Escoffier

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"...

After two trips to this place, I can only say that it gives new meaning to the "Taco two-step". Not that it causes THAT kind of gastric distress but that it's marginally better than buying Old El Paso at the neighboring Giant and eating it out of the can. Glutinous refried beans covered with neon yellow "cheese" just isn't high on my list of things to eat...it's somewhat on the same order as the "Chinese" restaurant a couple of doors down.

What great news. The poor imitation American series is terrible.

We missed seeing you. We're scoping out some new Annandale restaurants (one with great handmade noodles and ja-jung myun). It might be a bit early for another Korean $20 Tuesday but there will be one sooner or later.

Grover and I go quite often and Lighthouse was one of the $20 Tuesday dinners.

So Grover and I decide to visit Honey Pig on Friday for lunch. Honey Pig is located behind Bank of America on Columbia Pike near Little River Turnpike. We were greeted at the door and led to a table that was directly in the path to the kitchen and restrooms (naturally there were 20 other vacant tables which were not in the path to the kitchen or restrooms). We settled into our new table in a far corner way away from the kitchen and bathrooms and looked over the menu. The menu is quite extensive but you might want to bring someone who speaks Korean to order for you...luckily, I have Grover. After perusing the menu for a few minutes, our server came to take our order. Grover ordered us both marinated and non-marinated pork belly with kimchi. A busgirl (water girl? water person? person who delivers things but isn't a waitress?) rather uncermoniously placed one glass of ice water and one glass of bori-cha on the table and fled post-haste. This was fine (for me) but I was reasonably sure that Grover would want something to drink as well. After a few seconds of frantic signaling, finger waving and yoo-hooing, we managed to get the attention of someone who had absolutely no idea of what we might want...we resorted to pointing at the glasses and making the universal opening of the hands gesture to signal that we'd like another glass of water and bori-cha...with much whispering and finally pidgin Spanish/Korean we were brought more water and bori-cha...next came the kimchi and panchan...the kimchi was milder than I like but tasty, there were some onions marinated in soy sauce and vinegar that were really good, some spicy veggie bits (I'm not exactly sure what these were but they tasted good so the passed the good-taste test). Now came the big moment, our up to this point server who seems to have never smiled in her life uncermoniously began placing squares of marinated and unmarinated pork belly on the grill. Honey Pig makes great noises about how the servers cook the meat for you and you sit and savor the wonderful aromas of cooking meat and then, when the meat is done, you wolf it down...well...I don't want to disillusion you, but once the meat was on the grill, it would have been easier to find a seat on the metro during rush hour than to find our server...okay, no big deal, we can push meat around a hot grill and so we did...while performing this daring action we noticed that everyone in the place was wearing a protective bib (no other word would suffice) with the exception of...you guessed it...me and Grover...again the yoo-hooing, finger pointing and other gestures (some of which were starting to border on the rude even if they were carefully hidden by the table), after much sighing and "oh woe is me" action, our kindly server deigned to bless us with our requisite bibs...naturally we still had not received either rice or lettuce to wrap the now rapidly cooking meat. Once again into the breach we leaped and once again we were blessed with service only slightly slower than the hectic pace of a glacier...finally gathering all the necessary pieces of our lunch we placed grilled kimchi on top of grilled pork belly and tried to put the lousy service out of mind. The meat was very good, the grilled kimchi was a new taste for me and one I really enjoyed (once it cooled down enough so that I could eat it...Grover had no such problem). Temporarily putting aside the service issues (as if) we cased the joint to see if it would make a suitable $20 Tuesday...there is no table that will hold more than 8 people, there are no long tables where people can eat family style and naturally all the tables are bolted to the floor for the safety of the gas feeds for the grills. No go, can't do it. No way to feed a hungry horde of Rockwellians in a group unless we either take over the whole place or decide to eat in groups of 4. So, after all the attitude, lousy service, misunderstandings, etc, it's our opinion (and you know what people say about opinions), go if you want, try to overlook the spotty service, be prepared to ask a number of times for things that should just appear, try to outwait your server and when your order finally arrives, eat up and leave. Don't expect niceties, don't expect to be overwhelmed with service, just expect your food to show up (eventually) be cooked by you, and to enjoy your efforts...I gave myself a 20% tip because I served myself so well...your experience may be different, but we're really not interested in finding out if ours would be. Lunch for the two of us was $25.99 without the tax...the lack of service I believe was free but the bill wasn't itemized so I can't tell for sure.

so you had a full complement of compliments and no complaints about the garlic being nice to the spice?

I found the jampong to not be as spicy as I like but good nontheless. Plenty of good squid, 2 good size shrimp (but not in the shell), lots of tiny salad shrimp, octopus and clams and mussels. The jampong is quite a bargain. (I still can't get over no kimchi though...it's unKorean)

You might want to add Bookbinder's to the Seafood category and I don't see Dino in the Italian section (I'm sure that's just an oversight that will be remedied).

(too bad they don't know the difference between 'compliment' and 'complement'..."yessiree bob, that's one great looking cloud") Grover and I had dinner there last Friday evening. We went with the $45 tasting menu. As others have stated, the food could be warmer for a couple of dishes, but overall we were quite happy with our selections (you have to pardon me, that was last Friday and there have been a lot of miles and a few dinners since). Our server Jawad more than made up for the wishy-washy service we had the first time we were there. All in all, a most pleasant dinner even though nothing really stood out.

I just spent 3 days in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. An amazingly beautiful country with unbelievable amounts of poverty. Even though there is much poverty, the locals have an amazing variety of foods. Lunch one day at the Flamingo Hotel in Omoa consisted of ceviche and pasta with seafood which was macaroni with a lobster tail that was huge, clams, shrimp, and large pieces of a mild white fish in a very nicely spiced red sauce (almost felt Italian). A large glass of freshly made lemonade was the drink of choice. We ate on a patio overlooking the beach which meant there was a nice breeze. The entire lunch was approximately $12 US. Lunch of Friday was at Lando which is a very small, family run restaurant about 30 minutes from Puerto Cortes, the commercial sea port. Lunch was a barbecued porkchop, a complete chicken leg, grilled steak, a spicy sausage, salad, rice and black beans, a baked potato, grilled plaintain with garlic (which is wonderful) and freshly baked bread. Way more food than most people can finish and the tab was an astounding $3 US. Needless to say, we left stuffed. I will post some pictures from this lunch later on...

Welcome to the wonderful world of panchan (or banchan if you prefer). Always kimchi and radish, sometimes cucumber, sometimes zucchini and 4 pieces of Soondae which is one of my favorite Korean foods. There are restaurants in Korea that specialize in Soondae only. Panchan is always served with Korean food. That's correct, there is no milk in Seul Long Tang, the color is strictly from beef bone. The bowl does a wonderful job of keeping the soup hot. I hope you added the rice which comes with it. That way you can eat the rice while you wait for the soup to cool. They've dealt with me a lot and they're still attentive and polite...(they have a fairly large American clientele so they're used to our strange ways). Unfortunately, I will be in Ottawa but Grover should be available and happy to make the arrangements. You won't get the normal Korean tables, they put the tables along the side together for large groups (unless you're Korean). Don't worry, you'll be in a chair and eating from a "normal" type table.

Once a date is settled upon, you might want to PM Grover to get her to give you a hand with the restaurant just so the language differences don't present a problem.

Well Grover and I are home from Bookbinders. A few observations:1 - The bread isn't great but the crust is nice and crunchy and quite tasty 2 - The oysters on the half-shell were excellent, plump, fresh and exteremly good. 3 - Grover's shrimp cocktail had 4 huge shrimp. They didn't stand a chance. The cocktail sauce has just the right amount (for us anyway) of horseradish. 4 - I had beef tournedos which were cooked to a cool red center medium rare with just a bit of chewiness. The beef is good but not better than beef at another place I can name. 5 - Grover's crabcake was a good size with almost no filler. I managed to snag a bite and it made me wish I had ordered them as well. 6 - We shared the key lime pie. The pie was very good but the sweet whipped cream on the side was really SWEET. Wine prices by the glass are a bit pricy but the pour is generous which makes up for it to some extent. Our server was properly attentive and there when we needed something but not obtrusive. Dinner for two with 2 glasses of wine, appetizers, entrees, dessert, coffee and cappucino came to around $130 not including tax.

Congratulations on your new position. We're in and will help you out if you need it. Gamasot is one of my favorite restaurants and we'll go there anytime you decide.

Grover and I have reservations tonight at the newly opened Bookbinders in the old Portner's space. According to the PR flack, it's a mid-priced piece of Philly. More this evening after our return.

That's what happens when you try to find an easy pronunciation for a foreign word..perhaps YOOK wouldn't be so disturbing?

Maybe not local, but fast shipping overcomes all obstacles...Cookie ClickGoogle is your friend...

and the one that looks like dark or black sausage is Soon-dae, one of my personal favorites. You eat it by lightly dabbing it in the salt/red pepper that is placed on the table...

Well, speaking for Grover (as I do sometimes), we're always interested in going to Gamasot whether it's a Tuesday or a Friday. Set a date and we'll happily show up and help you explore the menu. There is a lot of really good food on that menu. (By the way, the sausage panchan was Soon-dae which is a favorite).

The servers there will simply bring more if you ask for it..they don't seem to be surprised by anything the mee-guks do (me included)...they just smile (and in the back room, I'm sure they shake their heads and compare horror stories about the strange things we do).

That's the way to eat seullantang. You can also add the rice to the broth (which is almost de rigeur). The scallions and sea salt are there for a hint of flavor. This is a comfort food as much as a staple. I can't think of anything better when you're feeling out of sorts...better than chicken soup (I can hear the howls now). You might continue making the trek to Super H if you want the better fruits and veggies.

Started at the Ja Gal Chi market on Sunday and have been exploring every market since. An amazing variety of food from hot waffles with butter to fish shaped fish cakes to unknown pork pieces to...well, you name it and if it's edible, you can find it in the market somewhere. A lot of squid and octopus (both live and dried), lots of tanks of live fish ready to be taken home and cleaned and eaten, lots of old ladies selling everything. Makes Costco look small.