes the tastiest ones I've found locally, but I'd have to say that theirs still pale in comparison to the best I've had - at the Bubble Tea Café in Amherst NY, not far from SUNY Buffalo. Vigorously frothed in cocktail shakers by local otaku youths, I was completely hooked by the first one. Maybe they lace it with an addictive substance. The Canadians have taken to boba with a vengeance, with a chain called Bubble Tease expanding throughout Ontario and Quebec. I had one in Montreal last year and thought it was pretty passable. One of their novelties is a machine that applies a plastic seal (with requisite animé artwork) to the top of your cup so you can safely tote it around with abandon until you're thirsty, then you just punch the straw through the seal.

"...and a Lindeman's Framboise for the lady. Yes, let's have the large one." sweatheart?

Was it really necessary to allow "Bethesda" to whine an additional three times about beverage service? The "Washington" vs "DC" tangent was entirely irrelevant. And what's with the hate for working out? While Shakespeare's advice about cooks who won't lick their fingers (no wait, that crosses over to the hygiene thread) may be sound, there are plenty of us who hit the gym particularly because we love food so much. Am I the only one picking up a chaos vibe from the recent Chogs? It seems increasingly heavy on "get the readers to interact" and light on "these are my picks", deferring to the participants much in the way my conference calls used to go when I didn't feel like adequately prepping Maybe Kliman is on edge following the Peter Chang debacle. Or maybe I'm just inferring things that aren't there.

Not even as good as when BF first opened in the area (remember when they didn't look like fish sticks?) and in either case it's a looooooong way from ForniCalia.

Well, I wouldn't do it...it seems impossible for such an event to avoid conflict with the scientific need for sample preservation. Taste is such a subjective matter that I don't see how eating even a culturally-significant extinct food source truly serves any purpose but vanity. Perhaps that's the difference between eating exotic food, and eating something strictly because it's exotic and happens to be edible. To be considered a food, I think as a prerequisite it should have to in generous supply, or at least sustainable. Which is worse, dining on your found-in-a-glacier dodo drumstick, or seasoning it with powdered Martian meteorites? I think the former; the latter is exceedingly rare, but Mars is pretty big and the cosmos continues to land a few chip shots in our back forty. Consider the obvious follow-on: what if you relax the "last of..." aspect? What if cloned mammoth were readily available? I'd definitely consider that. How about cloned stegosaurus? Not part of the human food tradition, but if it were tasty, I have no doubt people would eat it. Still... Fess up, how many of you saw the news item about the Yeti crab and didn't at some point think about drawn butter, as I did?

May 12 City Paper on morels. (author no relation)

The meat was ranched in Texas as I understand it. My first thought was "wow, that's exotic", followed by "what do you suppose cat tastes like?" Apparently lion cooks rather like pork and is only moderately gamey. They ran out the day before I got there, but a friend of mine says it wasn't all that special.

Thanks for pointing that out. I totally missed that portion of their website because, for a while there, my ears thought I had accidentally wandered into The Limited. Dean, Jake, Joe, Rocks, might as well pack it in, no need to keep searching. Grape perfection...they've had it figured out all along!

Seen in the American Airlines magazine: Texas de Brazil is opening a location in Fair Oaks this year. Isn't there some sort of meta-rodizio signal we can flip over to mean "please stop bringing the Brazilian steakhouses, we're stuffed"?

Okay, that was impressive. Perhaps not *quite* as gargantuan as the Dulles Wegmans, but it's still pretty big. There are several shortcuts through the shelves like IKEA has shortcuts, and signs hang from the ceiling so you can locate them. Did I mention that it was impressive? Five aisles in, and I'm still wandering through produce. We're talking a GrandMart level of variety, and then some...more produce choices than I've ever seen in a supermarket. My eyes immediately notice cardoons ($1.99/lb) packed in ice. The seafood and meat sections are much like Wegmans, in variety, size, and quality. The wine section alone is six aisles, maybe 40' each, and six rows high. That's not including the beer section. Several racks of olive oils, including four different Colavita varieties in two sizes each. I find the legendary Dublin Dr. Pepper and pay dearly for a six-pack. It's chilling now. Special bonus points: besides the usual "paper or plastic", they also have their own oversized sixpack totes at the checkout. Unlike Wegmans, Central Market has a very limited selection of non-food knick-knacks. The international food section also seems small. Produce quality seemed to vary a bit more, too.

You are lucky, Ed GrubermanDan Cole. Few novices experience so much of Ti Kwan Leep so soon. Way down upon the soigné river, Far, far away...

I was going to point you back to the Dulles thread of a few months ago, but most of the recommendations weren't exactly "in the area". My best bets are both in the same strip mall on the south side of Rt 50 just west of Rt 28. I find both Picante, the Real Taco and Thai Basil to be pretty tasty. Farther to the west, an Indian restaurant is rumored to be opening late this summer at South Riding, with veterans from Fairfax's now-closed Connaught Place.

"Talent imitates, but genius steals." Now if only someone would club Alton Brown with the cluestick over his baffling, pseudo- French pronunciation of Donna.

Watching the original Iron Chef, I always got the sense that the cuisines of other cultures would never be more than a curiosity in Japan, and while there was certainly a market for the finer things in life, the judging was always skewed towards a more traditional Japanese palate. Among the challengers you were much more likely to see Japanese chefs with some foreign training, than foreign chefs bringing their cuisine to Japan. Even Morimoto went through a bit of a painful teething stage with his first few battles, as his food was often judged to be too Americanized. Nevertheless, it was clear that Chen, Sakai and Michiba were extremely talented, and their work would probably play well in any major metropolis. Anyway, in my fantasy world, Ironstomach Chef America might be cast with: Japanese: Morimoto French: Thomas Keller Spanish: José Andrés American: Johnny Monis and as the Chairman: Christopher Walken. Or maybe David Bowie. And none of these sissy ingredients either. Bring on the exotic stuff!

According to the nice ladies at the Opera House Gourmet in Old Town Manassas, the Virginia legislature is in the process of banning direct sales from small Virginia producers to retailers, instead requiring them to go through licensed distributors, which is expected to increase retail prices by a couple of bucks per bottle for those wineries who are now self-distributing. Anybody have more information about this? [update with add'l background:] It seems that this is old news and that change has probably already happened. And apparently the situtation was somewhat the other way around. Virginia self-distribution by small producers was codified into law in 2003. Last April in Brooks vs. Danielson, a US District Court struck down Virginia's self-distribution law as being preferential to in-state wineries. Then in May, there was the SCOTUS decision (Michigan and New York) that started this discussion thread. VA Farm Bureau Federation legislative fact sheet The current session of the VA legislature sought to reinstate self-distribution by leveling the playing field in several other ways. It has apparently failed. VA Wineries Assn e-news 4/06

I finally made it out to 2941 last week, not once but twice as it turned out, once for lunch and once for a private party. Wow...an impressive created space, with clear appeal to the powerbroker crowd, marred only by the curiously mundane ceiling tiles in the ceiling's oval oculus. Lunchtime service was efficient and elegant, possibly the best I've had in this town, better even than Taberna del Alabardero. I'm told it's probably even better than dinner service, as the staff are more relaxed. Alas, I missed the last of the lion, so instead I chose the warm spring asparagus and morel mushrooms with toasted spelt and Dijon vinaigrette, a crisp bundle of white and green asparagus tied neatly with a scallion top, just warmed and so perfectly seasonal. One of my companions chose the pork shu mai which, while tasty, were smallish and unremarkable. And of course, there are Mal Krinn's wonderful breads, which might now be the best anywhere in the area. For mains I chose the roasted duck breast with sautéed foie gras because while I respect my arteries, they are slave to my whims. Somehow, the mild sweetness of the saffron caramelized apples still managed to balance out the richness of the meats, and in any case the long squash could also do the job with its pleasing change of texture. The ever-delightful Gubeen chose the jumbo lump crabcake for her lunch, apparently no longer purely crabmeat but now incorporating a modest amount of filler. I found it somewhat less sweet than the lump backfin beauties that River Falls used to serve, but packing an absolutely intense aroma of large jimmies. It had a well-developed sear, I guess unlike Mel's experience last fall. Despite my love for Tahitian vanilla, the Creamsicle left me nonplussed; a bit too much orange in proportion to the ice cream, and the juice was a tad bitter or oxidized. There's a nice little one-page summary at the reception stand describing the artwork that decorates the main dining room and hallway, including the huge and organic chandeliers. Also curiously there's a "pre-theater" menu, although I'm hard-pressed to think of any theaters in the area, except for the Lee-Hi Multiplex