One of my organizations had a dinner meeting last night in the upstairs "fiesta room" at Guapo's Restaurant in the Tenleytown neighborhood. While I didn't write a review about it, I'd eaten in their main dining room once before about two years ago, and it's okay Tex-Mex food. It's a small chain of about eight restaurants in the D.C. metropolitan area. This particular store is right on top of the Tenleytown Metro stop.
As always, they put out lots of baskets of chips and salsa. I didn't nibble on much, because I was talking to lots of people, but I recall larger chunks of onion and bigger pieces of fresh cilantro leaves in the salsa.
For my main course, I got the chiles rellenos. These are made by taking some of those big, dark green peppers and stuffing them with Monterrey Jack cheese, which are then breaded and fried, then covered with ranchero sauce and more cheese before serving. They were plated with seasoned rice and a leaf of lettuce with sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo; a bowl of brown beans was on the side. I wasn't able to pay a lot of attention to the food, but I remember the chiles had good flavor and were very consistent with what one would expect at a Tex-Mex chain restaurant (my favorite chiles rellenos are actually New Mexican-style, but that truly is a very different culinary genre than Tex-Mex).
The guys on either side of me both had fajitas. They sizzled and made a lot of noise.
It just occurred to me this morning that nobody ordered dessert! That's too bad, cause they have good cheesecake chimichangas here (cheesecake wrapped up in a tortilla and then deep fried), not to mention tres leches cake.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Grill from Ipanema, Washington, D.C.
Still hungry and vaguely dissatisfied after our Tuesday night dinner "experience" at Left Bank, we wandered about Adams-Morgan a while, looking at the sights, and trying to decide if we wanted to get something else to eat. Laurent wasn't much help in the matter: he has the body of an underwear model, yet he can (and does) eat twice as much food as can I, and naturally, he was game for another meal. So, we did it. Thinking after our meagre sushi meal we'd need something substantial, we went to a Brazilian place, The Grill from Ipanema. We should have gone there in the first place. It was great!
Now, they weren't exactly offering dinner for two, either, but they did offer two hearty appetizers and two of their exotic Brazilian cocktails. This prompted me upon my return home to review the promotional materials, and the flyer actually said "food and drink for two," not "dinner," so I guess that lets places off the hook. We'll just have to go to places on the other end of the price scale instead of the more expensive venues if we want a full meal.
Anyway, The Grill is a nice, white tablecloth restaurant with formally attired waiters, and it was busy. Brazilians like their beef, so there was a very hearty menu, and the place smelled wonderful with all the sizzling meats.
We started with a couple of caipirinhas, cocktails that can best be described as Brazilian margaritas. They are made with a traditional Brazilian liquor crafted from fermented sugar cane called cachaça, lime juice, and sugar. I've had caipirinhas at various places around town, and these were, by far, the best.
Laurent had never had a caipirinha before, so we decided to maintain the adventure with our food choices, picking things he'd never eaten.
Our first appetizer was the carne de sol com mandioca, some fried cubes of sun-dried beef and fried cubes of yuca. Yuca is a big, ugly, starchy root that is very popular in South and Central America and in the Carribbean, serving as an alternative to potatoes. The sun-drying had the nice effect of concentrating the beef flavor, and these morsels were quite tasty. A very hot, green dipping sauce accompanied.
Our second appetitzer was jacaré ao pantanal. Some surprisingly tender alligator was cut into small strips, breaded, and deep fried. I've had alligator many times before, and sometimes it can be tough, chewy, and a bit fishy tasting, but this was really good. They served the alligator pieces atop a big green salad with lots of green olives, and it came with a slightly spicy, sweet dipping sauce.
At this point, we'd had plenty to eat, but we were really enjoying this restaurant and the food was excellent. So, we ordered dessert. We didn't need it (well, certainly I didn't), but we did. And I'm glad. They were yummy.
Laurent ordered the Brazilian-style cheesecake. What he got wasn't what either of us expected. It looked very much like a cheesy flan drenched in guava (a Central American fruit) sauce and garnished with fresh strawberries and kiwifruit. I sampled a tiny bit, and it was, indeed, a cheesecake, but definitely not the "New York" style we're used to around here.
I ordered the mousse de maracujá, a passionfruit mousse, which is a very common dessert item in Brazil. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it to describe it here.
We will definitely go back to The Grill from Ipanema.
Now, they weren't exactly offering dinner for two, either, but they did offer two hearty appetizers and two of their exotic Brazilian cocktails. This prompted me upon my return home to review the promotional materials, and the flyer actually said "food and drink for two," not "dinner," so I guess that lets places off the hook. We'll just have to go to places on the other end of the price scale instead of the more expensive venues if we want a full meal.
Anyway, The Grill is a nice, white tablecloth restaurant with formally attired waiters, and it was busy. Brazilians like their beef, so there was a very hearty menu, and the place smelled wonderful with all the sizzling meats.
We started with a couple of caipirinhas, cocktails that can best be described as Brazilian margaritas. They are made with a traditional Brazilian liquor crafted from fermented sugar cane called cachaça, lime juice, and sugar. I've had caipirinhas at various places around town, and these were, by far, the best.
Laurent had never had a caipirinha before, so we decided to maintain the adventure with our food choices, picking things he'd never eaten.
Our first appetizer was the carne de sol com mandioca, some fried cubes of sun-dried beef and fried cubes of yuca. Yuca is a big, ugly, starchy root that is very popular in South and Central America and in the Carribbean, serving as an alternative to potatoes. The sun-drying had the nice effect of concentrating the beef flavor, and these morsels were quite tasty. A very hot, green dipping sauce accompanied.
Our second appetitzer was jacaré ao pantanal. Some surprisingly tender alligator was cut into small strips, breaded, and deep fried. I've had alligator many times before, and sometimes it can be tough, chewy, and a bit fishy tasting, but this was really good. They served the alligator pieces atop a big green salad with lots of green olives, and it came with a slightly spicy, sweet dipping sauce.
At this point, we'd had plenty to eat, but we were really enjoying this restaurant and the food was excellent. So, we ordered dessert. We didn't need it (well, certainly I didn't), but we did. And I'm glad. They were yummy.
Laurent ordered the Brazilian-style cheesecake. What he got wasn't what either of us expected. It looked very much like a cheesy flan drenched in guava (a Central American fruit) sauce and garnished with fresh strawberries and kiwifruit. I sampled a tiny bit, and it was, indeed, a cheesecake, but definitely not the "New York" style we're used to around here.
I ordered the mousse de maracujá, a passionfruit mousse, which is a very common dessert item in Brazil. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it to describe it here.
We will definitely go back to The Grill from Ipanema.
Left Bank, Washington, D.C.
It's the first part of the month again, so it was time for the second "1stuesday" promotion in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, where we get dinner for two for only $25.00. We had such a good time last month, we headed up again to explore other new restaurants.
The place we'd wanted to go, Perry's, was closed for a private party. Alas. So, we walked on down to 18th Street and entered Left Bank, an ecclectic American bistro with a sushi bar (an odd combination that seems to be popular in Adams-Morgan).
There was hardly anyone there. Our waitress sneaked in the door right behind us. There were only a few people at the bar, and once we were seated, we were the only table in the dining room. By the time we left, they had three more tables filed and several more at the bar, but the place was far from busy.
The dining room is a great, big, open, emotionally sterile room decorated in the new "trendy" taupe look seen in some D.C. restaurants and clubs. A very large bar sits in the center of the room, and in the very back by the restrooms is a small sushi preparation bar. Along the sides of the walls are these enormous three-top booths at tables so large, intimate conversation was impossible, and I felt during the meal that my dinner companion was at the far end of a long table. In the spaces between the booths and the bar were little skinny two-top tables that were so small, I don't see how they'd squeeze in two dinner plates and two cocktails.
The menu was very impressive, with a lot of nice looking entrees in the $20-something range. They also had a substantial cocktail and mixed drink list. Tuesdays are "Smirnoff Night," so any drink made with Smirnoff vodkas is only $5. The 1stuesday menu, though, was disappointingly very limited: one order of the sushi and sushi roll combination plate (an entree for one) and two tastes of different cold sakes (one clear, one unfiltered) for each diner. Period. No substititions. No accommodations for non-drinkers. No "regular" food options that weren't sushi. Last month we went to a Japanese restaurant where we were expecting sushi, that place gave each of us a bowl of miso soup and a scoop of green tea ice cream in addition to our sushi and sake, but that was not the case at Left Bank. And, Tuesday night was the first noticeably cold night of the fall, and cold sake wasn't exactly what I wanted, but they weren't substituting hot sake for the cold (it isn't a matter of just heating the cold sake; different types of sake are meant to be served one way or the other, and they aren't versatile).
Well, we knew we weren't going to get full on half a plate of sushi each, so we opted to start with bloody Marys (Smirnoff Night, remember?) and an order of their hummus guacamole. I noticed that our waitress brought the bloodies and the sakes all at the same time, instead of saving the sake for the sushi. The hummus was different. It came in an oversized bowl with deep, lopsided edges, with a mound of the hummus in the bottom of the bowl and half a dozen slices of lightly toasted bread on the sides of the bowl (sorry about the picture, I forget to photograph it until we'd already eaten some of it). I think I was expecting more guacamole taste and green color; what we got was chickpea tan and tasted like a fairly bland hummus with little chunks of not terribly ripe avocado.
I also forgot to take a picture of the sushi plate, but, hey, how many times can you look at a picture of a routine plate of sushi? Now, the sushi nigiri (the slice of raw fish on a piece of rice) we got tasted very good and seemed nicely fresh. The sushi rolls, though, supposedly had three different varieties, but they all tasted boringly alike, save for one that tasted like the others but with some hot spice. We each got four pieces of sushi nigiri and six pieces of sushi roll, which I consider an appetizer, not a meal. When the waitress brought the sushi, she had to be reminded to bring the chopsticks, soy sauce, and the little dish for mixing the wasabi.
Once we finished eating, we just kind of looked at one another. We looked at the dessert menu, but nothing was inspiring. The emphasis at this restaurant is definitely on the liquor sales, not the food, and I had the impression from the waitress and all of the staff that they really couldn't care less if we were there or not. So, we decided to leave and move on to another establishment where we could get the taste of Left Bank out of our mouths.
The place we'd wanted to go, Perry's, was closed for a private party. Alas. So, we walked on down to 18th Street and entered Left Bank, an ecclectic American bistro with a sushi bar (an odd combination that seems to be popular in Adams-Morgan).
There was hardly anyone there. Our waitress sneaked in the door right behind us. There were only a few people at the bar, and once we were seated, we were the only table in the dining room. By the time we left, they had three more tables filed and several more at the bar, but the place was far from busy.
The dining room is a great, big, open, emotionally sterile room decorated in the new "trendy" taupe look seen in some D.C. restaurants and clubs. A very large bar sits in the center of the room, and in the very back by the restrooms is a small sushi preparation bar. Along the sides of the walls are these enormous three-top booths at tables so large, intimate conversation was impossible, and I felt during the meal that my dinner companion was at the far end of a long table. In the spaces between the booths and the bar were little skinny two-top tables that were so small, I don't see how they'd squeeze in two dinner plates and two cocktails.
The menu was very impressive, with a lot of nice looking entrees in the $20-something range. They also had a substantial cocktail and mixed drink list. Tuesdays are "Smirnoff Night," so any drink made with Smirnoff vodkas is only $5. The 1stuesday menu, though, was disappointingly very limited: one order of the sushi and sushi roll combination plate (an entree for one) and two tastes of different cold sakes (one clear, one unfiltered) for each diner. Period. No substititions. No accommodations for non-drinkers. No "regular" food options that weren't sushi. Last month we went to a Japanese restaurant where we were expecting sushi, that place gave each of us a bowl of miso soup and a scoop of green tea ice cream in addition to our sushi and sake, but that was not the case at Left Bank. And, Tuesday night was the first noticeably cold night of the fall, and cold sake wasn't exactly what I wanted, but they weren't substituting hot sake for the cold (it isn't a matter of just heating the cold sake; different types of sake are meant to be served one way or the other, and they aren't versatile).
Well, we knew we weren't going to get full on half a plate of sushi each, so we opted to start with bloody Marys (Smirnoff Night, remember?) and an order of their hummus guacamole. I noticed that our waitress brought the bloodies and the sakes all at the same time, instead of saving the sake for the sushi. The hummus was different. It came in an oversized bowl with deep, lopsided edges, with a mound of the hummus in the bottom of the bowl and half a dozen slices of lightly toasted bread on the sides of the bowl (sorry about the picture, I forget to photograph it until we'd already eaten some of it). I think I was expecting more guacamole taste and green color; what we got was chickpea tan and tasted like a fairly bland hummus with little chunks of not terribly ripe avocado.I also forgot to take a picture of the sushi plate, but, hey, how many times can you look at a picture of a routine plate of sushi? Now, the sushi nigiri (the slice of raw fish on a piece of rice) we got tasted very good and seemed nicely fresh. The sushi rolls, though, supposedly had three different varieties, but they all tasted boringly alike, save for one that tasted like the others but with some hot spice. We each got four pieces of sushi nigiri and six pieces of sushi roll, which I consider an appetizer, not a meal. When the waitress brought the sushi, she had to be reminded to bring the chopsticks, soy sauce, and the little dish for mixing the wasabi.
Once we finished eating, we just kind of looked at one another. We looked at the dessert menu, but nothing was inspiring. The emphasis at this restaurant is definitely on the liquor sales, not the food, and I had the impression from the waitress and all of the staff that they really couldn't care less if we were there or not. So, we decided to leave and move on to another establishment where we could get the taste of Left Bank out of our mouths.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Raku An Asian Bistro, Washington, D.C.
After our adventurous expedition to the Shrine at CUA this afternoon and after having to deal with the long waits on the under-repair red line, we were famished and before going home stopped off at Dupont Circle in quest of sustenance. We ended up at Raku An Asian Bistro, a pan-Asian concept restaurant by the noted restauranteur Mark Miller of Santa Fe's Coyote Cafe fame.
What with all the hype and the very passionate reviews—both pro and con—from various local food bloggers, I was actually rather happy with the quiet and peaceful cafe. We were seated at a corner booth with windows on both sides giving us nice views of the Dupont Circle foot traffic, and we were isolated a bit from the bustle of the sushi bar in the main dining room.
Many of the reviewers complained about the service, but I found our servers to be pleasant, efficient, and around when needed, so I had no displeasure there at all. My only "disappointment" was a menu issue: there is no regular iced tea, just some nasty peach flavored stuff.
We started by splitting an order of crispy calimari with Asian chile sauce. The squid was cut into strips instead of the traditional calimari rings. It was lightly battered and fried, but not fried crunchy enough to be "crispy" as it was called in the menu; I had no problem with that, though, as the squid was nicely tender.
For our main courses, Laurent chose the sushi and sushi roll combination platter. He got a nice assortment of sushi nigiri that included some eel, and several pieces of sushi rolls. The pickled gingerroot was fresh.
I had the dan dan noodles made of thick, egg-enriched, Asian-style spaghetti with some surprisingly hot ground pork stewed with Szechuan peppers, peanuts, and sesame topping the noodles and served with cilantro and julienned cucumber.
After the rather standard main courses, where the restaurant really shined was with the desserts. Laurent had a surprisingly tasty croissant pudding (think bread pudding) with ginger ice cream and crème anglaise and raspberry coulis and I had a very, very nice green tea crème brulée. The custard had a nice, intense green tea flavor and deep green color, and I was pleased to notice the caramelized sugar crust was warm, indicating that the dish had been freshly made to order. The top was garnished with a little mound of diced fresh strawberries.
What with all the hype and the very passionate reviews—both pro and con—from various local food bloggers, I was actually rather happy with the quiet and peaceful cafe. We were seated at a corner booth with windows on both sides giving us nice views of the Dupont Circle foot traffic, and we were isolated a bit from the bustle of the sushi bar in the main dining room.
Many of the reviewers complained about the service, but I found our servers to be pleasant, efficient, and around when needed, so I had no displeasure there at all. My only "disappointment" was a menu issue: there is no regular iced tea, just some nasty peach flavored stuff.We started by splitting an order of crispy calimari with Asian chile sauce. The squid was cut into strips instead of the traditional calimari rings. It was lightly battered and fried, but not fried crunchy enough to be "crispy" as it was called in the menu; I had no problem with that, though, as the squid was nicely tender.
For our main courses, Laurent chose the sushi and sushi roll combination platter. He got a nice assortment of sushi nigiri that included some eel, and several pieces of sushi rolls. The pickled gingerroot was fresh.
I had the dan dan noodles made of thick, egg-enriched, Asian-style spaghetti with some surprisingly hot ground pork stewed with Szechuan peppers, peanuts, and sesame topping the noodles and served with cilantro and julienned cucumber.
After the rather standard main courses, where the restaurant really shined was with the desserts. Laurent had a surprisingly tasty croissant pudding (think bread pudding) with ginger ice cream and crème anglaise and raspberry coulis and I had a very, very nice green tea crème brulée. The custard had a nice, intense green tea flavor and deep green color, and I was pleased to notice the caramelized sugar crust was warm, indicating that the dish had been freshly made to order. The top was garnished with a little mound of diced fresh strawberries.
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