Vidalia, Washington, D.C.

Okay, okay, mea culpa, I know it's been nearly a fortnight since Robert and I went to the wonderful Vidalia, but here it is at last, my report on what may have been my favorite Restaurant Week/Fortnight experience, way back on January 14, to supplement what Robert already promptly posted on the 15th.

Vidalia isn't quite so brand new anymore having opened in 1993, but it's still one of the very popular somewhat newer places in the West End of Washington's downtown area. Their great claim to fame is that they feature regional cuisine from the American South, but with an elegant gourmet bent. Since their remodel in 2003, they've broadened their menu out a bit to be more generically American, but they still have their Southern flair. CIA graduate Jeffrey Buben is the chef and owner both of Vidalia and its sister French restaurant on Capitol Hill, Bistro Bis. We've tried to get Restaurant Week reservations the past couple of Weeks to no avail, but this go-round we were thrilled to be able to reserve a table in the bar at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night.

We walked to the restaurant that evening in all the wind and cold. The M Street at 20th Street venue has an interesting location in the basement of an office building. Inside their space, everything is designed with a contemporary but comfortable and accessible feel. A maitre d' stand is at the bottom of the staircase, where we were greeted and our coats checked. The bar area with dining tables is separated from a large dining room by glass partions, and I did not feel disadvantaged at all by having to be seated in the bar instead of the main dining room. Our particular table happened to be right by their see-through walk-in wine cellar where they kept their chilled white wines, including a very interesting champagne cart loaded with bottles of every conceivable high-end vintage.

Choosing our meal was challenging because of all the mouth-watering options for us two Southern boys (Robert is from Arkansas) and the fact that Vidalia makes their whole menu available for Restaurant Week, just with a few items having small surcharges. I always make a point to stick to the non-surcharged items during Restaurant Weeks, and I almost violated my rule, because the shrimp and grits on the menu sounded so good; I still managed to put together a fabulous meal, though, without paying more than the fixed price.

For a first course, I selected the five onion soup. The onions had been slowly sauteed and caramelized, then stewed in a tasty duck broth that included some duck confit and shitake mushrooms. I particularly appreciated the absence of a crouton and cheese in the "French" style, and found this version surprisingly good.

Robert, being the wealthy politico, sprang for a surcharge and ordered the oyster pan roast. He got a plateful of Virginia oysters mixed with pieces of Virginia country ham, Swiss chard, and artichoke hearts which had been baked together with mingling natural juices and a splash of cream to make almost a stew, and he said it was quite good.

To accompany our first courses and serve as our aperitif cocktails, we had a little alcohol. Robert had a Dewars on the rocks. Vidalia's wine list included about three dozen wines available both by the glass and by the half pour, so I decided to do wine with dinner, and asked our very solicitous waiter to select appropriate half-pour wines for me for each course, and he (with the assistance of their sommalier) did a fabulous job. For my onion soup, he brought a 2004 Mikulski Gamay/Pinot Noir from the Burgundy region of France. This wine, as with all the others, was nicely full bodied, fruity, and dry and meshed nicely with the accompanying food.

The main courses continued our adventures. Robert had the Carolina rainbow trout which had been crusted in what looked like a cornmeal and chorizo sausage crust and served with an interesting sweet potato, crayfish, crab and vegetable hash; a bright green sauce made from green onions was all over the plate. He washed down the fish with another Dewars. Meanwhile, I was experiencing an exciting pork chop cassoulet. Traditional cassoulet, of course, is a fancy French way of making a white bean and meat stew or casserole, often with goose or duck confit and pork or lamb sausage, and lots of garlic and herbs. Vidalia's version put pork sausage and some wonderful slow roasted pork belly in the stew pot with great big lima beans and then covered the whole thing with an herbed, juicy pork chop just barely cooked to "medium," so it remained incredibly juicy and bursting with flavor. I can't remember when I last had pork this good. Also on the plate was a smear of red wine apple butter to serve as a sauce. With my cassoulet came a 2003 Sattler St. Laurent Neisiedlersee, a surprisingly good Austrian (Austrian, not Australian) red.



For dessert, Robert chose the lemon chess pie with a berry compote. A chess pie (which is very Southern) is essentially a lemon custard, but leaning more towards the filling used to make pecan pies. This particular pie was prepared as an individual tartlet and included an egg-shaped scoop of fresh crème chantilly which Robert said most assuredly did not taste like the Cool Whip-eseque whipped cream he'd gotten earlier that day at brunch at The Grill at the Ritz-Carleton (see their review on January 14). With his tart he had a glass of almond grappa (I forgot which label) that he thought was a bit sweeter than he expected as well as surprisingly citrusy. Grappa is an Italian high-octane drink that is sort of a cross between a strong wine and a brandy, typically running about 80-90 proof.



My dessert was a wonderfully light citrus yogurt bavarian, where the mousse had been layered atop lemon genoise, and a tropical fruits and coconut syrup "salsa" was scatterred decoratively around the edges of the plate. It was accompanied by a 2003 Domaine de Baumard Coteau du Layon chenin blanc from the Loire region of France. This nice white dessert wine managed to be sweet without being cloying, and was a particularly pleasant final wine. It, in particular, had been personally selected by their sommalier, who'd chatted with us a couple of times during the evening, especially to tell us about the champagnes in the wine cooler.



Dinner didn't end there, though. Earlier in the meal, we'd been chatting about the cheese display on the counter near our table, and apparently the chef heard it during one of his trips through the dining room. He happened to be out again about the time we were finishing up, so he went over and cut us a big piece of complementary creme de livarot and served it to us with slices of cranberry bread. Now, livarot is one of those classic French stinky cheeses that is absolutely foul if one just sniffs at it, but it has a wonderful full flavor and the taste more than makes up for the smell. We were most appreciative of their generosity.

Still, though, our meal was not yet done! Our charming waiter brought us a tiered rack of handmade chocolates and gumdrop squares! Again, this was complementary, and, as we were one of the last tables in the wine bar, we had definitely noticed than none of the cheeses or candies had been given to any of the other tables.

Needless to say, both Robert and I came away from Vidalia, impressed not only with the delicious and attractively presented food, but the friendly attentiveness of the staff, from the assistants to the waiter to the sommalier to the chef, and the high standard of service. Prices here were only moderately expensive, which makes it an excellent bargain for the high quality. They also feature weeknight wine sampling happy hours when fun vintages are corked and sold at reduced by the glass prices. Robert and I both plan to return to Vidalia, and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting a nice high-end but relaxed dining experience.

Butterfield 9, Washington, D.C.

Condé Nast Traveller Magazine recent published a list of its "one hundred hottest restaurants in the world," and, lo and behold, one of the hot hot restaurants is right here in sleepy little Washington! Butterfield 9 is the exciting locale, positioned conveniently just a block or so east of the Treasury Department east of the White House. And, even better news, Butterfield 9 was one of the handful of restaurants that extended their Restaurant Week offers a second week. So, last Thursday, off Tony and I went, armed with 1:30 reservations.

As we approached the location, we heard a lot of chanting and noise on the street, and we were wondering what sports team was in town, thinking perhaps there was some kind of rally for the loser-Washington R******s football team (I don't use their mascot name since it it racially insensitive and offensive to Indians) after their unfortunate playoff performance in Seattle. However, as we turned the corner by the restaurant, we saw a huge union picket line circling around on the sidewalk protesting something or another—we never did figure out what they were whining about. This must be the protest week, since the next day on Friday evening, we saw another group of unidentified protestors/picketers parading up and down the parkway by the Watergate complex while we dined at Aquarelle. Fortunately, though, the restaurant windows at Butterfield 9 were thick enough we didn't have to listen to the pickets and we were able to lunch uninterrupted.

We arrived a couple of minutes before our reservation, and the hostesses greeted us, asking us to wait just a moment while they finished preparing our table. They offerred the bar, but we weren't drinking, so we declined and stood in the lobby area. After about five minutes, a manager type wandered through and decided we were in the way and moved us into the bar, anyway. That, of course, created the situation we were trying to avoid, which was making the bartender have to come greet us and take our orders, only to be disappointed that we weren't paying (and tipping) customers and were just taking up space. We sat in the bar for probably another five minutes before the hostess came in to fetch us to our table. We were given an excellent table with an L-shaped banquette in the corner of the restaurant by the window that allowed us a full view of the entire dining room, all illuminated with unusual contemporary wire chandeliers.

The Restaurant Week menu was interesting and varied, with at least four choices for each category. They also offered a three-glass wine pairing for an additional $18 per person, which I passed on, but which Tony, armed with mommy's credit card, chose to enjoy.

We both ended up ignoring the very interesting salad options and started with soups. I got the soup du jour, which was a simple cauliflower potage poured over a center mound of royal trumpet mushrooms and garnished with shavings of al dente cauliflower. The soup was okay, and I particularly enjoyed the unusual mushrooms.



Tony chose the butternut squash soup with maple-cured bacon and young celery. With his soup course he drank a Albarino Salneval 2004, Rais Baixas white, from Spain. They also served us a basket of assorted breads, one of which was a particularly delicious brown bread spiked with raisins and walnuts.



For our main courses, Tony had an exquisitely delicious braised beef short rib on a pool of soft, truffled cheese grits topped by mustard greens and crispy bits of portobello mushrooms. He raved about the rib, so I guess it was good. A glass of Syrah Elsa 2003 Mendoza from Argentina came with his beef.



I had the duck leg confit salad served over warm, wilted frisée with some mustard cream sauced haricots verts green beans. I loved the salad. The confit was rich and exploding with flavor. One of the things that struck me about this dish is that it exploited all of the taste senses, with a salt coating on the duck, a sour vinegar dressing on the bitter leaves of the frisée, and a sweetness to the haricots verts and their sauce, as well as the sauce on the duck. Quite a nice balance.



Desserts were pretty. Tony chose the sorbet du jour, which happened to be three egg-shaped scoops of mango sorbet garnished with a fresh strawberry that he reported had a very pronounced mango flavor. He drank a Moscato D’Asti M. Chiarlo "Nivole", from the Italian Piedmont with dessert.



Meanwhile, I reveled in a warm Mexican chocolate soufflé cake with spiced pecans and a sweet cream sauce spiked with amontillado sherry.



Butterfield 9 was a very pleasant restaurant and we had a very fine dining experience. One thing I noticed, though, was the use of sourness as a theme throughout the meal—sourness in the soup mushrooms, sourness in the vinegar dressing on the duck salad, sourness in the dessert chocolate—and a consistent sweetness in the matching wine flight. The dining room stayed busy our whole visit. Both a floor manager and the hostess checked on us during various parts of the meal, and our waiters and assistants were efficient and well trained. I look forward to going back to Butterfield 9 again.

Cafe Milano, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

I had to go to a lodge meeting last night and when I got home, I was ready for a late night snack. Tony wanted to go with me to Georgetown again, so we walked over....unfortunately, most restaurant kitchens close at 10:30 on Monday nights, and even the Five Guys hamburger place was already closed. So, after walking halfway up Wisconsin Avenue, we turned around and looked at places on the side streets; the only place we found open was Cafe Milano, since their kitchen didn't close until 11. Cafe Milano is one of the "elegant" spots in Georgetown serving Milanese style Italian food.

Tony was all excited about the cars out front and a big table set up in the middle of the dining room. Apparently some politician from Lebanon was there with his colleagues and their dozen-plus body guards. When they eventually left, they had a nine car motorcade—all big black limousines, SUVs, Explorers, etc., and I thought it odd that they did not have diplomatic license plates. I guess I've lived in D.C. too long to notice or be impressed with politicians and motorcades. What I did notice, however, is how the dining room was buzzing with staff as long as that party was there, but once they left, service dwindled to a trickle.

It was so late, I really wasn't too hungry and just wanted something light. Tony ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini, so I got a glass of their cheapest wine, which just happened to be a prosecco. We ended up with the butternut-squash soup, which was their zuppa del giorno. Large shavings of parmigiano reggiano floated in the middle of the soup plates. Now, many vegetable soups start off with the vegetable being cooked in chicken broth. This soup, however, had an overpowering flavor of chicken stock and chicken fat which I thought obscured the flavor of the squash. It could have used a splash of cream, too. The cheese, while a fun idea, was so thick that it was difficult to "cut" it with the soup spoon. We both also agreed that the soup temperature was rather tepid.



I'd originally planned to have a big salad for dinner, but I was excited to order instead the carpaccio di manzo con ruchetta e scaglie di parmigiano reggiano. Carpaccio, of course, is paper-thin slices of raw beef tenderloin. Tony had never had carpaccio before. It was covered with a big mound of arugula dressed in a lemon vinaigrette and topped with cheese shavings. I thought it was pretty good, though I would have liked it to have had a little more beef on the plate. They get their beef much thinner than I've ever been able to cut my carpaccio.



Along with the meal, we had a basket of excellent country-style hard rolls with a bright green olive oil for dipping. I was kind of amused when the assistant who brought our bread and wielded the peppermill wished us "bon appetit" in French, instead of the Italian "buon appetito."

It's a good thing we weren't terribly hungry. I thumbed through the menu and while it sounded delicious, one would have to bring one's banker along for the financing. Salads and antipasti were all in the teens, pasta first courses were in the twenties, and second courses (fish, meats, etc.) were in the thirties and forties. Vegetables were à la carte and the desserts were mostly $10-12. We also spotted a bottle of wine in the already-very-pricy wine list which was quoted at $8,000 (and yes, I proofread this entry).

I think perhaps Cafe Milano did not make the best impression on me last night. When prices are this high, I expect immaculate service. As I mentioned, once the Lebanese special guests left, the service became practically non-existent. While the assistants were friendly, I didn't feel much warmth or interest from the waiter, and this is an unusual complaint from me, since I'm usually the one who complains that waiters are too chatty or over-familiar. Some of the attention to detail one would expect from this level of restaurant was missing. No one poured our olive oil for our bread, for example, and there was no peppermill to spice up the oil. We were offerred pepper for our soup, but not for the carpaccio, which probably could have used some. No one asked if we wanted cocktail or wine refills. Our waiter brought our check after we'd finished the carpaccio course, without asking us if we wanted dessert or coffee.

And yet, this is a restaurant which is fully-booked days in advance for weekend seatings. I just don't know. Perhaps when (and if) I try their main courses, I'll be more impressed with the kitchen, but I just didn't think the food we had last night warranted the prices, especially with the lack of top quality service.

One Fish Two Fish, Washington, D.C.

We walked up to Pennsylvania Avenue in quest of a late lunch yesterday and popped in to One Fish, Two Fish, an inexpensive generic Asian place Tony liked because it has a bar. Once we got there, though, he decided to drink coffee-flavored bubble tea. I just had a simple plate of pork lo mein, which was tasty, as always. Tony ordered a bowl of egg drop soup and the "royal crown" or something like that, a stir-fried entree with a mix of beef, pork, chicken, and several types of seafood that resembled one of the "happy family" dishes.


Pork Lo Mein


Royal Crown

Thunder Grill, Washington, D.C.

Well, we got Tony to the train station this afternoon to send him on his way to Thurgood Marshall Airport (formerly known as BWI) and then back to Tulsa. Now I just have to catch up on stuff, do laundry, clean house, etc., etc. He wanted to get to the train station early, so we had time for lunch at Thunder Grill, one of the three sit-down restaurants in the Union Station lobby. All three places are owned by the same company, but Thunder Grill is a southwestern food place, so that seemed an appropriate way to segue Tony back into the culinary world of Tulsa, America.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with Thunder Grill. The menu was varied and original, the prices reasonable, and the service adequate. I also saw a lot of interesting presentations at other tables for various dishes. We stayed rather simple, though.

Tony ordered the grilled swordfish. It was an interesting dish with the swordfish topped with a sort of salsa that included chunks of avocado. On the side were mashed potatoes and a huge amount of sauteed red and green bell peppers, onion chunks, and pieces of the green tops from green onions (which didn't get eaten, since Tony is not a fan of peppers or onions). He drank an Australian Bulletin Chardonnay.



I had the Maryland crab cake sandwich with Thunder (a/k/a French) fries and a jicama-cabbage cole slaw and drank a glass of 2004 Thierry & Guy Fat Bastard Shiraz. I thought the slaw was good, but it needed some jalapeño kick. The crab cake was served on a big sourdough bun with lettuce and tomato. While they were doing the standard Maryland-style recipe, since Thunder Grill is a southwestern place, I would have put some cayenne or something in the crab mixture to heat it up a bit.



The dessert selections looked yummy, including fun things like banana tres leches cake, bourbon-spiked black bottom pecan pie, and margarita key lime pie, but Tony finally remembered that he's on a diet this month, so he said he couldn't eat dessert.

So, that was Tony's last meal in D.C. Now he's relegated to Village Inn, Waffle House, and IHOP with his buddies back in Tulsa.

IndeBleu, Washington, D.C.

Last Saturday week when Arkansas Robert and I were having our fabulous dining experience at Vidalia, we determined to take advantage of the few restaurants that were extending Restaurant Week another week, and planned to lunch at a couple of the better places. Well, as it turned out, Robert had an unexpectedly busy work week and couldn't get away until Friday. We were excited, though, to be able to get reservations at the much-talked-about IndeBleu, a French and Indian fusion restaurant over by the MCI Center.

Robert's taxi was caught up in a bit of traffic, so he, houseguest Tony, and I walked in about two minutes past our reservation time. There were two hostesses at the maitre d' stand who greeted us and said they were getting our table ready. It took them about five minutes or so to finish up, so that gave us a chance to look around downstairs. The restaurant is in one of those deep, narrow spaces. To the left of the entry is a large staircase with a coat check underneath. A long bar is behind the maitre d' stand, but that bar was not in use. We noticed off to the side in back was another room furnished in sofas and other lounge type furniture, but that, too, was empty. During our wait, I also noticed something a little disconcerting, and that was that when I was near the door and windows, I got a whiff of something which I can only describe as "eau de street person;" I smelled it again upstairs after lunch when I was passing a cedar bush in a large urn, so I don't know if this was a natural "cedar" smell or something else.

When our table was finally prepared, we were escorted up a grand staircase to the dining room on the second floor. I saw no evidence of an elevator, so if a diner is handicapped, I do not know how they would be accommodated. On what I'll call a mezzanine level, they had a small dining space with a large table set for eight. Farther upstairs, to the right was a wine bar (also unoccupied) and to the left was the main dining room. Decor is starkly modern with lots of etched glass and wood, and walls are painted in deep spice colors.

The Restaurant Week menus were a little limited, featuring just one dessert, a first course choice of soup or salad, and for the main course there were only a fish, a chicken, and a vegetarian (plantains) option. The regular menu was also available, and the prices there looked pretty standard (I always hesitate to use the term "reasonable" for D.C. restaurant prices) for local downtown establishments. While we ordered, we were given individual pieces of small, salted, hot naan, a traditional Indian flat bread, which were quite good.

The soup offering was a leek and potato velouté with curry leaf pesto, which looked to be essentially a cream-free vichyssoise. In the center of the soup, a dollop of what looked to be crème fraîche formed a design that made the soup look like a reverse-color fried egg. The curry pesto in olive oil was drizzled around the sides of the "yolk."



Since the others chose the soup, I opted to start my meal with the salad of shaved vegetables and greens with orange lemon grass dressing and spiced cashew nuts, which turned out to be a lovely starter. They had carved some of the vegetables and then sliced them thinly on a mandoline; the cashews had an interesting hot barbeque flavor. The dressing had been squirted onto the rim of the plate in a circle around the greens, and then dotted with balsalmic vinegar.



For the main course, Tony chose the grilled salmon. It was simply prepared and looked to have been dredged in a spice mix before grilling. They served it on top of a scoop of some kind of chutney (I tasted it, but couldn't identify all the flavors beyond apple and onion) with a flavored oil on the plate, and a handful of alfalfa sprouts on top.



Robert and I had the white cassoulet of chicken confit, boudin blanc, and navy beans. I found the dish to be both wonderfully tasty and yet disappointing at the same time. The "problem," if you will, was the piece of food in the beans which I think was meant to be the boudin blanc. Now, boudin blanc is a type of white sausage usually made in big links. We had a little miniature sausage that was dry and crumbly. It had some good flavor to it, but the texture was very off-putting, and I had the impression that it was dried out. The chicken confit, on the other hand, was exquisite, and I really wish there had been more than just one tiny drumstick. The white beans, also, had a particularly nice texture, seasoning, and buttery flavor.



I'm not sure what our tiny desserts were called. They started with a little miniature muffin of what they called a "French tea cake" and sat it on a squirt of raspberry coulis, then added a scoop of a delicious lychee nut fruit ice cream, garnishing it with a long, thin strip of a sweet sugar cookie. The muffin I could have done without, but I would have loved to have sat down with a big bowl of that ice cream.



So, what was our opinion? Well, interestingly enough, we all liked the place and said we'd come back, even though the serving sizes were tiny and we all found various faults with our food. I suppose I will need to try another meal (selecting my own menu) before I can pass judgment on whether or not the fusion concept works here. Service was attentive and we had a particularly charming waiter from Norwich, England.

Dinner party

Spontaneous dinner parties are always such fun.

After Tony and I ran into Leo and his friend Dale at Dupont Circle Saturday afternoon, we decided to throw together a little home cooked meal back at Leo's and my place. This necessitated a run to the Harris-Teeter grocery store in Arlington for food and suitable wines. Leo and Dale decided they would be in charge of the food and they left the wine selections up to me.


Leo's private chef

Dale has professional cooking experience, not to mention a nifty white jacket, so he took over the cooking responsibilities from Leo.

We started with a soft goat cheese spread with cilantro, lime, and garlic, slices of Asian pear, and crackers. Next was a New England clam chowder. The main course was a roast pork loin studded with rosemary and garlic and a pan gravy, accompanied by mashed turnips with cream, roasted fresh asparagus spears, and braised Swiss chard. Dessert was a white layer cake with pistachio cream and sliced strawberries between the layers frosted with pistachio buttercream and encrusted with chopped pistachio nuts, fresh strawberries, and vanilla ice cream. For wines, I selected Dry Sack sherry (I thought a fino would be too dry for the sherry-beginners) for the appetizer and soup courses, then Concha y Toro's Casillero del Diablo 2004 (a Chilean cabernet sauvignon) for the main course, and for the dessert course, an Italian white sparkling wine: Tenuta Santa Anna Prosecco N.V.


Dinner


Dessert

All in all, it was a very fun and delicious evening, even if I did have to wash dishes and Dale cooks like he thinks a crew of Mexicans is there to clean up after him. And, given how much we spent on this dinner, it also helps prove that at least in D.C., it is often cheaper to eat out than to buy groceries and cook at home!

More wines

After brunch Saturday afternoon, we walked back down Connecticut towards Dupont Circle and wandered into Best Cellars, a wine store, which was having a public wine tasting. It was nothing terribly formal. The manager had set out five wines on a counter near the front of the store and served little sips of wine in tiny plastic cups.

We started with Poggio Le Volpi Frascati Superiore 2004, an Italian wine retailing for $12.50 a bottle. It was a very clear wine with a quite light taste and little substance to it. It would probably be fine as a light aperitif, but it lacked acid and body, so I don't think I would serve it with food. The next white was a 2004 Vine Street Chardonnay. This is actually a private label for Best Cellars, and it's pretty good for a California chardonnay. The $15 bottle held a straw colored wine with good body and flavor, and with enough acid to it that it would be a good wine for appetizers or even an appropriate main course item. It was my favorite wine of the entire tasting.

The first red was La Ferme Gicon Cotes-du-Rhône 2004. It was everything one would expect for a $10 per bottle French wine: thin, tannic, and unimpressive. I poured out the rest of my cupful after a couple of quick, tiny sips. The cotes-du-Rhône was followed by an Argentine wine, Auka Malbec 2003. It had a fuller purple color and was quite a bit dryer with quite a bit of tannin. It costs $15. It's merely okay right now, but I think this wine will age well and should be nice in a few more years. The final red was Mähler-Besse's Toro Oro 2003, from Spain. The wine was a deep burgundy color with good complexity, but a bit of a tannic aftertaste. It was only $12, but I think it was probably my favorite of the reds. This wine should definitely be paired with foods.

Alero, Washington, D.C.

Saturday was a wonderfully warm day in the high 50s (and maybe even the low 60s), though the spectre of possible rain hung over the city all day long. We ventured out to brunch, intending to go to 21P near Dupont Circle, but they seemed to be closed when we got there, even though their website said they were open for lunch. Well, they were open, I guess you could say......we walked into an empty restaurant and stood there for a few minutes before leaving, and no one at all appeared from the kitchen to see who was in their dining room.

We ended up walking along Connecticut Avenue and happened upon Alero, a Mexican place, and since Tony has been craving Taco Bell, I guess Alero was his next best thing. So, that was our brunch spot.

Alero has a brunch menu for Saturdays and Sundays, so we looked both at that and the regular menu. Tony opted for the burrito Azteca a scrambled egg and ham breakfast burrito.



I had a revuelto salad with grilled chicken.



One of the nice things about Alero's brunch is they have sangre de Marias (a/k/a bloody Marys) for just $3.75 a piece.

Aquarelle, Washington, D.C.

We took the opportunity Friday night to conclude our "Restaurant Fortnight" by dining at Aquarelle in the Watergate Hotel.

I'd put off dining at Aquarelle all last year out of nervousness over what it might have become, and I was unfamiliar with the work of executive chef Christophe Poteaux. Why the trepidation? Aquarelle sits in the same spot as the legendary Jean-Louis, the masterpiece of the late Jean-Louis Palladin which was above and beyond the finest restaurant in D.C. during the Reagan and Bush I Administrations. Palladin was internationally renowned: he not only had earned two Michelin stars for his restaurant in France, he was the youngest chef (at 28) ever to win two stars; he was a frequent book and video colleague of Julia Child; he had world-class restaurants in New York and Las Vegas.

After Palladin's premature death at age 55 from lung cancer in November 2001, the Watergate Hotel recreated the spot as Aquarelle, bringing in the French Poteaux from Hollywood to make his own hopefully-famous restaurant, tasking him to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the hotel's up-scale and mostly international clientele.

Aquarelle is in a beautiful venue. The restaurant sits just above the ground level right alongside the Potomac River, offering splendid vistas of river traffic, the Georgetown Marina, the Memorial Bridge, and the Rosslyn skyline. The menus included a page with the Restaurant Week offerings, and we were pleased to see an interesting variety amongst our choices. While we selected our meal, I sipped on a tall Dubonet and soda with a twist and my usually-alcoholic Tony drank merely tap water.

We both started with the escabeche of sea scallop with a Banyuls reduction, garlic coulis, pickled vegetables, and herbs salad. An escabeche is prepared with a Spanish technique where seafood is "cooked" by marinading it in lime juice and spices. Our single scallop rested on a long, rectangular plate and had a nice flavor and texture for an escabeche. I particularly enjoyed the thinly sliced pickled vegetables, and the salad was a mound of tiny clover, alfalfa sprouts, and baby herb leaves.

Tony selected the New York strip steak for his entree. It was covered with a thick relish of sliced and sauteed shallots in a thick cabernet wine reduction which he didn't like, finding it too sweet for his tastes, and he also felt that the steak was overcooked beyond the medium rare he requested (though it looked medium rare to me in the dark and across the table). It was accompanied by hand-cut pommes frites, which Tony liked, and a small bundle of haricots vertes. I thought the steak looked very good, and I would have enjoyed it.

My entree was the Atlantic monkfish osso bucco, two thick pieces of stewed monkfish on the bone, accompanied by black mussels and served over a bed of risotto with Spanish peppers and dry-cured chorizo. Broth from the fish filled up the hollow of the plate. The mussels were good and I enjoyed the monkfish a lot, though I found the risotto to be rather gummy.



One of the highlights of the meal had to be dessert, with both of us opting for the pineapple upside down cake. They were made as individual cakes topped with a pineapple slice and a maraschino cherry, then a big scoop of pink peppercorn ice cream, garnished with a very thin slice of dried pineapple. I loved the melange of unexpected flavors, and the peppery-spiciness of the ice cream really helped to set off the sweetness of the cake. The dried pineapple slice was also a crispy treat.



Regretfully, I wasn't able to take many photographs of the food because the low light levels would have necessitated a flash that would have distracted nearby diners. I did get two shots of my own food, but without a tripod, they are a bit blurry.

So, how did Aquarelle do? The food was pretty good. While I don't think this will be a place on my regular rotation or a destination restaurant for me, if I were ever to be in the neighborhood or attending events at the Kennedy Center, I would have no objection to eating here.

The biggest problem I found with Aquarelle was the level of service; while nothing was particularly bad, they lost points on a number of standard fine dining points. The most blatant problem was that Tony had to eat his entire main course with no water, and eventually had to ask the waiter for some when he came to check on whether we were ready for dessert. Since Tony was actively seeking a refill, the dining room clearly was not being well-monitored by the staff for guest needs. After the water request, we had frequent refills from the assistants, but they did not pick up the glasses to pour away from the table, merely sloshing the water into the glasses. At one point, a big chunk of cubed ice stuck together landed in the neck of my glass, with water then flowing over the ice and spilling onto the table cloth. While the assistant looked embarrased and apologized, he did not mop up the spill. Our bread basket was never refilled during the meal. It took a long time for the waiter to bring our check after dessert and an even longer time for him to come pick up the portfolio to get the credit cards. All of these things together made the restaurant look amateurish, an interesting juxtaposition given their rather steep normal prices.

Friday night wines

In preparation for the onslaught of commercial tie-ins for the upcoming movie release of The DaVinci Code, the Italian winery Cantine Leonardo da Vinci has marketed a chianti red table wine for the American palate. The Da Vinci Toscana Chianti 2004 is available by the case load at the grocery stores and popular wine shops all over the D.C. metropolitan area, and I hear that there will be tasting and parties with the wine when the movie opens. We tried the wine Friday night, so now the surprise is over. It's a deep burgundy colored wine which tastes very much like a standard everyday chianti. There is a touch of fruitiness and only a minimal amount of tannin. The wine has a good full feel on the tongue, but there is really very little substance and no aftertaste to speak of. Verdict? It's an inoffensive little wine that reminds me very much of the ubiquitous merlots ordinaires which are everywhere in trendy American bars and cafes, and while not particularly interesting for oenophiles, the American mass market should drink this chianti right up, especially since it has a pretty bottle and retails for just $10.

Prior to tasting the Da Vinci, we sampled a 2000 Château Mayne Cassan Médoc that Dale had received as a gift some time ago and brought for us to try. This wine was one of the early 2000 red bordeaux said to be an example of the excellent vintage in France that year, though all of the early wines then were surprisingly inexpensive at release. Our bottle was quite drinkable with a very up-front fruitiness, full body, and dense red color, but I think this bottle was either a touch cooked (we don't know its handling or storage history) or perhaps a bit past its prime (though that would be unusual for a French bordeaux only five years old). The House of Mayne Cassan always does interesting table wines, blending in perhaps more merlot with the cabernet sauvignon than many other houses, and also adding some cabernet franc, so their product is usually light and fruity for a médoc.

Cactus Cantina, Washington, D.C.

After church this morning at the Washington National Cathedral, we wandered around a bit so we could kill a little bit of time so we could all go to brunch with my friend John who was driving down from Baltimore after playing a service up there. He also was singing in the Evensong choir at the National Cathedral this afternoon, so we had to have a quick brunch at one of the neighborhood cafes to accommodate his schedule, and landed at Cactus Cantina, since there was a waiting list at Cafe Deluxe.

Food was simple today.....chips and salsa, a bowl of queso dip, three pork tamales for us to split, a Monterrey spinach salad for me, crispy taco platter for John, and a Cuban pork dish called masitas de puerco for Tony. Tony also had a flan for dessert while John and I split a small order of sopapillas.


Masitas de Puerco


Crispy Taco Platter

The food was good.