Carlyle Grand Brunch

On a day when you want to walk to brunch and you live in Arlington, none is better than the Carlyle Grand.  Droves of people out with their dogs, this friendly brunch place even has $1 dog biscuits on the people menu.  With my mother in town, we sat outside on an overcast Sunday morning... early for most brunch goers, so still pretty quiet for Shirlington.  She had the french toast, drizzled with yogurt, fruit and crunched up granola, describing it as the best french toast she's ever had.  I would have described it first as the largest french toast I've ever seen and tried to put it in a wrestler's weight class.  These slices were more like loaves.  But very sweet and yummy.  I had the scuibnocket or skabtucket or scraptastic... I don't remember the name.  Basically scrambled eggs with bacon, mushrooms, green onions and all kinds of other parts and pieces mixed in and garnished with cheddar.  It was also very good.  Better than an omelet I think because it was light and airy.  The service was only ok since the waiter spilled my juice and went downhill from there, but he was a happy person and nice, so it was a wash.  I can't not mention the hot tea.  They only had a few selections of caffeinated loose tea so I chose the tropical one.  Very tasty and served in a little asian iron pot.  Good on them for the details.  Overall, an experience I might make a Sunday morning tradition when mom is in town.

Nobu -- NY

I have tasted perfection in New York City.  A quick bus trip up (yes, I said bus), found me at the Nobu in Tribeca.  The mood was as any trendy NY restaurant should be (after the baby left), but the menu had way too many choices.  So my friend Darryl and I opted for the Chef's choice tasting menu.  There were 3 options based on price... which determines the quality of ingredients.  We had our eyes on the high-quality flesh (Kobe beef) so we opted for the highest price option to ensure we got that.  Interesting part of that was of the 8 courses, the beef was my least favorite -- albeit amazing in its own right.  But the one course I can still taste a week later, I even took a picture for you... was the sashimi thin sliced red snapper, served raw.  It carried a dot of a red spicy sauce and a dot of black pepper.  Served with a mound of cilantro and floating in a lemon juice reduction.  The flavors in this were simply stunning. The other courses were, in order:  tuna garlic tartar, teriyaki oysters, the red snapper, ginger tuna salad, caramelized black cod, kobe beef, sushi with clam soup, green tea ice cream and flourless choc. cake.  I may very well remember this meal as being so good because of the sun-dried fig martini which had me on my ass three seconds after arriving... but oh, what flavors!