Category Archives: Opinions

Bayou DC

Posted by Leaf on October 17, 2011 None comments

In my delirious hunger right before dinner, I scarfed a third of a chicken and a pot of lentils so by the time we got to Bayou, I could barely breathe let alone eat anymore food. So I’ll just have to share the verdict: Thumbs up!

The ambiance is a lot like a sports bar. A lot of TVs all around the room. It’s pretty casual.

The food, like the name of the place, is creole.
Crawfish and andouille sausage cheesecake
Crawfish & Andouille Sausage Cheesecake (appetizer)

The biscuits are a lot like Popeye’s biscuits (that’s a compliment). And it came with sweetened butter.

Crawfish carbonara
And they kindly split our shared entree of Crawfish carbonara. Which came in handy because we ended up boxing up the other half.

The theme for our selections was crawfish if you couldn’t tell.

The WashPost Fall Dining Guide

Posted by Leaf on October 13, 2011 4 comments

I always look forward to the biannual release of Seitsema’s dining guide.  It’s not that I always agree with his assessments, but the guy has good insights and I am always curious about what he has to say about the dining scene in this area.

I’m sure it’s hard to put together a dining guide that’s comprehensive and for the most part, I think he steers people in the right direction.  But being the opinionated person that I am (particularly when it comes to food) here’s what I think:
Though they are on the list, these are not on my places to go to:
  • La Canela - Go to La Limena instead, which is nearby.  La Canela food was too salty and it didn’t make me want to go back.  La Limena, on the other hand, was delicious.  I’ve been back numerous times.  The only difference is La Canela is fancy sit-down while Limena is almost cafeteria-like.  But, for me, you can dress up a room any old way.  If the food doesn’t shine, nothing else matters.
  • Han Sung Oak – There are a ton of good Korean places.  If you ask even one Korean, you’ll get a bunch of different recommendations.  Personally, I like Arirang in Germantown.  In Annandale, there are so many I haven’t tried, it’s hard to say, but Yechon has been great the 2 or 3 times I’ve been there.  I guess it’s like pho… just wherever is convenient and suits personal tastes.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to patron this one in particular.
  • Pete’s Apizza – While this DC one may be different from the one I went to in Arlington, it’s pizza.  Convenience plays a big part in this.  As pizzas go though, we both came out of the Arlington Pete’s saying, it was good but we probably won’t go back, it just wasn’t that good.
  • Burma Road – It’s alright, as in edible, but I wouldn’t choose to go back nor recommend it to anyone.
On my list of places to go after reading this guide:
  • Ripple – Well it was on my list already, but this makes me want to try it all the more.
  • Fast Gourmet – It’s a gas station cafe.  I’m curious.  Sometimes the best finds are these tucked away (though now, not so tucked away) gems.
Granted, these are the places I’ve never been on the list that I want to try.  I would love to go back to Rasika any old day.
Meh, maybe
  • Ren’s Ramen – This place really isn’t a huge go-out-of-my-way to try place, but if I were in the area and wasn’t sure where to go, I might go here.  Though I’d prolly head to Max’s nearby first to get that shwarma and falafel.  Now THAT’s on my list.  Max’s.
  • Nostos – This is from the same owner as Mykonos Grill off the Pike.  I might try it if I happened to be driving around Tyson’s which is rare.  Mykonos is great though and the 3 or so times I’ve been to Mykonos, I’ve enjoyed it and have shared it with others.  It’s quite special.  So it’s not on my gotta try list, I’d just as well go to Mykonos.  But I wouldn’t be against trying it either.

Nanny State

Posted by Leaf on October 11, 2011 None comments
Last week, Denmark passed a “fat tax” to curb obesity.  It’s yet another sin tax, only this time, instead of tobacco & alcohol, it’s saturated fat.  The sin is gluttony.  The argument is, it’s bad for peoples’ health so taxing it might discourage overindulgence.  Supporters go on to say that people who engage in things that are detrimental to their health ought to pay for those choices.  After all, society often winds up paying for them when they end up sick, obese.  My question is how much does it cost society to nurse 80 year olds into their death versus a 60 year old who dies of a heart attack?  People all die eventually, what makes one way more economical than another?  Have they really figured out that it’s more expensive to die from lung cancer or liver cirrhosis than say alzheimers?  People may be thinner if they ditch a bag or two of fries, but having them live longer or healthier isn’t necessarily less of a burden to society.  It sounds terribly morbid and insensitive but is it truly less costly to society to die one way versus another?  And if they want to tax things that are detrimental to health and costly to society, the first place I want to see it applied most is gas.

DMV Hell

Posted by Leaf on October 1, 2011 None comments

We spent nearly 3 hours waiting at the DMV today.  I forgot to bring a book to read so I sat at the front row watching the employees work.  The slow and stupid, and the fast, and the rude.  It was like watching reality tv.  One female employee seemed to make it her purpose in life to live up to the blonde stereotype.  She could not get anything done without help from somebody.  The poor guy next to her had to constantly interrupt his cases, trying to help her.  And she always needed to flirt and banter with the customers and waste time.  Then there was the condescendingly rude employee, who, as the guy next to me described, “would be on fire if he flamed any harder.”  I mean, he even flirted with one customer’s boyfriend.  Aside from his rudeness, to foreigners especially, he was at least efficient if the case was straightforward.  And lucky me, I wound up one of the last customers who got the disgruntled angry lady with a bad case of PMS.  In that time I witnessed a girl leave, crying (no joke), telling her lover that she refused to ever be a resident of this godawful state.  I hear ya!

Depressing read

Posted by Leaf on September 29, 2011 None comments

I think I’m reading the world’s most depressing book ever, written by the world’s most depressing writer ever! Ok, maybe not the most depressing writer. Ha Jin, the Chinese writer who wrote Waiting was also pretty effective at depressing the heck out of me. I was partly depressed about having wasted my time reading that book though. Anyway, back to my world’s most depressing book ever, My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Now I knew about this writer. She’s known for her country-music-esque stories. If you want a good bawl, she’s your woman. The couples’ kid dies, their dog runs away, and then the husband strays, and then the other shoe falls. It’s just too much to take. My Sister’s Keeper is also a movie, so you can just skip to that but I think despite the sad storyline, it’s a well-told story. It’s about a family who has a daughter to donate bodily items to their other daughter who has leukemia. The donor daughter finally draws the line when they want her to donate her kidney to her dying sister as a last ditch effort, not to save her, but to prolong her life a while longer. Basically the mother’s all-consuming desire to save her unsaveable daughter ends up sacrificing everyone in the family. It’s depressing.

Fall is a terrible time to be reading sad stories. I will be going back to my regularly scheduled program of the Shopaholic series. It’s much better. Reading this stuff makes me wanna have some shopping therapy of my own.

Something Borrowed

Posted by Leaf on September 23, 2011 None comments

Granted, I went in watching the movie knowing it would have shortcuts from the book. That’s understandable. So the basic plot line to the story is Dex is engaged to Darcy even though he’s in love with her best friend, Rachel, the protagonist. He ends up engaging in an affair with Rachel, all the while engaged to Darcy. Even while reading the book, I had a hard time empathizing with the characters’ lack of character. I was mad at them while reading the book, but because it delved deeper in character development, I could kinda’ suspend my judginess and just go with it. With the movie though, it just brought back all the anger I felt for the male lead, Dexter. Like I wanna feel sorry for him that he can’t break up with his fiance to be with the woman he loves, but I don’t. I think he just needs to grow a pair. Since I read the book though, I understood the courage he had to find to break up an engagement. I mean, I’ve met people who are divorced who said they saw it coming before they got married. It’s not an easy thing to do, I get it. The movie didn’t really remind me of that though, so had I not read the book, I would’ve really disliked the movie. As it were, I think it was a well made translation of the novel and the big scenes were all there. The only big mistake that was blatant was when the cheated-on Darcy finds out Dex had been cheating on her with her best friend, in the book she finds him in Rachel’s apartment wearing boxers. Pretty damning evidence. In the book, she finds him dressed in slacks and a button down shirt. Innocent chit chat for all she would know. I mean even in that scene, he was just there to chat. Again, had I not read the book, I would’ve been all, hey waitaminute, isn’t she overreacting? How did she get that they were cheating just by that? Such a big leap of logic that would’ve been so easy to fix.

Sorry if I ruined the ending for anybody. This isn’t really a suspense story anyway.

Dental Update

Posted by Leaf on September 22, 2011 None comments

So you remember back in February, I went to the Virginia Center for Cosmetic & General Dentistry right by the Clarendon Metro station and they were total quacks, trying to tell me I had like 8 cavities or something? Well 6 months later, in August, I went back to my old dentist and had him check my teeth, specifically asking him to check carefully for cavities. He checked using the pokey metal prod thing and also looking at x-rays and concluded that I had none. Confirmation that this Scott B. Dudley practice is totally a bunch of scammers! My dentist for that visit wasn’t Dudley (talk about an aptonym) but another female dentist working at this shady practice. At any rate, I would steer clear of this sketchball establishment. Oh and I told my dentist they were going to fill my 8 cavities for $2,000 and he said oh yeah? I’ll do it for $1,200. So there you go. They’re sleazebuckets through and through. I can’t say enough bad things about them, I really ought to just report them to the state licensing board. And I can’t believe they had the nerve to call me to make a 6 month appointment! When I said no thanks they asked me why. Hahaha. I haven’t the time to enumerate the whys.

Preventing Dry Winter Skin

Posted by Leaf on September 12, 2011 None comments

Since fall is a little less than 2 weeks away, now’s the time to start preparing for the onslaught of dry itchy skin that comes with winter.

Although the general belief is that body washes tend to be less drying than bar soaps, I haven’t found that to be necessarily true. Dove Moisturizing bar soap for example is very gentle. I wouldn’t hesitate to wash even my face with it. On the other hand, Dial body wash is probably not something I’d want to put on my face. So in general, I don’t really have too much of an opinion on what kind of soap to use, as long as you use something. I suppose. Well there’s another theory on that, not using soap or not soaping the whole body. Or even skipping a shower in the winter. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Currently I use body washes. Whatever happens to be on sale at Costco. Like I said, I don’t have an opinion on that.

So what works for me is being diligent about applying lotion after showering. I find lotions with shea butter to be particularly helpful. Also you can try applying oil instead of lotion. Jojoba or olive oil are both quite effective against crackly winter skin. The point is, that you use it. I should take my own advice.

August Movies

Posted by Leaf on September 1, 2011 1 comments
It would be nice to say that the novelty of streaming Netflix has worn off and I’ve found new interests beyond sitting on the couch, staring at a glowing rectangle, and noshing on the weekends but that’s not the case.  I’ve just found that I prefer TV shows to movies because they end in about an hour.  It’s not that I stop watching after an hour, but I like the breaks in between.
Nevertheless, I saw three movies this month.  Three movies I finished anyway.
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Dismally depressing.  It took me three tries on three different evenings to get through this movie.  I just hated seeing it, how trapped they felt even though they weren’t.  I literally yelled at the characters on the screen, “LEAVE!!  Why don’t you just walk out?!”  It was frustrating to watch them.   It’s about a criminal who pleads insane and gets sent to a mental institution.  The other people in the institution we come to realize are there by choice yet they feel powerless to the evil Nurse Ratched’s domination.  As much as it frustrated me, in the end it was worthwhile to see.
  • One Night with the King – This is a period film.  I love period films for the costumes and such but this was done more like Xena Warrior Princess and less like those BBC miniseries-types.  The acting and lines are very modern.  Still entertaining, I had no problem sitting through this depiction of the story of Purim.
  • The Last Airbender – Ridiculous.  The cartoon is better.

July Movies

Posted by Leaf on July 29, 2011 None comments
  • Inglourious Basterds – I am not a fan of Q. Tarantino.  Too violent.  The story line was good though, a group of American fighters calling themselves the Inglourious Basterds go to Nazi-occupied Europe to fight the “krauts.”  Brad Pitt was funny.  I just wished it wasn’t so violent.  Incidentally, it made me want sauerkraut and a few days later, I made sausages and sauerkraut.  Yes – it’s always about food.
  • The Recruit – If you’ve seen the TV show Covert Affairs, it’s sort of a similar idea.  CIA recruits a naturally gifted spy, hijinks ensue.  There were some plot twists and it was entertaining and suspenseful.
  • Monk – It’s a TV series much like The Closer.  I can relate to the OCD he has.  I’m not like that but I can sympathize with his urges.  Still watching it.
  • TiMer – It’s kinda’ scifi about a world where people have invented this sort of match.com system where they install this timer on your wrist and based on your biology, if your true match also gets a timer and the computer deems you compatible, it’ll ring at the time when you’re ready for a relationship.  It also rings when you meet each other so you know who it is.  Now if your match doesn’t get a timer, your timer clock won’t go off.  It’s an interesting premise.  Some obviously choose to do it the old fashioned way because this seemingly foolproof method takes away from the unknown, the guessing, the romance.  Good or bad, dating becomes clinical.
  • A Peck on the Cheek – A woman from wartorn Sri Lanka escapes to India and has a baby.  A family from India adopts this girl and when they tell her on her 9th birthday she was adopted, she goes on a mission to find her birth mother.  It’s tearjerking but also frustrating how unrealistically stubborn she is.  I mean, in one scene she insists on staying at a park waiting for her birthmom knowing they’re about to be in the middle of a battle as the military tanks roll in.  I mean, seriously?  Also she is unrealistically attached to her birthmom, a woman she’s never met.  They try too hard to milk the drama, but I enjoy the high highs and low lows of Bollywood-type movies.  Yes there’s singing, but no big dance productions.
  • The Ramen Girl – Brittany Murphy follows her boyfriend to Japan for his job.  He subsequently dumps her.  In her stricken lost-puppy state, she enters a ramen shop bawling and the mom and pop owners offer her a bowl of ramen then send her home.  It’s so delicious she goes back the next day and the next day and then decides she wants to learn how to be a ramen chef.  I really loved watching this movie partly because of all the scenes with people slurping ramen.  It makes me want some.  It’s a little karate-kid-esque, full of hope and heart.  I enjoyed it.
  • Picture Bride – This movie is mostly spoken in Japanese.  No subtitles.  (By the way, in search for a subtitled version, I found it on YouTube, no subtitles there either though.)  I didn’t understand what they were saying but I understood the entire movie.  The acting was that good I guess.  Heartfelt story about women from Japan who married men in Hawaii to work as laborers in the sugar cane farms.  They were matched only through photos.  This happened in the early 1900s.  The heroine of the story is a young girl who realizes the man who’s supposed to be her husband is much older than in the photo she was sent.  She labors hard to make money to leave him and go home to Japan.  Slowly, through his kindness and efforts to woo her, they end up falling in love.  So sweet.

So we’ve all heard the news, Netflix is increasing their subscription fees.  What was $9.99 a month for 1 DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming will now be $15.98 a month.  Or we could either do 1 movie out at a time or unlimited streaming for $7.99 a month.  I’ve been thinking about this.  We could cancel it altogether and just watch the Internet or maybe I’ll go with streaming, so I can continue to watch Monk.  Or we may just keep it.