Sundae in the Park

Are these the fire-roasted diced tomatoes in a can? They are available at the Fairfax TJ's with chiles, though not without.

Yes to all, specifically for the Annandale location, with big thanks for converting my Korean-food-phobic husband. The potato pancake is enough like a "weird" latke to be gently inviting and it turns out that short ribs in all cultures are easy to devour. The kim chi has the bonus of being sweetish and not particularly...fragrant...enough to bother a sensitive nose. The soon du boo was very mild (for me) at the "medium" level, so we won't be afraid to crank up the chili next time.

Pho Capital is a new place in the Trader Joe's plaza in Fairfax at the corner of Little River Turnpike and Pickett. It's clean and new and nicely decorated for a pho shop and has some offerings, including bun, rice, and some typical Vietnamese hot cooked dishes (caramel pork, etc.), above and beyond pho. The broth is...fine, a lot of star anise but light, without much depth, and very much thirst-inducing after the fact. I much prefer the broth over at Pho Thang Long in the Nutley Street plaza (which is in turn still trumped by the broth over at Pho 75), which is too bad, since this is closer to my house. Their spring rolls are better, however, with crisp and crackling skin and a pork and shrimp filling. The amusing thing is that they have a pho eating challenge - if you can finish "every drop" of the super bowl (regularly $14.95) in 15 minutes, they will give it to you gratis and put your picture on the wall. It looks from the pictures to be a not-that-much larger bowl than the large, so I guess that main challenge is guzzling the boiling-hot soup.

Pupatella does takeout! You just can't get the fried calzone. Ravi Kabob is also great for taking out and a good value. Delhi Club (Indian), Layalina (Syrian-Lebanese), and Minh's (Vietnamese) are nice-ish looking places that aren't expensive or loud. Screwtop is lovely for visiting with a friend and grazing/sipping.

I've been making my own yogurt lately, and when I don't let it go too long and get SOUR, it's fantastic with assorted in-season berries. Doesn't even need honey, which I added to bought plain yogurt.

Rabeing and Duangrats are Thai places at Bailey's Crossroads that aren't very sugary and also have some great seafoods/non-carb dishes on their menus. Duangrats, in particular, focuses on the fine®-dining end of Thai cookery, so doesn't have as many noodle- or rice-based dishes. We feel similarly about Present for Vietnamese cooking.

My newish husband has pointed out that I am far more loathe to spend "our" money than I was to spend his on fine dining. While I like to think that it's due to a naturally evolving frugality, it's definitely true that the courting phase led to a lot more blow-out meals and food to impress than regular old married life. That plus general feelings about the state of the economy (oh, and he's still a student) has led us to do most of our fine dining during work (paid for!) or fun travel (one-time opportunities), while spending our local dining dollars on excellent, high-value establishments where we can't make something similar at home. We're getting to be pretty decent cooks and like to learn new dishes, so it's harder to justify going out when we aren't fairly certain we'll do significantly better out of the home. Also, I am extremely partial to the assorted Asian cuisines and we have so many great places around here where it's actually difficult to spend a lot of money (we don't really drink) before you're stuffed and happy. I'd also say that a few high-priced failures to meet expectations at fancier and hyped spots makes one a bit gun-shy to try new places. It therefore follows that if you're going back over and over to your regular haunts, even though they are excellent fine-dining experiences, you might not always post about them here, slowing the thread traffic on our most reliable and beloved restaurants.

Good god, get there EARLY. We were there mid-morning on a Friday last summer and the cars lined the road solidly over a mile and a half from the actual parking lot. We had only planned to hike a few miles, so just bagged it and wandered around Sausalito. Luckily, it's a gorgeous area for a drive and the fruit stands make good stops!

Ah, the Fish Fry (Arawak Cay, about a 15-minute walk out of downtown Nassau), where the locals and tourists alike can congregate to eat. We tried Twin Brothers and Oh Andros there, and both had their strengths. I think the fried stuff is preferable at Twin Brothers, but I didn't care for thier peas-n-rice (salty!) and the "steamed" fish is actually fried then stewed, while the "broiled" fish is really steamed in foil. Weird. The foil fish tasted like diet food - lots of root vegetables and hardly any flavor at all, while the stew was sharply tangy (tomoato-based) and interesting. Fried things (fish, conch fritters), however were terrific, and judging from the other tables, really the way to go. The blackened? fish at Oh Andros was pretty tasty, and came with three sides. Our cab driver, on coming in to town, had told us that "Bahamians eat a lotta starch" and she wasn't kidding...all the sides seem to be starches - mac and cheese, peas-n-rice (really red beans and rice), potato salad or fries, plantains, etc. Overall I liked Oh Andros bit better, but both are great to get to know the local offerings. My favorite meal of the week was at Conch Fritters, a random bar and grill right across from the Hilton in downtown Nassau. The blackened grouper was excellent! Lots of seasoning, moist and tender fish, with spicy greens, a dense block of mac n cheese (tasted exactly the same to me everywhere I ate it), and perfectly caramelized fried plantains. Yum yum yum yum, except that they never had that combination of items available again - we checked in three more times that week, but they were always out of something! Very disappointing. We tried guava duff here, which is sort of a biscuity shortcake drenched in a fruity cream sauce. It's not bad, but not really to my taste, and I generally prefer fruit desserts. Bahamian Kitchen (downtown Nassau) is cute, but they just serve the same food as everyone else - conch, grouper, shrimp, in various combinations. I tried the minced fish, which we had heard was an interesting local dish, but I DO NOT recommend it. It tasted like very fishy canned (crappy) tuna fish dry-fried with some bits of unidentifable vegtables in some salty-sour seasonings. The fried food was fine, though! Our main experience at the local joints was service on "Island" time with "Island attitude" - slow, not particularly attentive, not particularly apologetic (when something is missing or wrong). It got to be a bit wearing, which is why I think we enjoyed our experience at Cafe Matisse (downtown Nassau) so much. It's an Italian restaurant with actual white tablecloths and spiffily dressed waiters, and there is a gorgeous center garden for outdoor seating. The ice water is free and replenished frequently, and there is also free bread (both were nonexistent at the other types of places). Heavenly! The food, however, wasn't anything to write here about - pizza and pasta and salad were fine, adequate, etc. Perhaps the meat and seafood are the stars. Still, it's a great place to relax and sink into a level of dining comfort most of us are accustomed to. We had fun at Humidor Churrascaria in the Graycliff Hotel (downtown Nassau). Again, there is attentive service and air-conditioning, which goes a long way after not having them! Our night there featured 12-13 meats, incluing ribs and lamb and different sausages. I especially liked the prime rib and the salad+ bar was decent. Our meal also came with sauteed mushrooms, fried polenta, and mashed potatoes. It's nothing special as compared to other churrascarias, but is a good time and a nice change from local fare.

Sounds about right, though ours didn't have any floaties that I recall.

Ridgecres;, Visalio; Merced I travel to random places in California quite often, and there isn't necessarily enough to report to start seperate threads, so I thought this might come in handy! In case anyone is interested, I've had some luck at a few out-of-the-way spots lately. In Ridegcrest we ate twice at Pho Grand. The pho there is acceptable-fine, which is already a great find in the high desert hundreds of miles from a big city, but the rice plates are simply outstanding. The white rice itself is perfectly cooked, which only makes even better fried rice. The person manning the wok knows exactly what s/he is doing and each grain is fluffy, coated with soy sauce, and evenly mixed with the other ingredients. You get a platter of rice with plenty of grilled topping of your choice (or curry specials, which are also excellent), along with a small cup of pho broth to drink alongside. The fried spring rolls are only ok, rather overstuffed with pork (brings to mind lumpia), but the fresh rollls are better - be sure to ask for mint and cilantro in your rolls, which they will happily include, as they have taken the herbs out of regular service because people didn't like it (our waitress was thrilled we asked, and upon finding out where we were from, traded stories about favorite spots at the Eden Center, small world!). It's a pretty little place and the server (one) is very sweet, if sometimes overwhelmed during busy periods. It would be a place I would seek out even here in DC for the skill and value shown in the rice plates. We also ate at Tokyo House with a coworker. We stuck to the tepanyaki, which was boring and fine and made us wish we were back at Pho Grand. In Visalia, we had a couple of hits as well. Cafe 225 has a surprisingly flavorful ahi tuna salad (called the Hawaiian), dressed with sesame oil and including a bit of seaweed salad. Unfortunately, I didn't order it (only stole a few meager bites) and had to make do with mediocre pizza. The tacos were also unremarkable. It is, however, one of the few non-fast-food establishments open past 9 PM on a weekday, and we were accordingly grateful. We had great luck at Xiong Pho N Seafood, which has some of the best pho broth I've ever tasted, with no desert mouth afterwards to pay for it! Fragrant, flavorful, and nuanced, but without or with very little MSG. The spring rolls (both fried and fresh) are also very good and the other entrees seem to be a tremendous value. We got a whole fried tilapia (good-sized) in a tangy brown sauce for less than 10 dollars. In Merced, Thai Cuisine is just fine (heaping portions of sweetish rice and noodle plates), unless you're in the mood for soups. They only serve family-sized bowls in the huge tureens (appropriate for serving four, or making a more than adequate meal for 1). Our vegetarian Tom Yum soup was bursting with every kind of vegetable (must have been a kitchen dump for excess veg, but none were spoiled or yucky-looking or tasting) and absolutely hit the spot on a cool evening. Anyone else have recoomendations? Yelp, though nearly ubiquitous, isn't terribly reliable and I'm always looking for decent-to-great food on the road!

We had a similar experience on Sat. this past weekend. A nice change of pace from our tapas spots up here, with some different dishes. We especially liked our iberico plate and the flatbread. The servers were so busy and team-oriented (a different person delivered each dish), however, that no one ever told us that the kitchen was out of potatoes (?!) and our patatas bravas were never going to come out (we had to ask, and then she checked). Still, it's a great place to while away an evening. Taste of China can definitely bring the numb tongue, for all you chile-peppercorn-seekers. There is a wonderful picture menu on the wall with some of the board favorites - the scallion fish in the basket, dry-fried everything, various casseroles. We had a lovely ma pao tofu with braised fish (numb tongue!) and the dry-fried eggplant (not quite numb tongue on its own, but with other hot stuff - POW!). The scallion "pancake" footballs were light and poofy and uniformly thin, but would be better with a sauce. The xiao long boa were necessary to counteract the heat, but not particularly soupy and with thick skins, so only okay. If I were a shrimp eater, the crystal shrimp is what we would have gotten to counterbalance all the heat. This place has a bit more selection than my beloved China Star, but the ordering is much easier because of the picture menu. We had very friendly service and plenty of water refills. Not quite a drive-worthy place from here, but it is really an excellent schezuan restaurant, no matter how long it's been since Chef Chang was in residence. We had great pizza slices at Christian's and plenty of frozen yogurt from Sweet Frog. Also an abbreviated wine tasting at Barboursville (my husband is now officially allergic to wine ) that I quite enjoyed while it lasted. I love visiting C-ville!

Ha, I don't really remember, and wasn't paying much attention since I didn't care for either, but my friend thinks the starter was some bland (not really sweet or salty) sesame pudding-ish thing, and to finish it was a clear (so not milky, I was probably projecting my hatred of Chinese milky ice desserts)), cool, sweetish perhaps ginger drink. Any idea what they were?

Mine too. The furniture wasn't sticky and there wasn't any residual smoky/oily feeling about the place. We went a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, but I think that there are better values to be had on the strip, especially since I have pretty simple tastes and usually want a selection of tofu stew. We had a galbi plate, a bowl of bi bim bap, and the vegetarian pancake. There were a lot of wonderful panchan (full array for two asain girls, though neither of us are actually Korean) that were fresh, spicy, and complementary. I especially liked the eggplant, greens, and the little fishes. The main dishes were good, as others have described above, but we didn't care for the pancake at all. Quite heavy, with a polenta-ish texture, and not much flavor - very off-putting. Our service was slow but steady, and we did get the gratis clear soup to start and milky sweet soup to finish. So I'd say a good Korean place to take the parents or newbies for its atmosphere, wide-ranging menu, and fresh meats, but stick to the smaller places for everyday.

-chagrined- me too. Sorry guys! Catch them while you can! Also, last time they had the special potato white pizza, getting proscuitto on top was an option.

The white pizza (special) with slices of white and purple potatoes, rosemary, thin onions, and topped with a runny egg is the ultimate breakfast pizza. Of course, it was ridiculously delicious at night but I was longing for a fresh slice (or even leftover, which sadly, I ate last night so I wouldn't ruin it with refrigeration) this morning. It was nearly perfect, needing only a touch of sea salt (readily available on the bus-yourself table) to liven it up, and as I traded bites with my fried-calzone eating partner, I thought that a few curls of proscuitto would have made this a pizza to die for. We were in around 8:45 last night, the perfect time on a rainy Sat. night. The place was still busy, but we beat the last few stragglers for the night, had no trouble finding seating, and had our food within 10 minutes or so. Definitely worth the drive in from Fairfax.

Thanks! We tried it the other night. I do like the look of the place - it's more streamlined and modern than the typical family Indian restaurant, rather romantically but adequately lit, with some nods to Bollywood decorating the walls. The service was also excellent, friendly and cheerful and very attentive teamwork to make sure everything was up to par and water was continually topped off. We got out standards, chicken korma and bangain bharta, and liked both quite a bit. The portions are generous, resulting in plenty of leftovers. The korma has a little kick and the bharta is a chunky version, heavy on the onions and tomatoes and smoky flavor, almost to the point that I wondered if they used liquid smoke. We also tried their version of palak chaat. The spinach was only slightly crispy but the mix of flavors and textures - green mango and potato chunks spiked with crunchy bits of chick peas surrounded by a combination of tamarind and mint chutneys and yogurt, topped with the spinach - was quite interesting, and it is a sizeable portion, good for sharing. Yes, the Rasika crown is untouched, but this isn't a bad version at all for the suburbs (am I a horrible snob? This is really what I was thinking as I ate it). The mango lassi was sweet to my taste but the actual drinker of the beverage seemed to enjoy it, and the gulab jamun ws well received and gone in moments. We used a Restaurant.com coupon and really enjoyed the experience. It's worth checking out. There are a few non-typical items on the menu (like a sea bass entree) that will have me returning sooner than later.

Has anyone tried Bollywood Bistro in Fairfax City? Any news?

Turns out that a dinner here for 4 costs just about the same as our dinner for 2, except there aren't any leftovers. I would say that we usually order too much, but I was really missing those leftovers...

OH! I wish we could have gone, but I was overruled for 2 quick dinners and a show. Dinner #1 was a quick bite at Le Pain Quotidien on 6th Ave (lovely salads, etc.) over to a cute production of Avenue Q (still funny, even though we're getting older), and then over to BCD Tofu House on 32nd and Broadway. This is a nice-looking tofu house that bustles even before the true late-night crowd begins. Great soon du bu, seafood pancake, and served-to-you kal bi. Go for an all-night excursion as this and two spas on the same block are all open 24 hours.

We did the same a few weekends ago. We loved the lamb special, but found that the lamb > cornish masala > chicken Provencal > traditional, though all were good. Unfortunately, we tried them in that order. I would suggest working backwards through that list, and then you'll be happy the whole time! I agree the beef is missing a spark for excitement, but it is very hearty and does taste "traditional."

It's open. We got a menu the other day - the hours are WEIRD, closing at 7 PM. Will report when we actually try it out. Huh. Checked out the website, which does not agree wtih the little take-out menu we got. The website says that they are open until 9 PM weekdays, 10 PM Fri and Sat. Makes much more sense. No alcohol yet!

We were at the grocery store (making this sort of food-related!) and a guy yelled into his cell phone, "You mean we finally got him??!! HE'S DEAD?!!" and we had to find out what was going on. We're feeling very heart-full and patriotic tonight.

Next Saturday night in NCY, based in mid-town but neaqr Grand Central so can go anywhere, no reservations yet, preferably not asian, mid-to-celebratory price point. What would you try to get into?

We often eat the first round warm-cool, right after preparing it, and then cold straight from the fridge as leftovers. The sauce we use is whatever whisked combination of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar/honey that suits your taste, finished with toasted sesame seeds and chopped scallions. Toss that all with your rinsed soba, and then toss additionally with a quick saute of veg/meat - your bok choi, or peas and peppers would be perfect. Enjoy!