Zaytinya

"Are you ready for this because I believe your life is going to change forever"  That's on their menu. Big words for a Mediterranean/Lebanese place in NW DC. It's good -- really good -- but not quite life changing.

Work colleague of L recommended this place and the two of them go for lunch. This is L's write-up.

Decide to get the "restaurant week"-style course. However, this place is a tapas-style place so you have to get multiple dishes to make a meal anyway.

First course - BABA GHANNOUGE
Baba is growing on me, and this one likely made a big leap for me.  So maybe this is the life changing event. Nice and evenly spiced. The piping hot bread puff made an excellent server. Very good. Maybe a little too much, portion wise, for an appetizer, but hey, rather too much than too little.

Second course - ARAYES
Ground lamb in a pita. Juicy. Tasty. Overall really good. Definitely worth trying a second time.

Third course - ADANA KEBAB
Okay, so I should have varied a little more than two lamb courses. Really, this was somewhat of a continuation of the second course. That's good in terms of food, but just poor selection on L's part. Compared to the first course, the portion size here was lacking, even for a tapa.

Fourth course - TURKISH DELIGHT
It's ice cream...but it's sooo good. I'd get it again if so inclined.

Cost 
$$$ - I'm going to venture and say to expect to not get under $40 on a good day, but I think $50 for two minimum is to be expected.

Cleanliness 
This is a finer dining place - it better be and it was

Service
Very good

Pluses 
The bread if you get it piping hot is just awesome (go early)
Nicely seasoned food
Nice atmosphere

Minuses
None that I could tell in terms of surroundings, but conversation distracted me from paying as much notice
Portion size (yes, it's tapas but come on)

Overall value
I'd go again, that's for certain. Tasty food (despite portion size) and good atmosphere make this well worth going in once or twice a year.

Bacchus (Buffalo, NY)

Fantastic. A go-to place in Buffalo.  A little foo-foo upscale so put on your sweater vest, but relaxing.

Fabulous food (we had a three-course restaurant week special and loved it):
M - Steak and eggs, cheesecake
L - Butternut Squash Risotto, chocolate cake

Both absolutely awesome. M has a nice fitting wine (and given the slip (we'll know what that means)).  If you are there during restaurant week, please treat yourself! If you have the time and money, it's a very nice place to eat without having to suit up.

Price - $$$ (Maybe on restaurant week you can get it below $50 for two, but really, don't short yourselves)
Value - Above par.  Definitely worthwhile.

Carlyle (Shirlington)

A higher-end casual restaurant we somewhat frequent, , especially to celebrate special occasions, located on the marquee corner in Shirlington. This was the first DC-area restaurant we ate at.

Still haven't tried the brunch, but hear it's great.

Cost
$$$

Cleanliness
Clean

Service
Good service (more times than not -- this may be slipping...grrrr)

Pluses 
Filet mignon - some of the best anywhere.
Crab cakes - some of the best anywhere.
And that they occasionally offer the two above together...GOLD!
Outdoor seating
Location

Minuses
Price makes it prohibitive. But for the special nights, this is a nice place because the food is excellent.
No upstair bathroom (minor but annoying)

Overall value
Good for a nice night out. They make the food well and seem to use good ingredients. Service and seating can be tough on the busy nights. Go during non-peak hours.

Clyde's (DC - Gallery Place)

L got sick here. That's really all we need to say.

Cost
$$$

Minuses
Steak didn't seems to be NY strip...

Overall value
L got sick after eating here. What else is there to say.

The Original Pancake House (Falls Church)

Not the one that was on 7, but the new one on 29.  What an improvement.

We went sometime in 2009/10 to the one on 7. Then, the food was good, but the place was tightly packed, poorly lit, with terrible parking. Now the place is bright, well-spaced and plenty of parking.

We've been twice in the past few months and the food is great and the service is pretty good, too.

L - 1st visit - Praline (seasonal) pancakes; 2nd - Pumpkin pancakes
M - 1st - Cinnamon apple pancakes; 2nd - Buckwheat-GA pecan pancakes

Thoroughly enjoyed both visits. We do take our own maple syrup, because no one offers it... (boo!)

Peeking over at other tables, their omelets are obscene. They look to be 8" round and 2 1/2" thick. Packed with whatever its filling is. Eating one on your own may make for happy taste buds but an unhappy heart.

Cost
$$

Cleanliness
Very clean.

Service
Great.

Pluses 
Really good food
Friendly staff
Bright and open tables

Minuses
Distance
Price...maybe?

Overall value
Good value and it's probably lucky that it's not close or we'd be here very often.

Aladdin's Eatery (Shirlington) [CLOSED]

What's for lunch/dinner?  Aladdin's Eatery.

The travesty of frequenting places you enjoy is that you may miss the tastiness right next door.  That's what's been happening for us by going to Shirlington for Carlyle and Capital Brewery. Just a few doors down has been a terrific Mediterranean place: Aladdin's Eatery. We ordered way too much...but it's research, right?

So, we've been twice now and this location is extremely delicious.  They have such a variety of things that this place can easily answer the question of "What do you want to eat?"  Because if you don't want wraps, then just the meat and rice. If you don't want that, get a salad. Not if that? Pita pitza.  Or go for a smoothie. Real  good.  (Almost as good as the ones M makes at home. Both use yogurt. Very tasty.) Or a dessert. The tiramisu is delectable. They use a non-alcohol liqueur substitute. Whatever it is, it is makes theirs even more delicious.

First visit

Appetizer - Vegetarian Combo
A sampling of all your favorites! Hummos, Tabouli, Baba, Falaffel, and Dawali.

Obviously, L has not had GOOD falaffel. Awesome. And the tabouli was delectable. Actually it was all quite delicious. This could be a meal in itself, if you really want to eat all that hummos and baba.

L - Aladdin's Favorite Combo
Beef Kafta, Shish Kabob, and Chicken Tawook served on a bed of seasoned white rice with vermicelli. Served with mixed greens, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and your choice of dressing.

 A LOT of food here.  Each meat was very good and well-seasoned for our tastes. The side salad was fresh, but the one complaint -- didn't like the dressing option. Basically a boatload of oil with seasonings at the bottom and no good way to get it out well-suspended. Nonetheless, the meal is a good value and can be shared.

M - Taza Chicken Salad
A flavorful mix of freshly chopped spinach and romaine, squash, zucchini, grapes, dried cranberries, tomatoes and chopped marinated grilled chicken, tossed with our Honey Dijon dressing and topped with pine nuts and feta cheese.

Again, a BIG salad with very fresh veggies. Can't go wrong and, again, is probably too much for one. Split this and an appetizer and two can eat well.

Second visit, two rolled pitas: the Shishtawook and the Dawali Rolled. Both very good. The turnips in the Shishtawook are an interesting twist, but it works. And they toast the pitas, which we both like.  This place will be frequented.

More visits: Their baklava is tremendous. It is NOT Greek-style, but made with a honey/candied "shredded wheat like" outside with candied pistachios in the center. Absolutely fantastic.

Cost
$$ ($30-35.  The issue is that while the plates and a drink are around $10 each, you'll get a dessert or smoothie or appetizer or something because it's just that good.  All of the sudden, bang! you're at $30+.)
BEWARE THE $6 SIDE OF RICE...

We did finally squeeze out a $25 visit with plenty of food, but that's the best you'll probably do for two.

Cleanliness
Notably clean

Service
Good service. Attentive waiter who was relatively patient with us (both times) -- Wally, you rock!

Pluses 
Fresh food
Big portions
Wide selection
Friendly staff
Nice atmosphere
Outdoor seating
Tasty tiramisu
Fantastic baklava
A good place for a salad (finally!)

Minuses
That dressing - can they do something about that?
$6 side of rice - are you kidding? it's real good, but seriously...

Overall value
For the area and the quality of the food, it is a good value for the price. It is not cheap, but it's less than Carlyle and just as tasty, which makes it easier to have an excuse to go into Shirlington.

Dor-Stop (Pittsburgh - Dormont off W. Liberty)

We love breakfast, and (obviously, given our last few posts) we love diners. This place is just awesome. Very tasty food that it seems the people cooking actually care about what you are putting in your mouth. It's refreshing when you can tell that while dining.

If this place isn't a Pittsburgh institution, it should be, and after 20 years, it should be.

M had their hot meatloaf sandwich. L generally shies away from meatloaf. It was divine ("though, not as good as my Mom's." -M).

L had their apple walnut pancakes. So fresh, so tasty, so apple-y! Everything tasted fresh -- the potatoes, the eggs, everything.

It was packed! The waitress was nice even on a very busy day. And the layout is very tight, so this has to be stressful for the waitresses.

We met a couple their with the family and kids. They said they loved going to eat here as often as they could. With kids, it's pricey. For DC'ers, it seemed regular dining pricing ($20-25 for two with tip). We're reminded: A) How lucky we are we can eat out and try all these new places, and B) How different pricing can be. For me (L), that gets lost in writing these up. While this is for us, we shouldn't take this for granted. They were very nice people, too.

Cost
$$

Cleanliness
Notably clean, but very tightly packed

Service
Good.

Pluses
The food
Nice people

Minuses
Tightly packed seating
Street parking

Overall value
Definitely a bright spot and the positive online ratings are well deserved. We would definitely try to get back next time we're in Pgh.

Obrycki's (Baltimore - near Fells Point) [CLOSED]

"Longtime crab house Obrycki's will close its Pratt Street doors in [Nov/Dec 2011], ending a six-decade run of serving seafood" - Baltimore Sun, December 7, 2010

Crab houses are not well rated in Baltimore, and this was supposed to be one of the better ones.  Half tourist-trap, half-destination that is was a feature in one of the early Homicide episodes made it a place to at least try.  It's one of the "1000 places to see before you die" according to Patricia Schultz, and "Influential New York Times critic Craig Claiborne was particularly fond of Obrycki's, writing in a 1983 travel piece, 'Olde Obrycki's [is] to my mind one of the greatest crab houses in America, which is to say the world.'"  The world!  And it's closing after this season ("'for quality of life' reasons" says the Sun, and good for them if that's true, especially in the Crime City "Charm City").  So we had to try it...and we were not disappointed.

Tucked in a lot between the row houses and anonymous businesses along the Pratt St stretch south of the Inner Harbor, this place doesn't look like much from the outside.  Parking is in a $10 pay lot (5 w/restaurant validation) catty-corner from the restaurant.  But inside is a more welcoming look in a pretty spacious restaurant with (at least) two rooms split by the waiting area/bar.

The food:

Being with our visiting good friend T,  M suggested we get in-shell crab as an appetizer so that way everyone gets a "crack" at fresh crab before going off into the world of broiled and fried crab cakes.  It was a good idea.

Dungeoness crab (1 lb) – Tasty.  Light on meat (surprisingly) but good nonetheless.  (The blue crab season had not started (April-Nov) and the dungeoness is still in season (Nov-June), though on the tail end of it. Dungeoness was the best choice at this time according to the good people at Monterey Bay - Pittsburgh.)

Crab Imperial – "Jumbo lump and backfin crab meat in a rich sauce accented with sherry and broiled".  Good, almost very good. L did not like the “rich sauce” as much as M did ("it was a nice change of pace [to the broiled crab cake]").  Would have liked bigger lumps instead of a finer shredding.

Crab duet – Two fried crab cakes - one regular and one deviled.  Very good.  M liked that it was lightly fried with just enough breading and egg to hold it together.  Not greasy or heavy and seasoned well.  L preferred these over the imperial because of the nice seasoning to them.

All meals (except the dungeoness) came with asparagus and potatoes.  The asparagus was really good by all eaters.  Firm (not wimpy), clean, fresh, with a slightly detectable marinade that brought out its flavor -- it was a highlight in a meal full of good eats.  Baked potatoes were really good (not Yukon golds, dirty, or overly salted) and not so mushy as to essentially be mashed potatoes in skin.

Except possibly the crab imperial (as noted above), the cakes had a creaminess that was just enough without overdoing it.

And the portions were great.  Each of us (unfortunately) had food left.  It was just too much!

Cost
$$$ (seafood + tourist area + actually being good...what would you expect?)

Cleanliness
Clean

Service
All things considered, it was okay.  It wasn't very welcoming but it wasn't off-putting and we weren't ignored.  We were relatively left alone, given space.  It felt like very "northern", very "Baltimore".  You're not going to be coddled but you're not going to get bad/rude service (it's not Dick's).  Guarded is the best word.

Pluses 

The crab cakes.  The asparagus.

They don't use Old Bay.

They don't feel compelled to overly season EVERYTHING.  Still left everything flavorful.

Minuses
The prices are high, even for seafood.  Add 10% to everything you'd expect to pay.
This location will close by 2012.

Overall value

Good and we'll like go back during blue crab season to make a day of the Inner Harbor and tasty crab.

There's a BWI location and, really, they're going to just relocate to a smaller lot in Arundel Mills.  In addition to likely lower rent, that "quality of life..." statement may be excluding a key part of the thought: "...in the heart of Baltimore".

So where are we eating?

We're actually in the midst of deciding this at this very moment. And therefore, this is the exact reason we've started this blog -- we've eaten at a lot of places and like a fair amount of them. But when it comes time to go back to that new place, we often find we forget. We literally have been to over 75 different eateries in Northern Virginia in a two-year span. After going to all these restaurants, we just no longer can instantly recall all this information: which ones are in the day's budget, which ones were great (or not great), and which ones are just too far away (you can't just hop on a plane anytime).

We also like to give recognition to great service, great food, and a damn good server (who could always use more tips). Equally, we want to recognize those who go out of their way to make the dining experience one to **ahem** never forget, even if you wish you could.

So, that's the purpose. If you're reading this expecting a magazine write-up of restaurants, you're missing the point. We're not grading these restaurants for the masses. This is truly our opinion on places we like, places we don't, and also for the happened-upon reader, suggestions that would expand our canon of places to eat regularly.

We endeavor to be comprehensive but may not. We'll see.