Busboy

Blackie Auger died earlier this year, his namesake steakhouse hosted its final service last night, in Washington's West End.[Post article here] You probably didn't notice Blackie or his restaurants' passing if you moved to Washington after the early 80's. But, if you went out for beef and martinis here between the Eisenhower and the Reagan Administrations -- before the Great Steakhouse Wave began to wash over DC -- or tried to get laid here between the time bell-bottoms went out of style and the time men's suspenders did, Blackie may have touched your life. A couple stand out for me: When Dad would pop around to visit me here at college, I'd get him to take me to the flagship Blackie's house of beef, an old-school power meal kind of place, where you could spot Senators and lobbyists and the like. When he didn't, friends and I would sometimes go to Blackie's Jr., near the OEOB, which offered an inexpensive midweek steak/potato/salad/beer special if you you could produce a college ID. I spent more than a couple of nights at Deja Vu, allegedly the birthing ground of many a late-'70s tryst but for me the place I learned just how hard it is to talk to pretty girls in bars and how easy it is for them to look right through you, especially when you're 18 and broke. Others had a better time than I did, evidently, the place was routinely packed. And it always struck me that the Ha'Penny Lion was ground zero for yuppie lust about the time that the term "yuppie" was created. But by then I was happily out of circulation and was able to enjoy the energy crrated by beer, loud music and hormone-laced 20-somethings with good clothes and the confident smiles the easy-money Reagan era seemed to rain down on so many. None of Blackie's restaurants and bars will be missed for their food, but Blackie himself -- the millionaire with a ninth-grade education and someone who put money into Washington when the smart money was running away -- will be. More on his life and business holdings here.

If stealing condiments is moral outrage, I think we must also look askance at those who accumulate uncounted pachages of soy sauce, duck sauce and mustard from Chinese delivery places. We all know at least one of these wastrels: you're looking for a fork or a corkscrew or an airline bottle of Jack Daniels in their kitchen and suddenly you come upon a lifetime supply of plastick packets -- a waste of natural resources on par with owning a Hummer or the breast augmentation industry. These people should be shunned, and their condiments recycle or distributed to the needy.

(Got a call from the forces of rectitude -- or their paid organizers, anyway -- asking if I wanted to be part of the rent-a-crowd in the City City Council Chamber for something I didn't quite catch, probably an attempt to toughen the anti-smoking bill somehow. Apparently they didn't catch me at The Raven the other night where I personally smoked between 4 and 600 cigarettes.) Stumbled across this guide to completely smoke-free restaurants in DC (no smoking even at the bar). I thought that it would give ammunition to us degenerate-libertarian types who think there should be a couple places where a guy can have a beer and a smoke at the end of a tough day -- there are a lot of really good spots on the list, and it doesn't even count the ones that only allow smoking in the bar area -- and no City Council Hearings were required. I also thought it would be a useful guide for those wanting to keep their lungs more pristine than mine are. Happy New Year.

I'm happy to report that La Colline still exists if you've got a yen for old school French. Same location. Indy 67 ← Haven't heard much about La Colline in years, since I used to work on the Hill. Have you been lately? How are they doing?

Went to La Chaumiere last night with HGShorter and had one of those "why am I not here every week?" moments. Great cassoulet, great quennelles de brochette -- pike mousse in a lobster bisque-ish sauce. May be the best old school French in town. Not that there aren't a dozen French joints worth going to, at every price level. But Quennelles? Tripe a la Caen? Cous Cous special Wednesday and Cassoullet on Thursday? What great stuff, and in a wonderful, warm little spot full of the Old Georgetown types in tweed and understated jewelry that almost make you feel like a cave-dweller yourself. I did notice that the restaurant is only participating during lunch, in which case, see the "Ladies Who Lunch" thread.

Let's see. I didn't see Les Halles on the list, it's not that expensive anyway and I'd rather just hit it randomly one night when I was in a steak/frites/red wine mood, preferably after 9PM when the tourists are gone and the service gets a little better. If I was doing Indian I would do Rasika, which I think is going to be both hipper and better thgan IndeBleu (though I confess I haven't been to IndeBleu). Think of it as your roll of the dice. I wouldn't do Hanks on the general strategy that it's a busy, wait-in-line kind of place in general and I suspect dining there would be even more harried RW. Recent Galileo gossip and experience has been dicy. Might be a good RW pick on the theory that it's too inconsistent to risk the big money on. On the other hand, it might be worth blowing off in favor of eating at the Osteria on a non-RW week night and getting good Italian dirt cheap. Kaz looks like a great call. Others not on your list that I would consider: La Chaumiere, especially if you can get the cassoulet on Thursday, and also because it's a wonderful place to find yourself on a cold afternoon (I'm going tonight, I''ll report back; Circle Bistro: similar in style to BdC and les Halles but Brendan Cox definitely is the better chef; Zengo: new and hip, why not?

Since I'm not using it to make a "refined" sauce I use whatever pork comes cheap and has the requisite combination of bone and meat needed to get a decent flavor, hence the neck bones, which are cheap and plentiful in my 'hood. I usually don't bother to brown them, nor do I use tomato, but I do throw in a pig's foot to gelatine the stuff up (another Keller suggestion), leeks, onion, carrot etc.

We Aussies really do love our lamb. I have noticed that over your side of the puddle that you have a preference for beef and pork. Do Americans eat much lamb? Sorry getting off topic! Doc-G ← It's my imrpession that many Americans think of lamb as "gamey" tasting and won't go near it. I believe this arises from the old U.S. tradition of overcooking lamb (I'm positive that's what my grandmother did to my father, who now dislikes lamb), which does bring out an unfortunate flavor. Lori: that pork and saurkraut sounds great.

I'm sure you must have heard of Clark-Lewis, which I liked quite a bit when I was there. We had a spectacular NY-style pie at Apizza Scholls, whom the proprietor of a nearby wine shop referred to as the "Pizza Nazi." They told me that I could only have three toppings on mine -- and cheese counted as one -- and are, apparently purists to the point where they can be irritating. Nonethelss, excellent pizza and, as required of all Portland Restaurants, good local brew on tap and decent wine by the glass.

Hi Busboy, Lamb shanks are really popular here in Australia. The addition of Old Bay was a complete afterthought and I did not even know what it tasted like! I had just received it from our American neighbours for christmas after I had been asking them every question under the sun about the US cuisine (big fan of Steve Raichlen and Charlie Trotter). They got their family who was visiting to bring some Old Bay seasoning. I added it because it seemed to have everything in it and it looked like it would do the job for seasoning the shanks (I would normally have just have used salt, pepper and some chilli). I got the idea to serve it with risotto from one of the main courses at our wedding four years ago at the Landmark hotel in London which was 'braised beef shin with pearl barley risotto'. The meat was soft and unctuous and with the risotto, the dish was almost 'naughty' in the way that chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce would be naughty! I thought this combination would be a nice adaptation. My parents and in-laws thought it was to 'die for' so I was happy! Cheers, Doc-G ← You Aussies do have a bit of a reputation for lamb, so I guess it's not surprising that you've mastered the shank. And the fact that the Greek diaspora washed heavily over Sydney and other Autralian cities (I worked with the Greek Olympic Committee and learned a lot of these odd facts) may not be entirely coincidental, the Greeks being as good at lamb-cooking as you appear to be in Oz. Living just upriver from the Chesapeake Bay -- we put the bay in Old Bay -- I am a little surprised to hear you using it on lamb so far from its home. I always think of it as a local treasure and never expect to see it more than an hour's drive from Baltimore or my home town of Washington, DC. I'll have to give it a try on soemthing besides crab. -Bus

(Boy, I thought I discovered lamb shanks but now they're everywhere. And we're eating better for it. Doc-G, it's not something that would occur to most non-Greeks, I think, but lamb shanks and risotto is something you might stumble across in Athens, if your karma was going particularly well that day. Though not, I suspect, with Old Bay). First recipe: buy a copy of the French Laundry Cookbook and cook the shortribs. Typical Keller/Rullman blabbery. "What we're doing is taking cheaper, tougher cuts of meat and transforming them..." Yeah, cheaper cuts of meat plus the bottle of wine and quart-and-a-half of stock you need to make the recipe. It probably works out cheaper to buy a prime dry-aged strip and serve it with good bernaise than to make the short ribs. No matter, it's a brilliant recipe and you'll learn how to braise by making it. Second recipe: Get a pork butt, throw it in a bottle or two of decent gewurtztraminer or riesling (see - I learned my TK braising lesson well) some leeks, carrots, onion, parsley, bay leaf etc. (Keller does this thing where he boils off the alcohol in the wine. I don't know if the alcohol damages the meat, as he alleges, but boiling does seem to release the flavors from the vegetables and aromatics. Just boil the marinade and, to amuse the kids or your guests, call them in and strike a match over the marinade, and enjoy the cool blue flame until the alcohol is gone.) Anyways, after the butt sits in the marinade for a day or so, brown it (this is a pain) and throw it in a pot of pork stock (we think neck bones make a good, cheap stock), apple cider, the marinade, and -- if you're feeling rich -- some Calvados. You can chop up some onions and apples, too. Braise at 275 for many hours, cool overnight, skim the fat, strain the cooking liquid and rewarm gently. It should be falling apart done. Serve with sauteed apples and more Gewurtztraminer.

Too inconsistent for what the charge for dinner, when I went there. Some brilliant cooking, some stuff that was just plain bad. Also, saw the same half-bottle of red I drank for literally half the price at BdC which put me in a bad mood. I'd be willing to try it again at lunch, though. Back when I worked for Yannick at le Pavillon, the lunch was one of the best bargains in town, I'd bet it's the same at Paradou.

I think Georgetown Bagle Bakery can play in the big leagues; I prefer New York-style pizza to "authentic" pizza, as served by 2Amy's (though I love them for other reasons) and I am eager to hear your Chinese reccomendations. I suspected as much. All New Yorkers consider it their birthright to trash DC's bagels, pizza and Chinese. ← ←

A field trip to all-Vietnamese all the time Eden Center is always a blast. Aside from checking out the grocery stores and markets, there are probably a dozen places to eat. My favorite is Viet Royal, and the crowd-pleasing dish is the "fondue" where they bring a burner to your table, simmer up some spiced vinegar and you dip meat and onions in it before rolling them -- plus fresh vegetables and herbs -- up in a rice flour wrapper. It's an invitation to play with your, kids love it and so do the adults. They also have a lime soda that is absolutely addictive. Clyde's works well, too. I'm taking my parents and family there tomorrow night, because it was the only place we could all agree on.

Will the family eat "ethnic?" Otherwise, that's a very tough call at $20/person after tax and tip. The good news is that there's a lot of killer Asian -- particularly Vietnamese -- out that way. This is a link to Washintonian's Hundred Best Bargain Restaurants. You can search by cuisine or by location (I note that virtually everything out Reston way is Latin or Asian). All recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt. And then another grain. But it's a good place to start. For what it's worth, my kids are both a bit picky, but the fried rice, noodles and pho at Vietnamese places has been keeping them happy since they were very small. (JPW -- I hear Peanut's more adventurous and enjoys the curried eel )

Being a bit tongue in cheek, I was.

Sometimes I do it straight, and sometimes I play around. Since I had to submit recipes with the article, I decided to something different, as the standard gravlax recipe is easy to find.

Though neither Les Halles nor St. John's are particularly cheap places to eat. Their cookbooks are more egalitarian than their dining rooms.

My unscientific survey of the first two pages of eGullet cat 11:15 EST showed that 31% of the displayed topics could be classified as "Expensive Food for Rich People"(most telling line: "chef's tasting menu named "the voyage" which is a 10 course meal at a very affordable $85 without wine") if one were of a mind to do do; 52% were on prole food, 9% went both ways and the rest were administrative, technical or philosophical (ie, this thread).

Reading Gourmet to get an idea of how Americans eat is like reading Vogue to learn how we dress dress. In both cases, the magazines are “about” a lifestyle that is essentially impossible for most Americans ($1000 dinners, $2000 dresses) and aimed at the truly wealthy – with a closet-full of Armani and a basement full of Petrus – and the aspirational class just below, those of us who can afford the occasional splurge. (For a better idea of what most people are eating, look through the food section of the local paper, and check out the recipes that home cooks in Des Moines, Hartford and Birmingham are clipping and cooking from). Eventually, in either case, the fashions that first appear in the elite publications make their way into the reality in which most Americans live, altered and diluted in ways that allow the uncharitable among us to snicker at people who think Olive Garden serves Italian food or that grocery store Brie has the vaguest resemblance to a proper French cheese. By the time food fashion trickles down, market forces and human beings’ infinite capacity to avoid challenging themselves have transformed the exotic and brilliant into the artificial and mundane. The dominant food culture has taken over. Sadly, American food culture is something of an oxymoron. Aside from some thriving regional and ethnic cuisines, we don’t have much in the way of food culture. I blame our ethnic forebears – to many folks from bad food countries like Germany, the British Isles and Scandinavia, not enough French or Arabs. In many quarters, fancy food is considered a bit frivolous – foreign and suspect. And the American insistence on practicality and efficiency that is so helpful in driving our economy hurts us in the kitchen. As many have pointed out, there are innumerable inexpensive “ethnic” eateries scattered across the landscape. On the other hand, picking up the check at a decent restaurant in most cities is not for the faint of heart or the median of income ($65K for a household of four, if you were wondering). Down the street from my office in DC, there’s a well-regarded osteria that’s considered something of a mid-price place. That means a decent meal for two will only set you back about $100. Take the whole family to a (NYT/Washington Post) 3-star, and you’re looking at $2-300 – a significant hit for a significant part of the population. So the mid-scale chains, with their table tents and neutered menus spring up to offer “fine dining” at a price more people can afford. All is not lost, however. Aside from the aforementioned ethnic and regional foods – soul/southern, Italian, Tex-Mex, etc. – Americans often hold onto the spirit that transform meals into something important. We join hands around the table and give thanks on holidays, we raise our glasses at weddings and bring covered dishes to funerals. We feast at anniversaries and proms. We meet our neighbors over the grill. And, in many communities, Sunday dinner is the time for extended families to come together and catch up with one another (and, for many years, my family’s only night for a good steak). It’s common and easy to look at American dining as a binary culture, split between a small number of culinary elites with the disposable income and the curiosity (or status-drive) to support a few glossy magazines and a few snooty restaurants; and the great unwashed who are busy microwaving pizza and queuing for a table at Outback Steak House. And both stereotypes have more than a grain of truth to them. But the reality -- as always -- is more complex and can’t be learned at newsstands or from strip mall drive-throughs. There are plenty of reasons to be depressed about dining in America – and plenty of reasons to think things are getting better, as well.

At the risk of being called a shameless self-promoter, I offer up my own opus on gravlax and it's natural companion beverage, which first appeared in the Washington Post food section. I may have the recipes I attached stored somewhere in the computer, if anybody's interested. (bridgestone: note that the Swedish Embassy was consulted in during preparation for this article, so it must be accurate!) Gravlax and Aquavit: A Scandinavian Cure Gravlax and aquavit are a can't-miss combination that gives cooks at every level a chance to stretch their skills and please their palates. And, maybe because of the pair's Scandinavian origins, they're a great lift on a grim winter night. Gravlax feels exotic. It is raw fish, after all. But the beginner can easily make it at home, using utensils like pliers and a brick. A little salmon, a little spice and three days later you have a savory expanse of pink velvet ready to be sliced and served with anything from bagels and cream cheese to caviar and creme fraiche. Aquavit takes a bit longer, so you might want to start that first. Vodka is flavored with aromatic combinations of citrus, spices and berries and then allowed to sit for one to six weeks. If you can't wait that long for something to go with your gravlax, drop by the neighborhood bouzerie for a bottle of your favorite flavored vodka or for aquavit itself and you're all set for a big night or a wild brunch. In the beginning, salmon was cured by burying fish over the long Scandinavian winter -- putting the "grav" in "gravlax." The result was so vile that early Swedish trade-unionists made its banishment from workers' meals one of their first demands. Aquavit began as kind of a Nordic moonshine, unflavored grain spirits used for medicinal purposes, hence its literal translation as "water of life." Eventually, the people of Scandinavia -- led by the Swedes, according to Swedish embassy chef Tim Manelius -- developed new techniques to make what was to become a signature combination more palatable and more potable. For the gravlax, salt -- in combination with sugar and other flavoring agents -- was rubbed into fillets of fresh salmon, preserving it by drawing out the moisture and firming cells. For the aquavit, citrus peels or local fruits were dropped into the spirits. One day, perhaps because there was nothing left in a February larder, somebody put the two together and a tradition was born. Manelius hews to that tradition. Every year he cures hundreds of pounds of gravlax for embassy events, relying on the basic salt, sugar, pepper and dill combination. It's a taste of home for Swedish diplomats and an entree to the Swedish culture for guests, but it's so simple that he says, "It's hard to write about. It's not that interesting of a dish [to prepare]." The chef at New York City's Aquavit restaurant, Marcus Samuelsson, takes a more eclectic approach, sending endless variations on the basic gravlax theme out of his three-star kitchen. "If you feel like something Asian," he asks, "why not try ginger and soy sauce?" Once you get the process down, you too can riff. Cure the fish with the salt/sugar mixture for two days, but without the dill. Then, scrape off the excess salt and add the next round of flavorings. I like grated lime peel and cumin, others swear by fresh fennel and parsley. Try tequila, gin or aquavit -- just add a couple of teaspoons per pound, and let your fish sit overnight. And don't stop at salmon. Any firm, oily and fresh fish will do. Halibut yields a beautifully textured gravlax, dense yet translucent. Red trout goes the other way, almost mousse-like as you slice it away from the skin. Experiment until you find a match of fish and flavoring that suits your mood. Aquavit presents similar improvisational opportunities: the basic recipe is often embellished with berry, citrus or spice. Pour a liter of vodka into sealable container a little larger than a liter, add flavoring, seal and wait -- from one to six weeks. I'm impatient -- I'm usually into the aquavit within the week. In contrast, Samuelsson maintains that aquavits should macerate for six to eight weeks before straining and serving, to develop their full depth of flavor. At my house, experiments are ongoing. Skoal!

Here's a breif into to molecular gastronomy for those who -- like me -- are wondering what the heck you're talking about, from The Christian Science Monitor.

Moderately enlightening piece about Chef Comerford in today's Washington Post.

And, though he implied rather than stated it in his posting, fero style is a member of Corduroy's excellent floor staff and can answer even the most detailed questions you might have.

Washingtonian magazine has its list of restaurants open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (and two restaurants offering Hanukkah specials), right here. Note Roberto Donna and Galileo's offering of "Christmas to go" for those eager to eat at home but not eager to cook. Not listed: Meiwah, where the Busboy family conducted its own short-lived insurgency against Christmas -- Christmas Dinner, anyway -- a couple of years back, over crispy whole fish and and dan-dan noodles.