Busboy

If you're interested in channeling your inner hippie, the Tabard Inn, just around the corner from Dupont Circle is a fun hotel and its parlor, with antique furniture arranged around the fireplace, is one of the best places in the city to have a cocktail. The restaurant tends to fluctuate in quality but is, I've heard, on an upswing. I second the steakhouse suggestion, it's one thing Americans do better than anyone. I'm partial to The Palm, more for the scene than the good -- if not exceptional -- beef. Very Washington. Also, I'd suggest a night at the Cafe Atlantico Mini-Bar, which is great fun and, at times, stunningly good. Washington also has probably the best Ethiopian restaurant scene in the country. If you've never tried it, you should. A current favorite is Addis Ababa. Very local, and a bit threadbare, but a classic ethnic place where you are certain to hear a lot more Amharic than English. It's also walking distance from three different nightlife neighborhoods, if you're in the mood to hit the clubs after dinner. Citronelle is great. And Trio's restaurant, 17th and Q, remains the only place I know where you can wash back a turkey club and fries with a bottle of Opus One.

Even by "roaring 80's" standards, it did seem a little excessive.

Although, I once saw Yanik Cam at Le Pavillon pour a half-bottle of d'Yquem into a gelee. I can't remember much else about the dessert, I think he was creating the world's most expensive fruit 'n' jello combination (poach pears in sauterne gelee or something). But I remember him goinf down into the cellar and coming up with that hundred dollar half-bottle, and pouring it into the pot.

I didn't know that! I would have thought that the black ones would be more expensive but I don't know why I think that. Why would that be true? Just supply and demand, I guess. The white truffles do have a better reputation amongst afficionados than black truffles, so demand may be higher. Also I believe that the growing are for black truffles is much larger. At Dean & DeLuca in DC -- not the cheapest place to get them, I'm sure -- white truffles were $300 an doz, black truffles $64.

I've always had trouble coaxing significant taste and smell out of white truffles, too. I wonder if there's some technique I'm just not getting. I love the black things though, and since they're running about 1/5 the cost of white truffles, I don't worry about my white truffle troubles too much. I find that gently warming them somehow or other, significantly helps, but I'm curious to see of one of the more experienced trufflers on the board have any hints on how to maximize performance.

When I lived in the North End of Boston, we were always too poor to afford bars on Sunday, and hated the Sunday ban (we had no car). Fortunately, there was a sleazy Italian restaurant arond the corner that would sell you a bottle of rail vodka for $10/ a bottle, if you were discrete. Vodka and 7-Up -- must be Sunday.

This should be renamed "Hades," and have a sign over the door saying "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Hey...they make a fine "hangover soup" -- something with tripe. And I've never thrown up after eating there. Not that it's exactly fine dining, either.

Two Quail. The day after a late night, my wife and I took a day off work with the idea of getting a great meal for lunch. We were sucked in by the pretense of the place...very, very bad. Tuna and pork loin, both cooked to the consistency of shoe leather. We fled as fast as we could. They did, to their credit, remove both items from the check.

Stick by your guns. I think the thread is belittling and pointless. But I have to add that I know an American greasy spoon restaurant that features "bowel of oatmeal" on the breakfast menu. My late Uncle Walter was wont to say "Many people can paint signs, and many people can spell, but few can do both." Supposedly the The Palm restaurant, which offers a lot of traditional Italian in addition to the steaks, was originally to be called "Parma" restaurant, but the sign-painters screwed up. The owners, not having enough money for a new sign, stuck with the name.

I'm pretty sure I made it onto a televised cooking contest on the strength of this, relatively simple, recipe. Peach ripe, halved and peeled pears in an inexpensive dessert wine spiked with honey, with cinnamon sticks, cloves, maybe some allspice. Top with a caramel creme anglaise and roasted, crumbled hazlenuts. Dust with a little fleur du sel of sel gris (somehow, this makes the dessert). A big plus is you can cook everything beforehand and plate at your leisure. If you poach the pears and leave them floating in the liquid during dinner, they spice and wine will thoroughly penetrate the fruit. Also, use the same poaching technique and serve with lavender ice cream rather than the caramel creme. Use the poaching liquid as "broth" if you like.

My father-in-law spent his career in the liquor business. Once, he cleaned out his closet and handed the 25 years of samples, fads and god-knows-what that he never got around to drinking off to his daughter and me. Most of it was undrinkable crap -- I can't remember much, but think of any foul swill you might have shot back on a big night during the disco era, and we had some. But there was one near-full bottle of Irish whiskey, a brand we'd never heard of, apparently distilled sometime in the 1960s. We took a sip, and then another...it was wonderful stuff and we looked for it for a couple of months afterwards, to no avail. We can't remember the name, but we did learn that hard liquor lasts a long, long time, even after the bottle is open.

I hear Fat Guy has the inside track. They're looking for a neo-con to balance Frank Rich.

I was wondering...I was in a local bistro the other evening and notice cases of the stuff stacked by the bar. Thought it was strange that I hadn't seen the "Beaujolais Nouveau est arivee" signs in the window as I walked in. Kind of bumps the whole thing down from cute marketing ploy to a cheap one.

I clean as I go...until I get to the point where I realize dinner is an hour late and people are becoming unruly from drinking cheap apertif wine on an empty stomach. Then it's "damn the dirty Calphalon, full speed ahead!" By midnight, if anyone wants to help, more power to them. Then some loud music and wine while I get the place into reputable shape. Nothing worse than daylight, a bad hangover and a wrecked kitchen on a Sunday morning. Family dinners we try to keep things in control, then turn it over to the kids after dinner. We do the pots.

I've been meaning to ensure a steady supply of rubbing alcohol for posterity. As I recall, even at its best, the stuff is only supposed to last six months before it begins to fade.

Have you tried some of the Italian stuff? That's been very good recently. However, no Italian is being distributed around here this year. I always thought it was a great, fun way to get a little (OK, a lot) knackered on a bottle of glorified grape juice, back when it was $4.99 a bottle. Kind of a sign of fall. But at recent prices, it seems a waste and yea, like Tommy, I think my tatstes are changing. Might be worth return to the ring, though. So much BN was shipped back to France last year - -based on Tommy and me not drinking our share, probably -- and turned into vinegar, that prices may be a little more in line with the quality of the product this year. Or, maybe, the Beaujolais will keep prices high and use pseudo-scientific happy talk to move the product.

Dirty martinis are bad enough, but once a less ept (if not entirely inept) server brought my wife a "dirty gimlet" having misheard the order in a particularly vile way. Imagine the expression that played across Stephanie's face as she got that first sip of gin, Rose's and olive juice. To her credit, she did not spit.

Try cooking a whole pig after it's spent a night brining in your bathtub. That'll really give you the heebie jeebies. How about bathing after a pig's spent a night brining in your bathtub. I get critical if I'm trying to put on a big show (I once kicked the back fence in because I overcooked the grilled tuna for ten guests), but generally, I really like my own cooking, and Stephanie's, too. After time on the road I can't wait to get back and eat some good home cooking, even (especially?) something simple -- and onglet with garlic anchovy butter and garlic fried potatoes; quesadillas with some chorizo from the bodega up the street, black beans and homemade mango salsa; or just an omlette. What you want, when you want it, just the way you want it.

1) Eat a nutritious snack beforehand 2) Drinka a martini 3) Small portions 4) Smile and say thank you And at all times: Get over it.

By all accounts, you have no need for advice on what to do with various pig bits. But as long as you have tamarind lying around the house, you might try my good friend Gray Kunz's tamarind barbecu glaze: 1 cup tamarind 2 plum tomatoes 2C. Water 1/2 c. roughly chopped fresh ginger 1/2 C. honey 1 tbsp ground cumin 1 tbsp ground coriander seed Salt to taste throw it into a pot, simmer until the tamarind melts. Strain through a fine sieve and return to heat, stirring occasionally, until the whole things reduces to a syrup. Adjust seasonings and lacquer your favorite cut of meat with it.

Thanks for the Report, Randy. Looking forward to following your advice. Would you say that Bofinger is worth the tourist hell it appears to have become, for one dinner in what is by all reports a beautiful and historic room, or should one stick to the take-away?

Last time I was in France my wife made me ask the waiter if the tip was included, as there was no "service compris" not on the menu. The waiter replied the service was toujours inclus in France.

I always recommend a curved butcher's scimitar. Its menacing shape and size seem to have a discouraging effect on potential opponents. My one experience yanking one out of my kit (against multiple aggressors) ended in a grudging--but injury-free--detente. Sometimes it's good to be a chef. You can carry knives everywhere. I remember watching the butchers in the North End of Boston -- in the early 80's probably the greatest concentration of old-school butchers on the North American continent outside of the West Village -- whip those long, curved knives out to perform the most astoundingly delicate work on the whole spectrum of meats. I expect that with the proper training, a scimitar ,and a good boning knife, a third-generation Italian butcher could cut your nuts off in a streetfight or perform a liver transplant with an aplomb that would make a thoractic surgeon envious. You're nominating Bill the Butcher for Secretary of Defense? Whatever it takes to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

I always recommend a curved butcher's scimitar. Its menacing shape and size seem to have a discouraging effect on potential opponents. My one experience yanking one out of my kit (against multiple aggressors) ended in a grudging--but injury-free--detente. Sometimes it's good to be a chef. You can carry knives everywhere. I remember watching the butchers in the North End of Boston -- in the early 80's probably the greatest concentration of old-school butchers on the North American continent outside of the West Village -- whip those long, curved knives out to perform the most astoundingly delicate work on the whole spectrum of meats. I expect that with the proper training, a scimitar ,and a good boning knife, a third-generation Italian butcher could cut your nuts off in a streetfight or perform a liver transplant with an aplomb that would make a thoractic surgeon envious.

Damn, that was going to be my answer. Patricia Wells tries to answer this question in both the Food Lover's Guide to France" and The Food lover's Guide to Paris. She does a better job in the latter, maybe because I have a later edition and she's rethought the issue, or maybe just because she only tries to define in within the smaller context of a single city. In the third edition of the Paris guide printed ten years ago, she writes that the definition of bistro has been expanded to include a new crop of updated bistros where one finds waiters in designer uniforms and Japanese inspired raw fish dishes. Sounds like a slippery slope to me. Onion soup aside, I think a bistro should warm, welcoming and comfortable in appearance, menu and price. It seems like I read recently that people think of bistros as an extension of their living rooms, and that, to me, captures the right feel. You start shelling out for designer staffwear, furnish the place in lacquer and halogen, and start flying in exotic fish every day, the comfort level will drop and the prices will rise. It could be a great place, but it won't be a bistro (or even a bistrot). Not that I want to go mano-a-mano with Patricia Wells of this...