Sin é, Arlington, VA

Never have dinner in an Irish pub when Notre Dame is playing Stanford. We made that mistake last night, and couldn't even hear ourselves chew!

Leo and I were trying to goad Ryan into eating something "ethnic" for dinner last night, and he kept wanting boring, plain, American food from national franchises. He just wouldn't do any of the Thai, Chinese, Lebanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Italian, or French places in the area around the mall at Pentagon City, or even Wolfgang Puck's California Fusion place, but I had an ace in the hole: Ryan isn't just Indian, he's also Irish and Scot (his family claims to be direct descendants of William Wallace of Braveheart fame), and there's an Irish restaurant and pub on Pentagon Row called Sin é.

Sin é (pronounced "shin-ay") is really more of a cross between a pub and a sports bar, but they do have a full menu with half a dozen Irish dinners, eight American dinners, and a full assortment of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, and wraps. The host found us a booth with really high walls around it to shelter us a bit from the bar noise and the television-in-every-room-turned-to-the-Notre-Dame-game environment of the evening. Leo had some kind of Samuel Adams on tap and Ryan and I drank iced Earl Grey tea while we pondered the multi-page menu.

We opted to share a couple of appetizers, and chose a basket of spicy fried calamari, small squid rings breaded and deep fried then served with what they called a garlic aioli but which tasted to me more like honey mustard dressing, and a huge plate of Irish Nachos, made with thickly sliced potato chips instead of tortilla chips which I just loved!

For main courses, which arrived just after the appetizers were delivered (so much for "courses"), Ryan had a bacon cheeseburger with a house salad, Leo had fish and chips (the fish pieces were huge and looked excellent), and I had a chopped club salad. My salad was ok, but failed on a couple of fussy technical points for qualifying as a true "chopped salad," and was really more of a normal mixed-lettuces-from-the-bag with diced fried chicken fingers and some avocado cubes tossed in ranch dressing salad.

While we didn't endulge, the dessert menu had some fabulous looking things on it, from a bread pudding with Irish whiskey sauce to a Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake to a chocolate hazelnut cake and others.

I plan to go back to Sin é. The food was good, the prices were quite reasonable, and the service was adequate. I'll just make a point to avoid Notre Dame football evenings!

Washing dishes

There must be a genetic difference between men and women when it come to washing dishes.

At family gatherings, just as soon as people leave the table, the womenfolk quickly sweep the dishes off the table and into the kitchen, where they all stand around to socialize and wash the dishes. It doesn't matter if a female guest is a non-family member or even a just-met acquaintance, her genetic conditioning will kick in and she will go into dishwashing mode. I think if a woman knew that dishes would be left out unwashed all night long, she would be positively apoplectic.

Men, on the other hand, are perfectly happy to leave the dishes on the table after a big meal, move into the living room, and promptly fall asleep. The idea of gravy drying on the china on the table doesn't bother them one little bit.

Last night after dinner, with great effort I made myself debone the turkey and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. This morning, all the dishes, pots, pans, bowls, and the turkey carcass were all waiting on the counter to greet us. Now, as I hear all my female readers gasping, let me explain my logic that by allowing all the pots and pans to soak over night, they were infinitely easier to clean this morning. We had to hand wash everything today, and it took over an hour! I suppose it's a record for all my dishes to be washed by noon on Friday, cause usually I would have run one dishwasher load a day, and it often takes three days to get everything washed. One of the challenges of tiny D.C. apartment kitchens is that we don't have a dishwasher!

Cooking in a miniature kitchen was a challenge, too. My little oven is just barely big enough to hold the turkey roasting pan. We also have very, very little counter space, so the great logistical challenge of the meal was just finding places to set things!

Ryan's simple "white trash" menu and recipe requests were surprisingly easy and quick to prepare. Other than having to pop the turkey in the oven for six hours, there was basically nothing else to do until about an hour before dinner time, when the hardest task was peeling a bag of potatoes. Ryan couldn't figure out what my boiled potatoes were when they were sitting on the counter before the boiling cream and butter were added; I rice my potatoes instead of using a hand mixer on them, so I suppose they did look "different" to a non-cook like him. Everything else was just opening and mixing cans and boxes. I miscalculated a few grocery purchases; usually I go through a quart of cream on Thanksgiving, so now I have half a quart left over; no cream soup and using "Cool Whip" for dessert will do that. And, alas, the sad news of the week was that the lady who invented Stovetop Stuffing just died.

So, now, we're off to the Kennedy Center for a National Symphony Pops concert of all-movie scores. Ciao for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The turkey is in the oven and should be done in plenty of time for our target five o'clock feast time. Got up this morning to bake the pumpkin pie. It felt strange not to be baking pumpkin challah or other Thanksgiving breads, but Ryan wanted those store-bought brown 'n serve rolls, so that's what we're having. He wants everything to be very plain and simple; I hope my doctoring of the turkey (a basil and butter rub under the skin and all over the outside, plus wedges of onion and orange inside the cavity) won't violate his sense of "nothing exotic, nothing foreign" "white trash food" (his term). I indulge his wish for simple, country food cause the Ivy League and the East Coast really is quite a culture shock for western Indian kids. This is his third year at Dartmouth, and he's never been able to go home to his family in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, so I hope this keeps him from getting too homesick.

After the turkey went in, I fixed myself my traditional Thanksgiving cook's breakfast of slowly scrambled eggs and the turkey liver sauteed in butter with a splash of brandy. College boy was still in bed, so he didn't get any.

Here's our projected menu, as chosen by Ryan:

A White Trash Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
November 24, 2005

Plain Deviled Eggs with Paprika Garnish
Bread and Butter Pickles

Salad of Iceberg Lettuce, Diced Ham, Onions, Egg Slices
Cheddar Cheese, and Sunflower Seeds
with ranch dressing

Plain Roasted Turkey with Pan Gravy
Stovetop Cornbread Stuffing with Neck Meat and Giblets
Plain Mashed White Potatoes with Butter
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Homemade Creamed Corn
Canned Whole Cranberry Sauce
Brown 'n Serve Rolls
Southern-Style Iced Tea

Mrs. Smith's Pumpkin Custard Pie
with Cool Whip topping

Time to check on things again in the kitchen.

Capital Q Texas-Style Barbeque, Washington, D.C.

We went to the Indian museum at the Smithsonian, which blissfully was not crowded this afternoon. I kinda wanted to eat lunch at their Indian foods cafe, Mitsitam, which was featuring smoked turkey, roast venison, grilled buffalo, and planked salmon, but holiday houseguest Ryan thought it was too expensive at $12.95 per person, so we ate a late lunch when we got to Chinatown near the movie theater, where he spent $18 on a little plate of barbequed brisket, pulled pork, slaw, beans, and iced tea! He's starting to learn Washington prices.......

I've always been curious about Capital Q Texas-Style Barbeque when I've walked past it right by the busiest corner in Chinatown. I just couldn't imagine barbeque here being any better than the dismal attempts at Mexican food. So, when Ryan wanted to eat at a non-ethnic restaurant (in Chinatown!!!) and our only choices were Hooter's, Fuddrucker's, or Capital Q, I encouraged him to pick the "non-national chain." Once I got inside and tasted the food, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Capital Q is a small restaurant with rustic, Texas-themed decor. In the back is a food counter where you pick your meats and the attendant cuts your ribs or chops your meat to order, and also helps you pick your side items. Everything else is self-service. With that in mind, I thought the prices were just a touch on the high side for a barbeque joint—a pound of beef ribs was going for $26! My half-pound of chopped beef at $7 was worth it, though, because the meat was wonderfully flavored and juicy. Ryan had a two-meat sampler plate with nice slices of beef brisket and a big spoonful of pulled pork, which he particularly liked. The baked beans looked pretty normal to me, as did the cabbage slaw, but he didn't like the slaw because it had celery seed in the recipe. Nevertheless, I liked the place, and I'll definitely be back.

On our way out of the movie theater last night, it was snowing! The snow only lasted a few minutes and didn't stick, but first snow is always such a magical moment.

Thai Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I went to a late dinner at Thai Kitchen on M Street in West End. We discovered it the other night while we were walking home from Dupont Circle and thought it looked interesting. The restaurant takes up a lot of square footage in a half-below-ground floor at the bottom of an office building, and their position allows them to have an entry plaza with a fountain and koi pond outside. A lot of the decor is Chinese in nature, including ba-gua feng shui items over the doors. Inside, one of the first things one see is a huge picture of the management with actress Angelina Jolie, who recently used Thai Kitchen to cater a fund raising dinner for one of her refugee charities. Continuing on down the stairs into the restaurant, one first enters the bar area, where a long bar snakes along two walls and bears a boldly decorated top. Around the corner in the dining area (bar and dining room are all one great big space), banquette line the window wall, tables and chairs are in the middle, and booths sit along the interior walls. The exposed architectural support columns are on 30-degree angles from the vertical; all are wood paneled.

The menu is very traditionally Thai and the prices are quite reasonable, especially given their West End location. Since the night air was chilly on the walk over, I started with a lovely hot tea with a light jasmine fragrance and medium amber color that hit the spot. Leo got a cocktail called "Kiss Before Dying," which was some kind of vodka, tequilla, Galliano, and orange juice concoction. We both ended up starting with Yum Nua, a grilled beef salad. The thinly sliced beef was wonderfully flavorful with a hot spicy lime juice dressing and bits of green scallion throughout. It was mounded directly on the plate next to a small pile of lettuce, which included long, curled shreds of carrot and two endive leaves.

I planned on just the salad for my meal, but Leo had another item, having selected the southern style red curry dish, Panang. There was a considerable quantity of tender chicken chunks in the center garnished with a few deep-fried basil leaves on top; a row of crinkle-cut zuccini rounds lined the edge of about one-third of the bowl. White rice came in a separate small bowl. He declared that the food here was better than that at the Thai place we usually frequent downtown.

Dessert, though, was a bit of a disappointment. Leo had the mango sticky rice and I had just mango, but, while he reported the sticky rice itself to be good, both of our mangos were very much far from being ripe. Nevertheless, he grabbed a delivery menu on the way out, so I think there's a good chance we'll be eating Thai Kitchen's food again.

Chevy's Fresh Mex, Arlington, VA

There's a little shopping center across the street from the big mall at Pentagon City called "Pentagon Square," noted mostly for the Costco, plus BestBuy, Linens 'n Things, and Border's Books, and we were there to pick up some household necessities. We decided to try one of the cafes there, Chevy's Fresh Mex. Leo said that back when he was fresh out of college with his advertising and marketing degree, Chevy's was one of the accounts on which he worked. So, it seemed like a fun place to try.

Since we came in from the shopping center and not their main door from the outside, we had to walk through the main dining room, where there were a lot of empty tables. We waited at the host's stand for probably five minutes before he talked to us, then we stood there probably another ten minutes before we were seated. He was very slowly controlling the flow of new tables into the dining rooms, and we had to wait for him to seat about five tables ahead of us (most were in the bar), answer telephone calls, and wander around the restaurant. There seemed to me to be no reason why all the tables couldn't have been seated immediately. I think, though, the problem was that they were short staffed on full-fledged waiters. There were tons of waiter's assistants and bus boys in the place, but not that many waiters. Our waiter was quite unfortunately scarce after taking our order, with the food brought from the kitchen by expediters and the assistants pooring drinks, filling chip baskets, and so forth.

Leo, who is supposed to be on a no-carb diet, started with a frozen margarita and an appetizer serving of "Dos Tamales," a large plate with one pork tamale topped with red chile sauce and one chicken tamale topped with a very hot green chile and tomatillo sauce, and all sprinkled with crumbles of white Mexican cheese. I ordered a Santa Fe Chopped Salad for my meal, so I opted not to do appetizers. Meanwhile, though, I tasted the salsa and it was very good, with a roasted tomato taste and a much darker color than most salsas; it was a touch sweet and rather thin, but I liked it nonetheless. My salad was good, too, and too big to completely finish. For a main course, Leo ordered chicken fajitas; they brought him a huge tray with a raised platform in the middle holding the hot, sizzling skillet of chicken strips, onions, and green pepper slices, with a lower compartment on the left holding a big plate of black bean (there were three different types of beans available) and Spanish rice, and on the right a plate with guacamole, pico de gallo, and sour cream. Tortillas came in a little paper bag placed on the table, but we didn't open it. One of the most interesting things on the main plate was their roasted corn salsa, which appeared to be a puree of smoky, roasted, fresh corn kernals with a powerful corn flavor and just a touch of pepper fire that was quite good. After abiding by the "no-carb" rules for his main course, Leo ended dinner with a great big flan garnished with a sliced strawberry and a little tiny, cactus-shaped sopapilla.

I thought the food at Chevy's was quite good, but I don't know if I'll make an effort to go back, since I thought the service abominable. When we paid, Leo even had to ask for his change to be returned (how dare the waiter assume he was being left a 30% tip!).

Cafe Nema, Washington, D.C.

One of my bigger culinary adventures was last weekend when I'd been at a Red Cross charity fundraiser and ended up going to a too-early dinner with a chemical engineer and a Ph.D. physicist. We wandered around the P Street strip looking for a place that opened at 5, and were unsuccessful, so we walked up to U Street to check out some new places there, but they didn't open til 6, either. Then, we just happened to notice a lower level cafe behind a staircase full of people, and Cafe Nema was open!

Cafe Nema is a Somali restaurant. For you geographically impaired, Somalia is a country on the very eastern tip of Africa, immediately east of Ethiopia and south of the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian peninsula. Just a few days before, Somalia had been in the news because of Somali pirates who'd attacked a cruise ship off the coast! Unlike Ethiopia, which was never colonized by Europeans, Somalia was British until 1960 and early on some provinces had been Italian, so their food is much more accessible to Western tastes.

Since none of us had been to a Somali restaurant before, we asked our very personable waiter to pick our meal for us. I guess he wasn't that comfortable with just bringing us stuff, so he kept questioning, and based on my dinner companions' less adventurous palates, he made the "decision." Drink orders came first. Since Somalia is one of those strict Sunni Muslim countries, I was surprised that they served beer here. I was disappointed that they didn't have iced tea! How un-American! We each got mixed green salads to start with a lemony olive oil vinaigrette that was fine, but I don't think very traditional. We all ended up with the same basic entree, a delicious stewed chicken dish called kalankal. Mine was served in the center of a plateful of rice, whilst my companions (both of whom claim Italian ancestry) had their kalanal mixed in with fettucine noodles. The flavor of the kalankal was very good, and unlike Etiopean stews, not hot at all. For extra spice, we were given tiny containers of a green mint and other spice sauce that was hot but not overpowering.

Our waiter said there were no traditional Somali desserts. That was a little disappointing, since I know that Somalia is a major exporter of bananas, but I also have to remember that desserts are not at all common in non-western cultures.

Cafe Nema was a fun place I plan to visit again. And, one of the best things, the bill for the three of us was only $37!

Lebanese Taverna, Arlington, VA

While on a Friday night shopping expedition to the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City and the "large" Harris-Teter grocery store in that neighborhood, Leo and I stopped in for an early dinner (early being the operative word, since had we arrived 30 minutes later, the place would have been packed with a line) at the Lebanese Taverna in Pentagon Row, the multi-use shopping and high-dollar apartment area just outside the mall, overlooking the outdoor ice skating rink there.

Lebanese Taverna is a part of a small, family-owned, local chain of restaurants specializing in Lebanese and middle eastern foods. I was pleased to try it, because I've always found Lebanese food to be amongst the best of modern middle eastern cuisine, and I've some familiarity with it, since all of the decades-old steakhouses in Tulsa are owned by Lebanese families and they've included tabouli, cabbage rolls, barbequed bologna, garlic sauce, and their unique meat marinade to the Tulsa culinary scene.

The Abi-Najm family does a good job presenting some of the variety of traditional Lebanese cuisine. One of the things their menus emphasize is the "mezza," which is a collection of small dishes in much the same vein as Spanish tapas (the Spanish learned the habit from their Muslim occupiers in the first half of the previous millennium). They also have a variety of hummus dishes—which they spell "hommos"—and plain chickpeas as a side item, and lots of lamb items.

Leo started with a hommos special from the mezza list, which was their version of the chickpea paste topped with a mixture of sweetly spiced ground meat, almonds, and pine nuts, served with a basket of pita bread halves. I tasted some of the meat mixture, and it was very good without too much cinnamon. I had a malfouf salad, which is a traditional shredded cabbage dish marinated in lemon juice and olive oil with garlic.

For main courses, Leo had a shrimp kabab with white and yellow rice and I had a sliced roast lamb dish (I forget the Lebanese name....shawarma??) with tahini sauce that was smaller than I'd hoped, but it was from the mezza list, so I guess it wasn't totally unexpected. What little there was was quite flavorful, though. I forget what Leo had for dessert; I had a melted white Lebanese cheese dish topped with a ground pistacchio and bulgar wheat, then drenched with orange blossom water syrup and a cup of strong Lebanese coffee.

The food here was very good, though the service was rather spotty.....had we been there in the midst of the Friday night dinner rush, I could understand, but in the early part of our visit, the restaurant was not yet full. I hear the family is opening a new restaurant and market in Old Town Alexandria next month, which should be fun.

More nouveau wine talk

Tried a glass of the Georges Duboeuf beaujolais-villages nouveau last night to compare it with the beaujolais nouveau we had earlier in the week. As you know with French wines, the smaller the controlled geographic area of the source of a wine's grapes, the higher quality the wine; a beaujolais-villages, therefore, should be better than a mere beaujolais.

The beaujolais-villages is noticeably drier than the beaujolais, but otherwise the tastes are similar, and in this case, I don't think the extra dryness is an improvement. The beaujolais-villages is only a little over a dollar more per bottle than the beaujolais. Nevertheless, for general drinking (remembering that all the "nouveaus" need to be drunk by New Years), I think I'd stick with the plain beaujolais.

Interestingly, the two liquor stores in our neighborhood with wine selections both are stocking only the Georges Duboeuf nouveaus, so I've not tried this year's beaujolais nouveau from any of the other wineries.

I miss my parish back in Oklahoma City. They would, no doubt, be pouring beaujolais nouveau this morning as a communion wine.

David Greggory Restau-Lounge, Washington, D.C.

Last night we finally got around to dining at David Greggory Restau-Lounge, a popular "retro-forward" place in the West End we've walked past dozens of times on our way to and fro other destinations. It's also been on my radar screen since May, when the establishment was rented out for the exclusive 80th birthday party for gay rights leader Frank Kameny, and if 160 homosexuals party at a restaurant, you know it's good! (For those of you who don't recognize Kameny's name, he was Ph.D. Army astronomer and WWII hero who was the first person to challenge the Eisenhower Administration's policy that gay federal employees could be fired or denied employment for "sexual perversion" in 1957, eventually going to the Supreme Court in 1961; in 1971 he was the first openly gay person to run for public office; he led the local movement that succeeded in decriminalizing sodomy in the District of Columbia in 1993; he was one of the leaders of the movement to convince the American Psychiatric Association to vote homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses in 1973.)

Located in the ground floor corner of an office building at the corner of a busy three-street intersection, David Greggory takes up a surprisingly large amount of real estate, all of which has been decorated in a starkly contemporary, yet warm way. The luxe decor even carries over into the rest rooms, where floor to ceiling panes of frosted glass serve as partitions, floors and walls are polished red and brown marble, and bright copper bowls on glass countertops serve as lavatory basins. Different styles of contemporary art from eight different artists hang on the interior walls (the exterior walls are all windows) and are available for sale. This contemporary backdrop provides the canvas for the duo-restauranteurs' culinary concept, that of taking traditional comfort foods and "updating" them with world fusion ideas and 21st century foods and techniques. It's an interesting idea and rather fun, though I think I would tire of it rather quickly if I dined here often.

While we perused the menu, Leo sipped a DGtini, a vodka martini which looked and tasted very much like a margarita. His appetizer was the chicken empanadas, which were two small empanadas filled with smoked chicken and spices, then arranged in a small au gratin dish atop lettuce leaves, some very spicy guacamole, and something they called Salsa Mexicana. I had the deviled egg assortment; they brought me a plate with three egg halves, one filled with the egg yolk mixture with heavy herbs, one with minced smoked salmon, and one with lots of bacon crumbles; the eggs rested on a bed of watercress (at first I thought it was spinach, til I tasted the pepperiness of the watercress) with three grape-tomato halves, dressed in a drizzle of olive oil. We also were served a basket with tiny round wheat rolls, small wedges of foccacia, and small slices of what looked to be a wheat sourdough loaf.

This might be a good time to mention the restaurant's penchant for pork dishes. There were a lot of pork and bacon dishes on the menu, every Wednesday they have "Pork and Pinot" night, and they've been having monthly "Aphrodisiac Bacon Dinners," the next of which is Monday night. And, kosher and vegan diners should beware: many dishes and vegetables are seasoned or garnished with bacon.

They encourage compiling different assortments of small dishes to make up a dinner here, from appetizers to half-sized entrees to full-sized entrees. I like the possibilities here, since I prefer multiple courses at dinner and modern portion size is much too large for four or five course dinners. For our entrees, we both opted for half-sized entrees, and they were plenty big. Leo surprised me and didn't order the sea scallops on grilled spinach, but he got the seared jumbo lump crabcake (he's supposed to be allergic to crab). His crabcake arrived resting on two large, crossed, steamed asparagus spears, all floating on a mirror of mango shallot puree and accompanied by a red bell pepper relish. When I asked him how it was, he said, "It was good. It tastes like chicken." I opted for "Not Quite Mom’s Meatloaf," a surprising little dish which had an individual meatloaf stuffed with foie gras mousse that was then cooked and served rare in a pool of roasted tomato sauce and then garnished with diagonal stripes of whole-grain brown mustard and a very liberal sprinkling of crumbled bacon. The meatloaf normally comes with garlic mashed potatoes, but I asked for a non-carb substitute and got a large serving of braised greens. I liked the meatloaf, but if I get it again, I think I'll ask it be cooked a bit more than rare—it's not steak tartare!

For dessert, Leo had a Tres Leches cake with caramelized bananas. The "Tres Leches" that I'm used to from the Cubans in Miami was a yellow cake soaked with three milks—cream, coconut milk, and rum—and then frosted with whipped cream. David Greggory's version reminded me a bit of a banana upside down cake, with gooey banana slices militantly arranged on top, the cake being banana flavored, and, sadly, there was no rum involved. Don't know about the coconut milk, either, since Leo reported only banana taste. While he devoured the entire piece-of-cake-for-two, I drank a little espresso macciato.

One of the other little niceties of David Greggory was their free little boxes of matches—except they didn't contain matches, they are filled with little candy red hots.

On the whole, David Greggory is a nice restaurant (or "restau-lounge", as they call themselves) with a much higher standard and level of service than one would expect for their more modest West End prices. There were plenty of waiter's assistants running around tending to the tables, but our actual waiter was unfortunately scarce; in his defense, though, he and another waitress got pulled shortly after our arrival to tend to a party of 19 lawyers who came in without a reservation. So, next time you're on the M Street strip, consider this place for dinner and drinks.

The "official" beaujolais nouveau party

Tonight, the official beaujolais nouveau party was at the French Embassy here in D.C.. Unlike Bistrot du Coin's party last night, the Embassy party has a limited number of tickets, admission is $65 per person instead of being free, and they have actual food with the wines (the Bistrot only served bread and only had one wine).

I didn't want to go to the Embassy party alone, and I couldn't find anyone around interested in French food and wine, so I stayed home. Probably just as well, since I'd be wanting to eat and drink everything, and that's not on my diet. But, had I gone, this is what they were serving:

Menu

Salmon steak in a dill sauce
Beef Bourguignon
Ratatouille of fresh vegetables
Scalloped Potatoes
Assortment of Charcuteries, Saussisson, Ham, pates,
Mousses, Terrines, cornichon, and onions
Assortments of Cheese, fruits, breads, and crackers
Seven Grain Salad: Wild rice, green beans, garbanzo beans,
Kamut, Millet, Barley, and Tomatoes
Salade Landaise: eggs, smoked duck breast, croutons, and mesclun
with balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Desserts & Mini Pastries


Beaujolais Nouveau Wines to be Presented

Domaine Manoir du Carra
Maison Lamartine
Domaine du Perret
Georges Duboeuf
Joseph Drouhin
Bouchard Aine

Beaujolais Nouveau 2005 Report

Le beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!

Once again, it's the third Thursday of November, and the newest crop of beaujolais nouveau has been presented. I'm just in from the annual party at Bistrot du Coin, where a totally packed restaurant welcomed the new wine and uncorked the first bottles at 12:01 a.m.

The trendy bistro, up near Dupont Circle here in D.C., removed all of its tables and chairs from its floor to allow for the huge crowd, and bouncers at the door had to regulate the flow of people in and out with a line remaining outside in the cold even when I left a little before 1 a.m. A disco sound system blared Euro-Pop (or is it Euro-Trash? I forget) music for those who wanted to endulge the fantasy that there was actually enough room to dance. As one made his or her way through the crush of people to the bars, the bistrot was giving away free glasses of wine. It wasn't a terribly elegant thing—they used those large red plastic cups—but they quickly had the crowd to where they were feeling no pain.


(this was right before I left, when the crowd had thinned considerably)

They served the Georges Duboeuf wine. I do believe this is the best beaujolais nouveau I've tasted in nearly a decade. The wine is very smooth and fruity with good color and aftertaste. It's not a dry wine, and it doesn't have the feeling of being "thin" or "tannic" in the mouth as have some in the recent past. The fruitiness is a good blend of all the desirable wine notes, and there's a touch of spice in the nose. This should be an excellent vintage with broad appeal. I heartily recommend it for everyone's Thanksgiving dinner.

Menu planning for the holidays

Thanksgiving is just a little more than a week away, and along with the fun and excitement of the family gathering and meal. But, for many people, Thanksgiving is a day which has them trembling and shaking in enormous stress. Why? They are cooking the family Thanksgiving dinner.

The vast majority of my friends share one personality trait in common: Obsessive-compulsive perfectionism. That means that for them, everything has to be "just so," and when things aren't perfect, they'll fall apart to varying degrees. So, being a veteran of designing and cooking dozens of family holiday dinners, let me offer a few of tips for your holiday sanity and success to keep you from falling apart and having to overdose on your Buspar or Ativan.

First, your family isn't going to be that critical of your results. They are just glad they they don't have to do the cooking! And, if you know that the one Asshole family member will criticize your meal, just remember that if your meal is perfect, the Asshole will find something else to criticize, so just smile, relax, and ignore the Asshole.

Second, keep the menu simple, small, and manageable. They already know you have impeccable taste, so you don't need to try to impress them with some fancy-schmancy ultra-gourmet recreation of standard Thanksgiving fare. Further, if you are like me, your stove only has four burners on top and the oven will only hold one turkey and one thin, flat casserole dish. Count!

Third, avoid food poisoning your family. Use a meat thermometer (don't have one? go buy one today) to cook your turkey to the correct 180-degree inside-thigh temperature (don't rely on those worthless little pop-up thingies) and bake your stuffing or dressing in a separate pan, not inside your turkey. Don't pre-set food on the table as it gets done, cause you want to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold until serving time.

Fourth, NEVER NEVER NEVER cook a brand new recipe for the family dinner that you've never cooked at least once before. If you are bound and determined to cook something on the 24th which you've never cooked before, be it a brand new recipe or an old family tradition, prepare it once this week for the practice and experience.

Fifth, children will be children, and the presence of multiple children in the same room increases exponentially the liklihood that something will get broken. Keep that in mind when deciding what china and stemware to use and whether or not you have objets d'art in your home which need to be put away for the day.

Sixth, stash a bottle of your favor wine/liquor somewhere where no one can find it. This is for you and your spouse/significant other Thanksgiving night after everyone has gone home.

Follow these Six Rules, and I'm sure your family Thanksgiving dinner will be a marvelous success!

Johnny's Half Shell, Washington, D.C.

Poor Leo. His glasses suddenly broke at the office this afternoon while he was sitting in front of the computer. So much for the "quality" of Giorgio Armani metal frames. He came home and we wandered out to find an optometrist; he got his eye exam, some contact lenses, some fabulous Burberry frames and lenses, and a bill—for $618.

To help Leo get over his unexpected expense, we had dinner at Johnny's Half Shell, on P Street just off Dupont Circle. It turned out to be a very nice seafood restaurant, crossing the tastes of the two owners, one from Maryland and one from Mississippi near New Orleans. I was curious but leery; the place has several good reviews but also several negative "reader comments."

The interior is comfortable and elegant. We sat towards the back by the lovely, contemporary, green marble bar, where a huge aquarium with great big goldfish and little angel fish swimming together filled the back wall. The menu had one steak entree, one chicken breast, and all of the other things were seafood; the appetizer and soup list was mouth watering and it was hard to pick just one! They had a nice list of wines by the glass and other list for by the bottle selections.

Leo started with steamed mussels in a seafood broth scented with Spanish paprika and enriched with butter. I declined an appetizer, but then changed my mind on the waiter's next pass through, selecting a half dozen oysters on the half shell. The oysters were great, being imported "raspberry point" oysters from Nova Scotia, and the juice in the shell had a special crisp brininess; a vinegar-based mignonette sauce accompanied these premium shellfish instead of the usual catsup and horseradish sauce. With this course, Leo drank a glass of Domaine de la Denante, Macon-Villages 2003, which I got to sample and it was a classic, clean, flinty French chardonnay.


The entrees were excellent. Leo had broiled sea scallops with grilled endive and butternut squash. I had the wood-grilled wild rockfish fillet in wild mushroom sauce with sauteed spinach.


For dessert, Leo had a piece of lemon chess pie in a coconut crust with a cup of coffee and cream; I continued to sip my sixth or seventh glass of passionfruit iced tea.

Johnny's Half Shell is a great restaurant. I look forward to dining there again.

Movie caterers

Nicole Kidman is in town filming some movie. I ran across the movie caterer's tent set up in a parking lot underneath the Whitehurst Expressway along the harbor in Georgetown. They were grilling lots and lots of marinated flank steaks!

Sequoia, Georgetown, D.C.

Robert rang me this evening and announced he was at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop and wanted to go to dinner while he was in the neighborhood, so, since I was just sitting here editing foliage pictures, I thought it might be kinda fun, and away we went. The Georgetown bus was sitting on 23rd Street as we were headed towards the Metro station and that gave us the inspiration to hop on and head to Georgetown. We landed at the Washington Harbor, which is the Georgetown waterfront along the Potomac River.

There are several restaurants there which overlook the harbor, and we picked Sequoia, because it had a more varied menu. I've wanted to go there for some time, anyway, since one of my friends at the DOI Solicitor's Office has been promising to take me there for months.

Sequoia is an elegant restaurant. Upon entering from the plaza, diners must go up a staircase past murals of rowers on the river to get to the main dining room. That room was occupied, though, tonight with a black tie private party for a convention of plastic surgeons; we went to the other dining room, which was still a very large room overlooking Christmas light-wrapped trees and the huge floor to ceiling window walls that allowed all tables a view of the waterfront. While a couple of large round tables occupied the corners, most all of the other tables were white cloth-covered two tops with very comfortable modern highback chairs upholstered in a soft sueded fabric. I was a little confused by the staff's attire: our waitress was in formal white shirt and apron with a black bow tie and black trousers, but the assistants and expediters were wearing casual Henley-style grey shirts with the restaurant's logo silk screened on the front. Regardless of their choice of attire, however, they seemed efficient and there were a number of people who tended to our table during the course of the evening.

After we were seated and given our menus and water, the waitress brought us a basket of bread and rolls wrapped in a white napkin. After about a minute, we smelled smoke. Suddenly, the bread basket burst into flames! The waitress had set the basket down with the napkin over the lit votive candle on our table. Fortunately, though, we were able to blow out the flaming napkins, then then staff spirited the smoking basket back to the kitchen and brought us a new basket of bread and a new candle, and strategically arranged them with a foot of space between them.

Our food was quite lovely. I started with a larger-than-expected bowl of butternut squash bisque; it had a strong cinnamon presence and was decorated with a heavy sprinkling of paprika and then a decorative drizzle of creme frâiche. For a main course, I had a Caesar salad with grilled shrimp—four jumbo shrimp with visible grill marks—decorated with two long leaves of romaine that made perfect rabbit ears! Robert had a grilled swordfish steak resting on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and surrounded by a scattering of haricots verts, and a glass of the house chardonnay. There was a yellow sauce on the swordfish, but I forgot to ask if it was butter or lemon. For dessert, he had a tart with a poached pear encased in frangipane that looked and smelled delicious; I talked him out of getting the ubiquitous creme brulee, so I hope he liked the tart!

Dinner for the Waleses

White House Photo

Amidst all the excitement this week about Halloween and church services, I forgot to mention that the President and Mrs. Bush had some foreign relatives in to lunch and later to dinner on Wednesday. The President's cousin from England, HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, was in town to show off his new wife, HRH Camilla, Princess of Wales (but for public relations purposes currently going by her subsidiary title, Duchess of Cornwall).

My efforts to pull strings and call in favors were to no avail in getting an invitation to the black tie dinner at the White House, or even to the larger group invited to the "after dinner entertainment." The Bushes have had so few state and formal dinners, there are just too many major contributors waiting in line for tickets to such things, and poor little me didn't have a chance, especially since they only had 100 guests.

So, for those of us who missed the dinner party, here's what we missed:


Dinner Menu in Honor of Their Royal Highnesses
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall


Celery Broth with Crispy Rock Shrimp
Newton Chardonnay "Unfiltered" 2002

Medallions of Buffalo Tenderloin
Roasted Corn
Wild Rice Pancakes
Glazed Parsnips and Young Carrots
Peter Michael Pinot Noir "Le Moulin Rouge" 2002

Mint Romaine Lettuce with Blood Orange Vinaigrette

Vermont Camembert Cheese and Spiced Walnuts

Petits Fours Cake
Chartreuse Ice Cream Red and Green Grape Sauce
Iron Horse "Wedding Cuvée" 2002

Reports are that the tables were set in gold silk cloths each decorated with large white phaeleanopsis orchids with camelia leaves. They used the Clinton china (that gaudy stuff Hillary picked out with the wide gold borders and the gold picture of the White House in the center).

I get the impression that Yo Yo Ma must be a Republican, because once again he was called upon by the President to play his cello after dinner, along with pianist Kathryn Scott.

It was a fairly low-key event for a black tie White House dinner, and there's been virtually no news coverage here in the District. I'm told Mrs. Bush looked lovely in her lacy, off-the-shoulder, satiny-looking red dress with a stunning antique garnet necklace, though some of my more acerbic friends thought she looked a little old-fashioned with the bows on the dress. The Princess wore a long, deep sapphire skirt with a matching velvet jacket trimmed in irridescent blue bugle beads and a diamond drop necklace I'm told is worth over £400,000 (that's about $700,000 American). My friends were disappointed that she didn't wear a tiara. She must be in a blue mood, cause she wore a blue suit to the luncheon that day, too.

So, I guess it's time to put my tuxedo back in the closet.

Thai Tanic, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday was my friend Doug's birthday, but between All Saints' Day Mass and him having to go to a meeting at the cathedral where he is on the parish council, he didn't celebrate, so we went to dinner after tonight's All Souls' Day Mass at Thai Tanic. Thai Tanic is usually a reliable, inexpensive place to eat (the Washington Post calls them "dirt cheap," but those Post reporters must be used to some pricey dirt; it's one of the paper's "editor's pick" restaurants, too), however, tonight the restaurant reeked of moth balls, and I've no idea why. The food was good, though, and eventually our noses got desensitized to the odor.

For appetizers, Doug started off with a chicken satay, grilled chicken on skewers served with a peanut dipping sauce. I had the potpourri mussels, a serving which was truly large enough for a main course. The mussels were steamed with slices of fresh ginger root (the surprising source of a great deal of spice heat), slivvered scallions, basil, and horizontal slices of some shiny green leaf which was the wrong size for the menu-advertised lemongrass. There was enough of the steaming broth leftover in the bottom on the bowl to make a small soup course, and I would have drunk the tasty liquid, but the main courses arrived as I was eating my last mussel and I let the waitress take my bowl away.

Doug told me he was going to order the pad thai for his main course, but when the waitress was taking our orders, he requested a shrimp pad see eew, instead. I didn't taste it, but it was a mixed dish with wide rice noodles, bean sprouts, ground peanuts, and grilled shrimp. I had one of their two daily specials, crispy roast duck. To demonstrate the high standards of service at Thai Tanic, I can tell you that I ordered my duck without rice (my ubiquitous diet), and the kitchen peeled an entire tomato in one long strip that was then rolled into a rose for my plate, flanked by two fan-cut cucumber halves, all just to keep me from having an empty looking plate. My duck was delicious. The duck was roasted, then cut into small boneless pieces which were dredged in a spice mixture and then flash deep fried. Tiny juliennes of hot Thai red chile peppers were scatterred decoratively over the top.

Very tasty dinner. Happy birthday, Doug!

T.G.I.Friday's, Washington, D.C.

After All Saints' Day Mass tonight, Leo and I went to the neighborhood T.G.I.Friday's for dinner, where we had their standard mediocre but palatable food that took 50 minutes for us to get served, and the restaurant wasn't even full. How hard can it be to bring Leo a Cajun pasta (they are frozen and only have to be nuked) or me a Cobb salad? Our poor waiter kept checking on us and saying he was bringing the food soon, but when the kitchen is inefficient, there's little a waiter can do except pray he doesn't get stiffed on his tip.

Fifty things to taste

The British Broadcasting Company asked people to vote for the top fifty things everyone should try a bite of in their lifetime. This is the final list.

1. Fresh fish
2. Lobster
3. Steak
4. Thai food
5. Chinese food
6. Ice cream
7. Pizza
8. Crab
9. Curry
10. Prawns (a/k/a shrimp, in the U.S.)
11. Moreton Bay Bugs
12. Clam chowder
13. Barbecues
14. Pancakes
15. Pasta
16. Mussels
17. Cheesecake
18. Lamb
19. Cream tea
20. Alligator
21. Oysters
22. Kangaroo
23. Chocolate
24. Sandwiches
25. Greek food
26. Burgers
27. Mexican food
28. Squid
29. American diner breakfast
30. Salmon
31. Venison (a/k/a deer)
32. Guinea pig
33. Shark
34. Sushi
35. Paella
36. Barramundi
37. Reindeer
38. Kebab
39. Scallops
40. Australian meat pie
41. Mango
42. Durian fruit
43. Octopus
44. Ribs
45. Roast beef
46. Tapas
47. Jerk chicken/pork
48. Haggis
49. Caviar
50. Cornish pastry

The original link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_radio/50eats_index.shtml

Obviously, there are a few foods on here not common to American diners, so let me explain a few things.
• A Moreton Bay Bug is a crustacean from Australia very similar to a crawfish/crayfish/crawdad.
• Paella is a Spanish seafood and rice stew.
• Barramundi is a type of very expensive Australian fish.
• Australian meat pies are just like any other culture's kind of meat pie; cubed steak with onions are the most popular.
• Durian fruit comes from southeastern Asia; it is quite large, looks yellowish with spines, has a custardy texture with an almond-sweet flavor, and bears an unusual smell which can probably be best described as "fecal."
• Tapas are little hot or cold appetizer dishes common in Spanish cuisine.
• "Jerk" meats are Jamaican-style grilled meats seasoned with very, very hot spices.
• Haggis are traditional Scottish things made mostly of barley and minced organ meats stuffed in a sheep's stomach.
• Cornish pastries are much the same as Australian meat pies.