Do You Yelp?

Yelp has become my new favorite site for reviews. I have an account and primarily do restaurant reviews, but you can find anything and everything on there -- from shopping to stuff-to-do to doctors and more. You can sort by city and find almost anything (at least in the D.C. area).

I wrote a review of our dinner at Founding Farmers on Friday night, pretty much giving them a glowing rating, but noting that it took a little longer than normal to get our check and get out the door. Nothing terrible, and we agreed that it was nice not to be rushed, but we just thought that with the big crowd waiting at the door, it would have been fine to turn our table over a little faster.

Anywho... today I got a message from the manager of FF, thanking me for our nice review. He even offered us a free dessert on our next visit. He asked us to share our server's name (I assume it's probably on the receipt??) so he can follow up and make sure that others don't have that delay in wrapping up their meals.

Impressive follow-up! If you don't Yelp, check it out and find info on the good, bad and ugly of your neck of the woods.

Restaurant Tell Alls

Last year, New York City passed legislation that required all city chain restaurants to post calorie data on their menus. I think this is an excellent idea! As someone who (mostly) tries to keep track of the calories I consume, it is so helpful to be able to easily find nutrition information. Kudos to restaurants who aren't scared to actually share the good or bad news about the food they are serving!

Here are a few of the helpful nutrition Web sites for restaurants -- do you know of any others?

• Red Robin -- Customize your burger by adding cheese, taking off the bun, enjoying fries.
  
• Starbucks -- Test your latte knowledge or find out how many grams of fat are in your apple fritter.
  
• Panera Bread -- Get the skinny on your "you pick two" combo.
• Baja Fresh -- A nutritional table for entrees and their most popular side orders.
• Chipotle -- This isn't an official Chipotle site, but it's an excellent calculator for finding out the bad news about your burrito.
  

DietFacts.com and CalorieCount.com are also two great sites, chock full of tons o' restaurants.

Monday again....

I've got to get in a better habit of updating this blog! I think the summer-time makes it too easy for me to come up with an idea of doing something else, but I promise I'll try. :)

We had a fun weekend -- so fun, in fact, that I didn't shake my sinus headache/sore throat. Ugh. But, I suppose the fun outweighs the discomfort of my aching head.

Saturday, we celebrated with a dinner in honor of my parents fortieth anniversary (I know you are reading this, Mom!). We went to the B&B where Rob and I had celebrated our first anniversary, but we just did dinner and didn't stay the night this time. The chef/owner was a chef in France, and the food is sooooo good. The dinner is five courses -- here's what I had: risotto with spring vegetables; seared Hawaiian tombo (fish); sorbet; Waguy ribeye; and a dark cherry tart.

And I'm pretty sure this is what Rob had: mussels; seared scallops with caviar; sorbet; Bluenose (butter fish); and a peach/chocolate tart with lavender honey ice cream.

Needless to say, we were stuffed when we left. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for celebrating with us! We had a great time.

Sunday was the market, church and laundry laundry laundry.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Don't Suppose It'll Still Be Open Next Time....

Last night I met my girlfriend Nicole for dinner. We usually meet up at Tysons Corner Center, which is about halfway for both of us and chock full of restaurants. We decided to try a new so-called schmancy Mexican restaurant there.

Granted, we were on the early side, since we met after work at around 6 p.m. But the restaurant was eerily quiet when we arrived. The hostess asked if we wanted inside or "patio" seating (really just the portion of the restaurant that reaches out into the mall), and we chose inside.

You know the area of every restaurant where the waitstaff gathers to chat and wait for customers? And you know how there's always that one unlucky table right next to it?

Yep, that's where we were seated.

I should mention here that we were the only table seated in the entire restaurant.

I rolled my eyes at Nicole as the waitstaff (kind-of) scattered, and our waitress asked for our drinks. We inquired about any happy hour specials, and were informed that those are for patio patrons only.

Huh. Would have been nice to have been told that when we were seated. And, our table was literally two-feet off the patio. I could have reached out and touched it.

Nonetheless, we stuck with our H2O and ordered dinner. Cheese enchiladas for Nicole; chicken tacos for me. We planned to share. The food arrived (should mention here that the chips and salsa -- when we actually got it -- was good), and we split it up. Verdict? Enchiladas - thumbs up. Tacos - better off at Baja Fresh.

Oh - and in the 1.5 hours we were there, we were still the only table seated in the restaurant. One or two tables out on the patio and about 10 people at the bar completed the crowd. This, compared to two other packed bars and restaurants just steps away.

We opted to skip dessert and got two cupcakes at Cakelove instead. Definitely the best choice.

So, if you are at Tysons and want Mexican food, I'd recommend you reconsider or try your luck in the food court. I have a feeling that the place mentioned above (hesitate to say their name, but it's not hard to figure out on the Tysons Web site) won't be there much longer.