Mid-summer in Kent County brings heat and humidity and drought. We hope for some rain soon to soothe the shriveling corn and crunchy grass, although this week's promised schedule of mid-90 temps and clear sunny skies doesn't bode well for that wish. We are lucky in our kitchen - it's air conditioned!! Can you stand it!? The thermostat is set at 85 degrees, so it isn't what you'd call "cool", but compared to a lot of commercial kitchens, it truly is. Behind the line, with the ovens going and the griddle steaming and the hood bringing in that 95 degree outside air, it is still mightily hot to us mortals, but to those line cooks, it feels like a breeze. Professional Cooks regularly brag about how hot it gets on their line during the summer months - our cooks got no bragging rights, but they have a lot more energy over the course of the shift and don't suffer the effects of heat stroke as they work. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Yes.
Our wine glass almost-crisis is resolved. Over the course of our year in business, we've broken about half of our original order of 108 wine glasses. Over the past month or so we've been trying to come up with a reasonable replacement, but nothing really pleased us as much as the ones from Schott Zwiesel - with the star! - that we opened with. So, we made plans with the purveyor to get more. We drove over to Sterling, Virginia on Monday - a little over two hours, including a long stretch on the dreaded Washington Beltway - to pick up 10 cases of glasses. We arranged to do this the Tuesday before, because the shipping from this (unnamed) company was so high, we figured we'd just go get them ourselves, save the shipping costs and have lunch along the way. Well, of course we get there at 10:30 or so, call the MOD to say we're here, and discover that the glasses are not where they were supposed to be. Do you want to drive an hour further West to go to the other warehouse...no? Okay, we can ship them to you at our cost...no? Okay, we can ship them to you at no cost...okay. Our salesperson really dropped the ball on this one - she told the Manager that she'd tried to call us on Friday to let us know things weren't working out, but we got no call what so ever until after we'd left on Monday - there were messages on both home and work machines when we got back...But all's well - the glasses arrived yesterday and we are back to being fully stocked. The addendum to this story is: if we had picked up the glasses where we thought we were going to, there would have been a "pick-up" fee added to the cost!! can you stand that? Here we are, driving two hours to save $75 and they were going to charge us for picking them up... Once again, maybe we're in the wrong business.
So, you ask, where did we have lunch on Monday? Why, at Mark's Duck House, of course, in Fairfax. Dim sum all the way.
In other - probably more interesting - restaurant news, the Wednesday Night Prix-fixe is going very well. I don't think we've ever done a promotion like this before and I don't know why. Last night's menu was Mozzarella Crostini, with Kevin's freshly made mozzarella; chicken-fried Pork Steak; and a Blueberry Roulade for dessert. All quite yummy. And all for $20.08.
The next new thing is going to be...hold on to your hats!...Saturday Brunch. Yes, starting next Saturday (the 26th) we're going to roll out a new Saturday Brunch Menu, featuring those classic brunch-y things like Eggs Benedict (see that, Mom?) French Toast, Steak & Eggs and many other dishes that elevate breakfast to new heights. We suffer from locationitis on Saturday lunch - downtown is the place to be and who wants to leave there for a meal when there are plenty of great options all within walking distance? So, we need to fight back and the only way we know how to do that is with food. We're hoping a Brunch Menu will bring out you locals and your out-of-town compatriots who don't want to deal with the downtown on Saturday but want something different and delicious for your mid-day meal. (And don't forget all that free parking we have here in the Radcliffe Mill lot!!) We'll see how it goes for a month or so, and if it succeeds, it will be wonderful.
That's it for now - let the weekend begin...soon!
Our wine glass almost-crisis is resolved. Over the course of our year in business, we've broken about half of our original order of 108 wine glasses. Over the past month or so we've been trying to come up with a reasonable replacement, but nothing really pleased us as much as the ones from Schott Zwiesel - with the star! - that we opened with. So, we made plans with the purveyor to get more. We drove over to Sterling, Virginia on Monday - a little over two hours, including a long stretch on the dreaded Washington Beltway - to pick up 10 cases of glasses. We arranged to do this the Tuesday before, because the shipping from this (unnamed) company was so high, we figured we'd just go get them ourselves, save the shipping costs and have lunch along the way. Well, of course we get there at 10:30 or so, call the MOD to say we're here, and discover that the glasses are not where they were supposed to be. Do you want to drive an hour further West to go to the other warehouse...no? Okay, we can ship them to you at our cost...no? Okay, we can ship them to you at no cost...okay. Our salesperson really dropped the ball on this one - she told the Manager that she'd tried to call us on Friday to let us know things weren't working out, but we got no call what so ever until after we'd left on Monday - there were messages on both home and work machines when we got back...But all's well - the glasses arrived yesterday and we are back to being fully stocked. The addendum to this story is: if we had picked up the glasses where we thought we were going to, there would have been a "pick-up" fee added to the cost!! can you stand that? Here we are, driving two hours to save $75 and they were going to charge us for picking them up... Once again, maybe we're in the wrong business.
So, you ask, where did we have lunch on Monday? Why, at Mark's Duck House, of course, in Fairfax. Dim sum all the way.
In other - probably more interesting - restaurant news, the Wednesday Night Prix-fixe is going very well. I don't think we've ever done a promotion like this before and I don't know why. Last night's menu was Mozzarella Crostini, with Kevin's freshly made mozzarella; chicken-fried Pork Steak; and a Blueberry Roulade for dessert. All quite yummy. And all for $20.08.
The next new thing is going to be...hold on to your hats!...Saturday Brunch. Yes, starting next Saturday (the 26th) we're going to roll out a new Saturday Brunch Menu, featuring those classic brunch-y things like Eggs Benedict (see that, Mom?) French Toast, Steak & Eggs and many other dishes that elevate breakfast to new heights. We suffer from locationitis on Saturday lunch - downtown is the place to be and who wants to leave there for a meal when there are plenty of great options all within walking distance? So, we need to fight back and the only way we know how to do that is with food. We're hoping a Brunch Menu will bring out you locals and your out-of-town compatriots who don't want to deal with the downtown on Saturday but want something different and delicious for your mid-day meal. (And don't forget all that free parking we have here in the Radcliffe Mill lot!!) We'll see how it goes for a month or so, and if it succeeds, it will be wonderful.
That's it for now - let the weekend begin...soon!
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