DCMark

July 14, 2005

Its funny? Is it really funny to you? Then it must be funny that there are consultants teaching French wine-makers how to 'oxygenate' to win higher Parker scores.

Yes, France has McDreck. Not on every corner but its there. Similar reasons to here: kids love it, cheap, American culture, etc. Also, French McDo sucks big time compared to the us version. If you want to see a problem, its the increasing acceptance of crappy, high in transfat processed foods at the supermarche that scares me. And yes, good old American cultural domination helped put them there. However, NO ONE forces the food (or the Disney tickets) down their gullets, so the blame is very mixed.

As for Mexican. I have gotten really sick from food one time. Mexican in Grenoble. I think of Homer J Simpson is remembering that meal:

Yeah Moe that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked! I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!

PS: Lucy, perhaps the utter lack of Mexicans in France has some impact?

I think it's amusing in the same way that it's amusing to deal with someone who has a wacky assessment of his own abilities -- you know, like a guy who sings horribly but thinks he sings beautifully and therefore does so loudly. It's funny, in a Jerry Lewis sort of way, if you know what I mean. The point being, whenever some misguided ideologue of French cuisine -- be it someone French or, more often I think, a Francophile who has only ever experienced France as a tourist -- comes along and talks about the perfection of French culinary culture, it's funny to rub that person's face in McDonald's, Quick and a litany of other gastronomic failings. If the French and Francophile cognoscenti weren't so sensitive, so clearly living in denial about it (or, alternatively, treating it as though it's a threat tantamount to a nuclear first strike), it wouldn't be nearly as funny.
What's particularly interesting to me, to get back to the Taco Bell point, is that the peculiar admixture of embrace and rejection of McDonald's and Quick (which are essentially the same thing, except that Quick is indigenous) has created what I've seen labeled a "duopoly." There aren't really any other significant fast food chains in France. Which creates an interesting situation wherein the chains that would represent an improvement over the existing cuisine don't have the ability to penetrate the marketplace. Taco Bell is probably not a great example, because it's not particularly good, but look at a chain like Baja Fresh. Undoubtedly, Baja Fresh serves much better Mexican food than the current French baseline. And, because it's an easily replicable chain concept that can be built by anyone, staffed by anyone and plunked down anywhere with exactly the same results, it isn't subject to the tired old objections of "But we have no Mexicans!" and "But we have different ingredients!" Yet there's very little chain innovation in France. In most instances you just have McDonald's and Quick.
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July 14, 2005

Another one suckered! Chipotle IS owned and operated by McDo.

Lucy,
I guess you will have to make do with Spanish cuisine, which is not the same i grant you but i'm hardly going to shed a tear! Just returned from New York where the Chipotle franchises have won me over, why bother with MacDo crap when such 'fast food' exists!
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July 8, 2005

Thanks everyone. Confirmed my general theory. Will use Cointreau instead of generic 3xsec.

I have seen limes as high as $.49 each at the beach (Bethany) and $.40 in DC. I am a city guy, no car etc so this is the crap I have to put up with. Making margaritas for 5 people all weekend can get really expensive lime-wise.

I am enjoying one know. Fresh lime and tequilla. I don't have any cointreau or triple sec so added a bit of simple suryp.

July 7, 2005

I have been trying to get away from the nasty premixes. I read that the perfect mix is

(I will use oz instead of parts)

2 oz tequilla

1 oz triple sec

1/2 oz fresh lime juice.

Is this correct? It seems like this would be almost all liquor. Too strong.

I have been ritually using fresh squeezed lime juice (limes are damm expensive) but usually end up adding a bit of lemonade or orange juice to it. I know this is not 'prue'.

Any advice on a true (no special apple ones, etc) margarita? I did a search. Thanks

July 7, 2005

Closing?

SHITSHITSHITSHIT! (pardon me).

That place is a gem. Not super but always good and a real deal. Family place and I don't mean family portions. Its a 3 minute walk from my house and one of the only places in Adams Morgan you can walk in and get a table.

My boyfriend has spent some time in Italy and has mentioned that San Marco, at 18th and Kalorama (at least I think it's Kalorama), reminds him of the little neighborhood restaurants there.
It's nothing fancy, not at all, but they've got a lovely simple appetizer plate of sorpressata and fresh mozzarella, really great agnolotti in walnut sauce, and lots of inexpensive red wine to wash it down.
You might want to give them a try.
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The Hill's review from a couple weeks ago. Says it's only going to be open another year.
I also like Al Tiramisu. A bit cheaper is Sette Osteria, north of Dupont Circle.
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July 6, 2005

Thank you for your response which sounds very plausable. This is a 'botique' winery ala California, run by two lawyers.

The wine was great and they are bringing back some rare grapes. For that $60 per is well spent!

July 1, 2005

Ok, on honeymoon in Italy 2003 (Positano) we had a bottle recommended by the owner of a great local family place. Vestini Campagnano Pallagrellio Nero 2001. LOVED IT. Picked up a bottle a a local wine store.

Does anyone know about this wine? Its from Campania which think is a really under-valued region in Italy. I know the Pallagrellio is the grape variety, perhaps originally from Greece. A nice strong, deep and complex wine (its been a while since I tried it).

Ok, back in the US, I can find almost no mention of this on the net. Finally found online at Sam's Wine in Chicago and Italian Wine Merchant in NYC. The price shocked me $60 a bottle. I am not one to judge wine on its price, but $60 is not a cheap bottle. Ended up ordering 4 bottles for nostalgia sake.

Anyone have this wine or know anything about it?

From the NYT:

Another producer, Vestini Campagnano, specializes in little-known indigenous grapes like casavecchia and pallagrello, which in its bianco form makes soft, supple white, and in its nero form makes powerhouse reds. By many estimates the older vineyards of Campania and Basilicata hold dozens of grape varieties waiting to be rediscovered

June 8, 2005

A friend is heading to Paris for the first time. I can help him in other parts of France but not in Paris. Any nice, mid/bargin bistros in the Montmarte area that I could recommend? Thanks

May 26, 2005

My wife cannot understand why we have cinnamon in everything.

But I would not say the all French are so rigid in their food choices. On my last in-laws visit they specifically requested soul food (fried chicken, fried fish), boradwalk fries, local fish, steaks, ice cream sundaes, etc. They are very 'fine dining' types in France but wanted to embrace the local culture here.

May 25, 2005

Interesting Joe. You seem to have very high standard for paeela but accept mediocre (at best) food reporting. Why is that?

Just because something sells well @ $5 and exists in other cities does not make it good or worthy of respect. If that were the case, Chilpote would be considered sublime Mexian food.

The Washingtonian has lost us with its piss poor restaurant reviews. It would not be off-base to do a little investigating as to whether restaurants who advertise in the Washingtonian are treated differently in reviews.

For this partiular issue, it does not seem that the reviewer even visited some of these restaurants in 2004 as the write-ups are often unchanged as are the lists of restaurants.

Joe the only way to improve the dining scene in DC (restaurants and press) is to reject the mediocre.

For the 99.9% of the people who read Washingtonian and do not read blogs, message boards or city papers it serves a very real purpose for them. Maybe there are five, even twenty five, that you, I and others question, they get a lot right. (Some they may even steal from reading websites like this. And, of course, not everyone on this and other websites agree all the time... and, how many topics are started on this and other websites BECAUSE of articles, columns and reviews FIRST found in print elsewhere?) But, from my perspective, every article in print whether good, bad, informative or merely hyperbolic, about D. C. is exposure to an industry that deserves all it can get.
Washingtonian and virtually every other city mag have "Best of," "Cheap Eats" and "Readers' Favorite" issues. They are enormously popular and among the year's better selling.
Enough people are paying $5.00 to more than justify them. Considering that their "Cheap eats" issues started thirty plus years ago-long before there were blogs and boards to cross check a recommendation-someone over the years has done a lot of eating and a lot of asking to find what they did. I had a lot of respect for this then; I still do, now.
Perhaps they are "cruddy," even "crummy." But sometimes they are also "good."
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May 20, 2005

The difference is that the fish eating the other fish is not capable or moral thought. As humans we are (usually) on top of the food chain and always on top of the brain chain to the comparison is irrelevent.

I used to bite the heads off of animal crackers, and that didn't make me into a dog-kicker when I grew up!
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Let's not forget that the ears are the best part of the hollow chocolate Easter bunnies, to be savored, nibble by crunchy nibble! Mmm.
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May 20, 2005

Not to pick on you, but are you a hunter? You seem to have some preconceived notions,

First, people hunt extensively with arrows today. The deer season is extended for those that use bows and blackpower rifles (sadly tenchnology is blurring the difference, they are quite modern items). Is the chance of a slower kill more likely with a bow? Yes. But the opportunity for a yahoo to take a 200 feet shot at a moving deer is eiminated, as you need to be near your quarry. That takes skill, patience and a closer shot.

Those who criticize hunters with the comment that (duck, deer, etc) can't shoot back are missing the way nature works. When a lion kills a gazelle we don't say that it was unfair becasuse the gazalle can't bite the lion. Man uses his skill (brains, technology {no assault rifles please) agaist the animal. They use their natural protection. For most species its a vastly superior sense of smell, hearing, vision, speed, etc.

Also, hunters never 'catch' anything. Fisherman and trappers catch, hunters kill.

As for their killing the pig ... well, I'm beyond horrified at that. No. No. No. No. If you're going to slaughter for a living, learn to do it right before you attempt to do it alone. It should not be approached as a hobby.
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If you're horrifed at a pig getting shot and needing more than one shot, you probably will want to avoid hunting any of your own meat the old-fashioned way, with spears or arrows, the way people always did it before the invention of the gun. :) The pig's demise was probably blissful compared to the way most prey die at the hands of hunters. If you're using arrows or spears certainly there is no gaurantee of a quick, painless death for the prey. Most likely you'll just cause bleeding and the animal will bleed to death over the course of a few minutes. If most hunters waited for a gaurantee of instant death before taking a shot, they'd never catch anything.
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May 20, 2005

I have a huge problem with this paragraph. You are implying human values on an animal. Pointless, they are not human. Either you eat meat or you don't. If you really don't eat meat (and leather, etc) I highly respect that decision and even your wish to change the minds of others.

However, for those that do eat meat, there can be respect for an animal that you will kill and eat. For example, I can buy my mass produced turkey, raised in tiny cages. Or, I can learn the extremely difficult ways of the wild turkey, learn (HARD!) to imitate their sounds, scout (for weeks, even years) their habitat, learn to shoot well, get up a good-early hours and hunt that aninimal. Hopefully I then kill one (personally always saying a small prayer for it) then prepare it for friends and family. I AM respecting that animal a whole lot more than anyone purchasing commerical meat. I became part of nature's natural predatory cycle. Buying beef at Whole Food is not part of that cycle.

I kinda sympathize, but it would be hard for me to be too outraged without feeling like a complete hypocrite. I'm sympathetic to the PETA-esque view that you really can't claim to be "respecting" an animal all that much when you rip it out of the water with a hook through the mouth, hang it up to die of suffocation or bash its head against a tree, and then cook and eat its corpse. I'm not sure you can claim to be respecting an animal even as you deprive it of its very existence. In the everyday meaning of the word respect, I wouldn't consider this a respectful act no matter how much was done to avoid unnecessary suffering.
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May 17, 2005

Thanks for your kind words and advice!

As a wine "to put away", I don't know why one would pick a CDR at all - they have at most a 5 year lifespan, and in 2003, a hot, ripe, less acidic vintage, probably less. Certainly Muscat Beaumes de Venise is a terrible choice too, since Muscat doesn't really improve in the bottle (of course they are personal preferences to take into account, but I'm talking from a pretty traditional point of view.)
As for '03 Rhones to put away, since most people haven't sampled them yet (including me!), it's impossible to say. granted, due to the extreme ripeness of the year (the heat wave of '03) these wines probably won't be the longest lived of Rhone vintages, certainly not like 01 for instance will turn out as.
pick the best makers of the best AOCs you can, based on actually tasting them upon release.
that's the best advice.
Congratulations and best wishes for a long lived life together!!
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May 11, 2005

They were used a Nectar in DC for water and where a nice touch. Would prefer stemware myself.

May 11, 2005

Thank you. I live in the US but will be purchasing the wines (hopefully) directly from the wine producer (or www.wineandco.com) and having them shipped directly to my in-laws in France. Since I am moving to France in 2006 it is silly to purchase them in the US and have them moved to France later.

Question: Why do you put Vieux Telegraphe as a basic? Kermit Lynch has it as a very good one for 2003.

May 10, 2005

I was married (in France no less) in 2003 and the Rhone vintage is supposed to be excellent. So I would like to put some away. So far I have a future of Vieux Telegraph CdR. Any other ideas?

May 9, 2005

Obviously all we can do is generalize as we have not surveyed every child in the US and France. These are generalizations based on our experiences.

However, whenever this topic comes up, in France or the US, the dominant opinion is that French kids are much better behaved at meals. I would add at school as well. My mother is law is also an elementary school teacher. For fun she went to some classes in Fairfax county and was pretty shocked at the crap teachers take.

I think Italian parents can be quite lax however. The meal most ruined by children was a table of Italians and Engish (but the kids were Italians). The children were horrible, screaming, running under our feet...nothing I have ever seen before. I kept my mouth shut but after 2 hours this French couple behind us lost it. May have gone too far in her berating of this family but it was absurd for them to allow their children to actively badger other guests!

edited to add: There is no Dr. Phil in France with tyrant children nor Nanny 911 on TV. Do these kids exist? Of course, but their parents failures are not quite as celebrated.

May 8, 2005

I think its fairly simple. In France the parents are in charge, in the US its the kids.

No one in France, for example, asks the kids where to go on vacation. They don't feed them dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, nor do they allow them unlimited time in front of the TV.

There are certainly exceptions to this, however my oberservations of my family here and there supports my theory.

Here's a mystery, at least as puzzling to me as the observation that French women don't get fat and that French people, despite guzzling wine, smoking cigarettes, and eating fatty foods don't seem to get heart attacks.
Why is is that French children -- some as young as 3 years old -- can often sit through a long, multi-course meal, sometimes lasting 4 hours, without melting down, screaming, complaining? I've seen children younger than ours maintain perfect decorum through long menus at one-, two- and three- star restaurants, where ours (who tend to be better behaved at fancy meals than many of their age group peers) can only last an hour or so before needing to leave the table, go play, or generally raise a fuss?
How do the French accomplish this? Is it doses of wine in the feeding bottles?
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May 8, 2005

I see what you mean, you are right, there used to be more in depth discussion of reveiws. In fact there used to alot more discussion about DC restaurants at EG. I think that traffic on this board is way down, not sure why.

Thanks for that rec. on Islamabad. I live near there an will be trying it soon.

Miami Danny--did you have any reaction to the Sietsema review of Cafe Spice? It seems you expected others to have one--what was yours?
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In the old days (say, December), there would be discussions about everything in Tom's reviews. I guess the restaurant is in an area and of a cuisine that doesn't really excite anyone. I was only wondering why this restaurant? I think Steve is right, that without one-stars, you can't have two-stars, etc., but this one seemed a stretch. As for the review itself, my eyes glazed over before I had finished the first paragraph. Maybe that was the reaction of others, as well, thus no reaction at all!
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April 28, 2005

I think the problem is that people can often be rude and completely selfish. This includes people with children, but also drunks, people with cell phones, loud people. etc. Its an increasing problem in the 'me first and me only' era. Rude people with kids seem to stick out.

Mark, I would never tell you how to run the restaurant...but why would it be suicide for the manager to tell the parent's their kids behavior is not apropriate for a 4 star restaurant? At worst they leave and never come back. But everyone else suffering in the restaurant may be thinking the same thing.

The post you are looking for, from Minister of Drink seems to have gone 'legacy'.

April 25, 2005

and no free wine.

April 20, 2005

Jenny you live in DC. 45 min+ on a good day. Wegmans I think is further out...

Convenient? Not exactly. If I have to drive more than ten minutes to get groceries, I get grouchy. Dulles, from my 'hood, is about 30-35 miles, I think.
Hi from Western NY!
I know that there are now at least two Wegmans in the DC area. I am a big Wegmans fan and one of the many reasons is their exceptional cheeses as well as the folks in the cheese departments. And the Dulles store has the largest cheese department of all Wegmans stores. If it's convenient, try it. And let me know.
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April 20, 2005

Thank you for noticing that! I missed it. The description of the hostess was dead on so I just assumed. Poor girl, she must get yelled at alot.

I will of course not write Tom about it...

Just to note, the person in today's chat who wrote about Colorado Kitchen said at the beginning of her post that they visited CK two weeks ago, not this past Sunday.
Not defending anyone's actions or doubting your description of the man who berated the hostess this past Sunday, DCMark. It just sounds like the incident you witnessed and the situation described by the person in today's chat occurred on two different Sundays.
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April 20, 2005

I will. I was not online at the time.

I hear you Busboy. The hostess in question was about 15. I know that is not the patron's fault. But they were clearly frazzled. She was so sweet.

Its obviously a family run place. To expect the efficiency of Outback Steakhouse (beepers and all) is too much.

Also this person was such a spinless wimp that he refused to speak to a manager but he was cowardly enough to post an immense tirage on the Post?

I really think people who eat in this town are insane. I also suspect that the changes to Egullet's policies has increased the amount of vitrol on this site.

DCMark:
Have you written to Sietsema about this yet? It would only be fair to Gillian Clark (not Flynn!!!). I'll bet he would be interested in your observations.
I don't know why people are such A$$holes. They just are. They are the bane of existence for all us nice folk.
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