NeilMcD

Yes, they are per diem rates.

Ugh. Work for a pretty big company. Up until recently, they used to simply assign a meal cap for the day which was usually $55. During a trip to DC, I could usually get away with free continental breakfast at the hotel in the AM, a small salad or something for lunch and go to Morton's or some expensive place and blow the rest of the cap on a REALLY good dinner. Now, they've wised up and they place caps on each meal (eg. $10 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $35 for dinner). By doing this, you're pretty much forced to go to mid-range restaurants for dinner

Amen to this. I once made lasagna and realized that we were going to have LOTS of leftovers if we didn't add more warm bodies to the table. I invited some friends over and one of them actually asked, "Is it prego or ragu sauce?" Being a new dad, I don't always have time to make sauce from scratch and I said, "it's not prego or ragu but it is a pre-prepared sauce I got from Costco". She thought about it, then said, "ok I don't like those but I'll come to dinner anyway." Soooo... now here I am serving dinner to someone who's already decided she won't like the meal. *gah*

I kinda sorta agree with you. I also think she focuses quite a bit too much on vegetarian issues. Not to say that its bad but many of the questions she picks for the regular chats are vegetarian-related and she already has specially-scheduled hours for "those" people one thursday every month. Sietsma's chats are always great. I know people often complain about seeing the same questions appear over and over again. I believe the repetitiveness of the chats (eg, what's a great place near the white house for a party of 4?) is because the Live Online features don't have a dedicated search engine for the chats so people have to search each previous chat individually which is very time consuming (or they can use Google but the Post doesn't make that readily available). By far, the best Live-Online chat is Gene Weingarten's chats on tuesdays!

Dude, you just gave away the secret to THE best cheesesteak in the region. My wife and I were turned on to Pudges by a friend of ours who brought one of their hoagies to a get-together. The hoagie was just perfectly balanced with meats, lettuce, onions, oil and tomatoes. The cheesesteaks are just the same. There's a true balance that they achieve. It's FULL of meat, but it's not the crispy burnt steak-ummish stuff. It's real steak with just the right amount of real cheese.