Tuesday, February 9 at 11 AM

And eggs. Milk and eggs.

Which basically means there are a lot of pancakes being flipped out there. And waffles being pressed. 

Sounds pretty good to me.

I made homemade pasta this weekend with my surfeit of eggs — ravioli on Friday in a vodka cream sauce, tagliatelle on Sunday in a tomato sauce.

And on the menu tonight — having just collected my mom, who went 14 hours without heat this weekend, and brought her back home, where I'm doing the chat from my home office … more homemade pasta!

I'm curious to hear what all of you are making at home — what special dishes? What caloric indulgences? 

Nicholas, thank you for writing in.

If you would, please forward along your email address to MY email address — tkliman@washingtonian.com …

And if you're out there, Navy Yard chatter, please do the same. I'll be happy to make the connection.

Boy, there's a lot there that I like.

The quenelles de poisson, the steak tartare, the lobster bisque, the crispy veal sweetbreads with a dice of braised veal tongue …

Enjoy yourself. It's ideal food for weather like this.

Some wonderful desserts, too, and one of the best cheese selections around. 

I don't think Komi is for everybody, and I have said that many, many times. But I do think it's the best, most rewarding experience in the city.

It's more personal than any of those other restaurants you mention, more idiosyncratic, more individual, more intimate, more soulful, more sensual.

It is not at all what a lot of people look for in a fine dining restaurant. It's not a show, it's not a richly indulgent, pampering experience the way a lot of hotel and corporate-backed restaurants can be, it's not a place that caters to fat cats and expense accounts and other insiders. Its pacing, its mood, its slow lingering way, its hour-plus mezzethakia course, its encouragement of communal-style dining — these things are wonderful things, but they are not to everybody's liking, and they are not things that great restaurants in this city have traditionally served up. In many, many ways, it is an anti-Washington restaurant.

It sounds to me as though your tastes in food just don't jibe with the Komi way. Quickly, because I don't have time to get into all of these points you made …

Bread service? Doesn't fit with what the restaurant is trying to do. 

Asking the staff when the "real food" is going to arrive sounds, to my ears, like a form of bullying, of imposing your will on the restaurant. At the very least, it doesn't come from a place of openness and adventure.

I've never left hungry from any of my meals there.

No parking? It's not a hotel. It's a city restaurant. In a townhouse. It is what it is.

I have never, ever encountered anything smelly or fishy — or anything off, or anywhere close to it — at any meal I've eaten at Komi.

Went where? Which of the 25 was it you enjoyed so much? I'd like to know, and I'm sure everyone out there would, too.

If we don't hear back from you, thanks anyway for the feedback.

The list, remember, is a list of favorites. Places I gravitate to, that that please me on any number of levels as an eater and diner.

I agree with you. If it were all about the tapas and the wines, Taberna would have retained a spot in the Top 100.

But the cooking has been pretty uninspired of late. My most recent meal there was mediocre — at best. And at prices that are comparable with the most expensive restaurants in the city.

Still no word from Mia's … 

In Manhattan, I really like Otto, Mario Batali's pizza joint. Super-thin, crispy pies. And a lot of fun snacks, or small plates, to accessorize a meal, too.

Grimaldi in Brooklyn is a treat, if you can make it there. And if you're willing to wait in line for a while.

How special is the special occasion? In other words, how much are you willing to shell out for a dinner? Le Bernardin and Per Se are exquisite at every level. Daniel, Daniel Boulud's place, is terrific. 

Less expensive, less showy, but just as rewarding: Babbo, another Battali place, DBBistro Moderne and Cafe Boulud (both by Boulud) and Momofuku Ko (David Chang's place). 

I hear you.

But listen … a hundred bucks for two, in a settling like that, with plates and cutlery like that, in an area like that? That's not bad, considering.

What makes it different from other Indian? The quality of the meats and seafood, the delicacy of the spicing, the plating. Among other things …

I agree with you, there are some dishes, particularly some curries, that are not demonstrably that different from what you'd find at a really, really good curry shop. But other dishes represent real achievements. I think the rogan josh is the best around. The lobster lababdar is very spicy, but also very refined. The black cod is one of the great dishes in the city.

My take is that you ordered more conventionally Indian, in a restaurant that is not conventionally Indian.

One final thought: paying for the naan. Why is this a surprise? All Indian restaurants I can think of charge. Why shouldn't they for fresh, hot, made-to-order bread? (By the way, Zaytinya isn't Indian, and its pitas are not baked to order.)

I can't disagree with any of this. Very well put.

I think you have to meet a restaurant on its terms, not your own. I know there are those who will disagree with me, and I hear from them all the time. There are many, many people I have corresponded with over the years who believe that their money talks. Who believe that their extensive dining resume — their travels, their notches on their belt — is an entitlement.

I see a lot of that in this city. An awful lot of that.

One of the great things about Komi, to me, is that it is utterly unconcerned with that game. Its chef and owner refuses to play.

That frustrates a lot of people, believe me. Perhaps not real food lovers. Not food-adventures. But people who are accustomed to having a place do its bidding.

This is where the star system that most publications have in place is unfortunate, and where, I confess, I have real misgivings as a lover of food in this city. I have misgivings giving Komi four stars, and according it a top ranking, because it changes the way people perceive a place like this — a personal, idiosyncratic, highly individual place. Komi is not CityZen, it's not Citronelle, it's not the Inn at Little Washington, etc.. It's not, and was never meant to be. But for some, that rating and ranking changes everything.

Thanks for sharing this.

You've inspired me to set out a bowl myself tonight, as another 49 inches of snow dumps down on us and leaves us stranded once again.

Explain a little more fully, though, if you can why we can't — or shouldn't? — use any existing snow. Won't taste as good? 

I'll look into the email problem when I'm done this afternoon. Thanks for the heads-up, MV.

As for the job … Well, here's the thing about that, and I'm not complaining at all by saying this, just pointing out the facts, as it were: I don't get paid to eat out. I get paid to write about what I eat out. 

Everybody eats, we know that. But can everybody write? Can most people write? As we now also know from reading Yelp and other food blogs and foodie forums, a lot of people like to jot down their experiences. Most are unreadable. That's the charitable way of putting it. I mean it, really, really awful. Grammatical problems, syntactical problems, logical problems — but okay, fine, it's the web, it's typing, it's not writing. But then, in addition to all that: meandering, indulgent, juvenile, narcissistic, vain, gratuitously hurtful … and sometimes just plain BORING.

And notice that we haven't even gotten around to talk about dishes, and what the chef is intending, etc., etc. 

Mushy?

It shouldn't be mushy. Slippery, soft, silken — all those are accurate adjectives. But mushy, no. 

It's a really good question.

I've done a lot of traveling, and not just outside the country, but also within the country. It's something I love to do, for one thing, and to me so much of traveling is eating. Eating not just as sustenance, or as entertainment — but as a means of exploration, of trying to learn about the identity of a place and a people. 

One of the great things about living in this area is the opportunity to partake of what I call armchair travel — eating the cuisines of all the many different cultures that call the area their home. And I've also been very privileged to have been invited into people's homes, where they shared their respective cultures with me by cooking for me, and, in some cases, by letting me cook alongside them.

I've also done a lot of playing with these flavors, as it were, in the kitchen, the better to learn the dishes I've eaten from the inside out.

So, to answer the question more specifically … Those experiences have given me a foundation. I've learned the traditions these dishes spring from, I've learned the combinations and variations, I know the proportions, etc. I have a starting point for the things I taste. 

Ultimately, it comes down to what tastes good, but that decision is not made in a vacuum. It is made within the context of all I have tasted, of all I have cooked, etc.

Depends on what your expectations are. I think it ought to be fun, but I wouldn't expect to be blown away.

Of course, by the weekend, having been pretty well sequestered for a week now by this awful snow siege, we'll all be dying to get out the house to do SOMEthing … 

No magic words, but it might help to know what Rasika is trying to attempt.

The idea, here — or the big idea, I should say — is to marry Western-style presentation and emphasis with Indian spices, flavors and traditions.

So take the rogan josh as an example. At a curry shop, the dish is done with browned cubes of lamb submerged in a brick-colored gravy.

Rasika doesn't serve cubes of lamb, it serves a lamb shank — not so very different from a so-called Modern American restaurant or bistro. The shank dominates the plate, since meat in the West is so central to our thinking about our meals. The gravy has much of the punch and complexity of the original, but it is put to different use. It is presented as a sauce.

Looks Indian, tastes Indian — but eats Western.

That comment about the 3-year-old reminded me of the familiar insult lobbed by many museum-goers, as they browse the rooms of Modernist art — art, by the way, that has been with us a CENTURY now: "My 3 year-old could paint that."

Well, no she can't.

My father, an artist, had a familiar refrain himself, whenever he would encounter a comment born of ignorance like that: "Where were they when the page was blank?"

I don't think restaurants are comparable to works of art, but I do think that people ought to approach a place — or a book, or a film, or what have you — on its own terms. We owe it to ourselves, and not just to the artist or chef or writer, to be open and receptive to an experience. 

Not merely in flavors or in techniques/presentations, either. But in learning about people. About what matters to them.

Food as a way to access the deeper, more interesting parts of a culture and a society. Food as a point of entry.

Food as a beginning, and not an end. 

Gotcha.

And I can't wait to make a batch tonight. Thanks again for the reminder.

Stay warm, everyone, and try to do some good, old-fashioned cooking tonight and tomorrow if you have the time and goods.

Be well, eat well, and let's do it again next week at 11 …

[missing you, TEK]

Submit your question in advance to Todd's chat next Tuesday at 11 AM.