To read Todd's introduction click here.
We've got you covered, Alexandria.
J. Gilbert's in McLean is doing one for $24.95 per adult and $12.95 per child.
Several levels above that, there's Maestro, one of the best restaurants in the area. It's doing one for $58.
2941 in Falls Church is also doing a buffet. Theirs is $75 per adult (includes a glass of sparkling wine) and $12 per child under 12. (Free for children under five.)
A lot of that research is courtesy Melissa Herald, who compiled our excellent guide to Thanksgiving Dinner out, "From Classic Turkey to Tandoori Turducken: A Guide to Thanksgiving at Local Restaurants."
It's up now on the website.
For those of you who'll be eating in, I'm curious to know if you have any great family recipes to pass along — recipes that are tried and true and timeless.
Or maybe just a great Thanksgiving story.
Or even an awful one. : )
Hey!
Whoever you are, you made my day.
Top 5 for brunch, huh? That's a toughie, since brunch doesn't generally do a whole lot for me — a lot of sameness, and especially for the money.
Howsabout I give you two places that I'd gladly go back to, again and again?
Poste, in the Hotel Monaco, has a terrific brunch, especially for churls like me who want a little more playfulness and variety. They've got a duck pastrami sandwich, bruschetta with fresh anchovies and wonderful, cooked-to-order, sugar-dusted donuts (yeast, not cake). There's also the usual complement of eggs and such, dressed up with little touches and refinements.
Colorado Kitchen also has donuts (cake, not yeast), along with fresh fried flounder and homemade tartar sauce, excellent shrimp 'n' grits, and terrific little buttery soft mini-biscuits.
Funny, huh? Rilke urges us to live the questions. And what am I doing today? Just answering 'em. ; )
Oooofff.
Hard to justify the cost at that price, but man oh man — what a turkey.
Lucky for me, I guess, that I've got a hook-up.
I'll tell you, Great Falls — you're not alone in your enthusiasm for Agraria. Not hardly.
Why, fresh on the heels of your posting, comes four more just like it.
Like this one:
Todd, Just wanted to share an experience I had at Agraria. After reading you comments you motivated me to go and check it out for myself. 1. Food – seriously delicious 2. Service – I couldn't have felt more welcomed and taken care of. 3. Ambience – Warm and inviting 4. Chef Moore- A gentlemen, great cook and gracious host. 5. Value – Starters are $6-$12 and Entrees are $16-25 with exception to a filet What made our experience so grand is that we just came back from Circu De Sola as we approached the restaurant a well dressed gentlemen told us about the chef Chicken Soup that he was serving as a featured dish on the menu. IF I COULD SAY WITH GREAT HONESTY, THE SOUP WAS SUPER GOOD! It was a awesome first impression. Some other dishes that get high marks: a. Endive Salad b. Duck Sausage c. Potato Ravioli with beef cheek-foie gras sauce d. Mussel with snail butter and tempura fish e. Short Ribs f. Halibut wrapped in Proscuitto g. Pumpkin Dumpling with Maple Sabayon h. Bread Pudding We are now fans of the restaurant and to top the evening off the chef came to the table to ensure our experience was to our satisfaction. His comment was, " is the anything we could do to make you experience better." It was very refreshing to here a chef with such great talent to respond so humbly. Alot of chefs in this city could take a lesson from Chef Moore of how to take care of the customer. We will tell all of our friends.
And this one:
Todd, I went to the Food Fights last week and I had the most interesting play on a classic movie snack…Lobster popcorn. The chef Ricky Moore from Agraria prepared a dish that I was truly blew away by the cleverness. It was a organic popcorn cooked in lobster butter and garnished with tarragon salt, chunks of lobster meat and some type of citrus seasoning and the aroma… it was fantastic. It was served in a black Chinese carryout box and displayed under heat lamps so it was slightly warm when you ate it. The only issue I had was that some of the people that were at the event were trying to eat popcorn with a d_ _ _ fork…I could not believe the snootiness. I am confident that everyone has been to see a movie and I have never been given a fork to eat popcorn with. IT FINGER FOOD PEOPLE! His dish was truly original. I shall visit his restaurant soon to check out his food.
And this one:
Todd, Went to Agraria on Friday. I went there because I remember the chef when he was assistant chef at Equinox. I am was a member of the Junior League Club in Old Town and he gave a wonderful cooking class to our members. It was truly memorable experience, this was about 6 year ago. To make a long story short, we had a beautiful meal at Agraria and as I have research all of the unpleasant reviews, chat lines etc. I think this restaurant need more recognition. DC needs chefs like Chef Moore, down to earth gentlemen who genuinely wants and needs to make people happy.
And, wait — one more:
Todd, I have had brunch at Agraria 4 times already and the food is great. My favorite is the French toast with Sage Whipped Cheese and Caramelized Fried Apples. Fried doughnut hole with lime sugar, and the fresh bread basket, delicious.
I say: Why stop at four?
More. I want more.
More more more.
More gushing praise for this middling, overhyped retaurant.
Come on, pr hacks, friends and family. I know you can do it!
Hmm. That's always a great challenge, Gaithersburg — finding great food at places with great views.
My pick at the moment would have to be Indigo Landing, on Daingerfield Island (right off the parkway as you're going to National Airport).
Stunning views of the monuments, you can watch the planes taking off and landing, and looking out at a body of water is always peaceful and relaxing. What I'd do is, I'd call ahead and ask to make sure you get a table with a good view.
Food's good, too. Bryan Moscatello's dishes are hearty and surprisingly intricate for Lowcountry cooking. Take advantage of an excellent bread basket, and look for things like the duck bog, full of deep, teased-out flavors.
Good stuff, DC.
Keep it coming, folks!
Recipes, stories. More more more.
I love that line, by the way: "that blighted bird hogging the prime real estate in the center of our table."
It's funny, isn't it, that the entire holiday revolves around turkey, and yet a lot of people I know and hear from don't really care about the turkey at all — and actually look forward to everything else that's on the table.
I love that we've got these long, conversational threads that just keep going and going and going …
You're right about the Midwest. Chicago is a really fascinating place to watch these days on the high end (it's always been fascinating on the lower end and everywhere else). And Kansas City, believe it or not, is one of the best cities to eat out in in the country right now. It ain't just barbecue and great steaks — not that there's anything wrong with that.
Me? Skeptical?
I'd be curious to know which place it was, D.C., that you stumped for.
Look, I don't profess to being infallible when it comes to things like this. But I will say that writing that sounds breathless, or pr-ish, or hyped up in any way, is going to bring out the worst in me.
So, a little advice: Next time, give it a little more nuance.
That goes double — triple — for you rabid Agrarians.
(Remember Paul Reiser, in Diner? "I'm just not comfortable with a word like 'nuance.' Now 'gesture' — 'gesture' I like … ")
Terrific question, DC.
And good for you, willing to venture into an unabashed palace of meat even though you're not partaking in the least.
I'd try Smith and Wollensky and Morton's, without a doubt, but I'm sure there are others out there, too.
Maybe some of the other choggers can add to the list.
Choggers? Are you out there?
John,
IN-teresting.
I've never seen anyone advance a theory like that.
I don't know if it's true, and you don't either, but it sounds perfectly credible to me. Sounds, in other words, like it ought to be true.
Or, to put it another way (and with apologies to S. Colbert): You spoke truthiness.
They do bring up the delis, it's true.
And you're right — the delis are super-expensive.
Katz's is good. Real good.
But you know what? It doesn't begin to compare to the epic smoked meat sandwiches you can find in Montreal at Schwartz's and otherse. This is a sandwich. The melting lusciousness of the sliced-thick meat … the fresh, visible spicing … You eat one, and you feel changed, somehow. It's a definite see-the-light kind of moment. That's how good they are.
Now that, to me, is a sandwich worth driving north for.
Seriously.
See, look what you've done!
I nearly did a spit-take of coffee all over my Mac.
(Is there a verb for this? There ought to be, don't you think? Spit-took?)
Interesting question, DC.
Aside from kimchi, you're looking — dish-wise — primarily at barbecue (beef short ribs, pork belly) and soups (especially seul leung tang, a milky-colored but beef-flavored, long-cooked soup filled with noodles, cooked egg and green onions), as well as panchan.
Panchan are the little dishes that come out at the start of a meal, and, to me, are a good indication of the quality of what's to come. You'll find anywhere from about 5 to 8 of these little dishes, which show off a range of hot and cold, pickled and not, pungent and mild. They're meant to wake up your mouth, no different from the Italian tradition of anti pasti.
To me, you have to really be comfortable with a sometimes searing level of spice, a high degree of funkiness in the background of a dish, and a love of pickling to truly appreciate Korean food.
That might be one reason why it hasn't crossed-over like so many other Asian cuisines.
Well, I don't know about a quote, but I could always just make a nice little reference to NAMBLA.
Can I take the liberty of butting in and screwing up your holiday plans?
A recent meal at IndeBleu was disastrous — best summed up, perhaps, by the $16 kumamoto oysters (all three of them) topped by a granita of what tasted like Mountain Dew.
You can do better.
2941, Maestro, Citronelle, Vidalia, the Inn at Easton, Blue Duck Tavern — all are doing Thanksgiving dinner this year.
Sure, subscriber.
I'd give a call over to Baked & Wired, in Georgetown. They tend to put out only a pie or two at a time, but I know they take orders.
They're good and they're reliable.
Other places to look into: Pastries by Randolph in Arlington; Praline in Bethesda; Firehook; and Dean and Deluca
You're talking about one of the most consistent restaurants in the city.
I think they lost a little when they lost their chef, Sudhir Seth (who now runs Passage to India, in Bethesda), a few years ago.
But a little, not a lot — and they've held steady since. It's still one of the very best places to go for Indian cooking in the area.
The other thing that's consistent about Heritage India is the service, which can be pushy with drinks and sometimes chilly and offputting.
A half-dozen? Seriously?
Why do I find that hard to believe?
We're only talking about decent, now, right? Not good. Decent. Better than passable.
Who have you tried?
Breadline?
Patisserie Poupon?
Firehook?
Reeves! Yes. For strawberry pie, especially.
Mmmm-mmmm.
May not be traditional Thanksgiving eating, but good is good.
What, you don't want to know about Valentine's Day, too? : )
Hold tight, Alexandria.
We'll have something up and running on the website in the next couple of weeks.
I think you're right.
But then, I think you're right about a lot of things.
Actually, before I forget: Did you pick up the turkey yet? I'll get milk on the way home, and get started on the cranberry-cherry sauce tonight.
(Domestic interlude over.)
Enjoy the holiday, everyone.
Stuff yourselves silly, savor your time with friends and family, and let's meet back here next week.
