TedE

I found it appropriate that the text for the ad that appears prominently on the right side said "You've been bamboozled" when the page first started to load ...

Man, I'm going to have to disagree with all the Bricks haters. Maybe I was always just too tanked to notice that it was bad! It was never a first-choice, and never a first stop, but it served it's purpose admirably and fairly cheaply. Any food I consumed there was purely sponge material for the night's second act.

Or perhaps I'm tying it too much in to the loss of the Park Bench, or the dwindling numbers of real neighborhood bars in the city. Especially with the possibility of a Vida-pedigreed replacement whose prospects frighten me. But I'm fully willing to accept all of my own pre-conceived prejudices, however wrong they may turn out to be

So, is this the new pizza joint Tom was alluding to in his chat? Or are the Greenwood/New Haven pizza rumblings the real deal? The latter intrigues me; the former makes me wish Bricks, a perfectly good neighborhood eatery, had survived.

Kliman weighs in and the verdict ain't good. Between this and all of the so-so (and less so) reviews coming in could it be that Tom missed the boat on this one? Or is the place really that stupifyingly inconsistent? I live right down the street but have been reluctant to give it a whirl.

I'm actually shocked this place is (was?) still open. It was the 3rd or 4th option when I came down to visit my friend at GWU in the early 90s when we were just out of high school. They were never much for checking IDs. The other 3 or 4 options have long since been shut down .

I recall McD's offering a crabcake sandwich here in the DC area a few summers back.

I think they still might be doing it. I recall a billboard from last year on the way to the DE shore advertising the McD crabcake. But then again it could have been 2-3 years ago. Those drives tend to blend together.

Had a nice softshell over corn risotto at CF Folks for lunch today. Not a bad deal for $11.50.

Had the same from CF Folks today, but to be honest I wished they had served up the sandwich from last year. While the crab was excellent the risotto and salad didn't do much for me. The sandwich with remoulade was freaking fantastic.

Yup: Bennigans! I waited tables at one briefly oh so many years ago and the one thing I used to get all the time between shifts was the Monte Cristo.

What about the Trio, at 17th and Q? I haven't been able to find its original opening date, but I have found out that it has been operated by its current owner since 1950. It was supposedly operating in the same location under the same name when he bought it, though. Anyone have more info?

I was flipping through one of those "History of Dupont" picture books one day (they have them for a number of D.C. neighborhoods) and remember seeing one of Trio's. At the time I was surprised at the date on the photo, but can't remember what it was. What is Fox and Hounds wasn't there, but the main storefront was. I seem to remember it was from the 30s. An article in the CP last week on the neon sign that now sits above Hank's has this little tidbit:

"As to the provenance of the sign, Mallios, who owns the complex that houses Trio, Trio’s Fox & Hounds, and now Hank’s, says that it’s been posted for 60 or 70 years."

So, there's that.

What makes it better?  Does it keep the beer from being bruised?

The beer engine isn't really what makes cask-conditioned beers better, it's simply that these beers are "alive" (have active yeasts still doing their magic). Cask beers are not pasteurized or filtered so they have more character than most beer you will see. As they develop and age these beers produce their own natural carbonation, but it is much lower than what most folks are used to (well, in the U.S. at least). A beer engine's primary job is to agitate the beer as it's poured. Pulling the handle forces the beer through a little aeration device that gives a bit of a head to the beer. Cask beers can also be served as is with whatever carbonation is present in the product already (gravity pours).

Long and short of it: beer engines don't a good beer make, but good beers are typically poured out of them. That's why some folks get in a tizzy when someone plants an engine on a bar and pours regular old pasteurized, filtered, non-real ale through it. Misleading advertising and all that.

Which brewpubs are those?

I'm relatively sure that Old Dominion Brewery has a cask ale, but I don't know if it's hand-pumped or not.  Not that it makes a difference, since I always have to drive myself out there to get my growlers refilled!

If I'm not mistaken the District Chophouse does, but I confess I haven't been there in a while. They may be gravity pours as well, but at least it's the real deal.

Brief summary for this continuation of the Heffalump & Castle thread:

Boy walks into a bar. Boy orders a cask beer. Barperson pulls beer through an engine. Boy tastes beer and realizes he's been duped. Boy weeps softly for the state of real ale in this country and abroad.

That is so wrong.  Some time ago, I had a pint of hand pulled Newcastle at Finn MacCools on 8th SE.  It didn't taste right at all, and I wonder if this may be a reason.  Should be the subject of another thread, though.

Aye, 'tis the reason. Be wary of any and all hand-pulled beers from across the pond; 9.56 times out of 10 it's just keg beer. It is ostensibly done for quality reasons (cask beer ain't the easiest thing to ship long distances), but if you can't do it right don't pretend that you can! At least put it on nitro if you want to differentiate.

On a brighter note, the Brick says they WILL be having real casks once they get the beer engine rolling, and you can get gravity casks at RFD now. Same thing with Firkin Thursdays and the Reef. They've had some great ones. Not to mention the local brewpubs that serve up real ales.

And their most heinous crime is pushing off fake "cask" Fullers to an unsuspecting public. Basically serving regular ol' keg beer through hand pumps to create the illusion that they are serving a cask-conditioned product. Granted this is more of an issue with Fullers and their marketing here in the states, but E&C could actually get cask beer to serve from local suppliers if they really wanted. Click here for more indignation.

Is there an Italian version of Lauriol Plaza in DC?

Hmmmmmm ..... Sorriso?!

Crummy food and yet Sorriso also looks crowded.

Well, there ya go. Is Sorriso now officially the Lauriol Plaza of Cleveland Park? I do see crowds of people crowding by the front door on nights when it's packed. All they need to do now is start charging $15/carafe for house wine as people wait and they're in business!

I thought it was the Fire Marshall complaining of the fire hazard of having the grill on the sidewalk, but either way, it'll be open today, with seating inside.

I think the fire marshall got them off of the front sidewalk. They then moved into the back patio where the smoke complaints probably arose. The next week when he moved in side I overheard a conversation between Roberto and presumably a denizen of the surrounding buildings, something about a fire alarm going off

We dropped in about a week after they opened and I remember having caprese, a quite good mushroom pizza and a decent bottle of wine. Price was a little on the high side, but I figured it was about par for the course. Haven't returned.

We are always thinking about where to go for dinner in that immediate area, and Sorriso is usually mentioned and ALWAYS dismissed cuz there is a better option for whatever we are hungry for. Pizza? Why not Vace or a short trip to 2 Amy's for a bug jump in quality. Entrees are nothing that can hold a candle to Palena cafe across the street for the same price (or less!). Indique is far more interesting.

Sorriso sits smack dab in the midst of better options for the categories and price point it's trying to hit. So until they drop their prices or increase the quality of what they churn out it'll keep being dismissed. However, drop the same exact place in the midst of a more cuisine-challenged part of the city and it would thrive. Thems the breaks.

I wonder if it's open today. The weather is pretty bad out. Just my luck, I happen to be in GTown today...

The grill hasn't actually been outside since the first half dozen or so incarnations. The neighbors complained of the smoke so they moved it into the Lab.

I'll admit it...the question made me think twice or three times. "What's a plumper?" Couldn't REALLY mean what I thought it meant, could it?! 

I'm just wondering how many people reading the chat naively typed "plumper" into Google while at work, followed by frantic mouse-clicking of pop-ups if they happened to click through on one of the results ...

I'd like to say "thanks" for a great chat today. Tom's comments were expanded, informative and fun. The kvetching was markedly lessened while the really useful information was flowing. It inspired me to get out of my own kitchen and try some of the restaurants discussed today.

And this has got to the submission of the year so far:

"Dining with Fetishes: Tom,

I'm not sure I've seen this question asked before, but do any restaurants in town cater to people who are into plumpers?"