bigplate's Profile
Recommendations for the 18th Arrondisement
We will be traveling as a family to Paris--with two teenagers-- and staying in the 18th Arr. next week. We are open to trying both non-French and French places but would prefer to find some on the lower end of the Euro price range either way. Any suggestions for places to eat in either that neighborhood or nearby ones?
Cancun - World Class in Unexpected Place
In Cancun Centro, on Avenida Bonankamp, is a 8-table restaurant that has been open for 7 months, called Peter's. Peter is a dutchman who has lived in mexico for about 20 years and runs this place with his wife and son. My family and I have eaten the world over and I tell you this is as high quality as it gets, for terrific value. The man can cook--he developed his skills at the Ritz Carlton and the Royal hotels, among other places. We make it a point to never eat in a restaurant on one of our vacations more than once but we ate here the last two nights of the vacation and were not disappointed. The atmosphere is very welcoming, like eating in the home of the chef. The prices are more than reasonable for what you get. It would be a crime not to support this place, especially because most of what is offered in this resort is mediocre and expensive. I doubt there is a bad dish on the menu but for sure go for the veal chop if it is available, or the cowboy steak, or the bouillabaise, or the Claudia's Salad, any of the desserts (especially the very interesting pear). We enjoyed very good wines, including a Mexican tempranillo from Baja.
Cancun Vacation Coming Up...
....and me, my wife, and teenage daughter and two friends, all of whom enjoy a good meal, are interested in knowing where we might find a) a really good meal in the Cancun hotel zone and b) also in the hotel zone, solid restaurants at a reasonable price.
San Antonio Dinner for Soccer Players
I am accompanying a group of 17 year old girls to a soccer tournament this weekend in San Antonio. I get the fact that the Riverwalk, where we will undoubtedly be walking, may not have the finest choice off medium-priced good food in the area. if I'm wrong about that, I would love to hear about suggestions there but otherwise, we have a car and can drive. We are staying right by UT San antonio downtown. We are definitely not limited by cuisine, more by dollars--entrees in the $10-20 range would work.
New Years Eve in Orlando
Thank you for all of these ideas. As of the moment, the one place I can definitely get a reservation for at a time that will work for us on new years is Roy's--that said I am going to try to work some of the others in on other days.
New Years Eve in Orlando
Right, I know it's late notice but we weren't sure how things were going to play out at this tournament. It will just be two of us 50+ foodies from Washington, DC. All cuisines are fair game; I don't know what kind of packages are being offered, and it has been years since I was in Orlando so I don't have a good feel for price/value--let's say we would entertain a place that would normally have entrees as high as around $30. We are staying with the team at the Comfort Suites on Florida Plaza Blvd in Kissimmee.
New Years Eve in Orlando
We are going with our daughter's soccer team to the big Disney soccer showcase over the coming weekend. We will be, therefore, in Orlando on New Years Eve and though we are well aware of all of the big bash events that night, my wife and I were hoping to just have a nice dinner somewhere. Is that possible? Doesn't have to be expensive or glamorous, just good and a nice atmosphere.
Tips for eating in Bethesda?
To my mind, Raku is the most consistently good restaurant, at a fair price, in Bethesda. Whether you go for sushi or the higher-end dishes, rarely will you find a misstep.
Noteworthy Restaurant in Berlin
That would be great--just really nice people on top of everything else. Apparently, the restaurant is owned by a German now living in Australia, who happened to be eating there the night we visited. I'll be interested in hearing your reaction.
Noteworthy Restaurant in Berlin
Having spent the better part of the last 10 days traveling in France, and only yesterday making my first-ever appearance in Berlin, I am surprised to point out that likely the best meal we had on this trip was last night at Charlotte43 on Charlottenstrasse. The restaurant has apparently been open since the beginning of the year and our concierge highly recommended it. I had seen it mentioned nowhere on the boards--any travel or restaurant boards--so we were a little hesitant to make that one of our three meals in Berlin. But for those of you who are knowledgeable about Berlin restaurants but may not have checked it out, I highly recommend you go. Apparently, the cuisine is the chef's effort to apply what he has learned cooking all over the world to German food--it is still recognizable as German food and was delicious down the line. From the mixed salad and beet soup with which we started to the dessert sampler they accomodated us with because we couldn't decide what to have, it was very high-level cooking. The atmosphere is really nice, the service was as friendly as you can get, and the prices were downright low for what we got. I can't say that about any other meal we have had on this trip. To put my feelings about this restaurant in perspective, we ate tonight at Weinbar Rutz and while it was an excellent meal, we far more enjoyed the one at Charlotte43 and it was definitely a greater value. The Weinbar was way overpriced, which I guess you can do when you have a Michelin star. So because my wife and I hate to see a good restaurant struggle and/or die when it deserves to prosper, we really hope those of your rading this check it out and spread the good word.
Restaurant in Brittany-Definitely Worth a Detour
This evening my friends and I had one of the best meals I have had anywhere in a long time. Located on the north coast of Brittany, in Les Pont-Neufs in Hillion, Restaurant La Cascade is simply excellent in all respects. Beautiful setting overlooking a lake and waterfall, the dining room is elgantly and simply decorated in tones of purple, with large picture windows overlooking the water. Mme. Odile Jamme greets guests and is a very gracious hostess, joined by a single waitress who is able to cover the small dining room. Her husband, Gilles, is simply an excellent chef, deserving of more attention. We were served an aperitif of lychee, pineapple juice, and raspberry liquer, which was very refreshing and different. Our meal started with an amuse of crab salad with blinis, a parsley flan; and pureed peas with prosciutto. For appetizers, we variously had an unbelievable foie gras plate that looked like a well-appointed dessert plate--the foie gras was as silky smooth and tasty as any I have had and the accompaniments were extremely interesting, including a macaroon with foie gras and white port wine gel. Others had langoustine tails with bacon flavored cream. For entrees, all of which were excellent, there was veal chop with very interesting vegetables and a special kind of cooked potato; filet mignon in cider sauce, with aligot ( potato and cheese dish from Auvergne); and medallions of lotte wrapped in bacon on a bed of well-sauced quinoa. This was followed by a nice cheese course and then dessert, as if more food was needed. One of them was a variety of strawberry-based desserts--strawberry shortcake, strawberry caramel flattened lollypop, strawberry panna cotta, strawberry macaroon, and more. There was also the "Road to Chocolate", which included a white chocolate mousse and several other chocolate offerings, some with raspberry. The last was an exotic fruit sequence, to be eaten in order of sweetness, including pinacolada flan, then passionfuit panna cotta, lemon pastry; followed by pineapple with ginger and finally a fruit macaroon. A tray of petitis four and macaroons were finally placed on the table and had to be eaten. The chef himself, a very nice guy, came out and spoke with us as we left. I can only tell you thqt the food and presentations were unifromly excellent and the fact that this restaurant hasn,t received more attention is a travesty. We have eaten in many restaurants in France over 30 years, mostly in Paris qnd this was as good as all but two or so, including Taillevent. On top of everything the tab, including wine and coffee, was approximately $75 per person, just a ridiculously good price. Trust me, if you are anywhere near Hillion, you simply have to go.
Local places with moderate prices-- seafood or anything else good
We ourselves are visitors but we had two really good meals that I think would fit into your requirements. The first was at Monsoon East in Bellevue--contemporary Vietnamese that had some really unusual dishes at a reasonable price with good service and atmosphere. Tonight we ate at Queen City Grill in Belltown, which I had not remembered seeing on the Chowhound Seattle Board but which appeared in the Gayot guide. We had an absolutely great experience there--both the halibut and Cioppino entrees were terrific; a nice and appropriately priced wine selection (we had a nice Washington Chardonnay); the service was better than excellent and the whole place just had a great feel.
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Queen City Grill
2201 1st Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121
Monsoon East
10245 Main Street, Bellevue, WA 98004
Good Non-Chain Eating in Bellevue Area?
So for our first night we ate at Monsoon East in Bellevue and it was really good. Very interesting takes on Vietnamese food, at least the version of it we usually get in DC where we are from. A few dishes were absolute standouts--the crispy pork shank, the apple pops dessert. Service was very friendly and helpful and prices were appropriate.
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Monsoon East
10245 Main Street, Bellevue, WA 98004
Good Non-Chain Eating in Bellevue Area?
My wife and I will be accompanying our daughter and her soccer team to a big national youth soccer tourney being held in Redmond this weekend and we will be staying in Bellevue. Normally we end up being roped into dinners for 25 at Applebee's but we are hoping to sneak away by ourselves for better food than that--doesn't need to be expensive but needs to be good. Any ideas? Secondarily, we will probably be able to get downtown for one evening--this coming Friday--and would like to try someplace good and Seattlean (probably not the word), different from what we might eat in Maryland, where we are from.
Center City Tomorrow
I am meeting a business acquaintance of mine for dinner tomorrow night--I am visiting and will be around 17th and Chestnut, he lives further east in Center City. I'd like to go to a place with good food, not too loud, probably not too wild on food selections (because of him, not me)--this won't be on anyone'e expense account so while it can be entrees in the $20-28 range, don't want to go higher. Probably don't want it to be italian but it could be.
Dinner in DC
At $45 an entree, you can pretty much eat anywhere you want in DC. The suggestions ericandblueboy makes are all on target. Italian is not one of DC's great strengths. Citronelle is French and generally considered one of the top restaurants but I would actually favor all of the others mentioned--Citronelle is kind of cold and noisy, though the food can be fabulous. Tosca is an italian restaurant you can consider--we have always had good meals there, it is centrally located. I would also throw into the mix KInkead's, which is seafood.
Quality interesting food in West Maui at moderate prices?
Those sound like they may be a little lower level than I was thinking. For instance, we ate at Hula Grill in Kaanapali tonight which, though not inexpensive, was at least somewhat less expensive than say, Lahaina Grill. I'm looking for another Hula Grill, or perhaps a tad cheaper.
Quality interesting food in West Maui at moderate prices?
Does it exist, especially in the Kannapali/Lahaina area? Suggestions welcome. We are here now, and see a plethora of good choices in the 3 or 4 $$$$ arena, including ones that have popped up on this Board--wonder if there are places someone who loves food can go to that maybe $$ or even $, knowing that we will not be at quite the same level as the more expensive ones.. We are traveling with our two teenage kids, who are sophisticated eaters, and when you go to places like Lahaina Grill for 4 people, one can only do that so many times over the course of 10 days and still have money to pay for gas in the rental car.
Great Chinese food in Bethesda or D.C. area?
After 17 years of trying Chinese in the area, after having moved form NYC where the Chinese food definitely was better, we like New Fortune on 355 in Gaithersburg, both for regular meals and dim sum. Chinese is probably the weakest Asian food in the DC area. I have to say that some of the ones mentioned in the earlier posts are definitely not as good as New Fortune. OUr Chinese friend is a fan of Gui LIn on Route 28 in Rockville and we enjoyed that too.
Any recommendations for DC?
Miss Saigon has actually disappointed us--we stopped going a few years back. Bistro Francaise is a good option, thought I wouldn't say it is inexpensive. I actually am a big fan of Clyde's, though this is one location in the area I have gone to the least. It is very reliable for quality food, the service is almost always good.
American Regional in San Diego
Just curious--why? And is that a good choice or can we do better elsewhere?
Any recommendations for DC?
Are you up for leaving your immediate area? Georgetown is not the best restaurant spot in DC. Tackle Box is good, very casual and inexpensive--you sit at picnic benches and pick up your food at the counter.
A place that we've liked very much and is a bit underappreciated is Circle Bistro, at Washington Circle. Definitely higher end, kind of an interesting and funky atmosphere. Eclectic food, always high quality. Has been listed in the Washingtonian 100 Best Restaurants and not very far from where you are going to be staying. But let us know if you are willing to walk or get into a cab or on Metro.
American Regional in San Diego
For a nice dinner--good interesting food and interesting/quality atmosphere--any suggestions? I've heard good things about Alchemy, Urban Solace and Jsix?
San Diego restaurants-- Interesting food But Not Top Dollar?
Thanks. A couple of questions: where do I find those Mexican restaurants? Second, are you familiar with a restaurant called Red Pearl ____ and, if so, what are your thoughts?
San Diego is for Breakfast
Missions sounds right. We enjoyed it back then. Is it still good?
San Diego is for Breakfast
You get to the amusement park by taking a busy road that deadends right at the intersection where the amusement park is, which is on a street parallel to the beach. The restaurant I am thinking of requires making a right turn at that intersection and then is/was a few blocks down on the right.
San Diego is for Breakfast
Thanks--does this place have chandeliers? My daughter seems to remember that it did.
San Diego restaurants-- Interesting food But Not Top Dollar?
Are the places mentioned in the last two posts sit down places? Those sound great. Now what if I asked you to take it up a notch in expense and maybe atmosphere? What would be on your list?
