Bistrot Lepic, Georgetown, D.C.

This Columbus day weekend, Ian has taken a four-day holiday (he cancelled his Friday class) and run off to Pennsylvania to spend some time with his family, leaving me here all alone with no one to annoy me with constant chatter about baseball. Since he's not here to defend himself, this gives me a perfect opportunity to post about our recent luncheon.

We had planned to meet some friends downtown for lunch, joining their group a little late. But, alas, that day, Ian's class kept him later than anticipated, and, judging from the higher-than-usual traffic levels on Wisconsin Avenue, we knew we'd not likely make it downtown in time to do more than watch our other friends say goodbye. After delivering our apologies cellularly, we decided just to stay in Georgetown, and walked up the hill (it turned out to be farther than we thought it would be) to Bistrot Lepic.

It was towards the end of the lunch hour, so there were a couple of tables open in the dining room. The staff seemed a little slow and scattered, though, so we had to wait a bit for them to prepare the table. Then, judging from the service the rest of the meal, it must have been a very hard day for them.

Ian, being the culinary adventurist that he is, couldn't find anything on the menu he wanted. They didn't have chicken fingers on the menu. They didn't have pizza, either. And we asked, but the waiter said the kitchen wasn't able to make an omelette (which rather surprised me, given how often I'm there). So, while Ian pouted a bit (to quote him, he has "the dietary habits of a six-year-old"), I induced the waiter to ask the kitchen for a vegetarian creation. The end result was actually pretty interesting. He got a plate with a large rosette of mashed potatoes and a main plate with artfully arranged haricots verts (French style skinny green beans), sauteed julienned carrots and summer squash, an English pea purée, and what looked to be some ratatoille (eggplant stew, ick!), all topped with a grilled tomato. He ate the potatoes and the green beans. Oh, and the wonderful crusty French country loaf bread slices they brought us. I should have sampled the pea puree, cause it looked good.



On the other hand, I had exactly the opposite problem: there were too many wonderful-sounding things on the menu from which to choose. I wanted all of them! My final decision was the salade printanière de poissons grillés. This wasn't just a boring old grilled fish salad—it was actually quite exciting. On top of a small bed of European-style salad greens rested a large serving of crisp, crunchy seaweed. Perfectly grilled scallops, salmon, white fish, and shrimp perched upon the bright green seaweed. As the seaweed was already lightly pickled, there was no supplemental dressing. The dish was delicious.



Dessert made Ian somewhat happier. His mousse au chocolat avec des framboises came in an individual ramekin, and the rich, dark mousse was dusted with confectioner's sugar and garnished with a couple of raspberries. A ladyfinger-sized cookie accompanied the sweet.



The waiter highly recommended the mint ice cream, which he said had been freshly made that morning, so I ordered it: crême glacée de monnayage fait maison avec de la sauce à chocolat et une mûre. It was drizzled with chocolate sauce and garnished with a big, plump blackberry nestled in the midst of the three scoops of ice cream. The ice cream was pretty good, though I was much less impressed with it when I saw that it cost more than the chocolate mousse!