El Tamarindo, Washington, D.C.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a late dinner at El Tamarindo in Adams-Morgan tonight. I'd had a DeMolay business meeting earlier in the evening, but that was just as well, since the Mexican restaurants in town were all packed tonight. Our 10:30 dinnertime coincided with right about the time the main dinner rush was starting to clear out, so, while the restaurant was still full in both dining rooms, we were able to be seated right away.

We started with margaritas, and they were good ones that actually had some tequila in them. Too bad the waiter was so busy he didn't ever ask us if we wanted refills, cause we would have.

Robert had the pollo de mole poblano, a nice, plump piece of chicken covered in roasted poblano pepper and chocolate sauce, garnished with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds. It came with white rice and black beans. I had the chicken avocado salad, a large and surprisingly filling version of a chicken taco salad.

Ikea, College Park, Md.

Yesterday, I made an Ikea run to College Park. Laurent wanted to buy a new dresser and a desk chair. We ate lunch at the cafeteria there and I have to say I was very unimpressed with the crab cakes. Next time, I'll stick to the standard Swedish meatballs.

Pho Hiep Hoa, Silver Spring, Md.

Robert and I found a new Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Silver Spring called Pho Hiep Hoa. I enjoyed the place a lot and will probably go back. We started with traditional garden rolls with peanut sauce and an order of something called shrimp paste. Ground shrimp is spiced and formed around a piece of sugar cane, then fried; the pieces were okay, but they had the feel to me of slightly overcooked shrimp. For our main courses, Robert had the daily special, "caramel shrimp," a casserole of large shrimp in a red, slightly sweet, chili sauce served with rice and a side plate of salad vegetables (we still don't know where the "caramel" comes from), while I had grilled meats on vermicelli. We washed everything down with Vietnamese 33 beer, a very light lager-style brew. For dessert, we had Vietnamese iced coffees.

Silver Spring, by the way, is in Maryland, and Maryland has several swine flu cases. I wonder if we were exposed to the virus at dinner and now we're going to start oinking?

Sala Thai, Washington, D.C.

Laurent and I were on U Street later in the week and popped in to Sala Thai just in time to avoid the thunderstorm cloud bursts. I've been to their Dupont location before, but this was my first time in the U Street store. We had a great window seat to allow us to watch all the people hustling by with their umbrellas.

We both started with tom yum soup, Laurent's with chicken and mine with shrimp. This soup is made with coconut milk seasoned with lemongrass and ginger.

For our main courses, Laurent got the ka prow, a beef dish with red bell pepper and fried basil leaves in a chili paste sauce, extra spicy. He ate it all, but I think it ended up bothering his stomach. However, he **did** order it "as hot as you can make it."

I was going to order the pottery shrimp, a baked shrimp and cellophane noodle dish, but the waitress suggested the peppery shrimp instead, so that's what I got. A lot of shrimp in a mild white pepper and garlic sauce came with artistically arranged slices of cucumber, tomatoes, and shredded carrot and purple cabbage. Both dishes came with white steamed rice.

For dessert, Laurent had a fruit punch and I had a Thai iced coffee.

Dukem Ethiopean Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

For some reason, I've ended up on U Street a bunch this past week.

Monday, John G from California was in town for a business conference on Africa, so when we went to dinner, I thought we should have African food, and we ended up at Dukem Ethiopian Restaurant. John had not had Ethiopian food before, so we got a combination tray, that being one of the easiest ways to try a variety of their foods.

Our sampler tray included beef tibs (cubes of beef sauteed with onion), lamb wot (lamb stew, spicy), and minchet abesh (ground beef in ginger and garlic sauce), plus collards, cabbage, yellow peas, lentils, and tomato salad, all served atop a large round of injera bread.

Along with dinner, since John's a big beer fan, we drank several Ethiopian beers, from a simple lager to a dark brown stout.

McCormick & Schmick Seafood Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

My friend Justin gave me a gift certificate to McCormick & Schmick Seafood Restaurants, so I used it the other day at the D.C. location near Farragut Square. McCormick & Schmick is a national chain of high-end, white tablecloth restaurants with menus that change daily according to what is fresh from the water and in season. I heard a waiter talking to a nearby table, and she said that this is halibut season. By that time, though, I had already ordered, and decided to stick to my original plan.

I started with a cup of the seafood and corn chowder, a cream-based soup with crab, shrimp, and who knows what else in the mix. It came with a cellophane packet of oyster crackers. They also brought me a quarter-loaf of a very good sourdough bread, which I used instead of the crackers.

For my main course, I had the seafood Cobb salad. Greens dressed in what tasted like a crab Louis sauce were topped with stripes of various ingredients common to Cobb salads, plus stripes of popcorn shrimp, crab meat, and tiny bay scallops. A sliced avocado quarter garnished the salad. I thought it was a good and substantial salad. My only complaint was that the bacon tasted a bit old to me and some of the crunchy bits were too crunchy.

Asian Bistro Cafe, Silver Spring, Md.

Friday night Robert and I went to Asian Bistro Cafe in downtown Silver Spring for dinner. He had the crispy beef and I had the shrimp in garlic sauce. The food was quite good, reasonably priced, and the servings were huge, with each dish easily being enough for two, especially if one were to have an appetizer and soup with dinner. Robert praised the beef dish, saying it was actually crispy instead of the soggy beef so often seen in restaurants these days. We'll have to go back to Asian Bistro again to try more items in the future.

Eggspectation, Silver Spring, Md.

For Easter dinner Sunday, we went to Eggspectation in downtown Silver Spring. I had the "classic Benedict," their version of a traditional eggs Benedict dish on their page of a dozen different Benedict variations (if they were truly witty, they'd have sixteen). It was a good dish, but it wasn't what I would call "classic." Instead of the traditional Canadian bacon, they used Black Forest ham and some gruyère cheese, neither of which appears in the original recipe. The eggs were served with sliced fried new potatoes and some slices of fresh melon.

In lieu of dessert, I had a blueberry muffin, warmed, per the waitress's recommendation, by grilling. They split the muffin longitudinally and toasted the insides on a grill, giving the muffin a very enjoyable crunchy, textural interest.

Mama Ayesha's, Washington, D.C.

Halfway between Woodley Park and Adams-Morgan is a Syrian restaurant called Mama Ayesha's that's been there since Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House some fifty years ago. Ayesha ran the place until her death during the Clinton Administration, and since then, younger generations of her family have continued to operate the establishment. When one walks down the street past the place, one can't miss it because of the big, bright mural painted on the side of the building showing all the presidential administrations during the eatery's tenure.

Ayesha's comes with good reviews and recommendations, though today was the first time I'd eaten there, when Robert and I stopped in for a late lunch while we were in the area.

They have a large outdoor patio seating area, and inside the restaurant, the right side of the dining room is devoted to the bar, while the left side has both banquettes and tables for regular dining. A water feature and a large number of artificial plants divides the two sides of the room. The ceiling is vaulted and decorated with a series of copper cups. Wall hangings evoke the feel of a Middle Eastern restaurant.

Robert opted for two side dishes for his lunch, a plate of falafel and a plate of betan'jan maglie, fried slices of eggplant drizzled in a garlicky lemon vinaigrette. He particularly enjoyed the eggplant dish.

I ordered the lamb couscous. As it turned out, we were between main lunch and early dinner, so the lamb shoulder they usually serve with the couscous wasn't quite done yet, so they asked to substitute a lamb shank stew called mouzat and served it on top of couscous. It was quite good, the lamb falling off the bone with the slightest prod of the fork.

We both passed on dessert and Arabian coffee, as we were in a hurry and still had things to do this afternoon before five o'clock.

Dupont Italian Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

Kevin had a birthday last week, so we went to Dupont Italian Kitchen for dinner to celebrate. Twas a simple dinner, just salad, pasta, and a shared dessert.

Kevin picked one of the daily specials for his main course, a penne dish with tomatoes, basil, and asparagus. I had the calamari in red sauce over linguine for mine. Mine was good, with lots of tender squid rings and a fresh grating of parmesan cheese over the top.

For dessert, we had a very good piece of tiramisu.

Dupont Italian Kitchen is another of the older restaurants on the 17th Street strip that seems to be fancying itself up. The waiters are more dressed up now and they've a fancy bar inside now instead of just a service bar (the gay bar Windows, now known as the D.I.K. Bar, is still upstairs). The menu is still fairly simple, though, and they haven't significantly raised prices or gotten fancy with the food.

Sushi Go-Round & Tapas, Washington, D.C.

Tonight while the Wizards were busy losing by a mere field goal in the adjacent Verizon Center, a group of us went to a unique Japanese place called Sushi Go Round & Tapas for dinner. While they have a traditional dining room and Japanese menu available (I never did figure out where the tapas part came from), part of the fun of going to Sushi Go Round is sitting at the sushi bar and making food selections from the plates circulating around the bar on a conveyor belt.

Lots of things went by that looked enticing. Items—sushi, sushi rolls, seaweed salad, desserts—are priced by plate color, and at the end of the meal, the waitress adds up ones bill by adding up the plates. Prices are surprisingly reasonable for the Verizon Center area.

We had to dawdle a bit after we finished eating, since we got done right about the same time as the basketball game wrapped up, and we didn't want to be caught in the crush of people packing into the Chinatown Metro station. On the way out, though, we got to see about a dozen D.C. police from the bicycle patrol all lined up outside Clyde's waiting for Saturday night action.

Dukem Ethiopean Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

A bunch of us braved the messy drizzle tonight and went to Dukem Ethiopian Restaurant down on U Street for dinner. It was Spencer's first time to do do Ethiopian, so we steered him more towards the sampler platters instead of trying to pick one thing from the long and esoteric menu.

The samplers included tibs (cubed beef), wat (lamb stew), minchet abesh (ground beef), and an assortment of lentil and vegetable items. As always, they were served communal style on a big round of tef bread called injera, and additional pieces of injera were provided to use as a means of picking up the food and conveying it to ones mouth (no silverware!).

Laurent and I ordered our platters "spicy," but they came out rather mild, I thought. In anticipation of the spice, I ordered an Ethiopian beer called Meta, which is a rather sturdy lager in a short, squat bottle.

I always like the food at Dukem. It's one of the better places in town for Ethiopian food, but it's also very popular, so it's always loud and conversation can be challenging. Tonight it was very crowded and noisy, too.

Here's a picture of Spencer pondering his platter. In the next shot, Laurent dives in to the injera.

Ben's Chili Bowl, Washington, D.C.

Tonight, Robert and I made a post-midnight grocery run to the 24-hour Giant, so, while we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at Ben's Chili Bowl on the way home. He got a chili half smoke and a cherry milkshake, and I just got some chili cheese fries.

We still have gotten to go to Ben's new Next Door, an upscale bar and restaurant next door. They keep more traditional restaurant hours, so we seldom get by during their open times. The menu looks a bit pricy, though.

Union Pub, Washington, D.C.

Lunched today with Laurent at the Union Pub (again) on Capitol Hill near his office. He had a turkey burger and I had a grilled chicken sandwich. My sandwich was good, but hard to eat, since they used two chicken breasts and stacked them on top of one another; they kept sliding around as I tried to eat them. After we ate our healthy sandwiches, Laurent had a huge brownie sundae for dessert.

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

After the symphony Thursday night, we popped over to the T.G.I.Friday's near the Metro stop for steaks from the $9.99 menu. My steak was tasty (once it finally arrived at the table), but it was certainly a tiny little thing. And, as typically happens at this particular store, there were problems. When the check came, they tried to charge us for more expensive versions of the steaks; when I pointed out the discrepancy to the waitress, she rather flippantly asked what I wanted her to do about it. Eventually, the adjustment was made, and we were able to go on our way.

Sbarro

Sbarro is a national chain of low-end Italian food shops frequently seen in mall food courts. I happened to pass by one the other day with a friend who bought one of their pepperoni stromboli (think pizza burrito), and I noticed at the cash register they had placed a corporate looking sign that said,

Bon appetite
Horrors!

Don't they know that in Italy, to wish someone "good appetite" or good eating, one says, "buon appetito"? Perhaps they were confused by the French, who say, "bon appetit" (pronounced, "boh nap-pay-tee"). Nobody, though, mixes their French and their English and says "bon appetite."

Maybe they should just put up a sign that says, "Enjoy your meal."

La Tasca Spanish Tapas Bar and Restaurant, Arlington, Va.

Continuing our Restaurant Week adventures with the "extending" restaurants this week, yesterday, Robert and I ended up in Arlington at the La Tasca Spanish Tapas Bar and Restaurant. They have decided to make their Restaurant Week deal the Wednesday weekly special, so one can lunch now on Wednesdays for $20.09 for all you can eat tapas. Don't know how long that will continue.

Robert's a regular at this place. I've not been there for two or three years since I last went with my friend Jose, but the place is under different management now, and I enjoyed the leisurely afternoon ordering little plates one at a time. For those of you who've never before been to a tapas bar, the tapas are little individual plates of food, and it's kind of like making a meal out of a series of appetizers at a regular restaurant.

Robert started out with one of the daily specials with shrimp and large scallops covered in diced tomatoes and peppers and presented au gratin with melted white cheese the name of which escapes me. Next he had the solomillo de cerdo Iberico al Cabrales, a little slice of grilled pork tenderloin that had been wrapped in bacon and served in a white Cabrales cheese sauce, that he says is one of his favorite dishes there. Next he got the langostinos a la plancha, some jumbo shrimp with the heads on that had been grilled with sea salt. For a vegetable dish, he ordered the espinacas salteadas, a very interesting salted, sauteed spinach dish with pine nuts and raisins. Somewhere in there, he also ate an order of pan de ajo con queso, or garlic bread with cheese. For his dessert, he got the flauta rellena de crema de platano y carmelo con helado de chocolate, a deep-fried banana in puff pastry served with chocolate ice cream.

I began with the calamares andaluza, a nice, tender, fried squid calamari with garlic mayonnaise, then I had the montado de lomo, which reminded me of an Italian bruschetta topped with grilled pork loin. Next I had the buey al Jerez, a very tasty grilled flank steak with sherry mushroom sauce and served with diced fried potatoes. My dessert was the crema Catalana, in essence, a crème brulée with strawberries.

While Robert just drank Scotch with his meal, I tried a glass of the sangria blanca, made with white wine, brandy, peaches, and cinnamon, and a glass of sangria tinta, with red wine, triple sec, apples, and oranges. They had probably half a dozen other kinds of sangria, too. I like their sangrias—they could become addictive!

La Tasca is a small chain in the Washington-Baltimore metro area, so there are a number of other locations with similar menus for your Spanish dining enjoyment. In addition to tapas, they have a number of paellas on the menus, too, for those wanting a fuller dinner.

Vidalia, Washington, D.C.

Crispy pig tails? How about roast goat, frog legs, skate wing, or veal cheeks?

The menu options were nothing if not adventuresome at Vidalia today, one of my favorite restaurants that just happens to be on the Restaurant Week list this week. Vidalia is one of Washington's top eateries where they take Southern classics and elevate them to gourmet heights. Vidalia has been reviewed several times before in my blog, so I won't dwell on their sleek, contemporary dining room or other details of the ambiance.

My friend Joel and I were quite impressed by the large list of exciting choices in each of the course categories on the Restaurant Week menu. There were so many things we wanted to try just because they sounded intriguing. As it was, Joel started with the yellowtail hamachi with wasabi and several sauces, garnished with a little caviar. I got the salad of veal cheeks with sweetbread terrine. I got a little block of the terrine and several paper-thin slices of veal cheek on the plate topped by a salad of veal tongue, pickled mushrooms, and raddiccio with a truffled honey-mustard dressing.

After our exquisite appetizers, we moved on to main courses. Joel got one of Vidalia's classics, the shrimp and grits with andoille sausage and spicy shellfish cream. I got the slow roasted roulade of young goat, stuffed with goat sausage, and accompanied by sauteed broccoli rabe and natural jus. The standard goat entree also came with an eggplant puree, but I had them leave that in the kitchen, and they didn't replace it with anything. The goat was very mild and flavorful, and cooked to a medium rare.

We continued to have to make hard choices for dessert. Joel opted for the banana napoleon, and got a lovely, delicate tower of caramelized bananas, salted caramel mousse, and thin wafers of bittersweet chocolate. I had the Georgia pecan bar, served warm with caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

We washed down our sumptuous repast with flutes of Mont Marcal Riserva Brut cava, a sparkling wine from Spain. As always, Vidalia did an outstanding job of presenting culinary excitement for Restaurant Week and showing off the range of the chef and what one can do with modern Southern cooking.

Harry's Tap Room, Arlington (Pentagon City), Va.

Well, Laurent and I went to Harry's Tap Room in Pentagon City today for their Restaurant Week lunch, but they were only serving brunch today and said the lunch deal was just Monday through Friday. Just as well, since we both got plenty of food to eat and spent half the money we would have spent had we done the R.W. menus.

They started off by bringing us a big basket of scones and little miniature blueberry muffins. The muffins were so airy and delightful; we endulged in quickly eating all of them after dipping them in a strawberry preserve sauce.

Laurent ordered the steakhouse omelette. The omelette was filled with slices of filet mignon, plus onions, spinach, bacon, cheddar cheese, and fresh basil, and served with home fries and applesauce. It was a large and hearty brunch dish.

I got a Cuban sandwich, very artfully presented on the plate with a wedge of carved fresh pineapple and a mess of long, hand-cut french fries; the sandwich itself was cut on the diagonal and speared with frilled toothpicks holding cherry peppers, and arranged with one half standing on its end.

Neither one of us wanted dessert, so we bypassed the very large sweet samplings at Harry's. Thus was our Saturday culinary adventure.

The Palm, Washington, D.C.

Some of my out-of-town friends come to Washington and New York and just gush about a series of restaurants called The Palm, usually making reservations at Palms in cities around the country as they travel on business. I've never been to a Palm before, so I decided it was finally time to take advantage of the Restaurant Week opportunity.

The Palm likes to capitalize on its rich and famous clientele of politicians and power brokers, so the walls are covered with caricature drawings of former patrons. Furnishings in the dining room are in medium shades and typical of high end steakhouses, being contemporary without being "modern." Booths line the periphery of the dining room, and the interior space is tightly packed with free-standing tables. As the restaurant was crowded during our visit, this packing of people into a confined space had the conversational noise level at the point my friend Scott and I nearly had to yell across our small table to talk.

Restaurant Week menu offerings vary widely from restaurant to restaurant. Some establishments go all out, creating a number of options per course to show off their skills, some places use their regular full menu (occasionally with a few, more expensive, items having an "up-charge"), and some places hardly make an effort at all. The Palm almost fell into the latter category. I was disappointed that their appetizer choices were rather boring and mundane, and the two we had were incredibly ordinary. The options were a mixed green salad, a Caesar salad, or a bowl of tomato soup. Scott had the soup. It came with a little packet of commercial crackers in cellophane. I had the Caesar, and I've had them just as good from inexpensive little diners.

The dessert course was also a bit disappointing, since there was but one choice, key lime pie. Now, the pie was good, but I wasn't overwhelmed or begging for the recipe, and it paled in comparison to the dessert tray we saw occasionally making the rounds of the room with enormous slices of cakes and other impressive looking desserts.

What The Palm did do, however, was focus the limited dining dollars on the main courses. Keep in mind that this is a restaurant that has $42 lobsters and $54 steaks on the lunch menu—they aren't cheap. There were four main course options on the R.W. menu, and from what we saw, they were all nice entrees, including a nice big slab of seared ahi tuna au poivre we saw at a nearby table. Scott got the broiled crab cakes with mango salsa, and he was very impressed that the two cakes were large and full of crab meat, instead of the filler that one finds so often in restaurant crab cakes.

I had the grilled sirloin steak. It was a nice little piece of aged beef and cooked precisely to the medium-rare I requested. What did surprise me a bit, though, was getting a plate with nothing else on it but the little steak....no potatoes, no vegetables, no garnish, nothing. They have a number of side dishes on the menu, but everything is à la carte, and the sides start at $8.

I don't want to leave an unfavorable impression of The Palm. Keep in mind that I am reviewing a Restaurant Week lunch, not their normal menu. We were able to sample just a little of what a highly expensive, popular restaurant has been offering to packed dining rooms for decades. I think, though, that The Palm is fine for the expense account crowd, but even if I were inclined regularly to spend $30 to $50-plus on lunch every day, the place was a little too cramped and noisy for me, and the food didn't "wow" me, so it likely would not make the list for my regular restaurant rotation.