Michael Landrum

Well, here's a thought which I believe should be more widely disseminated:You know all those CHAINS which don't take reservations (Olive Garden, etc.)? They don't have this problem! Do we want MORE of these places? No, we do not. But, it certainly makes more economic sense to not even bother with reservations when you know people will wait a ridiculous amount of time to eat mediocre food. How much time will people wait for the really good stuff?

Perhaps these chains answer their guests needs in a more satisfying way than the aren't-we-so-superior-to-the-rest-of-the-world-why-don't-they-worship-us-for-the-greatness-we-are-how-dare-they-inconvenience-us? restaurants that so dominate the DC scene.
At least the owners and managers of these chains don't seem to need a website to whine about their clientele or trot out daily examples of their boorishness and ignorance.

Coming to brunch, Mikey?

Well, I'd rather brunch come to me.

Brrrring it on!!

Hard to stay cheerful right now because I'm scheduled to work a BRUNCH shift on the 1st of Jan. Report to work at 10 bloody a.m. So instead of a usual PG-13 glamorous hostess trilling excitedly, "Hullo there, what would you like?" guests will be treated to slowly rising swollen eyelids to reveal a look of pure repulsion, followed by barking, "What?"

"Oh go seat your bloodyselves."

So yeah, bring on surprises.

Nadya, dear, 10 AM is only early if you have slept.

Hmmm...I am in a neighborhood whose whole resurgence is predicated on being the cultural heart and soul of Black Washington, but still is the center of much inner city poverty and all of poverty's attendant ills--illiteracy, malnutrition, violence, lack of job opprtunity, no social services or community centers to care for semi-abandoned children. And I sell a piece of cake for $8 and I give you the same kind of pictogram that is used to instruct illiterates to watch out for "Piso Mojado" and how to assemble Big Macs for $6/hour no benefits.

Is insult to injury now funny or cute? Is this how you honor your community, by shaming it? Is this what we reward now with wealth and fame?

Whose idea of Love is this, Cake or otherwise?

Are you kidding me?

I think I had the utmost of the "Are You Kidding Me?" moments recently. At a highly regarded, world-famous, TV Star-headed bakery--which shall remain nameless--I paid $8 for a piece of cake that was the single worst thing I have ever put in my mouth, not having spent any time in prison yet.

Will testicles factor into this meal in any way, shape or form?

zoramargolis  Dec 6 2005, 02:20 PM Post #202

His performance was almost superhuman-- he filled the room with the most appealing kind of male energy.

Need I say more?

So, there will be sparkles in my neighborhood?

Do you mean Sparkles from Archibalds?

Will Kubla Khan be there?

And most importantly -- Will Olivia Newton-John be there?

That is so funny, because Kubla Khan is an ancestor, and the origin of our peasant holiday Yak traditions while studying at Harvard. Many many stories do we tell around our Beacon Hill Yurt about Uncle Kubla. Alas, he is no longer with us, but his great-great-great-great grandnephews, and champion Yak hunters/Yak milkers, Khand Kjob and Kheoj will be.

Olivia will be roller-skating for me, privately.

Mr. Landrum,

This sounds like a wonderful opportunity. I am thinking of buying this for myself as a special holiday treat. Before I do, I have some questions.

1) Is there a kid's menu?

2) Are you going to be able to squeeze mini-burgers into the petri dish? If so, medium rare, puh-leaze!

3) Will there be any uses of foam? I love foam.

4) Is the wine pairing included, or will it be decontructed and integrated into the dish?

5) Will the waiters be trained in ballet? This is important to me.

6) How much for the happy ending?

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

All of these questions were answered in my psychic broadcast, my mental projections must not have penetrated. Please remove the tin foil hat and the foil lining your walls.

Some of my astral emanations may have been less than clear, so I will elucidate on these questions however.

1) No, kids will be performing a recorder-pennywhistle symphony that I myself composed, but we will not be eating them this year.

2) He-Yak NiBurgers, as alluded to above and oh so much more precious and clever than your miniburger, may be included. You will have to try your skills against mine under the coconut.

3) There will be a foam essence.

4) I will be drinking far too many wines to even bother trying to pair them with your dining experience.

5) They are not waiters, they are prestidgitator-captains, having passed the first test in the Master Prestidigitator Certification Program. They are expert at the Onan-Goa version of ballet, the details of which I can not go into here--but let's just say there is a reason they wear "mittens".

6) There will be a synchronized happy ending for the stellar guest, during which the Onan-Goans will simultaneously remove their "mittens," leading to a climax that puts all of those other synchronized beverage service/impress-the-idiots-who-think-Cirque-de-Soleil-is-Art programs to shame. The real happy ending is, of course, when the guest leaves and I get to count the money.

So, you have a deal with Food Network for a show yet?  You could call it NaNoCrap.

Actually, it is with my new neighbors, The Discovery Channel. The show is called "I Made Boom-Boom!" I go around to other people's places who actually know how to make boom-boom and then I follow their directions and try to make boom-boom myself. At the end of the show I yell "I made Boom-Boom!"

Sweet.  Oprah BM deconstructed.

PS: The buttercrap frosting only tastes like crap when served at less than 96 degrees, not because I am a crap baker who doesn't know how to bake crap. Since people are too stupid to know crap, I will design cutesy graphics to let them know how stupid they are.

Just announced--NaNoLab will be hosting the most exclusive New Year's gathering ever. For this one night and for one stellar guest only the stately pleasure dome at 1725 Wilson Blvd will be transformed into a magical escape from the mundane and pedestrian in the most celebratory celebration of the wonderfulness of dining exclusivity ever.

I will first survey all area chefs and restaurateurs to find out which of their own dishes they deign to have been the best dishes of 2005.

Then I will transform these star dishes--ON THE MOLECULAR LEVEL--into my French-inspired Nuevo Latino/Onan-Goan Hand Food/Asian/Uzbeki Molecular Fusion Cuisine, utilizing a house-milked She-Yak for all fresh-curd and fermented dairy products and a house-slaughtered tender Young He-Yak to produce the entire menu, hoof-to-horn.

This seventeen course extravaganza will be plated onto a single petri dish, possible because of my patented NaNoCuise system, in order of mild to strong to utterly disgusting, counter clockwise. Of course, I will make up stories about my traditional, peasant Beacon Hill holiday get togethers that never really happened and a colorful, eccentric, but mysteriously wise in an earthy, worldly and druidic way Yak-hunter uncle who doesn't exist either. I will explain how each story was the inspiration for one of the dishes you are maybe about to enjoy, and then I will turn my back to you and stand in cold, diffident silence.

The petri dish will be placed under one of three hollowed-out coconut shells I will have arranged on a private table, which I will move about in a confusing manner while I bewitch you with my mesmerising patter.

For $2006.00 you will be allowed one guess as to under which coconut shell the magnificent tasting menu hides its glorious, delicious exclusivity. Should you guess correctly, the coconut shell will be lifted and you may inhale the fabulous essences. Each subsequent guess will be an additional $2006.00. For the donation of a Hummer you can have ten guesses, but only if you can prove that the Hummer was bought with unpaid employee wages.

Gratuity is not necessary, as my expert team of highly-trained prestidigitators, or if you prefer, legerdemainists, imported directly through the "grey" market Middle Passage from Onan-Goa exclusively for NaNoLab and dressed in tradition "mittens," will be milling about the room providing for our every need.

No dessert will be served.

Oprah will produce the musical version of this heart-wrenching but soulful event and I will get my own TV show and become so famous that I can charge $7.50 for a piece of crapcake.

Only those who receive my secret mental projection will be considered for this dinner, so take off the foil hats and get ready to receive the psychic penetrations!!!

Proof of penetration must be presented to enter the selection.

Only one guest will be selected to revel in my most fitful creation yet.

Is it possible to make cake into something you hate? Never in my life did I think that cake, and having cake, could be something so bad, so wrong, so hateful.

Who would do such a thing? Why?

Reading up-thread I am shocked--shocked--to see that there is any debate at all about this awfulness. Not just the product, but the entire CakeHate experience--a grotesque, horrible perversion of the beauty, wonder and joy that is cake.

Are we really that stupid now? Is this what we have become?

Even though this is not the direction Banco was hoping the thread would take, the above exchanges underscore the inevitability of confusion regarding beef, and the danger to the consumer of increased chicancery, since very few restaurants are honest about what they serve and will now have another means by which to confuse, obfuscate and misrepresent.

In the bold-face highlight that accompanies the Ray's The Steaks review, Tom offers the highly unusual insight that "you and your sewer can wear jeans." One can only guess as to the depths of his Delphic wisdom.

I'd like to hear what local chefs think of this development, and if it might lead them to substitute Kobe beef for the "Wagyu" beef and other domestic imitations that have become so trendy on menus lately.

I, for one, am dismayed in that it will now allow even more restaurants to mislead, mislabel and overcharge for their products when it comes to beef.

The example to the contrary is once again that paradigm of quality and value, Tom Power, who lists a Virginia Organic Wagyu New York Strip for $28--the same steak that is called Kobe and sells for $68 at a Big Name Steakhouse not five minutes away.

Having real Kobe available will only increase the already irresistable temptation to deceive and empty people's pockets.

Plus, the demand for Kobe in Japan is so great that any beef, whether it is called Kobe or not, imported to America is sure to be of an inferior quality to what is already mostly unavailable due to short supply in Japan in the first place.

Steakhouses already know that they can get away with selling choice as prime, low grade Angus as premium beef and that no one even knows that there is Prime "A", which is almost entirely unavailable in markets and to most restaurants, and Prime "B" which is actually inferior to most modern premium programs (and is most likely the only USDA Prime beef any of us has ever had), so having another way to confuse the consumer can only increase this obfuscation of the quality and qualities of beef.

Not to offend anyone, but I did NOT mean a coffee house or similar establishment.

I just think workig at a bar or real restaurant is both rude to the others and lets of an air of annoyance.  Just my opinion.  Its like cell phones...when did everyone's work business have to be done in public spaces?  When I have work to do, I spend hours (often past midnight) at my desk. 

Kudos to those who have the discipline to work at a bar.  I just can't

One aspect of this question which is never addressed: The use of cell phones, Blackberries iPods and laptops in restaurants is inherently extremely rude to and dismissive of those who are attempting to attend to your needs--those whose job it is to actually work in a restaurant. Not only rude, but with a deleterious and time-draining effect on service and kitchen timing which drags down the experience and atmosphere for all.

I wonder what the response would be if I showed up at your office and to eat my lunch? Or if I brought lunch to my next doctor's appointment refused to leave until I had polished off the last of my Little Debbies?

he filled the room with the most appealing kind of male energy

Uh-oh...I thought that was covered up by my apron...

The Number One Dish of 2005:

Dreamy, dreamy Derek.

I just like the idea that restaurants have the ability to protect their servers, themselves and, most of all (!), their customers from having their meals ruined by jerks like these guys.

It is not just an ability, it is an obligation. A restaurateur, just like a host in his own home, is responsible for the safety, well-being and enjoyment of all of his guests as well as all members of his household.

What host would tolerate or invite back a guest who abused, damaged, or threatened his house or belongings, his family members, or any other guest? A restaurant, its owners or its management should never tolerate any abuse by any individual towards any other.

Especially heinous is the idea, or sense of entitlement, that servers/hostesses/busboys are open to abuse, as though they were somehow lesser people. This pathetic and common attitude comes from both sides--owner/management and guests--and is the hallmark of a class of ignorant, striving peasants.

Most owners and managers that I have worked for have been guilty actually of a greater guilt than the most offensive/offending guest I have ever encountered because: the obligation of awareness of and planning for these foreseeable and expected incidents is obvious and part of the privelege/duty of ownership; and these employees are in the custodial care of the owner while in his employ and therefore his first obligation is to their safety, security and well-being.

The restaurant business is, especially now, too much like a plantation system--and becoming more so with each new 200 seat restaurant or Starbucks that opens--with the triangle trade of sugar/rum/slaves being replaced by the more current version of privelege-money-power/foie gras/uninsured working poor and illegals.

And too many guests believe that the price of a meal entitles them to the right to behave like petty, inbred, minor feudal lords--but only because so many restaurants wouldn't have anything else to offer if they didn't cater to and encourage that.

Even with 10 spaces added (hanging from the chandeliers, perhaps?) I am without hope.

On Tuesday the 6th, I will reserve a table of 12--first-come, first-serve, at 8:15 PM for people on the wait-list who do not make it in on Monday. Same menu (leftovers, really), same price, same donation to charity--just no BYOB.

Do not PM, do not e-mail, and do not call if you are not on the waitlist (there will be surprises later for those who did not get to participate). Call the restaurant--703/841-7297 beginning at 2PM (not sooner) Tuesday the 29th--say the phrase that pays (Don Rockwell rocks well when well-rocked on well scotch) and have your credit card handy.

Rather that scour a wine shop or move a bunch of stuff out from in from of my wine horde (stuff strategically placed to prevent consumption of wine before its time), my plan is to stop by Ray's over the weekend (during the afternoon) and buy a bottle of wine or two off of Michael's excellent wine list for consumption on the evening of the 5th.

And some extra, too, I hope, in case some break.

i  however, i thought it was part of the white noise of u street development, for better or worse, not an escape from it. i could be wrong (i didn't get to see it with the lights all the way up) but it seemed like a substantial renovation job, and i am assuming that high rent is built into your check.

Not an escape from the development, but an alternative to how it might have been done--local, hands-on black ownership with ambition and commitment--not chains, not club-money, fast-buck attitude.

The renovation was substantial, but mostly savings and sweat. The tables I gave T saved him about $4,000--go save that on kitchen wages. The rent is actually low--the lease is still from the previous Ethiopan restaurant--and any higher-than-the-chains prices come from high-cost ingredients.

Not that the restaurant is perfect--I think that execution, quality and speed of service suffer unnecessarily from too many details on each plate--but that is a sin of trying too hard and will be worked out I'm sure.

I've had much worse for much more money at places that never get called on it--maybe because people are judging from a different perspective.

and there is an abundance of blonde wood, not new either, but this is a nice and comfortable space, clean as a whistle

The astute observer may notice that the tables at Creme are those of the old Crisfield's space, artfully crafted into something new; a gift from me to T (a great friend and mentor to many in this town for whom a restaurant job was a way to feed the kids, not to get the picture in the paper with their name bold-faced on their sleeve(??!??)).

While I agree with Rocks in general about U Street, Creme has some honest ambitions which it will grow into, and is already doing a great job with many things, and some dishes as well--T's meat and two is a big serving of heart-felt love and deliciousness.

Above all, let's not forget that Creme is designed to serve the community that is being drowned out by the white noise of U Street development, and it does so well. If any place on U is what it is supposed to be, Creme is it.

Now if they would only re-open State of the Union...

Outside of the lottery system, I am going to make available one seat to the winner of the following contest:

The winner will be whoever can jam a duck call up his ass lubelessly and, by flatulent emissions, make a sound most approximating the sound a wine-swilling, restaurant-swindling, character-assasinating, cheap piece of shit would make if it were trying unsuccessfully to sound like a human being.