Joe H

One more thought: this is one of the primary reasons that I have my own cellar or that one should seriously consider, say, a Eurocave. I prefer red wine at about 63-65 degrees, not 75 nor 55. Even a $10.00 bottle tastes better at the correct temperature. But I'm just not going to find this in most restaurants or it would no longer be a $10.00 bottle!

When you order red wine by the glass you have to expect this especially if you're paying less than $10.00 per glass. You also have to accept that less expensive bottles of wine are not going to be stored in most restaurant's cellars or Eurocaves since the cost of this, if passed along to the consumer, would add to what they must sell the wine for. In most cases wine served at room temperature, say 72 degrees, is fine for a less expensive bottle of wine. If you're ordering better wine, say $100 or more, then I believe your complaint is legitimate. Of course then you have a different consideration: if it's stored at 55 degrees or less it will probably need to be decanted and while it opens up the temperature can rise a bit. I do not like wine that comes directly from a cellar. It is too cold to drink. If I take a bottle from mine I let it sit for at least an hour at room temperature before drinking it. I also think that artifricially cooling the wine (i.e. refrigerator, etc. for ten or fifteen minutes) affects the taste and will not do this. I have sent back warm wine before but have found it rare that I needed to do this. I suspect that you prefer the correct serving tempeature for all wine and this just isn't possible in most restaurants unless they can pass along the cost of wine storage and service which most people will not pay unless it is a better bottle. As for white, I only rare drink this preferring red with most everything.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but to dismiss Maestro, Laboratorio and Citronelle with what amounts to a virtual sweep of the hand-all "$250 to $300 a head dinners" where "excellence was not to be found" is quite a statement. I was born here 57 years ago and grew up when there were temporary buildings on the Mall and La Salle du Bois was D. C.'s best French restaurant. Italian meant red sauce and Mexican and Szechuan caused many people to worry that they would be "hurt" from the heat. I say this because today Washington, D. C. is fortunate to have three world class restaurants, the very three you have chosen to criticize. Michel moved from L. A. where he already had a national reputation, Roberto personally spawned a whole series of talented chefs who helped ratchet D. C. Italian to the top of the ladder while winning his own James Beard Award and, now, Fabio has placed us squarely on a national stage. Our three compete with the absolute best of New York, San Francisco and Chicago; they challenge the best of Rome and Paris. I'm sorry but there is genuine excellence in all three of these. I've organized exquisite dinners at both Laboratorio and Maestro that sold out and will probably do Citronelle. I suggest that you consider investing another $250 to 300 (or even half of this since they do NOT have to be so expensive) for the next one and see if you leave feeling the same way. Perhaps not every meal will be a life changing experience. But more often than not they offer something that we haven't had here before without crossing an ocean to find. I have a tremendous respect and appreciation for this, feeling fortunate that all three are here today. We are indeed lucky to have this exquisite level of excellence here. I know that when a course is served and all conversation stops as eight people simultaneously take a bite that they are experiencing something truly extraordinary. I know that when prolonged applause from every person in the room greets Roberto and Fabio at the end of the dinner there is a genuine feeling of actual "value" despite the cost. I've seen mouths drop with the presentation of "Breakfast" at Citronelle. I also know that all three of these men share an intense love and passion for what they give and share with us. It is not fair nor just to them nor to us who read these boards to summarily dismiss all three with a virtual wave of the hand.

I should also note that there are extensive photographs of the dinner linked separately under a different topic title.

Tammy, thank you for your wonderful words. It was a real pleasure to be able to share this extraordinary dinner with you. I am also convinced that your baby (Tammy is seven months pregnant) in several decades will be well on their way to a James Beard award!!! I can only imagine at how you are spoiling them!

Absolutely remarkable that not a single person who lives out here has mentioned Sylvano's in Herndon which has pizza 90% as good as the average New York pie and is the closest that anyone is going to come in the entire D. C. metro area for NY pizza. It's not Grimaldi's nor Totonno's nor Patsy's but, for D. C. it's as close as you're going to come. Maybe 95% as good as the "average" NY pie. There's also a Five Guys in Fox Run as well as Burgerland in McNair Farms. Kobe Grill is a very good Chinese fast food (much better than China Star). And a sushi place two miles down the road towards Chantilly that Sietsema raved about. And, Rio Grande in Towne Center which in Dallas is known as Uncle Julio's and is given 3 1/2 stars by the Dallas Morning News. They're the same. Still, Sylvano's.

I don't remember Tosca costing more than Filomena. Mark's comments are very good ones: there are NO good Italian restaurants in Georgetown. Alternatively, how about La Chaumiere?

There are at least 15 or more places with open pits in Charles County. Sevral are warm weather only operations. In Carolina the best eastern is Pete Jone's Skylight Inn in Ayden. Southern Living magazine called this the best overall bbq place in America several months ago. For western Carolina, arguably, the most famous is Lexington but the town it's in, Lexington, has 15 or 20 places and almost all are good. Willard's is good but the strip shopping center is a real turn off for me. But those are my values and I place probably more importance on a negative ambience than most others. Years ago there was a place off of 16th Street in Mt. Pleasant called Scott's. It was excellent. O'Brien's on Gude Drive in Rockville had Sonny Bryan's Q from Inwood Avenue in Dallas but after a murder their business disappeared and eventually it closed. There was also a place near BWI in a ramshackle building that was excellent. But it moved to Ft. Meade and the Q just never tasted the same. When all of these closed for years there was a real dearth of good Q here and it became an annual rite to drive to either Johnny Boy's in La Plata or Allman's in Fredericksburg. I have not been to Johnny Boy's in two years and am sorry that it may have gone down hill.

I don't want to anger everyone on this board but there is very good bbq inside the Beltway. But, for me, part of the taste of serious Q (and I''ve done 8,000 mile driving trips on business with stops on successive days at legends in a dozen cities throughout the midwest and south, even being credited in several of Jane and Michael Stern's books, i.e. Dreamland in Tuscaloosa, McClard's in Hot Springs) but for real, serious bar b q you MUST leave the Beltway. And there is really only one destination: Charles County. I apologize for all of my self indulgent hyperbole above. But Charles County, Maryland is the ONLY place within several hundred miles of here that allows OPEN PIT bbq. It's not just Johnny Boy's; there are actually a number of "joints" that are seriously good. And, this last is another point: it is more than just the Q. It is also about where you eat it. If the sauce drips on the floor and you have to wipe it up, well, you need to go elsewhere. There is much to be said for crusty floors! Even dirt floors and picnic tables and the "perfume of the pit." There really is good Q inside of the Beltway. But it just tastes much better when you eat it in a place where normally you wouldn't even consider setting foot inside!

One more afterthought to my post above: I mentioned Wonder bread. The Wonder bread bakery was on Georgia Avenue by the old Griffith stadium, near where Howard University hospital is today. The "smell" of that bakery in combination with going to a baseball game at Griffith stadium was a big deal for Washingtonians. Wonder bread was also a big deal. Benny's, serving their fish sandwiches on Wonder bread (baked nearby) was part of the D. C. tradition. Ideally, the fish on the sandwiches was caught in the Chesapeake Bay.

I should add to this that in the '50's native Washingtonians stood in several lines. One was on Sunday mornings at Stephenson's in Anacostia for pies ("black and white checkerboard boxes"). The other was a D. C. tradition at Benny's on Maine Avenue on Saturday nights. Benny's line was well over a half hour long.

I am old. Well, at least old enough to remember D. C. in the '50's. Maine Avenue then was totally differnt from today. My parents would drive down there on Saturday night to go to Benny's for fish sandwiches and french fries. The fish sandwiches were made with four or five fresh filets piled on top of each other with a mayonnaisey cold slaw and Evangeline hot sauce all served on Wonder Bread. French fries accompanied these which were fried in lard. Yes, lard. Fresh potatoes with the skin on and fried in lard. The closest thing today that you can find to these is NOT at Horace and Dickey's but at Faidley's in the Lexington Market in Baltimore. Horace and Dickey is the new name of what was called Boyd's in the mid '80's. Boyd actually worked on Maine Avenue and opened his own shop up on H St., N. E. before moving to the Horace and Dickey's present location. This is where he sold out to them. At some point they started using FROZEN filets which they breaded in house rather than fresh. The potatoes at some point became FROZEN and the later were fried in vegetable oil as opposed to lard. The cole slaw is still made from scratch but that is about the only thing that is left over from what once was WASHINGTON'S SINGLE BEST SANDWICH IN THE '40's and '50's, the fried fish sandwich. When the Post named the half smoke as unique to D. C. and representative of a Washington tradition they blew it. No one at the Post ever tasted a fish sandwich on Maine Avenue in the '50's to know just how good this could be.

Horace and Dickey's near 12th and H, NE but at its best it's only a shadow of Boyd's, the previous owner. Boyd dated back to the Maine Avenue seafood landmark, Benny's, which was around in the '40's and '50's.

That's disappointing. I suspected because of the lack of publicity that it may be like that. Still, the restaurant itself has a great deal of presence. My guess is that a future tenant, with the right chef, could really have something special.

La Perla was mentioned abut halfway down this thread. My wife and I passed it this evening and it really does look quite interesting. Handsome, definitely upscale and quite impressive in a corner building at 2600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Yet there's no mention of it in the Post, Zagat or Chowhound. All I can find out is that it's Northern Italian and opened in the Fall of 2002. I don't believe it's received a major review. Does anyone know anything about it?

A good vegetarian dish or two is one thing but variety or a strong prix fixe featuring vegetarian is a whole different matter regardless of whether one calls ahead or not.

Preparing special vegetarian only menus is more of a rarity than I think most people realize. Many restaurants accommodate this. But I strongly believe that the menu they are served is simply not on the level of their non vegetarian companion. In truth, how can it be? Preparing a menu for 15 or 20 or 30 or 100 is one thing. Preparing a menu for one is another matter. My guess is that a restaurant such as Heritage of India would have a more complete and successful menu for a vegetarian than almost any restaurant in D. C.

Generally, Charles County has the best bbq in the greater D. C. and Baltimore areas since open air pits are allowed. There are at least 15 of these with Johnny Boy's the most famous. Still, there are others, some of which compete with the best of Alabama, Tenneesee and Missouri.

I would argue long into the night, especially over a bottle or two of wine, that Washington's merlot is among the best in the world right now. Not Leonetti (past two years have been weak-for them) but perhaps a half dozen other wineries. Some of the older Leonettis (i.e. 94) can compete with anything.

Extremely interesting, Irwin. Thank you. I posted on another board that my wife were at the "old" Herb Farm before the fire (having waited about ten months or so for a reservation) but have not been to the new one. On their website the photographs look (to me) to be very different from what I have described as kind of a storybook cottage or "gingerbread house" sort of style that the first building seemed to have. Coupled with it's setting, literally surrounded by gardens, it was something of a fantasy type of presentation for the dinner. On the website the current Herb Farm reminds me of the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, i.e. sumptuously luxurious. Perhaps I am totally wrong in what I see and am reading in something that is simply not there. But were you able to go to the original Herb Farm? If so do you feel there is a difference in the two rooms? The setting? The food then vs. now? I must tell you that after the fire I lost quite a bit of interest in visiting the new one. There was almost an El Bulli or French Laundry type of appeal to the original with the difficulty of landing a reservation and then an incredible wait. What I see on their website today just doesn't have the same fascination for me. I remember my wife and I driving out from Seattle just to see the restaurant one time and walking around it although it wasn't open for dinner. I also remember buying herbs and spices from the little store that was in back of it. In fact it was because of this that we decided to make a reservation. I even built a trip to Vancouver around the reservation (we live in the Washington, D. C. suburbs). Does the Herb Farm of today have any of this? Is there still a garden as large as the original? Thanks again, Irwin.

Wilson, in some places it should be a concern of your's what the prix fixe is. At Marc Veyrat it's E325 (that's US $414.38 at the current rate of exchange). For two people if you add a moderately priced bottle of wine (say, third growth for about E175) along with two glasses of sauterne or port (about E20-25 each) we have a bill of E325 X 2 + 175 + E50 + tip (5% in France to compliment that which is included in check) = E919 X US $1.275 (current exchange rate) = US $1,172 for dinner for two. This is not such an extreme example. At Arpege the prix fixe is E300, Pierre Gagnaire, E280, etc. There are some restaurants in the world where you really SHOULD be concerned about the price. Irwin could also provide some detail about three day dinners in China that hover around US $10,000 per person for 100+ courses or dinners in Japan which can reach into the thousands of dollars for two people. For one meal in one night. I wouldn't be quite so cavalier or flippant about the cost of a meal and one's ability to afford it. It IS very much about value. The markup on a bottle wine has a great deal to do with whether I will buy it or not. A $200 bottle of, say, '97 Solaia tastes a helluva lot better to me than a $450 bottle of the same wine. I may even walk into a restaurant thinking that I won't spend more than $50 on a bottle, see a real bargain and spring for it. For someone who can really afford to dine on this level they are going to be more protective with their money than you would imagine. ExtraMSG'c comment about the top end hovering around $125 in the U. S. market (and around E 125 in many two and three stars outside of France, by the way) is quite knowledgable. Your comment about $200 is consistent with this since a prix fixe of 125 plus wine, tax and tip will equal $200 per person or more depending on wine, etc. I think for the moment, I would focus more on, say, Emmett Watson and less on the Herb Farm.

The expectation is that this will be on par with the Four Seasons in Georgetown. Generally the Mandarin group and the Four Seasons are prime competitors. This should be a real plus for D. C.

Wilson, you question Irwin for his "ability" to spend $20 more for truffles (remarkably, without knowing who this man is) but do you know the difference between an Oregon white truffle and a white Alba truffle? Do you have any idea of the difference in cost? In taste? In aroma? I assume you realize that the difference in cost is that the Oregon truffle is five cents on the dollar to the cost of the Alba truffle? Further, have you ever been to the old Guido outside of Alba in October? Of course it has moved but for years, in October and part of November, this was a destination worthy of a trip from the U. S. which many of us did. No, the Herb Farm which I went to before the fire did not compare to this. Nor to a great many other restaurants that I have been to. Of course I haven't had the "full Cleveland, er Chicago" at Trotter's that you refer to. Merely the kitchen table. By the way, Irwin owned the kitchen.

Wilson, why don't you e-mail me?

When I worked as a waiter for Hot Shoppes #10 at Wisconsin and Van Ness in 1962 we were paid forty six cents an hour. Plus meals. Safeway, a second part time job that I had, paid $2.12 an hour. Still, Hot Shoppes was better since the tips on Saturday were about $15 and Sunday sometimes were as high as $20. That was a lot of money for someone in 10th grade in 1962.