bilrus

I had posted this on the Galileo Osteria thread: _______________________________________________________ My wife is out of town and I have been thinking about going there this Saturday evening on my own. If anyone else is lame and has nothing to do this Saturday night, would anyone be up for a group visit? We could transition this over to the "Whim" thread if people are interested. __________________________________________________ So, is anyone up for this?

Just up Wisconsin Ave from Georgetown is Heritage India, one of the best Indian retaurants in town.

My wife is out of town and I have been thinking about going there this Saturday evening on my own. If anyone else is lame and has nothing to do this Saturday night, would anyone be up for a group visit? We could transition this over to the "Whim" thread if people are interested.

The Cuban at SBC Cafe is one of my favorites. And their Southwestern Shrimp Club (or something like that) may sound like a mess but it works. Fried shrimp, pepper Jack cheese, guacamole and a chipotle Mayo on good bread.

My recollection from the last time this topic came up is that this guy (a former attorney who dropped it all to open a vegetarian burrito cart) is no longer operating, but someone else may be running it now.

OK - I agree. Layalina easily surpasses Lebanese Taverna. The menu is similar, but it's obivous that more care goes into the cooking and the service. This has a much more personal, familial feel. The spicy hommos was a nice change of pace from the traditional, the parsley and walnut salad was bursting with clean crisp flavors and the shawarma and mixed grill entrees we had we moist and flavorful, which isn't always the case. The pitas and desserts are pretty weak, and the garlic sauce a little thinner than I'd like, but its easy to overlook those few missteps. On another thread there is a discussion about cooking or restaurants with soul. This is a perfect example of two similar restaurants. One has soul - one doesn't. It might have at one time, but it doesn't lately. Go to Layalina to see what I mean.

Interesting turn of a phrase...

Especially if you're a chicken.

I'm chomping down on a Chipotle Barbacoa at my desk right now. It works for not having to go out of my way to get it. One thing that I was just thinking before I opened this thread that annoys me about Chipotle though is the way they are assembled. Why is it that I have one bite that is all guac, another that is all rice and one that is all beef? Why can't I get a bite with everything all in the same bite?

My wife and I are trying Laylinya tomorrow for the first time based on the recs of Morela and DonRocks and JohnW and others on here. I like Lebanese Taverna, but I'm always up for something better. Couldn't get into first choice Ray's on short notice.

I don't think so. Some of the more soulful meals I've had have included ones at Per Se and Citronelle, both of which included a number of clever takes on dishes. But my meal at French Laundry did leave me a little cold. It doesn't just happen at the high or low end, but you can feel it.

There was some discussion, but not many details, in this thread: SBC Cafe

Sides of garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach are served in skillets for the table and both were very good. I really liked the crab cake as an appetizer - a big, pancake sized whopper. I really liked the New York strip, but my wife was a little underwhelmed with the filet. The do their steaks right here, so the tender nature of the filet was a little unnecessary.

This place just sounds like a disaster to me.

I find it odd to imagine DonRocks in the Rainforest Cafe at Tyson's Corner.

My wife and I had our virginal (that's not too racy, is it?) experience in the front room at Palena last night. Or rather the nice little patio in front of the front room. I am envious of all you people who seem to be able to hop in here on a regular basis. If this is your "neighborhood spot" you are lucky to be in the neighborhood you are in. (Especially this one. Is there a better block in town for good food?) I can only echo the praises for the tomato soup, the gnocchi (Damn they're light and fulffy), the platter of fried things and Derrick, who came out of his way to introduce himself. The burger was great (although a little salty) and no, DonRocks, I didn't think the bun was too big. If the bun sucked it would have been too big, but this was a nearly perfect grilled brioche bun. How could that be wrong? They happened to have a cookie plate floating around in the back so I had some caramels and other little goodies nad the cashew merengue/nougat dessert was unusual and very good. Good food and a beautful night. Just what I needed after this week.

Same here - getting ready to leave soon. This is my first time in the front room. Very exciting.

Not quite in DC, but 2941 has a very nice, large patio overlooking a lake.

Ray's is awesome and, as Jenny said - agood value, but it is still a steakhouse and isn't a really cheap option. I like Johnny's Half Shell for casual seafood myself. And what about one of the other pizza places like 2 Amys or Paradiso?

17th

I (+1), on the other hand, would be able to do a Saturday or Sunday, but not a weeknight.

That post reminded me, the yolk of my egg was not really runny or piping hot, so it didn't mix in with the rest of the salad quite the way it should have. Although they were good enough to split our salad between two plates, which was very nice, so the egg came in a bowl for us to split. But the woman at the table next to ours had steam pouring off the egg in her salad.

First the (very) good. The appetizers were phenomenal. The house cured salmon, corn bisque and especially the bacon egg and cheese salad (especially that salad - thanks Morela) were all excellent. My pork belly entree was as advertised. Full of unctious, gelatenous flavor, although I would have liked more of the menu listed carrots and onions (maybe five slivers of carrots and four large dices of onion accompanied the pork). On the other hand, my wife's salt-baked prawns with a tomato and garlic sauce was nearly inedibly salty. And it wasn't the shrimp that was so salty. My wife pretty much had to make an effort to scrape the sauce off of the admittedly good shrimp. I would have sent it back, but she ate the four medium sized shrimp and some of the accompanying salad. And at $26, four shrimp is not a great value. And the pace of service was glacial. We were seated about 20 minutes after our reservation time of 9:30, which was totally understandable on a busy (and ear-splittingly noisy) Saturday evening. But there were too many long awkward pauses between courses. We had already finished our bottle of wine before our salad, which came between our appetizers and entrees, had been cleared and it was after 11:00 before we were finally served our entrees. My wife and I haven't seen each other much this week, but we ran out of things to talk about as there was so much down time between courses. We were so ready to go between the time and the noise we didn't even look at the dessert menu. I really wanted to love this place (maybe that was part of the problem?) and it does try very hard to please. The staff nearly trips over each other trying to be pleasant and accomidating. But there are so many other places in town that I want to try (and I had forgotten just how far Old Town is from Ashburn) that I'm not sure it will make my regular rotation.

Pretty sure that is on the agenda.

I'm going this evening for the first time too. After all the talk here I feel like I've already been but I'm looking forward to actually getting there.