Carrabba's Italian Grill, Cockeysville, Md.

Yesterday I made an official visitation as grand commander of D.C. to Cockeysville, Md., where the Maryland State Association of DeMolay Chapters held its annual Honors Day to confer the Degree of Chevalier and the Legion of Honor. After the ceremony, Peter and his friends and I went to a nearby Carrabba's Italian Grill for a combination breakfast/lunch/early supper. I was surprised that none of them had ever been to a Carrabba's before. It's one of those national chains, this one based out of Houston, and I always think of them as being a little better than a Macaroni Grill or an Olive Garden.

Peter's friend's ex-girlfriend's boyfriend and I both had the manicotti. Peter's friend and Peter's friend's ex-girlfriend both had the mezzaluna, a half-moon shaped chicken ravioli. Peter had the lobster ravioli. All of our meals came with salads.



We'd grabbed little pastries at the reception following the investitures, so we didn't end up ordering dessert at the restaurant. The others were all driving back to New York and we were off to D.C.

Annie's Paramount Steakhouse, Washington, D.C.

In a completely different neighborhood across town, it's a different world. I had midnight brunch at a neighborhood place called Annie's Paramount Steakhouse the weekend before this last one. I got a cheeseburger and fries. I particularly like their fries. They are thick, very crispy on the outside, and soft as air on the inside. Robert was in a more gourmet mood. He ordered the prime rib. For his sides, he got a baked potato and some steamed carrots (in big coins, or "bonne femme"). I was pleasantly surprised to see with the recent menu changes that the prime rib now automatically comes with Yorkshire pudding.



I always like eating at Annie's, and their all-night dining on Friday and Saturday nights is especially nice. They recently remodeled the dining room and added an upscale room upstairs, but I have to confess I really preferred the old, run-down place.

Eddie's, Washington, D.C.

Another local Chinese carry out is Eddie's, a place that also includes some limited inside dining space. The owner has practically papered the walls with photos of him posing with various political and military celebrities and officials. I had a pork lo mein, and it was a very large serving.

Golden China, Washington, D.C.

This neighborhood has a lot of places that probably do more business as carry-out, instead of dine-in, which is something I don't really understand, but I guess it's a holdover from pre-gentrification years. One of those places is Golden China, an unexpectedly good place on Georgia Avenue.

Here are some of the things they offer. They have a nice cold sesame noodle appetizer that's so large it's easily an entree. The noodles are, of course, cold, and served in a soy dressing with sesame seeds and chopped scallions. Surprisingly tasty.


They also cater to a Latino clientele, so deep fried plantain chips are on the menu. I got some and found them almost addictive, though they need to take a cue from the Latino community and provide a dipping sauce like bean dip or sour cream. And, one big surprise on the menu was "pato con arroz," duck with rice, a fusion of Chinese and Latino cultures. I had to get it. The duck was fabulous. And it only cost me $6.95.

Smith & Wollensky, Washington, D.C.

Kevin and I went to lunch this past week at Smith & Wollensky, one of the top steakhouses in town. When we got there, though, neither of us ordered steak!

Kevin was feeling experimental and tried their chili shrimp flatbread, a sort of pizza made with a long rectangular piece of flatbread. It looked quite intriguing, but I don't think the spicy shrimp and avocado filled Kevin's saiety needs.



I had the chicken chopped salad. It was quite good, though I thought it was rather too sweet.



Beforehand, Kevin had a bowl of their soup of the day, a nice bacon scented pea soup garnished with croutons.

Afterwards, we split the sorbet, picking two scoops of pear and one of coconut. Kevin really liked the pear; I really liked the coconut.

Sushi Aoi, Washington, D.C.

My friend Brian took me to lunch the other day at Sushi Aoi near the Washington Convention Center. I've been by the place innumerable times, but this was the first time I'd ever been inside to eat. It was fun.

Now, Sushi Aoi is a full-service sushi bar, and everything looked fresh and nice, but we both ended up ordering the very same bento box luncheon special, the pork syogayaki. The syogayaki is a large serving of thinly sliced pork lightly grilled then tossed in a sweet ginger sauce and served topped with cooked onions. Our bento boxes also included a California sushi roll, gzozas (vegetable dumplings), and a little iceberg lettuce salad, plus steamed white rice garnished with black sesame seeds.



The boxes came with miso soup to start. I had a hot green tea, and Brian had iced tea.

Here's Brian with his Kody Pose:

Taste of Morocco, Silver Spring, Md.

For the contrast, we also tried and considered Moroccan food from Taste of Morocco in Silver Spring, Md. I've eaten before at their location in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, but this is the first I've been to the Silver Spring location. Silver Spring is larger and the decor is more elaborate, but I missed the infectious enthusiasm and constant encouragements to taste new things from the proprietor at Clarendon.

The food is always good at Taste of Morocco. We opted to share a "Zenata" Moroccan feast for two.

The meal opened with a "royal salad," a combination of their four main salads, a cucumber and tomato in vinaigrette salad, eggplant and tomato sauce salad, baba ghannouge ( eggplant with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic), and hummos. The hummos was my favorite.

Next came a chicken bastilla, a delicious dish that I think is unique to Morocco. Using round disks of phyllo dough, they stuff the bastilla with chicken, almonds, and onions, bake the rounds, then dust them with cinnamon confectioner's sugar before serving. The combination is sweet but mouthwateringly good.



Next came the main course, the royal couscous. I've long been a fan of couscous, and what they make here in unusually fine and delicate. Couscous, of course, is tiny, tiny pieces of semolina pasta that is indigenous to Morocco, but it's been exported to France, where it's popular there much as regular pastas from Italy are here in the U.S. In this version, the couscous serves as a bed for a saffron-scented stew of lamb shank, lamb merguez sausage, roasted chicken, and seven vegetables. I thought it interesting that the vegetables included acorn squash—a vegetable indigenous to the Americas—but the squash was delicious in the combination.

For dessert, our waitress brought us a platter of assorted Moroccan pastries, the exact identities of which I have no clue. They were good, being mostly of the dry, crunchy cookie variety. The waitress made a show of pouring our Moroccan mint tea (a lovely but very sweet, hot, mint tea) into clear glass drinking glasses to have with our desserts.





I enjoyed our meal at Taste of Morocco, though I thought the service was a bit off, an unusual thing since it was hardly busy in there due to the heavy rainstorms that day. It's not that they were inattentive, because they were there tending to us often, I think it was just the finer points. For example, we had but one set of knife, fork, and spoon, and in between courses, even if they were dirty, the waitress would take them off our plates and set them back down on the table so we could reuse them for the next course.

Jyoti Indian Cuisine, Washington, D.C.

We're thinking about doing Indian food at lodge for Columbus Day next week, so we're having to do some research, trying Indian foods and looking for a good Metro-accessible source for Indian sauces and/or spices.

This past week, we went to Jyoti Indian Cuisine in Adams-Morgan, and found not only good food, but some great prices. They had a special that amounted basically to a thali platter, and we were stuffed for less than $10 each.

The plates arrived with a mold of yellow and white rice in the center, surrounded by five little containers of various foods. Starting at the 10 o'clock position and proceeding counter-clockwise, we had:

• Chicken Masala, a dish of tandoori-roasted chicken slowly simmered in sauce and spices;
• Mater Paneer, green peas with little chunks of homemade Indian farmer cheese;
• Chana Masala, chickpeas and potatoes cooked in sauce and spices (yet spicier and different than the chicken version);
• Dhan Saag, spinach with yellow lentils;
• Raita, a cooling yogurt and cucumber dish that's really more of a condiment than a dish

I washed mine down with a couple of cups of hot chai tea, a spiced tea and milk drink. Their version is milder than many I've had, though I think it would have been better just a little hotter.

With the meal, we were brought two enormous pieces of naan bread that were unusually good.



It was a great lunch, and very much well worth the price.

Fried pickles

Every had fried dill pickle slices?

We had some the other day at Hooter's. I thought they were pretty good; Robert didn't find them to his gourmet tastes. I'm used to them, though; when I was a child, they used to be on the menu at Sonic Drive-Ins in several of the small towns in Oklahoma.

Hooter's version has very spicy dipping sauce. Yum.