This is the month for national holidays and independence days. Canada Day was this past Tuesday. Today is our independence day. Bastille Day for the French is in a week. But there are others. Algeria and Venezuela are tomorrow. Argentina is the 9th. The Bahamas is the 10th. Iceland is the 17th. Colombia is the 20th. Belgium is the 21st. Peru is the 28th. It's a busy month for celebrating by eating national foods of independent countries!
Robert and I started celebrating the month last night with some French food, what with Bastille Day coming up, the unusual blend of French and English up in Canada, and the fondness of our founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson of Declaration of Independence fame) for French food, by dining at La Fourchette over in Adams-Morgan. Naturally, I've been there several times, but this was Robert's first visit.
They had foie gras with honey sauce on their daily menu that I tried to get Robert to order.....he was tempted, but the $18.50 price tag (more than most main courses) gave him pause; ultimately, it didn't matter, as they were out of the foie gras by the time we got there. It did put him in the mood for liver, though, so he ordered the pork liver pâté maison. Alas, they were out of that, too!
He consoled himself with summer soup, though. One of the daily specials was chilled vichyssoise, so we both got bowls of that. It was quite good, though not what I was expecting. I thought the taste reminded me of sour cream and onion potato chips, because they opted to use crème fraîche instead of regular cream. I also deduced points on technical grounds because our soup bowls and spoons had not been chilled.
Part of the fun of going to French restaurants is that the French eat foods we Americans normally don't think of as edible (at least for humans), like snails and fungus (truffles). Robert and I both got main courses likely to draw some "icks" and "yucks" from some of my readers.
Robert selected the ris de veau, a spectacular dish of veal sweetbreads (thymus gland) sauteed with mushrooms, shallots, and cream. A hand-carved potato, a duxelles-topped tomato half, and a couple of little bundles of haricots verts held together with a carrot band adorned the plate. It all looked very nice, and Robert liked the dish a lot, so much so that he used up all the bread to sop up all the remaining cream sauce.
I got the langue de veau, an absolutely exquisite slice of braised veal tongue in a light sauce moutarde. The tongue was fork-tender and had a lovely delicate flavor. The same vegetables as Robert had came with my meal, too. With our meal, we shared a carafe of the house chardonnay.
Robert wasn't in a salad mood, so we forewent the salad course.
Our waiter brought over the dessert tray with way too many delicious and tempting options. I got the ile flottante "floating island," a meringue floating atop crème anglaise scented with almond. Robert was going to get the poached pear, but decided he wanted something that looked "different" from mine, and chose the crêpes. He got two crêpes, each folded in half, and filled with crème patisserie, then sautéed in butter and brandy.
Such a lovely dinner! I could eat French foods all the time, if only more of my friends liked French food.
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