Cafe La Ruche, Georgetown, D.C.

This past weekend Scott and I had a little late night dinner at Café La Ruche in lower Georgetown. I always like La Ruche because it is unpretentious and it generally is not on the radar screens of the typical Georgetown tourists. The food, too, is always consistent.

We managed to get a pleasant table on their outdoor patio, and we started off with a bottle of Ferrande Sauvignon Blanc, a white bordeaux. The Ferrande certainly isn't a great wine, but it was adequate for our purposes, and the light, crisp, slightly-grapefruit essence paired well with our food, though it's a sufficiently light wine that it probably wouldn't stand up to heavier foods or flavors.

Scott began his snack with a bowl of soupe au crabe, a crab soup that reminded me of the tomato-broth based Maryland style soups we often see around here, though without the harsh hot spices.

I got one of my favorites, an artichaut vinaigrette. Their version used a very large artichoke that was already largely disassembled in the kitchen. It came with a handmade mayonnaise dipping sauce.

We both ended up ordering the same thing for our main course, a croque monsieur sandwich, the French version of a ham and cheese sandwich that features a classic white sauce before being popped under the broiler. It came with a side salad dressed in a simple vinaigrette.

Dessert, of course, required a trip to the dessert case to make a personal selection. Scott ended up with a simple cheesecake garnished with slices of fresh orange, kiwi, strawberry, and some blueberries all in whipped cream. I had a slice of tarte banane au choclat, the banana tart with a big swoosh of chocolate icing and half a caramelized banana all on puff pastry, which I washed down with a little cup of espresso.

So, that was our little snack. Afterwards, we strolled down M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue back into town.

Tishri

Last night was the Feast of Tishri at the D.C. Scottish Rite Center. The Council of Kadosh hosted the feast in basically what amounted to a table lodge format. Twas lots of fun, and the food was excellent. They used Atlantic Catering, the same group that did our heavy hors d'oeuvres and raw bar last Saturday night.

In between nine toasts during the evening (slosh, slosh), our menu began with individual Caesar salads. Then for the main course, they passed bowls and platters family style, giving us our choice (I think most everyone's choice was to take one of everything) of crab cakes, filet mignon, or stuffed chicken breast. I had the crab and filet, including seconds on both. The crab and filet were both delicious—I saw them making these things in the kitchen earlier in the afternoon. They were roasting whole beef tenderloins and slicing them into individual filets, and they'd make up a little bit of gravy to help keep the meat moist whilst waiting to serve. Along with the meal we had roasted garlic mashed potatoes and green beans amandine. I loved the green beans. They were in lots of butter and the almond slices had been toasted and heavily seasoned before being scattered on the beans.

For dessert, I had the cheesecake, though there was also a chocolate layer cake as an option. They also served coffee with dessert, though I was a little disappointed that instead of those little packets of half and half, they used liquid CoffeeMate.

With dinner and for our toasts, our table drank a Domaine Saint Martin Saint Véran 2005 white burgundy for our white and Agua de Piedra Gran Reserva Malbec 2005, a fine wine from the Mendoza region of Argentina, for our red. I stuck with the red for the evening, and the malbec was very nice with the filet. It had nice complexity with a dark berry nose and a smoothness that was unexpected for a South American red. Kevin made us get the bottle of white for him, but then once we got it, he didn't drink it, so Peter finished it off.

As we left for the evening, we were given these nice gold-embossed red bags with fruit and nuts—mine had an apple, an orange, a plum, a bag of trail mix, and a little packet of customized M & M's in the evening's colors of red and yellow.

Vegetable offenses

If people are going to use French, they really, really must start using it correctly! I mean, look at this picture! Not only did they misspell bean (haricot) but they pluralized the adjective without pluralizing the noun!