La Fourchette, Washington, D.C.

The Adams-Morgan neighborhood has started a new public relations campaign that features "First Tuesday," a special promotional day on the first Tuesday of the month where many retailers offer discounts and a number of the restaurants there offer a special $25 dinner for two (that's for two people, not per person!). Laurent and I ventured over Tuesday night to see what we could find.

We landed at La Fourchette—"The Fork"—a French place that has been one of the anchors of the Adams-Morgan restaurant scene for years. It's a very comfortable, very "French" café with a reputation for solid, sensible, food. The idea of two dining for $25 at Fourchette is a steal, so I was very excited.

While the menus for these monthly specials are limited, we still had a lot of nice choices. The special provided for a soup, salad, or paté as a first course, several main course selections (since an entrée in France is an appetizer, main courses are called a plat in French), and then a glass of the house wine.

Laurent started off with the pork and veal country-style paté, accompanied by cornichons, French olives, and croutons. I sampled a bit; it had a distinct fresh, meat taste, and was not liver based.


I got the cream of mushroom soup, a hearty blend of mushrooms in a light soup without the velouté base formerly used in older cooking traditions. While I've always preferred the classic velouté, they say these days that all that heavy cream and butter isn't healthy. :(


Next, Laurent had the seafood crèpes. He got two crèpes stuffed with shrimp, crab, and scallops, sauced, and matched with some julienne carrots and squash. He said they were very good.


I had the leg of lamb on a bed of white beans. The lamb was a large cross-section slice with large spikes of garlic and a reduction sauce.


They were out of the sauvignon blanc, so Laurent had to drink the house chardonnay. I had a glass of the house cabernet sauvignon.

After dinner, the waiter came around with a lovely dessert tray with too many goodies to try. It was not, unfortunately, included in the meal special, but we were weak and opted to share a decadently rich and delicious oeufs à la neige—a "floating island." I love those things, and seldom order them, but I don't know why. The floating island is a soft meringue that "floats" atop a "sea" of crème anglaise (English custard cream) and is garnished with caramel. Yum.


And thus was our first First Tuesday experience. I think we'll be penciling in Tuesdays on our calendars.