DaveO

One recollection of Garretts. I went there while young with two work colleagues. Both were big guys and worked out. One was gynormous...pro football sized, and worked out/lifting weights all the time. Three guys ordering hamburgers and beers. Four burgers were ordered. The waitstaff person asked if a 4th was joining us. The gynormous guy said with a resigned voice they were both for him. As I recall Garretts had large burgers. I witnessed that colleague doing that time after time after time but Garretts was the first time. (lesson--lifting all the time to be huge ends up costing a lot in food) Not only were the burgers large they were good. But that was long ago.

And the third installation of his running blog as Furstenberg and various vendors who will be working to change the building meet and walk through this property: http://breadfurst.com/2013/09/22/kicking-off/ along with his musings about past endeavors. I used to lease space to restaurateurs and work with them to find space. This is extremely revealing as to how and why so much money can go into a new food space. As a bakery it has unique requirements...but the build out can just eat up money!!!!!

I wanted to commend the weekday bartender at Me Jana. I went there the other day to try out kibbeh nayeh a dish entirely foreign to me. (Its sort of Middle Eastern steak tartare) Kasha, the bartender, walked me through different ways to eat it and found a perfect solution that worked for me. Terrific service.

With holiday season hitting us and caterers ramping up for hopefully a busy season I thought I'd bump this (and ask for your forbearance). We remain a tremendous source for bartenders/employees for caterers plus for folks looking for bartenders for events or catering. Our main line is 703 841 9700. requests directly to our placement manager can go to pbsplacement@gmail.com Happy holidays.

Ikaros on Eastern Avenue in Greektown has been around since the mid or late 1960's and under the same family management since 1969. I lived in Baltimore in the early to mid 1970's. It was one of my go to restaurants back then. I will still visit at times. Its always been a pleasure.

Kibbeh Nayeh is both delicious and filling. To think that KN received 3 lbs earlier this year as a gift of love. That is a LOT OF LOVING!! I finally made it to Me Jana specifically for this dish. This thread, the thread on home cooking and preparing all spiced with KN's devotion spurred me to this meal at Me Jana, a true delight in this region.....and since KN gave Me Jana his approval...where better to go in that it is around the corner from where I normally work. A delightful dish. It is comfort food. And it made me extremely comfortable. Since it was an off day I ventured alone and ate at the bar where the very pleasant Kasha suggested pairing kibbeh nayeh with their tasty pita bread and garlic whip. Hmmm. A wonderful choice and the method of choice, I learned via KN, in Southern Lebanon and among Palestinians. Per Kasha's suggestion I paired this with Ksara Reserve from Lebanon. I thought that was rich and hearty choice, but frankly my red experience for the past 2 decades has been very limited. Still it was a delight. Thank you, Kibbee Nayee for your enthusiasm for this dish. Its a rich meal. I'll be trying it more often around the region and thoroughly enjoyed it at Me Jana.

The second installation of Mark Furst's blog on the development of his bakery: http://breadfurst.com/2013/09/17/up-in-the-air/ Man it sounds like a big job with lots to do and consider long before opening: I will say if the attorney he is using is the Rich Levin I know...he is using the best danged commercial real estate attorney in the city IMHO. Its an interesting saga.

dang that is great writing. makes me want to go to Dallas to get some pizza. thanks for the piece.

...unless of course the dismal first halves of the Redskins so depress you...you just wanna stick your head in the sand or go to bed hungry.

I recently spoke with one of our grads that manages a place. They have been skewered via yelp reviews. Most recently they got a hugely positive yelp review...which was followed within hours by a brutish 1 star review. The 2nd review referenced the staff and people who had been so lavishly praised earlier and simply trashed them. Per our grad, evidently the second reviewer, who he recognized by first name and last initial was a friend of a former staffer who had been replaced at that restaurant. Now all that appears to be an horrific example of how yelp is at times used by individuals or ex employees to rip the bar/restaurant/establishment. Its venal, juvenile and widespread. All the review sites know about this phenomena. Its been around for years. How they deal with it is another matter. Generally yelp and google which also carries a lot of reviews are loathe to take down individual reviews. They throw out their excuses. They just don't. There are exceptions but they generally don't remove them. I can't speak for OT. In the past yahoo was responsive...but these days it almost doesn't matter as there are few reviews on yahoo and not huge traffic. The sh1tty wanton use of yelp is not going to stop. One can only hope they increase their policing of terribly vindictive reviews. (okay...fat chance)

I've mentioned DR.com to some people in the industry. They are unfamiliar with it. I don't think it is anywhere nears saturation. If one could access the volume of page hits on the washpost site that occur with the food comments, or the washingtonian, or yelp, or one of the bigger monetized food sites....they are closer to "saturation" points. I don't know the traffic that dr.com gets or the traffic that any one of those sites gets. One of the things that took me some time to appreciate is how certain restaurants over time have used dr.com to promote specials or deals for dr.com members. I didn't see it right away. I simply didn't know it was available. Some of them have been doing it for years. Its obviously worked to some level for those that have repeated it. They know exactly how well it has worked for them over time. I'm sure everyone of them would love it if dr.com had a regular 20K local visitors..... Bam...every one of their promo's would have a shot at getting that many more eyeballs every time they run one of those promos...and the beauty of it is they wouldn't have to get to those larger numbers of eyeballs without giving away a lot of money to LSocial or Groupon. Boy would that be great. I do know a lot about websites but its amazing how little one knows. I don't know the traffic volumes of the largest food sites in the DC area, where dr.com sits in that list, which restaurants get the most traffic, which convert the most, which work best in DC, northern, VA, Montgomery or Pg. About all I know is that if foodies who live in northern VA see a great food deal at a terrific restaurant in Laurel ie (Pasta Plus) they still aren't probably going to go there in anything but a trickle if at all. and vice versa. I'll use our barschool as an example. Without many details in general I know its a tiny niche service. Tiny. I've been able to confirm how tiny it is via certain types of web comparisons. I also know some of the things that boost visibility for the service (not just our smb) and things that don't work. Every so often I see the remnants on the web of a LSocial or Groupon that promotes something that is somewhat connected to what our smb offers. Each time one of those takes off...it shows how tiny we are to overall visibility. Of course LSocial and Groupon have 1 million+ emails that they blast out every day...day after day...saturating your email....numbing you to their repettitiveness.... but some of them continue to work to get eyeballs. There are millions of eyeballs on the web out there and I suspect a smallish percentage in the DC area who have food awareness are really aware of dr.com. ....and then if they are a little bit dense like me...even when they get here they don't see all the opportunities.....like I missed for months about the "deals" dr oriented restaurants offer to readers. Of many of the best ways to attract lots of eyeballs, they tend to either cost money or there is a lot of work to help them create things that work big time...and some times when you come up w/ a great idea...that might be free....it ends up not working. (Ooooof that takes a lot of wind out of one's sails.) If all one does is look at all the new restaurants listed here since March: There are about 150 new places listed. Assume 30 or so replaced old restaurants (maybe 20--maybe 50-> I haven't looked). Some of them have threads at dr.com Some don't. How many of those owners or the gm's or the assistant gm's know about dr.com? Do you know? have you tried to reach them? I assume there is something in the realm of a couple of hundred owners/gm's/ and assistant gm's that should know about dr.com....and they are just in the industry...not the public. Do they know about dr.com. I know this. If I was operating a restaurant and I needed to boost revenues...and I had to choose between the amt of money I would have to fork over to LSocial or Groupon to get a lot of eyeballs. versus getting the eyeballs through dr.com....I'd rather get the eyeballs through dr.com. And as a restaurteur I'd want my dining public to know about it on that basis alone. anyways that is my $0.02

This is a great thread. Its created at least one more potential customer for Kibbeh Nayyeh due to your dedication to this dish, KN. (the thread on Kibbeh Nayyeh in the cooking section is similarly seasoned by your love and devotion to this meal). Kudo's. Years ago I lived in a cul de sac in which I was friendly with cooks/natives from various lands around the Mediterranean. We fairly regularly ate together with dishes that represented Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, and Spain. I contributed Italian food (albeit altered via my Northern NJ upbringing--(one friend described it as Rome/West)). For some reason we never feasted on Kibbeh Nayyeh...and I don't know why as the Lebanese contributor had his mother and sisters there who would often add to his native delights. Ah well, the past doesn't matter. Me Jana is around the corner from where I often work...and you have rated it among your top three. That sounds tremendously encouraging.

The blog piece is terrific. I wish him luck with this endeavor. I lived in Van Ness when Furstenberg opened Marvelous Market. It was somewhat ironic and stunning to walk up Connecticut Avenue and stand in "bread lines" to acquire his best breads in DC. They were truly wonderful in an environment that was bereft of such wonderous foods. The experience so changed the definition of bread lines from a place where the starving would get nibbles to a place where the overly affluent with time on their hands could experience truly superior foods at higher prices. Ha ha. But they were delicious and worth the weekly trips for those culinary delights. His article is an interesting look into bits of history concerning DC. Very nice story. I wish him the best and plan on visiting his new bread lines when he opens in 2014. I'm the 96th follower of his blog piece. I look forward to his progress.

heh. Could have been something native to the NY area and Italian cooking/especially sauce. I probably picked that up decades ago...the idea of using a food processor to smush up a variety of healthy vegetables and add them into red sauces. Saute them or add other ingredients prior to adding to a long simmering sauce. or meatloaf is a perfect other example. It really enriches the sauce/food, let alone adding veggies for the kiddies et al. Really not sure or where I picked that up other than I got that tip from more than one source years ago. I suppose I thought it was a widespread tip. It does do a great job, doesn't it, Zora?

At my best I am an amateur cook. That is technique I learned years ago. It is an extraordinary way to enrich sauces or meals like meatloaf as mentioned above.

McSorley's Ale House on the Lower East Side dates to the 1850's or 1860's. One recollection I have of that place is visiting w/ a friend wearing a U Virginia t-shirt. The ia was covered up. Some guys saw the word Virgin and hoisted him on up in the air. The hearty drinkers haled him as the bar's only virgin that night and any night. Closed on June 1 this year and near where I grew up was Pal's Cabin, first opened in 1932 and maintained by the same family for several generations.

"Big Nick's Restaurant On Upper West Side Closes After 51 Years" on newyork.cbslocal.com. The rent numbers don't make sense to me for a burger/pizza joint. But so what. Another old line place can't afford higher rents.

Having recently had the big fat juicy delicious steak and cheese at Ray's TT3 and having seen it was voted best sandwich in the metro region...and having LOVED IT I had to stop by Earl's. Its sandwiches are so amazingly and consistently good. Just had a turkey with cranberry relish. What a STUPENDOUS sandwich. So many of Earl's sandwiches are top notch. Are they better or worse than the delectable Steak and Cheese at Ray's TT3??? Who cares. Ray's Steak and Cheese is stupendous and so are many of Earl's sandwiches. I'm always stunned by the turkey sandwiches. Fresh roasted delectable turkey. I never have that. Okay..maybe after Thanksgiving...but its not FRESH ROASTED THAT day like at Earl's. These turkey sandwiches are scrumptious. Well worth the visit. Their mere existence is a cause for "thanks" as is Thanksgiving. BTW: I was told once that Earl's sells sliced fresh turkey meat. I forget the price. I suspect dependent on the day they may or may not have it for sale. But an extraordinary sandwich delight. ya....the steak and cheese at Rays TT# is great....but don't ignore Earl's. Its sandwich heaven!!!!

Tacky? Snarky? Funny? Definitely interesting. Ha ha. I did like the total story on the Light Horse review and response. That one was crazy. Complete rejection of every claim on the review. boy does that leave that review in question!!!!

I had one of these the other day. It is a great sandwich. Big, meaty,cheesy, greasy. Hmmmmmm definitely a great sandwich. Top it off with a shake. hmmmmmm

If you consider how much dining costs in the district and in other close in areas wherein the rents are crazy high and have accelerated like virtually no other part of the country that concept is absurd. Alternatively in this area we have a wonderful description of the inexpensive costs for dining at ethnic meals in the suburbs, where various rents are remarkably lower and costs and that contributes to dramatically lower costs. On top of rent all other costs have simply continued to rise. Restaurants need to cover all sorts of costs that dining in never encounters. Its a crazy concept.

One of the ways a non server/non bartender makes more money is with a barback at very busy high volume bars or clubs. In some of those cases at these high volume bars, bartenders pool all their money and divide the total tips. Depending on the place and the bartenders they can tip out the barback at 10,15, .20% In some cases a particular bartender might be more generous than others if a barback is assisting 2 or more bartenders that don't pool tips and/or work in adjacent bars. In busy places and on busy nights those barbacks make a couple of hundred extra dollars. They are minimum salaried people and in very busy bars they work like crazy. They keep those busy bars functioning and allow the bartenders to just pour. In busy bars where the bartenders can make a lot of $$$ and if they are reasonably smart they know the barbacks are worth that money and happily tip out the barbacks. How widespread is that practice? I don't know. I do know its pretty consistent in DC in various high volume/high speed bars and clubs. Of course that doesn't do anything for the back of the house in the kitchen. What they are doing for the bartenders is what the kitchen is doing on behalf of the servers. At places like the Clydes group and other restaurants that have food runners....the waiters have reasonably easy jobs in my opinion. The waiters's job is to sell and upsell. I think they better be as food runners make waiters' jobs far easier. Its astounded me at various restaurants that have food runners when I never get subtle or soft regular efforts at upselling and at the same time I see the wait staff hanging out. What a waste from a management perspective. (again my $0.02)

Here is an interesting article from a restaurateur who eliminated tipping, replaced it with a service fee and distributed the monies between front of the house and back of the house: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/08/tipless_restaurants_the_linkery_s_owner_explains_why_abolishing_tipping.html?google_editors_picks=true

Damn. That family business,which started with immigrants including my grandfather and some of his relatives was located on Grand Street. It lasted for decades. I was there a lot in my teens and 20's and got to dine in Little Italy and Chinatown a lot, along with the neighborhood delis. But that was decades ago. How sad. Now a tourist trap. Too bad. Of course if you can get a knock off roll-exe that looks great and works for a long time....hey that is damn good!!!!! If there are still good bakeries or delis there, though that is a plus!!!!

How sad. My dad's family had a business around the corner from there. I ate in quite a few restaurants in little Italy ...but it was decades ago. Some were fantabulous...but not all. Are there any good restaurants there anymore????