vengroff

On November 12, Maestro with host a James Beard Centennial Celebration to benefit the Beard Foundation. Jose Andres, Jeffrey Buben, Roberto Donna, Bob Kinkead, Patrick O'Connel, Michel Richard, and Fabio Trabocchi will all be cooking. It's $300 a head for food, wine, and service. Expensive, but you're not going to get many chances to have a meal prepared by all those chefs. Now if they only had Klc for the desserts. Call Emanuele Fissore or Paola Duran at Maestro (703) 821-1515 to book.

I don't want to drag out all the dirty laundry yet, as we are still working on how to resolve some of these issues. But the place that did the design and is acting as the general contractor is a well-known regional chain that handles many of the popular high-end appliance brands. I think most of the DC area readers will be able to cut through the BS and figure out who it is.

Sorry for taking this off topic. I made a new thread here.

Just shy of three weeks into a kitchen remodel, I thought I'd share some of the highlights: 1. The job started 6 weeks after it was originally scheduled. Every week they said they would come, so every week we kept bare-bones essential foods only, and ate out a lot. 2. When they tore out the old kitchen, they didn't bring a dumpster, so they piled all the cabinets, drywall, appliances, and trash in the driveway and on the back porch. They took some away in a truck, but the rest is still there. 3. The plumber put in the pipes for the sink in the wrong place, because he was too lazy to drill through an extra floor joist. He subsequently suggested that we change the plans so that the sink would be where he put the pipes. If we didn't like that, he said we could run the pipes from one cabinet to the next and loose some storage space. 4. If I don't call the contractor each and every morning, nobody comes to the house. If I work at home, they are forced to stay, but it I leave the house for any reason, they take off right after me, leaving no trace but a pile of trash. 5. When they disconnected the old refrigerator, they did not turn off the water supply to the ice maker. They frantically tried to turn off the spraying water, and in doing so, broke the valve. So they just crimped the line and hoped that it would hold. 6. When the cabinet guy made his final measurements, he discovered that a wall the plans claimed was 88-1/2" long was only 80-1/2" long. Another was off by 4". The designer had been to the house and measured twice before he finalized the plans. Now the cabinets won't fit. Initially, they said I still had to pay for the cabinet that wouldn't fit, since that's what the plan said, and I had approved it. They only backed down when I pointed out that according to the plan I was getting a kitchen with an 88-1/2" long wall, and it was their problem to figure out how to deliver it. 7. When the designer's boss came to investigate #6, he accidently kicked the crimped copper water pipe (see #5) and it started spraying all over the kitchen again. We had to shut off water to the whole house until a plumber could come out to fix it.

Each of our guests is encouraged to pop into the kitchen and help out with a course or two. When we lived in a loft it was easy, since there was no real line between the kitchen and the dining/living area. In a house, it's harder. We just had a big hole cut in the wall between the kitchen and dining room. That should help.

I totally agree. That's the way I went with my new kitchen. Unfortunately, right now it's still an empty room with wires sticking out of the drywall. We're approaching the 3 week point.

I usually plan five or six courses. One or two will be things I have made before, or slight variations. One will typically go wildly wrong and be abandoned before it leaves the kitchen, but the remaining courses are usually more than enough.

That's quite amazing. I almost always cook dry pasta less than the time recommended on the package and am usually quite happy with the results.

Yes, my mistake. Definitely 9th.

For you opentable fans, here is a link to their DC Restaurant Week reservation page.

Address? 7th between F and G, NW.

Three words: Go to Ella's. I just had a great pizza there with roasted garlic, tomato, and wild mushrooms. Actually, the ideal plan is probably to go to Matchbox for a beer and some mini-burgers, then hop around the corner to Ella's for the pizza.

I have all the same questions as Bill...

If you are ever in DC, stop in for a plate of mini-burgers at Matchbox. They are the Cadillac to White Castle's Chevy Nova.

How thick or thin is Mario's crust?

There are all kinds of posts that have nothing to do with disecting meals yet are perfectly welcome here. For example, a tidbit like is something I'm sure many members here would like to read.Please don't hesitate to share your facts and opinions with us.

They should put an HTML front end on their wine database so that people can preview it on the web before they come in. They must have a database back end that supports their tablets; they just need a new front end on it. It shouldn't be to hard to build. They could even let you select a bottle, enter your credit card, and ask them to decant it so it's ready for you to drink when you arrive for dinner.

Sometimes the best way to judge the quality of service is by how management reacts to the problems that do come up. I'm glad to hear Jared addressed your concerns. Gordon Ramsay would be proud.

On a flight from Philly to Paris: Flight Attendant: What would you like to drink with your dinner? Me: What type of wine do you have? Flight Attendant: We have two, a red one and a white one. Not Air France, in case you were wondering.

I just saw it out the window while driving by. I'd say F or G and somewhere between 11th and 13th or so. Just east of the White House.

Right, it is downtown; I saw a sign in the window a couple of weeks ago. Ceiba or something like that is the name. Is it Mexican too? For some reason I was thinking Caribbean, but I could be 100% wrong.

I saw one of their planes parked at BWI this past Sunday. The 737-300 is a relatively old model. I bet they got it dirt cheap. You think they'll do a charter to the pig pickin'?

I've recently been hearing about two new Mexican restaurant projects that sound intriguing. First, Jose Andres plans to open a Mexican restaurant in Virginia. Second, New York's high-end Mexican stalwart Rosa Mexicano plans to open a branch office in Jose's current backyard in the Penn Quarter. I've heard no dates for the former, but I've heard the latter is expected some time this fall. Does anyone have any further information on these two projects? I really look forward to trying both of them when they open.

This should be fun. John W. vs. Johm W I was wondering about that myself.

Welcome to egullet Johm!