Busboy

That whole block near Cleveland Park on the Red Line has some great places that serve good food at the bar. In addition to Palena, Indique has gotten good notices on this board for its Indian food, Yanyu has excellent Asian and both Ardeo and Bardeo serve decent "new American. Even if you're unfamiliar with the neighborhood, you can't miss the restaurants when you come up the subway escalators. One stop down, at Dupont Circle, Bistro du Coin (North -- uphill -- on Connectut Avenue 2 blocks) has good food and a fun atmosphere, but probably too crowded unless you go early or late. Near the Dupont South exit...Shoot me, but I like the Palm and used to eat at the bar there when I lived out of town for a while. Great if you like martinis and beef and oysters. Just across 19th St. between M and N, Sam and Harry's has the same food as the Palm, only better. But James Carville never drops by and they don't shoot scenes from "K Street" there. And on P street, between 20th and 21st, look for Pesce or Jonny's Half Shell for seafood, or Sala Thai, for Thai. Not positive that Pesce has a bar, but the seafood is as good as Jonny's and the crowds are smaller. Sala Thai also has a branch up in Woodley Park, in the strip mall, but I don't think the food is as good. Try the Nam Sod if you go to the P Street location. 19th, P St.and Connecticut all intersect the circle and are easy to find. Must be getting old - I spend as much time eating at bars as drinking at them. EDIT: PS Second the Nectar nomination and probaly the best spot I know to drink a wide variety of moderately-priced wines by the glass (and talk to the sommelier about them, if he isn't to busy in his other jobs as Host and co-owner). It's on the New Hampshire Avenue, a couple of blocks from the Blue Line towards the Kennedy Center. And probably the best bar food in town (with due respect to Palens), if you don't mind dropping a little more change, is French-Belgian Marcel's on 25th and Pennsylvania. Penn and New Hampshire both intersect Washington Circle, if you need to get your bearings.

Except today -- cabbies out on strike (along with sanitation workers, university professors, health care workers and various other trades). Am hoping to get to Piraeus and would like to dine there, but I can't stay out past midnight, when the subway closes. As it appears you know, that's like going to dinner and having to be back for the babysitter by 8 o'clock in the US. Will explore the other suggestions and report back -- maybe we can build a database before hundreds of e-gulleters descend on Athens for the Games next year.

I stumbled into Vaselka's (sp?) in the east Village about 4AM one morning, after seeing the Dead at Madison Square Garden. We'd decided we needed laktkes and had cabbed it down from the Grammercy Park (I NY) and parked at the long counter under the flourescent light, still barely able to speak coherently. Behind the counter: dozens of loaves of Fink bread, stacked like cordwood for the morning breakfast rush. Admittedly, you had to be there - not just the diner, but the higher plane we were playing on, as well -- but it was one of the funniest things we'd ever seen in our lives. "Fink means good bread" is still a legendary slogan in the Busboy household. Otherwise, I always liked Andy Griffith reminding me that "everything's better when it sits on a Ritz."

I've been travelling to Athens recently for work, and am having a hard time finding truly good restaurants, either at the taverna or at the fine dining level. Some good fish here and there and one really good place near my hotel in Kiffisia (I can't transliterate the name from the business card, but it specializes in traditional, local food, updated, kind of an Aegean Chez Panisse). Most nights, I end up with a forgettable taverna meal or something non-Greek. Any guidance, particularly if it's near a subway stop or obvious landmark, would be appreciated.

"Alcoholic," eh? You can't say that about me and my friends. As soon as my hands stop shaking I'm going to kick your ass As a matter of fact, DrinkBoy, many of them occurred the other night at my house.

I hate when the first course comes out before the wine. It just feels wrong and I'll sit there, stewing (while the first course "unstews") until the wine arrives. I also hate touchy-feely servers, which was something of a problem when I lived in in Denver. I'm disappointed that you just served the last order of the special, but I don't need you to put your arm over my shoulders and feel my pain, OK?

England? Hell, you can't even click "District of Columbia" when you sign up for the quiz, even though you can register as a resident of Puerto Rico or the "U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands." As if not having a vote on congress weren't already bad enough! I wonder if the Post Office will look at the zip code and send the thing to my house, or just hunt around until they come up with someone in Washington, Maryland to send it to. A 95%, by the way. Which I attribute wholly to the close relationship to The Force, French Chapter, I achieved with two glasses of wine at lunch.

In my experience, the gin is far more likely to bruise me, than I am to bruise the gin, no matter how hard I shake it.

Bummer. You'd think Boston would have more effective historic preservation laws... I seem to recall a decent Chinese place that was open late, as well. But, as I further seem to recall, it was located next to a strip club, so there was a strong risk that a poor waiter (probably in every sense) like myself might find himself too broke for a decent meal by the time I finally made it from the latter establishment into the former. Judgement being clouded by alcohol and all.

For years, my brother and I would drink (or whatever) and hit the Waffle House nearest our parents' suburban Atlanta home about midnight Christmas Eve/Day. Hash Browns, scattered and smothered. Never attempt this menu while sober. My favorite thing about Waffle House is they way they yell out the orders, which is sadly falling by the wayside as they computerize. Thus, my standard order: "Egg and cheese plate, double the plate, scattered, smothered, covered and diced" which translates into an egg and cheese sandwich (with 1 mayo packet and 2 pickle chips on the side) with a double order of hash browns with onions, diced tomato, and cheese. Some days I really miss the South. Jamie It's not just the calling, it's watching the cook move in syncopated response -- working the grill and the griddle at top speed, spatula scraping time, and the steady sizzle as he crack one-two-three-four eggs, one after the other, two over easy and two over hard. And the divorced waitress with the truckdriver boyfriend who's so nice to her kids and is driving all night to be there on Christmas day. Laughing and flirting and calling you "hon" even though she's on her feet, working under the grim flourescent Waffle House lights at 1AM on Christmas day. Even though I never lived there (parents moved when I was in college) I miss the South sometimes, too.

Is southern Indiana ready for prosecco? Just wanted to add my thirds as rose for an ideal quaffing wine with a little crawfish etouffee or even a po' boy. Be wary, though, since most of the stuff available on the US market seems to be undrinkable swill, even a lot of the French stuff. Can't miss with Bonny Doon's Cigare de Volante Vin Gris, but it strikes me as a little expensive for your needs.

For years, my brother and I would drink (or whatever) and hit the Waffle House nearest our parents' suburban Atlanta home about midnight Christmas Eve/Day. Hash Browns, scattered and smothered. Further north: Cheesesteaks. In Boston, half-way between The Beacon Hill Pub ("No Leathers or Gang Colors," though it appears to have cleaned up since I was a regular) and my North End apartment lay Buzzy's. We all swore that they put some addictive drug in the food, why else would anybody eat anything from such a grimy place? The local joke was that it was staffed by prisoners from the nearvby jail. Order at the window and wait outside until your number is called. DC: Trios. Extra hots. A throwback to the days before a two-bedroom condo in Dupon Circle cost 300 grand. Philly: whichever has the shortest line. Pat's? Jim's? I can never keep their names straight, for obvious reasons. Watch out for frat boys pissing on your car while you wait.

reported in the LA Times, but the restaurant is in Evanston, Illinois.

Jellybean, thanks for the additional information on the violets. It is perhaps indicative of their worth that they are so little known to this board -- were they equally obscure but as forwardly delightful as, say, truffles, I'm sure we would all know more. To me, regardless of their merits, they will always be the taste of four days on the Cote d'Azur that fell into my lap -- probaly four of 14 days I have spent on the road with my wife, alone, since the first child was born a decade-and-a-half ago and -- along with that overnight to NYC for the dead (midnight snack at Vaselka's, lunch on a hangover at Bouley)-- the most compelling. I look forward to the opprotunity to develope a dislike for them. I'll leave it to Viking to digest your deconstruction od Jouani. But I will say that it conjured images of the old Monty Python skit, a dozen vikings with long blonde lockes, beards and horned helmets sitting aroung the restaurant table singing... Spam, Spam Spam,Spam, Spam, spam, Spam Spam. Wonderful Spam, lovely Spam....

"No. We were in the right place at the right time — and this was just the third course in what would be a 26-course, 15-wine, four-hour dinner. Our dinner had begun with a thin sheet of green zebra tomato wrapped around a piece of watermelon, suspended in a juniper gel. It went on — and on and on — to include caviar with kola nut ice and milk foam; a liquefied "salad" made from greens that had been juiced, frozen and turned into a granité, a sort of a vegetable snow cone on a plate ... and eight desserts, including one made with foie gras and another composed of mustard seed cake encased in thin sheets of Venezuelan chocolate." Evergreen vapor and mozzarella balloons You have to register to get the full LA Times article, but it's free (Just like NYT).

If it's on my plate and it ain't cooked, it'd better be sushi or salad. Otherwise it's going to be sent back to the kitchen to be cooked properly. What, no carpaccio?

First - a better nickname. "Foodie" sounds like "Trekkie" in too many ways, conjuring images of people with no real life who gain comfort from a shared obsession. It sounds like dilletante housewives and boorish attorneys who enjoy the expense and obscurity of their food and wine more than the taste and experience of it. It sounds like a high school club. There has to be a term somewhere between "gourmand" and "epicure" -- which sound pretentious, regardless of the dictionary definition -- and "foodie" that we can adopt, beginning right here on eGullet. Second, if I may venture into a little Vonnegutian analysis, the "foodie" phenomenon as a false karass is profoundly irritating. People using food as an excuse to climb socially, find a date, or demonstrate the superiority of their taste, sophistication or wallets are odious dinner guests and boring at parties. They are like people who listen to talk radio and then offer deep insights into the political scene. And, at thet end of the day, they will socialize with you, or not, for all the "wrong" reasons. On the other hand, the true karass -- say, the folks at Varmint's this week-end -- have food as their first priority and will accept and even revel in other differences because there is a true common bond. In fact, even social climbers, people looking for dates and (worst of all, perhaps because there are so many of them) those with more money and taste than myself can be delightful dining companions because we have in comman an appreciation and affecion for fine food and those who produce it. Finally, people who find artisans cute, without an idea of the hard work barbecuers or cheesemakers or butchers or French chefs must do or an appreciation for the extraordinary goods they produce, should have their baseball caps forcibly turned bill-forward and their Lexii (?) dinged by reckless valets.

This is an amazing cheese shop, just around the corner from Marche Rue Claire, which - if not fabulous -- is worth a drop by if you need a few other items to go with the cheese to make your picnic complete. There's an artisanla bread make not far from there, but the name and address escape me. I wandered into Marie Anne Cantin on my way back to the hotel after a morning exploring the catacombs -- not pretty. The local matron who was at the counter out looked at me with the same expression the French usually reserve for American "Camembert" or some other abomination, and positively recoiled when I noticed her staring and said "bonjour." Nonetheless, the staff was delightful, offering samples and suggestions in perfection fromagerie Franglais ("you weel find thees one....tres fort"). I remeber walking out with what would have been a week's worth of cheese for about 20 euros and thinking "god, I love this country."

Ten people around the dining room table is discreet? Your sex life must be, um, distinctive.

A lot of French Internet Cafes offer american keyboard ("klavier Americain") if you ask. A lot of times, if you speak any French at all, it won't occur to them to offer one, though (until they hear you cursing after your 84th a-q (revered on French keyboard) typo.

Over the years we've learned to look for the towns along the route as we navigate and it becomes easy to pick the right exit. Usually we can tell which one we want from the signs as we enter the circle. If my wife has the map, she will give me the name of the town as well as whether it's the first, second or third exit off the circle. We did get better at it as we travelled, just had to get out of that American mindset that demands something simple on a roadsign, like "Rt 66 West." Ever notice that there are picninc spots about every 800 feet on a lot of French roads?

knowing that pete has spent some time in NewJersey, i don't think he had much of a problem with traffic circles. Thye're different in France -- a nation of 10 thousand traffic circles but not a single "Circle Diner". Great country, but finding two eggs over easy with bacon, hash browns and whole wheat toaste wouldn't have been bad, either.

Driving was definitely worth it, but a little scary at first. The highway may as well have no speed limit, the traffic lights are the size of golf balls, finding parking is almost impossible, and on some of the backstreets I think I had about 12" of clearance on either side of the car. But it was alot of fun after I got used to it. How about those traffic circles? After a week on the road, I was using them to my advantage, circling two or three times while the whole family consulted maps to see which road we needed to take.

I hope you're not on the other side of whatever bat I end up in tonight. I thought that condescending attitude was reserved for sommeliers (kidding, Mark) and Maitre d's still trapped in the 60s.

I used to see a wine aound called "Grateful Red," but I believe it was non-alcoholic. Funny thing is that Bobbie was always reported to be the band's wine snob, with Jerry subsisting on junk food and milkshakes.