Restaurant: Kushi Izakaya
Location: Washington, DC
Type: Japanese
Stars: 2.5
Price: $$$
Partners-in-dining: SA, SD, AS
Weight: 0
Food: 5
Service: 3
To be brief - the food is excellent, but the service, not so much. As to the former, about our table we had: beers, brown tea, pork belly (buta bara), grilled eggplant (robata), meat maki, uni nigiri, grilled clam (still in the shell!), stuffed rice ball, sticky yam, miso soup, dashi custard, grilled and chilled octopus, tuna five ways, fatty tuna nigiri, duck sausage stuffed quail, and many more I'm sure I'm forgetting. And it was all, with the exception of the sweet potato, lovely. We also had mochis and ice creams for dessert. Fabulous.
The service was a little lackluster though. There was some confusion with seating us, as I asked to be seated with three in our party present, and they didn't seem very well organized on that front. Then the quail took forever, probably nearly half an hour after all the rest of the dishes. And the check likewise took a long time to come and get straightened out. AS suspected that we would've had worse service if AS hadn't been fluent in Japanese.
No pictures here - AS took a couple with his phone and I'm not technically up to it today. And my apologies for the lack of details - I let this one slip for too long!
Friday, November 26, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Reservations
In the initial buzz of a new challenge, I immediately plunged into all the readings and ratings and before I knew it, I had made five reservations. Ah, opentable, you make things just a little too easy. That was definitely the easy part!
In the long term, I'm not entirely sure how this is all going to work out. I definitely do not want to eat all these meals solo, and besides, then I am stuck with only the food I can order myself and thus cannot sample that lovely dessert/appetizer/sauce under your duck. And strangers tend to frown upon this behaviour, even when you are pushing the fabulous citrus souffle towards them, insistent that they try some.
So anyhow, five reservations. The first one was Japanese, and I had just finished a sushi class with a friend. So SD was my first invitee. And SA lived there for years, and that was #2. And AS lives and works quite close by, so, ta-da, 4! But my work has been pretty stressful lately and I never followed up with folks about last Friday's reservation, so ended up canceling it. I have another coming up this Saturday, and need to come up with a better plan. Foody friends are lovely and all, but they have limits on how much planning, money and time they will spend on this, and I fear that getting through the list is not something I can leave to happen organically.
What I am going to do, though, is be very aware of opportunities when they present themselves, and work to the advantage of what folks have expressed an interest in and work from there. I think I may also throw it out to a couple of groups I'm involved in - supping with new people can be a lot of fun, as long as they don't stiff the waitstaff!
One reservation, however, has gone extraordinarily well. Minibar is supposedly the hardest reservation to get in the States. I read about this during my second attempt. I'm hitting redial, while reading people's despairing posts about their failed attempts - in some cases, weeks or months of attempts - to land seats. Not a great idea, by the way, unless you really like freaking yourself out. Minibar is such a hard reservation to land because there are only six seats, and two seatings each night. And those are only five nights a week. The reservation line opens at 10am for a month in advance, which is generally filled within fifteen minutes, if you can get through! Minibar had come up in a discussion with IG, NC and AS, so at least I had that part taken care of. Now I just had to hope that I could eventually get through and land one of these elusive reservations. And on the fourth try, much to my absolute astonishment, I did. And by some further miracle, I managed to spell my email address correctly, and fork over my credit card information, and we are set for early December! Score!
This, however, was somewhat of a covert operation as I was at work, so I had no one to tell or to vent to! So instead I sent a lot of emails and texts with a lot of MINIBAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thrown in liberally.
Now I just need to figure out twitter so I can track down that lobster truck...
In the long term, I'm not entirely sure how this is all going to work out. I definitely do not want to eat all these meals solo, and besides, then I am stuck with only the food I can order myself and thus cannot sample that lovely dessert/appetizer/sauce under your duck. And strangers tend to frown upon this behaviour, even when you are pushing the fabulous citrus souffle towards them, insistent that they try some.
So anyhow, five reservations. The first one was Japanese, and I had just finished a sushi class with a friend. So SD was my first invitee. And SA lived there for years, and that was #2. And AS lives and works quite close by, so, ta-da, 4! But my work has been pretty stressful lately and I never followed up with folks about last Friday's reservation, so ended up canceling it. I have another coming up this Saturday, and need to come up with a better plan. Foody friends are lovely and all, but they have limits on how much planning, money and time they will spend on this, and I fear that getting through the list is not something I can leave to happen organically.
What I am going to do, though, is be very aware of opportunities when they present themselves, and work to the advantage of what folks have expressed an interest in and work from there. I think I may also throw it out to a couple of groups I'm involved in - supping with new people can be a lot of fun, as long as they don't stiff the waitstaff!
One reservation, however, has gone extraordinarily well. Minibar is supposedly the hardest reservation to get in the States. I read about this during my second attempt. I'm hitting redial, while reading people's despairing posts about their failed attempts - in some cases, weeks or months of attempts - to land seats. Not a great idea, by the way, unless you really like freaking yourself out. Minibar is such a hard reservation to land because there are only six seats, and two seatings each night. And those are only five nights a week. The reservation line opens at 10am for a month in advance, which is generally filled within fifteen minutes, if you can get through! Minibar had come up in a discussion with IG, NC and AS, so at least I had that part taken care of. Now I just had to hope that I could eventually get through and land one of these elusive reservations. And on the fourth try, much to my absolute astonishment, I did. And by some further miracle, I managed to spell my email address correctly, and fork over my credit card information, and we are set for early December! Score!
This, however, was somewhat of a covert operation as I was at work, so I had no one to tell or to vent to! So instead I sent a lot of emails and texts with a lot of MINIBAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thrown in liberally.
Now I just need to figure out twitter so I can track down that lobster truck...
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Eating my way through DC
I live in Washington DC. I love Washington DC, wholeheartedly. I also, wholeheartedly, love food - shopping for it, preparing it, consuming it, dissecting it with friends, feeding other people - love. LOVE.
So when the Washington Post's Fall 2010 Dining Guide came out, it should not be any greater surprise that I immediately devoured it. And shortly thereafter, I came up with a brilliantly (if I do say so myself) simple goal - to eat my way through it.
Of the 39 eateries listed, I had already been to 6.5 when I first laid eyes on Tom Sietsima's list. These are:
Birch & Barley
Againn
Rasika
Honey Pig
Jaleo
Oyamel
Praline Bakery & Restaurant (this one is the half - I've been there multiple times for their macarons. They specialize in traditional and non-traditional flavourings - I think passionfruit might be my favourite.)
I'm not sure if I'll revisit any of these, or just try to stick to knocking out those I have yet to visit. Although I obviously (obviously!) must return to Praline for a full meal. Thoughts?
I have rallied the forces and many a friend is up to supporting me in this effort. And I have made a lot of reservations, including one on which I got very very lucky.... but that is a post for another time. (Bonus points to those of you who can guess where that one is for!)
The blog will document my progress through the Dining Guide. My friends and partners-in-crime will be identified throughout by initials only, unless they explicitly ask to be identified differently. With any luck, I will provide pictures too. I have a cheapo camera, so this may involve some finagling. I am also concerned with the effect of this many rich meals on my bottom line. This is a particular challenge as I am not fond of sweating at all, so I will be keeping tabs on my fluctuating weight, with how many pounds I am up or down from the current moment in time. So today is 0!
Also, my thanks to LC, as it was her subscription to the Washington Post that triggered this! Most fabulous person and instigator!
Let the adventures begin....
So when the Washington Post's Fall 2010 Dining Guide came out, it should not be any greater surprise that I immediately devoured it. And shortly thereafter, I came up with a brilliantly (if I do say so myself) simple goal - to eat my way through it.
Of the 39 eateries listed, I had already been to 6.5 when I first laid eyes on Tom Sietsima's list. These are:
Birch & Barley
Againn
Rasika
Honey Pig
Jaleo
Oyamel
Praline Bakery & Restaurant (this one is the half - I've been there multiple times for their macarons. They specialize in traditional and non-traditional flavourings - I think passionfruit might be my favourite.)
I'm not sure if I'll revisit any of these, or just try to stick to knocking out those I have yet to visit. Although I obviously (obviously!) must return to Praline for a full meal. Thoughts?
I have rallied the forces and many a friend is up to supporting me in this effort. And I have made a lot of reservations, including one on which I got very very lucky.... but that is a post for another time. (Bonus points to those of you who can guess where that one is for!)
The blog will document my progress through the Dining Guide. My friends and partners-in-crime will be identified throughout by initials only, unless they explicitly ask to be identified differently. With any luck, I will provide pictures too. I have a cheapo camera, so this may involve some finagling. I am also concerned with the effect of this many rich meals on my bottom line. This is a particular challenge as I am not fond of sweating at all, so I will be keeping tabs on my fluctuating weight, with how many pounds I am up or down from the current moment in time. So today is 0!
Also, my thanks to LC, as it was her subscription to the Washington Post that triggered this! Most fabulous person and instigator!
Let the adventures begin....
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