Busboy

It sounds to me as though it was handled very poorly. The hostess should have either given an accurate impression of how long the wait was going to be or found a way to wedge them in. If there's only one six-top in the place, and you have to wait for that to turn to get a seat, the restaurant should point that out. Not letting them squeeze into a booth or around two deuces was ridiculously inflexible. Not to defend the guy's behavior -- getting in the face of the staff is never good -- but after an hour of being bullshitted while my blood sugar drops, I can be a little indelicate myself.

"More than a month later, I found myself at Circle Bistro again, eating a sublime beef tartare shocked with capers and pickle juice and presented with a cone of delicate, house-made potato chips. No wonder this classic endures. " --Tom Sietsema

Now, now, don't go down that road....

I was thrown out of a lesbian bar called Feathers, here in DC, many years ago. In their defense, the (definitely not straight) guy I was with was a little out of control. The women we'd gone there with sold us down the river and snickered smugly as we slouched to the door under the waitress's stern, if loving, eye.

I dropped into Black Salt the other day for oysters and shrimp. The oysters were fine but the shrimp had obviously been out a day or two. Of course, I get shrimp from a place in Pensacola, Florida a couple of times a year where they load the shrimp directly from the boats into the store (Joe Patti's, for those keeping store). Still, for premium prices, it was a little unsettling.

Confit it in olive oil, with garlic and bay in quantity. Throw it in a sautee pan with Onion, garlic, carrot, green beans, bay leaf and Pernod -- an instant trip to Provence.

Actually that is not entirely accurate... Flat Iron is from the chuck and hanger is from the inside of the cow near the diaphram... Not even close to the same thing. ← Passable guide to possible cuts (broken down by primal sections) here. Flatiron, aka top blade steak, is listed under chuck, hanger is listed under breast and flank. ← And, if you get by a real butcher (Union in Eastern Market, for example), get him to show you the two cuts and consder taking them home to cook yourself. (Soem homework is more fun than other) They look and taste very different from one another.

I wish I could have figured out a way to do that. ← I always ask myself -- if I could have gotten four hours of freelance work I could have afforded the meal and spent a lot less time on it. One about the French Laundry Cookbook is that, at least at my level, you learn something new with every recipe and it makes all your cooking better and tastier, and everything goes a lot quicker once you do it a couple of times. The ROI, as long as we're getting all finance-y, is extraordinary.

I'm with Mark on Bistro Francais (haven't had it at The Guards), though one night, when I was living in Denver and in DC for work, we had a minor service kerfuffle when I demanded a fork in my "to go" bag. "Don't you have a fork at home?" "Yes, several, but I'm staying in a hotel." They finally gave me restaurant fork just to get rid of me. It's not hard to make at home, either. I usally use something less glorious than, say, a prime ribeye, so the temptation to grill is less. bmiller: Go, go, kitfo! We've found that you have to specify that you want it raw, though, because at Ethiopian places they sometimes cook it without asking ,when Americans order it. Mrs. Busboy, the expert, likes Addis Abbaba's. For the unitiated: it's an Ethiopian dish in which raw ground meat is mixed with peppery spiced butter and served with an Ethiopian cheese that's maybe a cross between feta and queso fresco. Breaking News: Perhaps inspired by this thread, Stephanie just ordered some kitfo (among other things) for delivery from AA. As she was sitting out back and the connection was dubious and the order-taker's English even more dubious, everyone in the alley-way behind our house just got to hear her yelling: "raw...raw...do not cook...DO NOT COOK THE KITFO!" This approach usually, but not inevitably, works.

I was actually thinking about the cooking time of the sabayon itself, while still in the double boiler. It was defintely worth it. I have had a blast doing the shopping, cooking, posting, photographing, discussing and obsessing. And the support and response from everybody on here has been great and unexpected. I still have a few questions I want to answer in depth, but I am pretty tired and a little tipsy. So I am going to do some more posting tomorrow morning. I want to look at the costs, both in terms of time and money and compare this in my head to the actual experience at the restaurant. And I want to talk about the cookbook itself. And whether I achieved the goals I outlined in my first post on the thread. So be prepared for more of me blathering on. But not tonight. ← Excellent work -- funny about the cheese course being the most time consuming of all. The peas being "spring in a bowl" are exactly how I feel about them. I think next time you need some unbiased judges to help you eat it, though. My experience with the lemon tart is (as you suspect) that you need to take a lot of time in the double boiler, getting it as thick as possible, before adding to the crust. I'm always nervous around egges -- afraid the sabiyon will break -- but I think you're pretty safe on a double boiler. If you try to cook it too long under the broiler, the top will char completely, long before the saboyon raises its temperature significantly.

Dude, that is so totally a hangover from the Rock(s) & (Spring)Roll bash last night. Good eatin'! ← That could have something to do with it - but I've never had a hangover with a sore throat and congestion. ← Dr. Busboy says that only truffle oil and fresh greens can cure you. So you're in luck. Nice 'shrooms.

Dude, that is so totally a hangover from the Rock(s) & (Spring)Roll bash last night. Good eatin'!

The Mushroom Lady at the Arlington Courthouse Saturday morning already has a pretty wide variety of 'shrooms, though I find her a little pricey. The Whole Foods near Good Guys usually has an excellent variety of 'shroomers at (relatively) reasonable prices, and if you shop quick you can get a beer next door and still not exceed the 1-hour limit on parking. Think I saw some lovely -- and brutally expensive - porcinis there the other day.

After a few days on the road, no matter what my food budget or how fortunate my restaurant choices, I crave a home cooked meal. Not because my cooking is better than that of the chefs I'm relying on, though I do do the Bluedauvergen thing of saying "why am I spending so damn much money on something I could do just as well at home?" And I think the immense enthusiasm for certain DC restaurants is based on reviews by people who don't eat well enough at home and so have a distorted view about how good a restaurant actually is. But, after 20 years cooking with Stephanie, we just know what we like and we know just how to cook it, and we have a few favorites -- comfort foods, if you'd like -- that no one else does the way we do. You can get onglet anywhere these days, but no one seems to make the anchovy/garlic butter we like to put on it, or the pommes persillade for the side. Our pissalardier and pistou are just better than any restaurants are. And there's something about mixing your ground beef with soy and garlic before putting it on a grill, and serving it on a toasted English Muffin that makes it even better than the celebrated $25 burger at 21. In addition, unlike some of the star-chasers you see on this board, I think haute cuisine gets old and oppressive after a day or two. Good home cooking is an antidote to the pretense and fussiness -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- that lift a restaurant to 4-star level. Nobody ever got gout from a chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. So, vive le difference, I say. I'm curious to see the book. ***** There was a long thread discussing whether ahome cook could hope to cook a "four star" (assume we're using NYT scale) at home. I can't seem to master the eG search, so maybe someone elese can pull it up. Suffice to to say that, in my opinion, anyone who thinks they can cook as well as Jean-georges and his ilk is fooling themselves.

I knew I could count on TCC, The (Southern) Chauvanist Chef.

It's likely that Keller recommends this, but immediately chilling the peas in ice water after cooking should keep the color fine. Then one only has to go gently on the reheating to keep the color. ← That is in the recipe. In fact he instructs to have the peas in ice water before and after cooking. ← Yeah, they'll hold their color for a while. You can do them early (but not the day before) and put them in the fridge to chill while you tend to other business.

Don't be messin' with the The Times. Since I've stopped working on the Hill it may have cleaned up some -- and every year there are fewer grunge-types and blue-collar workers around that neighborhood -- but one thing it never was was cute, or the product of a marketing plan. (I can see it now "next, we'll break the urinals because people love coming out of the gent's with wet feet. And no more emptying the ashtrays.") The smoking section was the whole place, the bartenders wore t-shirts because that's what they woke up in that morning, and I did see a pretty good strip show in the back room once, but it was for a party, not a regular event. Edited to add: But if Nadya's sending tourists there, maybe they have had a makeover. Although places like the Zoo Bar do successfully combine the smell of tourist moolah with that of smoke and stale beer.

I'm going to take a stab and guess the '86 Tax Act. ← Indeed: the deal cut but Bradley and Packwood over (note food reference here) a pitcher of Harp Lager.

Isn't the Irish Times still a dive? Too bad if they cleaned it up, I spent many a fine hour there at one period in my life. It's mostly a blur, but I'm sure I'd recognize the smell. (Ask Nebergall if he knows what alarmingly bipartisan tax bill was saved by a well-timed pitcher of beer in the Times' back room.) Also, if you want to play Senator/Power Broker spotting, head up to the Monocle near the Russell Senate building.

Best bets are probably the Dubliner, Capital City Brew Pub or Bistro Bis near Union Station, depending on your mood and your tatse in beverages and snacks. If you're mostly drinking, you can just go to America in Union Station. The food won't blind you or anything, but I wouldn't go there if eating was a real priority. (Hah. I note that Hannah has sent you to the other side of the hill. The House Side. Things are a little classier on the Senate Side).

You would cry if you had to cook with me, in my kitchen.

Wednesday night, just us and the kids? Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! Though, to be sure, if Stephanie is lead cook for the night (she often brings me in just as the "closer") she will have the mise done. And, with a lot of recipes you get started on one thing and "mise up" (or mess up) for the other courses as you go along. And, if I'm out of something, I make the kids go to the store and get it. Saturday night dinner for ten? Definitely a mise guy. I used to watch the chefs banging out plates where I worked and learned the importance of mise by aping them at home. Had no idea what it was called.

Good news on the peas. I'd drink a floral white -- viogner (Virginia's Horton is quite swell), roussanne, something Rhone-ish with it. It would make a decent apertif, too, so you don't end up going through five bottles of wine trying to match every course. Also, my guess is that Calvert Woodley has the best half-bottle selection going if you want to match everything without spending a fortune or drinking like the Busboy family. Do you have a silpat, btw? For the parmesan crisps?

Soulless? Where does that come from? Really, I think such responses are interesting. Maybe the most interesting thing about the article is that, since it doesn't seem to make any value judgements itself, the reader is left to do so him/herself. And since the most jarring thing about this woman seems to be that she does not cook, that is going to be the basis of our value judgements. She seems to be portrayed as a very fortunate woman; she is successful in her business life, her family life, and her social life -- and these things are usually not accidents. So why soulless? (Slow day at work today. ) ← I'm not ready to call anybody soulless on the basis of one article. But, if you looked at her as someone apparently without any contemplative habits or hobbies, lacking physical skills or interests, who moves compulsively from through careers, social engagements, volunteer positions and shopping sprees, you'd be tempted to wonder if she was shallow and dissatisfied on a fundamental level. Oh, add in the diet obsession. On the flip side, maybe she's a bright, driven and productive human being, too creative to be caught up in one thing for long. Bit of a Rorscharch Test, eh? Personally, I don't trust anyone who can't survive without domestic help.

Actually, the vanilla cream with fish is very hip, see the French Laundry and Eve. The banana part kind of pushes it over the top, though.