Pizzaria Uno, Georgetown, D.C.

Monday night, Ian and I wandered out at 11 p.m. and went to Pizzaria Uno again. It was half price appetizer night, so we sat at the bar to be eligible for those. I'm not sure if that was legal, though, since Ian isn't quite 21 yet. I know back in Oklahoma, it wouldn't be allowed, but Ian thinks it's okay in the District. Any of you local legal eagles know the answer to that question?

Anyway, Ian had fried mozzarella sticks and I had what they claimed was nachos. After that, we split a dessert with one of those cutesie restaurant names....it was a great big chocolate chip cookie freshly baked in a small deep-dish pizza pan, then topped with a couple of scoops of ice cream and a cloud of whipped cream.

The service was much better than usual for the Georgetown Uno (where one can be abandoned for half hour stretches by waiters), but that was no doubt because we were seated at the bar and we pretty much had full-time access to the bartender's attention.

Don Lobos Mexican Grill, Georgetown, D.C.

Last night Ian wanted Mexican food. Nothing would sway his opinion. So, after reviewing a number of accessible Mexican restaurant possibilities, he picked Don Lobos Mexican Grill in east Georgetown.

Ian chose the chicken burrito for his dinner. He made the kitchen hold the sour cream, guacamole, and red sauce....he wouldn't even let them bring me his guacamole.....and he ordered an extra side of refried beans, plus more rice.


I had the enchiladas Suiza, which were some delightful chicken enchiladas covered in a green tomatillo sauce. The rice and beans I thought were rather mediocre last night.



For dessert, Ian had (and I sampled enough to say I "shared") a fried ice cream. At Don Lobos, they roll their ice cream in corn flakes before refreezing and then deep frying them, and they are served with a heavy drizzling of honey.

M Street Bar and Grill, Washington, D.C.

After going to the Mozart service at St. John's yesterday morning, my friend Max and I headed out to brunch at the M Street Bar and Grill in the St. Gregory Hotel in Washington's West End. They have a jazz-champagne brunch every Sunday for just $21.95 that includes an entree, dessert, and unlimited champagne, mimosas, or bloody Marys. While I've heard about their brunch for months, this was the first time I'd gone.

We drank bloody Marys, of course. They were all pre-mixed, and I thought they could have used a little vodka....I would have come close to swearing that we were drinking straight mixer.

The food, though, was quite tasty. Max chose the buttermilk fried chicken with sage gravy and accompanied by macaroni and cheese and a sweet potato puree studded with pecans. A sprinkling of clover garnished the dish. He reported that it was quite good.



I had the rosemary roast lamb and poached eggs on a salad of spinach, cucumber, red onion, and feta cheese. The lamb had the taste and texture of shish kebab lamb, but there was no hole in the pieces of the meat, and rested atop the vegetable salad. A creamy dressing that matched the feta was tossed in the greens. The two poached eggs on the plate were enrobed in a little hollandaise sauce. I enjoyed the dish; it was a little different than I had expected, but I particularly liked all the salad vegetables and the simplicity of the lamb.



For dessert, Max had the cheese cake with sugar-dusted raspberries and blackberries and drizzled with caramel sauce.



I had the very interesting ginger cake topped with orange segments and a light orange sauce. The cake seemed to me rather like a moist gingerbread made without the molasses.



We were seated on the mezzanine level of the restaurant, yet we still had a good view of the jazz pianist/singer during brunch. All in all, it was a fun afternoon. And, here's a picture of Max in his Kody Pose.

Eggspectation, Silver Spring, Md.

Saturday night, Robert and I Metroed up to Silver Spring, where there's a big festival shopping area with all kinds of shops, restaurants, and movie theaters. After wandering around a bit, we selected an intriguing restaurant called Eggspectation for dinner. As it turns out, Eggspectation is a chain with a small cluster of restaurants in the northeastern U.S. and a larger pool in Canada. While all-day breakfasts and egg dishes are their signature items, they have a full range of standard restaurant selections, including a full bar.

Robert started with a cocktail, pictured above. Actually, it sounded incredibly unusual and highly intriguing. It was called a Swedish fish martini, and was billed as having a little fish in the bottom. We couldn't imagine a fish-tasting martini! So, Robert ordered it.

It was, alas, not fishy. In fact, it was just the opposite: quite sweet. It reminded me a lot of a sweet cosmopolitan. It was good, if you like sweet cocktails. We couldn't find the fish in the botttom, so, thinking the bartender might have sent us the wrong drink, we had our waiter inquire. It turns out the drink is made with vanilla vodka, Chambord, and a little sweet and sour mix. They have little candy fish they usually put in the bottom of the glass, but they were out of them. They did not, however, discount the drink!

Dinner was simple. Robert ordered a maple-glazed ribeye steak that looked and smelled absolutely delicious. He remarked favorably about the maple glaze. The steak was accompanied by new potatoes and sauteed summer squashes. To wash down dinner, he drank an Otter Creek Oktoberfest beer, a micro brew from Vermont, that he thought quite good.



I ordered the Eggspectation salad. There must have been over a head of lettuce in the big bowl, with a good variety of greens including raddiccio and endive. A mound of sliced hams, turkey, and two cheeses rested on top and hard boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, ripe olives, and cherry tomatoes decorated the bowl. One of their house vinaigrettes lightly dressed the salad. It was very good, but so big I could hardly finish it.



Robert fell in love with the dessert list. They have a full assortment of cheesecakes, but what was particularly intriguing was their selection of cakes. Even with him forcing me to order a piece, too, we couldn't decide which two to get! Robert ended up with the Lemon Drop cake, a mildly lemon-scented cake with lemon buttercream icing and white chocolate fans. I had the Red Velvet cake, one of those deeply dyed red chocolate cakes in a cream cheese icing, but what made this one different was the addition of a layer of fudge sauce beneath the icing between the layers. My cake, as was Robert's, was still cold from the refrigerator; I would have preferred it be room temperature. Red velvet cake is an old Southern tradition, and this was just like every red velvet cake I've ever been made by a Southern lady—too dry. But, the icing always makes up for it, and I only wish I'd had a big glass of cold milk to wash it all down.



I enjoyed Eggspectation a lot, and I'm anxious to return so I can try some of their other items, especially breakfast foods. Their egg theme is cute, and they carry it out throughout the restaurant; even in the men's room, the mirrors were egg-shaped and the door handles were egg whisks. The nice thing about the place is that the prices are very moderate for the Washington metropolitan area, and yet the food was solid and good.

L & N Seafood Restaurant, Arlington, Va.

Another shopping trip, another dinner at L & N Seafood Restaurant in the mall at Pentagon City.

Leo always orders appetizers when he goes out, so this time he ordered the pork egg rolls. L & N, mind you, is an American chain restaurant, not Asian, so I didn't expect much. The egg rolls were typically American, deep fried and slightly greasy. They cut them on the diagonal and arranged them artfully on a bed of salad greens. A very sweet sweet-and-sour sauce was in a small bowl in the center. I suppose this is the sort of thing we're used to getting at American places, so the egg rolls were decent on that standard.

For a main course, Leo had a huge bowl of chicken fettucine. A large chicken breast was seasoned and grilled, then sliced and placed upon fettucine in an enriched alfredo-esque sauce. Leo liked it, but he couldn't quite finish the large serving.



I had the oyster po'boy sandwich with French fries. It came with tartar sauce instead of the traditional New Orleans remoulade sauce. The oysters were fairly small and slightly over cooked, but when it comes to fried oysters, I consider that a virtue.



Along with dinner, it happened to be happy hour, so our waitress (she was really great!) kept bringing us these little, cheap margaritas in little tumblers. I was pleasantly surprised that for a happy hour cheap drink, there was actually noticeable tequila in the drinks.

Bertucci's Brick Oven Ristorante, Washington, D.C.

We went to Bertucci's Brick Oven Ristorante the other night. They are a national chain with dozens of restaurants on the East Coast from Virginia up through New England; we went to the one near GWU. I had a salad, Leo had shrimp fettucine. Then he decided he wanted dessert and couldn't make up his mind what to get, so he ordered their dessert sampler trilogy. It had a cannoli and small pieces of both their chocolate torta and tiramisu. I tasted them all, thought the torta was dry, the tiramisu ordinary, and the cannoli tasty. I will say the service was better than usual (though it's not hard to improve on their usual levels of inattention) and the waiter was quite personable.

Homemade dumplings

The other day, Leo made Chinese-style dumplings. He used a mixture of ground pork, shrimp, scallions, and other things he then wrapped up in little dumpling shapes. I got conscripted into rolling out the dough into thinner, more square pieces. The fresh ones he cooked were actually quite good, though he didn't like them. Since he made a big batch, we froze the rest.