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Busboy

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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  1. One of the great ironies of Woodley Park (where the Omni is located) is that the presence of two immense hotels seems to have doomed the neighborhood to the type of restaurant that unadveturous tourists and business travelers prefer. You would do well to ignore most of what you see on Connecticut Avenue as you approach -- it will only disappoint you. New Heights is indeed the obvious go-to. Regarding the others, it depends on what your definition of "long" is. I like all those mentioned, and while I wouldn't business entertain at Nam-Viet, I would eat their curried squid. My last meal at Palena was breathtakingly good; Dino is less formal but good, hearty eating.
  2. My favorite scene in the Mitchell article (available in the collection "Up in the Old Hotel," which should be read by anyone who loves New York and which also includes other food-related essays) is one in which a butcher is "shaving" a beef loin which has been aged so well that mold has begun to grow on the outside. I'll bet that was some steak. The party portrayed here seems awfully upscale compared to those described by Mitchell -- beefsteaks were the kind of event that marked a cop's promotion to lieutenant or an annual union celebration, with sawdust on the floors and the guys who bitched about women being invited -- but I think it would be a grand tradition to revive more broadly in whatever form. The 20-80 burgers described by Fat Guy are so unctuous because (traditionally, anyway) they are made from the trimmings of the steaks, and are thus far fattier than your usual grind.
  3. I was once told that a proper red wine glass should be large enough to hold the entire bottle. The bargain-line Riedels I pull out for The Good Stuff hold about 20 ounces, and I think the do enhance the taste a bit. Then again, I think that Laguiole knives make the steak taste batter, too, so I may be merely yielding to the power of suggestion. I find the whole idea that a Zinfandel needs a different glass that a Cabernet pretty absurd, though.
  4. Feel free to PM me as the date approaches for more detailed information, for whatever it's worth. I will work for lumpia.
  5. Nahhhh. Ain't no steamed crabs at Dupont (though Buster the oyster guy sells softshells in season). Thisis where you want to go. One way DC is different from the other jurisdiction in the Bay area is that that the Crab Feast is not nearly as big a deal as it is in, say, Annapolis or Norfolk. But the Maine Avenue Fish Market remains a hotbed of all things crustacean, and is the go-to spot for the entire city when it's time to steam up a bushel of Jimmies. At least one stand, possibly others, serves steamed crabs (and other steamable seafood). I seem to recall it being to your left if you're facing the river. You shouldn't have any trouble scoring the requisite hammers and tools. As much as I love the Dupont Market (where Alice Waters Herself was overheard complaining about the weather yesterday -- those Californians don't handle cold weather well), Maine Avenue is cooler that Dupont by an order of magnitude and the antithesis of "fancy." You and your kids should have a great time just walking around than checking the people and the floating stands out. It's probably a ten or 15 minute walk from the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station; if you're bringing crabs back to your room you might consider cabbing it back, depending on how walk-y you feel. It's also -- and again, depending on weather and legs -- probably less than 20 (admittedly, not particularly scenic) minutes from Air and Space, the Hirshorn, and a couple of other museums on the south side of the Mall. Have fun!
  6. Well, as you come up the East Coast through Virginia and Maryland, you definitely want to try some crabs. A little early in the season, you may have to settle for softshells. And shad roe is an increasingly popular spring dish. Hard to tell so far out but Kincaid's in DC should have it on the menu then. For the crabs, I reccomend coming up Rt. 301 (rather than 95) and keeping an eye open for something on the roadside. Cantlersremains a favorite crab house. DC has all manner of excellent food, from burgers to foie gras (or burgers with foie gras), but you may just want to slide into Little Ethiopa, in the general vicinity of 9th and T NW at hit Etete or Queen Makeda, for arguably the best Ethiopian food in the U.S.
  7. In 20 minutes, I can walk to a dozen Latin restaurants. But my favorite "Mexican" food is Velveeta microwaved with taco sauce to make nachos, best conmsumed with Tostitos. Aside from the laptop computer, I think Califoria Onion Dip is the greatest American invention ever.
  8. Where are you located? What's the competition? What are the economics of your target audience? Who doesn't love roast chicken, but are there three other decent chicken places (or pasta joints or steakhouse) nearby? What makes you suspect that there's a huge market for sous vide eggs rather than "over easy?" Not that I'm against them, there's a restaurant in DC that serves theme with black beans and crema and they're brilliant, but I'm trying to get a feel for the neighborhood. And are people really craving braised pork belly for breakfast rather than a couple of crisp rashers of apple-wood smoked? It all seems kind of the opposite of the more traditional "Sandwiches for lunch" approach. Are your potential customers willing to pay more for local/organic/free range, and will a commitment to that differentiate you? Serious pork chops are certainly traditional-yet-different dish, and I once got on a cooking show by serving them on top of a warm cabbage/apple/onion slaw, but would people recognize the difference and pay for it? ALso, are they adventurous to allow you to buy a whole hog and serve the "weird bits?" in some circles, they remain relatively rare at restaurants, keep your food costs down and there are plenty of opportunities to tweak a basic stock-red wine braise to make yours unique. Also, they nestle nicely into a pile of polenta or potatoes on a cold winter night. Also: chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Good luck!
  9. Given that Michelin only surveys New York and California, that's perhaps not the benchmark I'd choose. Not dissing new York, mind you.
  10. There's a Tom Waits song waiting to happen...
  11. If you go to a hip, new cocktail bar, look at the fruit bowl prominently displayed mid-bar, and think, "they really need to get rid of those grocery store apples and get something from the farmers market."
  12. Are you on public transport? If so, you're kind of screwed. The Whole Foods in Glover Park, just north of Georgetown, doesn't strike me as as bad as you seem to have found it. Hunt up the dry-aged prime beef. The fish there can be pretty good, as well, and the cheese selection. Get the wine across the street at Pierson's. When I go looking for meat, if I'm not at the Whole Foods I'm at Union Meats in Wienoo's new stomping grounds of Eastern Market. Bought an excellent prime rib there for Thanksgiving. There's also a passable cheese shop and, if you want to cook all nose-to-tail, you can get more obscure bits of pork. The fishmonger there is to be avoided at all costs. The Dean & DeLuca in Georgetown generally has a very limited fish and meat selection and it's pricey, but it's usually damn good. My thought for the best fish in town is the market at Black Salt, which isn't exactly around the corner but is probably only three turns from Wisconsin Avenue (where I assume you're staying). Best fish market I've ever seen not in Crete. Also, it's next to a no-longer-brilliant-but-still-passable bakery and one of the best wine stores in town. I've never been a huge fan of Wagshal's butcher shop, but in deference to the many whom I respect and who are indeed big fans, and to the fact that the directions are brutally simple -- "go down Wisconsin to Massachusetts and take a right(west) and go to the District line" -- I include it. Finally, assuming that you're staying in Cathedral/Cleveland Park, the best Indian Restaurant (Heritage of India) and the best strip club (Good Guys) are across the street from one another, just down the hill from Wisconsin Avenue. Just sayin'.
  13. Thinking back to my early days as budding gourmet, I don't recall all courses being prepared tableside but quite often they were finished there -- I can recall tuxedoed waiters rolling carts next to the table, firing up a gas burner and finishing off a steak and its sauce for me. Very elegant. Years later, when I waited tables at a nouvelle joint of some distinction, the chef probably would have slit his wrists rather than let a mere waiter mess with one of his fastidious platings.
  14. My daughter has decided that the likes to make cakes. Particular, fondant-icing cakes to whose decoration she devotes far more time and intensity than she has ever devoted to her homework or her room-cleaning. She's looking for a cookbook that offers cake and other icing recipes, but I think her greatest interest would lie in decorating techniques. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
  15. The chef used to work at a respected if not beloved restaurant call Asia Nora and his work with Asian themes is usually very good. Given Chef Monis's Greek roots, I'd suggest that the smell is rather of the Ionian Coast of the Peloponnese...
  16. If I'm actually tally talking to a chef, I'll often address them as "chef". There was a time when it seemed to indicate you'd been around a restaurant kitchen (though on the wrong side of the line, in my case) and also that you recognized the chef as more than "the help." Nowadays, of course, everyone's seen Hell's Kitchen and calls all chefs "chef" and I continue to do it because I think titles are fun (I was once enough of an old hand that I could address a Cabinet Secretary but by his given name, but I preferred to use the title) and I err on the side of formality. On the other hand, in writing, referring to someone as Chef So-and-so here seems a little stiff, if not actually pretentious. Keller, Ripert, Ducasse, EZ and RJ here in Washington, Obama, Tiger, Scalia...no need to follow the New York Times style book.
  17. One thing to keep in mind given your tight schedule is that, if you are actually going up in the Eiffel Tower lines can be dreadfully long so you might make it a first stop and get there before it opens. Also, as you make the long walk to the Mona Lisa, you pass a couple other less-well-known (but cooler, IMHO than the Mona Lisa and, as I recall, prominent in the Da Vinci Code, if you've slogged through that) Da Vinci's. Also, don't miss "Sammy" as my friend calls "Winged Victory of Samothrace. But, to food. I suggest that in addition to your dinner out, you consider prolonging the magic, as it were, by stocking up on picnic supplies for noshing the next day. A few minutes in one of the city's market streets (Rue Cler is not far from the tower) should yield a bounty for noshing on the long flight back home, it's a great way to extend the vacation for a few hours more. Customs, alas, isn't as romantic about these matters as they might be, so more than can be eaten on the plane might be wasted (meats, especially, are verboten), but jarred foie gras and vacuum sealed cheese have been waved through before. With a bottle or two of wine and some only slightly stale bread from a Paris boulangerie, you might even get a picnic in your living room out of the trip.
  18. We are lucky, I guess, because the bodegas in DC still have cheap and plentiful skirt steak. Sometimes when I'm in the Whole Foods I do a double take -- they charge almost twice what the Mercado Internationale around the corner from my house charges. Speaking of criminally under-appreciated, I'd go with salt cod, which makes about six different excellent apps.
  19. While this is near the top of the charts, let me add a special request for anything in the way of 'cue or Tex-Mex on the greater Richardson-Fort Worth corridor. Christmas and brothers' house in Richardson and probably over to FW for the museum/heck of it Saturday or Sunday. We will travel outside that for wither variety though it, sadly, sounds like we'll be far from prime brisket country. Speaking of which, are either types of spots traditionally closed Sunday?
  20. Around my house the main quote is WWTD? What Would Thomas [Keller] Do? And also (apropos of the Voltaire quote earlier): *Either* "How can you govern a nation that has 246 kinds of cheese?" *Or* "Nobody can simply bring together a country that has 265 kinds of cheese." -- Charles de Gaulle My suspicion, knowing politicians as I do, is that once he'd found a decent line, he probably said both.
  21. The result always looks fattier than it tastes. Do not cut back, it is morally wrong to do so. I never did it with Great Northerns, but I find that flagelots work very well and are generally less mushy than GNs. I've found that a good crust takes at least three or four "crackings," though cheating with bread crumbs and the broiler is acceptable.
  22. Lettie Teague shows a distinctly ungracious streak in the holiday (December) issue of Food and Wine, revealing that when she arrives at your dinner party with a bottle of plonk, she's not actually concerned whether you like it, whether it will appropriately accompany the dinner you prepared, or whether you spent many hours and many dollars buying wines yourself. She's only interested in your being sufficently impressed with her excellent judgment that you will take what she brought, open it up and serve it back to her. "My ex-husband, Alan, spends more time trying to figure out how to ensure his bottles will be opened than he does choosing the wine....Some people might think it odd to care so much about the fate of a bottle once it's handed over. But I've found that the people who don't care whether or not their wines are opened don't invest much in them, emotionally or financially." Apparently she has two groups of acquaintences, ridiculously generous people who are unfortunately eager to dictate the host's wine selctions,("This isn't true of my collector friends. When they bring wine, they always expect that the bottles will be opened and applauded. Sometimes, in fact, they bring bottles that are already open; for example, my friend The Collector...") and horrid types with so little taste that one wonders why she deigns to associate with them ("I once brought a terrific California Chardonnay to a new neighbor's house, and the wife handed it back to me, saying, "We only drink red." I opened my bottle and drank it while the couple downed a cheap Chilean Merlot.") Though I am no expert on etiquette, I have always been taught that anything one brings unasked to a party is a gift, and one does not demand that a gift you have presented to someone be opened and given back. (And I have it from a semi-reliable source that expecting a Frenchman to open a bottle of wine to replace one that he selected is an insult tantamount to spitting on the carpet.) At my parties, we almost always run out of wine and open anything that's been brought around, usually the somewhat cheaper stuff that many of my friends prefer (though once a Magnum of first growth Bordeax to accompany a cassoulet, and there's been some Burgundy). But my dinner parties are hardly respectable affairs and we'd drink Mad Dog if it was the only thing in the house. And sometimes, a friend offers to provide the wine and we'll coordinate, or it's some kind of cooperative effort where the non-cookers become the wine bringers. But "how can I contribute?" is vastly different from "let's drink my stuff rather than the piss you bought." I mean, why not just drop by Popeye's and pick up the entree, as well? An altogether grotesque piece of wine snobbery, of the type that makes people think that knowing anything about wine makes you an insufferable boor.
  23. So, how was dinner? Was it the monster loaf from Quail Creek? It has a truly unique taste, to me. By the way, for whatever reason I decided the other day that The Basement Tapes is somehow the best album ever for a crisp autumn afternoon.
  24. A lot of bakers make good bread that I like. The sourdough and the rye from Atwater, the Pugliese from Quail Creek, even the some of the corporate artisanal stuff from Pain Quotidian. But I am increasingly convinced that there hasn't been a decent baguette in this town since before the Bread Line got sold. The other day I broke down and bought a baguette from Marvelous Market and it seemed as good as anything around. It's all edible. It's none of it memorable. You know what I need: a rich brown crust that audibly crackles as you tear through it, enveloping a creamy, bubbly mie that taste of yeast and heaven and the finest flour. And, speaking of heaven, coming back from the morning errands to a crispy little ficelle smeared with sweet butter and enclosing sliced of hard salami or saucisson sec, washed back with a rustic red wine is pretty close, as well. I don't think they exist at all any more. Any suggestions? (Anyone suggesting Bonapart Bakery will be shot, by the way).
  25. Arlington is pretty close to the Courthouse Metro, a relative slog from downtown but probably the best Saturday market in the area. Two good bread stands (he monster-sixe Pugliese loaf from Quail Creek is pretty fantastic; you can get a half loaf if you're not feeding ten) and the legendary Eco-friendly meats, as well as local favorite Toigo orchards (you'll find both Eco-friendly and Toigo all over high-end menus here and even in NYC). U Street andMt. Pleasant (Columbia Heights Metro) are both quick shots up the green line. At Mt. Pleasant look for Tree and Leaf for produce, Atwater for excellent sourdough and Truck Patch if you're in the mood for pork.
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