DonRocks

Whole Foods pre-cuts almost all of their cheeses and wraps them in clear-plastic wrap, then puts them in open refrigerated display cases for an unknown amount of time. This is a big no-no, and I'll go so far as to say that the majority of the pre-cut cheeses (meaning, over 50%) I have purchased from Whole Foods have been damaged, either through being poorly aged (which I cannot prove), or being poorly stored once they've been cut (which is self-evident), or both. The outstanding mail-order company Formaggio Kitchen discusses the correct way to wrap and store cheeses in this link. I have suffered through this for years at Whole Foods - otherwise fine cheeses having been clearly damaged due to abuse. Tonight was the last straw: yet another ammoniated Reblochon, its skin mottled with varying color, and a foul smell of ammonia on the nose. Whole foods should not be offering fine cheeses unless they age them properly (or buy them aged properly) and present them correctly; unless they cut them on demand and not leave them out on display wrapped in plastic. This is a big deal and customers are unknowingly suffering because of the indifference, ineptitude or willful misconduct being displayed by the management in charge of the cheese sections at Whole Foods. Needed to be said, Rocks.

I've had this, and it must surely rank right up there with the single most fattening sandwiches I have ever eaten, Carnegie Deli's Broadway Danny Rose notwithstanding. If this sandwich (served with potato salad, if I remember correctly) doesn't have 2,000 calories, then nothing does. A couple days ago I had lunch at Smith and Clarkson's Deli in Springfield, and they actually have a menu item called a Cardiac Arrest Scramble: an omelet, made with three eggs, crisp bacon, cream cheese, and home fries (also available on a sub roll). I opted for the Dagwood (a triple-decker hot corned beef, pastrami, melted Swiss cheese, cole slaw and Russian dressing sandwich served on rye bread, dripping, gooey and weighing at least two pounds) and an order of excellent housemade potato chips. I was locked out, tired, pissed, and scarfed the entire thing sitting in my driveway while waiting for the locksmith to open the door. Still retaining more water than the Aswan Dam, Rocks.

"O rus, ...." -- Horace "O Rus'!" -- Pushkin, from Eugene Onegin "Oh, Rus!!!!' -- Female contingent of eGullet

Elliot Staren (the owner of Wide World of Wines) maintains this fine list of restaurants in DC that allow you to bring your own wine and pay a corkage fee: Restaurants Allowing Corkage Having done this many times, I can offer the following advice: 1) It's always appropriate to call and ask first. 2) Never bring a wine on the restaurant's wine list. 3) If you're going to a decent restaurant, bring a decent wine. 4) Order something off the list, even if it's just a Martini. 5) Tip well on top of the corkage fee. The general theory behind restaurants allowing this is so that their patrons can have a decent bottle of wine with dinner without the restaurant needing to maintain an extensive (and expensive) inventory, not to provide customers with an avenue for a cheap drunk! Bringing a Gallo Hearty Burgundy and gorging on free dip and tap water, Rocks.

I went to both Johnny's and Kinkead's last night (yeah, I know, I need to slow down). The friendly bartender at Johnny's gave me 7 for the price of 6 (2 different varieties), and they were quite good. Kink Head's had a better selection (6 different varieities, 2 of which were from British Columbia but I don't recall them being Stellar Bays), and better-quality oysters. Fiendishly expensive, they were something on the order of $2.00-$2.40 per oyster. And nothing, anywhere, is better than their fried Ipswich clams! Cheers, Rocks. P.S. Both Kinkead's and Johnny's served their red wines by the glass at something bordering 80 degrees. Grrrrrr.......

Calling the Auberge et Clos des Cimes two stars may be correct, but in name only: this is one of the finest restaurants in all of France, and fully merits a third Michelin star. This post inspired me to dig out the menu that was offered when I was there in September, 2002. The chef (Régis Marcon) had gotten up at 5 AM and hunted the mushrooms which he prepared for dinner that evening. Nine courses, twelve different species of mushrooms (mousserons, lactaires délicieux, cèpes, two types of chanterelles (cibarius et tubaeformis), oxalis, craterelles, tanaisie, sparassis crépus, pieds de mouton, etc), three very strong stars in my book. A subtle reminder for me to maintain perspective whenever I start raving about a place such as Maestro. Cheers! Rocks.

Citronelle has announced half-price wines and a free appetizer to anyone mentioning that they're from eGullet, something about "getting the word out to the community." Just ask for the sommelier. I'm Only Kidding!

Here it is. The previous post was from August 26th, 2003. I had posted (which brought the thread to the front page), then deleted my post (which dropped the thread back down to where it was). My post consisted of a one-word answer to my own question: Palena. But I still have not been to Laboratorio, Le Paradou is now in the picture, and I had already typed in the Panini press release, so I decided not to flood the airwaves. Cheers, Rocks.

Though one has to applaud the spunk and verve of this post, it will be a rough day in hell when I label grouse, sausage rolls, treacle tart and salf beef bagels as "corncopia and bounty!" Still dessicated from that Manx kipper, Rocks

Hot off the presses [my comments in brackets]... 4/19/04 Palena's Café menu turns one-year-old on April 15, 2004, and, to commemorate the one-year anniversary, Palena will introduce "Panini and Doughnut Night" by the month's end. Every Thursday night, in addition to the regular café menu, there will be three panini selections and our doughnuts will be added to the dessert menu. These are not your average sandwiches: Palena paninis are made from the freshest ingredients, Italian cheeses, house made charcuterie, and in-house, fresh baked bread -- a perfect meal before a movie at Cleveland Park's Uptown Theater or a pre-weekend teaser. Since Chef Ruta began making them, Palena's doughnuts have gained popularity at Amernick Bakery [!]. Now, you don't have to wake up early to have one. Chef Ruta makes the doughnuts in-house at Palena and will serve them every Thursday night in the café. These yeasty treats will be served with a sweetened ricotta sauce for dipping. Don't make reservations -- just come on in. Palena doesn't take reservations for the Café; and paninis and doughnuts will not be served in the main dining room where you can still expect the same elegant cuisine and refined service. Panini & Doughnut night begins April 29, 2004.

Here's an interesting comparison/contrast: http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/1124/166.html Not having been to Wegman's, it sounds distressingly close to an Oklahoma Wal-Mart for upscale food lovers: one is a big, rural monolith where you can spend three hours buying a pair of Levis, your weekly groceries and a lawnmower; the other is a big rural(-ish) monolith where you can spend three hours buying buffalo meat, Del Monte peas and sea kelp. I guess it's convenient, cheap and a huge time-saver, but isn't Wal-Mart as well? Heading to the Farmers Market (in spirit), Rocks.

Sounds to me like it still is!

"Beethoven Opus 109 is something you will work towards, not something you will work on." -- Anonymous eye-rolling piano teacher to anonymous cocky student. For better or for worse, I've been to Les Halles many times over the years, and while it has gone through some rough periods (my dinner there with Mark & Co was the absolute worst it has ever been), I find myself returning, and not just because my office is nearby. Despite the triple markup on the Guigal, it's still a perfectly enjoyable half-bottle for $12, and as jparrott noted, their list features lots of interesting Chinons, Bourgeuils, Cotes de Provence, etc., many of which are from the outstanding importer Neal Rosenthal. For a lazy steak frites in the springtime, there's nowhere I'd rather be than on their patio.

Yes, it was, darn it. And for what was seemingly the 9th time out of 10, a medium-rare steak came out medium-well. And I'm a sucker for not sending it back because overcooked meat cannot be undone, and it means the house loses the entire dish. Ordering a medium-rare steak is like playing Russian Roulette, except that the gun goes off most of the time. It's pointless to name the restaurant because this problem is widespread and doubtlessly hammered into the minds of weary corporate chefs due to snippy customers and damnable legal fears, but I will say that Les Halles has a consistently wonderful Pétatou de Chèvre (a potato goat-cheese salad with frisée), and one of the best budget wine lists in all of Washington (a half-bottle of 2000 Guigal Cotes-du-Rhone is $12), and the frites are often brilliant. And their steaks are generally pretty darned good, too, although tonight I wish I ordered the plain old steak frites rather than splurging for the dry-aged strip @&%#@#%)(*@^$&*@# Jonesin' for tartare, Rocks.

Let’s sit around and be cool talking about how many ingredients we can wedge into this dish. Let’s create a business plan for our second restaurant before we learn how to cook. Let’s dismiss white-meat chicken and lean cuts of beef because we don’t have a clue what to do with them. Let's practice using the foamer instead of understanding the basics of our craft. Overcooked meat has insidiously become the norm in our restaurants. Cheers, Rocks.

By my line of reasoning, they actually have a pretty decent bar menu: Creamy Soup of Morel Roasted Scallops, Parma Ham $12 Smoked Salmon, Coriander Sprouts and Madras Curry $12 Lobster Claw Salad with Coriander, Avocado Terrine, Gazpacho $14 Lobster Purse with Carrot Jus and Ginger $16 Baby Arugula Leaves with Anchovy Filet, Parmesan Shavings $9 Wild Salmon Tartar, Quail Egg and Caviar $14 Cuttlefish stuffed with shrimp, Black Trumpettes, Garlic Butter and parsley $11 Roasted Sea Scallops, Truffles, Parma Ham, Parsley Sauce $13 Pepper Crusted Red Tuna Roasted, Red Pepper Coulis, Roasted Parma Ham and Basil $14 Polenta Cake, Escargot with Garlic, Parsley, Morel, Black Olive Jus $12 Boudin Blanc with Truffles, Fennel Purée, Caramelized Onion Jus and Oregano $14 Roasted Shad Roe, Pimientos 'Piquillo', Dried Cod with Rosemary Cream Foie Gras Seared, confit of Quince Caramelized Pomegranate Jus $26 Lobster Risotto $12 Roasted Rack of Lamb, Green Asparagus, Black Olives Jus $34 Duck Breast, Boudin Blanc, Turnips, Jus of Caramelized Onions and Oregano $32 Roasted Breast of Pigeon, Compote of Red Cabbage with Dates and Cumin, Seared Duck Foie Gras $30 Mediterranean Bass Stuffed with Shrimp Mousse, Roasted Scallops, Sauce Vermouth Saffron and Rosemary $29 Beef Tenderloin, Salsifis and Morels, Cabernet Sauce, Marjoram $34 Bavarian Chocolate Cream with Caraway Seed Ice Cream $9 Apricot Baba, Perfumed with Rum, Roasted Pineapple Coconut Ice Cream $9 Melted chocolate, Mascarpon Acacia Honey, Lemon confit, Chocolate Sauce $9 Gazpacho of Strawberres, with spices, mint leaves, Creamy Sorbet with Strawberry $9 Cheers, Rocks.

Certainly. This evening I walked past Hard Rock Café, and there were four tour buses outside, and a line stretching out the door and down the block. A half-block north was Bistro d’Oc, smack dab in the intersection of 10th and Construction, and there were two people in the restaurant when I walked in. The owner/chef of Bistro d’Oc founded La Miche in Bethesda thirty-five years ago, and to prove it, he has this rocket-ship of a wine sitting on the bar that was presented to him as a gift when he opened La Miche: a 1982 Tayac (Cotes de Bourg) in what surely must be a Nebuchadnezzar (a 20-bottle bottle), or whatever the largest format is for a bottle of Bordeaux. This thing dwarfs the double-magnum sitting next to it, and must weigh at least 75 pounds. Wines are skewed to the ordinary, with a predominance of selections from the Languedoc-Rousillon region of France which produces over a billion bottles of wine annually (for real!). Some of these wines might seem fairly priced in the mid-$30s, but they’re actually rather expensive for the quality unless you have the knowledge to navigate through the minefield of relatively obscure producers. The bread is freshly baked, but industrial to the point of pain (pain industriel). Vegetable soup is honest and bland, celery-based, served in a tureen with a minimum of fanfare and seasoning. Bavette of Kobe beef with blue-cheese sauce and frites was ordered medium-rare, and was perfectly cooked, even though it was probably a 9th-generation grandfather thrice-removed that was from Kobe, Japan. The blue cheese sauce was simple, with La Fourme d’Ambert (a nice surprise) as the base, made with cream and shallots. The frites were so-so, not great, not bad, crispy and correct, but lacked any sort of wow coefficient. The owner/chef’s wife is Thai, and – ha! – betcha didn’t know that Bistro d’Oc is a little-known source for interesting Thai dishes within the Penn Quarter area. A crabmeat-stuffed “cigar” is basically a spring roll, the size of a gargantuan phallus, and served with seaweed and a sweet vinaigrette dipping sauce. Dessert was a peach clafoutis with custard, and distressingly served a la mode. A freshly made dessert, but ponderous and not a real clafoutis. It was bogged down by its own custard and the giant scoop of bad ice cream on top which intercepted any serious attempt to enjoy it. A pity, because the innards weren't all that bad. So, Bistro d’Oc is a legitimate, fairly priced Gaulois-like selection in a soon-to-be-crowded area. May as well go sooner rather than later, because once construction is complete, the place will be more crowded. Given that there were less than a dozen customers in there this evening, while Hard Rock Café had several hundred, it deserves to be mobbed, and I hope it is. A worthwhile, well-priced restaurant, a real attempt at cuisine and even fine dining, and I’d happily return. Cheers, Rocks.

Sincerely yours, Peter Poshpastries, Publicist, Palette Restaurant

Perhaps the problem lies in nomenclature: the vast majority of "sourdough bread" sold in the U.S. sucks, period. If anyone knows where to find a good version in the entire Washington DC area, please PM me: when a baker is describing his-or-her wares to me in DC, I generally ask, "is it sourdough?" And, if so, I ask them to please move on to something that isn't. Yes, it's that bad, on average. I do, however, wait to be enlightened, sort of like I'm waiting to be enlightened with "really good California wine." Yes, I believe they both exist in quantity, but the burden of proof is no longer on me to find them. Time for a DOCG regulation?

le gaulois compares with la colline, bistro du coin, les halles and bistro francais. a step behind bistrot lepic.

Oh no! My entire life I've been tossing it over my right shoulder! This explains much.

Enjoy your water To be really "Frank," I hope to start out this evening at that place where everything is only nine dollars. Yet to escape under fifty, Rocks.

I'm thinking maybe Helix might be the answer here. A couple weeks ago I walked in, and there were two women doing The Bump right by the bar. (Honest!) A surreal, festive atmosphere: when I walked outside, some guy was blasting Van Halen on his boombox and there was danzig in the streets. Cheers, Rocks.

Moby Dick's lunch specials (a different Persian homestyle dish each day, M-F) are some of the best values in the city. This is the real deal, and I've talked with several Persian people who adore it and treasure it as authentic. I've never been to the one in Bethesda, as I usually frequent the one in McLean (anyone going there will know the gregarious and friendly proprietor, Muhammad). Don't expect a kabob with these; you'll get interesting combinations like lamb (or chicken) with dill, braised beef with yellow lentils and a tomato-onion base, other interesting meats served with zest or pomegranate, all served up with must-o-keyar (a cucumber-y yogurt) and the eponymous oven-baked bread. I can't vouch for all the Moby Dicks in the Washington area, but I can say that at the McLean restaurant, you can get genuine, legit, mama's-Sunday-dinner Persian homestyle cuisine for insanely cheap prices during lunch M-F (way under $10). It transports well if you call to-go (703) 448-8448 (just ask for "one special to go" and don't worry about what it is). You'll thank me for this recommendation, I'm pretty sure. Also look at Shamshiry in Tysons Corner for dine-in (without alcohol, I'm afraid). Cheers, Rocks.

A couple cheats for feeling like a king on a pauper's budget: Breakfast on the terrace at Chèvre d'Or. Just drive up, park, and walk back there. You'll pay dearly, but nothing compared with having a real meal, and you get the benefit of the view without the lunch crowd. Lunch at Café de Paris, just across Place Casino from Louis XV. The quality of this classic brasserie will surprise you given it's relatively modest prices, and the location is the ultimate in prime real estate. Sip your Bellet and pretend that one of the Ferraris parked outside is yours. Cheers, Rocks.