Charlie Palmer Steak, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday was summer intern Drew's last day working at CLEO. Since we were both off for the afternoon, it seemed a great opportunity to celebrate with lunch at one of the few remaining Restaurant Week hold-overs, the celebrated Charlie Palmer Steak, just a few steps from the Capitol. Joining us were Robert, who offices next door to Charlie Palmer's, and Ryan, who hates to be left out of any party.

Charlie Palmer Steak is one of those high dollar steakhouses where one ordinarily needs a lobbyist's expense account to afford lunch—their regular lunch menu has a $19 shrimp cocktail and a $36 New York strip steak with à la carte side dishes like sauteed spinach for $6 and mashed potatoes for $5. I'm scared to look at their dinner menu. Nevertheless, it's a popular place, and when a restaurant charges these prices and stays in business for years, you know it has to be good.

The decor is traditional yet starkly contemporary at the same time. They take full advantage of a window wall with views of the Capitol and the east end of the Mall. We were escorted to a four-top table near the windows. At each place, the waiter put a block of aluminum and then inserted the legal paper-sized menus in a frame holding the menus starkly upright in front of us. Meanwhile, an assistant selected two different kinds of bread slices and put them on our bread plates, while another offerred our choice of still or sparkling mineral water. Ryan, displaying the keen wit and quickness of thought of an Ivy League college senior, had learned quickly after Thursday's $7 bottle of water and immediately piped up that he'd like tap water.

Robert and Ryan both started their luncheon with the rather redunantly named crisp cod brandade cake with piquillo pepper coulis, salad of greens and herbs, and dill oil. I say it's redundant, because a "brandade," or, perhaps more completely, a "brandade de morue Nîmes," is a classic French fish cake usually made of pureed salt cod and potatoes that originated in the south of France in the city of Nîmes. Now, this brandade has been on the special R.W. menu for two weeks now, so I was rather amused that when we asked the waiter for details about the dish, he was tongue-tied and clueless, and he merely described the appearance of the dish and said it was good (usually in a restaurant of this calibre, such a question would result in a litany of memorized excruciating detail far beyond the intent of the original question). They placed the brandade, which looked rather like a fried salmon patty, on top of a pool of the pepper coulis, topped it with a little bit of greens, and decorated the plate with a drizzle of the dill oil around the perimeter. Both guys said they liked their appetizer, but I didn't hear any further details.

Meanwhile, Drew and I were having the English pea velouté. An assistant brought us cream soup spoons followed by soup plates garnished with thick, truffled crème frâiche surmounted by a pea sprout and with a few tiny black pepper brioche croutons strewed around the plate. Then, another assistant came with a silver soup tureen and a ladle and filled each of our plates with a hot, bright green pea soup. The velouté was not as thick as I'd feared it might be. It had a bright, distinctly pea taste to it, and, while I'd have preferred the peas be cooked just a little more, it was pleasant.



The other three guys all chose the same main course: marinated grilled hanger steak with yellow corn polenta and an eggplant and roasted pepper caponata. A little bouquet of herbs lay atop the polenta in the center of the plate. All of them seemed to like their steak, and Drew mentioned that the polenta was very "dense."



I picked the pan roasted chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and an oyster mushroom ragout. It was surprisingly good! I received a roasted chicken leg (dark meat is my favorite) which had had the thigh deboned and only a stylized bit of the drumstick bone remained. The meat was tender and highly flavorful; the outside was crispy with a salt and herb rub. The potatoes were fine, as were the small oyster mushrooms, though I'd have liked to have had more mushrooms.



We all managed to order all three of the dessert options. Robert had the dark chocolate terrine with candied hazelnuts and hazelnut ice cream. The terrine was dense and looked very nice, and the ice cream was served in a little chocolate cup.



Drew ordered the cheesecake and got a small, individual round of cheesecake cut in half and turned, then topped with a little lace tuile cookie that was filled with citrus flavored ice cream. Little spots of cherry, raspberry, and pineapple compote dotted the plate as garnish.



Ryan and I both had the strawberry shortcake with strawberry sorbet. Like Robert's hazelnut ice cream, the sorbet came in a little chocolate cup, and I loved it! It was very dark strawberry red and had an intense strawberry flavor. The shortcake part had a house-baked shortcake split open and filled with a mix of strawberries, blackberries and a tarragon-scented whipped cream. While it was good, we both were expecting an Oklahoma-style shortcake where the amount of berries in this version would have merely amounted to a garnish on top of the whipped cream back home.



I'm glad that Restaurant Week gave us the chance to try this very good restaurant. Both the kitchen and the dining room performed well. Charlie Palmer has a large, well-trained professional waitstaff and we were pleased with the service we received.

And thus, we had a pleasant afternoon saying goodbye (sort of) to Drew. Then, after our nearly two hour luncheon, Robert had to go back to the office to spend about fifteen minutes there before taking the rest of the afternoon off. Ah, such a busy job!