bilrus

I think we may be a little extra wacky in these parts.

The unfamiliarity of the ingredients (to me at least) of the Japanese version is one of the drawbacks for me. It's hard to imagine if the creations would taste any good or not. This is probably because Japanese cuisine is probably the most "foreign" to me of any that I can think of.

Don, most of the places that you list are a little higher on the scale than the everyday places that would make a difference. The type of place that aren't for special occasions, but for a normal Thrusday or Friday night. I'd love to see a Firefly or a Jaleo or an Indique or a Majectic Cafe in this part of town. They types of places I currently have to drive 45 minutes or an hour to get to on a weekend. Steve, hearing what you said about SBC looking into moving has motivated me to go there for lunch today.

As long as they make it fairly straightforward and A) don't try to replicate the quirky feel of the Japanese version and B) don't try to replicate the smarmy, spoofy feel of the original American version - I'd watch, even with Emeril, Ming, Wolfgang and Bobby. It would make me tune back in to Food Network(at least via TIVO). Of course all of that is probably asking too much of FTV.

Its about two shopping centers south of the Toll Road on Centerville Rd. / Elden St. A few doors down from a 7-11. The name is SBC becaus ethe people who own it also run a company called Sweet Basil Catering.

I don't know why, but I was surprised to even see a bar at The French Laundry, even if it is only four seats and basically serves as the lobby. This sounds like a more comfortable set-up for waiting for a table than that room at TFL. Although they would seem to have their act together enough that you shouldn't ever have an exceedingly long wait for a table.

I have seen the pics of this on CH and thislooked like an unbelievable blowout. I don't know why, but the thing that struck me was that the room itself was much more formal and traditional than I had expected to see, given the ambitious menus.

I like that nice bit of seared-on char on the outside myself, although maybe not quite as rare as many of you on the inside (pink but not quite dark red, please). The only thing I agree with him on is the filet. It does get a bad rap and is my favorite piece of beef when cooked right, which isn't too hard to do. It has enough flavor and I like the texture too.

How so? I didn't have either a Listerine or a Halls drop. Just had the chocolate corn nuts by themselves. The popcorn was the standard chicken curry. No major changes, but interesting that it looks like they are making some subtle changes to the menu. For those who haven't been, behind the bar is a small video screen that shows the menu, but as it was when they first opened. There were dishes on there that I was looking forward to that never came. Oh well, maybe next time.

I understand that the conch fritters that are part of the mini-bar menu are also on the regular menu. They are quite good.

See here for a discussion of Pollo Campero (as well as a little hostility, if I remember correctly): Pollo Campero Thread

Hershey, PA

I would concur about the restaurants out this way (See the current Dulles Corridor thread). My hopes are that the prepared food at Wegmans will be decent. Although I am close enough I can take home the raw goods and make things for myself. No need to pack a lunch.

I live there too and Ashburn is a complete void when it comes to food. One note of encouragement is that there is a new pizza place opening up in the shopping center with the new Safeway. The good news is that it claims to have wood-fired pizzas. The bad news is that it is called something like Italian Ristorante. This leads me to believe it will end up being like any of the other half-dozen bad pizza/pasta places in the area. One halfway bright note out here is Banjara, which I think is at least serviceable Indian food.

There are a few that I would add. SBC Cafe. I've had a number of good lunches there. Good Cuban Sandwich and their soups are very good. Reston Kabob. Certainly nothing fancy, but well prepared kababs. It's in the International Center across from the public Golf Course. Market Street Grill in the Hyatt at the town center. I've ony had one fairly uninspired lunch there, but they have a very nice Sunday Brunch. My other perennial reccomendation, Chinatown in the Town Center closed sometime in the last two weeks with no notice of reopening anywhere else. This is sad for me, since this was probably my favortie place to get good, Americanized Chinese and they treated my wife and I very well (always greeted us by name and brought us a scoop of Ice cream for dessert on the house, sometimes despite our protestations). I also find myself at Champps at least once a week for one of their big salads (and I do mean BIG salads).

The deviled eggs are pretty good but a little plain. It might fall into the same litany you listed in your post. I liked them, but I liked most of the rest of the food I had there a little more than you do too.

Personally, I wouldn't know about that since I'm not 17 feet tall.

Sounds like a lot of those have changes in the last two weeks.

I was at the Reston Town Center today and saw that there is a new branch of Penang going in there. If it is any good, it will be a genuine source of excitement for me. So what should I expect?

Aren't those Olives in the spread?

I like his BOy Meets Grill show and the food he makes does look really good and in the few times I have made dishes from it have tasted pretty good ( i love the fish tacos). Having eaten at Mesa Grill, I thought the food there read better on the menu than it tasted on the plate.

Like I said. I would NOT eat there. It seems to me that there was a thread about six months ago on just this subject - eating in strip clubs. More common than you'd think.

My wife and I had a nice casual, not too expensive meal at a place called Market on the main street through St. Helena. My steak entree was just OK, but my wife's fish and chips were closet to thebest I have had and the Macaroni and Cheese was right up there as well.

My TIVO To Do List has the following: A Cook's Tour (I think I have seen them all by now) Molto Mario (all Puglia, all the time right now) Good Eats (Now that there are new episodes again) Boy Meets Grill (yeah, he's smarmy, but the food is pretty good) Rick Bayless (I am growing tired of this quickly) America's Test Kitchen and it seems like every Saturday when I first turn on the TV Michael Chiarello is on (Bayless must be on before that and TIVO keeps it on PBS) - I watch it but only because I am too lazy to change the channel. The great thing about TIVO is that I can usually watch something I want to watch instead of Unwrapped or Best Of or Top Five.

I have never been to Ben's Chili Bowl. I thought the exercise here was to identify a city's signature consumable, such as Philadelphia cheese steak's or San Francisco sour dough bread or Kansas City barbeque. As near as I can tell, there ain't no "Washington, DC _____ ." Certainly, the city is not known for "Ben's Chili Bowl." People don't come to town and tell the cab driver "take me to Ben's Chili Bowl." When I want chili, I go to Hard Times Cafe, or make it myself. I think one of the reasons it is so difficult to identify a DC signature dish is because so many of the people who live here come from somewhere else and leave after doing a stint with the federal government or working on the Hill. Ya been to the Tune Inn, it's only a DC institution? WoodleyGrrl's point is that Ben's is more known for its' half smoke than for its chili. I have seen one of these surveys before that identified the Half Smoke as the DC food item.