Mrs. P

I've been to the Royal Mile a few times, and like having this spot in the neighborhood. Good solid cooking, a generous selection of beers, basic solid service (more than many other places can say!) as well as an attentive chef who visits with customers. I have never seen the place packed, but never empty either, and there is always just enough space at the bar . On warm nights you can sit outside at a handful ot patio tables.

I would be up for the 13th or 14th - good news for me since I couldn't join on the 12th!

I just picked some up last night at the Giant in Silver Spring - Badia brand in the hispanic food section - about $.60 for a dozen if I recall correctly. Our T-day will be at my house (no dry turkey here!). We'll be hosting my bro, mom, my dog, and a friend's puppy. Hopefully my brother will fill in as sous chef. The menu includes turkey with cornbread chorizo stuffing, roasted veggies, potatoes, cranberry relish, and pears two ways - poached in red wine & POM juice and a pear-frangipan tart. Starting off with a pomegranate kir royale - might finish off with one too!

We visited Mandalay on Friday night. We enjoyed it so much we ordered takeout from there again on Sunday! On Friday we tried the gram fritters as an appetizer. These little guys looked like donuts, but were a little too greasy. While the texture was nice the flavor was not very pronounced so you really needed to pour on the sauce that comes with it. We definitely needed extra napkins here! I think I'll try the spring rolls next time. We ordered two noodle dishes after reading about the room temperature noodles. One was the wide noodle (room temp) with curry chicken, cabbage, carrot, fried onions and peanuts with Burmese dressing - excellent! I ordered it medium spicy but might go for hot next time to try. The medium spicy did not seem all that spicy to me. Th other dish was the wide noodle with pork, shrimp, and egg ordered with mild spice. This dish was also very good but again I'd probably up the spiciness next time just 'cause I like it! Sunday came around and we were hankering for a good lunch after having carpets installed. We ordered another room temp noodle dish - the mixed noodles with fried tofu and veggies with medium spice (had to share ). Truly wonderful. I am loving these room temperature noodles!!! My better half ordered the shrimp with onions and peppers in a brown sauce. He loved it, but he ordered it with no spice. I had a hard time distinguishing the flavor after eating my yummy noddles, so I can't vouch for that dish. However, Mr P seemed to like it. The prices here are accessible - 6.99 - 8.99 for the average dish. It looks like they are adding tables to accomodate the growing crowd. We waited approx 15 minutes for our table, and it was worth the wait.

Also, try using dulce de leche as a swirl-in to brownie batter. Yum!

Emilio Lustau - it has been a while but the Lustau distillery makes a variet of wonderful sherries, and their Pedro Jimienez is excellent and well priced.

I've used Eau de vie as a base for making fruit cordials - add fruit & sugar, let rest for a few months, strain, and age a bit more. Fabulous stuff. I have one recipe that calls for cherry eau de vie instead of vanilla for baking clafouti, and I have to say that the eau de vie intensified the chery fruit flavor. It was wonderful.

A friend uses dulce de leche with cream cheese to make a "caramel" dip for fruit, and it is really quite smooth and delicious. The cream cheese cuts some of the sweetness and pairs nicely with the fruit. To make your own dulce de leche, I can vouch also for the boiled can of condensed milk - it works fabulously. There is a wide variety of dulce de leche across countries. Andiesenji's recipe is for Mexican cajeta, which is a goat milk-based dulce de leche and has a bit more "bite" to it than cows milk dulce de leche. I am not familiar with other countries that use goat milk as a base. In Colombia rice is soaked overnight in whole milk, then strained, and the rice-milk is used to add a starchy consistency to the dulce de leche. It is fun to experiment! As for desserts, there are tons! We had a Chilean party last night, and people brought crepes filled with dulce de leche. We also had a cake called "torta mil hojas" in which you make several rounds of sweet pastry layers and fill in-between with dulce de leche. I have also seen it with intermittent layers of marzipan. You can also make a kind of roulade cake, a thin layer of yellow cake covered with dulce de leche, rolled into a log and sprinkled with powdered sugar and nuts (in Chile called a brazo de reina, or queen's arm). You can use it as filling between sandwiched cookies, or fill several layers of meringue disks, layer on fruit, then sprinkle it with coconut. Ther are tons of ways to use it!

I had fogotten that the menu listed black beans as an ingredient here. The riblets had an asian flavor when I had them - and were dusted with sesame seeds. Maybe they use black bean sauce in the cooking liquid? Can't say I recall the black bean flavor (good raspberry martini ;-)). Anyway, the riblets were mahvelous.

Thanks Katie & helenj - This is why egullet is so marvelous! Katie, your comments about grain alcohol make sense, and I have to admit that the grain alcohol option does sound a lot harsher. I might try it anyway as a taste-test. The microplaning did work very well, and there is a pronounced lemon flavor and color. I think that you might be right about the taste of the alcohol I used - it might not have been the best choice. Perhaps I'll add a bit more lemon peel now to see if that helps offset the vodka's own flavor. I'll test other vodkas and try again, and in the meantime let my limoncello rest! Thanks for the tips!

I started a limoncello back in late July using 80-proof vodka (Stoli). I strained it about a month later, and added another bottle and simple syrup, but found it very strong (vodka flavor overpoering the lemon) and decided to let it rest a while longer. This week I added more simple syrup and a bit of water, and it is starting to smooth out, though I was worried about watering it down. A friend suggested that grain alcohol is better to use and imparts a sweeter flavor. I've had homemade limoncello before and found it much smoother that what I have made. Any thoughts as to which alcohol makes for better limoncello?

Ahh...Jackie's....comfy in a retro-modern sort of way, from food to drinks to decor. Thank goodness it is close to home! Stopped by tonight, originally for drinks at the bar but the cushy booths and dim lights with a view to the kitched called us to a booth. Two friends and I arrived at seven, and we were seated right away, no problem. Take a booth if you can get it! Over the course of the evening the place got mighty full, and we were impressed with how busy it was on a Wednesday night. Go Jackie's! Anyway, to the food. Well, first, for drinks we each ordered a special off of the evolving bar menu - a raspberry martini with chambord and a raspberry "foam". Yummy. While the foam had, how do you say, "plopped" by the time it made it to the table, the drink was quite good and featured an plump raspberry soaked in chambord at the bottom of the glass. Patrick the proprietor later explained to us that they are experimenting with a variety of foams (something about the contraption shooting foam too hard and shooting the drink out of the glass) and are working on establishing a bar menu. We put in out pitch for a pisco sour, as we had Chileans at the table. The martinis were so good that we really didn't look at the beers or wines, so can't speak to those yet. We decided to do an apps sampler, and ordered several: - Those ubiquitous mini-burgers - quite nice. The patties themselves were well seasoned and cooked to a lovely medium color, and were accompanied by tiny slices of roma tomatoes and mini boston lettuce (where do they get that?!) The bread was a bit over-toasted but nobody complained. - Nachos - Just OK. Chips with a refried bean spread, topped with cheese and broiled. Some mild pico de gallo on the side and some fairly odd guac. Not a big hit, but we ate it anyway. - Grilled calamari with romesco - Thanks Al_Dente - We liked it! It came with some scallops, mini mini calamari, and a couple of shrimp. We liked the grill items, but found the romesco sauce a little pasty and green rather than red? - Fried veggie sampler with vinegary parsley sauce - Fabulous. All I have to say is fennel and broccoli. Incredible. Who knew? - Riblets - YUM. Get these. Sesame seeds on top with a great marinade. Fell off the bones. Quite nice. We were going to skip dessert, but our nice waiter told us about the waffle ice cream sandwich. When we told him we would share it, he said it would be hard to share because of the way it is presented. We ordered it anyway, and he ended up talking to the PC to have it presented specially for us, split into three portions. Nice guy. All the staff we talked to were very interested in our likes and dislikes. Overall a very satisfying night, and I intend to return soon to try the soups, salads, and entrees. And to see if they add those pisco sours....

I think it is on their website in the Contact section (agree with other comments that the website is hard to navigate...took me a while to find the address). Thanks for the tip on the calamari Al_Dente!

Thinking of stopping by this evening for drinks and apps. Any suggestions on appetizers from those who have been there? Cheers!

Looks like a fabulous evening! Thanks for the pics mdt! I will have to stop by Corduroy soon!

Got some yummy cider at Buter's Orchard out near Germantown this weekend. They make their own apple cider and they sell pear cider made elsewhere as well.

With my Chilean in-laws in town, meat is the theme. We'll be grilling at home tonight, and we got a spot at Ray's for tomorrow night (YES!!!). Sunday we're hoping it is a nice day to visit Cantler's in Annapolis. Hopefully we'll also make it to the Palena bar this weekend. If not, we'll be holding out for a 40th Anniversary (for them) and 2 year anniversary (for us) celebration dinner at Charlie Palmer's on Tuesday. Should be a fabulous set of treats!

Try Snider's Supermarket up in Silver Spring on Georgia - 301-589-3240 (press 3 for the meat dept - can ya tell I ordered ground lamb from them yesterday?). They have good selection, and I believe I saw a nice big brisket when I stopped in yesterday for my lamb. If they don't have what you want on hand, they can usually order it for you.

Yeah, since yesterday on WTOP they have snipits saying something like "Find out on Sunday which Washington restaurant gets 3 starts from Sietsema...."

Today it was roasted garlic bread, buttered lightly on one side, with fontina cheese, a dab of dijon, and a slice of warmed canadian bacon. Browned the bread in the pan, added the cheese & bacon, put the lid on the pan, and let it rest a moment off the heat to melt. Yummy!

Yes - this recipe sounds very similar to the process, except for the wine. Also, I might gind half the fruit to try to get the same texture. Yes! This Caribbean Fruitcake is just like it! Grind half the rum-soaked fruit and add to the batter. What is unclear to me is if you add the rum soaking liquid to the batter too. I think you probably would. I think I am going to try both of these recipes for a taste-test. Thank you so much! My mom swears by her dry cracked stollen recipe, but after having the Panamanian fruitcake version I can never go back to that. Thanks folks! Keep the ideas coming!

<bump> I lived in Panama several years ago, and in October, in preparation for Christmas, I recall that people started their jars of rum-soaked fruit for fruitcake. The cakes would be baked in late November/early December and aged until Christamas or given as gifts. In Panama, the fruitcake process involved grinding the macerated fruit to a paste in a spice-grinder, which was added to the batter as a puree. I never wrote down a recipe and have never found it since. Does anybody have a recipe for this kind of a cake? I have a real craving for Panamanian Fruitcake!!! Thanks!

<bump> Had been waiting for tangelos to appear before makign this recipe for Vin D'Orange. I just bought many tangelos (for the recipe and for snacking!) along with a smooth sauvignon blanc. This seems like a good time to start this recipe, just in time for the holidays. I'll report back!

one more vote for a weeknight - 18th or 19th