Escoffier
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Everything posted by Escoffier
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Why do you insist on making it difficult to not go to Hunting Creek? -
Well...you ain't fambly, but you're all right! (born and bred below the Mason Dixon line. Spam? that's uptown stuff ).
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- St. Louis Missouri Chain
- Fast Food
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Hey! Watch how you talk about fried baloney (what the hell is bologna? Is that some sort of fancy-shmancy Northrun type thing?). You're talking about a Suthrun tradition. Ummm, ummm, fried baloney on Wonder Bread with some Hellmans (Miracle Whip means you're putting on airs). Almost as good as samun samiches on Wonder Bread. And what's with the title? "Known Formerly Known"... is that some kind of secret message or sumpin?
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We haven't been for a while, but when we were regulars, the fish was always exceptionally fresh. Nice to see they're continuing to do that. Guess we'll have to pay Steve a visit again soon. (incidentally, the Japanese sushi chef who was there is now at Tampopo next to A&J in Annandale)
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I understand that Peter's next restaurant is going to be called South China Garden and the specialty of the house is going to be fried chicken, grits, and black-eyed peas (and don't forget the collards with fatback).
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- Local Chain
- Chinese
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I never found it overly spicy, keeping in mind that my better half is Korean and we eat a lot of Korean food. I think the Szechuan food I have at another local restaurant is more ma-la. On that note, I don't know what your tolerance is, so standard disclaimer: YMMV.
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I was going to quote the entire entry but figured that might be a bit much. Food has a tendency to "bubble" up. Take pork belly as an example. Once upon a time, anyone who made more than minimum wage wouldn't think of eating it. Somewhere along the way, it moved from the hoi polloi to the esoteric. Same with most foods. What starts out as table scraps ends up in fine dining. Did you eat head cheese when you were growing up? Pickled pigs feet? Did you grow up in the South? Without sounding snobby (or classist if that's a word), your social status would be known by all. Soul food is just food that is/was eaten by the "lower class" (hate to use that term, but it's the only accurate description available). Everyone of a certain economic status, had chickens, everyone (almost) could take a pole, some line and a hook and catch trout or croaker; collards and cressy salad (watercress) was abundant where ever there was a creek (I remember gathering wild watercress when I was a kid (I told you I was old) to add to salads when we'd go camping). All of those things were "discovered" and elevated up the food chain by people with more money. Because of the economics, the South and especially the lower economic classes ate what they could find or made do. Once others farther up the economic ladder discovered that those things were tasty, they moved up from dirt floors and candles for lighting (and yes, I've seen both in my lifetime) to the kitchens of the plantation owners (who incidentally would never eat pork belly or pigs feet or pigs ear, but the people in the kitchen who were cooking for them would). Make sense now? (You didn't grow up in the South, did you?) The following is WAY off topic but, you did mention Asheville. Have you tried Cucina 24 or Table? While neither are "suthrun", they both do some fine food.
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Not really. When you're not too far up the economic ladder you eat what you can afford. Ergo, pigs ears, pigs feet, souse (you can look it up), chitterlings (chittlins would be the "proper" pronunciation), black, white, or green, it's soul food to some, Suthrun (Southern) to others. (I put the pronunciations in so you can impress your friends with how Suthrun you are )
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I've lived in the south most of my life (one hell of a long time), I've eaten in dives, places two steps from being condemned, places that should have been condemned years ago, and in all that time, I have NEVER seen a good soul food restaurant have sweet potato fries. Mashed potatoes? Yep! French-fries? Possibly but more than likely, not. Home fries? About 80% of the time. Southerners don't eat sweet potato fries, they eat sweet potato PIE, dammit!
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Lower Alabama (Florida panhandle)
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Flavors Soul Food in Bailey's Crossroads if you can make it that far. No atmosphere, no tablecloths, no servers, just soul food. Fried chicken, trout, nothing else is necessary.
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Grover and I went for dinner tonight and not only really liked the food, there was an even nicer surprise! Mark Slater! So great to see Mark. Food? Oh, you'd like to know what we ate? For an appetizer: I had the Oysters. Plump, juicy, not breaded but gently coated with an excellent crispy coating. These oysters should be on the dinner menu. (There will be lunch service soon. I'm told the oysters may make their debut as a lunch item. I'm not sure I'd ever order anything else). Grover had the clams. Same excellent coating, same great taste. Two clean plates, nothing left. For mains, I had the hanger steak with fries. Let me confess up front, I'm not much of a beef eater, but our server, Christian made it sound so good, I had to try it. Believe me, it was worth it. I ordered medium rare, it was perfectly medium rare. The fries were done perfectly as well. Lightly salted, crisp on the outside, nice and potatoy (is that a word?) on the inside. Grover had the Swordfish. I managed to get a bite of the swordfish and it was excellent (what? You expected me to describe the taste of excellent swordfish? Are you kidding? If you like swordfish, you'll REALLY like this) Too full for dessert, we decided after dinner drinks would have to suffice. A very nice hard VA apple cider for her, a very smooth Port for me. Sorry that I can't provide the names and vintages of either, but by that time we were both in a nice food fog and couldn't be bothered to ask. So, to wrap this up: Service: excellent without being obtrusive. Not one server picked that exact mouth-full moment to ask for a 100 word description of how we were enjoying the food. Food: Also excellent. Hard to tell that Hunting Creek had just opened, everything was professional and smooth from the start. And Mark S.? The man knows his beverages. I think we have found another great place to add to our regular rotation. (and it's actually easy to find parking, even at rush hour). (and goldenticket, was that you entering around 6:30?)
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- Alexandria
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Personally, I think 2 gigawatt pulsed lasers mounted in the front of the car and a loudspeaker to ask the cretin to pickup the trash before you turn on the laser beam.
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Afraid you're on a fruitless quest. Nothing worse than riding behind one of those cigarette smoking clowns and have them throw a burning cigarette out the window.
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I agree, I'm not a big fan of beef either but really like those bits and pieces things (I just wish you were closer).
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I'm glad to see this. A great location that's been under-used for way too long.
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Dolsot Bibimbap. You can also get mung bean pancakes and, if you ask, meat can be left out of anything. Duk Guk (usually duk mandu guk) is rice cake soup without the mandu (sacrilege ). I believe when Grover arranged the dinner at Gom Ba Woo, there was a vegetarian dish. If you ask, you can get almost anything without meat you want (within reason. Don't think you'd get Galbi Tang minus the beef). Most Korean restaurants are happy to see mee-guks eat Korean food and they want you to enjoy it (no matter how strange your request ). Incidentally, there is shrimp in one form or another in almost every type of banchan.
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- Local Chain
- Annandale
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Not at all, but he's the exception to the rule. As someone above said, maybe it all comes down to business acumen and being able to impart your personality onto the chefs that prepare the food in the absence of the original. Not all chefs are that good (or lucky).
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But what are you comparing it to? Have you eaten there when she WAS in the kitchen? Maybe there were subtleties that were absent that you wouldn't notice with nothing to compare your dinner to, maybe it was prepared completely differently than she would. Not to say it wasn't good (even though only having roasted marrow to go on isn't very conclusive), but how do you know it might not have been even better if she were in the kitchen?
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- Local Chain
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Dining at Bistrot Royal, we discovered that Mark Slater has left Bastille. Mark, where did you go and when can we enjoy your equisite wine pairings again?
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Egad! I was just talking about you today. I don't believe in coincidences so you must have been eavesdropping .
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At the risk of losing our easy access, Hong Kong Palace is as good (or better) when PC isn't in the kitchen.
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I agree wholeheartedly with Don. I ate at PC's restaurant in Charlottesville when he was in the kitchen and when he wasn't. When Peter's in the kitchen, food magic. When someone else is leading the orchestra, a pale imitation. Is Peter banking on his reputation? Undoubtedly. Does he deserve to bank on that reputation? He certainly deserves all the acccolades, unfortunately, he can't be in every restaurant all the time.
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The last time I was there (albeit it was a while ago), they were serving the Korean version of Chirashi (hwe dup bap) which has lettuce as well as rice in the bowl, the whole dressed with whatever amount of red pepper paste you'd like to apply (as opposed to wasabi). The rice is served 'on the side' and you add as much or little as you prefer. Stir, add pepper paste, dig in. It's definitely Korean owned unless everyone in the front of the house is Japanese and speaks fluent Hangul.
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Seems rather simple to me (YMMV). Bistrot Royal will serve French comfort food (things that weren't on the original Bastille menu) such as duck confit (no Raclette however) and the new Bastille will serve more upscale French food.
