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Thanks, all. Good suggestions here. As it turns out, it will be lunch, and there will be four of us, not five, which means we all fit in the car (only one available) and can go anywhere we want. That gives me plenty of options. If we decide to stay in Georgetown and walk around a bit (which they may not want to do, since by Puerto Rican standards it will be pretty freakin' cold), we'll do Il Canale and Baked and Wired.

I like Mio a lot, but I don't want to take Puerto RIcans out for Puerto RIcan food.

So here's the deal: my sister and her 19-year-old son are in town, visiting from Puerto Rico. They're staying in Georgetown (she has business at the hospital), and I'd like to take them to lunch or dinner (TBD) nearby this weekend. We'll probably walk around the neighborhood a bit before or after we eat. She cooks, and I assume they both like good food, but they probably haven't been exposed to the variety available here. I want to feed them well, but I don't want them to be out of their comfort zone, and I don't want the food to be the focus of the evening. There will likely be five of us, and conversation will be very important, so the volume has to be reasonable. I should mention that although she's my sister, we've never met (long story), so although I want a casual setting, the occasion is not casual at all. Any suggestions?

Corduroy. Here's the menu on their website - I don't know how current it is, but it should be close. http://www.corduroydc.com/dinner_menu/index.html

Too early to plan, but maybe not to pick a date? Weekends in May and June are going to be busy for us.

NQD and I were at Mio last Friday night, joined by my mother, her brother and sister, and a friend of my mother's. That's four and a half Puerto Ricans, eager to try the Puerto Rican Friday menu. The verdict? Very, very good. Authentic traditional flavors any grandmother would be proud of, but with a refined technique few could achieve. Puerto Rican food is not delicate stuff. We eat heavy food - stews and root vegetables and lots of fried things, along with plenty of pork and rice and beans. Good, solid winter meals from an island that has never known anything but summer. My mother and her siblings started off with assorted frituras, or fritters. Puerto Rican street food - or beach food, if you prefer. We'll fry anything. I didn't try most of it, but I got a taste of alcapurria - traditionally mashed tubers, or green plaintain, or yucca, or some combination filled with well-seasoned ground beef and fried. This was a good version, lacking only hot weather and an ocean breeze. Along with the frituras they split an order of lechon, or roast pig. (Technically it should be a suckling pig, but usually anything under 100 pounds qualifies.) Moist, juicy, perfectly cooked. I assume there was crispy skin, but my family fights over that stuff, so I never saw it. Nice piggy flavor. I do, however, prefer my own version, but I am biased. The main difference is I inject a brine & marinade into the pig, so the meat is well-seasoned throughout. But theirs is definitely worth eating, and it's a hell of a lot less work to let them do it. NQD started with Mini Mofongo Semi-Dulce de Camarones. Mofongo is fried and mashed green plaintain, with the usual addition of garlic, pork cracklings, and some form of meat and drippings (pork, chicken, or shrimp are standard). Done right, it's in my top five favorite foods. This version used semi-sweet plaintains,and was topped with shrimp. NQD liked the taste, but thought the texture of the partially ripe plaintain didn't hold up properly. I agreed. My starter was Codornices Rellenas de Foie Gras y Funche con Mojito Rojo - quail stuffed with foie gras and white polenta. Delicious, well-cooked. I don't know if it qualifies as traditional Puerto Rican food, but the seasonings and overall flavor profile were right from the island. NQD's entree was Bife de Chorizo sobre Amarillos y Tortita de Mamposteao - rib-eye steak with ripe plaintain and rice. Nothing fancy or exotic here, just good, solid peasant food, if peasants could afford rib-eyes. Mine was pastelon. Think of something between a lasagna and a moussaka. The layers are plaintain and picadillo, a ground meat mixture, and depending on whose family is making it, may contain egg, cheese, and various vegetables - green beans, corn, etc., probably out of a can. This version included cheese (my family doesn't) and veal as the meat base. My mother asked if it was better than hers. I didn't answer, I just handed her the fork, and there was no need to discuss it further. This was an outstanding dish. I don't remember what the others had, but everyone seemed to be very happy. For dessert, most of the table shared a couple of orders of something chocolatey. They seemed to enjoy it. I had the flan of the day, mostly because if there's flan, or crème caramel, or whatever you choose to call it, I will eat it. It was very good. Again, I'm a bit biased; my aunt, who did not come with her husband, my mother's brother, makes flan that surpasses anything I've ever had from a professional kitchen. Friday's flan also fell short, but still, a good effort. So DC has a good Puerto Rican (and more) restaurant. Is it what you'd find if you went into someone's home and Grandma was cooking? Not exactly, but close enough that Grandma would clean her plate.

Yes, definitely.

I'll be there. NQD is a maybe, depending on her work schedule. We're meeting my family for dinner at Mio at 7:00, so we can't stay long.

No, we don't have a garden. We have the space, but both of us have black thumbs.

I do not eat gluten-free, but I'm cooking next weekend for someone who does. And who has made a couple of requests that don't quite fit with her limitations. So, can anyone suggest a good substitution for breadcrumbs? Not as a filler or binder, but as a topping - think golden brown, crispy crust on a casserole.

Is there any chance you'd be willing to resell a few? I can get just about anything I need here in the Asian or Latin markets, but no aji dulces anywhere. And the online sources are failing me, too.

Tasty, tasty Korean fried chicken. Not quite as crispy as Bonchon, or as hot (spicy), but the meat had better flavor, and for us it's a pretty good second choice. Overall, the concept of the restaurant is mildly bizarre, but the Korean chicken is good enough that we'll be back to try the rest. And if the rest sucks, we'll still come back. This place really needs to deliver.

Any other suggestions? Maybe something in Virginia?

I moved to DC in 1984, and lived there for about 15 years before moving to the Virginia burbs (but still inside the Beltway). Among my fellow DC residents, at least those I associated with, the distinction was pretty clear - "Washington" referred to the nation's capital - the federal government and those who interact with it on a daily basis. Particularly those parts of it that are more transient and temporary. "The District" referred to the city that the rest of us lived in. Steakhouses were Washington, Ethiopian restaurants the District. The Kennedy Center was Washington, Woolly Mammoth was the District. If you worked at a national non-profit that helped the homeless, that was Washington; if you volunteered at a homeless shelter, that was the District. Interns came to Washington, 4th-generation residents lived in the District. Home Rule was a big issue for the District, never for Washington. That was never as clear outside the city limits, and since I no longer live in DC I don't know if meanings have changed.

How was it?

I guess Steak and Cheese fits in with burgers better than it does with the various steak joints. NQD and I stopped in at about 5:30 this evening to try out the new place. Mostly empty, just a few families with kids. Limited menu options, mostly a question of what you want on your steak and cheese, and whether you want tater tots on the side. NQD did, I did not. I was wrong. The important stuff: the bread was good, tasty, not spectacular. The steak was tender, juicy, beefy and delicious. The cheese was gooey and greasy, the onions soft and mild, the lettuce and tomato too ridiculous to even consider allowing near my sandwich. Overall, this was a great sandwich, and we'll be back more often than we go to Hellburger. I neither know, nor care, how this compares to Philadelphia cheesesteaks. It sets the standard for an Arlington steak & cheese.

I missed this little item somehow. With all due respect to Levi Mezick, whose food I have not eaten and therefore have no opinion on, it seems to me that Jon Mathieson would be an upgrade in almost any kitchen. And although this is clearly a Michel Richard restaurant, the menu looks like food that Mathieson would do well. Has anyone eaten here recently? Has it improved over the shaky early reviews?

Really? No mention yet? Will Artley has left Evening Star Cafe, as of last weekend. No new job lined up. Details here.

I'm not going to be there, but based on past experience I'd say experiment! This crowd can handle it.

He's been talking about this for a while. I hope it works out, though I would have preferred something in Arlington. Georgetown? Ugh. I hope he has a good source for pigs

On a recent trip to London we ate at an Indian restaurant that had been highly recommended by a friend. The food was, indeed, excellent. The service was ludicrously bad. I believe, but cannot prove, that a significant part of the reason was that when I was offered a wine list I turned it down. It's not that we don't drink, we just tend to prefer beer with Indian food. Sadly, none was ever offered, and the possibility that we might want some other beverage other than water was apparently never considered. Part of the poor service, on the other hand, was clearly due to simple incompetence.

A day late, oh well... I worked in DC, and lived in Virginia, near Landmark Mall. We had bought a house in Falls Church but had not yet moved in. My commute to work was a bus, then Metro. The transfer point was the Pentagon. I had missed my bus that morning, and the next bus was about an hour later, since rush hour was ending. So I was fairly late, but no big deal, I could make it up on the back end. Fairly normal commute. My bus got to the Pentagon Metro; there was no sign of anything wrong. Although the news from New York had already broken, I don't think anybody around me had heard it yet. We were all just busy trying to get to work. Ah, the days before the smart phone. So I went into the station and was waiting on the platform. It was relatively busy, not as bad as peak rush hour, but a fair number of people were on the platform. I heard what sounded like a door slamming open - it may have been, since there are doors into the Pentagon down there. Somebody yelled out what sounded like "Get out, there's a bomb in the building." I looked over in the direction of the entrance but couldn't see the person yelling. I could see people looking around, trying to figure out what was happening and whether this person was serious. The yell was repeated: "Get out, there's a bomb in the building." One more split second of people looking around, and then we were moving. Everybody rushed the exit. The turnstiles weren't an obstacle, we just hurdled those. Out to the escalators, and up at a full run, just hoping desperately to get out before anything happened. I got out to ground level and ran out towards the parking lot. The bus drop-off area was covered; as soon as I got out from under it I looked up and saw smoke billowing up from the Pentagon. I couldn't tell if it was from the middle of the building or the far side, but the side near me was intact. Seeing the smoke was a huge relief, because it was no longer something that might happen, it was something that had already taken place, and I was OK. It occurred to me then that the man in the station may have been yelling "they're bombing the building," not "there's a bomb in the building." I kept walking away from the building; there were people milling around everywhere. One person was trying to get the attention of anyone who would listen. He claimed to have seen the plane hit. I tried calling my wife, but cell service was overloaded. Many people around me failed to call out; a couple of people got through. Different network, I guess. Then I overheard two people who had clearly been working in the Pentagon, and that's the first I heard about New York. Hundreds of us walked over to one of the hotels in the area; I don't remember which one. I got in the very long line for the payphones. People were great. Everybody understood that as badly as they wanted to contact their families, friends or offices, so did everybody else. Conversations were quick, people got off the phones in a hurry, and in a surprisingly short time I was talking to my wife. She worked out near Chantilly at the time, and her office had been glued to the news. Afterwards many of us jammed into the hotel lounge to watch. I don't know if it was live or on tape, but I saw the second tower fall. After a while of sitting there watching the horror on TV, I heard that Metro was running from Crystal City outbound, so I started heading home. On the way towards Crystal City there was a loud explosion, probably a fuel tank near the Pentagon. At Crystal City I called my wife again to tell her I was going home. I told her I was planning to start drinking heavily once I got home. She talked me out of that idea, so I stopped in a bakery and bought a large quantity of chocolate chip cookies instead. I don't really remember anything else. Presumably I got on the Metro and made it home OK, and I'm sure I must have turned on the TV and glued myself to the couch, but I have no memory of the rest of that day.

We haven't made any specific plans. I hope nobody is planning around us. The new caja china is slightly larger and a lot heavier, and therefore less portable. I was thinking of something in the Orion, or I guess we could do something smaller in the caja china at home and bring it fully cooked. Maybe a goat? Bringing the box to cook on-site is still an option if people really want that, but would take a bit more planning.

I am a fan of many sports. I follow some casually, some intently. I read several sports-related websites daily. I even compete, poorly, in one fairly obscure sport. I live in a city with a team in each of the major sports leagues, and it's currently baseball season. Coverage of baseball is extensive, online, on TV, in print, on the radio, etc. If an athlete sneezes it's covered, and the depth of detail easily available about financial transactions is astonishing. Yet I have never seen the Nationals play, don't know their record, or even if they're decent or terrible this year. I can name only one player, and nobody in management. Multiple outlets, lengthy discussions, and common knowledge do not mean that everyone is paying attention.

We ate there a few months ago, and were disappointed. I loved the old Farah Olivia, and never had a disappointing meal there, but I did hear that there were occasional off-nights, especially when Morou was not in the kitchen. I'm hoping that our meal in the new space was just one of those off-nights, but we haven't been back to find out. It wasn't bad; all of the elements of his cuisine were there, and the cooking seemed technically solid. A perfectly respectable meal. But the spark was missing; we wanted the original and got an OK copy. At some point we'll go back, in the hopes that it will be what it used to be.