Escoffier

Not disagreeing with you, Daniel, but the closest Pho 75 to Annandale is in Falls Church in the Loehmann's Plaza shopping center almost at 495.

Congratulations Dean, may you have 30 more great years...

and if you let him feed you, he does a great job...

A travesty that Nathan Anda and Anthony Chittum weren't recognized for the wonderful and memorable meals they create.

The last time Grover and I were in Korea, we passed a lunch place that offered to have you "Eat In our Outhouse"...for some reason it just wasn't very enticing.

what are you trying to say, Don?

I get to eat a lot of rice that Grover prepares and Het-Bahn is good rice (and saves a lot of time)..

but did you ask in Korean? They have lotus root in the cooler on the wall where the milk and dairy products are but they may be pickled lotus root. I've also seen them fresh in the produce section. Grover will (bad pun alert) "root" them out if they have them...

Other than higher prices, not really...quality seems the same, maybe a small decrease in serving size (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

but did they have anything extraordinary to eat? Poutine doesn't count.

Ask the Canadians and they'll tell you it's where the American's got their butts kicked in an ill-fated (and poorly planned) attempt to attack Canada...

A couple of weeks ago, three of us checked out Gino's Ti-Pi Restaurant. They have a pretty decent pizza and the steak and cheese sub that a third person had was described as juicy and tasty and "yummy" which is somewhat subjective...I didn't taste it so I'm not sure exactly what yummy means...the pizza I had was good but the Italian sausage wasn't spicy (to me at least). However, the crust was good with just the right amount of crispiness and the toppings were adequate without overwhelming the sauce and cheese...overall, a pretty good tasting pizza (it wasn't Kinchley's by any stretch but it was 2000% better than anything Pizza Hut or Dominos passes off as pizza).

Okay, here's the deal. There will be about 100 of us meeting in Lake George, NY in late September. One of the activities planned for this horde is to go on a 3 hour drive through the area and overwhelm some local eatery. Now, the group of denizens that will be following me on this journey are heading to Fort Ticonderoga to absorb a bit of local history. We plan on getting to Fort Ticonderoga around lunch time. We can either go on the Fort tour before or after lunch. Enough background...here's the conundrum, where can I take this crowd of rowdy (and probably dowdy) people for lunch in the Ticonderoga, NY area? The second part of the equation is that lunch not cost more than $15 per person which should be a pretty easy goal to hit in that part of the world. I'm thinking about pizza (this is New York after all) or something Italian. So who (anybody?) has any idea of a reasonable (and really good) place to eat in that part of the world? All ideas appreciated (no chains though, I have a reputation to uphold here, you know).

Hooray!!! (and about time...thank you, Mr. Pressley)

Recently Grover and I suffered an extreme longing for coq au vin. We asked around and discovered that La Bergerie serves it now and then at lunch. Being loath to pass up such an opportunity, we availed ourselves of a fortunately located parking space in Old Town and headed to La Bergerie. We arrived just as the restaurant was opening for lunch and naturally were seated promptly. We were greeted by our server bearing menus and a wine list. We made our request for coq au vin and a burgundy (for me) and a water for Grover and he exited stage right to go to the kitchen and place our order. About 2 minutes later some really great baguette and butter showed up. Being just slightly this side of ravenous, we proceeded to devour the bread...it was wonderful. Nice crunch to the crust and a very fresh, tasty interior. In roughly ten minutes our coq au vin appeared. You would not believe how wonderful the aroma wafting from the (very) hot plate was...the smell of chicken, mushrooms and potatoes, lardons and garlic all stewed in wine. It was a definite treat for the senses. The chicken was a complete breast, deboned but with the wing still attached. The meat was moist, flavorful and tender. The potatoes had absorbed the commingled flavors and were a delight...and mushrooms and lardon, what is there to say? Both Grover and I devoured ever bit leaving only the bones from the wings. All the wonderful juices were sopped up with baguette and we were left moaning in bliss. Unfortunately, it was not the end...our server arrived with the souffles that we had ordered when we ordered the coq au vin...Gran Marnier for Grover and Chocolate for me. Well, what could we do? We were too far gone to stop now...we managed to eat every bite of the souffle...a bit of coffee, a last swallow of water, we paid the bill and left satiated and quite happy. Definitely the best coq au vin I've had since Paris...we'll be back to do it again.

This is our go to place for any special occasion (like me getting home from South America (again) or leaving for Japan or whatever). Tony can always be counted on to provide something special and tasty. Andrew his sous-chef is a budding award winner as well. The quality and craftsmanship never varies no matter who's in the kitchen. Dave the manager has an amazing knack of finding special wines for every course. I have yet to be disappointed in anything that comes from Vermilion's kitchen.

All right David..enough already...let's get this thing open and functioning. I'm tired of waiting for those chocolate "bombs" and the promised good food and service. Grover and I are ready to see if you can give Nate a run for his money. Open dammit!!(and Josh, don't forget to do a wine critique..Matt is letting his school work get in the way of his wine recommendations)

After a hectic day and a water heater that decided to dump 40 gallons of water in our basement, we decided to overnight in a hotel in Crystal City. Because we were close, we walked to Bebo. We were prepared to wait no more than 15 minutes and then head elsewhere. After a minor discussion about being seated at a 4 top at the total back of the restaurant when we had passed a number of empty tables closer to the front (and the pizza oven... and being told there were 4 people at the bar waiting for that particular table...hmmm, I looked at the bar area and after including the bartender/server, I only counted 2 people at the bar...but what do I know? must be that new math), we were seated. We waited...and waited...and waited for a grand total of 5 minutes before our server arrived to take our drink order and ask if we'd like to order...we hadn't gotten past the first page of the menu! We gave our drink order and the server disappeared toward the front of the restaurant...surely this is where the wait will start...next up a runner with water and bread (a grand total of 8 minutes so far...this was going WAY TOO SLOW )...followed closely by our server with our wine. He took our order (now up to a grand total of 11 minutes...time was rapidly being wasted here) and, who should show up but the maitre'd who asked if we'd like to move to the same 4 top that we had been refused just 10 minutes before...uh, noooo, we're seated and we've ordered and there's certainly no reason to move now... (and besides, we didn't want to change now to another server after this one was being so attentive). After roughly another 10 minutes, our pizza showed up...our server had custom ordered our pizza toppings (which made the price lower) and delivered exactly what we wanted (sausage and mushrooms)...I spend 30 seconds trying to find something to complain about with no luck. We ate our custom pizza (which was very good by the way) and were thinking about dessert. Out came the dessert menu and a server patiently awaiting our order...I didn't want anything else, Grover wanted dessert...which came about 3 minutes after our order... So, as far as service goes...we had no problems (even though after all the horror stories we expected long waits and slipshod service), the food was very good (the bread was excellent but I found the olive oil to be a bit bitter) and we'll go back. Bebo is no Dino but the pizza was very good and the service was excellent. Our server Arturo is to be complimented on his attentive and rapid service.

The ones I had in Mexico City last week were great...big, sweet and full of wonderful strawberry taste (and the fresh home made whipped cream didn't hurt either)

Vidalia. RJ does wonderful things with food. The room is very nice and quite comfortable, the wine list is amazing and the service is exactly right.

Please...Safeway? You're kidding, right? Hie thee to a real Asian market and gaze upon a whole aisle of ramen..ramen in all it's many permutations...Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Japanese (and probably every other country in Asia)...ramen in more flavors than just "blue" (whatever that is). Ramen in solid packs like bricks, ramen in bowls, ramen in 6 packs and boxes and spicy and mild and bland and flavors you've never in your life thought of...Safeway...pshaw!!

I'd never call Delia's a destination dining place. It's a good lunch place and a okay dinner place (if you stick to their strengths, that is). The chicken is very good (and it was Tumi before Delia's bought it), the pizza is good Italo-Greek, the calzones are huge and leave you with left-overs, the salads are big...I'd never go there for fine dining but sometimes you just want to eat something simple and go home and call it a day...Delia's is good for that...(come to think of it, a lot of small places are like that...29 Diner comes to mind)

That's correct. It's in the same strip mall that has the new Dunkin Donuts right across the street from the credit union. That strip mall is just north of the new VDOT parking lot.

You really need to try Delia's on Backlick Rd across from the Credit Union (at Brookwood? Shopping Center?). Much the same food (Greco-Italian, and Salvadorean in addition) as Saratoga but without Miss Effie as your waitress du'jour. I used to eat at Saratoga fairly often and you're right about the "Chinese" place...

I believe that's called a "McGuffin"...