You know how I say that one of the best parts of any convention is leaving that convention for a meal with friends? (A belief, by the way, which eventually caused me to create my podcast Eating the Fantastic.) Well, the meal I had last Friday night during an escape from Capclave with Natalie Luhrs and Aaron and Angela Pound proved my point.

A couple of days before Capclave, I learned that Range—which I’d visited many times before, one of those times being for a meal on a break from last year’s Capclave—would be holding a two-day pop-up by Charleston’s Jeffrey Stoneberger, chef and owner of 2Nixons, which has earned itself quite a rep for its take on Asian street food. And the first of those two days happened to be the first day of the con. So you know I had to be there.

Stoneberger had previously staged at The Fat Duck and Noma, so you wouldn’t expect him to be the sort of chef to turn his hand to ramen and yakitori. But that’s what he’s done. And the food he put before us last Friday proved worthy of that lofty resume.

Here (rather belatedly, and briefly, as it’s been a crazy week) what we were served that night. (more…)

Whenever I attend a convention, there’s always the official con, and then the con away from the con, which typically involves at least one great meal. And that’s the way it was with Capclave, which was just held in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I took part in four panels—three to which I’d previously been assigned plus one I was added to at the last minute to replace a panelist who couldn’t make it.

I enjoyed sharing what wisdom I could on such panels as “Building Your Audience”—which ended with me invalidating all the advice I’d given during the previous hour when I quoted William Goldman’s maxim that “Nobody knows anything”—and “Food In Fiction”—during which I explained why Rene Redzepi uses ants in his New Nordic cuisine.

While I found all of that to be fun—you know me, put a microphone in front of me and I won’t shut up—the most important panel was probably the “Tiptree Retrospective,” which was captured above in a photo taken by Barbara Krasnoff. That’s Jim Freund, Julia Rios, Sarah Pinsker, me, and David Hartwell (who’d been Alice Sheldon’s editor and had actually visited her at home) reminiscing about that great writer in this, the year in which she would have turned 100. (more…)

I had a great time last weekend during my three days at Capclave, and I plan to tell you all about it after I upload the videos of the panels and two readings I recorded. But since bandwidth here is such that tossing those gigabytes up on YouTube will prevent me from doing a single other thing online for 24-48 hours, that probably won’t happen until the weekend is out. Meanwhile, you’ll have to be satisfied with a Capclave highlight that was Capclave without really being part of Capclave—

Pig face!

A couple of weeks back, Range—which I’ve been raving about here for quite awhile—added pig face to its menu. Only on Fridays and Saturdays, and only a few per night. Which meant, of course, I had to get there. Luckily, Capclave was coming.

Some of my friends were too queasy to look at a meal that looked back, but two who were as eager to dig into a pig face as I was were Mike and Beth Zipser, who you can see above, with the 18-hour sous vide pig face lovingly prepared by Chefs Mattie McGhee and Romeo Tivoli on a small platform between us.

We loved it, and quickly stripped it clean, as you can see from the before and after pics below. (For those who are into that sort of thing.) (more…)

Last year, we celebrated the end of 2012 by flying to Vienna, watching Die Fledermaus on New Year’s Eve at the Wiener Staatsoper, and eating lots of goulash, Wiener Schnitzel, and apple strudel mit schlag. Our plans to say farewell to 2013 were much less ambitious, and this time didn’t require passports.

Our favorite local restaurant, Bryan Voltaggio’s Range, was turning itself that night into a supper club at which you could buy a table from 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., plus they were importing the Blue Vipers of Brooklyn for entertainment.

This was their announced menu.

As we were to learn on New Year’s Eve itself, there were other dishes not revealed in advance.

We wrangled three other couples to join us, rented a hotel room at the Embassy Suites which shares the Chevy Chase Pavilion location with Range, and looked forward to a fun night … which as it turned out, marked more than just the change of one year to the next, but also ended up demarcating a major change in my life after more than thirteen years.

And our expectations were fulfilled. It was a fun night. See? (more…)

When I received the list of panels on which I’d be appearing at Capclave and saw that I’d been scheduled for a two-hour block Saturday night from 10:00 p.m. until midnight, my first thought was—Gee, that’s awfully late. But that initial thought was almost immediately extinguished by a tantalizing follow-up thought of—Wait! That means I can go to Range again!

I’ve already told you how I woke up early Black Friday—something I never do—in order to book a table on the first of Range’s pre-opening preview nights, which resulted in a meal that made us rush back as soon as we could. So with the restaurant only 27 minutes away from the convention hotel (according to Google Maps, anyway), I knew this represented a perfect opportunity.

So what did we think? Our smiles near the end of the meal should give you the answer to that question.

We dined with friends Karen and Charlie Newton (who’d been there with us before) and Sandy and Risa Stewart (who were Range first-timers). A side note—the three couples at the table had been together for 32, 33, and 37 years—which means we had a combined 102 years of marriage! (more…)

Two months ago, Irene and I were lucky enough to be part of the initial seating at Range on the first of its pre-opening preview nights, which surprisingly resulted in me being interviewed by the foodie site Eater about the experience. Saturday night, we headed back to the Chevy Chase Pavilion with two other couples to see how Bryan Voltaggio’s newest enterprise was coming along … and to try a few of the dishes even we didn’t have room for the first time around.

We hadn’t intended to repeat ourselves, but there were a couple of dishes so good that eating at Range and not ordering them would rank as some sort of sin. So we once more ordered the cornbread with bacon marmalade, as well as the Brussels sprouts fried in bacon. (Are you noticing the bacony theme here?) The rich, smoky spread contrasted well with the light cornbread, and those Brussels sprouts … man! Never before have vegetables seemed as enticing as candy. Which is why we went through two orders.

(more…)

As a result of my Saturday night dinner at Range, Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant, I was interviewed yesterday by Amy McKeever of Eater about what that first pre-opening preview night was like from the perspective of a customer. Since she’d spent the day and night following the staff around, she needed some input on how it all seemed on the other side of the tables.

Her article was published late this afternoon, and reading it not only brought the meal back to life, it also made me want to get back there again soon so I can order the beef shin!

Irene and I can be seen as a teeny, tiny couple through Range’s long curved glass exterior in one of Amy’s many photos. Can you spot us below (after clicking makes it a little bit bigger, of course)?

See us?

If you look toward the right side of the photo and can find two guys standing side by side, that’s Irene forward of and directly between them, and I’m seated to her right/your left. Our dining companions, who were across from us, are unfortunately obscured by another couple closer to the camera.

Oh, and one last thing—get yourself to Range! But leave some of that beef shin for me, OK?

There isn’t much I’d wake up early for on Black Friday. In fact, except for the chance to experience what I experienced last night, I can’t recall ever bothering before.

But Bryan Voltaggio, whose Frederick restaurants Volt, Family Meal, and Lunchbox I’d eaten at and loved before, was opening a new D.C. restaurant, Range. He’d sent out an email to his customers offering a chance to take part in a pre-opening preview dinner, and I wanted in. So there I was, sitting at my computer before 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday, hitting refresh, refresh, refresh until I scored a 5:30 p.m. reservation for four on the first of three preview nights.

After studying Range’s awesome menu, and realizing I wanted to try a far greater variety of dishes than would be possible during a normal dinner, I had a plan—I’d bring along a cooler, order way too much food, practice restraint, and treat the meal as best as I could as a tasting menu, waving away half-eaten dishes and creating tons of leftovers. Which, amazingly, I managed to do, thanks in part to one of the friends who’d joined us, who reminded me now and again of how we’d promised to pace ourselves.

And so, last night at 5:30, Irene and I found ourselves happily seated at a table at Range, looking forward to the wonders chef Bryan Voltaggio’s crew was going to prepare for us.

Our server explained that though the restaurant would be able to deal with 300 customers at full capacity, the first of the preview nights would only serve 130 as the crew got up to speed. We had no problem with being guinea pigs, and because of this found whatever slips in the level of service that occurred (most of which will go unmentioned, because it just wouldn’t be fair) to be endearing rather than troublesome.

And since the food was amazing, everything I hoped it would be, causing quite a few moans that it’s perhaps best one only utters when among friends, I had no problem with being part of helping the crew figure out how to operate in this new environment. In fact, I enjoyed watching the learning process. (more…)

As Carol Ross Joynt wrote in The Washingtonian this morning, “The opening of a new restaurant is like the opening of a Broadway show.” And as those of you who’ve been following my posts on Bryan Voltaggio’s soon-to-open restaurant Range already know, I’m as excited about having nabbed reservations for the first of its pre-opening preview nights as I would be about scoring tickets to the opening night of a new play.

Maybe even more so.

Which is why, with that dinner only five days away, and having already seen the dinner menu, I’ve been wondering—what about dessert? (more…)

I like checking out restaurants when they’re still all shiny and new, which is why I made sure to get into both Momofuku Shoto and Cafe Boulud during my recent trip to Toronto. It’s also why I woke up before dawn on Black Friday to get reservations for the first preview night of Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant Range.

Yesterday, a bunch of D.C.-area food bloggers were given a look at what Range would offer, and their various tweets, Instagram pics and write-ups made me extremely jealous I was not among them. But the good news is—we now have a look at what Range will offer when it opens, because the Washington Post shared the menu this afternoon.

Have a look!

I’ll probably order the whole rabbit, hunter style when I dine there in 11 days.

Or the rotisserie lamb neck.

Or the pork cheeks.

Or perhaps the veal sweetbreads.

Or maybe … just maybe … I’ll order them all, and make sure I have a cooler along to carry home a ton of leftovers!