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Gourmet Mushrooms Inc. for mushrooms. They sell two or four pound gift baskets of exceptional quality to consumers. igourmet, Artisanal and Murray's Cheese are all excellent for cheeses. Buckskin Orchards has great washington State cherries in season. Rising C Ranch ships great citrus in many varieties from California. Frog Hollow Farm ships superb California stone fruit. I concur with Browne Trading Co. for impeccable seafood. Some of my favorite meat producers can be ordered online such as 3 Corner Field Farm for amazing NY State lamb and Flying Pigs Farm for great heirloom breed pork. I'm not sure if their chickens are available online, but they are wonderful, too. Lobel's carries their pork. Tienda.com is an excellent source for Spanish products including piquillo peppers and ventresca tuna amongst other items. I have been pleased with Gustiamo.com for select Italian products. The above sources, while not necessarily the cheapest, all provide superb quality product with excellent service. If I have an option I prefer to buy locally, so I generally shop online for products that I can't match locally. For those special products I don't mind spending a little more.

I love the pop rocks chocolate. I'll never forget the first time I had them - at his shop - a truly remarkable sensation with wonderful flavor too.

Thanks, Ted. I am excited. we are building our summer around that. With Moo a matter of some debate, what opinions do people have of the hotel Omm and thoughts about other nearby restaurants? Cinc Sentits is not too far away. I owe them another visit, but I'm not sure a jet-lagged evening would put me in much better shape than the last time I was there.

I had marvellous suckling pig at Abac in Barcelona. I believe it was cooked sous vide, but the skin was perfectly crackling.

While I don't give any credance to the absolute rankings in lists like that, the general recognition of being considered for it is awesome! Congratulations!

To be honest, Joe, I can't say that Crozet Pizza is not the best pizza in the world. The fact that I remember the name after 15 years says that it has had some reputation. While I have been there I can't say that I specifically recall it as being particularly wonderful, the way I can recall places like Eastern Standard, The Silver Thatch Inn and Guadalajara. Now I have no idea if any of those places are still around let alone still good, but they do stand out in my memory. Thanks Charles, I missed that thread when I first posted mine, but since then have followed it as well.

It's been a few years, but I believe the pizza place in question was Crozet Pizza. I don't recall it being particularly special, though.

One of the great things about restaurant reviews at a site like eGullet is that one can gleam a sense of the restaurant from the posters other writings and overall history as well as a specific post and recommendation. While it is not necessary to have read much from someone before, often one can get a sense of how accurate to one's own taste a report may be by the writing. The same is true for any restaurant reviewer. The better or more consistent the reviewing the better chance one has to make an informed decision about a particular restaurant. I think this is especially true for the more creative restaurants of which Barcelona and Spain are particularly flush. I am thinking of spending a night at the Omm and considering Moo. While there are many othe choices for dinner, this one night will be our arrival in Spain. I expect we will be fairly tired and the following day we'll be off to El Bulli so I'd rather not exert ourselves too much.

These are great recs. While my wife and I visited DC a lot while I did my residency at UVA and have a fair sense of the city from then, our boys have not spent any significant time there. The challenge is going to be integrating the interests of a 15, 13 and a 5y/o:laugh:. The National Cathedral is certainly something I hadn't considereed before. That would be fun to get that vantage point. It will also probably be less crowded than the Washington Monument.

I think this would be a great thing for the US Fine wine industry, no matter the state.

Thanks again. I have to find a way to get Two Amys in.

It is difficult to lose a trusted asssociate, whether by choice or happenstance. I feared when starting your story that the ending was more dire than it appears.I hope he is enjoying his retirement. Good luck finding another.

Wow! Patrick, I believe you make the case. Are you trained as a pastry chef, food scientist and lawyer? Very well said. I forgot to mention writer.

I am very happy to say that following advice from eGullet members I succeeded in securing my reservation. I am looking forward to it. My biggest problem with the reservation issue was that I couldn't understand the message on the answering machine even after 5 or 6 times listening to it, so a call center might have been helpful. While I generally prefer a more user friendly reservation experience, I trust that the proof is in the pudding and that so long as the restaurant continues to be successful with its current approach it doesn't need to change it. It makes it easier for its dedicated patrons to secure their tables.

I am fortunate to have secured a reservation for Rays the Steaks on a Saturday night to finish our visit to this fair city. Thanks for everyone's input on this score. As much as I would like to go to Maestro's that is the one restaurant that I am not certain our 5 y/o would be able to make it through so that we and the people around us all enjoy ourselves.

I knew this would be difficult to keep up with.

I do not loathe it. But I do feel people do. I am not one of those. The point I was trying to make was after all of these posts, are there any other positives or negatives that really need airing? Probably not. ← It never hurts to know that a restaurant continues to live up to its reputation or doesn't. The fact that the restaurant continues to generate the interest it does makes mewant to try it for myself and choose it over a myriad of other restaurants in DC accordingly.

Thanks for the suggestions. keep them coming. Is there any really good Mexican burrito place that is open for lunch?

Joe, Thanks for the reply. It was your posting on Maestro that initially brought the restaurant to my attention.

Ooh la la, Bleu, the sequel! I haven't been this excited about a sequel since Godfather Part II. OK, maybe since The Return of the King I just hope that I can keep up.

Thanks! I'll have to remember to try then. They don't have a website, do they?

What impressed you the most about Balaguer?

The point about Mario's dishes being makeable by a home cook was not made to take away from his accomplishments. The dishes did not use esoteric techniques, but they were creative combinations using whimsy and readily available ingredients. The dishes were in fact original takeoffs on traditional fare. Anyone can throw together disparate ingredients, but if they don't work, how original or creative is that? Believe me, I love nothing more than real creativity when I dineout - so long as it is delicious, too. Aside from the debacle with Roberto Donna (it would have been interesting if he was able to complete his dishes), this was the first episode in which I thought the Iron Chef was the clear cut victor. This isnot meant to take anything away from Campbell, who gave it his all and did what appeared to be a fine job.

That's arguably a political issue, though. If you were living in Canada or Europe or some other place where you didn't have to pay for your own medical insurance, would you feel differently about this? ← One way or another it gets paid for - either by insurance premiums or taxes. The real problem is the whole issue of liability and how that has careened out of control. This is pertinent to the issue of raw milk cheeses as well as things like wild mushrooms or other food products. To a significant extent the concern about liability is good because it makes people aware of potential consequences of not having a safe product and thereby working harder to have one. The problem though is that no one in the US seems to be willing or able to take responsibility for themselves, whether it be eating raw milk cheeses, wild mushrooms in LA or spilling hot McDonald's coffee in one's lap. The whole Vioxx issue makes me sick. Is there a risk to the drug? Sure, but there are risks to any drug. The benefits were quite significant to a great number of people, who now are much less likely to get the same re I don't think the question should be one of absolute numbers (i.e. risk to half the population). Instead it is simple risk/benefit analysis. What is the likelihood of a complication occurring and if so, how severe is it likely to be? Then, what are the potential benefits of the same process, how significant are they and what is the likelihood of achieving them? There is very little in life that is purre black and white when looked at this way. That is certainly true in medicine, where we use (or should use) this kind of analysis constantly. I think that it is reasonable to put warnings on raw milk cheeses after allowing for a suitable inspection process to determine that elemental hygiene has been met and that the animals producing the milk are healthy.

I could use a little advice, please. After reading about all the wonderful food in this fair town of late, I and my family will be venturing down therer this spring to partake of some. Unfortunately we will only be there for 4 nights. We will definately be going to Firefly and I am planning on a visit to Citronelle with friends sans family. Restaurants under consideration include Rays the Steaks, City Zen, Jaleo or Maestro. The dilemma is that we will have our five year old in tow along with our culinarily sophisticated teenagers. The five year old is ok in restaurants behaviorally, but not so much culinarily. That doesn't bother me so much since he will eat enough and we don't pander to it. Any thoughts on the restaurants mentioned? We will be doing touristy things during the day so good, inexpensive, quick, ethnic lunches are preferred for that. Suggestions along those lines are also highly appreciated. Thanks for your consideration and ideas.