Camden - near Roundhouse

This is great. Thank you both.

ebg1 in U.K./Ireland

Camden - near Roundhouse

Any recommendations for reasonably priced supper before a show at the Roundhouse?

Thank you!

ebg1 in U.K./Ireland

Sydney pre-Opera House?

I will be traveling to Australia for the first time next week (can't wait!). I've been searching this board and appreciate all the great information here for Sydney and Melbourne. But I would appreciate any thoughts on best places for a moderately priced meal (Sushi? Noodles?) within walking distance of the Opera House, where you can get in and out in time for the show.

Also, what's the typical dinner time for Sydney and Melbourne restaurants?

Thanks!

ebg1 in Australia/New Zealand

back in DC after long absence - are my old favorites still good?

Thanks so much for your feedback and guidance!

ebg1 in Washington DC & Baltimore Area

back in DC after long absence - are my old favorites still good?

I lived in DC for most of the 1990s and am returning next week practically for the first time since then. Are any of my old favorites still worth a visit, and if not, what would the best current substitutes be?

Jaleo
Cafe Atlantico
Lebanese Taverna
Cashion's
The upstairs pasta place on 17th just east of Dupont Circle, you know the one I mean, the place that had great duck ragu, but I can't remember what it was called...
The great Ethiopian place on 18th in Adams Morgan

I'm staying in Woodley Park so suggestions in Woodley, Cleveland Park, Dupont, or Adams Morgan would be most welcome. Thanks!

-- A former Red Line hound

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Cafe Atlantico
405 8th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004

ebg1 in Washington DC & Baltimore Area

Has Citron given up the ghost?

Does anyone know what happened to Citron? It looks like they closed for good sometime earlier this week.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

Cesar Latino (Oakland branch renamed)

We tried the new Cesar Latino last night. Generally good, but not quite as successful as the original Spanish menu, I think. We had a half order of the pozole (pork in chile verde broth with hominy), which was very good and very spicy. Empanadas were good too. The sopapillas, essentially little squash biscuits, were tasty but a little heavy. I'm all for them trying something new although I'm a little puzzled as to why they made they change.

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Bar César
4039 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA 94611

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

Where to Dine on Kauai

I just returned from Kauai and was getting ready to post my trip report anyway, so here it is.

South Shore:
Kalaheo Cafe has very good food for dinner, and is reasonably and fairly priced for what you get. They have one kind of fish each day, whatever they got from the fish guy, prepared several different ways. All the varieties we tried were very good and creatively cooked. Excellent salads also. Very friendly staff.
Merriman's, upstairs, has splendid food but is very expensive. Worth it for one big splash, in my opinion. We had a delicious ahi and watermelon poke, followed by beautifully prepared ono with incredibly sweet cherry tomatoes. We did a lot of sharing to control the prices (which, it should be noted, are actually somewhat lower than the menu Merriman's is showing on its website). We didn't eat downstairs in the cafe, but it looks like a very good addition to the area that will fill a need.
Toi's Thai Kitchen, I agree with Tifa, decent food if you're in the neighborhood but no reason to make the trip otherwise. Also overpriced, especially given that the atmosphere could best be described as church basement.
Papalino's Gelato, in that little mall where Roy's is located, is awfully good stuff.
Hamura's Saimin is really good, and it's fun to watch the ladies making wontons by hand in the kitchen.

North Shore:
Kilauea Bakery & Pizza. This place is a gem. If I lived in Kilauea (if only), I'd go there every day. A veggie slice and salad makes an excellent, affordable lunch.
Bar Acuda. We had dinner here on tsunami day (which was thankfully quite uneventful). They were very apologetic that about half the items on the menu were unavailable because the cooks couldn't get to work until late in the afternoon. We didn't fault them for it. It's surprising to find a place this ambitious in Hanalei. What they were able to get on the table the night we went there was very good, especially the dish with local honey from the North Shore. Also very tasty were beef skewers with chili. They have a very impressive wine and beer selection given where they are.
Hanalei Gourmet. Super-casual, good food, reasonable prices. Can't complain.
The bar at the St. Regis in Princeville, at sunset, on the terrace overlooking Hanalei Bay. It's so beautiful it doesn't matter how expensive the drinks are and that the service is very slow. On our last trip to Kauai in 2002, when a different company was operating the Princeville Hotel, they used to have killer sushi in this bar. Unfortunately the current bar menu doesn't include the sushi any more, but we still had some other appetizers that were quite good.

Have a fantastic trip!

ebg1 in Hawaii

Oakland: Holy Land - The mint lemonade is magic

One last recommendation: if they are making shakshuka as a special, it's delicious. It's poached eggs cooked in a spicy tomatoey stew, with pita. I've even asked them to make this for me when it wasn't listed as a special. Mint lemonade on the side. A fine Sunday lunch in the Elmwood.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

october in rome: the porcini files (long)

I realized my original post wasn't clear: what's thin and crispy at Baffetto, in case you are not a regular visitor to this board, is the Roman pizza. Enjoy!

ebg1 in Italy

october in rome: the porcini files (long)

Thanks to all the hounds whose wonderful and thorough reports on this board helped me plan our trip. You guys never steered us wrong. In gratitude for all your help, I submit this report.... Just got back from more than a week in Rome. And October in Rome means porcini, porcini, porcini....

EXCELLENT

Roscioli. The Roscioli wine bar is at the end of Via dei Gubbonari near Largo Argentina. It's probably the best meal we had in Rome. Why? Oh, the porcini. We started with a potato flan, basically feather-light whipped potatoes, wrapped in pancetta -- and with cheese inside, oh yes. I wanted to dive into the potato flan and swim around. As if the potato flan were not enough, the plate was then loaded with porcini, grilled, perfectly seasoned, succulent. Incredible. Primi: we shared a Sicilian-style pasta with anchovy, tomatoes, breadcrumbs, and pignoli. Secondi: we shared a plate of swordfish involtini, basically lovely little croquettes, with braised cicoria. And desserts too. Their homemade tiramisu is truly fantastic. My husband, being somewhat less of a hedonist, had apples and pears macerated in Calvados, also delicious but not as exciting as the tiramisu (IMHO). You must book for dinner.

Buca di Ripetta, via di Ripetta. This was a terrific meal. For primi, we had cacio e pepe, and a very unusual dish of pear ravioli in a spicy orangey sauce. The ravioli were very light and only slightly sweet. Then secondi: more fresh porcini, sliced over perfectly cooked turbot in a creamy sauce. You must book for dinner.

Osteria dell'Angelo, Via di Giovanni Bettolo, in the Prati. This is about a 10 minute walk from the Vatican museums, and a world away from the tourist crowds. We enjoyed it so much for lunch, we went back for dinner (not on the same day, we're not THAT bad). This is old school Roman home cooking, and it is excellent. They are very friendly, even to clueless foreigners, although the place is very much patronized by locals, especially at dinner. There are no menus. They start you off with good bread and a very good dip of blended tuna and potato (we thought it had chickpeas or white beans but we were wrong). Then waiter comes to the table and reels off your options for primi: cacio e pepe, amatriciana, carbonara, and fettucine with tomatoes and basil. The amatriciana was heaven. Then they come back, and reel off the options for secondi. At lunch, we just had the primi, and were sufficiently motivated by that to book for dinner on another night. The drill at dinner is that it's prix fixe, including the house wine, and they just keep bringing out the dishes. Antipasti are that tuna dip, fagioli, and tiny salamis and bruschetta. Then the primi, the same as at lunch. Then the secondi: polpetti, oxtail, tripe, etc. We had the polpetti and the oxtail, both of which were delicious. And contorni, we had the puntarelle salad with the anchovy dressing. Then they finally bring you a plate of sugary, crunchy cookies and a quarter liter of lambrusco. All of this for 25 euros each, a terrific value. You must book for dinner.

Cavour 313, at the foot of Via del Cavour. So good, and so well located, we ate there twice. Over two lunch visits, we tried many tasty dishes, and enjoyed several glasses of excellent frascati. Dishes included two assortments of cheeses from the campagna around Rome, an assortment of vegetable antipasti, assorted prosciutto, couscous with vegetables (a great homey hot lunch), and nice salad. I felt that the place really shines in their cheese selection, all of which is very local. Order the cheese plate that comes with the chestnut honey, or just ask them really nicely to bring you some chestnut honey with whatever you order. Make sure to get there before 2:45, when they close the door until evening.

Enoteca Corsi. Via del Gesu, just north of Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. As the slogan on their placemats basically says, in my rough translation, when you come to Corsi, you'll have no remorsi. This is truly a great place for lunch, you just know the minute you see it. After a few days of eating nothing but pizza and pasta, we were somewhat protein-deprived so jumped directly to the secondi. I had spezzatino (veal stew) and my husband had roast veal. Both were delicious and very homey. The sides -- artichokes, braised escarole, and roasted potatoes - were also excellent. Add a mezzo litro of house wine, and you're ready for a nice post-pranzo nap.

Baffetto. Everyone on this board knows where Baffetto is, but in case you don't, it's basically straight due west of Piazza Navona on the little street that runs to the north and parallel to Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. And yes, it was great. Very thin and crispy.

Antico Forno del Campo di Fiori. We fought our way up to the counter for takeaway pizza, funghi and fior di zucca. It did live up to its reputation for being delicious. It's also an absolute mess to deal with. Find a place to sit down with it where oil will not drip on your trousers.

GOOD

Isola di Sicilia, on Via Garibaldi in Trastevere. This is a member of the Sicilia in Bocca family, apparently. (This was our good Trastevere trattoria experience; we also had another Trastevere trat experience that was awful, where we strayed from the excellent recs on this board and in our guidebook and foolishly decided to eat somewhere merely because it was busy. I don't remember the name of that place; I've repressed it.) Isola di Sicilia makes lovely pastas with fish. I had some kind of long pasta with sardines, fennel, breadcrumbs, currants, and pignoli, which I'm going to try to replicate at home. My husband had spaghetti with grouper, tomatoes, and basil, also very good. They also had lovely sugary almond cake for dessert which went beautifully with a glass of moscato.

RistorArte Vegetariana dal 1979. This is at the top of Via Margutta, very close to Via Babuino. Vegetarians can do fine in Rome in general, but it's nice to find a place that's entirely vegetarian. We had Sunday lunch here, which was a buffet, fixed price for 25 euros. It's a little expensive for what you get, but everything is good -- pasta dishes, egg dishes, very good selections of vegetables, rice and lentil salads. There was even a salad with tofu in it, quite a surprise in Rome. The vegetable platters prove conclusively that if you cook everything with a lot of good olive oil, well, it's really good. Probably the best dish we had was zucchini just simply cooked with a lot of olive oil. The buffet also includes nice tarts for dessert.

Est! Est! Est! This is a pizza place on a little side street off the Via Nazionale. The pizza is thicker crust than the main Roman style, more like an American pizza. It's good, but not in the same league as Baffetto. We had anchovy/fior di zucca and cherry tomatoes. Anchovy is the way to go.

Hotel Adriana. This is the place to go for lunch when you go out to Tivoli. It is directly across the street from the Villa Adriana, so about 6 km before you get up to Tivoli. It's a pleasant quiet garden space and the food is really good. They have a sampler of house-made pasta dishes, including ravioli with cherry tomatoes, cacio e pepe over some kind of wide flat squares of pasta, and tagliorini(?) with an herb pesto of mainly rosemary and thyme. The herb pesto was really special and unusual. They also have very nice salads. Great day trip from Rome: Start with Villa Adriana, have lunch at Hotel Adriana, and proceed up to Villa D'Este in Tivoli.

ACCEPTABLE

Dar Filletaro di Santa Barbara. This is a few blocks away from the Campo di Fiori. Above the door, it says, simply "Filleti di Baccala." So you know exactly what you are getting. You can baccala, or if you're not in the mood for that, try the baccala. This is very old school, clearly. There are a few antipasti choices, then the baccala, battered and fried, two salad choices, and well, that's about it. In fairness, the fish is really pretty good, and it's a huge bargain. Unfortunately, the side order of rudeness kind of sinks the place. Maybe that is old school also (maybe not), but we felt like we were really treated shabbily.

Trattoria Sor'Eva, Piazza della Rovere. This had the convenient feature of being two doors down from our flat. So a perfectly fine place for a decent pizza if you are in the neighborhood and are seriously jetlagged. The place is very popular with the priests and nuns crowd, as the Vatican is just a few blocks away.

Gusto. There's a substantial debate on this board about Gusto. We were only there for drinks and aperitivi buffet, which was fine, so we can't really comment beyond that. For drinks and aperitivi, when you're in the neighborhood, a perfectly fine choice.

AND A FEW MORE THINGS...

Gelateria dei Gracchi, east end of Via dei Gracchi, in the Prati. This gelateria is out of the way, but out of this world. I love this place. Go. We consumed less gelato on this trip than on our last trip to Italy (see Giro di Gelato 2004). This establishment was mentioned by someone on this board, and it turned out to be outstanding. We had several flavors: almond with orange, ricotta with pear, and zabaione. It's rich gelato, in creative flavors, really great. Here's what I recommend: Go to the Vatican in the morning, then lunch at Osteria dell'Angelo, then walk off lunch on the way across the Prati, and wrap up the afternoon at Gracchi.

Gelateria San Crispino. This place is frequently recommended on this board and in guidebooks. It was great, but well, Gracchi is better. The plum flavor (susine) at San Crispino was excellent, though, full of concentrated fruit flavor.

Drinks at the Hassler Hotel. We like to hit the bars of swanky unaffordable hotels when we travel, just to live that life for an hour or so. The Hassler proves that what money can buy is silence. You walk into their courtyard bar, and it's completely quiet and tranquil, no mean feat in the middle of Rome. They will bring you two substantial trays of nibbles with your drinks, including suppli, little canapes of salami and cheese, etc., etc. A very classy place with great service.

Thanks again for the recommendations, and buon viaggio!

ebg1 in Italy

LA Hound looking for restaurant for group of 10

I second Isa as a good choice for this group. Perbacco is terrific and would be great with a large group although it's pretty high end price-wise. Another great place for a big group is Kokkari. I haven't been there in a couple of years, but I've had good experiences there with tasty Greek food and a very festive, boisterous atmosphere. I haven't been to Limon (Peruvian) in the Mission, but I have a feeling that might be good for a group also.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

Marzano now open on College Ave

I don't see anyone else having scooped me on this topic. Marzano opened four nights ago in what was formerly the bar space in Garibaldi's. They are clearly going mano a mano with Oliveto's downstairs and A Cote. A great addition to the neighborhood. Soon you won't be able to get in.

The menu is surprisingly reasonably priced. There are about 7-8 pizzas on the menu, a few entrees (some very attractive baked ziti I saw at the next table, one fish entree, a couple of other things), and a lot of starters and salads. Pizzas are $15, and larger than what you get at Oliveto. A pizza and salad would be a very reasonably sized dinner for two. From 9 pm to midnight, the prices go down so the pizzas are only $10. I definitely see this as an excellent option for folks in the neighborhood getting home from work late (like me).

We had a pizza bianca with prosciutto and arugula, which was very tasty, a lovely heirloom tomato salad, and a starter of house-cured sardines. My husband and I are big fans of the little fish and order them whenever possible. These were particularly good, with a slightly sweet dressing with golden raisins and almonds, and some tiny radishes with their greens.
Other starters and salads looked promising as well. They also start you off with yummy grissini that I assume they make themselves.

The dessert menu looks great but we didn't try anything.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

Menaggio and around? (Lake Como dining)

The gelato place in the middle of Menaggio, called Pane e Cioccolato, is to die for. Some of the best gelato we had anywhere in Italy.

ebg1 in Italy

abruzzo recs?

We will be spending a few days on a farm in Abruzzo in early October. Can anyone recommend not-to-be-missed local foods, wines, or places to eat? Will we be on time for the truffles?

Thanks!

ebg1 in Italy

Mitama: seriously aggressive sushi pricing

Warning: be extra careful if the specials on the blackboard at Mitama don't have prices next to them. Although we had some very good sushi last night, some of the prices were way more than you would expect -- even if you would expect the prices to be high if they aren't written on the board. I think if a place is going to charge $14.75 -- seriously -- for white tuna toro they should have the courtesy to tell you about it before you order.

The other special nigiri were just expensive, not outrageous.

Next time I'll go back to Tachibana like I usually do.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area

"Chu" Chinese on College in the Rockridge is open...any feedback?

We're think Chu is a major positive addition to the neighborhood, especially having waited like 6 years for that building to be finished. Finally I have a decent Chinese restaurant within a block of my house. We have tried several of the appetizers and found them all very good, especially the spinach dumplings and the duck bao. Salmon rolls were also very good. I appreciate a little creativity with the appetizers. We haven't cut much of a swath through the rest of the menu yet.

ebg1 in San Francisco Bay Area