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Simul Parikh

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Everything posted by Simul Parikh

  1. Simul Parikh
    Yah, dogs love spent grain. Hops in fresh or pellet form are gross. I don't know what possessed me to try them.
  2. Simul Parikh
    You're right - it's a process and may be it's happening. Smoked and Stacked is a great example of craftsmanship, limited menu, good ingredients, not too customizable and reasonably priced. The model seems sustainable and the margins are probably decent. I mean, she left one of the best restaurants (in my opinion) in all of DC to open what ostensibly is a "sandwich shop". Mockingbird Hill tried to be very one-trick pony with basically just ham and sherry, but doesn't seem to get too busy. Rasa Grill is trying to do this for Indian food (disclosure - I'm a tiny investor in this venture). Amsterdam Falafal sort of did it, too, and has a fairly good following. I don't have it figured out, but Edens Center seems to be a place where many shops each have one or two notable dishes that people go for. I like that model, but it's not that common in the States. I just loved walking into an alley in Chengdu and seeing that everyone either had noodle soup one or two, and just pointing at one of those. Do a few things, do them well, do it cost effictively, do it quickly, and scale it... shouldn't be too hard, but I guess it is.
  3. Simul Parikh
    I like the idea of ultra-specialization for foods, but Americans are much too picky eaters for that. There are so many posts on this board about "We had to go somewhere that Thurston Junior would be able get his chicken fingers." Asian cultures don't really have that. Everyone eats everything. If they go out to a xiao long bao place or a mapo tofu place or a khao soi place or a samosa shop or a pani puri stand, everyone in the family eats that item, and happily. Here, since Thurston only eats chicken fingers and Emma can't eat gluten and Ava is doing Whole30, can't really do that. People's kids sort of define what they eat, and then those kids become picky adults, and there is almost no way a family (or a group of friends) can go to a place that just serves one thing, and so you have restaurant menus that have 250 things on it, very few if any being great. Even Chinese places have to have chicken nuggets or burgers. For chrissakes, I'm getting so worked up writing this!!! These types of places would be way cheaper, lots of economies of scale, and the quality would improve so much. The margins would be higher than a place that has to make 250 different things. (Reminded me of a travel blog post I read where the mom said she packed 10 different snacks for the plan, because she wasn't sure what the kid would eat; hmm, my mom would have brought just thepla and I could eat if I wanted, otherwise I was welcome to enjoy hunger)
  4. Simul Parikh
    Article about restaurants/health care in Eater. What I found interesting is the massive scale of the issue - 9% of all private sector jobs are in the restaurant business and 40% of those workers are living in poverty. Just 14% of all restaurant employees receive healthcare from their employer. Will be interesting to see if there will actually be a "replace" that comes with the "repeal". Seems like labor in this industry will be particularly affected by upcoming change in administration.
  5. Simul Parikh
    Was just playing around with the Luxury Hotels Collection with the CSR. Pretty good deals - was just checking for an upcoming weekend and doing a stay-cation downtown. Could stay at the Loews Madison for $184, and that gets you an upgrade and breakfast and $100 credit for the restaurant (Rural Society I think?). For $250 at the W, you get a $100 credit for food and full breakfast for 2, which is another $50. With early check in and late check out. Not too shabby! S
  6. Simul Parikh
    Who wants to go in on this with me? KT? DaveO? Logan? Sick of cancer... custard seems much more fulfilling. She's going to be missed.
  7. Simul Parikh
    Sehkraft's biggest problem is that it wasn't good.
  8. Simul Parikh
    No. The sites are actually really user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. The sameness is just uninspiring.
  9. Simul Parikh
    Some time in the last 12-18 months, everybody started using the same website designer for their websites... I'm just thinking of the first few that came to mind and put their links. They do a very big picture that is full screen at the top, that sometimes has movement/video. Then you scroll down to see pictures. Is this Square Space or some new restaurant template everyone is using? I don't like it. Not the design. It's actually eye-catching. Just that everyone's looks the same now. Before you could tell if a place was "hole in the wall" by a crappy website. Now, have no idea. http://redtoquecafe.com/shaw-menu/ http://www.henquarter.com/ http://choolaah.com/ http://jinya-ramenbar.com/ http://nasimerestaurant.com/ http://afghanbistro.com/ http://www.namasteva.com/
  10. Simul Parikh
    Went last night to celebrate lady friend's career transition... was so cold, and I wanted chili or curry. We went to Hard Time's first, and she saw them coughing on the food, no mask, no covering of the mouth, so we finished our drinks and went for the curry. Wanted to stay on the Indo-Chinese/Nepalese side of the menu, but tried a few other things, as well. She really wanted soup, so she got the green chicken soup. That was really tasty! Small pieces of chicken, spinach and herbal broth, mild spice, served hot in a clay pot. Perfect for winter. The other appetizer we got was, and I can't find it on the current menu, was boneless lamb pieces with "mustered" oil, ginger, garlic, and Nepalese spices. It's on the Indo-Chinese/Nepalese menu Oh man, I loved this. Loved it. Tasted like meat skewers you get in China. I'm eating it right now for mid morning snack. So delicious. Then, got Chili Chicken, which is classic Indo-Chinese - fried pieces of chicken, green pepper, onion pieces. We asked for it to be spicy, and he took one look at lady friend and basically overruled us, "It's already quite spicy". She can handle spice, after the intensive training I've put her through, but didn't want to chance it. And, got the Rogan Josh - medium spicy. Chicken dish was really good, though not that spicy. Autentico. Rogan Josh was meh. Curry was bland and meat was chewy. The appetizers were so good, I think will add momo's and a few other of the apps and make a meal out of it next time.
  11. Simul Parikh
    Agree with the eggplant. I've had it in-house. Doesn't do it for me. This place is so consistently good. Cannot believe Eater left it off it's list of DC area Chinese restaurants.
  12. Simul Parikh
    It's a tough read, and certainly not a bad bone in this guys body, but 3 large restaurants at the same time? Even if the timing worked out properly, it was a very short time frame to try to do very good work on each one. Danny Meyer has been doing the podcast circuit recently, and listening to him, you can see how people can thoughtfully expand. He didn't open his second restaurant until 11 years after his first. Now- well, Rose's was probably our biggest story in DC in years, and 4 years after opening, they opened P&P. Seems to be working but who knows what happens if the minimum wage continues to rise in DC and the lease is up. It's a low margin business, much less than most small businesses, so the margin of error is very small. I wonder when you look at the failures and successes, how many of the owners are actually experienced in the restaurant game vs hobbyists. Bet the success rate and margins are higher for the experienced folks. I wonder if the new administration will either waive the 50 employee rule or change the 30 hour as full time definition. That could ward off the bubble bursting for a bit.
  13. Simul Parikh
    Sigh... The main thing is the American consumer has to become more comfortable with higher costs of dining out, and less comfortable with the idea of tips as rewards/punitive measures/a way to try to get laid. Then, and only then, do we get a a reasonable correlation between menu prices and income of workers. No reason a hot 24 year old front of house AMW (actor, model, whatever - some gal or guy in the overall beautiful business) at Eleven Madison Park should make $100k and a 35 year old experienced Bolivian line chef at same restaurant should make $30k. That's Market Failure. Until that's fixed this model is crashing and burning.
  14. Simul Parikh
    The night I went to Nasime, I planned on going to Namaste. My friend assumed Namaste was a typo and that's how I ended up there that night... didn't feel like making him walk over to Namaste since I was the one that was late.
  15. Simul Parikh
    Thanks for posting that. I think it's factually correct but they are reversing the heroes and villains. The entire industry was built upon paying the uneducated, unskilled lower class less than minimum wage, forcing the customer to subsidize the wages of the front of the house via tips (a vestige from slavery), paying the back of the house a limited hourly wage and not contributing to their health care costs or retirement, and utilizing tax law to make "unprofitable" restaurants tax havens for the rich. So, sorry-not-sorry that the owners now have to be considerate about things like, oh you know, minimum wages and contributing to health care costs. This sounds a lot like Detroit where you got the cries of "Well, $2k of our cars cost is health care and pensions, so we can't compete with the Japanese." Baloney. The Americans built terrible cars, management was unagile, unions were fat and lazy, and work ethic was miserable. I think they are right about the bubble. Just don't blame the lower class workers who want to be able to, you know, eat and get their illnesses treated. The entire industry took advantage of the weak, the poor, the undocumented and got very rich doing it. I'm not crying about AQ closing down because their profits are down. You see that they sort of gloss over the fact that they do 100 covers now instead of 240? Maybe their food wasn't as good? Maybe they stopped trying? I think the writer is right that fast casual/hip counter service is the future. But, they pay their workers fairly, contribute to health care, and sometimes even give tuition assistance. It's not over for sit-down restaurants, they just have to get used to the new reality of .. decency.
  16. Simul Parikh
    It was always $48 since opening. The sign is in the window.
  17. Simul Parikh
    Good point. I doubt it's a whole bird - I attached 2 pictures from Yelp. They aren't the only people doing this with fried chicken. Live Oak in Del Ray has a $12 fried chicken "special" on Monday, which is a leg and a thigh. It's tasty, but not a lot of food at all. That's about a quarter chicken, right? Missing a breast and a wing to be a full half. EDIT - the pictures are from Hen Quarter, I was just mentioning Live Oak as comparison.
  18. Simul Parikh
    No, Don. You're missing it entirely. That's not what I'm arguing at all here. If a white person does ____ food, it becomes okay to justify its price point. I'm arguing about the "Christopher Columbization" of something like fried chicken and waffles. "Ooh let's put it it Old Town and charge $25" and no one bats an eye. Same thing with Pok Pok and many other places. It's majority culture taking something that has been made by poorer cultures, dressing it up, and charging 2x/3x.
  19. Simul Parikh
    Wow. That's horrifying. It's more sinister than the tone of the article indicates. Arlington is tough, but nothing like that. No new restaurants 25m from an existing one?
  20. Simul Parikh
    Yeah, and people pay it happily. Not a thread of people saying, "Well, if you went to Roscoe's, you could get it for way cheaper. And it would be more authentic". Like, for example, wonton soup.
  21. Simul Parikh
    A taco bowl in every pot...
  22. Simul Parikh
    Yeah, me either
  23. Simul Parikh
    Good article that sort of made me re-think the whole acquisition thing...
  24. Simul Parikh
    Went to a sushi making class in the Pentagon Row store last night. I bought ladyfriend a sushi making kit will all the fixins', so figured this would be fun start. It was fun. Was it that educational? Not really. Could have gotten the same idea out of a book. The Good - the chef was friendly and fun and really enthusiastic, got an idea of basics The Not As Good - didn't learn how to cook the rice ourselves and the second batch was sort of mushy; didn't get that the chef was particularly trained in the art of sushi; we didn't get to practice cutting sashimi or nigiri pieces; there was only two rolls (California and spicy tuna) The Ugly - Arlington County doesn't allow wine for this sort of activity What can I say... got us out of the house, we have been cooking a lot, and it was nice to try something new. Might try CulinAerie or another class at some point.
  25. Simul Parikh
    Is this less courses than original? Man, feel bad for those that paid 2x.
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