See, if you write that in a What Are You Reading thread, you automatically win lots of snoot points, unless someone else is carrying around the Summa Theologica and Calvin’s Institutes for a little light reading.
My wife reminded me of another one last night
North Pond , located inside Lincoln Park in Chicago.
Their service was the best we have ever received, incredibly helpful. The food was amazing as well, My wife rates it as the best restaurant experience she has ever had, I am torn because I really enjoyed the place in D.C., but she might convince me.
It’s not super high-end, but my fiancée and I are huge fans of Firefly in DC (and, yeah, DC has a lot of great restaurants). It’s home to the best steak I’ve ever had (even better than The Palm, which is saying something). And nothing tops the backyard-in-summer atmosphere. You even get your check delivered in a mason jar with holes cut in the top.
Another DC restaurant, Vidalia , served us a chocolate sampler dessert on Valentine’s Day one year that was so good I literally dropped my fork in shock once the food met my mouth.
My goal is to someday soon eat dinner at The Inn at Little Washington , which is a couple hours south of here in middle-of-nowhere Virginia. Some claim that it’s the best restaurant in North America. I plan on making a reservation there as soon as my fiancée finds out she passed the bar exam.
BTW, the Chicago Tribune had an article about the city’s foie gras ban; some restaurants skirt it by “giving it away” (therefore trying to avoid being told they’re violating the no-selling ban) as an extra, part of an amuse-bouche, etc. However - Rick Tramonto of Tru was one of Trotter’s most vehement critics on the issue, yet (according to the article) he does not participate in the foie gras giveaway at Tru. His suburban restaurant does sell it, though.
My objectively best is Tristan in Charleston, SC. I took my mother there for Monday-after-Mother’s-Day lunch. The food was outstanding, the service impeccable, and the bathrooms outstanding. I mean, I’ve never been to a place that matches the cloth napkin color to your outfit. Or, when asking for sweetner for tea the waiter brings out a tray with the expected yellow, pink, and blue packets then adds a small pitcher of simple syrup. I don’t usually mention the potty in restaurant reviews, but I’ve never seen sinks like this. They’re a slanted piece of clear quarter-inch glass, tilted away from you. The water falls onto the glass then drops into a floor trough. Ingeneous and unusual. And when you get back to the table, the waiter has refolded your napkin.
Oh, right, the food. It was excellent. For $15 a person, we got a 3 course meals, each course not resembling anything we’d had anywhere else. These were meals we couldn’t have made at home. We didn’t recognize what was in the salads, but they were delicious. The main courses. I had ostrich. Then the desserts. I had 4 tiny scoops of sorbet, different flavors including rose water. My mother had a banana fritter with a curled slice of plantain as garnish.
The entire experience was excellent. I’m sure the staff thought we were bumpkins, thrilled over every flourish of the waiters and every detail of the food.
The meal I most anticipated and appreciated, though, was this past January at the Chili’s Too in Sea-tac airport. I’d been in Japan for 3 months, tired of sushi and miso soup and yakisoba. I wanted spicy, dammit! After more than 11 restless hours in transit, I trudged to the end of Concourse D. Time stopped and angels sang when that order of chips and salsa arrived. I entered a dimension of crispy, jalapeno-ey goodness with my first bite. Aaaahhh, the memories. I’m happy all over again.
La Francais in Wheeling, IL. They do everything well, but the artichoke tureen and the veal were to die for. At the time, it was considered one of the top restaurants in the world. They’ve been closed for quite a while. Damn shame. It was a wonderful experience.
Stands to reason. The crew worked along side Thomas Keller, the Chef de Cuisine there, for a couple months to find out what happens in an upper-end kitchen. He also designed the version of ratatouille served up in the movie.
For my nomination, another New Orleans restaurant: Commander’s Palace. My folks, my girlfriend, and I ate there in 1981 when we were all in NOLA. The elder Brennans (two siblings and a cousin I think) decided to retire and handed the reins to the younger generation. Then after about six months they got bored and decided to open up a new restaurant in the Garden District so’s not to take away too much from the original Brennen’s.
The food was top-notch – mine was veal medallions with morels – but just as important, the service was impeccable. The waiter and busser did not hover over you like at so many places, but any needs were instantly met. Example: Partway through the meal I dropped a fork. I bent down to retrieve it, and the replacement was already there when I came back up, with no one in sight.
This came at a price. Time has mercifully obscured what the tab came to, but I remember reflecting how the tip was almost as much as the entire bill at a lesser restaurant. But it was worth every penny.
I recognize very few of these names (well, I recognized The Chop House), but I’ll add my own to the list. I hope it’s not sacrilege. I was travelling on business in chicago and had what I thought was a pretty generous dinner allowance. I always wanted to try one of the fancy steakhouses, and had been to Shula’s once before, so was looking for something similar. Alas, Lawry’s, Morton’s, and the rest were priced outside of my generous allowance, and I didn’t have the spare cash to make up the difference, so I ended up at The Weber Grill restaurant. Had a top-notch NY Strip steak. Hands down the best steak I have ever eaten. I really wish they would open one of those here in the Detroit area.
Edgar’s in Charleston, South Carolina.
buffalo oysters
apple-glazed pork chops with sweet potato tumbleweed with corn slow cooked in pear juice
Arturo Fuente Hemingway Classic, expertly cut and lit by my server.