Mark Sommelier

I tend not to decant red Burgundies since I use large balloon glasses that essentially perform the same function as decanting. I do, on occasion, decant Grand Cru white Burgundies. I am always amused when I open a box of Domaine LeFlaive wine and read the little instruction cards they include. For their Grand Cru whites they recommend cellaring the wine for 7-10 years before drinking, or opening and decanting 3 hours before serving. Decanting red Burgundy is a matter of personal preference. I have tasted very young red Burgundies that were forward and graceful right from the start, and those that are tart and tight. Obviously, the tight wines need some time open to fully enjoy them. Amongst my group of wine drinking friends, a bottle of red Burgundy has almost no chance of making it till tomorrow.

Wrong, Jpw. Montgomery County is the only controlled COUNTY in the US. They do a truly shitty job. Uuh, Mark? Granted it's an old thread, but jparrot was the author, not me. The lovely Montgomery County money grub is why I buy most of my wine in VA or DC. That and the VA ABC is why I buy my booze in DC. Oops, sorry JPW.

Wrong, Jpw. Montgomery County is the only controlled COUNTY in the US. They do a truly shitty job.

Given their BYO policy and my growing wine collection, I'd like to know--how is the FOOD at The Caucus Room? I'd never heard of it before this thread... Food is fine. It is basically a steak house.

Two years ago, Esquire magazine awarded Inniskillin one of its annual "Dubious Achievement" awards. The tag line on the article was "how hard could it be to find frozen grapes in Canada?"

HA! I hear that all the time , "Oh you must eat so well working here". Not! At afore mentioned restaurant, the waitstaff would call for pizzas to be delivered. The cooks would put out their platters of crap (squab elbows, fish scrapings, chicken necks) and then have the BALLS to beg for pizza from us.

When I worked at the little restaurant at the Watergate, one day staff meal consisted of a large platter or SQUAB ELBOWS. Nothing more.

Moillard has always been a third rate negoce. No Burgundy needs 8 hours breathing to show off, let alone one that is 14 years old. Hope you didn't pay a lot for it.

I give up, WTF is "bubble tea"?

You're forgetting a small 40 seat restaurant in the Geroge Washington hotel called NECTAR!! That has proven that with a small budgett you can still do high end food and have a high end service....Forget about Citronelle!! Maestro (Ok!!) -gurrag gurrag, Welcome to eGullet. Nectar is a wonderful little restaurant. The owners and staff are friends of mine. As much as I like Nectar, I think they would agree with me that it is in no way in the same league as Maestro or the other restaurant you mentioned.

Yes.

Rocks working for Palena now?

Chutzpah, Fairfax Towne Center, Fairfax. Seriously, it's worth the trip. Bagels, ha! You can't get good chopped liver in DC. You can't even get BAD chopped liver in DC.

Restaurants that use Open Table have this available to them. OpenTable is a very handy tool. It does track reservations. If you give your email address, the system sends you a reminder in the morning. When you book online, you can add notes (anniversary, wife's birthday, etc.). There are also permanent notes that the restaurant can keep, ie: favorite wine, favorite table, children's names or other notes like "PITA".

Bill, All pieces of the puzzle that is Rocks. He is certainly an enigma wrapped in an enchilada.

Small correction. Chinatown hasn't been Chinatown since the HOOTERS went in, not to mention Fuddruckers. There's a Fuddruckers there? Egad. There was an amusing story in the Post when the Hooters was opening in Chinatown. Wanting to "fit in" the neighborhood, management wanted a traditional Chinese greeting on the window. As I recall, the motto in Chinese mentioned something about ducks with large breasts. I think it was up for a week for all the residents of Chinatown to chuckle about before the Hooters guys got wise and changed it.

Small correction. Chinatown hasn't been Chinatown since the HOOTERS went in, not to mention Fuddruckers.

I live in Foggy Bottom. The Watergate Safeway is the store closest to me. I have been shopping there weekly for almost 20 years. No one in the store knows my name. I know their names. They tell me "haven't seen you in a while". Shit! I was here yesterday! I have pulled products off the shelves that have been 2 months out of date. A splurge day for me is cabbing over to the Whole Foods store on P St. Who cares what the stuff costs? It looks and mostly tastes good.

Half bottle of Guigal CDR costs $4, so $12 is normal. For the life of me Rocks, I can't imagine, other than you work close by, why you would go back to Les Halles. Go to Cap Grill. Go to Bobby Van's. Go to BdC. Les Halles sucks. It sucks like guys named Chuck. It Sucks like babies who eat spinach and say yuck........

Certainly. This evening I walked past Hard Rock Café, and there were four tour buses outside, and a line stretching out the door and down the block. A half-block north was Bistro d’Oc, smack dab in the intersection of 10th and Construction, and there were two people in the restaurant when I walked in. The owner/chef of Bistro d’Oc founded La Miche in Bethesda thirty-five years ago, and to prove it, he has this rocket-ship of a wine sitting on the bar that was presented to him as a gift when he opened La Miche: a 1982 Tayac (Cotes de Bourg) in what surely must be a Nebuchadnezzar (a 20-bottle bottle), or whatever the largest format is for a bottle of Bordeaux. This thing dwarfs the double-magnum sitting next to it, and must weigh at least 75 pounds. Wines are skewed to the ordinary, with a predominance of selections from the Languedoc-Rousillon region of France which produces over a billion bottles of wine annually (for real!). Some of these wines might seem fairly priced in the mid-$30s, but they’re actually rather expensive for the quality unless you have the knowledge to navigate through the minefield of relatively obscure producers. The bread is freshly baked, but industrial to the point of pain (pain industriel). Vegetable soup is honest and bland, celery-based, served in a tureen with a minimum of fanfare and seasoning. Bavette of Kobe beef with blue-cheese sauce and frites was ordered medium-rare, and was perfectly cooked, even though it was probably a 9th-generation grandfather thrice-removed that was from Kobe, Japan. The blue cheese sauce was simple, with La Fourme d’Ambert (a nice surprise) as the base, made with cream and shallots. The frites were so-so, not great, not bad, crispy and correct, but lacked any sort of wow coefficient. The owner/chef’s wife is Thai, and – ha! – betcha didn’t know that Bistro d’Oc is a little-known source for interesting Thai dishes within the Penn Quarter area. A crabmeat-stuffed “cigar” is basically a spring roll, the size of a gargantuan phallus, and served with seaweed and a sweet vinaigrette dipping sauce. Dessert was a peach clafoutis with custard, and distressingly served a la mode. A freshly made dessert, but ponderous and not a real clafoutis. It was bogged down by its own custard and the giant scoop of bad ice cream on top which intercepted any serious attempt to enjoy it. A pity, because the innards weren't all that bad. So, Bistro d’Oc is a legitimate, fairly priced Gaulois-like selection in a soon-to-be-crowded area. May as well go sooner rather than later, because once construction is complete, the place will be more crowded. Given that there were less than a dozen customers in there this evening, while Hard Rock Café had several hundred, it deserves to be mobbed, and I hope it is. A worthwhile, well-priced restaurant, a real attempt at cuisine and even fine dining, and I’d happily return. Cheers, Rocks. Rocks, To put things in perspective for the crowd, let me point out that the Gallo winery also produces in excess of a billion bottles of wine a year. Domestically speaking, "Kobe Beef" is available from Sunnyside Farms in Washington, Va. Also, congratulations for coming out as Mr. Rockwell.

The Childe Harold on 20th near Q serves late: 1 during the week and 2 on Friday and Saturday. I have fun when I go there, but its not for everyone. It was once best described by a friend as "Darwin's Waiting Room".

Go to Bistrot du Coin on Connecticut Avenue at S St. Convivial atmosphere, straightforward service, tasty food. Mussels are a specialty.

Who needs internet connections? I had a family of regular customers in the other night. Dad and mom were talking to me about wine while the kids were text messaging their girlfriends on their cell phones under the table.

They also have those wonderful hot cross puns.

Rocks, do they have saris in my size???