Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I popped in for a late dinner the other night at Thai Place at 22nd and Penn near GWU. It wasn't too terribly crowded, but it was full of students.

This was Leo's colorful cocktail night. He started off with a yellow cocktail called a Mango Monsoon, then a green cocktail called a Rainbow Forest, then a red cocktail called a My Tai. All I had was a single, little Singha, a Thai lager beer.

The food was very enjoyable. Our appetizers were an order of crispy, fried shrimp cakes...



and a roasted duck salad. The salad was particularly good, having lots of shredded roasted duck, sliced strips of red onion, and shredded cabbage all in a spicy dressing.



Our main courses were also quite good. You can see them on the left. On top is Leo's red curry with beef and fresh basil leaves. He thought it was good and not too sweet. The curry was accompanied by white rice.

I had the rockfish special du jour. You can't see the fish in the picture because it was wrapped in banana leaves before cooking and I had not yet unwrapped the fish before taking the picture. It was actually quite nice—thoroughly cooked and the banana leaves imparted a distinct, delicate flavor to the rockfish. Along with the fish I got a bowl of steamed white rice and the plate was garnished with a bunch of leaf lettuce, shredded cabbage and some hand-carved carrots. A spicy, sweet fish sauce also accompanied the plate.

Dessert was a pleasant surprise. We've been to this place often enough to have had most everything on the dessert menu, so we tried the one thing we'd never had: Thai custard. Now, this custard was different and very unlike the English or French style custards. The texture reminded me a lot of a clafouti, which is really more of an eggy, soft cake. It had been baked until browned on the outside; the inside was green, although I don't know the source of the green (it didn't taste like basil). Leo thought it tasted like green tea. Whipped cream topping liberally covered the top.



So, it was a lovely evening, after which I helped Leo stagger home.

American City Diner, Washington, D.C.

At six o'clock last night, Kevin came by in his car and picked me up so we could go to dinner. We drove around town looking for someplace different where neither of us had ever been and also which was affordable (a challenging thing in the District!).

Somehow we ended way, way up on Connecticut almost to Maryland in the Chevy Chase area of town where we found the American City Diner. Well, I'm always excited about finding diners; Kevin somewhat less so, but that's where we went. I noticed on their door that they are a 24-hour a day place which is great, although the all-night thing doesn't do me any good because that neighborhood is very far from a Metro stop and negotiating the bus system to get there requires a two-hour journey.

American City Diner is an older place that looks very much like a classic diner with a counter and bar stools, vinyl-upholstered booths, and a '50s decor. They offer breakfast all the time and a big list of dinner items and blue plate specials.

Kevin ordered the western omelette sans cheese. It turned out to be a twice-folded omelette served on an oval platter with a huge portion of diced fried potatoes and onions and two pieces of toast cut into triangles.

I had the chicken-fried steak, which was surprisingly good. It wasn't particularly huge, but it was well-fried and crispy and definitely wasn't one of those frozen, commercially made things. It came with a bunch of whole, long green beans and a scoop of mashed potatoes, all of which were good. The only thing I didn't like was the gravy, which was a yellow chicken-flavored sauce made from a mix, instead of the traditional homemade cream gravy.

For dessert, Kevin insisted on having a piece of apple pie, so I acquiesced to having one, too. I had mine à la mode. The pie wasn't bad, and I was pleased that the apple filling didn't have that preservative taste so common in many restaurant pies.

So, American City Diner was a great experience, and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates simple diner food.

Cosí, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday was a grey, cloudy day with occasional light sprinkles of rain—those rains where you don't quite need an umbrella; I think today is going to follow suit.

Rather than stay in where it was safe and dry, I lunched with my friend Eugene, who offices just across McPherson Square from me. We met up at the Cosí (which despite popular habit should not be pronounced "CO-see," but rather "co-ZEE") on yet another corner of the square. Cosí is Cosí—another ubiquitous national franchise. I don't know what it is about my Russian friends but Svet loves lunching at a different Cosí several times per week.

Actually, Eugene and I went to this Cosí because I had two $2 off coupons; what's funny is that Eugene only ordered the minnestrone soup, so he didn't get to use his coupon—it was just for salads and sandwiches. I had the Cobb salad, and, of course, we both got some of their warm flatbread.

Mourayo, Washington, D.C.

Fr. Stephen in his "Kody pose"

Yesterday evening, my friend Fr. Stephen dragged me off to north Dupont Circle on banking errands, after which we decided to find a place for dinner. We just happened to be on Connecticut across from several restaurants when we espied Mourayo, a Greek place at which neither of us had previously eaten, so that's where we headed.

Mourayo is a pretty little restaurant with white walls divided by natural wood moldings on the walls and decorative items with a seafaring theme. The wait staff, male and female, was all attired in tight black trousers, starched and ironed white Greek sailor shirts, and black Greek fishermen's hats. We were given a table right in front by the windows that were open to the sidewalk beyond.

The menu is long, featuring a lot of Greek items with which I was not familiar, and it appeared that there was a lot of "creativity" going on in some of the combinations and presentations. While we perused the menu, Fr. Stephen sipped a Santo Santorini white wine and I had a Mercouri Foloi white. I particularly liked mine, since it was dry and very sippable.

Fr. Stephen started with the Symposium Edesmata, an appetizer sampler plate with tyrokafteri, tzatziki, taramosalata, skordelia, fava, hoummus, and patzaria, all a series of pureed items intended as a pita bread spread that include things like fava beans, chickpeas, potatoes, cheeses, a fish roe, thickened yogurt, and some little chunks of red beets. I tasted a couple of them (plus I got to eat the beets and the wonderfully fruity Greek olives, none of which he likes to eat) and thought they were really good.



For his main course, he chose the Pythagorus Theorema, a very nouveau concoction featuring three medallions of pork loin grilled medium rare and crowned with a dollop of Greek manouri cheese and a candied fig half, then all sauced in a honey and walnut glaze. I sampled a little bite and it was quite nice with unusual but interesting flavors. Grilled asparagus and thickened yogurt sauce came with the pork.



My food was equally interesting, begining with poughi a "beggar's pouch" of manouri cheese with almonds and roasted Florina peppers encased in a phyllo dough "bag" and served with sliced green onions and a little bit of tomato coulis. The cheese mixture was quite rich.



My main course was a better-than-expected bowl of gida vrasti "Sparta", a traditional Peloponnesian goat stew. Rice and yogurt were placed in the middle of the large soup plate then covered with an enormous serving of stewed goat, then the bowl was filled with the goat broth. Much of the goat meat was still on the bone; it was tender and very flavorful--more like kid than goat.



Desserts sounded wonderful and intriguing, but we were both too stuffed to try them.

Mourayo is a place that is definitely on my list of restaurants to visit again. I'm looking forward to the next adventure there!

The Diner, Washington, D.C.

My friend Kevin was going to drive me home after lodge Monday night, but we hadn't talked in several weeks and he wanted to chat, so we went to Adams-Morgan to have dessert at The Diner, one of the very few 24-hour restaurants in D.C.

Our dessert turned out to be dinner. Kevin had a couple of sangrias and a Spanish omelette to match and I had the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and some of those pre-prepared carrots from the grocery store bags that had been steamed. The meatloaf was really good, but the dish could have used a lot more gravy, since there were a lot of potatoes.

Then, we had our dessert: apple pie for Kevin and cherry pie for me.

Au Pied Bistro, Georgetown, D.C.

This past weekend, Leo once again decided he wanted French food for dinner (how he expects to lose weight and get skinny when he goes to the gym for two hours and then promptly wants to go out to dinner is beyond me), and talked me in to going with promises of buying me dinner a La Chaumière in Georgetown. So, we walked over, but once we got there, the place he actually wanted to go was Au Pied Bistro, quite a difference from Chaumière! I was his guest for the evening, though, so I was gracious and went to Au Pied with him.

He started off with a pink diamond martini. I'm not sure what made it a "pink" diamond, since it was decidedly yellow and he reported a pineapple taste.



For food, he began with the ceviche. Now, ceviche is a traditional Spanish dish where the fish or seafood is "cooked" by marinating it in spiced lime juice, and typically it's served as an appetizer in a small bowl, much like a "cooked" sashimi. Leo was surprised, then, when the ceviche arrived as a large salad. He ate what he could (I got to eat the delicious French olives), but he'd only intended it as a first course, so he left most of the salad.



His main course was a shrimp fettucine with a light cream sauce. It looked okay to me, but later he complained about not feeling well; apparently, there's some Chinese folk wisdom about not mixing vodka with cream sauce (and, we all know how vodka is the National Drink of China and an old, traditional beverage).



I wasn't really that hungry, so I ordered a croque madame, which was quite disappointing. The sandwich is pretty basic, being a sliced croissant topped by shaved turkey and drenched in bechamel sauce—usually something pretty hard to mess up. Well, they managed to mess it up anyway, and this is a French bistro! I suspect that they microwaved the croissant to heat it up, but it only made the croissant tough and difficult to cut with a table knife.



To make matters worse, the waitress brought the plate without any condiments and without asking if I wanted any. If I hadn't asked the for a refill on my water, she likely would have disappeared into the kitched, never to be seen again. She came back with the water pitcher, but still no condiments; I asked for some mayonnaise for my pommes frites. What she brought me was something I don't think any self-respecting restaurant in France would recognize as mayonnaise: two packets of commercial "mayonnaise."



So, dinner wasn't quite as successful as we would have liked.