The Caucus Room, Washington, D.C.

How wonderfully convenient it has been this week to have to have business luncheons during Restaurant Week. Today I got to lunch with a friend who's in the midst of party politics here in D.C. working for a certain politician-not-to-be-named, so it was so appropriate that we got to go to that seat of lobbyist largess in Washington, The Caucus Room. The Caucus Room is conveniently located about half way between the White House and the Capitol, just north of Pennsylvania Avenue. Its owners include big name politicos intentionally from both parties, and when Congress is in session, the place is usually packed with lobbyists and politicians. It's long been on my list of restaurants to experience, but places that cater to lobbyists always have what we call "expense account prices," meaning us normal people usually can't afford to eat here outside of Restaurant Week.

We walked in a couple of minutes prior to our 2 p.m. reservation and were immediately whisked in to one of the main dining rooms, walking through passages lined floor to ceiling with rack after rack of wine. Demi-round banquette tables with high backs lined the walls and tables in various configurations filled the center of the room. The dining room was tastefully appointed with no real theme or decor concept; black and white photographs in black frames were hung all over the walls. The most striking design element in the dining room, though, was the table settings: at each place was a tall, slender water glass and an enormous wine glass nearly twice the height of the water glass! The menus were presented in large vinyl folders, with one menu for the host with prices and the other menus with no prices. The Restaurant Week menu was a separate card.

We both started with the open-faced wild mushroom ravioli for our first courses. The design was unexpected; they had taken a large sheet of pasta dough and fashioned a single, large, bowl-sized raviolo with large tender chunks of assorted chopped mushroom in a beefy broth, topped with long, thin pea pods and shavings of peccorino cheese. It had a wonderful flavor and I think it was probably my favorite dish of the meal.



Both of our main courses were simply prepared and basic, but very tasty. My friend had the medallions of beef, which had two pieces of tenderloin cooked medium rare and presented on a mound of mashed Yukon gold potatoes all on a mirror of red wine reduction sauce and with several stalks of steamed fresh asparagus on the side, which he reported was "excellent."



I had the seared sea bass presented on a bed of roasted fingerling potatoes and lightly sauteed broccoli rabe and with a tamarind-flavored thin brown sauce, which I also enjoyed alot, especially the slightly bitter, hot zestiness of the rabe.



With the first two courses we had a big wire basket of bread featuring slices of French loaf and of a nice multigrain sunflower loaf.

I was pretty full after the first two courses (you'll recall how skinny and dainty I am), but dessert was part of the prix fixe menu, so I forced myself to eat more. My friend had the coconut pannacotta with roasted pineapple sauce. He'd not had a pannacotta before, so he said the texture surprised him a bit (pannacotta is a sort of eggless custard, solidified with gelatin), and he liked the pineapple sauce because it wasn't too cloying.



I ate the individual pecan pie with vanilla ice cream and a rum caramel sauce dusted with little granules of caramelized sugar and garnished with a chocolate "twig." Now, being somewhat of a pecan pie afficianando myself and having made ennumerable pecan pies in the past, I was not overwhelmingly impressed with this offering. It was good, but not great. My biggest concern was that I only had a fork and the caramelized top of the pie made it very difficult to cut into the pie without a knife. I also noticed a honey taste to the filling; the ice cream was very, very soft, almost melted.



Service was attentive throughout the meal, and I was impressed that the waiter crumbed the table after the main course plates were removed. The waiter was rather chatty, though, and they also lost points for charging us for a coffee and a hot tea that we hadn't ordered (incidentally, the iced tea here costs $3). I also thought it interesting when the assistant removed the extra two place settings from our table, he did not remove our two imposingly tall wine glasses, even though we'd already said we weren't ordering alcohol.

All in all, I kind of liked this place. It was a comfortable place to dine. While the food was not exotic or overly fancy, they did a good job of preparation and presentation of simple, basic foods, and I imagine it does well with the target audience, being "down home" politicians and lobbyists. I forgot to look at their wine list, but judging from all the different labels I was seeing in the bins along the walls, it must be very nice. The Caucus Room is a good place to meet and eat.