pastramionrye

the one time i went there, i spent $20 (fixed price) on a crappy omelette and a mimosa...not exactly what i would call reasonable. Cashions and Tabard have that place beat by a stack of flapjacks a mile high.

Cashions has a great brunch with simple dishes...and an amazing pastry basket. it is also extremely reasonable. My wife and I went to Tabard Inn for brunch on my birthday just a few weeks ago (since Cashion's doesnt open until 11:30)...what we tried was great....and i love the space.

i think that in a not-so-fine-dining environment it is ok to be up front with customers. a restaurant that is not a 3 hour experience usually has a lower check average and therefore needs to turn over the tables at a faster rate. if people are always calling in for 7-8 o'clock reservations, it might be better to say to the person who wants a 6 or 6.30 reservation, "sorry, all we can accomodate is a 5.30 reservation." if they get pushy and say, "look i need it at 6." then the hostess or host sholuld tactfully explain the situation of how that table as been reserved already for 7.30; and if they really want to come eat at 6 o'clock, and be rushed in and out, they are more than welcome. but it is not something you reccommend. this way it puts the decision on the customer, and makes the restaurant still be upfront..as Rays was doing in the first place.

even here, though, the 4 star restaurants are all subsidized by the hotels they are in (with the exception of the laboritorio).

i think the real problem with the whole star system is how easily they are doled out. for example, in NYC, if you get a star, that is a good review. 2 stars puts you on par with the likes of Blue Hill and Cafe Gray (great restaurants)...Three stars, well, lets just say you are a excellent restaurant, in an elite class....and four is the super elite. in Washington, DC, Tom basically makes 1 star a slap in the face for any restaurant. But he also makes four stars very difficult to obtain. So there is this glut of restaurants varying in quality (in a pretty extreme sense in my opinion) getting two and three stars. It doesnt bother me that a pizza joint can get 2 or three stars. it does bother me that a restaurant that i just dont think is very good, can get 2 stars. he seems very reluctant to give out 1 star, and therefore skews the whole system.

in regards to what?

wasn't exactly on a whim, but went to MAESTRO last night for the first time. i was so full i couldnt sleep last night....literally.

jusr an fyi, not really a plug, palena will still have the cafe open New Years Eve.

maybe i'll go to breadline today for lunch...or eve????where oh where should i go?

first off....i have never been to a desert i liked. second off, bdc, whether you like it or not, does excellent business. i don't think a new restaurant will be moving into that space anytime soon.

what people are saying, jennifer, is that some people go to BDC for the atmosphere...the food and service are secondary. and because of the atmosphere, they might not judge the restaurant in the same way that they would judge a place like Rays the Steaks or Citizen or even like a Guajillo. They just go to hang out and talk and whatever it is they do there.... and what Mark (slater) was commenting on is a valid point. Some people go to a place like BDC and rather than seeing it for what it is (a loud, ok food, hangout) they try to compare it to other places it just isnt. no one is defending poor service. but when its 1 am on a saturday and you want steak frites and a nice place to sit and relax with some wine and friends it fits the bill.

Amernick has sold the bakery. It was bought by a guy who was the head baker at breadline (maybe, or was it marvelous market?).

it read like a 4 star review. with just the smallest of gripes (even bruni's review of per se had some gripes). they are obviously extremely disappointed to get 3 stars. heck, 2 Amy's has 3 stars.

i go there for the company. and they pass the test.

i know the chef/owner Ian and his wife Jen. they are very good people who took over the pub from his father. he is a trained chef that is very talented.

i was happy to experience this very gumbo along with some excellent fried oysters, remoulade and pickled veggies at johnny's one day for lunch not too long ago. it was my first time there, and i have thought about it quite a bit since then...especially the oysters.

i am a very big fan of cashion's eat place for sunday brunch. good atmosphere, good coffee, excellent pastry basket, and since i just got back from greece, i am looking forward to trying their greek yoghurt with honey and granola. also adams morgan is a cool place to be if you are coming from out of town.

that is just not true. First off, addressing poor service via the tip is EXTREMELY passive-aggressive. it doesnt address the issue at all. it just pisses off the server who then thinks that table was cheap. Secondly, claiming that if a manager doesnt know about the poor service going on, than he/she is doing a poor job...!??!?!?!? that's just ridiculous. It is the customers RESPONSIBILITY to raise their concerns or their issues with the manager. Just like its the managers responsibility to do the best they can to oversee everything that goes on around them. but when things slip through the cracks, luckily, ideally, the customer is there to raise their concerns. The manager is the last line of defense, so if you raise a complaint to the manager and he/she mollifies the situation, that is not a reflection in a negative sense on the manager's performance. If they don't mitigate, then, yes, you can say that it is a reflection on the manager's performance. ← Just saw this reply and frankly I'm shocked. If a server can't figure out that he gets shitty tips because he's a shitty server then he really is an idiot. What are tips for exactly then? ← Look its just a lack of communication. A server should know if they are consistently making way less than their counterparts that it is due to bad service; but if they are having an off night, and get a bad tip or two because a customer viewed them as condescending and trying to drain their bottle of wine too fast; i guarantee the server isnt going to know that is the reason why he/she got stiffed. they will just chalk it up to the customer being cheap. and this will perpetuate the communication gap.

i agree with you that managers should not be sitting back passively and recieve complaints. most good managers try to head off these issues before they come issues, but some things get by. and that is when the customer must speak up. for instance, the complaints busboy had re: service at palena; besides the pacing, there is not much the manager could have known (the wine glasses being filled too high or the condescending tone of the server....)if the manager came by and asked how everything was going, and the table simply stated "fine." how is the manager to know about these other concerns?

that is just not true. First off, addressing poor service via the tip is EXTREMELY passive-aggressive. it doesnt address the issue at all. it just pisses off the server who then thinks that table was cheap. Secondly, claiming that if a manager doesnt know about the poor service going on, than he/she is doing a poor job...!??!?!?!? that's just ridiculous. It is the customers RESPONSIBILITY to raise their concerns or their issues with the manager. Just like its the managers responsibility to do the best they can to oversee everything that goes on around them. but when things slip through the cracks, luckily, ideally, the customer is there to raise their concerns. The manager is the last line of defense, so if you raise a complaint to the manager and he/she mollifies the situation, that is not a reflection in a negative sense on the manager's performance. If they don't mitigate, then, yes, you can say that it is a reflection on the manager's performance.

I'll preface this by saying i work in a restaurant. A fine dining establishment; but not in the front of the house...i work in the bowels of the kitchen. And very little disheartens me more when I hear from people via Tom's online chat or on egullet or some other avenue that the "food was great, but the service stunk..." The real question is what do you people do when you encounter a condescending server or bad pacing, or warm wine or cold wine, or unattentive service? It seems to me that in most other industries, if you encounter a rude salesperson at the Avis or a rude customer service rep. at the Microsoft hotline, or a rude sales clerk at the Gap, you would ask to speak to a manager. Now why is it that with all the "seasoned" restaurant goers we have at egullet does it seem that way more often than not, bad service is met with a passive-agrressive stance of not saying anything until they get home and then writing a missive about it to Tom or on egullet? Restaurant managers want people to have a great time at their establishment. They are in the hospitality industry. Let them be hospitable. If you have a problem, let them correct it. They will never know what is going on if they don't hear from you. And therefore, by not saying anything, you are perpetuating the poor service around town. Lets stop all the passive-aggressiveness that seems to fuel the relationship between server and diner. So customers can have a better time when they go out to spend their buck, and a restaurant can correct their problems or service issues, without having their dirty laundry hung out to dry so all of the washington metro area can read about it in Tom's chat and think to themselves "I'm never going there..." before they had a chance to judge it themselves. Sincerely, Hot Pastrami-on-Rye

they'll be back, and it will be better since it will be THEIR space. look forward to checking out the new digs. pastrami.

i thought they cooked all burgers to well-done?

in terms of fast food burritos i am a fan of baja fresh. all the others are pretty generic, huge and filled with too much crap...

that post goes into the egullet hall of fame. congrats rocks.