Phil Hargis – A Man Of Many Interests

Not Crazy about Kora

I just ate the worst lunch I’ve ever had over at Kora.  Boy, what a buzzkilling disappointment that place was.  First off, we got there and asked to be seated outside and then probably waited about 10 minutes for the waiter to arrive and announce that fresh bread was on the way and take a drink order.  Then when the bread arrived (which was quite crispy and tasty) and it’s accompanying dipping station of olive oil and spices, we ordered some calamari.  The waiter left, presumably to put that order in, came back and took our food order.

The calamari never arrived and then the food came out (albeit, rather quickly).  I had ordered the half order of the  spaghetti and meatballs, not wanting to get loaded down with a pound of pasta.  Instead, I got served about 2oz of spaghetti and 2 golf ball sized meatballs.  The dish had no flavor, in fact, a high school cafeteria can make a better bowl of spaghetti then the nastiness they served up here.   The pasta was floating in a watery pool of disgustfullness and the waiter never returned until it was gone (but that was fast, since there was only like 5 bites of spaghetti and meatballs to eat), so I could request some salt, pepper and parmesan cheese to add any kind of flavor to the dish.   It really was one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten.   How hard is it to understand that pasta, the blandest thing in the world, needs to have a ton of explosive flavor for it to be good.

I was still starving after eating this little plate of pasta that I came back to the office and ate again.

The waiter was really friendly, just totally incompetent, which is a shame.  He realized he botched the calamari and offered us an espresso.  We had to get back to work, so he comp’ed the 2 sodas we had amongst ourselves to atone for the mess up.  But for me the damage was done and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

One of the others in the group tried to order the tuna sandwich to no avail, since they were out of it…..she settled for the portabella sandwich instead, which she seemed to like.  Another in the group had a chicken confit pizza that she claimed to like and looked pretty good.   And the other guy had a sandwich, not sure what it was.

There just are not any good Italian restaurants in the DC area….anywhere.  It really is quite mind-boggling.

Due to the visually disgusting presentation of my meal…no pictures are attached.

Fireworks Pizzeria Delivers a Grand Finale of Flavor

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to a pre-opening event of the new Courthouse, Arlington, VA location of Fireworks Pizza.  For the past few months, as I drove by this place, I couldn’t help but think what a dorky name that was for a pizza place.  This location is opening on August 23, 2010 and I went to the preview last night.

It was awesome.

If this place is as on-point as they were for their preview guests…..it will do great.  The pizzeria specializes in local farm fresh ingredients.  As you walk in to the main bar you feel a blast of heating to your right and immediately notice that’s where the pizzas you are about to eat and all kinds of other tasty looking appetizers and dishes emerge from.  As you proceed through the spacious bar area you can notice a nice sized dining area, a nice outside patio dining area, and even more private dining in the back.  Towards the back was a large fireplace to add a little ambiance to the setting.

I grabbed a spot at the bar, grabbed a menu, and before I could take it all in I was being greeted by a smiling friendly bartender ready to take my drink order.  I had to put him on stand by so I could arrive at the right decision since there was so much to choose from.  There are 40 bottles of wine to choose from 18 red, 18 white and 4 local VA wines.  I was in the mood to test their lengthy beer list.  So, I started with the Lagunitas Pale Ale (sp?) and started going through the menu.

I was definitely in the mood for pizza since I was trying to carb up for a 16 miler in the morning….so the apps were off limits tonight.  There were so many amazing toppings to choose from, all fresh, local and screaming at you “choose me”,  I really just wanted to do a large 14″ cheese pizza but the bartender jokingly scoffed at me and I ended up going with bacon, in particular the Smokey Blue pizza.

The pale ale was gone.  For me it was a milder pale ale than I typically like, I would have liked it to be  a few degrees cooler too.  They have this glass rinser that blasts each glass with warm water…which causes an immediate rise in temperature which is unfortunate….but presumably you are getting a sterile pint of beer.  Next beer up while I was waiting was the Tupper’s Hop Pocket.  This one I liked better, more flavorful, a little hoppier, darker.

Then the pizza arrived…..I wanted to inhale it when it arrived.   Beautiful presentation and it had a generous portion of bacon, gargonzola, onion, rosemary and a basalmic drizzle all over.  It was the perfect ratio of crust to topping and a beautiful char on the bottom.  Flavorful and amazing….I got it all down except the very last slice.

The bartenders were on top of things and covering the bar and the bar floor area.  There was an army of servers in the front of the house….and managers and owners were ever-present.

The one time I was in the rest room….I walked in and a manager was in there wiping everything down, checking to make sure supplies were fully stocked.  You can’t beat that attention to detail and commitment to excellence.

There is a lot of pizza competition getting inserted into Arlington…this one vaults to the top of my pizza rankings aside Pizzeria Orso.  I can’t wait to go back and explore the rest of the menu.

Mad at the Mad Fox Brewing Company Food

Apologies in advance for the lengthy write up….but you need to know the full deal.

Last Friday, I went to Mad Fox Brewing Company for the first time.  I was so stoked to have a nice, fairly upscale version of Sweetwater Tavern dropped into downtown City of Falls Church.

When I got the menu, I wanted to order everything…..it all sounded sooooo good…but with careful restraint, I opted for the tuna tartare and bloody mary mussels, and managed to squeeze in tastes from around the table on the pizza, the chick pea curry soup of the day and the pretzels.

The tuna tartare was good and came along with a pretty generous portion of meat.  It was served with 4 measly fried crisps to put it on, so make sure to ask for a few extra of those.

Then a pretty generous portion of  blood mary mussels obviously came out in a tomato broth…however the celery element of these mussels demolished all the flavor of the mussel….basically leaving you soaking off the mussels of sauce to enjoy the meat.  That said you had some nice pieces of bread to soak in the broth…so what you end up with is a pretty expensive dipping station and  a side of mussels.

The grilled cheese was a failure and last I checked is now my lowest ranked grilled cheese on phargis.com.  I opted for the addition of the Nueske bacon which I was excited to see on the menu as an option, but when they loaded up the thinly sliced bread with all that cheese and some undercooked bacon and squashed the living hell out of it you are left with a flimsy, greasy mess.   The smart move of the night was substituting the brussel sprouts for the fries.  The sprouts were good and tasty and seasoned pretty well.  There was a pittance of a portion, presumably because of the substitution.

In bites I stole from others…the pretzels were great, but geez, how do you mess up a pretzel.  It was probably the best thing I ate all night.

The soup of the day was like a chick pea curry inspired soup which was good and had good flavor.  I would’ve liked a whole bowl for sure.

Then the pizza….oh the pizza….shoot….not good.  Great sounding list of ingredients…just really plain crust and flavor lacking sauce.  I was offered a 2nd slice and said “no thanks”

Beerwise, I started off with the summer ale, which was good, not great, and better than most…then I had a porter to finish things off and was disappointed in the lack of complex flavors that I would have liked to expect in such a strong beer.  There was no pale ale on the menu and aside from the porter, everything on tap was seasonal.  For a place, who’s hype was built on home brewed beer…I was terriblly disappointed in the beer selections.

I found myself there again 2 days later…so decided to give Mad Fox a second chance.

This time, we ordered the pork belly and fried green tomato apps along with the 12 item super garden salad or something (with tuna added on).  I ordered the brisket sandwich with a side caesar salad.

The fried green tomatoes were horrible.  They had so much breading on them, they looked like fried zucchinis and it killed any of the flavor of the tomato.  They were served with some tomato chutney mess that actually tasted pretty good, but I really think it needs some kind of a creamy sauce to go along with all that damn breading.

The pork belly came out looking flimsy, not crisp, the texture looked strange, but the colors looked good.  I had no idea what the dish would taste like and despite the weird looking texture….tasted good.  Probably the best tasting thing I have had there to date.

The super salad she ordered was hosed down with a super soaker of dressing and was a nasty soaky mess and if it was in fact all local ingredients…I would love to know where the local kalamata olives are grown and get my own.

I got the brisket sandwich and porter BBQ sauce.   It was good and served on a nice bread and I loved the porter BBQ sauce.  It fit the bun well and I would definitely order it again….but there is WAY better brisket places to go.  I got a super soaked caesar salad instead of fries due to a misunderstanding between me and the waitress.  No big deal

Both times I went, the service was great.  The bar area was packed at prime happy hour time, but we were able to secure a full service bar table as a group was just leaving.  Mike was our waiter and was always there to replenish the drinks and order my next course.  The 2nd time was on a Monday night…not nearly as crowded…This time got great full service at a table over looking Broad Street.  A sweet and friendly waitress was there and was very attentive.

Let me recap
tuna tartare:  good
mussels: bad
pretzels:  good
pizza: bad
grilled cheese:  bad
soup: good
fried green tomatoes: bad (really bad)
pork belly:  good
super salad:  bad
brisket: good

That’s a 50% success rate on food…..but 100% success rate the way it sounds on the extremely well written menu.  If it all only tasted as good as it sounded.

It will be a hard sell for me to ever want to eat anything there again.  What a shameful disappointment.

2010 Leesburg 10k Race Report

After a lackluster effort due to temps in the 100s at the Crystal City Twilight 5k on July 24th, it was time to see where I stand fitness wise and the Leesburg 10k was the good race between now and after Labor Day, so keeping an eye on the weather all week..turned out that race Sunday, August 8th was shaping up perfectly.

I got out to the race, got registered, stood in the long porta potty line until just minutes before the race started…there were only 25 porta potties for 1,500 runners or so…not real good…then i did something i had never done…since the starter was a little delayed getting ready to blow the gun and the  starting corral was packed in there like cattle.  I usually like to do a short warmup and figured I would go do a short 5 or 6 minute warm-up around the block….let them blow their gun….and then start the race after everyone was gone  This was kinda cool, because then there’s not mayhem and chaos and walking and i started off all by myself and had the whole road to myself for the first 3 or 4 minutes which made me feel like an elite runner leading the pack…and one point i looked down and my watch (which i wore today for  the first time in a race in a VERY long time) and it said i was running in the high 7s a pace I knew was too fast for the 10k, so once I caught the trailing pack of people I was forced to slow anyway..which was good.  Then i eased into it running strong and hard and feeling great passing runners left and right constantly….most of the first 5k involved being trapped in the pack with the slower runners so I had to do some weaving and surging to get around these guys, so I think they may have slowed me a tad and I finished the turnaround 5k in about 28 mins and change.

The course for the first half seemed to be a gradual climb most of the time but more or less was a pretty rolling route.so once we made the 5k turn in a rather slow pace, I tapped on the gas a little and the downhills helped get me down in the 8s somewhere as I continued to pass runners.  Around mile 5 we hit a pretty steep hill over a bridge…I got passed by a dude from Potomac River Running who offered some token words of encouragement and went on his way.  I was running hard and strong and had no desire to let up….we got on the bike trail portion of the race for most of the last mile..it was flat and shaded and made for a really fast close to the race.  You turn the corner to head towards the finish line and you have the last quarter mile or so to run straight up hill…but hey it’s the finish line so it’s always fun to go all out and I got one last good pass in right at the finish line and glad accepted the cold, wet towels they were giving out to everyone…..Finishing the last 5k in 26 and change….a nice negative split and the total 10k effort in 54:40 (GPS watch read 6.25 miles…whatever)…10 mins off my PR, but I was really pleased with the race…maybe if I didn’t have to navigate and hold back with the pack of slower runners I could’ve improved by a minute or two…but I don’t think the difference is much, because at some point in a race..you get bottle necked.
Final Chip Time:  54:31 (under Phil Margis)
The weather was perfect…the race was well organized except for the complete and utter lack of port a potties.I didn’t need to stop for any of their generous water stops ever 1.5 miles…tho I did grab a glass at the last one just to pour over my head.  The only other person to pass me with about half a mile to go was a father and daughter combination and the daughter was probably 10 years old or younger….must be nice to weigh 50 lbs.  Lol.

DC Area Pizza Rankings

1.  Fireworks Pizza – New Arlington location.  The smokey blue pizza is incredibly delicious.

2.  Pizzeria Orso – Authentic 4 ton pizza oven from Naples, Italy.  Fresh dough, fresh sauce, fresh ingredients.

3.  Ledo’s Pizza – Always a safe bet when in the Tyson area….always get the cooked bacon and whatever else you like.  The best of the franchise places.  Can get greasy though.

4.  Flippin Pizza – Good pie, real ingredients.   A little short on flavor, but not bad.

5.  Dominos – The new changes to their pie move the Brooklyn style pizza crust to the top of the list of mass produced junk pizzas.

6.  Mad Fox Brewing Company – Many will argue this with me…but it’s really not that great.  The crust is really bland, you can barely taste the sauce, but the toppings are solid.

7.  Breakers -  Pretty bland crust, a pretty average pie.  I will still take it over most delivery companies.

8.  Papa Johns – Just a notch above the cellar dwellers.

9.  Papa Joes – In Falls Church – This pizza used to be ok, but it had gone way down hill…haven’t ordered from them in a couple years.

10.  Big Bite – From a place that makes and delivers everything….we all know you cannot be good at everything.  The pizza is edible, just middle of the pack.

11.  Boardwalk Pizza – Disgusting.  Pizza sits in display case all day, then is thrown in the oven to warm it up.  This pizza would taste better if it were burned.

999. Pizza Hut – First mass produced, franchised pizza joint in the US, now last in the rankings with the most disgusting pizza you can find.