Legal Sea Foods, Washington, D.C.

Last night Leo got home from work late and was too tired to cook, plus, he had a brand new American Express gold card to break in, so he dragged me away from my quiet Friday night in front of the computer and television to accompany him to dinner. We weren't sure at first where we were going, but we ended up walking down K Street looking around and got reeled in at Legal Sea Foods.

Legal Sea Foods is the Boston-based national chain with about three dozen restaurants scattered up and down the East Coast and with about a half dozen locations scattered about the D.C. metropolitan area. It is several notches above a Red Lobster or some such, so I acquiesce to eating there even though it is a national franchise. Their restaurants are always very upscale, nicely decorated, and they do have very fresh, well-prepared seafood.

Leo started with a half dozen cherrystone clams on the half shell. They looked plump and good.



For his main course, he had the wood-grilled sea scallops accompanined by a seaweed salad and some parmesan risotto. He reported that all was acceptable, but I noticed he didn't rave about anything. He'd originally ordered a jalapeño cheese polenta, but they were out and asked to substitute the risotto, which he said was rather plain.



I started with a big bowl of Legal's New England clam chowder. It's pretty good, but it's never been the "best" clam chowder I've ever had, despite their reputation and their tradition of being served at the last seven presidential inaugurations. Personally, I prefer a few more clams, a few less potatoes, and a bit more cream instead of milk.



For my main course, I had a surprisingly filling grilled scallop salad with green apples, goat cheese, avocado, and little thin strips of crispy tortilla in a hot, spicy orange dressing. It was really good, and Leo was finished with his entree long before I'd finished mine.



With dinner, we each had a "flight" of white wines. Leo had the chardonnay flight, that included a 2004 Sonoma Cutrer "RRR," 2004 Benziger Carneros, and 2001 Chalk Hill Sonoma. The third wine is usually the best, and he liked it, though he thought it had a very smoky flavor. He thought maybe the first two wines had been accidentally switched, since he found the first to have a strong citrusy flavor, and the second was "supposed" to have citrus notes. Wine number one (whichever it was) he thought had a faintly sour taste. Wine number two he liked a lot by itself, but once the food arrived, he said it was not so good with food.



I had the pinot gris flight. Starting with a 2004 Marco Felluga from Collio, Italy, my first wine was crisp and sharp, though not terribly substantial and with not much of an aftertaste. Second was a 2005 Montinore Estate from Williamette Valley, Oregon, that I found thin and mineral. Third was a 2005 Barone Fini from Valdadige, Italy, that was light yet rich and had some apple notes that meshed nicely with my salad. Pinot gris in general are usually not heavy or substantial wines, and that was certainly the case with this flight. I suppose they must have selected them as "summer wines."



Sorry for the dark and blurry photography on some of these pictures—I was trying to avoid flash in the early part of our dinner because we were seated right next to another "serious" party of four and I didn't want to disturb them.

The service last night was unusually spotty for Legal. Our first courses were not brought at the same time. In fact, I had completely finished my bowl of chowder before Leo's clams arrived. Then, when an assistant brought our main courses, first he had to ask who got what, then after holding Leo's plate until Leo moved aside his clam tray, the assistant left the clam tray on the table in the way! Later, our waiter interrupted our conversation to ask if he could take away my obviously empty wine glass instead of just quietly removing it. I definitely don't like chatty waiters, especially at a higher end restaurant (yes, I know that at the lower end places, the chatty waiters get better tips, but we weren't in a place like that).

We thought about dessert. Several things looked good, and I was particularly tempted to try their Boston cream pie since it had the interesting non-traditional touch of the cake being soaked with coffee liqueur, but we opted not. (For those of you who don't know, a Boston cream pie isn't really a pie at all. It's a yellow cake with vanilla cream or pudding between the layers, all frosted with chocolate icing.)

Leo's new American Express worked just fine. He doesn't believe me, though, when I warned him that an Amex has to be paid off in full at the end of the month. I know from experience that an American Express with "no pre-set spending limit" can be a dangerous thing!

La Crêperie, Arlington, Va.

In our last couple of soujourns to the mall at Pentagon City, we've ended up dining at La Crêperie, a French place in Pentagon Row just outside the mall. Ryan seems to like the place, and so long as he isn't eating hamburgers, I'm happy.

Trip number one was with Edward and Jeff. While Edward was getting his hairs cut, Jeff had a little McChicken sandwich at the food court McDonald's, so he wasn't hungry when we got to the restaurant for dinner and only drank water. Edward ended up getting a "pesto cavatappi," which is some kind of spiral macaroni dish they serve at Noodles & Company next door. It seemed simple enough, with a pesto sauce tossed with the macaroni, and there was supposed to be a diced up chicken breast in there somewhere, too, though I wasn't really sure I saw it. He picked up his meal "to-go" and then joined us on the patio to eat.

I wasn't terribly hungry, so I got the salade maison and the soupe tomate. The salad was your basic everyday iceberg and romaine lettuce salad with tomato, carrot, cucumber, olives, and beets in a typical French olive oil emulsification dressing. I love their soupe tomate. Not only does it have a nice roasted tomato flavor, it's rich and very, very thick—almost like eating a thin pudding. It's a great explosion of tomato flavor in the mouth.



Ryan ordered the crêpe monsiuer, a crêpe based on the classic croque monsieur sandwich that is a fancy French version of a ham and cheese sandwich, except with the cheese melted. They put a stripe of tomato sauce across the crêpe as a garnish.



For dessert, Ryan ordered two crêpes for the whole table, a crêpe nutella with extra bananas and strawberries, and a crêpe aux pommes, an apple pie tasting thing.




For trip number two, we were with Ryan's friend Gustavo. His English is a little limited, as is my French, but Ryan has some French but no Spanish, and I have a little Spanish still, so we managed to communicate all around. Our waiter was a French, Arabic, and English speaking Moroccan, so we were able to eek out a mutual understanding.

Gustavo had the hangar steak aux poivre avec pommes frites. He said the steak was good ("Es bueno."). It seemed to me to be two thin, little slices of meat in a pepper sauce. In addition to the French fries, there was a serving of what looked to be frozen mixed vegetables.



Ryan had a crêpe ratatouille, a little vegetarian thing filled with that nasty eggplant and vegetable stew (I don't do eggplant).



I did a series of little dishes to make up my meal, starting with a bowl of the soupe tomate (see above picture) for all to sample. Then I had some of their paté du maison garnished with cornichon pickles and little cocktail onions, served with a small, thin loaf of French bread, followed by the pommes du terre au gratin, a sort of French version of scalloped potatoes. The potatoes were disappointing and it was the first time I got something at La Crêperie I didn't like and didn't think was very good. The crumbs on top comprising the "au gratin" were dry, the cheese and bechamel sauce in the potatoes seemed grainy, and the thin layers of potatoes seems to be soaking in some kind of oil or grease. I couldn't finish it.





Ryan insisted on desserts for everyone, so he ordered another crêpe nutella with bananas and strawberries (see above picture) and a crêpe aux peches avec glace vanille (see the apple crêpe picture above and add ice cream). I liked the peach crêpe.

The best part of the meal came at the end when Ryan paid for everyone! Yay!

Whitlow's on Wilson, Arlington, Va.

Svet's leaving today for a month in Europe. Just before he left, he embarked upon a new work-out program and joined the new Gold's Gym opening at Clarendon as a "charter member." Anyway, the other day, he dragged us along with him to the gym. After we closed out the place, we walked over to Whitlow's on Wilson for dinner. Svet, of course, being the elitist that he is, said the place was awful and he wasn't excited about going there, but since he wasn't willing to buy us dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, he acquiesced to going to the more affordable diner with us where we all paid our own way. As it turned out, I rather liked the place.

He and Ryan started out sharing a hot spinach and artichoke dip with melba toasts. It had actual pieces of artichoke heart in it (not everyplace serving spinach-artichoke dip uses much artichoke if any at all). I tasted it and it could have used more richness from mayonaisse.

As we moved along to our main courses, Svet, pretending still to be in a post-gym healthy kick, ordered a Cobb salad loaded with lots of avocado, bacon, and bleu cheese, and Ryan got some rather ordinary looking nachos. Of course, they probably tasted boring since he told the waitress not to put any jalapeño pepper slices or salsa on them.





After a prolonged discussion with the waitress in which I was trying to explain to her that I wanted only one sandwich instead of two, she still seemed rather dense and confused. The menu said, "WOW Panini," but I only wanted one panino, and she didn't seem to be able to comprehend that. What I eventually got seemed to be a panino which had been cut in half, but I'm not sure if they were counting the two halves as panini or not. When we got the check, it still said "panini" on the bill, even though I only got one.

The panino, nonetheless, was fine. It was kind of a "double meat" thing with grilled chicken and a grilled portobello mushroom cap. It came with mozzarella cheese and a pesto-infused mayonaisse. Really good French fries were on the side.



And, who got to do our Kody Pose for the day? Svet!! He did it with his chocolate milk shake (he was still on his post-gym healthy kick, you know).

Zed's Ethiopean Cuisine, Washington, D.C.

Will wonders never cease? Ryan actually likes Ethiopean food!

Mr. Order-a-Hamburger-at-Every-Restaurant and I went to Zed's Ethiopean Cuisine in Georgetown Wednesday with Ryan promising to try something "exotic" for a change (and I knew they didn't have any hamburgers on the menu). As we entered, he was quite enthralled by their gallery of famous politicians and actors who've eaten at the restaurant and then posed with the owners. I've always found it interesting, though, that most all of the politicians were from the Clinton Administration....do Republicans not eat African food?

I chose Zed's for us rather than some of the fun Ethiopean places on U Street or in Adams-Morgan because I knew that the sampler plate foods were considerably milder here than the sometimes-fiery and beri-beri sauce infused dishes at other establishments, as Ryan has a surprisingly low tolerance for spice heat.

Deciding to keep it simple, I ordered for us a vegetarian sampler tray and a beef/chicken sampler tray, which, as always, arrives on the same big tray for both of us to share. Most of the dishes were fine and at Zed's usual level of consistency except for the hard boiled egg and chicken leg dish (sorry, I've never learned the names for common Ethiopean dishes), where I found the chicken to be considerably over cooked, apparently prior to being stewed in the sauce, since the sauce wasn't scorched.

Ryan tried a St. George Ethiopean beer, but I don't think he liked it, since he didn't drink half of it.

As we began our meal, Ryan seemed somewhat bemused by the fact that we had no silverware. I had to explain to him the Ethiopean tradition of using torn-off pieces of injera bread to grasp the food and convey it to the mouth. He was still skeptical. He did, nevertheless, unroll his injera and launch into the feasting process with abandon.

Usually I don't have dessert at Ethiopean restaurants as they are usually Italian. Their neighbor, Somalia, was at one time under Italian control, so Somali food has Italian influences, including Italian style desserts, but I don't find them to be "authentic" to the region. Ryan wanted dessert, though, so I acquiesced. He ordered the profiteroles, which is actually a French confection made by filling small little cream puffs with ice cream and drizzling them with chocolate. Here, they chose to use chocolate ice cream inside the two puffs, and squirted them with whipped cream.



I got the caramel chocolate pyramid, which was a pyramid-molded rather plain chocolate mousse (no coffee or orange flavors) heavily dusted with cocoa. It was fine, though I never tasted the caramel. I think both desserts were okay, though, at $7.50 apiece, given the price point of the restaurant, were about a dollar too much for what we got, even realizing that there are other places in Georgetown that would have charged $12 for similarly-sized desserts.



For those of you who didn't realize it, Ethiopia is a land that a few thousand years ago was part of the ancient Egyptian empire and a region called "Upper Egypt" (since it's geographically higher than the northern lands around the Nile delta). I thought that made the pyramid dessert interestingly appropriate.