Busboy

When I hear "Best dish in the Southeast" my tastebuds get primed for something both addictive and rooted in the region. Thus, tastebuds being fickle creatures, mine react with a "big deal" when, in this context, the conversation turns to Japanese beef and those overrated little bivalves. Generic may be too strong a term, but "ubiquitous" is damming enough, in my eyes. And I don't doubt the talents of the chefs putting this stuff out but brunch for God's sake, or the year's trendy beef cut, short-ribs. I'm a thrill junkie, I need more than Saveur Magazine highlights to drive out of my way. Something that is not only "the best in the South," but "the best anywhere, and only available in the South." Hazardnc -- May be a dumb question, but what city are these august establishments located in? (Not Mt. Pleasant, the other town). We are unsure where we're going, save that it will be a two-week-ish road trip running roughly from DC to Louisiana to Atlanta and back. I know, much more ground that we can cover well, but what can we do? I will be shaking down this forum for suggestions in a much more serious fashion as the trip draws nigh.

Elaborate, please.

From The Washington Post Magazine: Phyllis is back. For now.

I've not seen beet powder either, but maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. What section or type of store would carry that? ← Bill, you can get Beet Powder from several on-line sources, ie Barry Farms, etc. Google will help, many have one- and two-day delivery or you may find one in your area. ← Frozen peas? Commercial beet powder? Bill, ask yourself, WWTD?: What Would Thomas Do?

Freeze the vegetable stock as it goes downhill quick. (But lasts well frozen). Score your peas yet?

I believe the lamb that grazes in the salt-marshes near the coast, known as lamb pre-sale (pronounced pray-suhLAY, and spelled with accent aigues and such in French) is a specialty, though I have not had a chance to taste it.

I'm a known Marcel's whore, but it ain't cheap. Perhaps if you pick up the pearls at one of those shopping mall places. Tabard Inn is quite romantic, if you can score a spot on one of their upstairs rooms or on the enclosed patio. Food...didn't blow me away, but others report better experiences. Hell, just handing in the lounge on a Sunday after noon and having wine and appetizers on an antique couch by the fireplace is pretty swell.

We have made the beet juice for the poached lobster. Or first thought was to buy beets at whole foods and take them over to the jucie bar and tell them we want beet juice, but they declined. You may have a more responsive health food store out your way. What we ended up doing was peeling and pureeing beets, as finely as possible, and then cooking them in water, as though you were making a beet stock, and then straining. Don't ask me why we went at it this way, and I have no idea what TK's final product looks like, but the results were spectaular: a deep ruby syrup with an extraordinary taste, clear and rich. If you find an easier way, let us know, but I offer that up if nothing else occurs. I'm sure you can do it the day before.

I'm always the crank, but I'd be more interested to see wonderful dishes eaten in the southeast that you could likely only get in the southeast. You can't hardly swing a dead cat anymore without whacking kumimotos or kobe beef or a bottle of balsamic off the sideboard, no matter where you are. As someone currently planning a two-week roadtrip through the south, BetseyinKY's is a boatlaod more interesting to me than more generic worldbeat cusine. Tell me about something I can't get here in DC! For me, it will always be grandma's biscuits with honey from grandpa's hives, served with fried chicken, but that's perhaps more fond memory than culinary criticism.

Sometimes after a tough day I like to throw everybody out of the kitchen, pop a bottle of wine, throw on some tunes and start chopping things. Don't talk to me; I'll be better soon.

It's the product of real estate agents trying to trade on the cachet of SoHo or TriBeCa. Shaw is full of poor people you know, and it's hard to sell $900,000 rowhouses in the 'hood.

How bizarre. Aside from the fact that there are tens of thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of Sunday Post subscribers who can drive more easily into Charm City than DC (growing up, I was one of them) I find it hard to picture DC as "suffering" because of Tom's occasional jaunts up the B-W Parkway. Indeed, I'd suggest that there are more reviews in a year's Sunday Posts than restaurants worth a thousand words and a color photograph in ther area. What restaurants haven't been reviewed that need coverage? What scenes have been missed? I'm as provincial as the next fellow -- I pretty much skip to the Style section if the restaurant reviewed is more than has a 703 area code (I thought Vienna was in Austria, but apparently there's one here, too) -- but even if Baltimore is the moon to our Earth, its gravitation still affects our tides and the success of a place like Pazo is going to affect our scene, just as many trends start here and go north. Finally, your note significantly misconstrues Sietsema's travelling: the "postcards" from the self-financed trips (odd that they irritate you so) appear in the travel section and thus take no space whatsoever from the DC restaurant coverage. Those of us who travel, appreciate them; those who think even a local writer like Tom should have a knowledeg of food beyond the Federal Enclave appreciate them, as well. I think you need a good meal, my friend, some comfort food from Colorado Kitchen, perhaps. Sietsema recommends it highly.

I'm with Katie, especially for a table of 10(!). And, even if you can split the check electronically (think about juggling 10 checks during the lunch crunch) it still takes ten times as long to punch orders in andto ring the customers out, and the odds of somebody's beer ending up on somebody else's check escalate dramatically. Everything works better if the customers can just remember how to add and do their own check -- and not have a snit if they pad a buck more than "their share" for their gyro platter and coke.

My experiences at Paradiso have been uniformly disappointing, and I have sworn never to return. More to the point, Sette has the cafe, as well as a broader menu; sitting a half-block from the place as I type, on one of the few tolerable days DC has had this spring, the cafe is calling to me -- maybe just for the meat and cheese plate (exceptional) and a glass of vino.... Pesce is great, too, and I am in the pro-BdC camp, though it crowds up damn early on Sunday. A favorite A-M Ethiopian is Addis Abbaba, though I happily I eat at Fasika's and Meskerem (both a little more "upscale" than Addis) as well.

Is it me, or is branzino the hip fish of the moment (or, given my DC location, last year's NY moment)? All the sudden it seems to be everywhere.

If Sunday turns out to be a nice day (50-50 at last report), and you're willing to dine early (before things fill up), Sette Osteria , on Connecticut and R has an outdoor cafe whos location and food make it well worth staking out a table on. If its grey and drizzly, get a seat near the Pizza oven. The Tabard Inn has a secluded Courtyard if it's nice, and a very cool dining room, if it isn't. The current Chef is very well regarded. I'm dining there myself Sunday for the first time in a while, so I can say no more than that recent reviews have been very good.

If you don't like fish, you probably shouldn't cook it. Because it tastes like fish, and you don't like it. Any "excellent" fish recipe, of course, will attempt to complement and accentuate the fish flavor, not hide it, as you appear to wish. You may want to consider whether you've been buying cheap-ass grocery store fish and, if so, find dedicated fishmonger who can give you something fresh. It could change your life, or at least your dinner. If this doesn't work for you, I suggest those little capsules of fish oil from the health food store, Crispy whole fish in black bean sauce, or fish sticks. I hear Mrs. Paul's does a good job, and I prefer the tartar sauce with the picture of the grizzled sea-captain in the yellow slicker on the label.

Marinate in leeks, apples and gewurtztraminer. (Use the French Laundry book as a guide, if you'd like the short ribes recipe). Slow cook in marinade plus cider and calvados for many hours. Rest overnight. Skim, strain, bring slowly back to temperature. You should be able to remove the bones with your fingers. Reduce the braising liquid while the shoulder sits. Serve with sauteed apples, braised cabbage. Two days later, make some barbecue sauce and have the leftovers on toasted hamburger buns. Life will be good.

We eat the pea soup almost every weekend that peas are available in the farmers' markets. Buy a lot more peas than you think you need. A high-test blender, which we don't have, would be very helpful. A tamis -- drum sieve -- which we do have, is helpful, too, as the fine texture of the soup is part of its appeal. Sometimes, we make teensy little croutons from rye bread instead of the crisps. Make extra crisps, they're tough not to snack on. This recipe is exquisite, and for best results you should shell the peas from a rocking chair on the front porch on a warm spring afternoon. You can borrow ours. The Lemon Tart is also tasty and relatively simple. In our experience, the crust takes much longer to brown than the recipe suggests. Making the saboyon does, too. THey're not kidding, the top will go from picturesquely dimpled to carbonized within seconds -- watch at every moment. We used to call it Lemon Disaster Tart. If the phone rings and the top chars as you look away for an instant, you can strip it off and re-brown. If they aren't completely out of season, a combination of Meyer Elmons and the regular kind yield a superior custard. This has become a go-to dessert for us.

See, there's where you and I differ. I say "as long as I'm going through all that, I'm damn well going to have someone over who's going to feel obligated to say something nice about the dinner (an obligation my wife doesn't always feel)." I think you'll find that Keller's recipes are pretty much idiot-proof, not that you would need them dumbed down, and that you will learn something good and important from every recipe. The trouble comes, and this is where I bow out, when you try to follow every single one of the two million steps in each recipe -- spending two hours on a fairy dust garnish or burning the alcohol out of the marinade, or whatever. Damn exhausting. Have fun.

I don't mean to discourage you, but I've spent quality time with this cookbook and, unless you are running a brigade of prep cooks and dishwashers YOU ARE INSANE to try to do a five course meal from it. Just a thought.

Not to take a shot at you, personally, BG, but I can see a Potbelly's from my office and work above a Quizmo's. Those places are both horrible. And Potbelly's compounds its mass-produced blandness with a faux hominess that makes it all the more execrable. The people responsible for these chains should be rounded up and sent to re-education camp. With the PF Chang's folks. [end rant]

Maybe I'm just too old or spent too much road time in my youth, but I loath chains (except Popeye's) and eat there only as a last resort. Upscale or downscale -- Legal Seafood or McDonalds -- eating at a chain restaurant is like haveing sex with an inflatable love doll. Maggiano's, Tony Roma's, Quizmo's; McCormick and Schmick: not if I have anthing to say about it. Like reality TV and most popular music, their success is a sign not of their quality but of the decline of Western Civilization. After a week in the Atlanta suburbs over Christmas, I damn near fell to my knees and kissed the scum-washed sidewalks of DC, so happy was I to be out of the land of laminated menus, frozen drink specials and servers eager to tell you their first names. If you need me, I'll be at Bistro du Coin.

I was at the Blue Door at the Delano Hotel in South Beach, dining alone. I hate (hate, hate, hate) getting my food before my wine arrives, and so I made a point of asking my server to hold my order until the wine had been served. Sure enough, minutes later, my entree arrives without the wine. I looked up, irked, and the runner arsked if there was a probelen, and I told them that I have been arrured that the food would not arrive before the wine. The next few minutes were a blur of waiters, managers and miscellaneous staff. Suffice it to say that the wine came out rapidly, the entree had either been prepared afresh, or held under a magical heat lamp that made it appear to have been cooked afresh, and dessert was comped. I had admit, despite the error, they seemed to be on my side. I tipped well.

Last night we were in an upscale restaurant where the service absolutely sucked. It began with our waiter seating us at a "special table" by the window that was reserved for someone else and then asking us to move after the wine was already served. Then he brought the appetizers for another table to our table - and got surly when we told him of his error. From there on he decided to ignore us - you know the strategy. Our wine is empty and I try to signal him while he repeatedly looks around the entire room and "fails" to see us. Then there is a 20 minute delay between the time we order our second bottle of wine and the time it arrives - without any explanation. And of course the wine is corked, and of course the waiter insists that it is not. We almost left then and there - but our show was next door and it was too late to get a table anywhere else. Now admittedly this doesn't happen often. Infact this might have been the worst service we have ever had anywhere. Well I made my choice "within the system" - and this guy got a tip of zero. Social contract? You must be kidding. ← Actually, you were well within the social contract -- it does work both ways (a fact convenientley, though rarely, forgotton by both diners and servers). "Average" service requires some "average" tip. Sucky service -- your call.