bilrus

Chipotle is what it is - convenient and pretty tasty. It is the only place that is in my direct route home that serves burritos and tacos that doesn't share space with a KFC. If there were some tacqueria (sp?) truck in the parking lot of my office or anywhere along the Dulles Toll Road - I'd probably stop there first. But there isn't so...

My favorite is when they actually have to use TWO tortillas to wrap the sucker.

That's right.

Ceiba's Churros sound good to me too - mainly because I attemtped making them at home on Sunday for the first time and they were so bad it would be offensive to Ceiba's churro makers to speak of them in the same breath. Of course they are fried dough - so I'm willing to give it another shot. But first I think I need to do some research at Ceiba.

That has been pretty well known (at least here on eGullet and in the Sietsema chats) for a while here in DC.

I prefer the soft tacos - 1 each of chicken, barbacoa and carnitas - with sour cream and a little pico de gallo and corn "salsa". And I like the lettuce as a filler. I also add some Cholula hot sauce when I get them home. Those burritos are just too big to manage - they fall apart too easily.

I'm still in for 2.

Now I have a craving to not eat marrow ever again. To each his own.

Add bilrus+1

2) again, i haven't eaten at per se, but i have eaten pretty often at the french laundry and the thing that inspires me about that restaurant is exactly that keller is able to wed the intellectual and the passionate. almost every time i eat there i have a dish that makes me throw back my head with laughter at the surprising combination of flavors and the sheer unexpected deliciousness of it. Since very few people here on eGullet (or anywhere for that matter) have eaten at both French Laundry and Per Se so far it will be interesting to see if the same sense of the combination of attempted perfection and passion and warmth that so many sense at French Laundry in its bucolic Yountville setting will translate to a restaurant in a high rise in the middle of the businest city in the country. ADrober - was it the combiantion of the setting and the food or jsut the food itself that left you cold?

I have never been there when it is any louder than the typical busy restaurant. Its not cathedral quiet by any stretch, but it isn't a night club either.

A favorite in St. Louis is breaded, deep-fried ravioli. Meat filled served with mariana and seafood filled served with butter. They are called Toasted Ravioli - but toasting is for whimps.

He really did that??? We've been to Delmonico twice, the "original" Emeril's in NOLA and the Emeril's in Orlando and have never seen that happen! And like Foodie-Girl, we've been quite pleased with each of our meals. Yes, though almost under his breathe. I assumed he was embarrassed to "have" to do it. It took me a nanosecond to realize what he said - and he was already gone. This might require a separate thread to allow for sufficient ridicule.

I'm not sure that my mindset really affected my enjoyment. This thread makes me think of the movie "Defending Your Life" (perhaps the greatest foodie film ever?) in that the residents of Judgment City who use 80% of their brains (as opposed to humans 3%) eat foul looking food that humans find disgusting. The joke is that their intelligence makes the food delicious. I kind of feel that way about Per Se. I'm Albert Brooks. You guys are Rip Torn. If you say it's great, I'll take your word, but I'm sticking to pasta with Meryl Streep. I wasn't saying that your ability to enjoy the food is limited by your experience. I was saying that your ability to write a professional-type review is limited by your experience. The same goes for nearly everyone on eGullet. I guess my point is - why over-analyze things when the over-anyalysis might take away from the enjoyment? Like I said in my earlier post, I went to TFL looking for perfection, didn't find it, but ended up enjoying myself once I realized perfection wasn't going to happen.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Could it be that the magazines are changing a little and that the average eGullet user's tastes are changing and becoming more discrimiating as well? I know this has been true with me when it comes to restaurants and this thread has made me realize it is true with magazines as well.

I'm always up for something.

No, but it is pretty funny that you are just turning 21 and all those places listed are not adult enough.

This is a pretty basic question, but who do they use as inspectors in Europe?

So why try to "review" it? How about "enjoying" it? You can't be expected to be a good reviewer without the experience. And you won't want to accumulate the necessary experiences unless you enjoy yourself. I have to say that I had a similar feeling about my meal at French Laundry. It took both my wife and I several courses to warm to the meal because we had too much "riding on it" - long wait to make the reservations, lots of calls to get them, travelling across the country to get there, etc. But by the end we just sat back and enjoyed the courses as they kept coming. In retrospect, it wasn't "the greatest meal I've ever had" oe even my favorite meal of 2003 - because we spent the first four courses in some strange moody funk. That's the biggest reason I want to go to Per Se only six months after having been to French Laundry. I want to approach the meal with the right frame of mind and enjoy the WHOLE experience this time.

That's interesting because you always hear stories about how the very famous have just as hard a time getting in to the French Laundry as us "regular folks'. Do you think this is part of doing business in New York versus little, out-of-the-way Yountville?

Glad we could expand your horizons - it should be very good.

I like a nice chef's salad with good meats and cheeses (no tired ham and flourescent yellow american cheese) and a creamy dressing. It doesn't have the greens you are looking for, but a few weeks back I made a grilled beef salad with cliantro, matchsticks of green apple (in place of papaya - I think) and a slightly spicy Vietnamese flavored dressing that was really good. And add another vote to the cobb column.

I'm assuming those whose reservations were cancelled due to the fire, no? From al reports I have seen here and on Chowhound the earliest anyone with a fire canceled reservation was able to reschedule was the 20th of May. Either way - its good to hear they are back up and running and we all (as far as I know) got out rescheduled reservations. Good luck this time around.

Didn't I just watch some of this play out on "The Restaurant" a few nights ago?

We do agree - I just think that putting too much emphasis on experience would discourage a lot of the interplay we have around here. As sometimes happens, I may overstate the case a little bit. I certainly get out to eat my fair share, but we aren't all in the position of Tom Sietsema being able to have multiple melas at hundreds of restaurants (or DonRocks and Joe H for that matter - both of whom seem to eat out at a professional, or at least AAA level and frequency).