Whitlow's on Wilson, Arlington, Va.

Svet's leaving today for a month in Europe. Just before he left, he embarked upon a new work-out program and joined the new Gold's Gym opening at Clarendon as a "charter member." Anyway, the other day, he dragged us along with him to the gym. After we closed out the place, we walked over to Whitlow's on Wilson for dinner. Svet, of course, being the elitist that he is, said the place was awful and he wasn't excited about going there, but since he wasn't willing to buy us dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, he acquiesced to going to the more affordable diner with us where we all paid our own way. As it turned out, I rather liked the place.

He and Ryan started out sharing a hot spinach and artichoke dip with melba toasts. It had actual pieces of artichoke heart in it (not everyplace serving spinach-artichoke dip uses much artichoke if any at all). I tasted it and it could have used more richness from mayonaisse.

As we moved along to our main courses, Svet, pretending still to be in a post-gym healthy kick, ordered a Cobb salad loaded with lots of avocado, bacon, and bleu cheese, and Ryan got some rather ordinary looking nachos. Of course, they probably tasted boring since he told the waitress not to put any jalapeño pepper slices or salsa on them.





After a prolonged discussion with the waitress in which I was trying to explain to her that I wanted only one sandwich instead of two, she still seemed rather dense and confused. The menu said, "WOW Panini," but I only wanted one panino, and she didn't seem to be able to comprehend that. What I eventually got seemed to be a panino which had been cut in half, but I'm not sure if they were counting the two halves as panini or not. When we got the check, it still said "panini" on the bill, even though I only got one.

The panino, nonetheless, was fine. It was kind of a "double meat" thing with grilled chicken and a grilled portobello mushroom cap. It came with mozzarella cheese and a pesto-infused mayonaisse. Really good French fries were on the side.



And, who got to do our Kody Pose for the day? Svet!! He did it with his chocolate milk shake (he was still on his post-gym healthy kick, you know).