Austin Grill, Washington, D.C.

Brunch today was downtown in the Gallery Place neighborhood with Robert, who appeared to have only a very slight touch of hangover after his natal anniversary festivities last night. He'd picked out this place and had been wanting to come for brunch for some time, so that's how we ended up at Austin Grill.

Austin Grill is a Tex-Mex kind of place. There are about a half dozen other Austin Grills in the metropolitan area; the owners, however, originated in Austin, Tex. It's a fairly standard Tex-Mex place with the usual suspects on the menus and the expected ecclectic decor. In addition to the regular menu, they also have a special brunch menu. While we looked at our menus, we got chips and salsa.

Robert started off with some dog's hair...uh, er, hair of the dog....and ordered a bloody Mary. He ordered a steak and eggs platter from the brunch menu. There were several strips of fajita beef, a couple of over-easy eggs, and a bunch of fried potatoes. For dessert, he had a vanilla flan.





I had the Bevo salad. Now, those of you not familiar with Texas may not realize that Bevo is the name of that great big longhorn steer the University of Texas uses as a mascot. I expected the salad to be huge and topped with beef. The salad was only average sized, though, and topped with chicken (as well as guacamole, feta cheese, black beans, corn relish, and pico de gallo). A cilantro-lime dressing flavored the greens. It was a filling salad, and packed quite a bit of spice heat. For dessert, I had the orange flan. Then flan itself was intensely orange flavored and I noted an orange taste even in the caramel sauce on top of the flan.





I was an interesting place. I'll have to go back again sometime and try the various Tex-Mex entrees.

Bistrot du Coin, Washington, D.C.

It's getting close to the time for annual release parties for the beaujolais nouveau, and one of the big parties here in D.C. is held at Bistrot du Coin, just north of Dupont Circle. So, today, Kevin and I wandered over for a sneak peak.

Twas just a quick, early supper. Kevin had le steak maison avec pommes frites et sauce béarnaise (steak and French fries) and also ordered coeur de laitue à la vinaigrette (Bibb lettuce salad) as a side. He ate every morsel, so I guess it was all good.



I had the tartine Parisienne, a broiled, open face sandwich with French ham, gruyère cheese, and béchamel sauce, that came with a little pile of French salad greens.



For dessert, I sipped a cup of coffee with cream while Kevin savored a rum poundcake with bananas and pineapple, vanilla ice cream, and a berry coulis. The piece of cake was surprisingly small. He reported a definite presence of banana and pineapple in the cake batter, but he didn't really think there was much of a rum flavor to it.

Chinatown Express, Washington, D.C.

My feet hurt. We were walking around D.C. and Georgetown way too much this evening. After his Wednesday night class, Ian and I went to Chinatown for dinner at Chinatown Express. As always, Chinatown Express is a little hole in the wall type place, but I always enjoy the inexpensive food and it's fun to watch people making noodles and dumplings through the front window and to see all those special delicacies soon to be on our tables hanging in the window.

It was a simple meal. Ian had the chicken with snow peas sans carrots. It looked good. Since Ian doesn't eat mushrooms, I ate them.



I had roast duck and noodle soup. Yum. And, cheap, too—my whole meal only cost $5.50.

Thai Coast Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

This weekend, Leo and I went to dinner at Thai Coast Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue in the far West End. It was a much better experience than our first visit on April 13 last year. The dining room has been redecorated in light, airy pastels with a contemporary feel, the food was all excellent, and the service was very attentive and efficient. Leo thinks they must have had a change in management.

Leo started with a mai tai; it was orange instead of the red we were expecting. His first course was the tom yum, a lemongrass and seafood soup, he liked, though the sweet and sour was a little sweeter than he would have liked. His main course was called pad kee mao. He drank a bottle of Yuengling beer, a Vermont local brew, with his main course. We were intrigued by the English translation for pad kee mao: "drunken noodles." Since there was no alcohol listed in the ingredients on the menu, we asked the waitress what made them "drunken," and she explained to us the story of how a guy had been out having a good time and getting very drunk, and when he got home, he went into the kitchen to make something to eat, throwing in a little of everything and making it very hot and spicy. Thus was born "drunken noodles."

I had their fried calamari to start, washed down with a bottle of Singha Thai-style beer. The calamari was excellent, and they used such huge rings of squid that they looked almost like onion rings! Even with the larger size of the squid, it was still tender and delicious. My pad see-ew main course was a big plate of rice noodles with pork and broccoli.

It was a big dinner, even with just two courses, so we had to pass on dessert.

International House of Pancakes, Arlington, Va.

Last night, Ian and I were in the mood for something gourmet, so we hopped on the Metro and journeyed all the way out in Virginia to the Ballston stop where we went to The International House of Pancakes. It's a much smaller store than I'm used to seeing out in the heartland of the country, but it was still a typical IHOP experience. We walked across the street from the station to IHOP in a light, misty rain.

Ian had never before been to an IHOP. It was taking him a while to peruse the menu and take it all it, so while he was still deciding, we had the waitress bring us an appetizer sampler. The sampler, all fried, included some good onion rings; long, thin mozzarella sticks; and chicken fingers, with both marinara and honey-mustard sauces on the side.

Once we ordered, I got the country-fried steak with sausage gravy, French fries, and steamed broccoli. Ian got a platter with big cinnamon rolls sliced and turned into French toast and accompanied by both scrambled eggs and fried potatoes.

And I loved Ian's reaction to IHOP. He was enthralled! I'm sure we'll be back soon.