Michael Landrum

What the hell are you on about? There are plenty of Tippy's right now, Merrifield, for example.

Click.

You know where to send the apology.

I'm sure that Dr. Xmus did not expect this type of response, but then again, does anybody???

I'd love to help, but are you sure you don't want to wait for the real experts on this one?

Anyone who can sell prime cap of rib-eye (calotte) for $20 a steak sure as hell knows something that I don't, and is who you definitely want to learn from.

(Seriously, though, if all you guys want is a class in calotte, that is a piece of cake and I can do it anytime. I didn't mean to ignore you all, I really just came across this thread by accident and might not have noticed it otherwise).

I've kept this quiet for weeks out of professional courtesy, but you'll hear about it very soon anyway, so you may as well hear it here first.

Breaking News: Brian Zipin will be GM (and a partner) of Medium Rare, a sub-$20 American-style steak frites restaurant opening in late February in the old Yanni's space. Behind the operation? Mark Bucher of BGR was one of the creators, and none other than Michel Richard was (quietly) involved with developing sauces and desserts, but Brian and Tom Gregg (past President of Cuisine Solutions) are involved as non-silent partners.

Cheers,

Rocks

PS Don't ever underestimate Michael Landrum - the guy gets around. But I've been told ... no sous vide (and I asked "are you sure? about ten times). So you weren't quite right, Michael!

Actually, I didn't have to get around at all, not even to the Parker Meridien--it came to me. I just noticed them dining in my house, and just like with Timothy Dean, did the math.

This place looks exactly like a new branch of Fado. I would assume the food will be similar.

I would expect that a lot of tarragon would be used in the kitchen.

I wonder if they will also serve a cross-cultural "Pozzo-le"?

I have heard that they will require all patrons to remove their boots and to stare repeatedly into their de rigueur fedoras.

No doubt there will be a rousing, too-loud techno soundtrack to "hold the terrible silence at bay,"

I can only implore one and all: Go Go!!! And consider yourself Lucky!

I myself am somewhat inspired to open a Knut Hamsun-themed restaurant in response to this nascent trend.

Hey, just like L'il Wayne says: "Be muggin' me, you know I'm muggin' back." (Clean version, but many dirty ones available).

From the 28th:

Any guesses?

I guarantee you it is Sous Vide Prime Rib and Sous Vide sides in a partnership between Cuisine Soulutions and a local restaurateur who is NOT Michel Richard.

Not joking.

It is safe to say that we can all begin to write Don's epitaph now.

In a desperate attempt for attention and relevance, and to titillate the media with proof that DC isn't a second-rate restaurant town, we are planning a special Don Rockwell-only 11,111 course Blowout Benefit Dinner to celebrate the next cutting edge culinary trend to which Ray's holds the sole claim--Zygo-Eschatological Gastronomy, or Gastronomie Zygo-Eschatologique.

The menu will consist of 11,111 progressive courses, many of which are individual gametes, zygotes, spermatazoa, ova, roes, spores and polyps of different species, and bulding up to various glands, glans, sacs, gonads, ovaries, testicles and "taints"--with a surprise "flight of fistulae" course thrown in.

The special Don Rockwell price for this feast is a mere $111.11.

All proceeds from the event will benefit me, of course.

There will also be an option for matched pairings of specialty, craft, micro and exotic brews curated by the most boring and pedantic person I can find at the bar at RFD, hopefully one with spurious British affectations.

Edited to adjust for my idiocy. (Can one of the special moderators edit the title?)

Valentin Caset. One year ago today.

When you had one small restaurant and were earning rave reviews from our city's one major critic, where was the venom then?

Not really interested in answering tit-for-tat, nor am I sure of your point, but the initial Washington Post review on Ray's came out in late June of 2003. The eGullet thread on Ray's The Steaks was started in March of 2004.

Does your curiosity extend to what I was doing before then?

Does this dishonesty apply equally to Todd and Tom? Please don't take offense at this question, because my intent is not to cause anger.

Oh. No, no, I was talking about Virbila.

I mean, I'm sure that none of the local critics would ever do something so unprofessional, disruptive and violatory as to visit a restaurant on its ninth day of service.

And the over the top theatricality and spy-thriller, cloak-and-dagger role play inherent in titillating readers with stories of "[from the LA Times] routinely hav[ing] booked their reservations under other names, carried credit cards bearing pseudonyms and occasionally even worn disguises" doesn't even remotely apply to any of the critics here.

That would just be sneaky and creepy.

Anyway, it's not like that Jason Bourne meets James Bond meets George Smiley schtick would ever play in a market as sophisticated and worldly as DC.

Also, the "farce" thing goes both ways. If a restaurant recognizes me, and acts like it doesn't, I think I'm aware of it 9 out of 10 times - I'd bet the majority of major critics can say the same thing.

Cheers,

Rocks

It's not about you and the restaurant.

The farce I described is that between the critic (a professional journalist)--who exactly like you does know exactly at which restaurants he or she is known and recognized--and the public to which the actual degree of his anonymity is misrepresented and the disparities that pretense creates.

Regardless of any other argument regarding this subject, this pretense is dishonesty, plain and simple--and not unique in the modern critic's repertoire.

Oh what the hell, I'll go ahead and say it:

It's really just channeling their inner Julia Roberts.

Big mistake. Big. Huge.

Latest iteration: LA Times food critic photographed(!) by restaurant owner and booted -- restaurant's take

LAT blog on incident and LAT story

"...Virbila felt violated..."

I am not sure who should feel more violated here--the critic or the restaurant which was visited by the critic on its ninth night of service.

I actually believe that it is the public (and its trust) which is most violated when they are repeatedly lied to in regards to a critic's anonymity when in reality that critic's identity is well known to an elite group of restaurant insiders and the pretense of anonymity is only maintained among the "lesser" or newer restaurateurs.

The whole idea of a critic's anonymity is as dishonest as it is farcical--and in reality it guarantees that the very thing it purports to avoid (a skewed or distorted picture of a restaurant) actually occurs, just to the advantage of the already advantaged.

And the truth is, I have always gotten the impression that critics just get off on the sneakiness and the secretiveness and the disguises--almost fetishistically--and the imagined power it gives them much much more so than it serves any practical purpose.

Problem solved!

I imagine (and pray for) a future where guests will have their own pre-programmed expectations on a jump drive, plug it into their private robot wait-force, and get exactly what they want--no mind-reading, no surprises, no human fallibility, no vicious Yelps, no hysterical, dishonest complaints on Sietsema's chat, no endless threads on Don Rockwell...

This future also includes Farrah Fawcett arriving via pneumatic tube to have sex with me, by the way.

The simple--and obvious--solution would be to have all restaurants assign a liveried manservant to each patron upon arrival. The manservant would then stake out any potential seat at the bar for his assigned patron. When a stool becomes available, the respective manservants would then strip to the waist, rub themselves with bear oil, and engage in bare-knuckle fisticuffs until one is knocked-cold, with the barstool going to the victor's lord.

[You know ...

it's 3 fucking 30 in the morning, and I'm STILL working.

You posted this 15 minutes ago, and I just now found it. I have NO idea what the hell you're talking about, but it made me laugh just because you probably think, in whatever altered state you're in, that it's ingenious. Thanks, I think. I should probably sleep, but I probably won't.

....

Note the ABBA format....

Cheers,

Rocks

It means I'm really psyched about the Bregeut.

And Pushkin never wrote in ABBA.

Although Lermontov hacked away in whatever.

I just happened upon a document, purely by accident and under an apparently working but not entirely accurate Bregeut ( after Yevgeny's but before the retour en vol), that it seems I was not meant to discover:

Geburtsurkunde

(Standesamt II -- Munchen ----- Nr redact

redact ist am --,-------, 196- in Munchen, ----Cincinnatistrasse 64-----geboren.

Eltern: Marquis Carl Landrum, protestanisch und Cecile Susan Landrum, geborre Shure, mosaisch...

Anderungen des Geburtseinstrags:----------

Munchen, den redact

Der Standesbeamte

In Vertretung

redact

And then it is sealed with a 50 Pfenig stamp, so you know it must be true, in addition to the Ventretungitude of it all.

WTF?

And really? Mosaisch? In Nineteen-sixty-whatever? By the good Germans?

Happy fucking birthday surprise.

There have been some ongoing payment issues. The owner, Corrado Bonino returned from Italy just last week and has been working to rectify the situation...

I just bet that what Chris means is that employees can be expecting these little stocking stuffers.

...orignially grown by native Americans...

Make sure to check documentation. The illegals will stop at nothing to take away produce sales from real, honest, hard-working Americans.

Be especially careful of anchor babies.

That was Carol Blymire!

Who joined 10-11-10?

What the hell is a V-screen name?

"V" is a clue as to which letter must be removed to begin to peel the onion...

Colicchio wrote in his blog that the producers of the show explain each challenge in greater detail off-camera*, and more specific parameters were given.

* During TC: Just Desserts, one episode showed this procedure. The contestants were brought back to the stew room, where a producer went over all the rules of a certain quick-fire. It aired because Seth had a breakdown after being explicitly told he could not make his own ice cream.

Imagine if he couldn't use Red Hots!!!

First part for me always, before recommending any place is knowing where you are located and how far you are willing to travel.

Careful consideration of the OP's V-screen name, with it's suspiciously Don-like orthographical variation, can easily lead you to conclude that he/she may most likely be located within the G(reater)Lands of Montgomery. I would suggest limiting the search to a tight radial zone.

The revolution will proceed.

Unification.

The DMV, I will achieve. Indeed.

High Decree: I'm formin' a New Alliance.

"Oppose the ones poisonin' the minds.

They lyin'."

Haters must learn to bear.

"Haters in the crowd/

If y'all see 'em point 'em out."