as i've driven around various parts of atlanta, stopping at various gas stations to fill up, i've noticed what seems - to me- a weird trend. many - a majority, i'd say, at least in southeast atlanta - of the gas stations have...barbeque joints attached to them. like, trailers, or tiny shacks, adjacent to or in the parking lot of these gas stations. it's not restricted by gas station type, either - i've seen 'em at new BP stations, at old texaco ones, all over the place.

and of course, because i am yuppified and condescending, i am POSITIVE that each of these places is a little down-home honest-to-god bbq gem. but, i am terrified to go in them because they do look exceedingly sketchy.

does anyone know anything about any of these places? how they got started? why they got started? what exactly about gas stations screams "must also open up bbq shack" to somebody? i promised myself to try at least a couple of them before i left atlanta, so i'll make sure to report back.

the washington post best bets contest proves itself to be a fraud in every way year after year (starbucks?! fuddruckers?!? FRONT PAGE?! [the caps for front page are done in mock rage as we all now wearily expect that drool bucket of interns to win, like, everything]). but the way the list reveals itself to be most terrible is by having the best italian restaurant be maggiano's. christ almighty. the EVEN WORSE part? the truly best italian restaurant in the city, obelisk, doesn't even make the top ten. if you want a delicious - but pretty expensive - meal, head on over there. it gets the zunta five star rating.

UPDATE: with his usual aplomb, the dceiver takes down the best bets list. i lie not when i say some coffee spray made its way onto my keyboard this morning. i cannot wait to see SOaP with this man.

oh, man. the porcini chronicles has a recipe for steak tar tar - also known as basically raw hamburger. tommy and i ate this a couple of times while in italy on wine trips with adolfo - and while the first time i took the plunge i was terrified and repulsed, it was actually incredibly delicious. if you've got a hankering for some raw meat, i suggest you give her recipe a try.

Gaze upon this bottle, ye blog readers, and despair. Chipotle beer. Yes. That's right. Chipotle. You thought that it was just getting into your ketchup, and mayo, and tortilla chips, but you were wrong. It's everywhere. Doctors are now warning pregnant women not to eat fish because of dangerously escalating oceanic chipotle levels.

I really, really don't understand the appeal. Jalapeno peppers have a perfectly nice taste when they're unsmoked. Smoke does not immediately make things taste better. Sure, it works well with meat and a few other things. But it's a great way to ruin perfectly good cheese, and when applied to vegetables it tends to completely overwhelm them. Plus it's somewhat bad for you.

The other lesson, aside from the seeming inevitability of a chipotle stripe being added to boxes of neopolitan ice cream, is that Rogue brand beer is terrible. You can't trust those people. I've seen them put chocolate — actual bittersweet chocolate — into perfectly innocent stouts (I know, other people do this too, but they're no less dangerously insane). Beware the beer iconoclast: he doesn't have your best interests in mind. He's just trying to look cool in front of his brewer friends.

Still, in my mind Rogue is only the second-most objectionable beer company. Worst of all is Dogfish Head. This is thanks to their Chickory Stout, which I had the misfortune of sampling some years back. I'm not sure what chickory is — I think people used to eat it during the Civil War, possibly to distract themselves from the pain of battlefield limb amputation — but I know it's terrible, and should never, ever enter a human mouth. That was far and away the worst beer I've ever tasted. And I've consumed entire glasses of skittlebraü (tip: drink it quickly, while it's still clear and delightfully rainbow-colored, rather than thick, chalky and brown).

npr's weekend edition has a piece up where two gourmet food writers go to ben's chili bowl. it's actually kind of poorly paced and boring, but, it's ben's! and there's this great exchange:

npr lady: "i'm listening to you order, and you've ordered a substantial amount of food..."
male food writer: "...and we've only had four meals today..."
npr lady: "is there...some secret to your digestive system?"
male food writer: "oh, here come the cakes and pies."

they also address the problem they had of finding a d.c. local food speciality, and agree it's the half-smoke.

daily candy chicago starts off a post today about a new european market by bemoaning the evils of lard. but if you read this delicious piece on lardo di colonnata (really, just pig's back fat), soon it's all you'll want to be eating. via megnut.

dinnertime, y'all!

the bottle of rum in the background is the second course.

just kidding! but this plate of butter will be eaten in one form or another. in fact, i magicked it up into cupcake icing for a classmate's birthday tomorrow. i nailed the cakelove icing - totally disgusting and buttery, but somehow delicious at the same time.

back and not really refreshed from a wonderful weekend in d.c. my flight left the district at 6:30 this morning, and as soon as i landed i headed to the newsroom for some fun and fabulous journalism work. as i'm sitting here brainstorming and tapping away, i had to take a blogging break to talk about what went on:

thursday night: unbuckled. dc9. olivia mancini and the housemates; the hard tomorrows. you saw the pictures here.

friday night: tommy and i decided kind of last minute to head to coppi's, a pizza and italian joint on U street. though dcist reviewed it back in november, we had never been there and in fact hadn't heard much about it otherwise. walking in at 7:30 on a friday night without a reservation, we weren't surprised at being sat at the bar, which turned out to be nice and cozy, with an excellent view of the wood-burning oven, and an attentive bartendress. we started off with some excellent calamari, a bottle of red and then two small pizzas - i forget what was on tommy's, but mine was prosciutto and funghi. though the crust was a little iffy, we both thought their pizza could easily place a very close 3rd in district pies, after two amy's and pizzeria paradiso. i can't believe we'd never dined there before. fairly reasonable, as well. (though that's always easy for me to say when tommy foots the bill, as he almost always insists on doing.) 1414 U street.

saturday: i hit up the glorious, glorious tyson's mall with my family. we ate at brio, which, for a chain restaurant in a mall, was actually pretty decent. then my mom bought me a pair of editors pants at express. discuss: editors pants from express, best pants ever? i own like six pairs.

for dinner that night, tommy and i went to queen of sheba, a recently-opened ethiopian restaurant. pluses: a block from the apartment; nice space; pretty great ethiopian food. minuses: no liquor license (though hardly their fault); about, oh, a FIVE HOUR WAIT for food. well, more like 40 minutes, which struck us as pretty ridiculous seeing that the restaurant wasn't even half full. maybe they're still just working out service kinks, but until they start getting their food out in a timely manner, i'd go to sodere or dukem.

UPDATE: man, MT fucked up the rest of this entry. i talked about the rest of saturday night and EVEN sunday, too, but it somehow ate it. quick recap: ellington party, fries at the saloon, sunday lunch at saint-ex, and attempting to convert tommy and charles to grey's anatom. which i don't think worked.

food network: please stop making your female tv cooks, especially the barefoot contessa and giada de lalalawhatever, make sit down meals where they have to eat with their husbands. it is weird, and painful, and ugh. for all i know, the barefoot contessa likes to do this, because as charles and tommy and i have long speculated, her marriage has gone down the crapper and she keeps trying to lure her husband back in with food and prove to the world that they are rilly in luv. but it does not work! you could take the two most in love people in the world, sit them down with some delicious food, yell action, and all you'd get is 60 unnatural, awkward seconds of the woman laughing too hard at unfunny things her tv-shy husband burbles up, and lots of awkward silences, and the husband unconvincingly mmm-ing really hard. just make it stop.

our lovely legal instructor loves us all so much that as we're all desperately struggling to finish our terrible 1200-word articles, she ordered us lunch - pizza from piece (her husband is an investor there). unfortunately for me, it's located somewhere in wicker park and not really accessible to my 'hood, but i'd highly recommended it. yummy thin crust.

please, do me a favor: if you live in the lakeview area, stop in at cafe latakia at 3204 belmont. it is my favorite little wifi coffee shop in the world, and yet, i am generally almost always THE ONLY PERSON IN HERE and i'm terrified it will go under if the owner doesn't start getting some business soon.

the place is a charmer. it's beautifully decorated, with plenty of small tables, comfy chairs and sage-green paint on the walls. the owner is middle eastern or eastern european - somehow i haven't quite figured that out yet - so he's always got delicious mediterranean pastries in his glass counter. you can get delicious turkish coffee, or a wonderful affogato (vanilla ice cream drowned in espresso), and when it gets warmer, he'll have a selection of ice cream and gelato available. the rest of the coffee choices are pretty basic, and not any cheaper than starbucks, but it is illy coffee, and therefore pure goodness. plus free wifi abounds, and the owner is just the nicest man ever. usually i am a mean, rushed, cynical person - i hate exchanging pleasantries with anyone outside of friends or people i am sucking up to - but somehow i don't mind having a 5-10 minute chat with him every time i come in and get settled down at my table to work. he remembers everything about me - asks how tommy is doing, asks how northwestern is treating me, asks jokingly if i've scored a job at the washington post yet.

there are a few drawbacks - the owner is the only employee, and can often take an agonizingly long time to make your drink if you order anything more complicated than a basic cup of coffee. the bathroom is weird and behind the counter, through the dank, messy back room and is very small and kind of creepy. but i figure that's just a result of the rehabbing process not being done yet.

anyway, i just learned today that his one-year anniversary of owning the cafe is coming up, and i would LOVE to start seeing more people in here. (i may be making this sound more dire than it is; i only come here on saturday mornings and the occasional weeknight, and he probably does better at different times of the week). so, all three-to-four of my chicago readers, i command you: come visit cafe latakia, near broadway and belmont. you'll enjoy it, i promise!

UPDATE: of course, in the process of writing this entry like 10 people have come in. he's fine. but still, come on by! it's a delightful little place.

sigh. i am sick, it is flurrying here in chicago, and i'm feeling a bit of travel wanderlust (or, more accurately, extreme nostalgia for italy) that i get from time to time. reading this post article on searching for truffles at restaurants in alba didn't help too much.

the post is doing a rather good job of informing readers about the magic of the piemonte region, the part of italy where turin is located and where the 2006 winter olympics will be taking place. they've got a blog going, and have had several articles and chats about the area. though piemonte is a fairly overlooked region amongst italy fanatics, it is one of the places not to be missed for food and wine, as i discovered during my year in milan through adolfo, the former librarian at the american school of milan.

ahh, adolfo. how to describe. physically, the best way i can think to conjure him up is have you picture bilbo baggins from the lord of the rings movie, except darker, with a round belly the size of a volkswagen beetle and an odd, hurky-jerky style of walking on his pencil-thin legs that was the result of serious back problems and some sort of disability. he was also perpetually cranky, with good due - he had been pushed out of his job as the school librarian by caroline, a perky-yet-psychotically-terrifying blond-frosted woman from arizona whose favorite thing to hiss was "AH-TEN-SHEE-OWN-AY" and "SEE-LENS-EE-OH, PER FAH-VOR-AY" to terrified children who spoke above a whisper while reading books. adolfo became the school's printer, responsible for making stacks of copies of lesson plans and math homework. his small, cramped printing room was in the hallway adjacent to the library, and always smelled faintly of cigar smoke. everybody, except caroline, who constantly looked at him as if he might off her one day with his cane (with good reason), adored adolfo.

if you've got a bunch of overripe bananas lying around for some reason, like i did, give this banana bread one a try. it's a winner!

tyler florence, i kinda somehow love you even though technically you also make my skin crawl, but this has got to be the most ridiculous super bowl menu i've ever seen:

Charred Tomatillo Guacamole
Habanero Chile Salsa
Portuguese-Style Salt Cod Fritters with Lemon and Olives
Grilled Fat Pieces of Squid
Barcelona-Style Rice

i'm sorry, is that a super bowl, or a PRISSY BOWL?

last weekend's.

this weekend was more low-key, but i can still recommend the following:

the freaks and geeks dvd. tommy got me this for christmas, and i've been too busy to watch it until now but have spent a large chunk of saturday and sunday racing through. it's certainly charming, although i'm not sure why it inspired such cultlike devotion - it hasn't totally grabbed me in that way. but still very enjoyable, and i am now also in love with linda cardellini.

el tapatio on ashland. you know the night's going right when a) your supposed 45-minute wait to eat at a restaurant turns into 15 minutes b) the restaurant lets you sneak in your beers from the bar across the street that you were waiting at c) along with your pitcher of margaritas the waiter scores you each an extra glass full and d) even though your "burrito grandioso" weighs approximately four pounds, it's so good that you eat the entire thing.

guthries. we were supposed to hit up this bar on saturday night, but it turned out to be too crowded to stay there. but it looked adorable - small, cozy, with a fireplace and stacks of boardgames that people were playing at every table. perfect for a rainy night. if our group had been smaller, i would have been content to snag a table and hit up some monopoly. as it was, we headed to the first bar we came across on southport - cullen's, which was basically your typical faux-irish pub but was still fun. they actually had a decent cover band that played everything from radiohead to gin blossoms.

fudgy chocolate-raspberry bars. though fresh raspberries obviously aren't in season, the bars were still delicious and elicited raves from a dinner i went to sunday night. i was glad, because only god in heaven knows what a trial it is to bake in my postage-sized kitchen. my kitchenaid mixer? has to go ON THE FLOOR IN MY BEDROOM BECAUSE THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE TO PUT IT/PLUG IT IN.

not recommended: lazing out on your weekend run of 8 miles such that you have to do it monday morning before your 2 p.m. class, and now it's flurrying. sigh.

friday night - gingerman tavern: a friend held her birthday party here, and it was a thoroughly adorable place. tiny, cramped yet cozy front room and an expansive backroom with a few pool tables and plenty of room to mill about. all sorts of people - yuppies, hipsters, plenty of medill graduate students - hanging out in perfect harmony. and extremely attractive male and female bartenders. probably a good place to get a drink before a show at the metro.

saturday afternoon - the chicago lakefront path: despite it having snowed a few inches the night before, the lakefront path was cleared and, refreshingly, empty. i had a great seven-mile run from the belmont harbor almost down to navy pier and back. the snow stretching to the lake was beautiful to look at and the weather was sunny and crisp. i thought i was being all hardcore, running out saturday in the cold, but while running i noticed a dude KAYAKING IN THE LAKE. that, my friends, is hardcore.

saturday night - mama desta's red sea: hooray, good ethiopian food! in september i had gone to some place called ethiopian diamond and found it truly lacking. i went on to assume in my haughty manner that no decent ethiopian food could be found outside of d.c. well, i was proved wrong when i went out to mama desta's with some friends. i should have gone earlier - it's just a few blocks up from my apartment, and is super delicious and mostly affordable. good honey wine, friendly service, jolly little atmosphere. no awesome singing and dancing a la dukem, but that's okay.

sunday night - peter's lasagna and viewings of west wing + grey's anatomy: you probably can't get your hands on the lasagna part (though i think this was the recipe he used), but i was totally excited to sit down for two hours last night and watch these shows. i haven't seen west wing in, oh, approximately a billion years, but i thought last night's episode was really good. of course, just as it starts getting decent again, it gets canceled. le sigh. as for grey's anatomy, well, that show just gives me the warm fuzzies. i don't think i've laughed so hard in a long time as i did at the hot dog eating scene. but that may have just been the five glasses of wine.

sigh. well, tommy is back safe and sound in d.c., and i just went on an hour and a half cleaning spree to keep the bad sad feelings at bay. still, though, we had a pretty great weekend. it followed the trend of us being ENORMOUS GLUTTONS every time we spend any time together since i moved to chicago. we like to eat out a lot, so when we have the chance, i guess we just go on an enormous eating out binge to make up for all the other times i, as a poor graduate student and he, as a tired web programmer, end up eating lousy dinners at the end of the day. mmm, mac n cheese!

luckily my neighborhood gives us a lot of delicious eating options. i imagine my following recommendations are old hat to anyone who's lived in chicago for a decent amount of time, but if you're new to the area, maybe they'll help you out. you can find addresses and more info at metromix.com.

We've got a ton of holiday chocolate lying around the house. Through no fault of the considerate chocolate-givers, some of it is white chocolate. Which, I feel compelled to point out, is gross. It's just cocoa butter and sugar, people. The white chocolate bon-bons are particularly horrifying: fat and sugar flavored with fake butter. Ugh.

On the other hand, those little Ghirardelli squares? Pretty great. And I'm not quite sure how Cadbury defeated his snobby continental artisan peers, but god damn if the English haven't got a solid lock on milk chocolate technology.

has anyone else noticed that rachael ray of the food network seems to have...created her own personalized sign language? i always thought she used her hands excessively when she spoke, but things have gotten totally out of control.

can somebody point me towards a direction for mulled wine that's not absolutely awful? i made it for our holiday part last christmas, and this is vaguely how the entire process went:

two hours before party: catherine gets excited, dumps shitload of wine, cinnamon, and various other ingredients in big old vat on stove to simmer.

directly before party: catherine tastes her sure-to-be-marvelous creation.
catherine: "holy crap."
pukes.

at party: catherine reluctantly leaves mulled wine as imbibing option for partygoers because, hey, alcohol. general reaction: much shying away from stove with askance looks at catherine. an hour into the party, jeff nye the alcohol guy tinkers with the wine, doing some chemical engineer i don't know what sort of stuff, which also includes pouring, literally, an entire pound of pure sugar into the mix. mulled wine is magically good. jeff receives much patting on the back and is carried around the party victorious on mulled wine drinkers shoulders. catherine sulks in corner, mutters incomprehensibly about the cinnamon.

don't worry, i'm not going to reattempt the disastrous mulled wine for this year's party. but i have heard, on occasion, that it can be a good thing, if done properly. so, show me how!

I seem to be incapable of accoplishing much of anything today besides blogging. So here's some more of it. Besides, it's been a while since Catherine's put up one of her baked masterpieces.

Most guys have a some sort of culinary specialty. Sometimes it's pathetic, along the lines of this guy. Sometimes it's useful, like Kriston's famed breakfast tacos. I suppose my specialty is pumpkin pie. It doesn't really hit the masculine or practical notes that I'd prefer, but it's damn tasty. And I only have to make it once or twice a year.

Mom's recipe and associated pics below the cut.

This evening I headed over to Vegetate, the new vegetarian restaurant that's opened up around the block from here. There'll be a real review up on DCist later this week (by someone else — probably Hemal), but my quick impression: not that great.

The four of us split two appetizers, which were quite good, although the roasted vegetable appetizer was ridiculously tiny. For the entree, I got the jerked tempeh. I hadn't had tempeh before — turns out it's kind of unpleasant. But even ignoring that, the jerk sauce was weirdly creamy, not at all spicy, and not particularly appealing. The potato latke and greens that came with it were nice, but making fried potato delicious is easy. I also had a glass of lemonade, which was small but tasty. For some reason they provide straws that I'm pretty sure are intended to be used as drink stirrers (seriously). They look pretty and nicely match the tiny glass, but they're extremely irritating to use.

Entree, half an appetizer, a glass of juice and tip set me back $30. Given the small portion sizes and the fact that vegetarian cuisine represents comparatively little ingredient cost, this is kind of a ripoff. Let's compare: add costs for meat and the booze that the restaurant can't yet serve and I'd guess that you're looking at about $50 a plate. You can eat much better than this for that amount of money.

Speaking for the defense: they've just opened, they're just around the corner, the space is beautiful, and their staff was very pleasant. If they become a little more generous and proficient in the kitchen, this place could really take off.

And it's hard not to sympatize with the owners: Shiloh Baptist Church has given them a very hard time. We spoke with a manager/owner after eating and he said that the church has actually been chartering buses to get people to the ABC hearings to oppose the restaurant's license application — yet Shiloh has refused to answer the requests for meetings or discussions made by the restaurant. Shiloh is acting in bad faith, imposing the will of a congregation that primarily lives in Maryland onto a street that badly needs revitalization. This isn't just a difference of opinions — Shiloh's members really ought to be ashamed of themselves. Vegetate didn't impress me, but they deserve the chance to try to impress others.

I was a little underwhelmed by Treasure Island, Catherine's local and self-proclaimedly eurocentric grocery store (which has no website!). But I do have to say, the fact that they carry the product pictured below is a huge mark in their favor:

Although I may not have consciously formulated the desire, I think I've been yearning for this snack food ever since reaching the bottom of my first bowl of popcorn. Now to find a PopNots! distributor in the DC area...

Those with port 8090 blocked (and who consequently can't see the image): click here.

UPDATE: Naturally, there's a website. These people are serious about half-popped popcorn (appropriately so). Apparently "Smoothie Time" is the nearest store that carries the product. And yes, I am aware that this is intensely uninteresting to just about everybody but me.

everybody in d.c. knows about cakelove, and everybody in d.c. has an opinion on it. the bakery specializes in gourmet cakes and particularly cupcakes, both of which will run you a pretty penny. personally, i agree with many others that the cupcakes are entirely overrated (can't speak as to the cakes) - the cake is dry, the icing is a cold slab of butter, and you generally feel like you've been ripped off $3. but some people love 'em. those people are crazy.

well, when i was out running errands today i decided to try out another gourmet cupcake shop that's at the end of my street. it's called cupcakes, and it's run by some physicist-turned-baker chick. it's a postage-stamp-sized bit of a store, decorated with clouds and white tile and other cutesiness. the cupcakes are also $3, and you've got the same variety of traditional+wacky flavors that cakelove has. i chose the double chocolate and the red velvet; they were packed up in cute little boxes and i came home to eat them as my afternoon snack and part of my apparent general plan to get extraordinarily fat in chicago.

well, yum. these cupcakes take the cake. hahahaha. no, seriously, they were stupendous. they're not refrigerated, so the icing isn't rock-hard when you eat it. it's the same type of icing as the cakelove cupcakes - italian buttercream - but it's much more flavorful and smoother. the cake part of the concoction is also moist and delish. overall they're smaller than the cakelove cupcakes, but of much higher quality. so suck on that, warren brown.

neat tip on how to clean a gunky bbq grill.

sorry for the relative lack of blogging. i've been too busy throwing up about my rapidly impending move to chicago (four days or so to go). the bedroom's a mess, half of my stuff isn't packed, i have two shirts and one pair of shorts to wear for the next six days because what is packed is most of my clothes, and i'm stressing about not wanting to give my dad a heart attack when we move since we'll be the only two doing it in chicago and i have about three thousand pounds of stuff. i've also been doing a lot of retail therapy, which i'm sure filene's basement appreciates ($600 wool coat from barney's marked down like a billion percent! cheap pointy leather and suede shoes from kenneth cole and bcbg's!) but which my already rapidly dwindling student loans don't. yes, they're already rapidly dwindling even though i haven't yet received them. they are very sensitive.

anyway, stuff i've been enjoying lately that's helped the stress:

I don't know if it's just their Friday sale, or a new habit — either way, I'd jump on the fact that Amazon is selling Calphalon hard-anodized pots for ridiculously low prices. Like $20 apiece low. These things usually go for over $150 a pop.

I picked up a sauce pan and a crepe pan, despite only having a vague idea of what a crepe is.

a blog that tracks my favorite grocery store: trader joe's. it's what we all needed. i'm just happy to be within a few miles of one in chicago, instead of the 25 minute drive to the 'burbs one must do now.

some steven a. shaw argues in the times that tipping should be abolished (as it will soon be at fancy nyc eatery per se) in favor of a set percentage added to the bill. waiter rant responds.

what do you think? i have to say, i enormously enjoyed the lack of tips when i lived in italy, but then again, i've never waited tables.

last night tommy and i dined at DC Coast, my second (and last) restaurant week meal. i had high expectations for dcc, mostly because it is owned by restaurant guru/chef jeff tunks, who also owns ten penh (asian fusion) and ceiba (modern latin american). we went to ceiba for restaurant week last january and had our best RW experience ever, so i thought DC Coast would hold up about as well. overall, it wasn't as amazing as ceiba, and the RW menu was a little more limited, but it was pretty darn tasty and we had a fine time.

turning the blog into a truly influential experience...any suggestions as to what i should have for dinner tonight?

continuing in the week's foodie theme...a couple of days ago newish food blog metrocurean had the scoop on al crostino, an italian place on U street that replaced kuna. then the esteemed susan had a glowing first-person email review that makes me want to go even more:

It's a new Italian place on U St. (it opened sunday) and we had a fantastic time. It's really small and cozy, our waiter was really nice and enthusiastic and warm, the prices were totally reasonable, and they did like this amazing presentation on Kriston's antipasti sea scallops which cost all of $7. The pasta dishes were very simple and they were good without being totally amazing, but the price was right, atmosphere was good, etc. The chef was walking around kissing people and made sure to wish us a good night when we left. Definitely left us with a good feeling. It's not super-fancy dining or anything but a very nice meal for a good price (and they did awesome crostini thingies with yummy toppings). You guys should try it!

straight from the source. that is not me. that is another blogger whose email i'm cutting and pasting. but sounds good, eh?

well, just came back from a d.c. restaurant week at zola with several DCists (rob, kanishka, martin, becca, and scott, hemal and sommer WHO ARE PERSONAL-BLOGLESS, THE SHAME, YOU ARE ONLY HALF A PERSON IF YOU WRITE FOR LESS THAN TWO BLOGS), and i figured i may as well write it up while it's fresh in my mind. for the short, snappy summary-inclined: FABULOUS service, good drinks, great decor, beautiful bathrooms, and pretty good food.

well, i promised you reviews of my week of foodieness, and i'm gonna deliver. saturday night tommy, charles, charles' parents and i all went out to dinner at dino in cleveland park, and here follows my report. if you're not interested in reading the full thing, here's a summary: pretty good food, but nothing mindblowing; terrible decor; fairly bad service; great wine prices and selection.

okay, now i'm going to get all dcfoodies on your ass.

anybody looking for a good, moderately-priced olive oil should try trader joe's extra virgin california estate olive oil. tommy bought a bottle the other day on one of our semi-frequent trips to the suburbs, and it is delicious! personally, it is the best olive oil i've had outside of italy. (imagine i just said that last sentence in a truly obnoxious, high-pitched voice.)

speaking of italy, and, er, stuff, i've been meaning to write more about the cooking class at galileo. it was pretty great, and the pasta we "made" for lunch was amazing. but the best part happened like this: when we are all sitting around before the class started, a youngish, very indie-looking guy (be-bearded, wearing a canyon tshirt (somewhat popular d.c. band that broke up a year or two ago), etc) came in and sat down next to us. throughout the entire class, we all chatted, but no one introduced themselves or said what they did or anything. that came later on, as we were eating. tommy and i were chatting with indie guy dave, and earthy motorcycle-riding nasa-worker andy (i think that was his name), and since we were about, oh, SEVENTEEN glasses of wine in at this point, everybod was a bit talky. we asked dave what he did, and he said he was in a band. (of COURSE he is, i judged mentally.) andy asked what kind of music they played, and he said, oh, kinda country-rock. what band, i, vaguely curious, wondered.

oh, he said, son volt.

oh, i said, and went back to gorging myself on pasta.

then i looked up. excuse me, what did you say the name of your band was, i asked again.

son volt.

i looked over at tommy and, i hate to say this, but i kind of snorted. not because i wanted to be rude - not at all - but because, um, holy hell, son volt! what the fuck, band dude, what...er, the fuck. craziness.

have you heard of us? dave asked us.

dur. no. i have been living in a black hole void of outerspace since i was 11 and am allergic to music. of course i have heard of son volt! anyone with even a PASSING interest in alt-rock has heard of son volt. DUDE. SON VOLT!

turns out dave is in the reformed, new-member version of son volt, since they broke up a while back and everything. but DROWN! and JAY FARRAR! the album drops today, it turns out. i have no idea if it's any good, but i'm pasta-friends with DAVE. drummer dave! who was very nice, to boot. so now i have a responsibility to check it out.

(additionally, dave was wearing that canyon t-shirt and everything, so i took a stab in the dark and asked if he used to be in canyon. the way he explained why he was wearing his old band's tshirt: uh, i got stuck with all the merchandise after we broke up, so, you know...uh huh, drummer dave, uh huh. in his defense, he WAS going to a cooking class, so he could have reasonably expected the average age to be 7900 and no one would have inquisitioned him about his band. i know i thought the whole class would be full of old people putting pasta dough in their hair. but rock n roll people like to cook too!)