Filomena has been around for a couple of decades or so and it quickly became one of the most popular Italian eateries, not only in Georgetown, but throughout the city. It's a comfortable place that teeters on the brink of being maudlin and kitschy as it attempts to make patrons "feel like you've come home to an Italian grandma" with its lace placemats and homey, folksy wall hangings and decor, but this is a sin I'm willing to forgive because the food is unpretentious, well prepared, and always delicious.
That comfortable feeling leads people into relaxing and letting their wine release their ebullence that, coupled with the size of the large dining room, creates a raucous hubbub of happy diners. In other words, this is a loud restaurant. And we managed to get a table in a particularly loud section, near a long, long table of young women holding a bachelorette party that, judging from some of the adult gifts I was seeing on their table and the obviously enormously large amount of alcohol they had drunk, probably should have been hosted in a private dining room or perhaps, even better (especially considering the rather "slutty"-looking wardrobe choices of most of these young women), in a private residence. I suppose, though, it was just part of the "love" ambiance in Filomena last night, as they were fully decorated for Wednesday's St. Valentine's Day.
With the noise level last night and because they put our party of eight at a long table instead of one of the round ones, it was hard for me to hear what everybody was ordering and get their opinions of their food, so I'll just have to do what I can here.
For our first courses, Joe and Evelyn shared a plate of arancini, racquetball-sized, golden brown spheres of rice stuffed with meat and cheese, accompanied by a red sauce. Susan took one and tried it, then told me about their Christmas Eve family tradition of making softball-sized arancini.
Ryan chose the mozzarella in carrozza, some interesting triangularly-shaped pieces of mozzarella cheese breaded and deep-fried, then served with a spicy marinara sauce.
Mary and I both had salads. She had the insalatina di stagione, a plate of mesclun greens tossed with gorgonzola cheese crumbles, toasted pecans, and a balsamic vinaigrette.
I did the insalata di lattuga, featuring Bibb lettuce and tender, juicy endive mixed with fennel, green and black olives, and shavings of parmesan cheese dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. It was nice, and made up for the disappointment of them being out of the tomato and bread soup of the day.
Meanwhile, since everyone wanted a different kind of wine, we all ended up doing by-the-glass selections instead of a couple of full bottles. I had a very nice chianti classico, but I don't recall what everybody else had (although I'm pretty sure Ryan had a merlot).
Joe's Kody Pose™
Soon, our main courses came. Joe and Evelyn both liked the idea of "pocket pastas." She had a lovely looking agnolotti alla panna, with the pasta stuffed with spinach and cheese and covered in a white cream sauce. He had a more traditional looking ravioli di pollo featuring chicken-stuffed ravioli in red sauce.
Mary chose the fish of the day, a grilled mahi-mahi topped with a tapenade of capers, tomatoes, and olives.
Her sister Susan ordered a manicotti, and seemed to have gotten the canelloni classico. Now, in Italy, I'm pretty sure that manicotti and cannelloni are essentially synonymous terms, meaning a rectangular sheet of pasta wrapped around a usually-cheese-based filling in the shape of a tube, then sauced and baked, though I often see dried pasta in pre-formed large tubes in grocery stores labelled "manicotti." Her cannelloni were topped with bolognese sauce and white cheese.
Ryan, extravagant as usual, ordered the most expensive entree at the table, a luscious-looking linguini cardinale—"linguini for the cardinal archbishops". Cardinals of the Church are known for their scarlet red vestments, so this dish was reddened with a lobster rosé cream sauce and large, bright red chunks of lobster tail.
My dish was equally exquisite, the vitello allo filomena, their version of a veal marsala. It was delicious! Three veal cutlets were pounded thin into scallopines, then stuffed with prosciutto ham, fontina cheese, and fresh sage, then sautéed before being topped and finished with a marsala wine reduction sauce scented with shiitake mushrooms.
Giving us a short respite before presenting the dessert menus, our waiter next took coffee and espressi orders and brought us decanters of complimentary Sambucca and amaretto. We all got little miniature brandy snifters and he gave us coffee beans for the Sambucca (it's a tradition to put three beans in the Sambucca glass). Now, I rather detest the taste of licorice, so I passed on the Sambucca most of the others were drinking, and Susan, Ryan, and I had amaretto.
Then came dessert. Filomena is well-known for its bakery and even offers whole cakes for shipment via an Internet Web site. The dessert menu is bigger than the dinner menu, since it includes large, mouth-watering photographs of each dessert item.
Evelyn had the tiramisu. Ryan and Susan each had a "cookies n' cream" white chocolate mousse cake. I had the strawberry cheese cake. None of us needed it, but we ate it anyway.
Finally, it was time to wake the kids and head out. We got them into their taxis (hailing taxis is cut-throat business on a Georgetown weekend night!), then Ryan and I walked on home. I don't know where they'll tour or eat today....Thursday night they were at Cafe Milano, yesterday they breakfasted with me at Old Ebbitt, then they lunched at Rosa Mexicana before our dinner at Filomena. I've given them the names of a number of good Asian restaurants for today, so we'll just have to see what they end up doing. One thing about Washington, though, there's never a shortage of restaurants!
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