Meskerem, Washington, D.C.

There were so many things on my To Do list for today. Did any of them get done? Nope. My friend Jim was going to drive up from Virginia so we could go have a late lunch. I'd forgotten that this is commencement weekend at GWU across the street, so he had to drive around for over half an hour looking for a parking place.

We drove up to Adams-Morgan and found a parking place right outside of Meskerem. Jim, even though a two-year-long D.C. area resident, had never had Ethiopean food before, and Meskerem is one of those places I'd long heard about—after all, it was one of the very first Ethiopean restaurants in D.C.—but at which I'd never dined, so that's where we decided to eat.

We happened to get the window table where we were fully exposed to all of the passers-by on the sidewalk. We had a traditional basket table—a messob—and a little end table to hold drink glasses and other things. The walls were decorated with Ethiopean textile art and paintings of textile designs.

Now, the restaurant strip in Adams-Morgan is a vibrant section of the transition neighborhood, so most all of the places are in storefronts in not particularly restored or fancy old buildings. One of the window panes by our table was broken and covered with a board; the whole place had the look of an older, cheaper building that hadn't been decorated in years. Meskerem has both basement and mezzanine level dining rooms in addition to the main floor, and a bit later on Saturday nights, all of those would be full, but at 5:30, the restaurant was still slow and all of the patrons were seated on the main level.

Since it was Jim's first visit to an Ethiopean place, we opted for a sampler platter for two. It had a couple of beef dishes, a lamb dish, two chicken dishes, an interesting vinegared potato salad, lentils, and greens. The food was okay, but it didn't meet up to my expectations after all the recommendations and hype. I'd really much prefer the food at Zed's in Georgetown or Dukem on U Street. I also thought the service was rather slow, especially since there were three or four waitresses handling a dining room with only a handful of tables.

So, now I've had my Meskerem experience. Next time I'm in Adams-Morgan, I'll now feel free to try some of the dozens of other restaurants in the neighborhood.

Notti Bianche, Washington, D.C.

New Yorker Zack is in town tonight in anticipation of a big book sellers' conference tomorrow, so we took the opportunity go out to dinner after his train got in to Union Station tonight. Now, as we know, there are no Italian restaurants in New York City, so we chose an Italian-themed place right around the corner from my condo, Notti Bianche, instead of doing the usual take the tourist to an Ethiopean place routine.

It was an interestingly eclectic meal, tasty, but not terribly authentically Italian. Here are some of the courses we had:

Appetizers were a grilled duck terrine with a tomato compote they called a "mustarda" and a roasted garlic compote they called a "corstini" that were both sweet and also a mixed greens and sprouts salad and a garganelli pasta with little sausage meatballs and broccoli rabe and a spicy, slightly hot sauce.




For an early salad and soup course, there were two items. There was a hearts of romaine salad that includes some nice parmesan cheese wafers and an unusual little "cup" made of white anchovy fillets and filled with an olive tapenade.



There was also a creamed potato soup that was served in the tiny hollow of a big, broad soup plate that was essentially garnished with two in-shell little neck clams and pieces of soppresata salami. It was tasty but needed more soup.



For pasta courses, there was a rather simple spaghetti pomodoro with just a basic tomato sauce and a linguine with head- and tail-on shrimp. This head-on trend in D.C. lately is a fad that really needs to stop.




Desserts were rather interesting. The chocolate-hazelnut torte with caramel ice cream came with a little rolled Florentine cookie. The torte itself was a little dry, but once the ice cream melted, things were okay.



The waitress highly recommended the panna cotta. The eggless custard mixture was enriched with some crème frâiche and topped with a strawberry-citrus layer, then the whole thing was put on a rhubarb sauce mirror and garnished with homemade sugar and pistachio nut stir sticks.



Wines started with a Bisol prosecco crede N.V. from Veneto, Italy, then a 2003 Castelvero cortese from the Italian Piedmont, then a 2004 Pecchenino San Luigi Vineyard dolcetto that was surprisingly nice, and then a sangiovese selected by the waitress, so I didn't catch the winery or vintage.

Now it's time for bed. G'night!

Cafe La Ruche, Georgetown, D.C.

Leo decided last night that after a hard day at the office he wanted to go to dinner and he wanted French food (what? Leo wanted something that wasn't Asian??) and insisted on dragging me along. We walked to Georgetown and popped in at Café La Ruche.

The food was, as always, good. Leo started with the in-house smoked salmon with capers and thin slivvers of onion rings, then he had the salade du jour, which last night happened to be a chopped salad of endive, bleu cheese, and tomatoes, all washed down with two large glasses of a lovely white wine the name of which escapes me right now. Then for dessert, he selected from the dessert case an enormous baked apple dumpling en croute topped with melted chocolate and which was noticeably larger than a softball, and ate it all all by himself.

I had a glass of water and the three salad plate, choosing the salade de dinde (large chunks of turkey on spinach), salade printaniere (salad with hearts of palm, feta cheese, eggs, and tomato), and the new potato vinaigrette (sort of a French version of potato salad).

Bangkok One, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday I lunched at Bangkok One, just off McPherson Square near my office. I just happened to run into Bangkok One by accident, and I'm glad I did.

It's a rather non-descript place from the outside with what looks like a homemade hand-painted sign on the window. Inside, though, the decor features mirrors all along one wall and in the other wall there are deep display cases recessed in the wall behind locked glass doors which held all kinds of beautiful Thai works of art including fabrics, dolls, statues, and precious metals. The large dining room staff was all clad in black trousers with colorful Asian print silk shirts.

I started with their summer rolls with peanut sauce, expecting the usual two rice paper-wrapped egg roll with a thick peanut dipping sauce, but their version was a bit different. They sliced the rolls in the kitchen and presented them on a leaf-shaped plate like a sushi roll. The sauce was a sweet, clear sauce with chopped peanuts. I was also favorably impressed with how quickly the summer rolls came from the kitchen.

For my main course, I had the Bangkok green fried rice. This was a very nice green curry stir-fry of rice and chicken with all kinds of green vegetables, sprouts, and basil leaves garnished with cucumber slices. The curry was good, having enough spice to keep my mouth tingling but without being too hot to eat and enjoy.

Many of the other entrees I saw going to the tables looked quite interesting, so I'll be looking forward to eating here again.