Todd Kliman

Probably a good thing--been to Rosa Mexicano? I don't get the sense Montgomery County is that tapped into food, Danny, it's even more of an uphill battle there than it is in the Virginia burbs. I'd love for that situation to change, but even the better restaurants clustered in Bethesda are a little more conservative than they'd probably like to be because their clientele is that much more conservative. As I've said on other threads about TS, I think Tom is in a tough spot, if he doesn't get out into the burbs he'll get criticized for being too DC-centric and when he does, to deliver a one star review, he'll get criticized by other folks. I'd sooner go to Pazo in B-more. He also doesn't have the luxury like Todd at the City Paper to be a critic when he feels like it one week--visit a place but once and then write a "review"--and then morph into feature food writer mode the next week, and file a column. Tom's the Post restaurant critic, he carries that baggage and tradition, and he has to adhere to tougher standards, visiting all these places repeatedly over time, plus he's limited by that strict Magazine review form and word count week in and week out, probably to his long term detriment. He has to go to so many places he'll never write about and never be able work into a column like, say, Todd's roundups of local chefs using goat or shad roe. ← To clear up some misinformation -- I ordinarily visit a restaurant three times, sometimes four, occasionally five, before writing a review. One of the reasons I shift from the critic's role to the feature writer's role is because often that's the best way to tell a particular story. The story of The Red Heifer, in Bethesda, for instance, is not the food; the story is the great difficulty of running a kosher restaurant.

I'm defining a destination restaurant as a temple of gastronomy, a place you go to worship at the altar of the chef. Being good, and personable, doesn't make a place a destination restaurant; it makes it a worthy place to go a few times a year, if you can afford it. Destination restaurants are those places that, unless you're a pro and you've got a job to do, you hit at most a couple of times a year. Citronelle, Maestro, the Inn. Eve is trying to do what a lot of places are trying to do these days. Actually, I had a line in a column a few weeks back, on Bistro des Celestines -- something to the effect of "it used to be that good restaurants were happy with your business a few times a year; nowadays they want to see you a few times a week." What's different, here, is that Eve is not content simply to be a casual drop by. It's got ambition. It wants to be your special occasion place too. It wants to be considered among, or near, the T of G someday. We'll see. It's got a long, long ways to go. As I wrote this week, I like Eve as a bistro. I think it does very well by itself as a bistro. As for Eve being a neighborhood restaurant, it's funny. Strictly speaking, I don't consider it to be a neighborhood restaurant. For one thing, it's too expensive, too refined, too too. Franklin's Restaurant and Brewpub is a neighborhood restaurant. A relaxed place you can slip into like a warm bath and be comforted by -- even on those nights when it's off. You don't have to wonder where the owner is -- he's making the rounds, in his old wool sweater and ponytail (hey, Mike!) The customers are familiar, the staff knows even before you do that you're here for the Bombshell Blond microbrew, a cheeseburger with bacon, and a side of the beer-battered, Old Bay-dusted onion rings, and when you're a no-show for weeks on end you hear about it when you finally return. Eve isn't that. But look at what it does have going for it -- there's warmth, there's (legitimate) charm, there's an attentive, caring staff, all the owners are present and accounted for. What's more, it gives you a very real sense that it's not just in a neighborhood but of it, too. Combine all that with the good bistro cooking and what you have is a place that comes about as close as any place at those prices can to being a neighborhood restaurant.

Not so. Tom Sietsema: "Vegetarians are welcomed with two big ravioli stuffed with fresh ricotta and nettle (an edible weed) and displayed atop a bright broth of sweet corn. (Much better than the raviolo, oddly dense with lobster, that accompanies an entree of Alaskan black cod.)"

I don't find it condescending, personally. And I'm not sure hostility is the right word to describe the response to this. Shrill, maybe. A certain kind of shrillness -- evocative of a certain class and age and demographic. Nor do I see what's "offensive." What is offensive, to me, is people who might talk a good, strong game where matters of class and race are concerned but who don't back it up. Who don't venture beyond the limitations of their own neighborhoods. Who presume that it is possible to speak for a greater good, to speak for everyone. I think the name is sly and funny and rich in association. And sure -- there's a lot of daring behind it. It's tailor-made to stir debate. What, I wonder, is the worry, though? Is it that she's "degrading" herself, as whites are forever suggesting that blacks who utter the word "nigger" are degrading themselves? That she's being too "irreverent" -- because, of course, matters of race can be discussed only in the most reverent and sober of terms? I suspect that some of us are troubled by this because the name is a bold assertion of a kind of blackness that, aside from some videos and some TV shows -- easily dismissed by the elite class, which, of course, doesn't watch TV anyway -- is rarely seen in public life in this post-Integration age. It's not sanitized for white sensibilities. Because, well -- it's not FOR whites. And, well -- everything but everything else IS. I think it's awfully dangerous to point the finger and shout, pathology!, at something that -- as I see it -- is in no way symptomatic of depravity or hopelessness or shamefulness but is, on the contrary, a product of cultural richness and hearty good humor.

Overrated, in my book, doesn't mean lousy. It doesn't mean mediocre. It just means overrated -- over-talked, over-analyzed, over focused-upon. There are places in town that I think could be doing (and, at that level, should be doing) more. ... I haven't been to Obelisk in a while, but my last meal there was a bit of a disappointment -- not the really wonderful experience I'd remembered.

No dining-as-metaphor, it's not one of those kinds of books, but there are a number of scenes that revolve around the dinner table. I'm still working on it. Which, by the way, I despise hearing myself say whenever a waiter or waitress asks the hated (and by now obligatory) question.

What is this, junior high gym class? My apologies, Professor Kilman. I'll try again. In a recent thread, some of us got to discussing 'neighborhood restaurants,' the value/meaningfulness or lack thereof of such a title, and why there's been a recent surge in their popularity (there's some disagreement over whether such a surge has occured in DC, or just in other cities). I'd be curious to hear your take on this. I noticed that one of the restaurants on your 'overrated' list is Cashion's---a place I've heard called a 'neighborhood joint' more than once. Thanks, Professor Sara Kilman? (Now you're really sounding like one of my students ...) The neighborhood restaurant, I think, is, in a lot of ways, a kind of fiction. It's a safe harbor for the customers it serves, and for a lot of people that's very appealing -- they know what to expect, everybody knows their na-a-ame, they're willing to overlook its faults (faults they might otherwise rip a place for) because, well, it's THEIR disappointing place, and it's close by. What you're seeing now is a lot of places trying to huddle under the umbrella of a "neighborhood restaurant" but which aren't, in fact, neighborhood restaurants. So, really, it's a kind of safe harbor for the owner and chef, too. What I expect from a real neighborhood restaurant is an uncommon degree of warmth, solicitousness and cheer, and a lot of places, no matter how good the food, simply can't deliver on this count.

I've written a good number of short reviews over the course of the last year -- more, probably, than what you might get from a dining guide. Though I wouldn't say they were written in a dining guide style. It was a terrific experience -- you've heard of immersion programs for students trying to immerse themselves in a new culture and a new language? It was not unlike that. Exhilarating, and essential. An awful lot of ideas grew out of that period. The thinking all along (PTB thinking, as apart from TK thinking) was that these short reviews would run alongside the column, as a way of expanding the breadth and depth of restaurant coverage. And that they would be thematically linked -- in one way or another -- with the thrust of the column. Also, on the weeks that I go the essay route, for example, readers would still get some of the stuff they're presumably looking for -- where to go, where not to go, what to get, what not to get. These are up now, on the CP's website, along with however many restaurant rater reports are currently in the database. All in all, a format not unlike the WP's own restaurant website. And the short reviews, the PTB tell me, should be in the paper in a month or so.

What is this, junior high gym class?

My picks for most underrated would include: Woodlands, Makoto, Myanmar, Montmartre, Charlie Palmer Steak, Corduroy, Melrose, Jerry's Seafood, Mendocino Grille, Huong Viet, The Reef, The Majestic Cafe. ... and for most overrated would include: Tosca, Equinox, Kinkead's, Yanyu, Taberna del Alabardero, Tavira, TenPenh, Galileo, Cashion's, Rockland's.

What, the Puffy story wasn't enough? To get gossip, you've gotta ask the questions that elicit gossip. And how do you know I don't already regret something I've said?

Hey, I'm a cancer too! Does she know what you are making or is it a surprise? So, what does the finalized menu look like? Speaking of entertaining, do think people (like, old friends or whoever you might have over) have different expectations of your cooking, etc., now that you write about food and service detail for a living? And I'm a Cancer, too. But yeah ... nobody cooks for me anymore. Except my (fearless) mother, a terrific cook. It's a little like how some people, on finding out that I taught English, would become all knotted up, precious and formal whenever they sent me email. Except my students, some of whom could have used a little knotting up in the things they sometimes sent. And no, she doesn't know what I'm making. And won't know, right on up until the very first bite ...

It’s not easy. A lot of the dishing about our days takes place during what is, for me, "work." And no matter how much I might appear to be enjoying myself – and sometimes not even that; not every meal is a gem, or even most meals – I’m still conscious of the task at hand. The whole time, phrases or entire sentences will be running through my head, I’ll be memorizing stray bits of conversation, and at least once, sometimes twice, I’ll interrupt things to duck into the bathroom to make notes. I can’ t really complain, since I know how good I have it, yet all the same we’re often in the situation of having to hit a place when we might otherwise – in a former life, that is – have caught a movie or gone to a play or met with friends. Then there’s the "problem" of my eating out at places, alone or with others, that she’s always wanted to visit. She’s very busy herself, with a raft of students and singing gigs, and it’s difficult, sometimes, to bring everything into alignment.

I can tell you this: The section will be expanding. This was the plan all along, even before I arrived. Some of you probably know about the reader participation angle, the website that’s on the verge of going live with several hundreds – nay, thousands – of reader reports. When my column debuted, the idea was to have a dozen or more short reviews accompany my piece. But there were, ahem, technical snafus. (This is a big, big project, years in the making.) In a month or so, those blurbs – short reviews that I’ve been writing over the past year – will finally run alongside the column … Success to me? Freedom, absolutely, you’re right on with that. Freedom to write what I want, to go where I want, to keep exploring and refining what I do. That, and piles and piles of cash. Extrinsically? I’ve gotten some very, very nice emails and letters from people, saying some very, very kind things. But I don’t know that I would call that reinforcement. It’s wonderful, it is, but every week, there is that same horror – the horror of the blank page. And no matter how many times you’ve done it, until you do it again you somehow doubt that it’s at all possible.

Three, huh? I wasn’t aware of my (apparent) Cho obsession. She’s funny – or was funny, anyway. Can’t say I’m as much a fan of her stuff these days. She’s become strident, too conscious of her audience.