Roof Terrace Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

After Friday night's concert, we all went upstairs at the Kennedy Center to the Roof Terrace Restaurant for dessert. The Roof Terrace is the "fine dining" destination amongst the Kennedy Center food spots, but it's not a place I regularly go. In fact, last night was the first time in nearly thirty years that I ate there.

What's the problem? Well, I think it's a matter of complacency, since the Kennedy Center is off by itself along the river, and there aren't any other restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Aside from one mediocre place across the street at the Watergate, everything else is either several blocks' walk away, or even farther away in Georgetown or in the West End. With a captive audience, they were just used to offering quick, overly expensive food with no real passion or flair. They've recently acquired a new chef de cuisine and a new pastry chef, though, so I thought I would give them a try.

I'm sad to report that I didn't really notice a whole lot of improvement. The concepts were intriguing, but the execution remains cursed with the uncertainties of attendance and the need for immediate food production to turn all those tables before curtain time. Now, perhaps I should try a full dinner sometime (any rich people want to volunteer to take me?), but based on the dessert performance, I'm going to continue to eat before I come to the Kennedy Center.

The bulk of the Roof Terrace crowd is in the 5 to 8 p.m. time slot when people are getting ready to go to a show. After our concert, the place only had a handful of tables occupied, so we had no trouble whatsoever getting a table for five with no reservations. We had a lovely view of the river and the Georgetown harbor from our seats. I thought the hostess and waiters were all very professional and there was plenty of staff on hand to see to our needs. The problems were in the mass production of the food.

Ryan got the milk chocolate banana cream pie with chocolate malt ice cream. The $11 it cost could have bought two entire pies back in Oklahoma, and this piece was a particularly small single serving. When I asked him his opinion, he gave a quick, "It was very good," which, when unelaborated, is his code phrase for okay, but certainly nothing to write home about.


Scott had the crème brulée. He reported that the crème was flavored with maple syrup. It came with some fat little pumpkin and ginger cookies, a few fresh berries, and a dollop of whipped cream. He said it was good, though "different," and I thought it had an attractive presentation. He also reported that the caramelized sugar crust on the top of the crème was cold, a sign that they had all been pre-made and not freshly broiled prior to service.



Where things were really disappointing, though, was with the beggar's pouches Robert and I ordered for our desserts. They looked beautiful on the plate, but they were such a let down. First of all, they were served cold. They really, really needed to have been served warm, fresh from the oven. Cold just didn't cut it. No crispness to them. And, the pastry used to form the cute little bags was tough and tasteless. The fall fruits inside the bag didn't really inspire me either. I think I tasted pear and apple, and there definitely were cranberries, but the thickening agent for the filling was blah, and, once again, really needed to be hot. Along with the pouch, we got a scoop of what was advertised as apple cider-caramel ice cream, but I couldn't really taste anything. It was garnished with a cute, thin slice of crispy, dried pineapple. They used interesting tear-shaped plates on which to serve.

Robert had an Irish coffee served in a proper glass that he seemed to find quite satisfactory. I had some delicious regular coffee, though I was rather perplexed at their method of service: it came in a small, individual-sized, French press pot, but there were no coffee grounds in the pot, and, hence, there was no cause whatsoever for the press. Odd.

Oh, did I mention that Laurent was a snob and just sat there texting and refusing to eat with us?

So, that was our Roof Terrace experience. Good thing I'd cooked us dinner beforehand. My fried pork chunks with milk gravy, boiled red potatoes, brown beans with tomatoes and onions, fresh spinach sauteed in bacon grease with minced garlic, and grape Jell-O are what got us through the night.

Bistro Français, Georgetown, D.C.

Any of you who've been in Bistro Français the past decade or two ever noticed this big poster up high on the wall in the window-side dining area? I finally took a picture of it last night.....does it look like Katie Couric to you?

Once Laurent and I had pushed our way through the Georgetown Hallowe'en crowds last night and made our way into the heart of the party district, we stopped into Bistro Français for a brief respite. I'm starting to think that Bistro Français is becoming my Hallowe'en night tradition! :-/

They do have this convenient 10:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. "early bird special" (they also have one from like 5-7 p.m.) offering a three course meal plus a glass of wine for just $20, so that seemed as good as anything.

"Superman" Laurent started off with the mousse de foie de volaille au sherry a pâté-like mousse of chicken liver served with French cornichons and potentially spreadable on the restaurant's baguette bread. It always amuses me when he orders pâtés and things like this mousse, since he professes to violently dislike fried liver and onions because of the taste.


I got the moules niçoise, about seven or eight mussels with butter, garlic, and black olives that had been baked just a hair too long, but were still flavorful.


We both ended up with fish for our main courses. Laurent chose the thon mariné au poivre vert, a grilled tuna steak served with a salad, and I got one of the daily specials, a grilled sea bass on a mirror of Nantua (lobster) sauce with mashed potatoes and this delicious little leek custard timbale.



While we were dining, a small party came in for dinner that included Tarzan, clad only in his breechcloth and a really, really bad wig. At least he was one of the few bare torsoed revelers last night who actually had the body for the costume. However, Tarzan wasn't willing to put on a shirt, so I think the manager asked them to leave.

The waiter brought around the pastry tray for our dessert selections. Laurent got a lemon tart and I got a surprisingly good apple tart.



We walked home after dinner and the streets were still full of people running around and being wild and crazy. Just another Hallowe'en in Georgetown.

Thai Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

Last night while Ryan was off to watch the infamous annual high heels race, Laurent and I stayed home to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on television, then we walked up to Thai Kitchen to take advantage of their late weeknight dinner specials.

Laurent started with the tom kha soup, mushrooms, chicken, and vegetables in a spicy hot and sweet coconut milk broth.


I did the Hallowe'en version of the same, the tom kha pumpkin, a vegetarian version with tofu and chunks of fresh pumpkin. It's a nice soup, though a little milder than usual, I thought.


For his main course, Laurent got the pad kra tiem prik Thai, a beef dish with roasted garlic and a brown sauce, artfully decorated with halves cherry tomatoes on carved cucumber slices.


I got the gaeng dang, a red curry (thinking red was the color of blood—very appropriate for Hallowe'en Eve!) with pork, bamboo, tomatoes, and fresh basil, and garnished with sauteed zucchini slices. Both dishes came with steamed white rice.



Laurent did his obligatory Kody Pose™ with his Thai iced tea, which also gave him the chance to model his Hallowe'en costume and his freshly painted orange fingernails!

The Wild Fork, Tulsa, Okla.

Tulsa was a mess Saturday. It was the time of the annual Tulsa Run, so the downtown and Brookside streets were all in various states of closure to accommodate the crowds of runners and spectators, much the same as D.C. is today with the Marine Corps Marathon (and why I stayed home from church this morning). That notwithstanding, amidst all the mess and uncertainty, my parents drove me to Tulsa yesterday morning and dropped me off at Tony's apartment so he and I could be social and go eat before I flew home to Washington. There were several places Tony and I wanted to go for brunch, but we couldn't get through the police lines and the runners. We did, eventually, make it to the Palace Cafe over on Cherry Street, one of my very favorite places in Tulsa, but they were closed for brunch, and not planning to open until 5 p.m. Alas. Then we tried to make it down to the plethora of restaurants (including several new ones) in Brookside, but the main street going through Brookside was part of the run route, so that precluded that idea.

So, we ended up in the once-exclusive shopping center Utica Square at The Wild Fork by default. Tony likes the place a lot (largely, I think, because his sister works there), my cousin goes there a bunch, and it was the site of important events in Ryan's life (I think the last time he and I went in early 2004 was the last time I ate there), but I've always been rather lukewarm to the place. I should probably be more tolerant of the establishment, since a women who went to elementary school with me, owns and runs the place in conjunction with the oil company that owns Utica Square and others, but my early experiences there always left something to be desired.

In fact, about a decade ago when I was writing professional restaurant reviews for a Tulsa newspaper, I expressed on the first anniversary of the restaurant my complete surprise that they were still open and in business. You see, when they first opened, it was at the height of that awful "world fusion" phase of culinary endeavor, and the young women running the place didn't have the flair to pull off fusion. I had meals there where wonderful ingredients had been well prepared, but then combined into hideous food abominations that I found very depressing. I always thought that they were trying too hard to be too creative. Somehow, though, they had the oil company's money behind them, and that got them through those difficult early years until we grew out of that fusion fad and the menus metamorphosized into something more appropriate for Tulsa tastes. They've continued to evolve to the point that I would now describe the food as upscale Oklahoman and contemporary American.

So, I acquiesced to the Wild Fork, not expecting much. The food was actually much better than I anticipated. The prices remain very expensive for Tulsa, though no longer shocking to me after my D.C. tenure. The service is still very, very slow—that much hasn't changed. They aren't as snooty as they used to be, though.

Even though the place was busy both inside and out, we immediately got a table, since they had a two-top in the middle dining room (the people standing in line were in larger groups). I was immediately struck by the art in this room. Now, for years when this place first opened, they were just as noted for their unusual art as they were for their unusual food. One dining room had an entire wall of identically shaped female torso molds that had each been differently and fantastically painted. Well, what was it that struck my eye on this visit? Paintings. Large, over-sized canvases, a series specially commissioned by the Wild Fork, each depicting.....semi-trailer trucks.



We started off ordering bloody Marys. Tony was very much in need of some hair-of-the-dog. It took forever for them to arrive, and the refills took even longer! The official excuse on the refills, though, was that they had to make more bloody mix. The drinks were okay. They didn't poor heavily and they forgot that bloodies are supposed to have celery sticks and no olives, but otherwise they were drinkable.

All the waiting time, though, gave us plenty of time to talk business. Tony is a production editor for an oil and gas industry publishing house, and one of my specialty areas when I do copy editing and proofreading is petroleum engineering textbooks and petroleum industry trade publications.

And, Tony, who was the one who introduced me to Kody years ago, did his own Kody Pose™ with his bloody Mary!



Finally, the food arrived. Tony had the Atlantic salmon frittata, a big, plate-sized item some of which he had to take home in a doggy bag. It appeared to include potatoes, tomatoes, green onions, and Italian cheese, and a biscuit and gravy came on the side. He obviously liked it, since he chose to take the leftovers home (though I suspect that he has ordered that before!).


I had two scrambled eggs with chicken-fried steak, cheese grits, and a biscuit and gravy, and this is where I was so unexpectedly, pleasantly surprised with the evolution of the food. The grits were dreamy—smooth, velvety, rich, redolent with cheese, and wonderfully good. The gravy was flavorful, creamy, and very well seasoned. And, the steak was fork-tender and covered in a very nice, well balanced and spiced, breading that was light yet perfect for the dish. They used the same gravy on the steak as for the biscuits.


After the meal, Tony had coffee.

So, I made it through my Wild Fork dining experience, but it went well enough that I won't mind having to eat there again in the future. And, if Tony can get recipes from his sister, I'll be especially happy.