hjshorter

Whoa. What a disappointing review Joe. I would have expected much better from them.

I don't know. After watching him make the V-D stew the last time I have great respect for Dave's skills. That said, I am looking forward to the competition. Do you need judges?

Their gyro and tabbouli are my favorite in the DC area. Are the owners still the same nice family?

"Doesn't everyone do that at home? We do that all the time." (she says innocently... )

That comes across as incredibly harsh. [emphasis mine] And I suspect that the "can afford" side of the equation is greater than the "like" . I was struck by this last night when I ran into the local Food Lion to pick up bread and oranges. FL is marketed to a lower income customer than, say, Whole Foods. I was struck by the lack of variety in the produce section and the dearth of low-fat and reduced calorie choices in the aisles. The comments about their transparent stocking process were very interesting. I'd like to hear what other eG participants thought about that.

How crowded was it? We never went because of crowds, but perhaps things have changed in the past few years. We have got to get to the new Hollywood East. Maybe this weekend.

Love it! That's exactly what I'm talking about.

OK, we all love to cook because it's nuturing, because we love it, because we are concerned about the quality of our food, etc. etc. ...but how many folks will admit to cooking just to show off. I will admit to being the mom you don't want to see at the bake sale. Sometimes I make things from scratch just because no one else will make the effort and I want to show them up. I never take short cuts for dinner parties or potlucks, and want my stuff to be gone before everyone else's. My kid's teachers get home-baked treats and their birthday cakes are homemade mostly because every other mom I know buys them at the grocery store. Recent conversation: Friend: "Your sugar cookies are delicious! Mine are never this good." Heather's "out-loud" voice: "Thanks! They're really easy" Heather's inner snark voice: "Of course they are you dink, they only have five ingredients, unlike the slice and bake crap." Anyone else? 'Fess up!

Thanks Dean. We'll be arriving Friday after dropping the kids off with my mother for the weekend. I can't think of a better way to spend our anniversary than with 100 pounds of barbecue. Edit to say I just bought our tickets.

Dean, will you be asking members to help prep and cook? And is someone willing to get a group "eG rate" at a local hotel?

Good call. Adding it to my list.

Hm, to my palate regular Coke (especially the stuff made with real sugar) tastes so much better than Diet Coke with nutrasweet. I'm headed to another grocery store today to see if they have 6-packs of DC w/Splenda. If I can find it might just replace Diet Pepsi Vanilla and Diet Barq's as my regular soda.

I picked one of these up yesterday at Target. Just out of the refrigerator it tasted like regular Coke. So much better than the old diet Coke. Funny thing though - Target had individual bottles in the refrigerated section but no 6-packs for sale. I tried to find it at my grocery and could only find the 2 liter size. I hope availability improves.

Not really. I never went even when I could walk to it.

What's not to love in Rockville... I had dinner at the Clyde's at Tower Oaks Lodge (not my choice, I had voted for Black Market ) last night with a bunch of moms from Emma's school. The calamari was competent, my salad was a little underdressed but good, my main dish... might have been the worst meal I've had so far this year, and that includes frozen pizza. Seared Scallops with pancetta & asparagus, over mashed potatoes sounded OK but the execution left much to be desired. Diced asparagus mixed with too much salty bacon was tossed with what was obviously frozen peas 'n' carrots and dumped, with its liquid around indifferent mashed potatoes. It was topped with a generous serving of utterly tasteless scallops, with almost no color despite being "seared". Bleah. Dessert was some Hawaiian thing served in half a pineapple It was good - pineapple, mango and strawberries over coconut ice cream and pound cake - but was obviously meant to serve 3 people. I wound up eating the fruit and leaving the rest. I talked the ladies out of a California chard and we drank a Yalumba Viognier instead - and it was the best part of the meal.

Well, since Good Fortune was right across the street it seemed easier to go there than drive to NYC once a week. Dynasty was very good, and as a bonus was open very late. It got a lot of our post-club 1am business. The site of the Wheaton Little Tavern is now an office building. Sigh.

Dusit used to be excellent, but I have not eaten there in 5-6 years. Ruan Thai was/is better, but it's a hole in the wall so we always got carryout. What about Good Fortune? I remember it being very good but have not been in a long time. And Dynasty is closed now, right?

There's always Barnaby's. Lots of rednecks drinking beer after their softball games. Here's a list and map of Wheaton restaurants.

Yes Ruan Thai, yes Marchones, yes Hollywood East. If it's still there, Bonifant Books was one of our favorite haunts. Store is on Georgia but there's a back entrance in the Triangle. If you go a little farther up Georgia there's the Han A Reum grocery store. Worth a trip. The Royal Mile Pub. 2407 Price Ave. Edit to say: I knew.

It's also simply not true that the children are always in charge in the United States. I am afraid this is turning into another blah blah blah Americans are such bad parents blah Americans eat shitty food blah blah blah Americans are fat blah blah, etc. Therese said upthread: And that's a big difference. Not all American parents leave the bad ones at home - not everyone here has Grandmere to watch them while the parents go out.

We tried a new addition to downtown Rockville yesterday. After working in the yard all morning we decided on the spur of the moment to go out to lunch. We ended up at the stylish new Miss Saigon, across the street from the under-construction Town Center site. We shared spring rolls and calamari to start. Both were tasty, especially the juicy spring rolls. The kids split the marinated grilled salmon which came with a pile of rice noodles topped with fried shallots, and some grilled tomato, green pepper, and onion. They finished all of it. I tried long noodles with grilled chicken and shrimp that reminded me very much of Pad Thai. Scott had Hanoi grilled pork, tasty but a little dry. My MIL's clay pot caramel shrimp started sweet, with a kick of heat that built up over time. We all had the excellent fresh lemonade with our meals. Prices were very reasonable - lunch for 5 was $80, including tax and tip. I had lunch there with friends a week ago and the shrimp salad and Vietnamese iced coffee were very good. It's a pretty space, somewhat hampered but the lack of obvious parking nearby. Street parking is down the block and around the corner, or you can pay to park in a garage on West Middle Lane. The dining room was 1/4 full yesterday, but it does brisk lunch business from the nearby courthouse and Judicial Center during the week, and gets some dinner business from folks going to the nearby movie theater. If they can hang on until the town center is built their location will pay off.

Chef Vikram Garg's Updated baked chicken, from an article written by Monica Bhide. It was delicious despite being cooked a little too long. New potatoes with cumin from Mahdur Jaffrey's Quick and Easy Indian Cooking. I love this cookbook. The were delicious. Potaoes were boiled for 10 minutes, peeled, sauteed with cumin seed, ground cumin, cayenne, garam masala, and salt, then sprinkled with chopped cilantro. I added some sauteed onions with the spices. Basmati rice, some mixed vegetable pickle, and steamed peas. Homemade sugar cookies for dessert. These are great, especially now that I have a good supply of coarse crystals to top them with. Crunchy sugar and chewy cookie.

I will be sitting on my ass eating bon-bons and guzzling a bottle of wine while my darling husband and children prepare my meal. No idea what's planned, but if it's steak that's great. My MIL will be here, so maybe two bottles of wine.

The grapefruit is delicious with gin. It's my go-to, easy weeknight cocktail now.

I nominate the Egg McMuffin. Surprisingly edible, and self-contained enough to scarf in the car on road trips.