Bistrot du Coin, Washington, D.C.

For nephew Ryan's last night in D.C. before flying to Oklahoma for Christmas break, he, Robert, and I went to Bistrot du Coin for a light supper. As it turned out, Robert only ate a little and Ryan didn't eat at all. I think it was all that French alcohol.

We started out with a late celebration of beaujolais nouveau night in mid-November with a bottle of Bouchard Aîné & Fils Beaujolais Nouveau 2006. I liked it quite a bit. Much like the Dubouef, it's a fruity wine this year, but the Bouchard had a lot more substance and complexity to it.

Meanwhile, we ordered food. Ryan didn't have anything but the free bread. Robert ordered the escargot à la bourguignonne. These are the classic French snails in garlic butter, but at du Coin they aren't served in shells, they come in a ceramic snail dish.



I had the pâté de campagne maison, a rustic country-style pork pâté accompanied by a tiny salad, cornichons, and delicious black olives, with some slices of grilled bread.



Robert wanted dessert, and they have some nice ones here. He selected the “La Tropezienne”, a very prettily assembled almond-studded brioche filled with orange blossom custard, then served over a mirror of light custard sauce and raspberry coulis.



After dessert, both Robert and Ryan had snifters of some of the more expensive cognacs on the menu. Ryan didn't really like the cognac, so he just chugged it. Alas. I keep trying to tell him how to appreciate fine wines and cognacs, but he persists in the college frat boy approach of just drinking to get drunk.



To wash down the cognac flavor, I guess, Ryan decided to order a glass of a very sweet, syrupy German eiswein that, naturally since it was sweet, he liked a lot. I think it was his first eiswein, since he didn't know why the stuff was so expensive or how it was made (the grapes are allowed to freeze on the vine to concentrate the sugar before they are made into wine).