brioboy

Kicking myself for waiting so long to go back to Sush-Ko. Koji said to go with the soft-shell crab. That, and crispy eel, were peak experiences. Enough to get me to write on this board for the first time in a couple of years.

RW prices more or less continue for lunch prixfix. Astonishing deal for $22.50 - calamari stuffed with potato and salami on a savory sauce for starter (a bit salty but beautiful presentation) and skate with pine nuts and golden raisins over spinach as good as I've ever had out or made at home (and I make a mean skate if may say so). Adventurous wine list - Viognier from Uruguay anyone? And it's by the glass. And crisp with light floral notes like the French stuff and not the UC Davies South American school of overdone lemon and oak. All served with that greatest attribute of a tip-top staff: attentive unobtrusiveness. The only complaint - dance music over the PA. If I want to boogie it ain't in an office building on Vermont Ave over a business lunch. But, I'm a stuffy old white guy. So for all you young groovies who want to keep your weekend vibe on through a rainy Monday morning, do go. I'll be the one with gray hair in the corner with fingers alternately in his ears and using the fluffy fresh focaccia to mop up every last bit of the sauce on the plate.

Weird. My dining companion had a beef stew that while tender was bland. My shortribs, however, were above par - spaetzle and cauliflower puree under it adding a creamy counterpoint to the rich meat. How could two fairly similar dishes be so disparate? Fresh asparagus soup special made you wonder if the "no cream" was a fib. But $93 for an otherwise modest dinner (soup, salad, two beers and glass of wine along with aforementioned entrees) at a little cafe in the 'hood. Yikes. That said, service was very sweet and kind and attentive from the manager to the busboy. And compared to the chain-like feel of Kemble Tavern across the street this place may not be Brasserie Beck but it is a charmer.

Get there early for lunch - it fills up fast. Dinner is more relaxed. Not noodles I know (and not on the takeaway menu either - I'm hopeless) but the tripe here is really nice and fresh. I recommend the dry red pepper version.

Half empty dining room at lunch but it still took quite some time to get the following (but worth the wait for item #3 alone) - wasabi guac $9 - they give you extra wasabi as you won't taste it much in the little scoop with funky prawn crisps (?) they give you to dip it with. - miso soup $5 - sake cured cod $15 Perhaps the best bit (and I mean bit) of cod I've ever tasted. The manager tells me they spend a lot of effort on it and use a sake extract that comes from the distillation process (aka don't try this at home and expect similar results). Astonishingly good. Comes on a base of sorrel-soup like puree that balances textures and flavors with fish very well. - dengaku salmon$13 You feel sorry for the poor bastard fish that has to compete with the above. Meh. - fish & chips roll $10 - cute concept - very fresh taste. Quite liked the ersatz tartar sauce too. - snow white roll $12 - eel roll with apple. Agree that apple could have been more pronounced - toro sashimi $9 sort of staid back-to-basics after all the flash and bang above - salmon aburi $7 can't even remember this one - demon slayer sake $14 for a 12oz bottle that our waitron was kind enough to warm for us - it was a cold and rainy day and hot sake seemed to be in order although I felt awfully gauche doing so. Said waitron was stunningly beautiful which made one wish she were not one of these consumate pros who quietly present food, clear the table, take care of all details with you barely registering her presence. Total $93 and tax of 9:30 with tip all comes to $122.30 for lunch for two. We went across the street to tangysweet for pomegranite yogurt for desert. Wish I had stayed in the confines of the Milk Bar from Clockwork Orange themed decor and out of the soggy downtown Monday. Magical space - a sleek little temple to clever cooking and good service.

Perhaps the Lebanese mafia wanted to remove the info that neither the owner or manager are Moroccan. But even the Moroccan owned places around here are not that great. Truth be told, a great deal of the Moroccan restaurants in Morocco are not that good either. The standouts, like Maison Bleu in Fez, beggar everything else.

Not been moved to write anything here for quite some time, I'm afraid, but this place is an inspiration. I'm enough of an old fart to get sentimental for the great meals I had at Lespinasse when it was in that room - and feel pretty ambivalent about the retro 70's disco acoutrements that now tart up the bar as well as the dining room. But with the charmingly unaffected staff and sensational food & hooch and all is soon well in the world. With a lunch menu heavy on salads and sandwiches and a sommelier that talked me down from the bottle of Condrieu we were initially looking at to a funky Spanish white Rias Baixas Granbazan at half the price(!) the place provided rather less sticker shock than I had been bracing for. The gnocchi/short ribs app is pretty awesome - on par with the cloud-like puffs of ricotta at Charlie Palmers (my favorite anywhere) and the short ribs reminiscent of Bouchon. Plates of hot gugere cheese puffs, olive bread cigars, strawberry and chocolate macaroons all thrown in gratis help take the edge off for cheap bastards like myself. And the Baba for desert really is pretty wonderful. I had haddock for my main course. Naturally it tasted like it was right off the boat and cooked not a moment too long. Can't wait to go back and peruse more of both the menu and a wine list that that you could cozy up with like a good book.

That's just about the most disappointing link I've followed all year.

Fun place, fine service and props to Rocks for the instructions on how to manipulate the soft-shell crab pizza. Not sure that the great unwashed are willing to make the leap to pizza that has to come with instructions but it made me very happy. The Mrs doesn't think it's the best in town - too short a menu - but can see that it that for what it does it does it very well. I just kept agreeing with her so that she wouldn't object to me sneaking bits of her merguez pie. The waiter made an interesting point when I asked if this was part of the Greenwood empire. "Yes and it makes me nervous when I have to say that." Why? "You would be surprised how many people come looking t be disapointed."

Jefferson Place just lost Bacchus! What gives? When I tried to make discreet enquiries at the sister restaurant in Bethesda the staff were clearly under orders not to give any dirt on what happened downtown. What's next? Do we we have to worry about C.F. Folks?

Use that phone number! Went two weeks ago and it was jam packed. This week had to battle the hordes of walk-ins clustered around the front hoping for something to open up. Nothwithstanding that the service was first rate - even if the pacing is understandably a bit slow - and the food (trout this time and halibut before) attractively plated and cooked perfectly. Riddle me this: Why in the world has it been so hard to get a good dining scene going on the Hill? People are clearly desperate for good food at a price point below Bis and Charlie Palmer. Witness the success of Sonoma on the House side. Congress has shown that it isn't going to stamp out $50 lunches anytime soon. That leaves a lot of room - or so it would seem - for good investments. What am I missing?

Apologies for the length - I got carried away... Blue ducks are indigenous to New Zealand and the few that are left there are among the rare few waterfowl anywhere that live, eat and rear their young entirely on fast flowing river water. As befits an endangered species, they are difficult to find. Perhaps it is in testament to this elusiveness and the danger that fast flowing water suggests that hot-shot design firm Tony Chi made the trip to the dining room at the refurbished Park Hyatt's restaurant so complicated and dangerous. For a space that cannot help be what it is – a hotel lobby – it is a fun voyage. Navigate past the "tea lounge" (a humidor displays blocks of cellophane-wrapped raw tea like contraband in some high-tech DEA exhibit). Check out the glass cubicles around the bar (the punters must look like like pinned buterflies at happy hour) although at lunch the whole tea/bar space is expansively empty. Dodge down narrow ramps, trip down artfully concealed steps and finally your voyage is over, the rushing waters subside, and you are in the relative oasis of the dining area. Only relative because the open kitchen is the first thing you see - full of men and women hovering over the blue beast: a massive Molteni range featured in the WaPo even before BDT opened. The Post wowed at the cost - about that of a small airplane - and the crane needed to bring it in. Now it is hooked up it lurks like some massive queen bee surrounded by worshiping dancing drones. I really liked BDT's predecessor Melrose. It was pricey and overrun with Georgetown Ladies Who Lunch with very, very good food. It felt bright and civilized – quite apart from the low roar of political/business drudgery that infests the vibe in most good restaurants in “this town.” It felt like the kind of place where the hotel restaurant revolution really had hit its stride. No super-chef and glitz; just a very reliable and pleasant place to eat. The Park Hyatt kept Chef McBride from Melrose but has now upped the glitz quotient and the PR seems to be trying to elevate this man to his rightful place as star of the show. Whether the rest of the staff will measure up remains to be seen. The restaurant is new so I can excuse the foibles of the wait staff with their hit and run service even if the place remains priced for the expense account and money-is-no-object crowd. Why, I asked, do the sardines with cured lemons showed no visible evidence of lemons? “I don’t know. Ask him (pointing to someone on the other side of the room). He might know.” Clueless on how to fix a rocking table. “It’s these stone floors.” Maybe that’s why a half inch thick bit of cork isn’t fixing the problem. And I still hold that whoever coined the phrase "Are you still working on that?" deserves a special place in hell. But frankly they could whip me with chains and drench me in leftover duck fat from the Frialator. I'd keep coming back. This is some of the best food in the city. The afforementioned sardines on super-light flatbread crisps with slivers of olives certainly do have the tang of cured Moroccan lemons. Green pea soup is intense and seems so creamy – until the sweet corn grits with chantrelle mushrooms arrive draped with slivers of what tastes like top quality cheddar . Like the cheddar, all the food fairly reeks of craft. The menu tells you what farm your veal schnitzel lived and died on, and your half black feather chicken too, whatever that is (other than an ostentatious refutation of the taste available from its plastic wrapped cousins stacked up in coolers at Safeway). Not everything hits the mark. The life of danger you flirt with as you order the “angry trout” evaporates as you get – a trout (albeit cut open head to tail, spread open and folded over itself so that all the poor bastard’s little teeth are flayed out in a useless defense). A side of sautéed young leeks rather lacks the punchy citrus taste for which true Welshmen weep. Batter fried soft shell crab is awfully good complemented with a great herby remoulade/mayonnaise sauce that saves it only just from being what you would get pretty much any competent where else. I’m looking forward to going back for dinner. The wodges of fried potato logs – they are beyond mere French fries as they sprout from silver ramekins – are dark with duck fat in the evening. And the bloggers here are in shock over the lamb “hot pot” in jus and bone marrow. I know, however, what I’ll be getting for desert: the apple pie may be the best I’ve ever tasted. Slightly tart. Well built crust. Not too wet. A la mode with vanilla ice cream flecked with pith of the beans. If this baker could make Moms as well as his pie the psychiatric profession in this country would evaporate. So never mind that you cannot hear your waiter as he mumbles his introduction because of the too loud fusion jazz (ugh) cascading out of the ceiling speakers and bouncing off the stone floors. Never mind the harsh architecture of the room clashing against the curvy Amish benches and willowy winding wood of the armchairs. Never mind the stiff drink prices. Overdesigned décor, hotel lobby ambiance and a bit of human chaos in the presentation only underscore the very high points McBride et al hit in the kitchen when they do – and at the moment they hit them over and over again. Like their New Zealand namesake Blue Ducks, they thrive despite an environment that can sometimes seem absurdly inhospitable. Here’s hoping that the caliber of their cooking continues to thrive through winter and well beyond.

Working/Living in DC/Bethesda I can say that cheap flights out of BWI airport would feel like a lot more of schlep if not for the easy access to the Brewers Art (and blues at the Full Moon Saloon, but that's another story). Maybe I should also post a crap review just to keep the crowds down and help maintain the easy elegant vibe this place transmits. Generally the food trumps the decor for me - I'll eat in a trench carved out of the side of Pennsylvania Avenue if the food is good - but the BA is so gorgeous and faded decadent that I'd eat here if they only served mouldy hotdogs. The quite wonderful beer I'm not so negotiable on. Hmmm. Suddenly I feel like booking a cheap flight to somewhere.

Whole Paycheck is still selling it for about $12 a "set." If you don't like it straight, break open one of the sacs and mix a generous glop of the roe into a couple of best quality eggs when scrambling. It adds a depth and richness to the eggs beyond what you get with cream. But then I like kimchee in my eggs as well.

My good friend Eric (who went to college close enough to Mt. Holyoke to have picked up the karma) insisted that if we tried to take him to a strip joint for his bachelor party he would hail a cab and leave. So instead of taking him out to a top notch dinner, as originally planned, we took him to a shooting range and then Hooters. He was gracious enough to stay, although for all the hype the place felt pretty antiseptic. But we did get the bucket of (mediocre) chicken wings and bottle of DP - twice. This champagne retails at $130-$140 and they sell it for $150 (less if you take out the price of the chicken). And when was the last time you wanted to have the sommelier pose for a photo with your blushing guest of honor? I did call ahead to ask about corkage for some lesser priced wines I wanted to bring for everyone but they said they don't take outside alcohol. Thus the DP was supplanted by lashings of Yeungling or some such. Nothing's perfect.