Escoffier

Sheesh!  Not to cast aspersions on anyone, but there certainly are a lot of people here who miss out on some great tastes, flavors, and textures.  I guess I'm the exception to the rule, as I stated earlier the only thing I don't particularly care for (but still eat anyway) is sea cucumber.  Licorice?  Yep.  Anise?  Yep, oysters?  OMG yes.  Offal? Uh-huh!  Fugu?  Betcha.  Squid? in sushi, sashimi, and any other way you care to make it. I grew up with a mother who liked to cook and would try anything two or three times (just in case she got it wrong the first or second time).  To quote Firesign Theater, "You people are so superstitious."

Not too wild about sea cucumber.  Everything else mentioned in the preceding posts is fine with me (foie gras?...sacré merde! c'est incroyable!)

Bravo Brabo!

The restaurant sounds like a keeper.  But that girlfriend....

(JK)

Brabo has always gone out if it's way to accommodate it's guests.  If you missed the guest chef dinners, you missed a great series of dinners.  The last was with Todd Gray and was amazing.

First notes from the (not quite opened yet) Pennsylvania 6.  First, extremely convenient to the McPherson Square metro stop.  Half a block walk and you're there.  Very lively bar scene for a restaurant that hasn't opened yet.  Beautiful series of rooms.   Lots of understated wood and flattering lighting (and believe me, I need all the flattering I can get ). 

Now for the good stuff.  Let's start with what Grover and I had for dinner last night:

She gets to go first: 

Starters:  Lobster platter.  Half a lobster on ice.  (I grabbed a bite and am glad I did)  Beautifully presented half-lobster, with drawn butter and cocktail sauce.

I had: The Crab platter.  SIx healthy pieces of King Crab legs.  Sweet, very fresh and delicious.  Again drawn butter and cocktail sauce.  Grover got a healthy bite and gave her approval.

Shared: A dozen oysters.  Two each of six different oysters.  Excellent from smooth and silky to just a bit briny. 

Next up:  The real starters.

Grover had the Wild Burgundy Snails.  Eight snails covered with a bone marrow butter topping,  The snails were as close to perfect as you could get, each in garlic, lemon juice, parsley, with bits of mushroom.  They were more melt in your mouth than rubbery as most snails in restaurants seem to be.

I had the Fois Gras Mousse.  Moussed Fois Gras topped with a apple cider gelee and accompanied by red onion jam and Pommeroy mustard.  The apple cider gelee added just a tiny touch of sweetness to the Fois Gras (not that it needed anything but this was a great choice for contrasting tastes and textures).

Entrees: Grover had Monkfish Osso Buco.  Most Monkfish don't have legs (or shanks for that matter), but the dish get's its name due to the bone being left in the Monkfish filet.  Prepared like it's namesake, it's served with carrots, mushrooms, baby Tokyo turnips and truffle jus.  It must have been good because Grover kept saying she couldnt' possibly eat more but she kept eating until it was gone.

I had the bone-in filet.  Cooked to exactly the right pinkness, very flavorful and extremely tender, this was a beautiful dish.  I'm not much of a beef eater but this filet could make me consider eating a lot more beef.  My only complaint about the filet was the garliced butter on the steak.  it was a bit too salty for me (but, because I very rarely eat salt, it may have been my reaction to it).  A very small negative in an overwhelmingly positive entree.

Both courses were accompanied by skillet fried brussel sprouts (I finished them for lunch today) and very creamy mashed potatoes.

For dessert, Grover had sorbet (I really don't remember the flavor due to the food coma I was rapidly succumbing to). I had a trio of eclairs, one of which was topped with bacon pieces.  What a great contrast of the salty (yeah, here it was just right) and the sweetness of the eclair.

Mark Slater was right in his element and perfectly at home suggesting (and selecting) wines to accompany each dish. I'd love to tell you the wines, but we were overwhelmed with the food and I was way too busy enjoying the marvelous tastes to remember. I did have the 23 year old Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon to finish the evening.  Mark was lucky enough to score a couple of bottles of the 23 year old and it was a perfect way to finish out an extraordinary meal. 

We were told the official opening is going to be on the 20th of November, that the management felt that the new staff needed a bit more time to get acquainted with the menu and how things worked.  If our experience was the way anything like the house is expected to operate, they're quite ready to open.  Julie our server was there when she was needed, made great suggestions, and in general made a great experience even more enjoyable.  The entire staff was very attentive and seemed to want nothing more than we enjoy our visit and they succeeded very well.  Our first visit but definitely not our last.

I thought "the Yates family" was behind Lena's Wood-Fired Pizzas & Tap - then again, I thought the Armstrong family was behind Virtue Feed and Grain.

Yates owns the building that houses Lena's and Cahal gifted Virtue to the people that were running it (from what I recall).

Yep, seems that I know some people associated with that restaurant.

별ë§ì”€ì„ ìš”.

Drove by again, and the Big Crab House banner is gone. It looked open, and the Bang Ga Nae sign remains so they're back to usual?

Could be or it could be an entirely new restaurant with the old sign (see Hong Kong Palace, New Big Wong, et al., etc.).  Only way to tell is to visit and see if you recognize the people behind the cash register .

There's always Honey Pig, but for pure eat BBQ until you explode, Kogiya probably wins.  Grover prefers that to Honey Pig. Oegadgib is more of a working man bar with BBQ. 

The loss of Gypsy Soul was a stomach punch to what was becoming the best little pocket of eating in the northern Virginia suburbs. Let's hope something interesting and not a chain finds that space and does it justice.

According to the sign on the door, expect Greek next year.

No particular order (numbering is arbitrary):

1. Brabo

2. Del Ray Cafe

3. Yamazato

4. Vermilion

5. Light Horse

6. Hong Kong Palace

7. RT's

8.Gypsy Soul (gone but definitely NOT forgotten)

9. Rays (in all of it's many permutations)

10. Willow

(and at times) Rustico just because.

So the unfortunate part of this business is when a good place on the plate and soul shutters its doors. Knowing through a colleague of mine Gypsy Soul closed its doors last night. To those who enjoyed it remember that last bite you had there as it probably was most memorable.

No! Some of the best chicken I've ever eaten.  R.J. where are you?

Wish I'd known you were going to be there, we would have joined you.  As it is, we're headed there tonight (Monday, something that seems to have become a ritual).

That Fried Chicken!!!  This weekend (fri-sun)  96 orders of fried chicken equivalent to 48 whole birds!

Maybe it was this?

"Top 5 Fried Chicken Restaurants in America" on foxnews.com

I'm not sure what it was, but the group sitting to my left almost lost a piece of that chicken. If they had only looked away for a second or two....Grover said she'd never seen so much fried chicken being served.

PS: Once again, excellent dinner Chef.  The charred octopus and the smoked duck breast were both excellent.  Grover had been hoping your corn soup might still be on the menu.  She was quite happy to see it was. (Me?  I just enjoyed every spoonful.  A perfect, cold soup for a very hot evening)

The next new "great thing" will be along in a few minutes.  Please wait quietly in queue, please.

And nobody appreciates my humor.

Did you pick it up in your hooptie?

I'm going with my Japanese friend, who approves the ramen but isn't impressed with the upstairs. It's too bad, because I thought the izakaya menu looked interesting and they have lots of availability for reservations via Open Table.

Pretty much reflects our experience with the upstairs.  Nothing stood out, nothing spectacular, just pseudo-Japanese bar food.  Lots of OpenTable availability should tell you something.

Think we might be 'riding that train'...

Maybe there's a work-out.  To my knowledge, Gypsy Soul is still operating and I'm glad that it is.  It's one of the best restaurants in northern VA. 

Can't argue with that.  A damn fine restaurant indeed.

On this site, I think it's at least partly because some of us have been (semi-) regulars there for so long, that we don't think to post about it when we go.

I have to agree.  Dean's food is always great.

And, just my view on the answer to your closing question but, yeah, definitely. We already knew the food quality could vary widely when he was or wasn't in the house.  If we now experience big variation like this when he is verifiably there, it's tougher to hypothesize what's going on.

Fatigue?  Boredom?  A severe case of Dammitol?

As is Spring.

Get it? Full of ramps?

In a manner of speaking.  One day we may actually have some nice temperate Spring days.

Do you think that the closing of Song Que is related to the opening of Four Sister's Grill? My understanding that all are owned and run by the same family.

Suong Que means (roughly) 4 Sisters.  They have been planning on moving form Eden Center for some time. Apparently, they have now found a way to do so.

I just got this email from the Shields.

GRAND FINALE
BOOK DINNER
April 24 & 25
 
Join us for one final round of dinners, as we celebrate with friends!
 
 It is with great joy, to let you know, we will be moving on to a new and exciting endeavor.

We can't thank you enough for the support over this past year and look forward to cooking for you again, in our new home.

-John & Karen

Are they finally returning to the DC area?  There goes my reason for ever going to Chillhowie.

:-)

Hunting Creek lunch special at the bar: 2 courses for $16. Almost everything on the menu (the U 10 shrimp and filet mignon are excluded) is available.

Strange that you should mention the exact two things I had for dinner tonight (along with the Termes). Some damn fine shrimp, not rubbery, great flavor and a filet that was cooked exactly as I like it and as tender as a mother's love. Hunting Creek seems to be getting better and better every week.