Steve Klc

What's the name of the business or supplier? Look at their website--and if you think this company might benefit from a real pastry chef developing some recipes and desserts for them, Jason, make your pitch. This sounds like a nice promotional opportunity you've stumbled upon, if not a paid consulting one. If they are in town, maybe do an additional dessert or two and have the marketing person in for a taste.

Can we try to continue this more on the merits and less on the douchebag/asshole/self-righteous name-calling track?

Josh--to get your answer you have to look at the "price per cavity" and that's going to be different for every shape, size and brand. And as you've noticed, it also depends on what you plan to do with the mold--i.e. bake with it, mold and freeze off soft creams, etc. I use Gastroflex for some things and flexipans for others, and as Neil mentioned, the Gastroflex tends to have cleaner, more precise edges--though sometimes the rounder edges of the flexi allow you to pop things out better--and that's due to the different manufacturing process and material used in each type. I also think it depends on your volume--buying more shapes and sizes of the orange silicone quarter sheets (as opposed to flexipan half and full sheets) gives you a lot more variety and options for the price, especially if you plan to use them for petits fours and mini-pastries. Flexipans are $79.70 (USD) for the full sheet at JB Prince and the orange (Gastroflex or silicon flex) quarter sheets are $12--multiply that times 4 and you might save money as long as the cavities and performance are equal. Some things still bake better in metal and you might find the size you want only in one style--flexi, silicone or metal. For one restaurant I ended up buying oval metal barquette molds because 1) the cake didn't bake off quite right in silicone no matter how I experimented with it and 2) value and efficiency-wise the flexipan sheets didn't have enough cavities per sheet for the price. I'd be interested in hearing reports of Americans buying things from Canada--in terms of billing, service, shipping, etc. Can you get someone on the phone, what's their inventory on hand, will they ship same day for next day or 2 day delivery, are there added fees, customs hangups, etc. (Flexipans have fiberglass threads running throughout, the orange ones don't; flexipans came on the scene first and in a big way, the others are playing catch-up--might help explain some of the price differential. And in general flexipans deform or deflate sooner/easier than the Gastroflex--which appears stronger to me.)

I think it's important to make the distinction between pairing wines with "chocolate," i.e. unwrapped bars or pieces of a chocolate, and pairing with "chocolate desserts"--where chocolate is used as an ingredient in a larger whole--because they're different animals. It's very difficult to pair a wine with a piece of chocolate--to create a synergistic match where neither the wine nor the chocolate is diminished or de-valued; it is less difficult, but still difficult, to pair a wine with a chocolate dessert. Many of the wines mentioned so far, like the brachetto, Maury, Banyuls, etc go very well with dark chocolate and red berry based desserts--and hence the more fruit forward berry-like dark chocolates, any chocolates based on or blended with Venezuelan cacao or chocolates which have a kind of acetic acid note to them, like especially Valrhona Manjari. I had a raspberry wine from Alba vineyards a few years ago, which Paul Grieco turned me on to on his dessert wine list at Gramercy Tavern, which was just sweet enough and killer with Venezuelan dark chocolate desserts and red fruit dark chocolate desserts. In contrast, very few of these more commonly known wines for chocolate pairings actually work with the vast majority of chocolate--which are based on the more earthy, burnt, woodsy African bean style of chocolate (that's too simplistic, but meaning non-red-fruit for these purposes.) These wines also don't work that well with milk chocolate. I've also never been lucky enough to have a chocolate dessert paired with a dry table wine, meaning non-sweet, that "worked" to the benefit of both the dessert and the wine, but that's another issue. I personally haven't had the big dry Cab or the big dry Shiraz and chocolate epiphany, but have an open mind. It's the degree of sweetness in a late harvest Cab or in any dessert wine which makes these matches with a chocolate dessert or any dessert possible--and even then you have to pull sweetness out of your dessert to have a hope of synergy. Like Mark I've also never liked a pairing of chocolate with sauternes or icewine, though I've seen both attempted. I don't recommend either. With milk chocolate-based desserts, especially those milks with nutty or caramel overtones, and with chocolates not in that red-berry fruit nature, try pairing tawny ports, madeiras, things like Alambre moscatel de setubal or Lustau Pedro Ximenez "San Emilio" or anything in that dried-raisined character, like some vin santo or a Spanish wine new to me, something Aurelio Cabestrero selected and imported, called Silvano Garcia Dulce Monastrell. You just might be surprised to find that you can more easily pair wines with milk chocolate and milk chocolate/caramel/nut desserts than you can synergistically pair wines with dark chocolate based desserts. And another nice wine style to pair with chocolate desserts are those Australian stickies, I know we've discussed all these dessert wines on eG before, so you might want to search for the old threads. I've had very good chocolate dessert pairing luck with things like the Seppelt DP63 Rutherglen Show Muscat and a few others--there's a nice toffee, caramel nature to these that can go very well with the caramel/nut nature in milk chocolate and dark chocolate desserts with the right nut and/or spice nature to them. Good luck Hank.

Crumble is a culinary term and that dessert sounded fantastic, Steve. Thanks for the report. Was just one dessert served as a part of the tasting menu--i.e. no amuse? Were you all served the same dessert?

Rocks--87 posts is not enough for such a talent. Pick up the pace please. And include more snippets of dialogue.

Mazman, you've only posted a few times so I don't have a feel yet for your depth and breadth of dining here versus elsewhere and I don't discount your poor experience last night in any way. I don't know what kinds of places in DC get you excited--you posted once about Ceiba--so besides trendy or new--do you also go to established places high, middle and low? Do you live here or do drop in and dine from Philly like Sara? Do you dine out often enough to return to places for a second or third impression? I feel I have better handle on your awareness and experiences, Sara, because you've posted more often--but please, don't you think it is implicit in a thread like this that you take your chances with a new place that's only been open, what--2 or 3 weeks? Young chef, young staff, service bound to be inconsistent? I think it's unfair and unwise to draw conclusions--in DC or in Philly--based on one good experience in a brand new restaurant as it is to stretch a poor experience in a just-opened restaurant into some referendum on 1) that restaurant and 2) low standards in DC or 3) try to draw a comparison to how long this place would stay open in Philly. No one is placing this on some altar of top DC restaurants at this point--it's good and promising for the neighborhood it is in, but it is very new with a 24 year old chef spreading his wings for the first time. You guys had a bad experience, perhaps on the first night the chef decided to take off in months. A few issues you noted had already been noted in this thread--salt, wine, lax pacing of dishes. If he's smart, the chef is reading this, he's taking your words to heart and trying to make the necessary changes--as any new chef-owner would if he were smart. If not, if your experience turns out to be the norm rather than mine, or Wabeck's, or others on this thread, I'm sure it won't last here, either! And Sara, a caution about Nectar. We're lucky there's one Nectar and we're all still flush and excited we have one Nectar on the scene, but Nectar is more mature, aims higher and operates at a higher price point and sophistication. In Philly there's one Django and a whole host of other decent chef-driven/mid-priced/aiming-higher restaurants in its class who aren't as special, aren't as over-achieving like Django. And that's ok--for both of us--as long as we keep things in perspective and don't try to overstate the situation. Hoping for another Django or Nectar, even subconsciously, isn't fair to those other restaurants. You'd agree there needs to be room to appreciate all sorts of restaurants in second-tier food towns on an upward arc--as both DC and Philly are--right?

Dennis--no one is saying the "provinces" can't support dining which is chef-driven, creative, high-priced, etc.--we're saying that they won't or that they don't. That's a big difference. Why they won't or don't remains an open question. I think on one level your Georgetown analogy holds a lot of water--there's very little worthy food-wise there either. "Does anyone think that getting a Jaleo in Crystal City will have a cascading effect into Alexandria?" That's interesting--however I suspect the reverse is true--it will have a cascading effect drawing Alexandrians in search of better options INTO Crystal City.

WBC--you can change the texture by changing the amounts and percentages of the ingredients--which you have to, anyway, because each chocolate performs differently, each chocolate has a different cacao butter percentage. You didn't say which specific chocolate you used? This "recipe" is meant to be scaled--i.e.multiplied--I do it times 10, 20 or 40 in a restaurant setting. My "big" molds take longer--6-7 minutes--but baking time is relative. How many ounces of water do your molds hold? Are your molds aluminum? Are they taller than they are wide--timbale-shaped rather than ramekin-shaped? Good ingredients and good products are expensive but expense is relative. The question is do you get the payoff--can you taste the difference? And as far as the hassle of re-heating--well that is more of a hassle than, say, pulling 30 parfaits out of the fridge and serving. For a dinner party that is a planning issue you're smart to take into consideration. However, you could "hold" all the cakes in a low, warm oven until you are ready to serve and then drop them onto the plate. I often do this little cake in a glass or cup as well--which for a lot of people would take up less counter space. You could also slice this cake in half and present a dessert with only a warm half cake on top of the cream and sauce. Cuts your expense in half.

Probably the same people who would order the lobster roll sandwich from McDonalds. I have to admit I ordered one of those the last time I was in the Manchester, NH airport. It was actually ok.

Darren--Susan's corned beef hash is killer. You have to give it a try. Dennisp--a question--was there ever a time when Old Town and Alexandria boasted a thriving food scene? If so, that was before my time. And as far as the comparison between Bethesda and Old Town--I think both destinations fail to deliver on their promise and may have more in common than you think. I tend to agree with Sietsema when he writes that Bethesda restaurants, in general, are not as good as they should be. I think both destinations suffer from having a too-conservative clientele--Bethesda just has MORE restaurants and more competition dumbing down to the fairly conservative and predictable. I think you see this culinary conservatism even in Susan's excellent cooking--she makes her stuff just a little more accessible, a little more conservative and less adventurous--to appeal to her new audience there and to fit her new goals there. I don't know any tapped-in foodies who prefer her cooking there and don't lament the loss of what she was doing at the Morrison-Clark. (I can tell you she is working every bit as hard!) I also never have any problems parking in and around the side streets of Old Town for weeknight dinners at Majestic, Five Guys or Vermilion. But I'm never there on weekends or peak Fri/Sat evenings and usually never venture near the water. I also think your comment about has-been mediocrity applies to much more of Virginia and the suburbs than just Old Town. It's increasingly hard to find interesting cooking taking place in the strip mall-food court-franchise-ethnic-chain restaurant-dominated burbs past one or two obvious examples. The burbs don't support a Firefly, a Cafe Atlantico, a Komi, insert your favorite under $20 entree happening place food-wise here. We're too complacent about the conservative mediocrity we find out here, it's too convenient and we're very ready to hop on into town for mid-level to high-level interestiing, creative food. In effect, we only have ourselves to blame if chefs aren't encouraged to move out to the burbs, if we as diners support the places out here in the burbs not doing as good a job as they should be doing and if critics aren't called to account for over-rating and over-praising the burbs, based on some impartial sense of geographic representation.

"Like the space. Like the staff. Like the menu that has an edge. I'll be back." Gotta agree with John. We went with two friends from Amsterdam hoping to find a still undiscovered gem of a restaurant quiet enough to talk over good food. We did. It's polished and full of charm already, with lots of potential still despite only being open for a short time. The staff has this kind of infectious enthusiasm which doesn't cross over the line--our cute, modern dance-studying, hip-as-a button, though-not-tall-enough-to-be-a-Vogue-model server was perfect all night. I didn't think the wine list was as reasonably priced, and it certainly wasn't very deep (yet). There should be more good offerings under the $40 to $50 a bottle price point--we drank well last night--and chose a St. Supery meritage white, a Zellenberger riesling (instead of the other very good Alsace riesling by Josmeyer), and a malbec--but I'd like to see more bottles priced closer to $28 to $30, which drink above their price, if they expect neighborhood folks to eat there more than once a week. Still, they have a young wine guy obviously passionate about the juice, the choices seem very personal and eclectic, so expect movement and good things to keep happening on this front. Last night we arrived at 7:30, left at 11:00--with no more than 1/4 of the tables occupied at the peak--and the food wasn't exactly served...expeditiously. Be prepared to linger, especially if the place gets busy, but I'm sure the kinks will be worked out when the place picks up some critical mass. It will have to. As far as the food, my assessments probably echo those of Sietsema, John, therese and expatraver. It's very accessible comfort food, the chef is unafraid to use salt, he also likes strong flavors and all sorts of braised vegetables. Loved the sardines, perfectly fried and the wilted greens accompaniment, with the salty-preserved lemon taste elevating this from being mundane. The in the shell shots of scallop/roe/cucumber water/mustard seed oil (?) do shake you as you swallow--they've definitely been perked up therese. Perhaps too much. The one pizza crust we tried could have more inherent flavor but was still very nice, impeccably crisp. The bread basket had nice intense little asiago cracker things, an unadorned cup-o-soup amuse subtly flavored with curry, excellent salads--we had the pear/walnut/blue cheese--which is a better version of the salad you get elsewhere all over town--and the grilled asparagus/frisee/mushroom--which was great. Of the entrees I had the most of: that crisp-skinned striped bass dish was to die for, the thick square slab of pork belly (called "Polyface farms bacon" on the menu) was one small step from perfect--just the slightest bit less moist than it could have been--but still really engaging texturally. I didn't have any of the char dish--which was served without the special bean variety the chef brings back from Greece (must have run out) and I only had some braised endive from the hangar steak dish--but it reminded me that I don't have good braised endive like this enough. Cheese plate--agreed, very nice selection of 5 progressively distinctive cheeses, an affordable $9 fix for junkies. Desserts: Liked that fruit soup except it didn't have any discernable bay flavor--just two leaves stuck in the sorbet. The yogurt sorbet couldn't be detected above the much more dominant vanilla. Still, I sucked down that vanilla seed-inflected soup very easily and would again--also liked the molten chocolate cake with rock salt. Didn't find the donut French Laundry-like attempt too appealing. The ramekin of hot chocolate was not good--watery, insipid. They have a good French-press style coffee and offer tea, in funky, incredibly heavy tea pots, but no black tea available as a selection last night. I found that strange. Green, peach, mint, and maybe chamomille, I forget. It's a good sign for DC--in terms of national food status--that another new restaurant like this opened up, let's realize it's only been open for a few weeks and keep supporting this and others like it in that middle ground aiming higher--from Matchbox to Ella's to the likes of Firefly--which Komi will most likely, and correctly, be compared to. We might just grow a good, competitve food town here after all. For four people before tip--3 bottles of wine, 3 bottles of water, a glass of a non-descript Greek white, 4 apps, 1 pizza, 4 entrees, 1 cheese plate, 3 desserts, coffee and tea: $337.

That's a killer post Rocks, thanks for taking the time to compose it. The relativity of dining, the price-to-value ratio of dining, is something I wish we addressed more frankly and more honestly especially in light of celebrity chef worship, with the added costs of such worship, on one hand and the threat chain restaurants provide to independent restaurateurs below the most elite level, on the other hand. $45 for what you described is an amazing bargain even if it isn't the best it possibly could be or the spare-no-expense best of its type in this town or any town. Again, thanks for helping to put things into perspective--it's a more complex perspective which often gets lost amidst the crummy-but-good/Chowhound-style/ethnic babble and the supreme praises heaped on the one or two elite restaurants in the city. When I lived in Glover Park I didn't make the effort to trek to Makoto often enough. Thanks for reminding me why I should make the effort now.

"Not to mention that a lot of the top places will probably be up for re-review after they name a successor." Why? If the Times wasn't embarrassed keeping 1998 Reichl four star sacred cow reviews up throughout the Grimes tenure, what's a few more years for the likes of Le Bernardin and Jean-Georges?

Well, I went back to the Woodbridge Wegmans about one week after the grand opening--7:30PM on Saturday. Gone were the durian, jackfruit, Buddha's hands, the white truffles just sitting out in a bed of rice; old and brown were the banana leaves which just one week prior had been green, moist and tropical; nary a much-touted-in-the-media tandoor oven item was in sight--nothing on the buffet table and nothing for sale behind the glass wall to the open kitchen, where the tandoor skewers sat vertical, empty and alone. All the microgreens, shoots, baby mache, tat soi, etc. had been picked over and not replenished in what seemed to me like hours. So it was no naan for me that night, Lauren! I settled for some pretty tasteless shrimp salad, a fantastic crusty baguette, a nice Spanish cheese and some lobster salad sushi. Then I went over to the "new" Shoprite, which as has been mentioned here, used to suck. It doesn't suck anymore--in fact, it is clearly going to compete with Wegmans and help keep them honest, keep them trying, and keep them price competitive in case anyone had any doubts. Those same Driscoll raspberries (in similarly nice shape) were 2 for $5--just like at Wegmans. While prepared foods still lacked the panache, depth and interest of Wegmans, Shoprite did impress me with a very strong produce section (its previous GLARING weakness) a very strong deli emphasis--equal if not superior to Wegmans in depth and price actually, a much better array of hot dogs and frankfurters, for instance. It's clear someone from Shoprite scouted out the Herme/Wegmans line because it had its own knock-off version of Herme's cakes and tarts, much less clean and much more sloppy, though. Poor bread except for the very good line of La Brea breads--in stock were the sourdough and French baguettes, and maybe 3 other loaf varieties, including a nice pan rustica. Again, just with La Brea a big improvement over what it used to carry.

Interesting point--that area is utter crapola foodwise. When I compared the Bridgewater store to Princeton it seemed lacking and I wondered if the (perhaps unappreciative) clientele was the factor; however, in my experience, the high end is a flexible, relative barrier--it's different for everyone--as soon as someone's awareness gets raised a little bit--be it in wine, chocolate, coffee, cheese, butter, fruit, whatever--there's a tendency for that consumer to keep delving, to keep going down that road of exploration and possibly even developing an appreciation. Plus, let's say a consumer is very price-conscious--well, for some things such a consumer might splurge--like buying toilet paper or dry pasta in bulk at Costco but the "best" in some other categories elsewhere--like those darn good Herme-consulted desserts at Wegmans or chocolate or espresso or line-caught fish, etc. And why Wegmans seems to excel is that it realizes each consumer is going to have their own "splurge" categories, their own passions or weaknesses where they will spend. I already mentioned the price of butter--$1.29 at Wegmans, $3.99 at Whole Foods. Part of Wegmans job is to make sure its customers know that 2 containers of pristine fresh raspberries from California for $5 is a GREAT deal (at the moment those same Driscoll raspberries are $4.99 for one container at Whole Foods VA) and that $3.99 for a quart of heavy cream is a GREAT deal (at the moment Whole Foods VA offers heavy cream for between $6.50 and $7 per quart) That Sharffen berger we were talking about? $7.99-$8.49 at Whole Foods. But you are right--if Bakers chocolate squares are the only chocolate someone has ever had even that Sharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate might be a tough sell. However, that's where I think Wegmans efforts at customer service might eventually win people over--inspiring trust and loyalty over time. Illy is over-priced w/r/t quality even at Wegmans--I'd like to see Wegmans bring in a good, freshly roasted espresso bean blend at a fair price--the way Whole Foods in Philly stocks La Colombe for instance--or in DC stocks Quartermaine--it's a pattern Whole Foods mimics around the country, in addition to Allegro (their house brand) they offer some local roaster's beans as well. If there isn't some quality local microroaster we can't fault Wegmans, but I suspect there's someone doing good work in central Jersey who will contact them. I'm not sure I buy the "expensive tastes" argument--the bigger question is do they have "taste," period, will Wegmans foster in consumers an ability to appreciate quality and an ability to make up their own minds, as consumers, with respect to price. (I'm not sure of the answer to this question.) Clearly Woodbridge and environs are not as sophisticated culinary-speaking and not as well-served as "Princeton" but Woodbridge is centrally located and easily-accessible: for every Avenel there is a Colonia (I grew up in Avenel and was bussed to school in Colonia) and a lot of commuters drive through that 1/9/Turnpike/Parkway nexus going to and fro. So Avenel might not shop there but I'm not sure I'd bet on it once they actually go there and start tasting things. (I'm a firm believer that if you get something good in their mouths, people can tell the difference, they can tell something is good.) I'd expect prepared foods and those take-out stations to do very, very well in Woodbridge precisely because that whole area is vastly underserved with quality restaurants as well--for many Wegmans will become the best restaurant nearby price to quality. Perhaps mitigating all of this is that I believe Wegmans sees this store more as a regional hub, a regional destination, rather than your typical local supermarket. You know, the supermarket equivalent of "It's not TV, it's HBO." It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

"I spent 30 minutes in the tea aisle alone. The other posters were right though... the coffee selection is pretty low end, now that I took the time to look it over. Illy is always great to have, but at the same time there should be more highend offering in the regular wholebean coffee side than Starbucks and the house brand." My feelings exactly, but then I was that other poster! The Illy was the pre-ground stuff, not even whole bean, as well. I also haven't tried enough of the "house" brand selections to have an opinion yet as far as their quality--to see how they compare to Whole Foods Allegro in turnover and taste--but you've nailed the seemingly glaring tea vs. coffee disparity--a wealth of nicely packaged teas plus that bulk tea bar with tea in big jars reminiscent of the early bulk spice jars from Whole Foods Markets. The thing is--just in case Woodbridge Wegmans is reading along--there is no scale to weigh out the bulk tea right at that counter--AND--it seems the checkout clerks are also unable (or insufficiently trained) to weigh out your bulk tea purchase according to item number or price per pound. So I expect that too to change. Also, it is harder to do coffee well than it is to do tea well, inherently.

I've seen those 275g bars of the 70% go for $9.99-10.99+ at retail depending on the market. Even at $6.99 per 275g it is slightly overpriced in relation to quality, but that's another issue for another board. For purposes of comparison--you have very ridiculously priced chocolate bars at gourmet retail, you have something like the Vosges "exotic" 94g candy bars, one of which is a 40% milk chocolate bar selling for $6.49 at Fox & Obel in Chicago; for something in small bar form of truly high quality at a more reasonable price you have the Michel Cluizel line of couvertures in 100g bar form--like the "Sao Tome," a wonderful 65% dark chocolate bar which is something like $3.69 at Garden of Eden in NYC. If I were consulting for Wegmans, which I am not (yet) I'd urge that they add distinctiveness and interest to their higher end selections--because right now even Whole Foods Mid-Atlantic has better chocolate depth. (And Whole Foods does not do chocolate well.) At the very least, Wegmans should bring in the E. Guittard line--now in convenient 275g bar form and 1 kg bar form, each in attractive packaging.

I saw those, too, lauren, right under the Herme book display--however, it wasn't the "good" Valrhona line--like a Manjari or Caraibe, what V. terms "Grand Cru"--what I saw was the supermarket-Williams Sonoma-grade stuff like Force Noire or Noire Gastronomie or whatever Valrhona is calling their "B" line these days. And sorry to (ever-so-gently) disagree, but the selection of bar chocolates was not good otherwise, it was pretty depressingly typical Lindt, etc. Typical NYC streetcorner markets have a better chocolate selection. The large Sharffen Berger bars for $6.99 (a very fair price by the way) are the best Wegmans had, and a fine chocolate to cook and work with, but Wegmans competitors have better variety: in addition to Sharffen Berger they have V. Manjari or V. Guanaja or El Rey in bulk (a good less-pricy baking chocolate though less good eating-wise) they have some of the very special Michel Cluizel wrapped bars alongside the usual assortment of (pretty crappy) Lindt bars and the (bogus, mostly underwhelming) "organic" bars, etc. Better than Shop Rite and better for the local scene than before they opened? Oh, yes, much better. I realize it is all relative, but I hold Wegmans to a higher standard. Oh, and its cocoa powders were pretty awful as well.

Unsalted butter for $1.29 a pound, as it was priced this weekend, hardly renders Wegmans superfluous for staple items--even if one shopped solely on price without respect to quality or choice. Wegmans can do loss leaders with the best of the chains--those 12-packs of Coke in cans sure were flying out of the store on opening day, I don't drink soda so I'm not tapped into the price but it had to be good. I think the big lie being promulgated about Wegmans in some quarters, and too-easily parroted in the articles I read in the Ledger and Tribune is that their staple items are somehow over-priced, that Wegmans somehow isn't for regular shopping. Go and decide for yourself--for me things like bread and produce are staples. Since I "regularly" shop at a Whole Foods Market--unsalted butter hovers around 3.99 a pound-- and don't live near a Reading Terminal Market--I previously thought Trader Joe's $1.99 a pound for a staple like butter was quite good. Costco (in Edison) beat that price but you had to buy 4 pounds. That is, of course, until I discovered Wegmans. And what Wegmans really does is expand your appreciation of what "staples" or price-to-quality ratio really means, what staples "could" mean. Wegmans isn't solely upscale in focus--it is quality and customer service in focus and to serve ALL customers you have to have upscale as well. So alongside tremendous depth in fresh exotic fruit--say a Jackfruit (for a whopping $49), durian, feijoa, miniature pineapples, buddha's hands, dragonfruit, etc.--you find every bit the same commitment and depth in the more mundane apples and pears in terms of pricing and selection. For those in Woodbrige used to shopping regularly at the Shop Rites of the area--especially in that sad-sack depressing Shop Rite on Route 1/9 in Woodbridge, recently remodeled and moved next store, after having to endure years of picking over mediocre produce pre-wrapped in cellophane--I imagine Wegmans will seem quite shocking. Imagine being able to pick up a pristine piece of vegetable or fruit and, actually, touch or smell it? Denied for decades in Shop Rite. For many Wegmans will be about consciousness-raising and, frankly, exponentially-greater experiences are shocking. And in terms of the Reading Terminal Market, a collection of uneven, independent specialists, while there are great, great strengths of the Market, and for many there are different stalls there unrivalled and unmatched by Wegmans--for me like that certain pork, greens and cheese sandwich or that certain Philly breadmaker--it just doesn't touch a Wegmans like Princeton or Woodbridge in terms of depth and overall commitment to excellence in every key area--staples plus prepared foods plus ethnic plus exotics and specialty items: where Speigelau stems for $7 sit alongside white tea blossoms and an incredible bulk tea selection with like ten varieties of rooibos blends alone, lobster roll sushi, Spanish membrillo paste, frozen pizza dough, irradiated ground beef alongside non-irradiated, cockles, all sorts of line caught--never frozen this and that, whole red snapper on ice with the freshest, clearest eyes imaginable, 100% pomegranate juice, coconut powder, frozen asian fish balls, jars of tamarind paste, chicken right out of the tandoor, Portuguese honey with hazelnuts, butter for $1.29 a pound, the sight and heft of both fresh durian and jack fruit and on and on. Unless Robert Bennett started selling there's nothing at Reading rising even halfway to the achievement of those Herme-consulted desserts or chocolate. And I suspect this is going to be the story oft-repeated wherever a Wegmans opens up--overall they do upscale better than anyone else and they do downscale at least as good if not better than anyone else--all under the same roof. At the moment, after scanning the aisles kind of quickly, the few things which disappointed me at the opening of the Woodbridge store were 1) the decision not to build a wine annex, 2) the surprisingly predictable (Illy) or just plain poor coffee selections, 3) no fleur de sel, 4) no Greek yogurt or lebne, 5) the best chocolate available being Sharffen Berger. But it wouldn't surprise me if 2-5 are remedied in short order. Casey--did you see the fish, I believe tuna, that Wegmans had crusted in what looked like those wasabi dried green pea snacks, all ground up?

"The Inn at Little Washington which is in the middle of a 4 block town far from anywhere is successful because of the food and service." Yes, but for the purposes of this discussion, no. The Inn is considered a "Washington, DC" restaurant despite the fact that it is in the sticks, relatively speaking, compared to the downtown DC core. It has always received an inordinate amount of local press from the nation's 2nd or 3rd most important newspaper--the Washington Post--the chef and restaurant has been championed for what seems like decades by Phyllis Richman alongside the likes of other DC-area chefs she helped make into national superstars like Jean-Louis Palladin, Bob Kinkead, Roberto Donna, etc. There was a critical mass of cooking talent here which she helped create awareness of nationally--at a time when the country started worshipping chefs more--and into which the Inn could be folded into. Without the proximity to a media-market like DC I doubt the Inn or the reputation of its chef would be what it is today. We don't cook or create or promote in a vacuum. That's just not gonna happen as easily or to that degree with anyone cooking in the Triangle, or for that matter anywhere in this region because of what has been eloquently mentioned time and time again on this thread--the critical mass of elite professionals doing elite work isn't there yet, the customer awareness to support it isn't there yet, there isn't much nationally significant media attention drawn to this region and local media is over-worked and stretched in many directions with less budget and staff than larger markets--though exceptions like the Barkers do emerge as exceptions do also emerge from cities like Louisville, Cleveland, etc. I feel for the professionals like soupkitchen and phlawless working in this scene who are smart and savvy enough to reflect accurately what's going on around them and suggest they are the agents of change! And eG of course. You're in perhaps the first wave of culinary maturity in fine dining--with my region, DC, perhaps well into the second wave of maturity and diversity--are the Beard-winning Barkers your version of Jean Louis Palladin, who served in DC as a guiding light, arriving on the scene with breakthrough gushing talent and media skills able to rally all sorts of local chefs (and critics) around him, drawing talent from afar to DC to work with him, to orbit around him, and teaching others the cell-phone-toting, celebrity chef-globe-trotting ways? I think the question for you all to answer within your region is--will emulating the Barker example improve your dining scene or keep holding you back? Will the Barkers rally your region's versions of the next Michel Richard, Gerard Pangaud, Roberto Donna, Bob Kinkead, Patrick O'Connell, etc--and help put their names, whoever they may be, on the national map?

Just came back from opening day of the Woodbridge, NJ store--and I'm happy to say it is not a letdown in comparison to the Princeton store. It is "as good" a Wegmans as Princeton is--which bodes very well for Virginia as Virginia will be as well--though there is no Wegmans wine store in Woodbridge as in Princeton, which surprised me. Not underwhelming me was the much-touted tandoor oven in Woodbridge--I had a fine tandoor chicken wrap in naan with some Indian-inspired roasted cauliflower for $7.99. I asked Llewelyn, the chef, what was available from the tandoor and that was it for the moment--nothing can be ordered cooked to order specifically from the tandoor yet--it all goes into wrap sandwiches and onto the $5.99 buffet/steam table--but he hoped to add a la carte grill items after the opening crush was over. Bad news for us--we're not getting a tandoor in VA. It was interesting how I got to meet Llewelyn--I was just standing there, taking in the amazing scene which will utterly blow away Whole Foods--and a nice guy with a nametag that said Joe came up to me and asked what I thought of it all--so I told him. Turns out he's the manager of the Princeton Wegmans and Joe walked me up to Llewelyn, asked him to come out of the kitchen to meet me and reveal some of his plans for the tandoor for me--pretty typical Wegmans approach to customer service, every customer matters, every question matters. I can't wait. Didn't see any grape leaves at the Woodbridge Wegmans, but they did have amazingly fresh banana leaves and the olive bar was about 40 feet long. Colleen was looking for some feta for a demo in NYC tomorrow and had 6 or 7 varieties to choose from. I was looking for powdered agar-agar and fleur de sel--neither of which they had. I wasn't surpised they didn't have the former, I was very surprised they didn't have the latter. It's on order.

Alana--I think you and Shaw might actually be pretty close to each other when you say "michael bauer in san francisco has his fair share of detractors in the restaurant industry because it is generally felt that he has too much power of the success or failure of new restaurants" and Shaw says "there are ways of creating accountability and integrity without limiting power." The reason the Bauer problem resonated ethically, and why even friends of Bauer had trouble articulating a convincing defense, revolved around the lead restaurant critic also being in charge of the weekly Food section and also in charge of the food content of the Sunday magazine--in such a large and important food scene as SF/Napa. I understand this multiple hat-wearing is a necessary evil in small-market towns with a small-market staff of one or two. But not SF. It wasn't merely an issue of one critic a la Grimes with a powerful voice or the powerful imprimatur of the NY Times, or a critic seemingly corrupt, highly idiosyncratic, cranky, out of touch either--it was more about being in the position to slant (or appear to slant) editorial coverage in the weekly Food section and in the Magazine--in addition to writing the review. And that brings you back to what I think Shaw's ultimate point is about the power of any critic--was their "power earned and used" properly and did the paper hire the right critic in the first place?

Yeah, but that long table is not "private-ish" dining--at least not in the sense of a private room like Firefly's back room--how many does that seat John?--which is much more separated from the rest of the dining room. And Zaytinya is more packed than ever, always a scene and can get loud. 30 people, though, does put you into that upstairs Z. space, swank, looking down on the main floor, if that were to be available that would seem much more private--and 30 people fit very nicely in the whole upper level of Cafe Atlantico, which can be a fun party space though more expensive. Guess it depends on your price point. December will likely be a tough time to find space around town. What about taking the whole upstairs of Sushi-Ko in Georgetown? Or that back area of Marcel's, their dining room kind of wraps around back and could hold 30? Both have very strong food. Restaurant Seven in Tysons has a really nice totally private space, free valet parking, though I can't vouch for the current state of the food since I haven't been there in a while. Good luck!

ooops, yes, Harry's Tap Room! Thanks Gary. I've never actually been to Sam & Harry's! And yes, Minh's would be great because you wouldn't have to sit like an ugly ducking off at a bar--Minh's is not as crowded as it should be, considering it is the best and most interesting Vietnamese restaurant locally, much better than Four Sisters. And they have that nice cushiony banquette with 3 tables and pillows which would be just perfect for a solo-reader. Chi wouldn't mind you reading to your heart's content, even on a Friday.