Simul Parikh

Haha. Growing up in an Indian household, didn't know people DIDN'T eat eggs with ketchup. Now, sriracha or a little Tabasco work better, because less sweet. I love them all ways - scrambled and fluffy, scrambled and custard like, omelettes both diner and French, fried eggs, crispy with black pepper and a touch of salt, with soft warm liquidy yolk (that was this AM!). Serious Eats and NYTimes have "egg guides" which sound ridiculous, but have some really good pointers. Salting eggs 10-15 minutes before scrambling = game change for fluffiness! -S

Rasa Grill opened in SE in Navy Yard in December. It's fast casual Indian (or more like Indian-ish), locally sourced ingredients, and some fun fusion (Masala Gin Tonic!). They have pre-made bowls, or you can make your own. Really beautiful space, fun colors, neat design. Great back story, too. They made Eater's hot list for this month and review have been good. Anyway, I won't say too much, since I'm an investor, except that I think it's pretty darn tasty, and you should try it out and let me know what you think!

Lovely! I can't watch enough of the exciting sportsball at Pork Barrel and Del Ray Pizza. Just not enough TVs and 2 bars with DirecTV just doesn't cut it in a 1 mile stretch. NEED 3 DIRECTV NFL SUBSCRIPTIONS!! All I ask for is a decent Chinese, Korean, Middle Eastern, or Thai place. Even a reasonable deli. A place does fresh pasta. Oh well ...

You know what Del Ray needs? Another Southern style restaurant or a sushi place... that would be great...

Went on my "Maydan" voyage yesterday and had a nice meal with some caveats (similar to those above). We arrived after looking at a few houses (considering a move back in to the District) and we were starving. Choosing between Red Hen and Maydan, and after having pasta this weekend, went with Maydan. It is very difficult to find, and I should have remembered the first post stating this. It's the same address at Colombe, and you go into that alley, all the way to the end, and it's the last door on your right. Very challenging, and I'm not sure why there isn't even a temporary sign on Florida or near Colombe. We had to ask the Colombe barista to help us. Anyway, we got in and were told that we could be seated in 30 minutes (at about 815p) or we could try at the bar. It was completely full when we got in, so we put our names down, but within minutes there were 2 bar seats available. I ordered a glass of wine, a montepulciano, and then the bartender sort of disappeared and we had to get someone else's attention to get LLSP's wine order in. We asked about the skin contact wines (these are orange wines, right?), only one available by glass still, and kind of pricey, so she got the grenache/syrah blend. The prices were in high in absolute number, but they may have been good wines, I don't know, and I didn't care to look it up. We asked what were the must orders, and they mentioned the whole chicken. Pics on Yelp looked great, but I was not in "whole chicken" mode. Was $35, not terribly priced for what would probably feed us both and leave at least one of us with leftovers. Anyway, the sauce thing - I really don't like that they push ordering all of them - "They're a dollar each, why not?". Um, because if that's so cheap, than slightly up the prices of everything and serve them all. It's just a weird concept to have these "great" 6-7 sauces and push selling them all. Anyway, we ordered our whole meal (I didn't get the sense they cared if we got it all at same time or not - maybe that glitch was fixed?) - 2 dips - baba ghanoush and muhamarra (walnut/red pepper, pomegranate), 3 condiments - harissa, ezme (tomato, onion, pepper, pomegranate), zhough (parsley, cilantro, cumin, serrano), grilled shrimp (I wanted sardines, and was aggressively vetoed), lamb kebab, and the grilled carrots. After the order was in, a minute later, I also asked for fattoush (more on that later). The dips came first, and they were very good. A fair portion for the price -$7 and $9, respectively. BG was smoky and tasty, a little oily, one of the better non-Detroit versions I've had. I really liked the muhamarra. A touch sweet, because of the pomegranate molasses and textured b/c of the walnut. This came with the fresh bread that's made behind you in the pit. Then the condiments came, small ketchup sized containers of it. The harissa was fire! Very tasty, spicy, but not to be used much since it overpowers. The grilled carrots were covered with it, and those came next. Really good, grilled well, could have a little more browning/char but tasty anyway. The shrimps came next, and those were delish. They are grilled in chermoula (lemon, garlic, parsley, saffron) and spiced well, crispy on outside, chewy on inside. Don't need a condiment with it, but a touch of the harissa to add a little fire to it didn't hurt. Lamb came and it was topped with pistachio. Went great with the zhough sauce. Fattoush was forgotten ... it was okay, we were full and didn't need more food. Incidentally, the fire alarm went off mid-meal and was on for probably 2-3 minutes. I asked bartender if that happened all the time (oh, you know, because of the raging fire in the middle of the restaurant), and he said it was the first time. Seemed unlikely, as none of the staff reacted in any noticeable manner. They asked us if we wanted dessert and we didn't ... they gave us digestif gratis - Montenegro + Johnnie Walker. Perfect for a frigid night - I'm gonna do those at home! $82.50 including two drinks + tips, and we were full. So, some glitches but this place has a great chassis - and the "quality" of the food is really high. The environment/ambience is fantastic, especially when it's in the teens outside. It's location probably hurts it early on, because a place like this in Shaw or 14th with have lines out the door and 2-3 hour waits. (If the review seems slightly negative, it isn't meant to be ... I went to Stowe this weekend and it was -15F and no fresh snow. They got 12 inches last night and finally are back over zero degrees. GRRRRRRRRRRRR)

Regardless of legal issues and original chef leaving, this place is still super busy/popular. Tried to go last night, thinking since it was freezing cold and that time of the year, it may be safe. Got there at 6:50p and BAM was hit with a two hour wait. Needless to say, ain't nobody got time for that on a school night so we went to Haikan, and had a lovely, but sort of generic "good ramen not great ramen" experience. That was "only" a 25 minute wait that turned into 45+. So, cold days = Ramen for this city, even in the nether region between Christmas and NY.

AO is good. Expensive, though. Didn't seem better than HKP, just nicer. Maybe a bit less spicy.

Right, but should they just not doing anything? Firing the bouncer, getting ride of the dress code entirely .. It's a start, even if it's social media driven. Better than denial, denial, denial --> shown further proof --> blame the guests trying to come in --> social media avalanche --> fire bouncer --> get rid of dress code. I appreciate that the manager moved quickly. I'll never go here again, though .. used to love that rooftop.

I go to PC as much as HKP, and although HKP was my gateway drug, it's just not that vibrant/consistent, especially with non veg dishes. I used to go to Jin River, and then it declined hard for a while. It was basically Chinese-American. Maybe that has changed?

Went Saturday night ... was absolutely on point, felt like Chengdu! - Pan fried sesame pancake. Dad doesn't eat most Asian foods. This was not liked. It was sort of like a bread or a cake. - Eggplant was perfect, as usual - Grandma's noodle - I felt like these were handpulled. I wish my grandma had made noodles like this. - Cold mixed wood ear mushrooms with thai chili - should have gotten more veggie dishes like this, simple and cooling - Fish in spicy oil was excellent, a touch less spicy - Fried chicken with chilis was offered bone-in and bone-out. Without consultation from table, I got bone-in, and was roundly chastised for it, so we had to order the boneless one, too. For the record, bone-in tasted better, despite what others said. - Dry hot pot with vegetables. Fantastic! Never tried this before. Would be better with some protein, but Mom was in town, so needed to make sure she had enough to eat, too Hands down best Sichuan in the area, but haven't been to Panda in a long time. I love this place so much.

Whoa.

It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it. - Someone smart, a long time ago

gonna hit that hard

Sure, there are degrees. But, if you believe in stuff like "broken windows" policing and that micro leads to macro (as the article says above), there is no real reason for him to have opened his mouth. What is the line and why should women have to be continually approached with this? "It's nothing, it's just a butt slap..." "Oh, it's nothing, I just made a pass at her at the office party but I was buzzed up..." "Oh, she swatted me away when I tried to kiss her.." "Oh, well, after she said no, I eventually did stop ... just wasn't reading her right" Yes, a butt slap isn't child molestation. Have we learned anything when Matt Damon opened his mouth in this setting? I'm not sure that I have, except that he has probably done somethings in the past that weren't great. It's fine. The comments don't make me think he's smart, understanding, or sympathetic to the cause. I mean, really, do you think he added anything valuable to the conversation? Do we know which people butt slapped and which masturbated in front of them and which actually raped people? Who knows? I just don't see value in dismissing this... why should you even be slapping someone's butt at work? I stopped doing that weeks ago But, seriously, I don't even touch my co-workers. I will end with this.

Thank you!!!

Pete Wells is hilarious!

April Bloomfield's response. It shouldn't be so hard to do something about this kind of stuff, but I guess it is. When your business is succeeding, you don't want to rock the boat, I can see an owner/manager saying "If you don't like it, go work somewhere else." It's also hard being in that part of victimized group - i.e. - if in the past a black college kid was treated poorly by a white professor, are the other black kids going to speak out and perhaps put themselves in jeopardy? I guess April Bloomfield didn't do her part, but the MEN who saw what was happening should have spoken out.

That's an extremely important part of solving this problem. How to make that happen has been a serious issues for centuries. Hopefully stories like this will help the process, and aid in women getting more leadership opportunities. On this specific example, if it's true, April Bloomfield let down many of her employees and I'll say it, her gender, by not sticking up for them and not taking Ken Friedman to task, or hell, reporting him to police. She has significant notoriety, is a major culinary voice of NYC, and would have been listened to. It's a failure on her part, if it's true. She could have started this whole thing years ago, rather than (possibly) be complicit in allowing it to happen. The idea that "these complaints didn't go through the proper channels" or "the employees didn't file formal complaints" are pretty weak when your employees are getting assaulted and there is a "rape room" upstairs. Oh my god. A rape room. W in T F'ity F! On a side note- it's pretty impress that "new media" reported the Batali situation, and Buzzfeed is doing some really good journalism, too. Not just Top 38 restaurant lists and cat pictures these days.

This one is especially bad. The details in the story are horrific.

Wonder if it's best to wait til people come forward and then take the hit, or to come out and apologize before the story comes out. Lot of names gonna get continue to get named. I'd be so anxious.. probably better to take ownership.

I initially wrote it out as linear.. but then I thought about it, and I'd spend $160 at Rose's and not feel like I got ripped off... Or $240 at Metier.

Here is my back of the envelope value calculator for eating out. If I go out, I assume I will spend $50 for food, 2 drinks, tax and tip for me. If it meets 5/10 quality (let's just use Del Ray Pizza as a reference 5, because I eat there a lot), then it's just meeting threshold for value. If it costs less, it's a good value. If it's more, then it's not a good value. For each point above 5, I'll spend exponentially more, i.e. - 6/10 - $60, 7 - 80, 8 - $120, 9 - $160, 10 - $240. If the meal costs more than that number it's not a good value. If it costs less than that, it is providing excess value. If the quality is less than 4/10, then it doesn't matter the price - I left my house, went somewhere, and had a shitty meal, so I paid $50 for 2 beers - so it's always poor value.

There are SO MANY bad restaurants on 23rd Street. When I first moved near there, I was excited to see a row of ethnic restaurants and bar/grills, but they are shoddy. Wonder why not one is any good. The only decent thing in the area is Kabob Palace, but that's not really on the strip. Cantina was what it was. Average suburban Tex Mex. I'm sure some people will miss it. Margaritas were aight.

And it got 2 Michelin Stars.

What if people are completely aware of what is out there in Europe in terms of benefits and wages, but are powerless to do anything about it? I disagree it’s because of labor’s ignorance. It’s because of their powerlessness, its because unions are disrespected and now weak compared to prior eras, and because there are no alternatives. It’s like medical residents. Nowhere in the world do they work 80-100 hour a week. We all know it. We all fudged our hours and pretended it was less. What are you supposed to do about it? Buck the system and get fired? No thanks. My partners are all very educated about the world around them. Many are female. Yet, we aren’t copying Scandinavians 1 year fully paid maternity leave. Not efficient and not necessary to offer since no other group does. Our 3 months is “generous” (1 of those being taken out of your PTO allowance). The American worker - and I mean worker -not opiate addicted, disability check collecting waste of space - the non-professional American worker that puts in 40-70 hours a week of restaurant, factory, or office work is not lazy, stupid, or ignorant. They happen to live in a country where those that own capital don’t feel the need to bestow rights to the labor that generates the wealth. And if I sound like Karl Marx, that’s not the goal. We don’t believe in “the third way” here. The country is dropping the 35% corporate tax rate to 20% with almost no backlash, but to raise the minimum wage of our lowest paid employees causes huge backlash and scares the Dow. We no longer believe/never believed in paid vacation, adequate PTO/sick time, retirement accounts, adequate health care, maternity/paternity. It’s not because people don’t know about it. It’s because there is no way to obtain it. Even places like Starbucks (that have a perceived social justice mission) screw their workers out of benefits, by keeping them under the threshold of hours needed for benefits, while forcing them to be available for greater than 60 hours a week, even if they won’t be called in. People know what’s out there. My fiancé knows. But she works at Hopkins in nursing and is limited in what she gets for time off and even for health care. She works for the “best medical system” in the country and can’t find a gyno within many miles to see her within a reasonable amount of time, and her copay to an ENT is a low level employees weekly take home. She had a great sales job with great benefits before that, but she had a calling for health care, so she took a hit. What is she going to do? Make JHH give her better insurance and 6 months of maternity? Yeah right...