ktmoomau

I am not sure, it tasted somewhat different to me, but maybe it was the sauce?  I have thought PBBBQ was a little sweeter.  Definitely same owner though.

I was surprised there wasn't a thread on Sweet Fire Donna's.

Website: www.sweetfiredonnas.com/

Hours: 

Walk-up Counter:
Sunday - Saturday 11am - 10pm

Bar:
Sunday - Thursday  11am - 12am
Friday & Saturday 11:00am - 1:00am

Late Night Bar Menu:
Sunday - Saturday 10:00pm - close

Online Ordering Available.  This place was humming for lunch with lots of take-out and eat in orders, luckily tables opened up quickly as it isn't huge inside.  I had the Carolina chopped pork sandwich with coleslaw.  I thought it was pretty good for NC pulled pork.  Vinegar sauce was good, pork was chopped, but still had some texture.  Hubby might even find it acceptable, it was good enough I would take him to try it.  I also had a free side (note the word of the day on FB or Twitter) of skin on potato salad that I thought was good, it had a little pepper in it and wasn't too heavily dressed, although definitely there.  Anyway, parking over in that area isn't the easiest, but I got a street space not too far away during lunch hour, so I was happy with myself.

Last night was a Thai red curry noodle bowl with green peppers, onion, carrot and chicken.  So good we ate it to fast to even take a pic.

Ok, I filled out the google document- I will make cheddar biscuits (or maybe a good rustic bread to eat with tomatoes?), a berry pie/cobbler and some sort of salad (maybe a pasta salad of some type).

http://www.totalwine.com/spirits/gin/c/000870?page=3

They might have the Sipsmith.

I was looking for an obscure- for me- gin called G'vine, and the Total Wine website says they have it at Laurel.  I haven't been to it, but might be worth a call to see what they have?  If it happens to be at a DC liquor store if you happen to see it while perusing let me know.  I have no hope that it will ever be at a VA ABC store.

I really enjoyed The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  I think it would maybe fit this category.

On 6/25/2018 at 12:21 PM, Smita Nordwall said:

The salad sound awesome! But what do people in your office do with croutons? 

Salad was based on this recipe- I added the wax beans because I didn't have a huge amount of cucumber.  https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/smashed-cucumber-salad-butter-beans-and-tarragon

I live close to El Pollo Rico (ARL) or Carribean Grill and could pick up a chicken?  It wasn't what I was planning on doing, but it's good chicken and would be easy for me to do.  I can't promise the skin won't be a little steamed by the time we reach the picnic.

1 hour ago, Smita Nordwall said:

The salad sound awesome! But what do people in your office do with croutons? 

Well, we always have bread, lunch meat, cheese, and boxed mixed lettuce in our office for lunches.  So we normally make salads and sandwiches.  But people don't love the heels of the bread, so if they put them in the freezer, when there is enough I take them home and make seasoned croutons for people to put on salads to spice up the variety a little.  It really helps take a fairly plain salad to the next level.  (We also normally have homemade greek or poppyseed dressing that I make from time to time.)

Union Street is still there!  The food is still decent.

Last week I made some chicken in the instant pot with stock and a little salsa that we used for burritos, tacos and kale salad. 

I finally did some cooking again (our AC is busted so the temps have to be pretty cool to turn on the stove) this weekend.  I steamed some chicken bbq buns.  The next evening I made homemade re-fried bean and cheese pupusas, and chicken and cheese pupusas.  I also made honey sriracha cole slaw to go with them.  I also made homemade croutons for my office, and a wax bean, butter bean and smashed cucumber salad to take to a friend's dinner last night.  And then I prepped for a bunch of other stuff for this week. 

This was one of my post court or pre-golf lesson favorites when I worked in Reston.  It was pretty quick and it was what you expected, not wildly better, not at all worse.  It is now a little out of my way with new office locations so I haven't been in some time.  

Maybe new Hartmann's are better, mine from 2009 are too heavy, while in-destructible, the weight of the suitcase alone will easily put me overweight on most carriers with a large piece.  I find it annoying when websites don't list the weight of the suitcase empty.  Hubby and I both need new suitcases though so I will be checking it all out.  Thanks for the new posts!  I will probably go to a luggage plus and/or Bloomies etc to check stuff out then price it online.

On 6/16/2018 at 9:28 PM, DonRocks said:

When the time is right, I'll be happy to do a "Takohachi" vs. "District Dumplings" Dump-off. I can even post pictures along with my personal descriptions, and let people decide which is which. P.S. Where did I dine? (Answer there, not here, please )

Count me in!

Wow.

Zucchini boats stuffed with rice, a little Italian sausage, a green spicy sauce leftover from Indian takeout, topped with cherry tomatoes.  A little zippy, and good.

Ok, so normally when I ask for vacation ideas- it is for more off the beaten path recs.  BUT I also want to plan a family trip for Hubby's family because he is turning 40 and his Dad is turning 70.  So I love my Hubby's family, but they are very different than traveling with just Hubby or my Mom.  I don't think they would do well in a country that doesn't have line culture, they like things more planned out and aren't like oh it'll be fine we will find a place type of people.  I don't think they would do well with a flight of over 12 ish hours (we can break it up though if need be, but I would prefer not).  I was thinking more Europe, Hawaii, etc, but am open to suggestion.  They like to do activities, but they aren't go, go, go people like me.  It would be me, Hubby, MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL and SIL, although I may invite family friends to tag along if they wanted.  They like good food, but aren't REALLY adventurous eaters. They aren't super adventurous on activities- kayaking, wine tasting are their speed, touring museums, houses are things they like to do. 

My ideal vacation for them I think would be breaking it up to no more than two/three locations that are somewhat central and you can do a lot of stuff from either by driving, train or public transport.  So people could do day trips activities together or separate.  We likely would stay about 10 days.  Renting a house might be preferred, but hotels would be fine too.  They have been to Paris, Brussles, Amsterdam, UK.  I was potentially thinking Germany, with a stop at the Porsche museum (Hubby and FIL love porsche).  They have mentioned Germany, Hawaii, (they loved the pics from Croatia and would go, but I think Hubby wants some somewhere different) Italy (although I don't know they would really love Italy).  Any ideas?  

I want to hash out some options for them.

Ok, so we checked off Bali and Dubai!  It will be back to HHI this year (Can't pass up a free beach house and will go with Hubby, FIL, MIL.)  2019 will be Greece and then I think up next will likely be Vietnam!!!  So thank you all for the ideas, they have been serving me well.

What islands in Greece did you all like and why?

Also, they could have taken over the lease from the space that went in before- drawing a blank on what it was, a burger place?- and that sub-lease could have been up?  There are a lot of sandwich choices, and it is a tight market.  And I will admit to really liking a couple of the classic sandwiches, but really not liking a large part of the menu.  My hubby will miss the closure much more.  I wanted to like this space much more than I did.  I actually really liked the courthouse location and would go after court, and I think since I didn't go as often, I was happy re-ordering the couple things I knew I liked.  I don't know why that is, I really wanted to REALLY like everything I tried, I just didn't.   

5 hours ago, zgast said:

You could cross-reference the trite foods thread and make a couple things from there.  Sort of a meta-critique on criticism.

Omg- hot dog curry or fluff n nutter encrusted fishstick- just saying.

On 8/7/2006 at 10:40 AM, qwertyy said:

Has the beet and goat cheese salad been floated as a contender here yet? I'm a huge fan of this dish, but it is on every menu in town... The preparations aren't even very different, just the presentation. Is this the new Caesar?

Wow... 12 years and still likely trite and going strong.  Kale and Brussels hit trite in 2013, they are having a 5 year trite anniversary.  Have miniburgers died, I feel like they are clinging on to the last stages of life.

Tonight was kale salad with homemade balsamic dressing, topped with chicken that I unthawed that had a random spice rub I put on it, not sure what, I then put in the instantpot with leftover duck sauce squeezed from packets, butter and water (it was way better than any of this sounds). Also, I added the brussels sprouts, charred carrots and goat cheese leftovers from dinner the other night.  Roasted some tomatoes and zucchini in the oven and threw that in.  Also we have very few sweets and snacks as I haven't gotten groceries in a long time now, but we had a box of ghiradelli brownies, so I whipped those up too. I also made iced tea. I am soldering on without grocery shopping, save the couple veggies I picked up last week at the Farmer's Market for another solid week.  Woot, woot.

Sorry, I couldn't decide what I was bringing yet, so I didn't fill out the form.  I am +1 or 2.  I am having dish commitment issues, I haven't even been in my house for a weekend for over 6 weekends and counting, so I just am not organized.  I will work on figuring something out.  But I have it on my calendar.  Hubby makes a mean homemade dumpling, but those are a little better fresh.  I love to bake, but I haven't baked in probably two months and don't know what I would want to do.  I was going to test out homemade empanadas.  I likely will also make some sort of pasta or fresh salad, but again, haven't committed to the what part yet.

Went to Charlottesville for the weekend:

Be Good- Fast casual in the Barracks Road shopping plaza with Anthropologie.  It is mostly salads, grain bowls and grass fed burgers?  I had an avocado grain bowl with chipotle sauce, black beans, quinoa, carrots, etc.  It was good, although I could have done with about 1/3 less dressing.  SIL and MIL had the salad version of my bowl with chicken- same problem on the dressing, but all the ingredients were good.  The menu was definitely interesting if you are trying to eat somewhat healthy, and they had vegetarian and vegan options.  But it isn't a destination restaurant.

Junction- now this is worth a drive across town.  It's in Belmont.  They had a large menu of shared plates and entrees, as well, with a somewhat southwestern theme to it.  We shared chips and dip plate (large) over 5 people.  The guac was good, the salsa I thought was very good, the queso was not good- it was too runny, and had a consistency which wasn't gritty per se, with large grit, but it wasn't smooth. Also some of the chips were noticeably stale, and many were broken.  I know they make their own, and it was really humid that day, and part of them were fine.  I am sure we could have asked for a new batch, but we just didn't it wasn't that bad and we ate the guac and salsa with other things.  I had soft shell crab over fried green tomatoes, micro-greens and some sort of sauce with a little grainy mustard mixed in- it was delicious- crisp, good flavors.  I also got a medium of the charred carrots with goat cheese and brussles sprouts (because they were out of beets).  The carrots were amazing, the medium is a big serving, I would say more than 3-4 people as a side.  Hubby and I ate some and took some home.  The brussels weren't anything anyone else isn't doing.  I would rather of had the beets, but they were fine.  Hubby had pork loin stuffed with chorizo and he really enjoyed that, as well.  Everyone really liked their dishes.  They had a nice selection of cocktails which were well made and wines/beers.  

Their is a cajun restaurant across the street in Belmont that I saw that I now want to try though.  It looked super cute and casual and fun.

Whiskey Jar- we went here for brunch.  The menu isn't huge, Hubby picked three sides and had a ham biscuit, collards and mac and cheese, it all looked good.  I had the scramble with no cheese.  Hashbrowns were of the moist and saucy variety, but they had good flavor.  The scramble was fine.  I had a hard time picking something from the menu, I think I am just getting over brunch in many ways.  Once in a while I want some benedict, or hash, but I just find most of brunch so heavy and without any veggies.  Based on who they source from though, I would think dinner would be good.