astrid

Oh Fish! punch card. Spend $5 to get a punch card good toward ten (10) “Design Your Own” or Signature Maki Sushi Rolls at $5 per roll.

I've been there three times and have been pretty happy each time. Good rice, fresh and tasty ingredients, and nice saucing options.

It's still a good time to sow a fall cover crop, if you're not planting an edible. They definitely help suppress weeds and improves soil till.

For garlic planting, I think late October is probably fine for the zone 6 suburbs, but would definitely wait til after november for zone 7 and zone 8 locations. Bob Anderson has pretty good directions for growing and curing garlic. If you want to dive really deep into garlic biodiversity, check out this book from your local library.

I can certainly think of a couple DC based famewhore chefs who fits Pepin's description...

It appears to be a Sichuanese tea, could be floral tea or green tea. Here's the company site: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huaqiutea.com%2Fabout.asp Seems like a pretty reputable company and should be good tea.

Can you show the back. The name in the front is generic and literally translate to flower autumn famous tea.

PS 7's bar area serves a very good lunch and some of the best cocktails in town.

Snagged one of these. I'm just wondering if anyone else did and what they're thinking about ordering. The suppon tasting is right up my alley but probably no one else's. The surf 'n turf of wagyu and lobster sounds really good. More importantly, I'd like to know if you're gonna go soon so I can know what's good.

We had the kaiseiki with another couple in May. The Surf n Turf is a lot of food and they required at least two people to commit - it's essentially the basic kaiseiki with lobster sashimi, waygu shabu shabu, and a few more dessert options tacked on. Whether that's worth an extra $65 on the tab (for two people with tax and tip calculated in) depends on how much at least two of your party would enjoy lobster sashimi (we did) and a substantial shabu shabu (it was late in the meal and could have been a meal in itself, I also found it a bit too sweet for my liking).

For two people eating out, I would push for one basic and one sashimi. Our basic option came with a grilled waygu dish that was very good, and had a very nice variety of food. The sushi option did not have grilled waygu but came with a lot more sushi and sashimi, including some that were not offered with the basic option.

Of course, they could have changed everything since then, so you'll have to doublecheck with the restaurant to see if what I say is still true.

They will accommodate vegetarians

Or else, use it only for edible plants.

I would never dream of using it for anything else

It's 6-8 weeks too soon for garlic planting. Good week to seed arugula, mache, lettuce, turnips, beets, spinach, broccoli rabe, kale, and maybe carrots. also a great time to plant hardy annuals such as love in a mist and corn flowers, the fall sown ones do way better than spring planted seeds

$15 for $30 in food and non-alcoholic drinks at Enat

(Ethiopian near Duke Street/Little River Turnpike/395 in Alexandria. Tried it once a couple weeks ago without a coupon and was pretty happy with it.)

Also note that the fine print specifies that a reservation be made to use the coupon, and Enat is not on OpenTable. However, based on the one visit there, it doesn't seem like reservations would be a problem to make for at least off-peak dining.

Too bad about their move and name change. The setting for the old place was dreamy. Cliffs and gardens all around, looking straight into an amazing beach visited by penguins during dusk.

I do think Bay House Cafe in westport, new zealand has an even more beautiful setting and fantastic food.

(Name of restaurant edited because my memory sucks)

I had a fellow hiker in iceland tell me the hut food in the dolomites were fantastic and he ranked dolomites as his favorite hike on the strength of the food

Just came back from a nice Iceland vacation.

The restaurants –

Seafood Cellar (in the same building as the Reykjavik tourist center) continues to cook at a very high level. The food was really fresh and creative, I particularly liked their cod cheek appetizer and house seafood soup. It’s practically a bargain at the current exchange rate.

Fish Company (#1 on TripAdvisor) was uneven. The sushi was pretty lackluster and the salt cod dish was way too salty. The ambition is there, but the execution was lacking and the flavors didn’t always go well together.

Tapas Barinn was okay. The puffin with blueberry sauce was good. The lobster related dishes we ordered were not good.

Northern Lights Inn. Homestyle cooking. We got the langoustines and lambs, both were tasty and amply portioned (as they should be at almost $50 per entrée). The service was really negligent though.

Eldsmidgan. Good pizzeria, nice thin crust baked in a wood fired oven.

Other stuff –

Blue Lagoon – 4900 ISK per person! And a cliché and super-commercial to boot. But kinda fun to go once with friends, hang out in the milky blue water. Remember to put lots of conditioner into your hair before getting into the pool.

Ferðafélag Íslands tours and huts – Awesome. Seriously consider Iceland for your next hiking trip. No bears, no bugs, no view blocking trees, flush toilets and warm huts, and really nicely equipped kitchens. We had wonderful guides – enthusiastic, knowledgeable, patient, and kind.

Grayline AKA Iceland Excursions – Not recommended, they’re basically bus drivers that contracts out all of their tours, with minimal quality control. We had one decent coach tour and one tour that was almost a complete waste of time. In our experience, their bus drivers are not as nice or responsive as Reykjavik Excursions bus drivers.

+1 and I really enjoyed our dinner there too. I won't retread what others have said better but want to mention a couple other things --

We really liked having the (nice, highly competent, extrovert) kitchen staff serve and explain the food. I wish more high end restaurants would do this, provided that they can do it well.

There is $8 valet parking.

The (generous) wine pairing went beautifully with the food. The non-alcoholic pairing was good too, but not on the same level with the wine pairing.

There's lots of availability on Opentable right now.

I've been underwhelmed with both - Red Rock is far better of the two, but Pizza Paradiso (Old Town) and Faccia Luna (not Old Town) both make better pies than Red Rock .

Agree with the two posts above. I feel most comfortable in a place that has good food but is more laid back than formal. I don't want to be doted over. I also feel kind of bad spending a boat load of money on dinner. Over $100 per person and my enjoyment becomes inversely proportional to cost.

Mr. MV and I have a big anniversary coming up and I'm dithering over whether to book an expensive meal. Even Eve seems like too much green for one meal, let alone TIALW. I don't know, perhaps we'll let loose for once

Psst -- Rogue 24 reservations surprisingly easy to get. +1 managed to snag a reservation this week for a specific day next week.

If it's garlic you want: http://www.wegrowgarlic.com/

Definitely not a lavender plant.

Call up your local Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I've seen lavender bouquets at both places around this time of the year. You can dry what you don't use.

Do you have to refrigerate cherries that are packed in sugar and 80 proof alcohol? I packed a lot of sour cherries in whisky and brandy this June and just left them in the basement. They're really delicious right now, but now I'm worried that they'll go bad.