Busboys and Poets, Washington, D.C.

Last night was the annual "Dining Out for Life" dinner for Food and Friends, a charity that helps feed people with serious and terminal illnesses. They have dozens of restaurant partners that contribute 25% or more of their night's gross receipts to Food and Friends.

My friend Stephen, who has in the past been one of the Food and Friends ambassadors at different restaurants, and I went to the U Street area to dine at Busboys and Poets, a restaurant that opts to give 35% of its gross receipts. Busboys and Poets honors poet Langston Hughes with its name, since Hughes had at one time worked as a busboy in the neighborhood.

The restaurant was packed! We were even there rather early for D.C. dinner, arriving a little after 6 p.m., and still had a 35 minute wait for a table. Right by the entrance of the restaurant, though, they have a very interesting and ecclectic bookstore, so we were able to browse and chat while sipping wine (a nice VII Faustino Rioja) from the adjacent bar. When we were finally seated, we got a booth right next to the stage in their back dining room. The back dining room was mostly conventional tables and booths. The main dining room, though, had a lot of casual seating arrangements with sofas, overstuffed casual chairs, and coffee tables, as well as little tiny drum-top tables with bistro chairs. The crowd here is very young, most patrons being twenty- and young thirtysomethings.

The menu is varied and simple, focusing on appetizers, salads, sandwiches, pizza, and the like, but also with a small section of fun comfort food-type entrees.

We started with the hummus with pita bread triangles as our appetizer, it having been highly recommended by some of Steven's friends. The serving was large enough to share. It was good, without being too lemony or having too much tahini (a sesame seed paste with a strong flavor). A black olive garnished the center of the dip.



Next we moved on to soup and salad. Steven selected the apple, grape, and walnut salad with goat cheese dressing. It turned out to be large enough for a small entree salad. I had the soup of the day, a delicious crab and clam soup that was reminiscent of a thin clam chowder without the potatoes and this version was full of crab and clam.

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For his main course, Steven had the baked chicken breast in pepper cream sauce. It was served on a mound of mashed potatoes, covered in the sauce, then topped with fried zuccini and yellow squash. Apparently it was good, since it was all eaten. I had the homemade meatloaf. It was a little different than I had expected. They took two big slices of meatloaf and fried them, put them on top of mashed potatoes, covered it with brown gravy, and then topped the dish with sauteed rapini. Rapini was the vegetable that accompanied the day's pasta special that I heard mentioned in the "Daily Litany," so I asked that the usual spinach be replace with the rapini, which they did at no additional charge.

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There were a lot of mouthwatering-sounding desserts from which to choose. Steven enthusiastically picked the peanut butter mousse pie and quickly pronounced it "wonderful." I forgot to ask him what the two sauces were that they used to garnish the pie, one white and one deep red....I would guess raspberry for the one, but I've no clue about the white; a dollop of whipped cream also came with the pie. I chose (after great anguish over the carrot cake) the chocolate banana bread pudding. It was a square of warm bread pudding with banana slices, topped with chocolate sauce, topped with vanilla ice cream, and garnished with a strawberry and a sprig of mint. It was good, but next time I'm trying the carrot cake!

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21P Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

On the way home from Dupont Circle last night, we noticed that 21P apparently hasn't been paying its taxes, because the District had suspended their license to operate and closed them down.

Japone Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

Having whetted his appetite at Krispy Kreme, Leo decided that we should find a place to eat dinner as we walked home last night. Now, we've passed this place for years, but we'd never eaten at Japone. It's a little confusing at first, since it turns out that they have two restaurants in the same location, and one includes a separate bar inside it. Upstairs is Café Japone, featuring a karaoke bar and a limited menu of mainly sushi. Downstairs is Japone Restaurant, a "Japanese-French fusion" place, that includes the coral reef-themed Atlantis bar in the back, in addition to the restaurant's bar in the front.

We landed at Japone Restaurant, and were seated in their middle room, where white netting hangs over demi-lunar, high-backed, white banquettes amidst mirrored walls and accented with lots of votive candles.

Leo started with a vase of sake from their long sake menu, and I had a cup of some very strong, hot, green tea. He ordered an interesting variety of food for his meal, eschewing the concept of courses. Ordering from the sushi menu, he selected a small sashimi (slices of raw fish), two uni (sea urchin) sushi nigiri, and a spicy tuna roll. From the menu, he selected a foie gras custard with roast Japanese pork. He wasn't pleased with the custard, thinking it had been overcooked during the steaming process.




Sorry about the photos....Leo took them with his cell phone, and the Razr phone doesn't come with a flash.

I was in a simpler mood. I started with the lobster miso, the traditional fermented soybean paste soup with a split lobster tail in it; it was okay, though the lobster was a touch overcooked, probably since it stayed in the hot soup after it came out of the kitchen.



Then I had the spicy tuna and seaweed salad. The salad was interesting. They'd taken sushi-grade raw tuna and cut it into tiny cubes, tossed it with a sort of spicy sesame oil aioli, then mounded it on a bed of seaweed; very thinly sliced tomatoes and some interesting "soybean skin" chips garnished the plate. While this salad wasn't at all what I was expecting, it was actually quite interesting and a very different melange of flavors.



I ordered some green tea ice cream for dessert, but they were out.

We wandered around the restaurant a bit to look it over. The Atlantis bar in the back had fiber optic threads hanging down from the ceiling, giving the room an interesting "coral reef" feel. The front dining room had two fireplaces built into the wall (and felt great as we walked past!), and the room was dominated by an enormous long table in the center of the room that seated about two dozen.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Washington, D.C.

Last night Leo and I ventured up to Dupont Circle to try to win a free day of Zipcar rental, but, alas, we weren't successful. While we were in the area, I took Leo to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for his very first fresh, hot, glazed doughnut! He liked it. Meanwhile, I had one of their "shamrock doughnuts" in preparation for St. Patrick's Day, and let's just say that's not a tribute that I shall repeat.

India Curry House, Arlington, Va.

Robert came over in the snow to go to lunch with me today. We walked around just a little bit since he wasn't familiar with the Clarendon neighborhood and landed at India Curry House, where they were advertising an $8.99 lunch buffet. The buffet was actually decent. The only thing I didn't like was the appetizer, a potato-vegetable fritter, that I thought was "eh." I was particularly impressed with the barbecued chicken from the tandoor that was tender and juicy, instead of the usually overcooked, dry stuff often found on buffets. There was a nice beef rogan josh and a chicken curry, several different types of dal (lentils), a nice mixed vegetable jalfrazie dish, and some type of paneer (traditional homemade cheese) in a tomato cream sauce. Instead of having bread out on the buffet line, our waitress brought us a basket of fresh, hot naan that was quite fluffy and good. For dessert, they had a kheer (rice pudding) that was thin and sweet and very, very bright, saffron yellow and a bunch of fresh orange quarters. Overall, I thought the food was very good for the money.

Champp's Americana, Arlington, Va.

While we were at Pentagon City and Pentagon Row this afternoon, we stopped in for a very early dinner at Champp's Americana, a sports bar and restaurant we usually avoid because of the crowds and the noise. It was blissfully quiet while we were there, though there were at least half a dozen big flat-panel TVs that we could see from our table each with a different sports channel playing.

The food was surprisingly decent. Sorry we've no photos.....I didn't take my camera. Leo started with some fried mozzarella sticks with marinara dipping sauce. They had a light crunchy breading on them. For his main course, he had the jambalaya pasta, a fettucine dish with chicken, shrimp and andouille sausage in a light red sauce. He ate it all, so I guess it was good. I had the Cypress Creek Salad, and, wow! it was really good! It had an interesting combination of turkey, chicken, ham, and bacon with both Swiss cheese gratings and feta cheese crumbles in a creamy tomato vinaigrette. Wonderful explosion of flavors. Of course, with all that meat and cheese, I'm sure the salad had more calories and fat than some of the steaks on the menu!