Brent S.'s Profile

i stole a copy of the menu and folded it up real small to keep in my wallet. now, for the rest of my life, at any time that my appetite is not quite what it should be, i can just glance at stellina's menu and become instantly enveloped in an ecstatic delirium of hunger and desire, because this is the most alluring menu i've ever seen. and yes, the food backs up the far-fetched claims put forth by the audacious menu.

Zucchini is an underwhelming vegetable. I decided to get the zucchini soup, but I was "settling" for it, not expecting much. TASTE EXPLOSION. No words to describe this magical soup. Chicken was great. M'lady's lamb was good too. Once again, with dessert we "settled" for something that both me and the lacto-intolerante could enjoy: Crepes with mission figs, goat cheese, hazelnuts. Astoundingly good. Basically this is the first fancy SF restaurant that has left me wondering the next day how they did it. It's awesome, but I recommend going with a girl who has a $100 gift certificate to the place. but STAY AWAY from my girlfriend, she doesn't have one any more.

Looking at the reviews of K & D Market as of today, 3/21/08, they aren't too pretty. Looks like there are various reasons for this, and I'm sure these ratings are rooted in legitimate concerns. But I'm going to drop 5 stars on this review. In my opinion, a key question to consider when deciding what businesses to support is how socially responsible are they? Especially for this type of business. I mean we think all liquor stores are pretty much the same. They sell the same stuff. We choose them based on proximity and convenience. BUT, if I knew that there was one liquor store who was investing in environmental practices, more than any of its competitors, I would choose to shop at that store. Honestly I don't care about customer service in a liquor store. In light of the climate crisis, what I care about much more is which business is helping to mitigate the climate crisis, and which is not?

I'm starting an organization called Carrotmob (http://www.carrotmob.o...), and in planning our first campaign we have found that this store is willing to invest more in upgrading their refrigeration and lighting than any other store. I'm not saying they are saints who are doing this out of good fuzzy feelings. It should be a profitable choice for them. What I am saying is that numbers don't lie. On March 29th at 1pm, we're going to get a mob of people to buy stuff, and they're going to set aside 22% of all the revenue we bring in for environmental measures. That, to me, is way more important than any other factor when choosing where to buy my gin and juice.

To correct the record, Danny, the guy referenced by many of the prior reviews is the store's long-time manager, NOT the owner. I've gotten to know the owner's son David who recently moved out from DC and started working there, and he is a great guy. I like to think of this campaign as a turning point in the number of stars this store is going to be getting on Yelp in the future. That's my 2 cents at least. Give it up!

Elsewhere on the internet this place has decent reviews. Decent enough for me to book there. But I must offer a little balance. This place is an itshay olehay. The price was right for somewhere with easy driving access to Georgetown, but after staying here I must implore you all to stay across the street at The Virginian Suites, with a comparable price and a much better scene. First of all, this place isn't really on Arlington Blvd. I know because I got lost, and the sign in front of the place indicates that you are on the corner of Fairfax and Pierce. So there's that. Also I had a very important FedEx package that never made it to me at the hotel. FedEx says it was because either the hotel doesn't exist, or no one was in the office to sign for it. Ugh.

We checked in and were given a smoking room, even though we had requested a non-smoking room. Nothing else was available, so we dealt with that. I don't ask for a lot of luxury from the rooms, I'm perfectly happy with your average Econo Lodge or whatever, so I don't care about slightly torn blankets and stuff like that. Room was fine. We were awoken early in the morning by a truck beeping and making all sorts of noise right next to our window for 15 minutes or so. Not the best ambience. Then we put up the trusty "Do Not Disturb" sign as always, since we have a bunch of expensive equipment in our room we prefer people don't play with. I mean who needs a new towel everyday anyway? So we were annoyed to return later and find that people had come in to fold their stupid toilet paper squares. I hate that. No big deal. Then the next day (after 2 of our 3 nights) we loaded up everything into our car. Later that day I returned to the office and asked if the FedEx package had ever showed up. They said no, and then I discovered that housekeeping had gone into our room, saw that we had packed up everything, and then they had the audacity to ASSUME we had left, checked us out, and gave the room to someone else! This was unbelievable to me. There were other rooms so I could have checked back in, but screw it. I didn't want to be there anyway. I got my receipt for 2 nights and stayed with friends in Capitol Hill. If you smoke and just need a random room for a night, this place is fine, but otherwise it sucks, and I'll never be returning...

I had 20 minutes to eat before I had to give a presentation at the Hyatt 2 blocks away. It was afternoon, but I was looking for breakfast. I asked the waitress if I could be in and out with an omelette in 20 minutes. She said I could be in and out in ten. I said great, and cracked open the menu. Ten seconds later she starts getting nervous, like "Hey, you decided yet? If you don't order your omelette soon I will no longer be able to guarantee the speed you desire, so don't get mad at me...."

Ha ha. This (and by "this" I think I mean both Jersey City and this cafe) is a place where being mad seems to be part of life -- but in an endearing way. The people who work here are caricatures. Like Rhea Perlman on Cheers mixed with a loving Sicilian grandmother mixed with an impatient cab driver. I recommend it as a cultural experience. Only.

I had a florentine omelette, with toast, potatoes, half a grapefruit, and a small orange juice. The omelette was the ugliest I'd ever seen. It looked like vomit, mixed with Hudson River sludge, and then burned. I realized soon that it looked that way because of the canned (or maybe frozen? I don't know) spinach. Yes I'm from California, yes I've had a hundred spinach omelettes, and no, I've never had one with canned spinach before. Maybe I'm the ignorant one. As it turned out, later that evening I would experience canned spinach again on a pizza in Hoboken. So I think that sort of explained why it was such an ugly omelette, and it tasted fine, although it was a little burned. Burnt? Burnt. The toast was boring white toast with really fake looking butter. The potatoes had no flavor. The half grapefruit slice had a little bit of dirt inside it. Unless it was coffee grinds or something. I swear. I still ate it. Orange juice was great. Cash only. In and out in twenty. There you go.

When I think about types of food that I like, I never think of "asian fusion". I'm an evangelist for asian food, but in the past when I have tried foods blatantly defined as asian fusion, I have always taken a couple bites (with a fork of course), slowly chewed, and decided that it tasted too much like marketing. My meal at Noodle was asian fusion, and it was in-cred-i-ble. From the moment I saw the menu was very impressed with nearly every dish I saw. So creative! So mouthwatering! And I don't want to paint this place as a strictly "fusion" restaurant. There are a variety of different straightforward asian dishes, it's not all on the Dr. Frankenstein tip. I had the sichuan tofu salad and the chicken lo mein. The salad exploded my everything. Lettuce and marinated tofu and edamame and all this stuff that just worked perfectly in every bite. I don't usually go for salad dressing, but I trusted them and it was the perfect flavor at the perfect intensity. The lo mein was equally on par. I craned my head to try and see the chef, the mysterious prodigy who made it all happen. Whatever. Maybe I was just really hungry or something.

The service was pleasant but rather unprofessional. I was bewildered and disappointed to find that my grapefruit juice was 4 parts ice cubes to one part grapefruit juice. Who even ices grapefruit juice anyway? These would drop the rating but screw it, the food was so good and the price was right.

My first clue was when my cab driver from the airport asked me why I was staying in such a bad neighborhood. Oh. Well, my answer was that when I'm staying in Midtown for business the first place I look is an awesome bed and breakfast called the Ansley Inn. Sadly, that place was closed for remodeling when I booked, so I hastily chose the cheapest thing that seemed to be in the same neighborhood. Seemed to be. The cabbie insisted on circling the block so I would see the 100 or so derelicts loitering around outside the homeless shelter at like 10:45pm. So that's right next door. We pulled up to the hotel and found that the office was closed. It closes at 9pm. In my book, that's a little weird. Very weird. So here I was, on the verge of being stranded in the ghetto with 4 big bags full of expensive equipment and nowhere to put it. Furthermore, white. Just then, when all seemed lost, there came an angel who appeared from around the corner. And O, what a visage. Her name was Kim. She was the nightwatch. I told her that I had a reservation, and she told me that she had not received this information from the front desk. I showed her the email I had, confirming that Orbitz had already charged my credit card for 3 nights. She immediately told the cab driver that I'd be taken care of, don't worry. She found me an empty room right away. Southern hospitality. I didn't get checked in. Didn't get a key. She just let me crash in this room and took down some of my information. I warily walked to a pub around the block to get a late dinner, and when I got back I found her to let me back into my room. She was so nice! That night, I checked the chain on my hotel room door lock, for the first time ever, I think. I killed about 6 cockroaches. I slept fine.

In the morning I checked out before even checking in. I called Orbitz, and because the experience had been so bad, they remarkably agreed to refund the 2 prepaid days, against their own policy. I scooted a couple miles up to the last available room in the three times as expensive Regency Suites. Much better. Obviously this place is a hellhole, and rather dangerous at that. But Kim was amazing! So friendly, so accommodating, so sweet...the one redeeming quality of the Savannah Suites is Kim, and I'm sure by the time you are reading this she will have moved on to a job that is more worthy of her value, so there is nothing at all left for you at this hotel.

I ate breakfast alone at the Monte Carlo Buffet three mornings in a row. Very nice. Great success.

Clean, good variety, pleasant (for a casino buffet) decor. Each morning I started off healthy with some oatmeal (brown sugar would have required a jackhammer...doesn't get a lot of attention I guess) and a pile of grapefruit. Then I went back for a little potato action, maybe some eggy thing, and whatever else looked interesting until I got full. It's the usual stuff, lots of meaty things. Vaguely interesting baked tomato with pesto, but nothing too remarkable or delicious. Just solid. On the first morning I was going to get some oatmeal, grapefruit, toast and an orange juice at the spot next door called "The Cafe," but that would have been slower and cost me almost 20, when I got all that and more at the buffet for $12.90 or so.

Downsides:
-The orange juice is basically Sunny Delite.
-They took away my plate and reset my table for other people the first time I went back for seconds. I guess that's what I get for eating all by my lonely and not leaving someone to guard my territory.
-It seems like the magical grease fairy flutters about the buffet with a bucket of pig oil gently brushing it all over the part of the bacon tongs that you are supposed to hold with your hand. Once every ten minutes or so, when no one is looking.
-It's a casino buffet so the bar is low. The whole genre of eatery sucks anyway. On that scale its not bad at all.

What the other reviews have overlooked is the profoundly unclassifiable nature of this restaurant. It has 3 personalities.

First, it's a taqueria. It's in the south mission, everyone who works there is latino, they specialize in tortas, they have shelves behind the register with abuelito hot chocolate and ramen, and when I was there the whole back of the restaurant was filled with a sprawling familia latina, having quite a good time.

Second, it's a 1950s soda shop. You go in and you can sit down at the bar on a row of soft red cushioned stools. There are big Coca-Cola light fixtures that hang down from the ceiling. While I waited for my meal a well-curved white woman and her daughter came in to order a chocolate milkshake. For all I know they drank it with 2 straws, cheek to cheek, while listening to Paul Anka.

Third, it's a french cafe. They have those faux french liquor art posters everywhere. I ordered a chorizo and egg torta. The guy calls out "chorizo y huevo..?" so I go to retrieve it, expecting a torta similar to what I might find up the street at Taco Loco or Farolito. Instead I get an impeccably crafted masterpiece, a work of art, not a drop of grease anywhere, just good mexican ingredients tightly wrapped in paper, looking just like a $15 panini sandwich. A french one.

Maybe the best fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice of my life, too.

Sometimes it's hard to write a review the day after you eat at a restaurant...but for this place it's easy to remember what I ate since I just finished vomiting all of it up into my girlfriend's kitchen sink. I should clarify...my girlfriend whose kitchen sink does not have a garbage disposer.

I don't know what it was...I had an all vegetarian meal except for one tiny piece of chicken...I noticed one piece of broccoli that tasted rather nasty on the way down. (Much better on the way up. What?) Either way, I have been in perfect health which was briefly interrupted for 3 hours of terror this morning, and it's definitely this restaurant's fault. At the time I thought the food was delicious though! But it's gotta be one star instead of two since they took SO long to serve us anything, even though the place was nearly empty. 15 minutes for a can of Diet Coke, etc. So I will never return, but I also can't really disagree with all the positive reviews, yadadamean?