DaveO

Don: This forum software does give you the ability to reference "likes" and "people who have cited your post". I'm in a different forum with the same software as this one and they provide that. I'm not an admin so I don't know where it is...but its there.

Wow. I like that one!!!! Frankly I don't mind chains. I went back to that list of chains in the area. I think some of them (deffo a minority) offer good quality and/or good value. I know we learned this operating a simple small business(es) and working to expand them. You have to work to get all your processes down and repeated over many years as their is incredible turnover. The stuff that used to work gets lost and ignored. I know in reaching out to various "bartender employers" over the years including local and national chains, the in house programs they had for training got lost, almost in all cases. OTOH, Clydes has this remarkable detailed training manual for FOH staff. Good for them. It helps them maintain certain standards that have worked over the years and still work. I know cooking and preparation standards get "lost" With turnover over the years its difficult to maintain all sorts of standards. As far as chains deteriorating the one that gnaws at me is how Hard Times managed to totally f*ck up what was once a great dish in Chicken Alamo. I'd fine them or send them to Siberia. Its either criminal or Siberia IMHO

I'm a new member, circa this year. I found the forum by accident, started reading and find it fascinating. Interesting threads, tremendous expertise on various topics, lively disagreements, some spectacular writing on the topics of local restaurants, food, and associated and non associated topics. More than anything its the wonderful writing, expertise, and interesting comments on topics I find interesting that keeps me here. Needless to say I can't comment on the "old community". I have been a very active member of other forums on totally different topics. The time span is roughly similar to when this forum was started. In general since that time period most forums have lost active membership, stimulating interaction, and the loss of key commentators within communities. The changes across the board are probably a function of all the changing natures of communicating across the web. With regard to food and restaurants, Yelp has changed things since the mid 2000's. Facebook has changed things. Twitter changes things. I see changes coming out of google+ People communicate differently and new technologies keep changing things. Finally to the extent that forums rely on a thin body of critical commentators when a couple of critical folks drop out for whatever private reasons they have, it can seriously reduce overall activity and the community. Don: Its to your credit you work so hard on this forum and have kept it alive with the interesting commentary of so many people. Its clearly difficult to do so in light of all the changes in technology and opportunities to communicate in different environments. Off the top of my head there is one technilogical element that could help to bring in more folks let alone spur more types of debate and discussion. Of course it could be brutally time consuming. Things like google alerts and methods that track commentary in various social media enable one to follow and track all sorts of communications across the board. You could probably track all the references on twitter and facebook with regard to a restaurant or type of cooking or on some topic. Then you could comment on all that and draw folks here. Damn that would be extensive and time consuming. Big businesses can afford to pay people to do this. Businesses that work on their public awareness all the time do this. OTOH monopolies like cable companies couldn't give a rats ass and have the worst reputations around. But what do they care. They are monopolies. In lieu of personalized responses since it could take incredible time maybe you could have template responses to topics you see in social media and send them out while inserting a link to a relevant thread here. Just a suggestion. Probably wouldn't work in Yelp or maybe not facebook but it might grab tweeters. Just a $0.02 suggestion. Meanwhile thanks for all the great writing. Very lively interesting and stimulating.

After reading comments about chili that are current I kept seeing references to Hard Times and thought I'd go back and reference what was once one of my all time favorite meals in the region, now more often than not totally screwed up. Chicken Alamo is a piece of chicken breast cooked and inundated with the excellent Hard Times Spices. The key to the dish was that it sat on spaghetti mixed in ranch dressing/sauce with icy cold diced tomatoes. An amazing combination of both hot and bland and hot and cold. Rapturous. I met a guy who was supposedly at the Olde Towne HT, way back when and he told me he helped create that dish. More recently though, as HT has changed significantly and according to the comments in this forum has seen widely different levels of satisfaction at its many different locations I found that the versions of Chicken Alamo would change drastically. They BAKED the damn spaghetti and ranch sauce...absolutely eliminating the spectacular and incredibly pleasing stark contrast between hot and bland hot and cold. For shame HT. It not only appears the many HT's are incredibly inconsistent, but you absolutely mangled a great recipe. I still like HT chili. I like both Texas and Cincinnati and will vary between 3-5 for each. Hell its still chili, perfect for cold weather and with a cold beer.

Just spoke w/ a co worker to whom I referenced the Turkey chili at Earls http://earlsinarlington.com. She came up to me and raved about the Turkey Chili. She said the flavors were a huge surprise and she doesn't even want to eat traditional chili again...and when I first told her about this delectable treat she told me she loved beef chili.

First off, for the sake of transparency, I'm one of the people that operates the Professional Bartending School in Arlington. We don't teach artisan mixology, in fact far from it. We teach beginning bartending. OTOH, quite a number of grads have gone to become proficient bartenders and are active in the world of artisan bartending and incidentally part of that world of the $12-20 cocktail. Ooof. That hurts. Frankly I've always liked my booze more for the impact than the spectacular taste. The expensive cocktail is an opportunity for bars, restaurants, and of course the mixologists. There is of course a lot of potential mark up there...and frankly many of the ingredients are more expensive. Regardless, here is an idea. For as many expensive cocktails as there are in the area there are an equal and in fact larger number of places with happy hour and terrific prices. Happy hours generally eschew expensive cocktails, let alone any drink that takes too long to prepare. Extensive preparation time kills the concept of happy hour with as many drinks served as possible in a short time frame. But what if one were to mix the two with a limited number of specific artisan cocktails offered during happy hour. The goal of course would be to serve a lot of these special drinks at their special prices and the trick would be to prepare them quickly, efficiently, before the event. Here is an example of artisan mixologists preparing a large number of specialty cocktails for a cocktail dinner: http://portland.thedrinknation.com/articles/read/8343-Brewing-Up-Cocktails-Behind-the-Scenes-at-a-Tales-of-the-Cocktail-Spirited-Dinner# A lot of work went into the preparation but the end result was the ability to provide 60 dramatically flavored cocktails in a very short time period.

Over the last two days I had the beef chili and turkey chili at Earl's. While I love traditional chili, Earl's turkey chili was spectacular and the beef chili so-so in my book. The turkey chili is hot and spicy with large chunks of turkey and white beans. Very special. Chewy, chunky, hot, warming. It makes the winter cold bearable. Had it at the original location.

I thought I'd throw this out there after reviewing some year end activity. This past year the Professional Bartending School provided bartenders for over 130 parties, events, weddings, corporate events, holiday parties, etc. We don't aggressively advertise or market this service. The school doesn't charge for the service. We will connect you with our graduates and you pay them direct. We are currently in contact with over 1,000 graduates ranging from people with over 10 years experience to new grads. We have suggested hourly rates. Many of our grads already work for caterers, so you get the same personnel who might cater your event without the overhead charges. Hosts have hired our grads for bartending, serving, barbacking etc. We have staffed events with one to 12 bartenders in the past year. This year we additionally staffed up many caterers for the holiday season, with some having started their hiring as early as last summer. In past years we often last minute or over a rush two weeks would staff holiday parties and busy December weekends full of parties with up to 100 grads per weekend. While party season is dying down with New Years this is a year round opportunity as we always have available graduates for any events. You can contact us at http://bartending-school.com or see pictures of grads at our facebook page http://facebook.com/ProfessionalBartendingSchoolDC, Phone number is 703 841 9700 and the contact email for our placement director is PBSPlacement@gmail.com

I worked on the left overs last night. Made fresh pasta in wine/water. Still didn't get a great "rush" of extra taste. But these recipes intrigue me, being a pasta "nut". From the latter two posted recipes it looks as if to get the full blast and flavor of the wine, one has to reduce the water and the last "boil" should be virtually all wine. I also suspect per those recipes if the pasta/spaghetti really absorbs the wine flavors its best set off with something different than tomato or red sauce. I'm thinking greens, garlic and oil though the variations could be endless. I'm on a mission to figure this out.

Nadia often looks like she should be cooking and catering for the Jersey Shore ensemble. Yo Nadia I wanna pepperoni pizza (In truth, I miss those days)

okay, this is 5 months late: didn't know that was his birthday. as the french say. better late than never : http://lightbox.time.com/2012/08/01/happy-70th-birthday-jerry-garcia/#1

Stopped by for my first winter chili: Turkey chili per the referral from the staff. HOT, white beans chunky, excellent spices. I should have gotten the large rather than the medium. And the day after I went w/ a large regular chili. that was okay...but that turkey chili. hm a thing of tasteworthy beauty. I'll be back for more!!!!!!

Tried this this past weekend. Used "cooking wine". Used it in the sauce and in the boiling water. The sauce was pretty good, must say so myself. tomatoes, sauce, onions, garlic, heavily seasoned with oregano, some cooking wine, pepper, pureed carrots and celery and a meat base. About 1/4 cooking wine to 3/4 water. It was good. but i'm not sure...could have been the wine in the sauce, possibly the wine used in boiling the water or the wine drunk while eating the pasta. The last part usually does the trick. There are leftovers, and the leftovers usually tell the tale for this pasta sauce/stewish type meal. To be continued.

no doubt. and it will probably be a world wide phenomena with this thread ranking #1 in google for the query servers who top off your wine glass (stripping out the adjective endlessly) https://www.google.c...iw=1366&bih=643

I listened to the piece on the Kojo Nnamdi show and read the piece abt restaurateurs not using good coffee, along with swallowing up the content about Joels coffee. Sounds inviting. I find it hard to believe that margins on coffee aren't that high relative to so many other foods and drinks. Surprised me. I used to lease space and leased retail/restaurant space. Jim Abdo had it totally right. Regardless of everything else the financial partners add to the problems for a small tenant. The financial partners want a "credit" tenant and the big big landlords want the same. There are tricks to getting a deal...but good luck on that Joel. All of it sounds like a trip to Petworth sounds inviting, as I do love good coffee.

Stopped off at KSB in Crystal City the other night with a friend. For me it was a trip of nostalgia as I had been very friendly with the founder; Ralph, who passed away 2 years ago. Ralph was the best restauranteur I knew. He did generate an enormous amount of loyalty and devotion from staff. The website features a paper mache statue of him which is actually located in the Olde Towne location on N St Asaph. We sat at the bar and split orders of BBQ brisket and Sausage and the Lousiana Gumbo. The gumbo was a bit soggy and short on sausage. The tastes of the brisket and beef were sharp and tangy. Service was professional and the bartenders had great rapport with obvious regulars. Of sides the garlic mashed potatoes were as I recalled; tasty. The real treat is to sit in the restaurant though with its wall paintings, murals and paper mache figures. Its fun and entertaining. KSB in Olde Towne used to be one of my go to restaurants for taking out visitors from out of town. Its fun, the setting is great, most of the service is way above board, and I always enjoyed the meals...possibly a bit more than this latest trip.

Not eating it yet but I am beginning an effort to make chicken oreganata or chicken oregano, of which there are many recipes and variations on the web. It was the favorite dish of my youth found in Italian restaurants in NY and NJ. My fave were small pieces of chicken, bone in, broiled or grilled with browned outer skin, moist inside with tremendous flavors of oregano, lemon, and other seasonings. I'll work through a few variations until I get something close to what I recall. Anyone familiar with this recipe?

I just want to say thank you for this thread. (I'm only partially through it) I'm going to forward it to some out of town foodies. Its wonderful reading: fun, interesting, informative, and did I say fun.

Schools, malls, theaters, snipers and to top it off elementary school children. The nation doesn't confront it. Politicians avoid dealing with this like the plague. Other nations similar to the US have these problems but the # of times is tiny compared to the US. Fucking extremist politics. Love your kids.

I asked someone about this who often tops off my glass. It could be soda or wine, but he'll go right at it, topping off that glass. Frankly, I'd rather do it myself and prefer to be in a setting wherein the diners do it themselves, but it doesn't make me crazy. The person who does this was trained and worked for a good bit at a well known steak house, part of a well known chain. His responses were interesting. Yes, there was some training in that regard, but topping off the glass to spur/encourage/promote more sales was not the MAIN or significant element in that training. He considered it his job. He considered a part of the service function. This particular individual is skilled at having his eyes aware "all the time" and is very service oriented. He's also very outgoing and connects with customers. People definitely like him. More power to him. Okay, he's an owner. His last comment was telling. Don't the customers realize how much mark up there is on that bottle. Why are they so worried about price. He referenced a mark up that I'll put in a range of 1.5-5 times his cost. I know mark ups are there. They have to be. Who pays for the staff, the rent, the insurance, the advertising, and everything else. But mostly he considered topping off his job; not primarily for pushing another bottle of wine, but more as an aspect of the complete service package.

I go somewhere where the usual server for me tends to top my glass all the time. He did have experience at a high end steak house. I'm going to ask him about this. The topping off thing is a subtle "trick". Some places may do it all the time via training. I'm certainly in that category of customers that don't want the server to do that on our behalf once the initial glasses have been poured. My impression is that most servers who have been trained or encouraged to do this are similarly taught to "lay off" if the customer shows they don't the server to top off glasses on a fast basis. There are a lot of ways to upsell, but I think that is a crappy one that is too artificial and at times too blatent. at least that is my $0.02

@yuca: Its a pretty sleazy business indeed. If one really needs good quality rep management on the web I can refer some local guys who are very good. They don't do that stuff with yelp manipulation. Of coincidence. I just took a call from a yelp salesperson for one of our businesses. The website has "pretty good" yelp traffic. I monitor that stuff all the time. We went through the "sales dance" with this advertising source. For this business we'll churn some numbers to see if it makes sense. Which restaurants here have advertised with Yelp? Did it help? What was your experience? Did you try and get them to change anything with the reviews you currently have? In the conversation I referenced that local craigslist ad above wherein some local business is trying to buy false yelp reviews. Business aint pretty.

This has been going on for a while across the country. Yelp is trying to catch these businesses: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/fake-yelp-reviews-13852727 it could be forwarded to yelp and they would probably get a "spy" to work it to expose the business. Of many review "stories" this one reminded me of the movie Fatal Attraction: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/03/09/5-tips-for-responding-or-not-to-fake-reviews/ Yelp and Google Local for reviews are sites that create issues, issues, issues for all concerned.

Over this weekend a get together with an old friend had us toasting Ralph Capobianco, who passed away 2+ years ago,and 2 years after a stroke largely incapacitated him. Ralph was my favorite restauranteur in the region. He opened all the local Hamburger hamlets way way back when it was part of a chain, Portners, which was part of HH, and when he went out on his own he opened Union Street Publick House, King Street Blues, Stella's and some other restaurants. Back in the 1980's we tried to put a Portner's inspired deal together in Reston. The finances of the deal weren't close but it was fun. Ralph bustled with positive energy and turned out to be one of Old Towne's major restaurant operators. People I met who worked for him had the utmost respect for him. Virtually every one of his restaurants had an inspired touch that made them fun while dining was always at least a little better. I missed Ralph's funeral. A belated toast to him.

I'd like to hear from the operators themselves. I can't think that any today have the impact of reviewers pre web. I recall a friend of mine had opened his first restaurant in the area in the 80's and it had gotten a rave review from Phyllis Richman. I saw him for the first time in a while coincidentally shortly after the review and it made him ecstatic, let alone had enormous impact on the popularity and success of the restaurant. Does any reviewer have that kind of impact today?