jamesglu

Don't get me started on Il Radicchio! I went there once (years ago) with friends to the 17th Street NW location. One of my friends had a salad that she later noted had a cockroach in it. She and her husband were too shy to bring it to the attention of the staff (!) so I jumped in, and called the waiter to deal with it. Sure enough, he took away the salad, but then he returned it to us, minus the cockroach! He didn't even bring a new salad, or even just top it up to make it look like a new salad! Then for some unknowable reason we went to their Fairfax location (also some years ago) and though we did not have any cockroaches in our dishes the food was so awful that we decided to cross the place off our list for good.

This is also a peeve of mine, and the only place I will happily go to that uses it is Sweet Water Tavern, but at least they let you get on a "phone ahead" list so you can time when you arrive (how it's dfferent than making a reservation, I don't know). Usually the places with this system are not all that great, but are very popular (like Outback), and I just avoid them.

I have had wonderful meals at Neisha in the Tysons Corner mall (near the Circuit City, where there used to be a movie theatre). Also very good are Busara (Tysons again) and Thai Square on Columbia Pike in Arlington.

There is a great profusion of high-end Italian places in DC (e.g., Tosca, Galileo, Obelisk, Maestro...) but I have yet to find a reliably good moderately priced Italian restaurant where you can go of a weekday evening when you just cannot bring yourself to cook but want something good (like mamma used to make?). Is there anything that fits this bill?

I was at 2941 for Valentine's Day last week and concur that the restaurant is excellent in every way. The service was very pleasant, professional, and inobtrusive, and the food was wonderful. We even were very pleased by the wine list, which had many affordable bottles in a wide range of styles. Definitely will return.