🚀 go-pugleaf

Heidi@access.digex.com says about Red Sage:

  ....We finally decided a place with that kind of attitude didn't
  deserve our money.

  Goto Santa Fe East in Old Town Alexandria instead. They treat you
  like roylaty there, the food is some of the best in the entire area,
  and for what you get the prices are very good.

Well, it IS hard to get a reservation, but the service at Red Sage is
wonderful; I found the staff to be unfailingly friendly and helpful,
even when quite busy.  If you want a reservation, either take what
they offer (dinner at 6pm is not necessarily a hardship) or ask what
date is the soonest they have an opening at the time you desire.  You
are looking at three weeks to a month for peak times (e.g. 8pm on a
Friday).  In my interactions with them, they have been even mildly
apologetic about the difficulty in making reservations.

In terms of food, I'm afraid Santa Fe East is a pale immitation of Red
Sage -- more weird than nouvelle, and not particularly honest to its
Southwestern roots.  I've had some interesting dishes there, but I've
had a few downright bad ones, too. The Austin Grill (on Wisconsin, N.
of Georgetown) or the South Austin Grill (in Old Town Alexandria) is
more my idea of good Southwestern food on a budget.

Another possibility is to just buy Mark Miller's "Coyote Cafe"
cookbook, and try making some of their dishes yourself.  You can walk
into Red Sage, take a look around, inhale deeply, buy the book and
some of the odd ingredients you need, all without a reservation!  (You
might even get lucky and find they had an open seat at the bar--no
reservations taken for those, and you can order anything on the menu).
I made his Duck Carnitas Rellenos last weekend and they were AWESOME.

Larry
--
Lawrence Hunter, PhD.
National Library of Medicine
Bldg. 38A, MS-54
Bethesda. MD 20894
(301) 496-9300
(301) 496-0673 (fax)
hunter@nlm.nih.gov (internet)