Saycheese

Cozy Cafe is on L between 18th & 19th -- on the same side of the street as Borders.

I love this place too. The fried chicken is awesome -- and they serve huge portions. One day when I had to go to an early dinner, I thought I could skip lunch, but around 3:00 I was starving and happened to be minutes away from Flavors, so I thought I would just get a fried chicken sandwich. Imagine my surprise to find that the sandwich was not a petite boneless fried chicken filet, but a ginormous breast on the bone with the wing as well with 2 slices of wonder bread along side. My advice -- forget the sandwich and just get the chicken.

What a coincidence -- I walked right past this place today after being too late for the Galileo Grill, but I have never really trusted sandwich shops that seem to be buried in the windowless nether regions of office buildings. Maybe I'll try it next time. Instead I got a sandwich at a place on the same block of L Street called Cozy Cafe -- it's run by a Korean couple and they have crepes, bubble drinks and hot and cold sandwiches. I was attracted by the sign board outside highlighting a bulgogi beef steak & cheese. It was very tasty -- exceedingly juicy, flavorful, and the bun was toasted in the panini press so it was hot and crusty. Dickey's Frozen Custard on I street between 17th & 18th also has good sandwiches, including a hefty cuban sandwich.

I wanted to complement the chef and staff at Restaurant Eve where my husband and I had our first experience at the Tasting Room last night. We had tried several times in the past to get a reservation with no luck and have enjoyed the food in the bistro, so we were really looking forward to this dinner. Wow! What creativity in the cooking and excellence in the execution -- the "peas and carrots" was fantastic, as was the venison, quail, skate wing. . . The skate wing in particular was a revelation, since versions at other restaurants are often soft and mushy, and I have never really enjoyed skate before. Here, the skate was firm and had a nice crust from being seared quickly at high heat with I would guess clarified butter and a light dusting of flour. Moreover, Chef Armstrong really knows how to make tasty sauces, and normally, I'm not a big fan of "foams" but they certainly were used to advantage and very subtly in the dishes last night -- I think it was the peas and carrots that came with a dab of parmesan foam. The portion sizes for the 5-course menu were just right, especially when you factor in the numerous extras. I hate when you feel overstuffed afterwards. The only room for improvement in our opinion was to make the onion tart that accompanied the flan during the cheese course more onion-y; it seemed to be more like just a square of puff pastry with no hint of onion. Also, the blue cashel with boxty was fabulous, but we couldn't really detect the country ham in the dish. Perhaps the concern was that more ham would have been overwhelmingly salty with the blue cashel, I don't know. One final complement -- our server was very good at answering our questions about the dishes and seemed very knowledgeable about the ingredients and how they were prepared -- he was very helpful, pleasant and professional. Anyway, it was really a top notch culinary experience -- I can't wait for the next time, whenever that might be.

Okay, here's a challenge -- I need to find a restaurant for dinner in or near York, PA (Gettysburg and Hanover are nearby) for a group of about 15 to 20 people, including kids from about age 8 to 18. The only requirements are good food, moderately priced, not a chain and if the wine list is decent that would be a big plus. A private room is not necessary. The food does not have to be fancy -- ie a place that has burgers on the menu would be fine, as long as they are good burgers and as long as the place is not just a burger joint.

If you had to pick a restaurant near the Kennedy Center for dinner before the opera and you hadn't planned far enough in advance to get a table at Notti Bianchi, would you try Dish or go farther afield? Has any one been there lately? I can't find any mention of it in this forum. Circle Bistro is fine, but have been there a few times this year already. Marcel's is good too, but a bit expensive.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! I was in Aruba in Oct. 2004 and the food was better than I expected, but we were there for only an extended weekend. We had a very nice dinner at Le Dome (I really enjoyed the Carbonnades Flammandes) and they had an excellent wine list. We also ate at the Old Cunucu House, which features "Aruban" cuisine. It was only okay. What I especially liked was the quality of the food in the local supermarket -- we bought really good cheese, charcuterie, pastries, yogurt and bread and had pastries for breakfast and picnics for lunch. A lot of the food must be imported from Europe, based on the brand names and variety. The Pirate's Nest restaurant at our hotel was lousy (the hokey name should have been a dead giveaway, but it was our first night and it was late and we were tired), although the hotel itself was decent, not too expensive and had a nice beach and 2 for 1 drinks every afternoon -- all you had to do was stick a flag in the sand next to your lounge chair and someone would come running to take your drink order. We stayed on the low-rise part of the island, not the ritzier high-rise area. I hope you are renting a car -- we relied on the bus and cabs, and rented a 4-wheel drive one day to go to the ocean side of the island, but our lack of a car prevented us from trying some of the interesting sounding restaurants because they were far away. There are a ton of restaurant reviews for Aruba on the internet.

Having a bad day at work? Would a lovely meal that doesn't break the bank cheer you up? Go to Gerard's Place for lunch. Gerard's recently revamped prix fixe menu is such a great value. For $29.50 at lunch, you can have three courses, with a choice of 2 items per course. All of the a la carte appetizers are $12, and the main dishes are in the ballpark of $25. There are about 6-8 choices among the a la carte items for each course. Therefore, even if you don't get the prix fixe menu, you can still get an app and a main or a main and a dessert for about $35.00, before tax and tip, which seems very reasonable for the haute quality of the food. Plus, the portions are generous. You won't leave hungry. Of course, however, wine or bottled water will boost your bill, and supplements apply for the foie gras appetizer and the lobster with sauterne, ginger and lime. The cooking has been stellar lately, even on those occasions when Gerard himself isn't in the kitchen. The progressive tasting of beets described by DonRocks is still on the menu, and it should remain permamently -- who knew beets could ever taste so good. Other tasty dishes were duck breast with duck confit parmentier, and a shepherd's pie of shortribs. The "profiteroles" of escargot were also really good -- small savory, slightly garlicky choux filled with escargots with a compote of sun dried tomatoes and more escargots in the middle of the plate. I don't think I have ever had escargot with tomatoes, but the combination is really good -- maybe someone should try it on pizza? Anyway, if you haven't been recently, go! Gerard's Place is also on Open Table now.

My favorite omelet combination is spicy sausge, such as merguez made by the Simply Sausage people or Logan's Mexican chorizo, crumbled up, and gruyere and a robust goat cheese like St. Maure, with mango chutney or a chunky hot sauce on the side.

Am considering going to Cabo in July -- has anyone been there at that time of year? Is it unbearably hot? Any suggestions for good restaurants? I've read about Charlie Trotter's restaurant there and some other high end ones -- what about more modest/local places? In terms of hotels -- am considering the Westin, Sheraton and Hilton, as being somewhat reasonable price-wise yet fairly deluxe -- don't want an all-inclusive place. Having a swimmable beach is also desireable. Wild and crazy nightlife is not what we're looking for. Overall, it sounds like a pretty expensive, touristy place, but I have also heard that it's really beautiful. Any feedback (positive or negative) would be appreciated.

I had dinner at David Craig at the end of March and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had the chicken 2 ways with polenta fries -- outstanding! The chef really knows how to make a tasty sauce, and the stuffed chicken leg was finger licking good. I was torn between the chicken and the duck they were serving that night, which also sounded delicious, although now I'm struggling to remember the details of the preparation -- it might have been duck 3 ways. One of my companions had the lobster risotto, which had a generous piece of lobster on top. I can't wait to go back and try some of the other dishes. Dessert was quite good also -- we had chocolate bread pudding with bourbon sauce and vanilla ice cream -- but by then we were all pretty full, so split it 3 ways. If you're not familiar with Bethesda, just beware that the garage across the street from the restaurant has meters that need to be fed until 10:00 pm -- I assumed they were free in the evening, but was told that the police are aggressive about ticketing.

Litteri's is in that area -- off Florida at 5th or so -- for anything Italian, including Illy coffee, 100's of varieties of pasta, olive oils, vinegar, etc.

If you're close to Nirvana (K between 18th & 19th -- I'm not being metaphysical here), Naan & Beyond is worth your while for a tasty and inexpensive Indian lunch. It's a small take out shop with a few tables on L between Connecticut & 17th. At lunchtime, the line is always out the door, but it goes quickly. They have tandoori chicken, lamb, shrimp, etc, which you can get wrapped in freshly baked naan with shredded cabbage and mayo. They also have chicken biryani, vegetable biryani, and lamb biryani (although the lamb was very dry and I liked the chicken much better), as well as chicken or vegetable samosas. The food has a nice bit of spiciness and the sauces they offer are good too -- mango sauce, green sauce and hot sauce. You can also get a whole or half tandoori chicken -- I haven't tried that yet, but it looks good.

Chocolate Chocolate, a very tiny family owned shop at the corner of L & Connecticut in the Washington Square building, has Neuhaus truffles. They also have lots of other things like milk or dark chocolate covered graham crackers or pretzels. It's down the block from the Chocolate Moose, so you can compare and contrast Leonidas and Neuhaus. The Curious Grape in Shirlington has Valrhona single plantation choclate bars. Dean & DeLuca also has a nice assortment of chocolates, but pretty expensive.

I'm not sure if this counts, but Cafe Cassatt in Arlington sells meat pies of different kinds and I think they have sausage rolls. They are supposed to be a New Zealand style cafe, but in any event, the meat pies I tried were delish.