youngfood

PS7 is a place I normally think of for happy hour cocktails and bar food, but will no longer think of only as such. The online menu isn't up to date, but Peter Smith did something with Monkfish that really brought out its meaty characteristics in a way I haven't before seen. Three small monkfish chops, basically bone in steaks, pan roasted with a mix of yummy white beans, shroms, red pepper and some other stuff that escapes me. It's hard to get excited about monkfish, but this dish was outstanding. The scallops, which had a nice crust, and the quail were also standouts. And the dining room is lovely, particularly the booths at the far end of the restaurant, and, as Tom noted, even when the restaurant in full, it doesn't get too loud here. Overall, dinner was a really pleasantly surprise.

Nothing I've had has come off that table. I'm not sure if that's just part of a lunch buffet or his Sunday all you can eat buffet, but he certainly does prepare fresh food in addition to whatever is available off of the it.

Citronelle is doing Restaurant Week this summer?

Opentable seems to have switched their policy and now gives ZERO opentable points when you book through [at least some] restaurants' website. Pretty annoying to discover the rule change after a few zero point reservations... Sorry restaurants, the extra $.75 from your pocket is worth it for the $1 I get from opentable to book through them.

Chicago Trib article on Olive Oil. (hat tip MeMc) Does anyone have favorites for basic home usage in cooking & salad dressing? I've been using the Kalamata one that TJs stocks for cooking, but I've yet to pick a favorite for drizzling over salads etc.

Levi's Port Cafe. Johnny is a great guy who makes pretty darn good, plain ol pork ribs, mac n cheese, cornbread and greens. I can't see why anyone would go anywhere else before a game at the new stadium. Johnny says he's going to try to put together some to-go meals for folks to take to games. He deserves more business, I don't think he sat more than a few tables tonight, we had the place to ourselves most of the evening.

The Majestic. Really surprised this place hasn't gotten more attention here. I'm definitely sorry I hadn't tried it sooner. The seafood stew was delightful and it was fun to have a caesar made tableside, but the star of the night was the new as of last night Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Greens atop Grits. Wow. Two ends of tenderloin around a melt in your mouth piece of belly. A serious pork fest and a must try for any pork lover.

I'm smitten with Mio. I think they are providing an outstanding product at a price point that is underserved in the Washington market. Most of Mio small plates are a hair over $10 a piece, while many entrees are between $20-25. It's not a cheap night out, but it is a good value and a pretty reasonable price for some interesting and delicious eats. Having read up on the spot, I was excited to try the venison that the WP featured, the swordfish that TK raved about, and the goat gnocchi & chop duo that Melissa McCart mentioned. Low and behold, the chef offered a new menu on Saturday night and had removed the first two of those options. A pretty bold move for a new chef... Anyway, the space here is nice and comfortable. As you enter, the first quarter of the restaurant the bar is the left and a lounge space is on the right. The main dining area is split into third with the left side housing a raised dining area for mid to large sized private events, the center are having a great view into the open kitchen where the chef roams front and center in a way his mentor did at Maestro, and the right third partially cordoned off into a semi private room with warm wooden paneling. It isn't too chic, but it is very comfortable, attractive, and, at least when they aren't totally full, pleasantly quiet. Servers and bartenders come across as very well trained. I don't get the sense that Mio has been able to hire folks with many years of fine dining experience, but the folks I met on my two visits were thoroughly professional, well versed, and unobtrusive. They did lots of little things so well here, from serving warm bread, to bringing additional bread half way through the meal without being asked, to splitting an entree that was to be shared without asking, to replenishing flatware and side dishes to accompany each round of the minitasting menu we organized on Saturday night. I really expected a lot less, but was pleasantly surprised to find that we were very well attended to. But the food was the reason for the initial visit and the reason for the return. Almost all of it was fantastic and showed the chef's pedigree well. A duo of hamachi - tartar and quick grilled chop w/ lemon sorbet was nice. The chop was almost seared rare and very nice. The chef seems to have taken TS's quibble about the overuse of salt to heart and instead allows a small springling of salt on the side for self-serving. Like TK, I was impressed that the chef didn't hesitate to serve fish a tad shy of medium rare. The tartar was the more striking of the duo though. I thought there might have been green pepper though the menu said jalapeno. It wasn't a spicy dish, but the fish was glistening pristinely and the pepper provided a lovely crunch and bite to counteract its sweetness. And the sorbet was a lovely palate cleanser. The Beef carpaccio del 'Maestro,' quail eggs, preserved mushrooms is pretty well as it was at Maestro. Three little bites of tender beef wrapped around little tofu bites with a quail egg sitting atop. A really neat little dish and, while its been a while since I had the original, Mio's substitution of tenderloin for kobe didn't hurt in my estimation. You don't see dishes with this kind of artistry available a la carte for under $12 often! It's hard to pick a favorite, but the Grilled Escolar with carrot-lemongrass puree, spicy molasses sauce (and topped with radicchio). This seems to have replaced the swordfish that TK was so enamored with. I wasn't certain about ordering this as I'd only had escolar a couple of times and my standards for it were quite high based on fond memories of Komi's speck wrapped 'white tuna' of a couple years back. Moreover, grilling it just seemed a little odd given the rich oily texture of escolar and I really wasn't sure how an only slightly cooked piece of it would come out. I decided that the chef deserved a little leeway based on his pedigree and I'm glad I took the risk. The slightly deconstructed mix of flavors with this dish really mesh together well. The carrot lemongrass puree is a delightful slurp of spring and its sweetness meshes well with the molasses while the radicchio provides a lovely cruchy bittery counterpoint. The Escolar itself had nice smoky grill marks, but was comfortably medium rare. Sounds odd, but it really worked. The Sweetbreads were HUGE and moist and the hazelnuts were a neat textural and flavor addition. The Foie Ballotine honey-huckleberry sauce, corn bread was my one disappointment. I think I prefer foie other than ballotine style, but it was colder and firmer than I wanted. The huckleberry sauce was good and the corn bread was a sweet, almost a wafer thin toast, but the slab of foie itself didn't do it for me. The Goat Ragout (w/ Goat Stock) Smoked Potato Gnocchi with Goat Chop is a heckuva dish. The gnocchi is definitely in more of a soup than you will be used to, but if you like goat, or haven't been able to try it because you haven't been to Komi lately, this a great chance to do so. The goat ragout has a real concentrated rich goat flavor that is just great. The chop is a nice addition and given the relative paucity of opportunities to try goat is a fun chance to try it another way. The wine list offers many options under $35 and a handful more under $40 with an emphasis on Spanish wines. This makes eating here all the more affordable as it is far to easy to double the cost of a decent meal with a bottle of wine at a nice restaurant. I tried a few of their lighter reds the clear winner of which was the 2004 Izadi Crianza (Rioja, Spain) $9/glass or $38/bottle. Our waitress described as more of an old world style and I thought that was pretty spot on. Anyway, pardon my gushing, but I'm really thrilled to have discovered this place and I'm sure others will find it worth a try as well. For me, Mio is the new Corduroy or Restaurant Kolumbia in that they are offering great food at a reasonable price in a comfortable atmosphere and could probably charge more if they were next to the Verizon Center or Georgetown. No, they aren't in the best location and this isn't the hottest area to see and be seen, but if you are looking for great food and care less about some of that stuff or if you don't want to try to book Proof or Central 2-3 weeks ahead of time, Mio is there for you. It also fills a void for those who want some of the creative culinary excitement that comes from the top restaurants in town, but don't want to pony up for a $100 5-course meal. In that way, Mio has a touch of Komi back when they still did a la carte a few nights a week. Folks often talk about wanting to support local talent and small businesses, over DC outposts of celebrity chefs. Mio is a great chance to do that.

How was it? Who won the cocktail competition?

Anyone else been here recently? Lots of favorable press since the chef settled in, but surprisingly little chatter here.

Takeout from Taw. Man, that is a neat spot. Loved the Salmon Red Curry, but the Pad Thai was too sweet -more soy and less peanut- than I prefer. I'll definitely be back again soon. I so wish DC had more like this.

I put Sam Adams right up there alongside Yuengling, Rolling Rock and Stella in the "Inexplicably Cool" category. TGIFridays in Greenbelt on the other hand is probably about as cool as it gets in the "Inexplicably Dining in Greenbelt" category.

A huge and enjoyable hot dog (I give a slight edge to PS7's) and a delicious, despite being overcooked, burger at EatBar. I'm starting to love this place, but this is the third time in a row that my medium rare burger has arrived medium well despite the runner's announcing of a "medium rare burger" at delivery. Some great bruschetta -both rosemary chicken liver and oil cured roma tomato w/ chevre- at Cork, where the trick is definitely arriving early and the back room is much quieter, at least until the couple seated next to proceeds to launch into a divorce after their second bottle of wine. And where any notion of having to pay more than $10 for a decent glass of wine at a decent restaurant has been definitively put to rest (3 of their 44 wines by the glass are over $12, and 31 of 44 are $10 or less).

More on this place here with photos and hours (open til 7 pm, closed Sundays).

That's a real shame. This has been a great spot on the hill since before it became Murky (used to be "Stompin Grounds"). The only problems I ever had with them was that they were too popular and often I wouldn't want to wait in long lines. One of the free papers on my stoop last night said that DC insists they owe about $400K in back taxes, as well. If they are gone, I really hope something else of the same character takes their place. And I really hope they aren't gone.

Lasagna with Chard, Ricotta and Walnuts from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors

It is.

Not sure what banana esters are, but I tend to find a fruity and off-putting flavor in many of the Belgians I've tried and I find it so off-putting that I've largely given up on trying Belgians. I do not like fruit flavors in beer. Somewhat similarly, I cannot stand Magic Hat #9, though, of course, that is not a Belgian.

A serious question: does anyone else not like Belgian Beer? I know, I am a loser and an inadequate beer drinking foodie, but I really don't like Belgians almost across the board.

Would your sensibilities have been less offended if I'd used two sentences to explain it? Maybe, "PU is no longer on tap at JHS. That tap is now used to serve Stella."?

But if offered a choice of those three beers, you can't tell me you'd have chosen either of the other two. Don, who are you hanging out with that thinks Rolling Rock and Yuengling are cool? I didn't mean to imply that having Stella on tap was an unusual or special thing, and I'm certainly not cool even when I'm drinking it, but of the four taps offered at JHS, this was my choice and, in my opinion, was an upgrade over Pilsner Urquell. And frankly, sometimes I like drinking a few mediocre, easy drinking cold beers. Especially when they are offered at discounted happy hour prices. This has got to be one of the silliest topics we've ever had here. Let's try to raise the level of discourse and get back to serious topics like being appalled by the existence of bad television shows.

I noticed those last night for the first time, but stuck with old standbys (wings, squid, shrimp n grits). Tell us more.

Stella has replaced Pilsner Urquell here. Mmm, Stella!

Justin Bittner according to this piece on Adam and his fancy cocktails.

Never been to Bar, but DC doesn't have 6 spots better than Sally's or Pepe's. Next time, try them.