Miss Saigon, Georgetown, D.C.

It's always nice to finally dine at a place which has been on one's regular walking path for months. Last night Leo was in the mood for Vietnamese food, so after an hour of cajoling I acquiesced to him dragging me out to Georgetown to Miss Saigon. Miss Saigon is east of Wisconsin amidst that big strip of restaurants along M Street.

When one walks into the restaurant, it is immediately apparent that this space was not originally created to be a Vietnamese, or even Asian, establishment. It's a typical Georgetown eatery with the only Asian touch being a series of lacquered Vietnamese conical hats hanging in a row all along the walls. They also seemed a little different in that very few of the staff—mostly management—seemed to be Asian; our waiter happened to be from Tunesia.

The food, though, was pretty good. Their cuisine is a little more elegant and a notch above the standard inexpensive Vietnamese fare, which is good since I thought the menu prices to be a bit higher than most Vietnamese places in the District.

For appetizers, we got an order of spring rolls with crispy fried exteriors and a fish sauce for dipping and an order of garden rolls with shrimp and pork wrapped in rice paper with a peanut sauce for dipping. We shared a very interesting "traditional papaya salad" made from a very large pile of long, very fine julienne of green papaya topped with long, thin strips of Asian-style beef jerky, all in a hot, spicy, rice wine vinaigrette.

For our main courses, Leo had the Saigon noodle special, soft egg noodles with sauteed seafood and vegetables. I had the cari ga, a very nice and flavorful yellow curry with chicken, potatoes, and carrots. It seemed as though the cari ga had actually been cooked as cari ga; the chicken was thoroughly infused with the flavor of the sauce, so it had obviously been stewed for a while and the dish was not just a curry sauce with chicken added at the last minute.

For dessert, Leo chose crème caramel topped with Kahlua and I had their banane flambé au rhum à la mode. My dessert was interestingly similar to the "crispy banana" I'd had Thursday night at Asian Bistro, but this was very different because they put honey and rum on the bottom of the plate, then one of the waiters lit the rum and as it burned, he rolled and turned the fried banana pieces in the flaming honey-rum mixture until it had a nice, crunchy, caramelized outside; it also came with a scoop of coconut ice cream.

So, we enjoyed the food at Miss Saigon, and perhaps we shall return.

Bistro Francais, Georgetown, D.C.

Last night Ian and I went out for a farewell dinner at Bistro Français in Georgetown, even though I'd already been to an early dinner at Asia Bistro. We were supposed to have gone someplace else at 10, but the baseball game the baseball addict was watching was interrupted by rain and it wasn't until 10:45 that they gave up and went home. By that time, our open-til-11 places weren't options anymore, and that's why we got stuck at Français again.

He had an omelette aux fines herbes et fromage avec pommes frites as usual, plus a chocolate mousse cake with vanilla ice cream. I started with a little bowl of cold gazpacho and then had a chef salad. I don't know why I keep ordering their gazpacho, since I don't really care for their version—-I like my vegetables to be finely diced instead of run through the food mill.

Today he's packing up and leaving the university for the summer and will be off to England, so now there won't be anybody around to drag me out to eat in the middle of the night.

Asia Bistro, Arlington, VA

Tonight Leo and I went to Pentagon City in the torrential rains to do some shopping. Then he was hungry, so we dashed across the square to Asia Bistro for dinner. It was surprisingly crowded in there, and the bar was jam packed with young professionals getting drunk.

Leo started with a calimari-type appetizer that was quite interesting; the squid rings were huge, looking more like small onion rings, and they were lightly and delicately breaded before they were deep fried and they were very tender; it also came with a very good, spicy, different dipping sauce than the usual Italian marinara. His main course was a bento box of shrimp and vegetable tempura with a huge, disgusting pile of kim-chee (LOL...can you tell I'm not a fan?), some steamed white rice, and a green salad he didn't eat. He washed it all down with a "Bistro mojito."

My first course was a very tasty takko salad with a bed of greens topped with sliced, cold, marinated baby octopus and then shreds of daikon and carrot, and some thinly sliced rings of onion that was very tasty. My main course was their generic sushi dinner, since I wasn't in the mood to make decisions. It was actually pretty good, with about eight "chef's choice" sushi nigiri (their tuna was especially fresh, bright red, and good) and then a California roll. Dessert was a "crispy banana," a banana cut in half, tempura-battered and fried, then presented on the plate with a drizzle of honey.

Georgetown Cafe, Georgetown, D.C.

Just moments ago I walked back in from having been to "breakfast" at Georgetown Cafe with Ian, who not only dragged me out for a 4 a.m. breakfast but made me walk the 1.5 miles each way since there's no public transportation at that hour of the day. We both had omelettes with home fries, and then igarvey ordered an extra basket of their battered French fries. I was disappointed that after one glass of iced tea, they ran out of tea, and had to bring me a nasty sweet raspberry tea as a less-than-satisfactory substitute.

There were about a dozen policemen at a big table next to us....in fact, as I walked up to the cafe and saw all the constabulary vehicles I thought perhaps there'd been some kind of criminal incident. Ian said the cops made him feel safe and secure, but I, being ethnic, was a little uneasy.

The nice thing about that 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. window in Georgetown is that in contrast to the traffic and congestion of the daytime, the streets are deserted and it's a very quiet, peaceful place.

Now, the question is whether to nap for an hour or two or just stay up. Too bad nobody else is awake.

Elegant dining

What wonderful culinary repasts we've had on this rainy, dreary day.

For breakfast, I had a can of Diet Rockstar.

For lunch, I had two $1 McChickens and a $1 small fries at McDonald's.

For dinner, I had a cold leftover pizza from this past weekend.

I really must stop eating all this gourmet food!

Vidalia, Washington, D.C.

One seeking rain should never ask me for an Indian rain dance. That's just not one of my areas of expertise. My friend Robert, however, is the harbinger of hail, the prince of precipitation, and the ranger of rain. Every time I eat out with Robert it rains, from the very first time we dined in Friendship Heights when it rained so hard that the umbrella-less Robert ended up soaking his cochlear implant and being unable to hear and understand me that afternoon to tonight's expedition when www.weather.com assured me that there was no rain whatsoever in tonight's forecast. As I walked to the restaurant tonight and noticed the ever-so-slight occasional droplet of rain, I should have listened to my inner voice and gone back home to grab an umbrella, cause by the time we were done dining, those droplets were actual big raindrops; my hair was a wreck by the time I got home!

Regardless of the weather outside, though, things inside Vidalia were quite sunny and pleasant.

Vidalia, of course, is the ever-popular "Southern" cuisine restaurant that takes old Southern standbys and makes them into wonderfully gourmet dishes. It's a great place for a couple of Southern boys on Derby Weekend; Robert and I had been here last January when the weather was cold, the wind was brisk, and the rain was icy.

In honor of this weekend's Kentucky Derby, we started dinner with a round of mint juleps. Robert, who'd already had half a dozen of them yesterday at the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Hotel, declared that Vidalia's version was far superior, and he ended up drinking three of them tonight with his dinner! They were, I have to admit, rather tasty; I'm usually not a big fan of bourbon, usually only using the Wild Turkey with which they made the juleps not for drinking but for cooking when I make bourbon balls, pecan pie, or bread pudding whiskey sauce. Nonetheless, the juleps helped us relax a bit as we made the difficult decisions as to which of the delicious items on the menu to order.



After we ordered, our waiter brought us little espresso cups full of wild mushroom soup as an amuse bouche. I wish I'd known he was going to do that, since I'd have ordered a different appetizer instead of a soup. It was all good, though, so I didn't really mind.



Robert started his meal with a sweetbread appetizer he declared very good. Then he had a lovely plate of three Shenandoah lamb ribeyes lightly grilled and presented with some spicy lamb sausage, a garlic fritter, sunchoke purée and shoots, red pepper sauce, and a smoked paprika lamb jus which the waiter poured over the dish tableside. For dessert, to match his mint juleps he ordered the chocolate mint julep, an interesting combination of chocolate ganache and bourbon mint sorbet.







I had the sweet pea soup for my starter, which had a little mold of pea puree in the center with crème frâiche, bacon, and pea sprouts. A tasty shrimp and grits plate made up my main course and bits of spinach and sweet onion ragout rested in the center of the yellow corn grits. My complaint? For $29.75 with only four shrimp, they could have afforded to give me a few more of those delicious grits. I also had the chocolate mint julep for dessert. With my main course I drank a glass of Spanish white wine and with dessert I had grapy red muscadelle; the waiter selected my wines and I'd asked him to write down their names and vintages for me, but he never did that, so I can't tell you exactly what I drank. While Robert was ordering and drinking his third julep (two would have put me away for the night, cause those silver cups were big!), I had a coffee and cream.





Robert is always such a charming conversationalist that time just flies by. He's very astute and well-read, which totally belies the fact that he's from Arkansas. LOL The Arkansan in him does, though, give him his Southern charm. And, we also got to talk a little political business. I'll be looking forward to our next dinner party.

Firefly, Washington, D.C.

Leo had a festive birthday party last night when we went to Firefly for a simple repast. It was a buzzing place, too, with several other birthday dinners (including the table next to ours) and a big table with a bridal shower group. It was so noisy at times we had a hard time hearing normal conversation, largely because half of the room is the bar and lounge.




Once we were seated, we started with cocktails. Leo ordered a very summery "cucumber Collins," a Tom Collins with cucumber puree and garnished with a sprig of lemongrass and a slice of cucumber and I sipped a Sapphire martini.

The menu had a lot of interesting and unusual items, making it hard to decide on dinner. Leo started his meal with a duck rillette, which I think wasn't quite what he was expecting. Rillettes are sort of like a preserved potted meat and used as a spread on bread. Firefly's version was close to the tradition; the duck spread was flavorfully seasoned and sealed with a layer of duck fat and served with toasted bread slices and little cornichon pickles. For his main course he chose the grilled Icelandic salmon that came with lyonnaise potatoes and a leek puree. Dessert was the citrus-scented cheesecake with strawberry sauce which struck me as a sort of strawberry upside down cake; a large amount of fresh strawberries in sauce filled the bottom of the plate topped with a square of soft cheesecake with the bottom graham crust up on the top.







I started with a chilled asparagus soup with crème frâiche that was very flavorful and tasty. Next I had a mixed green salad with crumbles of Maytag blue cheese and toasted walnuts with a sherry vinaigrette. My main course was a very unusual portobello mushroom schnitzel served atop a dish of lentils; I'm not quite sure what I think of this dish, but it was certainly interesting. If one has had a German wiener schnitzel before, the mushroom cap was similarly breaded and fried. In lieu of dessert I did a cheese plate with three American cheeses: Fog Light, O'Banon, and Rogue River Blue.









With our meal, we drank a bottle of wine from Virginia, a Barboursville Cabernet Franc. It was drinkable, though nothing spectacular. After desserts, I had coffee and Leo had a snifter of Di Sarrono amaretto on the rocks.