Tony Cheng's Mongolian Barbecue, Washington, D.C.

We finally went to Tony Cheng's in Chinatown. Tony Cheng is the renowned D.C. Chinese restauranteur made famous during the Carter Administration when Cheng's regular patron Hamilton Jordan succeeded in bringing President Carter to dinner at Cheng's "Szechuan" for the "new" Chinese concept of hot and spicy food. Today, Cheng operates two restaurants in the same building, Tony Cheng's Mongolian Restaurant on the first floor and Tony Cheng's Seafood Restaurant upstairs. Leo had never had Mongolian barbecue before, so we went there.

By tradition, Mongolian barbecue is based on the cooking technique of Mongolian soldiers—Ghengis Khan and the Mongol hordes, etc., etc. They supposedly used their metal shields for cooking, putting them over the fire and heating them up like a grill, then throwing the meat and limited vegetables directly on the metal to cook. Today, Mongolian restaurants all have a large, round, drum-like, stainless steel grill they use instead of shields. Diners go to a buffet-like area to select their meats and vegetables, add sauces and oils, and then give the bowl of food to a grill-chef to cook.

The grill at Cheng's is in the middle of the dining room, and it's large enough for four to six cooks to work around. They have three sets of raw food selections arranged in a circle around the grill area. Most Mongolian barbecues I've frequented in the past have had only beef, chicken, and pork, but this one had lamb as well, plus for a small additional fee, you could have shrimp. They also had a little wider selection of vegetables and mushrooms than others I've seen. I'm used to picking my own sauces and oils, but here, the chefs take things from you (rather abruptly, I thought) and add them themselves, which doesn't always give the diner the chance to create the precise flavor combination they want.

In addition to the barbecue option, diners also have the option of ordering the Mongolian hot pot, where an electric burner is brought to the table to boil a pan of broth and then the diner selects and cooks his own meat and vegetables at the table.

When we were seated, the waiters brought pots of hot tea, a plate of roasted peanuts, and a plate of some really delicious pickled cabbage interlayered with fiery-hot red Chinese chili peppers. The cabbage was slightly salty and very sour with rice vinegar, and I loved it!

The dining room is classically decorated with elaborately carved Chinese furniture and higher quality Chinese art. Our chairs were massive upright chairs, heavily carved, and upholstered with a luxurious red and gold brocade fabric. There were a lot of waiters running around, all dressed in black trousers and bow ties with white shirts.

Tony Cheng's was an enjoyable experience. It's a little bit more expensive than I'm used to for this kind of food ($15.95 per person, all you can eat), but if you're really hungry, the food is good and the service very attentive. I do want to try the upstairs restaurant some time, and the next time I'm at the Mongolian place, I plan to try the Mongolian hot pot.

Famous Luigi's, Washington, D.C.

Sunday evening, we somehow ended up going out to eat yet again, this time walking downtown to Famous Luigi's, near 19th and L. Luigi's is one of those old-style Italian-American restaurants that's been in business in D.C. for over sixty years. All of the tables were covered in red and white gingham cloths, but I was pleased that there were no chianti bottles covered in dripped wax. Our waiter was an older Italian man.

He started us off with wines, a chianti for me and a merlot for Leo, and a big basket of calamari fritti with a marinara dipping sauce. The fried calamari pieces had a layer of raw onion pieces covering them. I ordered a simple green salad and ended up being served (and charged for!) an insalata Luigi, or their more elaborate house salad with beets, hard boiled eggs, long thin slices of carrot, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and pepperoncini peppers on top of iceberg lettuce.

For our main courses, Leo had the rigatoni rustici and I had the lasagne alla Luigi. The rigatoni came in a big, flat pasta bowl, and the rigatonis themselves were surprisingly large. They were well coated with a sauce of ground Italian sausage, two cheeses, and herbs in a tomatoey sauce. He liked it, and I had a sample and it was tasty. My lasagne was ok. It was very old style American (there's a big difference between Italian food and Italian-American food), and had the expected meat, mozarella cheese, ricotta, and tomato sauce layered between the lasagna noodles. It was prepared and served in an individual au gratin dish.

For dessert, I abstained, but Leo chose the tiramisu. It looked very good. They used real, traditional ladyfingers dipped in espresso, but I noticed that the whole dessert was assembled with stiff whipped cream and it didn't appear that they used any mascarpone cheese. Nonetheless, Leo loved it, and complained all the way home how stuffed he was.

Mimi's, Washington, D.C.

After Mass yesterday morning, Leo was finally awake and dressed, so we walked up to Dupont Circle to Mimi's for brunch. I went there primarily for the bloody Marys, which are a bargain at Sunday brunch. They are served in tall pilsner glasses garnished with a thick round of cucumber placed on the rim and a couple of large green olives impaled on a plastic spear and laid across the top of the glass. The rims of the glasses are dipped in spicy red seasoning salt.

Oh, I had some food, too, a gorgonzola bacon burger with French fries. Leo had the eggs Benedict with country fries, and then for dessert, he had a warm banana bread pudding with coconut ice cream. As usual, he drank mimosas.

Magic Gourd, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I had an early dinner a couple of days ago at the Magic Gourd, which is in Columbia Plaza just a block south of where we live, and it's right by the Korean grocery store where Leo likes to buy Asian convenience foods and lottery tickets.

Anyway, Leo had some tasty-looking pan fried pork dumplings and the combination fried rice (which he pronounced "too dry"). I had the "velvet chicken corn chowder" ($1.75) and the Magic Gourd Duck with steamed white rice. The chowder reminded me a lot of a Chinese buffet egg drop soup, but with the addition of a few kernels of corn and a few pieces of chicken meat in the soup. And, much like a buffet, it was presented in a small white bowl on a little saucer.

The duck dish was a little disappointing. I'd really wanted the crispy duck, a half duck chopped into pieces and deep fried, but I thought that might not be the healthiest, lower calorie option. The "Magic Gourd Duck" was a typical Chinese entree of sliced, roast duck with snow peas, bamboo shoots, and lots of black mushrooms in a rather insipid, thin, brown, cornstarchy sauce. My rice, also, was rather dry, and hard to eat with chopsticks.

Overall, it was a rather mediocre meal, and somewhat surprising for the Magic Gourd, which is usually a decent restaurant.

Dish, Washington, D.C.

Jeff is a writer for a group of tax lawyers in northern Virginia, so we've been talking for several months, but never met in person. Then, we discovered that we both lived in Foggy Bottom, so we decided to get together for dinner at Dish, the restaurant at the River Inn, which is located roughly halfway between his place and my place. It was fairly late and we weren't really that hungry, so we just had a light supper.

Jeff had the "Dishy Picnic," which was a cute little plate with two pieces of fried chicken, cole slaw, baked beans, and some hushpuppies. He said it was good, but I don't think I could get so excited about paying $19 for what seemed to me just a two-piece extra crispy dinner from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

My meal, on the other hand, was much more satisfying. I started with a bowl of their yellow corn chowder ($7). It came in this enormous, stylized white bowl with a huge, flat rim and a small, but deep, central area holding the soup. Three thin slices of jalapeño pepper arranged to look like a clover leaf and three open mussel shells all garnished the top of the chowder. The chowder was thick and rich, with lots of fresh kernels of corn, just a few potatoes (Yukon gold, I think they said), and lots of yummy bacon. My only criticism was that it was a bit too hot and spicy for what I was expecting.

After my chowder, I had their summer tomato salad, a bright, crisp, lovely dish with a big slice of heirloom yellow tomato and a big slice of heirloom "pink" tomato serving as the base for a mélange of various colors and shapes of cherry- and grape-tomatoes, all halved, and thick, seeded slices of English cucumber in a light vinegar dressing. It was very enjoyable, and probably the last of the fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes for 2005.