Chopsticks, Washington, D.C.

After Leo called me like six times tonight, he succeeded in dragging me away from the office about sevenish and taking me to dinner in Chinatown. He said he was feeling bad for me after the less-than-fabulous experience Joseph and I had last night at Nirvana (and Leo's family is Buddhist, too, even though he went to a Catholic school). The bus that runs right by my office building also goes to Chinatown, so we took that. Chinatown is fun, and most all of the restaurants and businesses have their window signs written both in English and in Chinese, even places like Subway sandwiches.

He wanted to go to a place called Chopsticks Restaurant, a very unassuming place that looked much like a neighborhood cafe or diner, instead of the faux-elegance of so many D.C. area restaurants. As soon as we sat down, the staff immediately brought us menus, water, and a complimentary pot of hot tea. We had a charming Chinese waitress, and she and Leo chattered on endlessly in Cantonese.

I told Leo to order us some authentically Chinese food, so he consulted with the waitress and ordered an interesting combination of whole fish, a pork hot pot, a big plate of ong choy, and white rice. The first thing to arrive was the ong choy. Ong choy--"water spinach"--is a popular Chinese vegetable dish which is sauteed with garlic. The plant is much bigger than the American style spinach we know, and Leo only knew it by it's Chinese name, and kept calling it water vegetable. About the same time, the hot pot arrived. There were chunks and slices of rich, fatty pork in what I can best describe as a not-too-sweet barbecue sauce, with some onion-like vegetable and other things I couldn't quite identify. It was served over the white rice and was a pleasant enough dish. The starring dish for the meal, though, had to be the fish.

The kitchen took an entire whole flounder, which was over two feet long, and cut the bulk of the meat off the carcass and stir-fried it lightly in a wok with nice mushrooms and several different types of crunchy vegetables like celery, carrot slices, and snow peas. Meanwhile, they took the remaining carcass and deep fried it. The fried carcass was arranged on the serving plate, and the vegetables and fish pieces were artfully arranged on top of the bones. A woman who must have been a manager or an owner came out with the fish to present it to the table, and insisted on immediately serving it to us while it was still hot. So, she dished up big servings of the fish and vegetable combination, but she didn't stop there. She then began to cut out pieces of the deep fried bones, and served large pieces to us, placing them atop the stir-fried portion. She insisted we eat it now, before it got cold and "not crispy." Yeah, fried bones. Well, I tried it, and it was actually pretty tasty. Nice crunch to it.

So, we had a nice meal, and there was so much food, there was way too much for just two people. Re-enter the manager/owner lady......there was still fish left over on the platter, and she insisted on serving the last of the fish, cutting up the last of the bones, and serving those, too, and I do believe that she wouldn't have taken no for an answer! So, she mounded up our plates again, and we had to make a bit of an effort to eat more so she wouldn't be insulted. Leo tells me that in Chinese culture, it's very rude to waste food when one is a guest at someone's home.....of course, in China, they generally have smaller servings! He said she was just being a "Chinese mother." Nonetheless, I kinda liked this place, and I hope we go back again some day.

Nirvana, Washington, D.C.

Twas a little after 8 o'clock this evening when my good friend Joseph (a/k/a Joe-Bob) rang me on my cell to insist that I leave the office immediately and join him for dinner. So, realizing that my current project was going to take several more hours to complete, I acquiesced and shut down for the evening. We were going to meet north of the White House, since he works east of the White House and I work southwest, but it was after seven, so I had to walk the two blocks to the other end of the building and go out the C Street door, then walk up the two blocks again to get back to my end of the building, and we ended up meeting at 18th and H. We had no clue what to eat tonight and ended up walking down the K Street corridor ("downtown" is booming at lunch, but rather dead at night) until we found Nirvana, a vegetarian Indian restaurant. Neither of us previously had dined at Nirvana, but it is frequently mentioned in tour books, so we decided to try it out.

As soon as we were shown to our tables, the waiter wanted our drink orders before we were even seated. Nothing like eager service, eh? The restaurant decor was rather plain, with very little ethnic design. The tables had colorful designs under the glass tops, which might arguably have been madras designs, but that was about it. A bar was the centerpiece of the room, and it looked pretty much like any other restaurant.

I rather got a kick out of the menu. "Nirvana", of course, is the Buddhist religious philosophy wherein one attains "supreme enlightenment," and thus ends the anguish of the continuous cycle of death and rebirth. One reaches nirvana via the Eightfold Path: 1) Right Views; 2) Right Intention; 3) Right Speech; 4) Right Conduct; 5) Right Livelihood; 6) Right Effort; 7) Right Mindfulness; and 8) Right Contemplation (forgive the lecture--it's the humanities professor in me). Nirvana the restaurant's menu was divided into eight categories, all named Right Something, such as "Right Nectar" for the page of beverages and "Right Beginnings" for the appetizers. Okay, I know, kinda nerdy, but I thought it was funny nonetheless.

Anyway, before we could get through the rather lengthy all-vegetarian menu and before our drinks had arrived, another waiter was by rather insistently to take our orders, and seemed impatient that we had not yet read our menus. It was an unusual menu.....several things I'm used to eating at Indian restaurants either were not there or were named differently. Joe-Bob ended up ordering the vegetable biryani (rice with vegetables and nuts) and I ordered the palak paneer, a dish which seemed in the menu description to be very similar to the saag paneer I often order at Indian restaurants, which is a spinach dish with chunks of farmer cheese.

We ordered the mana mani for an appetizer, which turned out to be two very very long hot green peppers (the menu said banana peppers, but these were not banana peppers) which were stuffed with a legume and spice mixture, then battered and deep fried, and served with a sweet tamarind sauce. I actually liked mine, and it reminded me somewhat of Mexican chiles rellenos. We forgot to order a bread, and in retrospect, I was rather surprised the waiter didn't suggest a bread, since the traditional way of eating Indian food involves tearing off pieces of bread and using them to grasp food and convey the food to the mouth (no silverware).

The peppers were served on thin round aluminum plates. When they were cleared away, the waiter brought very large round aluminum plates for our dinner plates--no china or stoneware. The food had just arrived at the table, when the lights were turned up! Now, it was only 9 o'clock, and there were at least four other tables in the restaurant, some of which were getting food around the same time we were, so I thought the lights a rather rudely abrupt act of management, if that was the way they were encouraging people to eat faster so they could close up. Joe-Bob didn't tell me how his vegetable biryani was, but it looked a little gummy to me. My palak panner was okay, but I missed the creamy richness of my usual saag paneer. I attributed the "thinness" to the vegetarian spirit of the restaurant, though skimping on the cream seems a little odd with chunks of cheese in a dish if a place is trying to be vegan.

We ordered dessert, but the waiter came back to announce that the kitchen was closed. They didn't even offer kheer (rice pudding) which was no doubt sitting in their refrigerator or kulfi (ice cream) which was no doubt in their freezer, neither of which required any cooking or real preparation other than spooning it into a dish. At the same time we ordered dessert, Joe-Bob asked for a refill on his Sprite, but now that I think about it, it never came.

As soon as we paid the check, a waiter came and whisked it off the table instead of waiting for us to leave. I was also a bit annoyed that they charged me for a refill on my chai. Meanwhile, another waiter came by our table and two others to announce that they were closing (as if we couldn't tell). So, we left, and I noticed that one of the remaining tables with six people still had food on the table.

So much for peace and nirvana with all the rush. I also noticed a bit of discord between several of the waiters at various points in the evening, which is never good form when it breaks forth in the presence of customers. I suppose the food was okay at this restaurant, but the surly, rushed service certainly left a bad taste in my mouth, and I doubt I seek nirvana again at Nirvana.

Cafe Deluxe, Washington, D.C.

While we were in the neighborhood of the National Cathedral, three of us wandered over to a little cafe across the street where Laura Bush sometimes lunches called Cafe Deluxe, and it seems quite a few others from the service had the same idea.

Leo had the fire-roasted tomato bisque and the chicken and cheese quesadillas. Michael had a hamburger and fries. In honor of Passover, I had the lamb and goat cheese sandwich and fries. My sandwich was good, and would have been even tastier without the roasted red bell pepper on it, which was a bit overpowering until I pulled it off.

For dessert, Leo had a hot fudge and caramel chocolate brownie sundae, Michael the creme brulee (which he didn't like), and I ordered a blueberry cobbler. My cobbler was one of the most unusual presentations of cobbler I've seen in a long time, being served as an individual pie with very thick, almost cookie-like, sweet pate sucree pastry and the blueberries were such an interesting color and shape and taste I would have sworn that they were canned peaches.

It was a fun little cafe, though the service was very slow. Perhaps they were not anticipating a Sunday evening rush from the cathedral....but they've been there long enough, I can't believe it was a total surprise.

Gravy

Cultural geographers should pay more attention to gravy.

We have a love-hate relationship with gravy. There's nothing better than a steaming hot, fresh, chicken-fried steak drenched in gravy. And, where would Thanksgiving be without gallons of giblet gravy to drown the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes? Thick or thin, brown or white, it's all good. Yet, if you go to a snooty cafe or bistro, they don't serve gravy. Just sauce. Breakfast of fried eggs, fried ham, and red eye gravy becomes eggs with ham au jus. The beef tenderloin comes with a red wine reduction. That rolled pork roast doesn't have gravy, it has a thin puree of root vegetables served as a sauce. Veal t-bone goes with demiglace. Chicken will have a veloute sauce, or some fancy-named variation thereof (in a French kitchen, the milk gravy on my mother's fried chicken would be a classic "Sauce Supreme").

When I was in high school, we used to order French fries with brown gravy at lunch. Yum. I'm old enough that our gravy was actually made fresh by the school cooks every morning—they didn't just open a can. There's also an old, classic diner in my hometown famous for its "hot hamburgers"—a wonderfully decadent concoction with a couple of slices of toast topped by an enormous hamburger steak topped with grilled onions topped with brown gravy topped with a mound of great big French fries. And even to the present day, when I go spend the weekend with my family at some Indian pow-wow, the main course for dinner one night is sure to be "meat gravy", a nice thick gravy with a few bits of crumbled up meat served with whatever starch is available that day, perhaps potatoes, perhaps rice, and usually also available will be big, plate-sized pieces of Indian fried bread. At home with my parents, my father will often ignore the steak on the table, butter a slice of bread, lay it flat on his plate, and cover it with steak gravy.

But we can't get gravy at a nice restaurant. And the dieticians admonish us to leave the gravy off the meat.

During one formal dinner my sophomore year of college, my wise fraternity "pledge grandfather," who was destined to be Outstanding Senior Man of the University, explained to me the geographic differences of gravy use. He said that when you go back to the northeast Yankee part of the country, meat is served with just a little dollop of gravy. In the midwest, they serve about a spoonful of gravy on the meat. But here in the South, we have a little meat with our gravy!

Where did gravy come from? Sometimes I think it's a rather uniquely American thing. They don't have gravy in Mexico--melted cheese doesn't count! Asians don't use gravy, no doubt because it would be too hard to eat with chopsticks. I don't remember ever being served gravy when I was in school in England, although it was used in casseroles such as shepherd's pie. Italians use vegetable sauces (think tomato). Never had "gravy" in Germany, though they do occasionally use a little sauce. And France--need we ask?

Now I'm hungry. Anybody wanna go out for steak and gravy?

Thai Kingdom, Washington, D.C.

Leo got in late last night from a harrowing bus ride back from New York. Their tire blew out on the interstate and the bus nearly lost control; they were delayed four hours waiting for repairs and a replacement bus. So, when he got in, we thought he'd relax better if we went out to dinner, rather than cooking at home.

We walked up to K Street and found a wonderful, very authentic, Thai place called Thai Kingdom. The chicken satay appetizer was marinated in coconut milk and served with a great peanut sauce with quite a bit of spicy heat. Dessert was a shared plate of sticky rice with mango--**so** much better than the one we had last week at Thai Coast. For entrees, we had two different types of Thai flat noodles, Leo a dry, spicy mixture, and I had a beef and broccoli version that the waitress explained was different from a similar dish because this one came with gravy. Now, the dish was excellent.....great flavors, tender meat, interesting cuts of the entire broccoli plant, but the gravy....it wasn't gravy. It was sweet.

Wine and cheese at Circle Liquors, Washington, D.C.

Last night I went to a wine tasting at this absolutely wonderful wine shop in Upper Northwest D.C. near Chevy Chase circle called Circle Liquors. It's a big shop on Connecticut Avenue, but it's not just big, it has a very nice and very well thought out selection of international wines from all price ranges. They apparently do a tasting about once every six weeks.

The theme of last night's tasting was French burgundies. They presented six wines, four white and two red.

The first white was Domaine Chavy Puligny-Montrachet 2001, which retails for $39.99. It was a very nice, light, crisp wine with a light straw color, no oakyness, and almost classically steely. It would be good as an aperitif, but it did not stand up all that well to the cheeses (more about cheeses later). Next was Domaine Matrot Meursault 2001, $33.99, which was a big, fruity, full-bodied wine with a bit of limestone, a hint of honey, and a good acidity. It did well with food, and I think it was probably my favorite white of the evening. The next two wines were both Domaine Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne chardonnays. First, they presented the 1993 ($105.99). It was good. This was a bit of a surprise, since it's a twelve year old chardonnay, but French chardonnays do tend to hold their age better than do California chardonnays. The next Corton, though, the 2002 ($119.99) was amazing. It was a lovely wine, clear, mellow, woodsy, with good complexity and a honeyed finish, and it stood up to the food very well. The sommalier was saying it was still a bit tight and would only improve with a little bit of age.

Next, they presented the reds, both pinot noirs. First up was Domaine Tollot-Beaut Chorey Cote de Beaune 2000 ($27.99). This wine comes from the southern half of the burgundy region. It had a burgundy color with a slight tinge of brown, but drank very well. There was definitely a forward fruitiness to the wine and a lot of floral notes. It didn't stand up to the strong cheeses as well as the other red, but I still think I prefer this wine of the two. The second wine was Domaine Grivot Nuits St. Georges "Les Charmois" 2001 ($39.99), which comes from the northern half of burgundy. This wine definitely had more structure than the Cote de Beaune, and a touch of tanin which allowed it to do very well with the cheeses. It was a nice, medium-bodied wine with a hint of cherry. C'est bon.

The cheeses used to accompany the wines were worthy of their own tasting. There was the omnipresent brie, this one a very nice 70% butterfat cheese that was sufficiently aged so as to have a nice, soft, spreadability without the strong ripeness the French love but Americans hate. They had a lovely three year old gruyere I turned to often. The cheddar entry was a pleasant Red Leicester, but I noticed as the evening went on and the cheese warmed to room temperature, it got rather too soft for a leicester. The "smelly cheese" category was filled with the only slightly so smelly morbier, which had a very nice, soft texture and flavor. The morbier was probably chosen more for its talking points--this is a unique cheese made half from "morning" milk and half from "evening" milk, separated in the wheel by a thin layer of grape leaf ash. It has a nice appearance with a "stripe" running down the middle from the ash, and the more discriminating palates can detect a very faint difference in taste from the morning side versus the evening side of the cheese.....I always say the evening side has a bit more of a grassy taste, since the cows have been eating fresh grass all day long! The star cheeses from this tasting were both three year aged Grand Goudas, which were both hard and granular and so full of wonderful flavors. One of the goudas was plain and the other was applewood smoked. These were absolutely wonderful cheeses, and I think a 3 year old Grand Gouda probably retails for about $18-20 a pound.

I helped the sommalier carry his stuff out to his car after the tasting, and he gave me a bottle of the Puligny-Montrachet and a plastic baggy full of the leftover cheeses. Yum.

Thai Coast, Washington, D.C.

Today is the Thai New Year. In celebration, we went to a little restaurant between here and Georgetown called Thai Coast for the observance. It wasn't a bad place, but I doubt we make a special trip to go there again.

They have a dark, narrow dining room with a bar and several prep stations visible, plus a large sunroom-type porch on the street side of the building, which was where we were seated. L Street is one of the bridges into Georgetown, so there was a lot of foot traffic back and forth for us to watch. Neither the waiter nor the waitress spoke good enough English to understand us when we asked what traditional New Year foods were in Thailand, and the waitress kept talking about some custom of going to people's houses and throwing water around or something. So, we just ordered some things to share, not knowing if we were violating any traditional holiday mores or not.

We started with an appetizer platter, which had two kinds of dumplings, one pair steamed and one pair fried, a couple of fried spring rolls that looked like taquitos, some long conical fried things with whole, large shrimps inside, a couple of skewers of chicken satay, and something that looked a bit like an empañada stuffed with curried meat, accompanied by two sauces. a clear sweet and sour fish sauce and a variety of peanut sauce. My favorite was the steamed dumpling.

Our main courses were the basil seafood and the shrimp pad thai. The pad thai was a bit disappointing. I think perhaps it had been made some time in advance, because the noodles were stuck together and I found the flavors rather bland and uninspired. I did like the basil seafood, though. It included scallops, shrimp, mussels, and scored squid cooked with a huge quantity of large snow peas and sprigs of fresh basil leaves. The menu gave the dish a two pepper "hotness" warning, but I thought the heat rather mild. It was served with a small bowl of uninspired, not terribly fresh white rice.

We shared a single dessert, but it was more than ample for two. The mango sticky rice is a very traditional dish, and while I was impressed with the size of the mango half on the plate, the mound of accompanying rice topped with sweetened condensed milk and ground peanuts was so salty it was barely edible. Thai iced coffee rounded out the meal.

The prices at this restaurant were modest, but on the whole, the experience was rather disappointing, especially since the online reviews we saw before heading over there were all so positive, and since the restaurant seemed not to observe their own cultural holiday.

American Red Cross Cafeteria, Washington, D.C.

A friend from the solicitor's office and I walked over to the national headquarters of the American Red Cross to eat lunch in their very modern cafeteria. They had quite a variety of foods, and I ended up with a very nice and quite ample Greek salad topped with sauteed-at-the-station shrimp.

Cafe Mozart, Washington, D.C.

We ended up getting our cherries at last during D.C.'s cherry blossom season at Cafe Mozart, a lovely Austrian cafe hidden behind a kleine konditorei a couple of blocks east of the White House. After a couple of pints of Bitburger beer in very tall glasses, we started with an appetizer of cheese fondue made in the traditional fashion wherein the cheeses are melted in white wine and cherry brandy. Leo's main course was a beef roulade with spätzli and a cucumber salad. I had the hassenpfeffer with potato pancakes and red cabbage. My hassenpfeffer was very good, with the braised rabbit being fork-tender and served with a sweet-sour red wine sauce.

For dessert, I had the "cherry blossom special", which was a commemorative coupe (think fancy ice cream sundae) with whipped cream flavored with just a tiny, tiny touch of cherry brandy and compote of spiced cherries on the side. Leo ordered the Black Forest cake, but the waiter returned to report that they were out, so Leo had to make due with the Mozart Torte, a layered chocolate cake filled with a raspberry-flavored chocolate cream.

This restaurant features live music most every evening, and we were "blessed" with a middle-aged Georgian (think Russian, not redneck) bass-baritone accompanying himself on an electronified guitar singing pop oldies.

Mimi's, Washington, D.C.

After Easter Mass, I went back to the condo and Leo was awake and dressed, rearranging his bedroom, and hungry, so we walked up to Dupont for brunch at Mimi's. It was very simple. I just had the "Neptune special", which was a variation on eggs Benedict made with crabcakes, and it was **so** good! Leo had one, too, plus he had a chocolate mousse for dessert. I tasted his mousse, and it was very smooth and chocolately, but it had no flavoring or pizzazz to it.

Suburban diners

Breakfast was at the Silver Diner in Alexandria VA, and dinner was at the Tastee Diner in Bethesda MD. I love diner food. A Greek "gyros" omelette for breakfast and a country-fried steak for dinner. Yum. I don't know why there aren't any diners in D.C.

Le Gaulois, Alexandria, VA

Leo took me to dinner as a "pre-thank you" for helping him move tomorrow. We went to King Street in Old Town Alexandria (my first visit!) and landed at a place called Le Gaulois ("the Gaul," which, judging from the cafe's logo, refers to Roman era, wild, Gallic tribesmen). Leo started with a French Kiss (think kir royale with Chambord instead of creme de cassis) and I had a Dubonet Rouge with a splash of soda and a twist of lemon. Then, we ended up eating the same things.

We began the meal with an "entree" of the chef's charcuterie plate, an assortment of meats and pates which were wonderfully rich and varied. I particularly loved the duck liver pate. Next was a creme de moules, or cream of mussel, soup that was a lovely soup with shelled mussels and strips of julienned zuccini and carrot in a thin cream soup. The plat premier was a rich grilled pair of shad roe topped with bacon strips and served on a bed of sauteed fresh spinach and accompanied by two little parsleyed potatoes and a tiny bowl of steamed brocolli, julienne turnip, and julienne carrot.

Our second plat was a non-traditional but wonderful canard a l'orange presented as a series of thin slices of rare duck breast adorned with manicured orange wedges plated in a circle on a mirror of light red wine and natural juice reduction sauce, surrounding a small puff pastry "bowl" of wild rice. Our salade was a simple plate of mesclun greens in a light French style olive oil vinaigrette. Three cheeses, a chevre, a brie, and a hard cheese the name of which I didn't understand from the waiter, with slices of green apple and several red raspberries were the next course. The hard cheese was good, and I always like chevre; the brie was rather young, I thought, but edible.

For dessert, Leo selected for us a fruit crepe with strawberries, blueberries, and something I wasn't quite sure of (diced poached pear??) garnished with a nest of candied orange peel threads all floated on a lake of thin zabaglione sauce which was lightly broiled before presentation. We ended the meal with a very nice espresso.

Our wine with dinner was a surprisingly economical and pleasant bottle of 2002 L'Enclos de Saint Jacques Bordeaux Superieur recommended by the waiter.

Office cafeteria, Washington, D.C.

The office cafeteria had baked rockfish (which was good), rice (which was mediocre even by institutional food standards), steamed carrots (which were mushy), and blackberry cobbler (which was good) for lunch.

Bistrot du Coin, Washington, D.C.

Before Maundy Thursday Mass tonight we popped in to Bistrot du Coin for a bite to eat. The service was unusually late (8 p.m.!), so we thought we'd best eat beforehand. Anyway, I had a nice country pate and a little green salad of Bibb lettuce and sliced scallions with a glass of nice margeaux, and then later a slice of lemon tarte with a thin layer of piped meringue on top that was garnished with tiny slices of gumdrops. My dinner companion had a huge pot of steamed mussels in a garlic cream sauce which looked and smelled delicious, and a basket of French fries with a side of bearnaise as a dipping sauce.

Montmartre, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, we didn't get started until after noon, and headed over to Eastern Market to see the market and the flea market. It was a lovely day to be out and about walking around. We opted to have brunch at a wonderful little French bistro called Montmartre. Tony had a country style pate, eggs Benedict (Les Oeufs Benedicte—it used pancetta instead of Canadian bacon), and a cheese plate in lieu of dessert, starting with a bloody Mary for his hair of the dog. I had the calf liver, which was absolutely fabulous. The liver had been very gently sauteed to about a "medium", then laid on a bed of piped mashed potatoes (there was something tasty in the potatoes which I've yet to identify), then sauced with a rich demiglace and balsamic vinegar reduction with caramelized onions and slices of roasted garlic. Oh, my! Yummy! I know some people think they hate liver, but this would be the perfect choice to reintroduce them to the delicious and complex tastes of a properly prepared liver dish.

For dessert, I ordered the Il Flotante, mostly out of curiosity, since I'm used to "floating islands" at French restaurants being Oeufs à la Neige......little puffs of meringue swimming in a thin custard sauce. The Flotante was a three inch diameter meringue sprinkled with shaved almonds and a tiny bit of honey before being broiled ever so briefly and presented on a mirror of custard sauce. While we were finishing dessert, Leo popped in to the restaurant and had a piece of the blueberry tarte. Here's a picture of Tony trying to figure out what to do with his eggs Benedict:

 

La Creperie, Arlington, VA

Last night after work Tony wanted to go shopping, so we headed to Pentagon City. Along the way, we decided to grab an early dinner, since he'd not lunched yet, and found La Creperie amidst all those restaurants and shops which are outside the main "Fashion Centre at Pentagon City" in an area called Pentagon Row.

I really enjoyed my dinner, which was a stew of chicken and mushrooms in a chicken broth enriched with cream followed by an enormous salad maison with freshly made mayonnaisse as the dressing. For dessert, I just had a tiny cup of French roast espresso. Tony started with a fine pate in aspic, then ate a salmon and cream cheese crepe for his plat, and an apple cinnamon crepe with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I liked this creperie, cause they used great big crepes instead of little tiny pancake sized ones. Tony's salmon crepe was folded over in half much like a quesadilla and the apple dessert crepe was wrapped into a sort of flat burrito shape.

All evening I kept trying to order my food in French from our obviously French waitress, but she kept quizzically repeating me in English like she wasn't able to understand me. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my French sucks, but I couldn't have been that far off on either vocabulary or accent, or Tony would have lectured me about my errors, as he always does. I guess she was just being like the waiters in Paris. Parisians can be so obnoxious. They generally always speak impeccible English, but they feign ignorance and make Americans struggle with their French, and then they still pretend the Americans are incomprehensible, even though they probably eavesdropped on the table ahead of time, hearing the Americans discussing their menu choices amongst the table.

Saint Patrick's Day in D.C.

Tony met me at the airport tonight, and after we dropped my luggage off at home we headed out for a St. Patrick's Day dinner. Even though it was after ten p.m., all of the Irish or Celtic related restaurants were absolutely jam-packed with drunken faux-Irishmen, so the only place we could find that was 1) halfway calm and 2) still open was the Afterwards Cafe.

After we were seated and got our Irish coffee orders in, what did we notice but the two business men at the adjacent table (adjacent at this cafe means the tables are barely a foot apart!) to ours were real live Irishmen! One was from Northern Ireland and one was from Ireland, and they were in town today with the McCartney sisters who were visiting the White House to discuss problems with the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein.

Albuquerque

What is it about this town and green chiles? Everywhere I go to eat, the food is full of green chiles. I just had a nice buffet dinner at the Sandia Casino (I only won $10.50 more than I started with tonight), and the food was all redolent with chiles. And this afternoon, I pulled through the McDonald's drivethrough, and my $1 double cheeseburger had a green chile on it! It was the same last month when I was here....the only place that didn't have green chiles in the food was Starbucks. Oh, well. I guess it's a tourist thing. I'd rather they did blue corn tortillas, though.

Sterling's, Bartlesville, OK

Today is my mother's 80th birthday, so I flew to Oklahoma and then drove up to my parents' house to surprise them.

We went to dinner tonight at Sterling's, which is one of the two or three only "nice" places in town, and it's where my parents usually end up for special occasions, since they don't like Copper at the Price Tower and I don't have a membership at the country club anymore. My parents both had ribeye steaks and I had the evening special, which was a rather large filet mignon pepper steak done up with a shallot wine reduction sauce. Salads and baked potatoes came with the meal, as is pretty much traditional around here. With dinner, we drank a bottle of Kendall Jackson Vintner's Reserve Merlot (I forgot the month), which was an innocuous little wine that paired satisfactorily enough with the steaks. Dessert was strawberry cheesecake with a candle stuck in it, and I ordered the apple cranberry pie, which was good, but which would have benefitted greatly from being warmed.

Namaste, Lakewood, CO

I had an interesting dining experience Tuesday during my Denver business trip at a place called Namaste in Lakewood. Namaste is an Indian and Nepali restaurant. I've never been to Nepal before, and for those of you who are geographically challenged, Nepal is that little tiny nation north of India up in the Himalayas where Mount Everest is located. My waiter was very nice! He is from Nepal, and has lived in the Denver area for three years. He was almost tall, had features that resembled Chinese, had a big beautiful smile, and the most unusual light brown eyes. We chatted a bit during the meal, and I discovered that he is single, he has a college degree in humanities from back in Nepal and he does volunteer work with the children's hospital in Denver helping out with wheelchair sports.

I had him pick a traditional Nepal dish from the menu, since I've had tons of Indian food before. He selected the chilli chicken, which was a stewed dish with bite-sized chunks of chicken, sliced rings of onion, horizontal slices of a meaty pepper of some sort (authentic?? I didn't recognize it as one of the standard Mexican peppers), and a little bit of diced potato-like root, all enriched with a bit of tomato paste, and served with a big mound of a basmati-type rice. He also selected a parantha bread, which is a large, round, leavened, pita-like, flat bread which had been quartered, and which he encouraged me to tear into pieces and use to eat the food, instead of using silverware. I really liked the chicken. I'd ordered it with "medium" spice, not knowing how hot their hot was, and I could easily have kicked the heat up another notch. The thing I liked about the dish, though, was that the spice combinations had far fewer ingredients than are used in India, and I didn't have the feeling of being overwhelmed with spices as I often do in Indian establishments. This was much simpler, much cleaner, if you will, while still being complex.

Even though the classic Indian dessert, kulfi, was invented in the Himalayas (kulfi is the original ice cream, first made with Himalayan snow and flavored with pistacchio nuts), the waiter informed me that it isn't eaten in Nepal unless one goes to an Indian restaurant, and that desserts are not common at all, especially since no fruits can be grown in the country. I drank a Nepalese version of chai with Nepalese tea, milk, and only a very light hint of spice, throughtout the meal.

Grand Marnier and Cigar Dinner, Washington, D.C.

Last night I had a lovely time at a "Grand Marnier and Cigar Dinner" at a restaurant downtown called McCormick and Schmick's, as the guest of a priest friend of mine who, as it turned out, was their guest expert on the history of Grand Marnier. Also at our table was Lee, the cigar expert; Carrie, the Grand Marnier sales representative; and Carrie's friend Kathryn, who turned out to be quite fascinating. She's a biological researcher working on the human genome project up in Rockville and she's also simultaneously doing another graduate degree at Johns Hopkins. She invited me out to Herndon this afternoon to watch her play field hockey, but it's in a place that requires a car, so I'm not going to go. Coincidentally, Fr. Declan and I were the only men at the dinner wearing bowties.

Since we were a little early, while we waited for the restaurant's guests, we had a couple of rounds of cocktails with the girls drinking wildly flavored martinis (I remember one was a strawberry lemonade something), Fr. Declan drinking his standard Tanqueray No. 10 martini, and I sipped on kir royales. We were also given little miniature snifters with tastes of a new Grand Marnier product called Navan, which is a premium vanilla flavored cognac that was actually pretty tasty.

At this point, the cigars began to arrive. I didn't actually sample them myself (everyone else at the table, including the girls, was puffing away), but I did bring them home. We got free cigar cutters that look kinda dangerous to me. Along with the first cigar, they also brought a small snifter of Grand Marnier--some people dipped the end of their cigar in the GM before putting it in their mouth. There were three cigars presented, in increasing order of heaviness and flavor. The first two were from the Ashton house in the Dominican Republic. The third was a Honduran cigar "La Aroma de Cuba" from the Marquis house. Lee talked about them all at length and gave better names and identifications, but not being a smoker, that all went in one ear and out the other. The one interesting thing that I remember, though, is that the very best tobacco leaves for cigar wrappers are not from Cuba, but from Connecticut!

When the hors d'oeuvres arrived from the kitchen, we were served GMTs—Grand Marniers and tonics, a remake of the classic gin and tonic. The hors d'oeuvres were yummy. My favorite were these great big sea scallops wrapped in bacon. They also did chicken firecrackers (think spicy chicken-stuffed egg roll, cut on the bias) which were tasty and some very nicely done Rhode Island calamari. There were three choices for salads, a house salad (mixed greens, blue cheese crumbles, balsamic vinaigrette), Caesar salad, or a wedge salad (iceberg wedge with tomato slice, cheese crumbles, and blue cheese dressing). The wine was a 2002 Green Point Yarra Valley Chardonnay, from Australia. The wine was okay, but a little too light for that stage of the evening after all the cocktailing and heavy appetizers.

There were several entree choices. I had the 18 oz ribeye with mashed potatoes and asparagus, but they also offered a New York strip, New Zealand rack of lamb, swordfish picatta, and a rock fish filet. My steak was huge and very tasty....I wanted to gnaw on the bone! With dinner, we had a 2001 Sterling Diamond Mountain Ranch Cabernet that was a very good choice for the steaks, and the bar manager also brought around tastes of a 1997 Beringer Cabernet. For dessert, I had the upside down apple pie with cinnamon ice cream, and there was also a choice of a chocolate bomb, and the wine was an Inniskillin Eiswein.

In between the entree and dessert, we began sampling the special Grand Marnier reserves. First was the Cuvee du Centenaire, which was bottled in honor of the 100th anniversary of the House of Grand Marnier. After dessert, we got the Cuvee du Cent Cinquantenaire, which had been bottled in honor of the 150th anniversary. The 150 came in a gorgeously hand painted bottle, but I really think I liked the 100 better....it had better balance and harmony, and the dried bitter orange peel taste was much crisper and more enjoyable. Not that the 150 was bad, mind you!

So, that was dinner. Now I just have to figure out what to do with these three expensive cigars! Two of them are in cute little tubes, too.

Malaysia Kopitiam, Washington, D.C.

My friend Leo wanted to go to dinner tonight, so he Metroed over and we ended up walking all up and down M Street looking for a fabulous place, and ended up at a highly rated Malaysian place called Malaysia Kopitiam. This was my first venture into Malaysian food, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Leo's from Hong Kong, so he's had it before, but he's not expert on it, so we had the waitress just bring us dinner. The food reminded me a lot of Thai cuisine with some Chinese aspects, except the spicings are very different and almost remind me of Indian spices.

Our first courses were these interesting chicken and shrimp stuffed, fried, thin, burrito-looking things which had been cut into pieces, served on a bed of lettuce chiffonade, and accompanied by a hot, yellow tinged, watery looking sauce, and then another plate of what appeared to be a long roll of translucent white rice paper wrappers filled with chopped shrimp, scallop, and scallion cut into nine segments and arranged in a checkerboard pattern, accompanied by a peanut sauce. The second course included a lamb curry, with large tender chunks of lamb in a mild brown curry sauce, and a squid and shrimp dish, with large pieces of squid which had been scored and cross-hatched and were tossed with peppers, tomato, onion, okra pods, and some potato-like chunks, and all came with steamed white rice.

The last course included mango sticky rice liberally sprinkled with chopped peanut and a particularly interesting "Malaysian crepes" dish, which was made by taking two thin pancakes with a layer of sweetened, mashed green beans in between and pressing it on the grill to create sweet-crunchy areas on the crepe surfaces, and then the whole thing was cut into decorative shapes. It was very tasty.

Dish, Washington, D.C.

My friend Leo was in the neighborhood tonight and wanted to go eat, so we popped over the Dish in the River Inn on the street behind my block. It's cold out tonight, so we didn't want to have to walk far. We started off with a martini and a cosmopolitan which came in oversized glasses--no need for a second round. I wasn't terribly hungry tonight, so I just ordered a frisee salad and a duck confit off the appetizer side of the menu, and Leo had some potato gnocchi and the wild salmon entree. For dessert, we each had a pistacchio, dried fig, and white chocolate bread pudding, which was tres bon, then we sat and lingered over coffee. I like this friend; we talked a little "business" and he expensed the dinner. I need to find more friends with expense accounts!

Hooters, Phoenix, AZ

Last Thursday I had the most harrowing experience in Phoenix. We had a 5-7 p.m. meeting, after which several of my immediate superiors invited me to join them for dinner. Being new, that's the sort of invitation one really can't turn down. So, we left the office building where we'd been meeting and walked over to a nearby shopping and dining district, where they promptly headed for a Hooters.

It was awful.

The place was loud and boisterous, the televisions were blaring sports, the waitresses—who weren't even pretty—were running around in way-too-tight skimpy t-shirts and Daisy Dukes so tiny their pubic hair was longer than their shorts, and the place was filthy. I don't even want to describe the smell and condition of the men's room. Everyone at my table ordered chicken wings and beer. I had a salad and iced tea. And what's worse, when the chicken wings arrived at the table, the waitress kept forgetting to bring my salad. I wonder if she even put the order in at the same time. It was a good fifteen minutes later before my salad came.

Why do these waitresses think that they need to shake their chests when they bring food or drink to a table? I refused to look at the waitress when she came by to interrupt our conversations, which only made her shake at me all the harder.

When I got back to my hotel, I had to take a long shower, cause I felt so dirty, so used, so violated.

San Marcos Golf Resort, Chandler, AZ

Phoenix was an interesting experience— my first time to visit the State of Arizona. Our conference was at the legendary San Marcos Golf Resort and Conference Center in Chandler. The hotel provided some of the most interesting coffee breaks. Ordinarily, one gets cookies or muffins or doughnuts or some such thing, but the morning breaks always had hard boiled egg halves and slices of cheeses with fancy crackers (I loved the chevre they served), and the afternoon breaks were always slices of melons and pineapple, which I found rather too hard to eat in a crowded lobby.

Off time was kinda boring in Phoenix and I don't think I'd like to live here. For one, I couldn't find any place decent to eat. The town was full of national franchise places, but I didn't have a single meal the whole trip worthy of description.

Bombay Palace, Washington, D.C.

Had Indian food for dinner tonight at Bombay Palace. It was a "nice" restaurant on the K Street restaurant row, but I wasn't overly impressed with the dishes. It wasn't bad or anything, just not "special," and since they were rather pricey for an Indian restaurant, I think it needs to be special.

Lei Garden, Washington, D.C.

Gung-Hay-Fat-Choy. That means "happy new year" in Chinese. The Chinese New Year started last night, and continues for a week. This is the first time I've lived in a city with a Chinatown and been here for the new year, so I went with a friend to Chinatown last night for dinner at Lei Garden. My friend is from Hong Kong, so I didn't have to do any of the ordering. There was this rapid exchange of conversation with the waiters in rather animated Chinese, and soon dishes began to appear.

Of course, I have no idea what some of the things were we ate, but they were all good. I particularly remember a scallop dish with snow peas and water chestnuts and a beef dish with hot peppers and bits of garlic and scallion mince with virtually no sauce. Another thing was a skewerful of salted, savory shrimp that was pretty tasty. The nice thing about ordering in Chinese, though, is our food was much more authentic, the sauces weren't sweet, and there wasn't much sauce either.

Starbuck's, Albuquerque, NM

I gained a new addiction in Albuquerque. Our first morning there, one of my colleagues picked me up (we were staying at adjacent hotels) and drove us to the meeting site, but along the way we stopped at a Starbucks for a brief meeting with some other people. She's not a coffee person, so I was surprised that she scheduled a meeting at a Starbucks, but once we were there and ordering, she requested something new I'd never heard of before. A Chantico.

Chanticos are new. Chanticos are wonderful. Chanticos are amazing.

It's chocolate. No, not cocoa, but drinking chocolate, steamed to a precise 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Then it's served in a special cup, tinier than the standard Starbuck's espresso single shot cup. One probably wouldn't want much more than this small sample—it's 390 calories as it is—and I'd venture to say that one would most likely die (blissfully, of course) if one were to special order a venti.

Now, I'm not a Starbucks fan. Aside from not really liking their coffees, they are an evil, expansionist, capitalistic empire. But now I have to tolerate them, because they are the only place where I can get my chocolate fix.

El Pinto, Albuquerque, NM

Thursday night before I left Albuquerque, I went to a place highly recommended by the hotel concierge called El Pinto. El Pinto is a "destination" spot located way out on the far northwest outskirts of town in a building which was actually new restaurant construction from the 1970s, but which was built to resemble (perhaps too much!) an old, grand hacienda. It's a really big place, and kind of reminded me somewhat of Casa Bonita in Tulsa, but on a smaller, more elegant scale.

The food there, though, was rather ordinary, I thought. The best things were the guacamole and the white cheese dip, but I was totally stuffed before my enormous serving of chicken enchildas in blue corn tortillas, rice, and beans arrived. The enchildas were somewhat disappointing, especially since I paid extra for the blue corn tortillas, since they'd over baked them a bit and some of the enchilda was dried out. For dessert, I had a flan, which was good once I could undig it from out of the mountains of sweetened whipped cream.

Harvest Cafe, Albuquerque, NM

Tuesday morning, we woke up to a light dusting of dry snow all over the cars and ground that looked as though someone had taken a sifterful of confectioner's sugar to decorate everything. We had lunch that day at the Pueblo Cultural Center's Harvest Cafe, which serves all kinds of traditional foods. They started us with a huge bowl of really really good but hot guacamole and freshly fried blue and red corn tortilla chips. Had the nice but spicy chicken special for the main course, which was a chicken breast, pepper, and cheesy white sauce, and some bread pudding for dessert. That was the only interesting meal I had until Thursday night before I left, when I went to a place highly recommended by the hotel concierge.

Kettle, Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque was interesting last week. I flew in late Monday night and our flight was delayed in Dallas, so it was about midnight New Mexico time (a/k/a 2 a.m. D.C. time!) before I got to my hotel room. Hadn't eaten since lunch, so I dropped by the Kettle Restaurant across the street from the hotel and had huevos rancheros, and began what would become my litany of poblano and serrano peppers on everything in Albuquerque.

Julia Child's Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

This afternoon, Ryan wanted to go to some museums, so we went to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History to see the presidential exhibits. While we were there, I was excited to see Julia Child's kitchen, which she contributed to the Smithsonian when she moved from Boston to California.

La Tomate, Washington, D.C.

This weekend I had my first houseguest in Washington! My friend Ryan flew down from New Hampshire for a quick weekend getaway from the two feet of snow they've had up there at Dartmouth.



We Metroed up to Dupont Circle and walked up Connecticut Avenue, where we found a charming little Italian restaurant called La Tomate ("the tomato").

La Tomate seems to be a very Italian Italian restaurant; I heard management speaking to the staff in Italian, so when the hostess greeted us, I requested our table for two in Italian, and we got a prime window seat. There were so many fabulous things on the menu, we had a hard time deciding what to order! While we perused the menu, we sipped on a simple, crisp prosecco.

I thought it was funny that Ryan wanted to eat at an Italian place. As it turns out, two food items he doesn't like are tomatoes and mushrooms, and he also doesn't like hot, spicy foods! He tends to have rather bland white trashy food preferences (LOL....he's gonna read this and be mad at me), and what he wanted for dinner was a fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp, but that wasn't on the menu (it's an American invention).

They had a dish with black fettuccine with shrimp, sundried tomatoes, and porcini mushrooms that I thought sounded wonderful, but when I explained to him that the way they make the fettuccine black is they use squid ink, that plus the tomatoes and mushrooms made him shy away. He ended up ordering the spaghetti arrabbiato with lobster, and when I explained to him that the "arrabbiato" means hot and spicy, he had the poor waiter tell the chef not to put peppers in it!

I had a really nice sea bass which was presented on a mound of mashed potatoes surrounded by sauteed spinach, and the fish was topped with a sautee of leeks bonne femme. A half lemon in cheesecloth was also on the plate, but I didn't use it. For starters, Ryan had a salata mista which was a "normal" house salad, but I did notice that his onions had been cooked, and I had the vegetable soup, which was a puree of zuccini, leek, and spinach. The bread basket had an onion foccacia, a slender loaf of soft French-style sourdough, and an interesting thin country loaf of wheat and rye flours, and it was accompanied by a tapenade of ripe black Italian olives. For dessert, Ryan had a very pretty chocolate torte in three thin layers with a white and dark chocolate fondant icing. I had the lemon cake, which was a lemon curd tart dusted with confectioner's sugar and sprinkled with pignoli (pine nuts).

Dish, Washington, D.C.

Had a lovely dinner tonight at Dish, an American cuisine bistro in the River Inn, just a couple of blocks from here. The hostess seated me near the welcoming, warm fireplace and I had a fine view of the restaurant and the hotel lobby. I started with a chestnut soup that was so rich and smooth the texture resembled a caramel sauce, and it had a lovely chestnut sweetness to it. For the main course, I had a medallion of beef chargrilled to a medium rare presented on a bed of fresh creamed spinach and topped with a mound of fine shreds of fried potato.

Dessert was a warm apple and pear tarte with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream that was much more like an apple crisp, with that sweet crunchy topping. The tarte was garnished with a very very thin vertical slice of pear which had been bake-dried to potato chip-crispness. I don't know if I was supposed to eat it or not, but I couldn't resist, and it had a yummy, crunchy, toasted, sweet pear taste. Coffee with cream completed the meal.

Aegean Taverna, Arlington, VA

While I was walking back to the Metro stop from the Market at Clarendon, I passed the Aegean Taverna; it smelled good out on the street, so I went in for dinner. There was a separate bar and a big dining room, with a group of three men entertaining the diners with Greek music played on two guitars and one bouzouki, occasionally singing. Every now and then some diners would get up and attempt to Greek dance. It was nearing closing time, so I kept dinner simple, ordering roast leg of lamb without even consulting the menu.

When the plate arrived, there were three huge slices of lamb with slices of garlic and a nice lamb gravy, and the lamb was *so* good! Sometimes lamb can be a bit strong out of season, but this was nice. It was accompanied by a half roasted potato, a stack of steamed big carrot coins, and a scoop of a stewed vegetable melange which appeared to be green beans, eggplant, onion, tomato, and spices heavy on the oregano. For dessert I chose a wonderful, warm galaktobouriko, which is a citrus (orange??) flavored egg custard baked in a crispy phyllo dough and then covered with a thick sugar syrup.

Inaugural Balls, Washington, D.C./Arlington, VA

Well, I acquiesced to going to the inaugural balls tonight. I went first, of course, to the Phillip Glass symphony world premiere at the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center shuttle takes us back to the Metro stop by my apartment, so I hopped on the Metro and headed to the Convention Center where they were holding the Constitution Ball (Oklahoma and a dozen or so other states are lumped into that). For security reasons, no one was allowed to use the most convenient Metro station there at the Center, so we had to use adjacent area stops and walk through what are usually not nighttime "transition" neighborhoods to get to the Convention Center.

Well, let me tell you, the crowds at the balls were absolutely horrendous. From what I could see peeking in doorways, the people were so packed in they had to squeeze by people just to move around....what little moving around they could do. I definitely didn't want to spend $250 for that, especially since I wasn't feeling inclined to stay long. I loitered a bit, but didn't see anybody I knew, so I left that venue to find another party.

This has to be a unique night for sartorial splendor. I do believe that there was a larger percentage of men in tuxedos tonight riding the Metro than at the last opening night I sang at Tulsa Opera! It was also interesting watching the people who were dressed looking down their noses at the people who obviously weren't going to a ball or party, and the non-formally dressed people looking with suspicion and distrust at the dressed up people. I decided to be mischievous and took off my black cashmere overcoat and wore it resting over my shoulders like an opera cape, my white silk scarf visibly hanging down, and then I looked down my nose at those people in tuxedos wearing parkas and tan raincoats over their formal clothes.

It was interesting to note this year's fashions. Furs are very very big! I especially saw a lot of white furs, and it seemed very popular for the dark minks to have scarlet lining. There were way too many men out there in tuxedos and boots! Did you know that people from Ohio can be just as obnoxious as Texans? I'm not so sure what I think about the whole inaugural party thing. The entire affair reminds me of one great big fraternity formal—except the frat boys are geriatric! There was a lot of bad taste at the Constitution Ball. All I can say is I wish some of those married men would have the guts to give their wives an honest answer when they ask "Honey, does this dress make me look fat?"

The American Indian Inaugural Ball was at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Crystal City down in Arlington, VA, just a short Metro ride away, and it only cost $150. They had lots of people there, but they had the foresight to hold their ball in three different ballrooms in the same hotel, so not only was there walking and breathing room, but there were also seats at tables if one wanted to sit down to eat. It was a typical dance/party, though the Indians were not nearly as obnoxiously "frat rat" as the people at the Constitution Ball or the pre-parties I saw last night.

I only saw four people there I knew, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, the Deputy Bureau Director, the DBD's secretary, and a movie star called Adam Beach. Turns out Adam (a Canadian!!) was the honorary chairman of the ball.

They had several featured entertainers, with a couple of stand-up comedians serving as MCs, and several bands....I didn't have any idea who any of them were, but apparently they are well known.





Each of the ballrooms had several small buffets set up all over the ballroom. Each of the corners had a bar, and I was a little surprised given the ticket price that for liquor, it was a cash bar. Lemonade, water, and soft drinks were self-serve and free, though. The food was ok, but nothing spectacular.

I kept getting drawn to the appetizers table for the most wonderful crab and artichoke dip. I could have stood there and eaten it all night! That table also had steamed asparagus with grilled onions and some grilled vegetables which looked to be heavy on the grilled eggplant. The salad tables had big bowls of Caesar salad with sliced grilled chicken breast available as an add-on, some kind of salad they called a frisee, which appeared to be sauteed cabbage and country ham or bacon, and big bowls of curly endive (frissee!) salad.

The entree tables had cedar-planked salmon and a chef carving barons of beef. The dessert tables had great big trays of slices of fresh fruits and innumerable plates of bite-sized, finger-food desserts, like strawberry mousse in a chocolate cup, white chocolate and dark chocolate fondants in miniature pastries, a bunch of different types of miniature Napoleons, lemon puddings, and cheesecakes, and my favorite, a bunch of assorted miniature fresh fruit tartlets.





Tomorrow is a work day, so I only stayed til 11:30. As people left, they were handed a "goodie bag" with a program and a bunch of little souvenir thingies from several of the Indian casinos nationwide. I'm going to have to sleep in the guest bed tonight, since my bed is covered with towels, sweaters, socks, and other things needing a home. And, that's the ball report tonight from D.C.

Menu: Inaugural Luncheon

The Washington Post reported on the Presidential luncheon menu for tomorrow. They'll be lunching on scalloped crab and lobster (I have the recipe), roasted Missouri quail, chestnuts, brined root vegetables, and steamed lemon pudding surrounded by apple wild cherry compote (have that recipe, too). So far, my invitation has not arrived, no doubt due to snow problems.

Coggins', Washington, D.C.

Stepped out in the snow today to grab lunch, and found an on-campus eatery in one of the GWU buildings called Coggins where I had a very nice bowl of broccoli cheese soup and a "tunacado" sandwich, which was a grilled tuna and guacamole on sourdough. I liked it, but were I to make my own version, I think I'd use avocado slices instead of guacamole. Also had a huge iced coffee.

Latin American Cafeteria, Miami, FL

All the flights at the Miami airport were running late today from the rain, so while I waited for my rebooked flight, I had time for a late lunch. I found a Cuban place in the airport called Latin American Cafeteria and had arroz imperial, fried plantains, and a guava cheesecake. Arroz imperial is sort of a one-pot dish, being mostly yellow rice, along with peas, pimiento, parsley, onion, and big chunks of boned chicken all stewed together and then garnished with a sour cream sauce and more parsley and pimiento. It's good but filling, especially the huge serving the cafeteria lady gave me. It was the same with the big serving of plantain I got. The guava cheesecake was a great big huge slice of tall, New York style cheesecake with a layer of guava preserves on top.

Miccosukkee Gaming Center Restaurant, Miami, FL

For dinner tonight, I went to the Miccosukkee Gaming Center and Resort, out on the western edge of Miami. I won enough to be about $50 ahead of what I brought in, so I decided to celebrate and eat at their restaurant. The restaurant is on an elevated platform in the middle of the gaming area, so it's a little noisy, plus, they have a live pianist playing (or attempting thereof--I wanted to have him put out of his misery!). The waiters are all formally attired with the management in Miccosukkee/Seminole patchwork jackets and they have white cloths on the tables. My waiter was another of those people who seemed to struggle with English, but we managed to get the order straight.

My starter was the Italian wedding soup, which was a quite tasty bowl full of pieces of Italian sausage, vegetables, and lots of little round, barley-sized pasta. Next I had steak and lobster, with a palm sized piece of sirloin, medium rare, and a modest lobster tail with drawn butter, both resting on a large bed of al dente steamed green beans almondine. The plate was garnished with a deep rose sauce I never quite figured out, since it had no real discernable taste. I thought maybe it was a sauce made from lobster roe, but it would have had a lobster taste, so I'm not really sure what it was. For dessert, I ended up with a key lime pie, which actually quite good, largely because it was made with a pie dough crust, rather than graham cracker, and it was a very big piece!

The best part of dinner was the price--they were having a special tonight on the steak and lobster, so my whole dinner was only $13.95!

La Carreta, Miami, FL

Does anyone speak English anymore in Miami? Everywhere I go, whether it's waiters or hotel staff or even sales staff at the malls, it seems the constant conversational language is Spanish, not English. I'm also running in to people at these places who seem to have limited English skills!

I popped over to Calle Ocho in Little Havana to have lunch at the original La Carreta, a popular Cuban restaurant which is now a small local chain. The hostess must have assumed that I was Cuban, so she gave me the Spanish menu. I struggled with it for a while, but I've forgotten too much Spanish these days, and I had to ask my waitress for the English menu. How embarrassing! Nevertheless, it was good to be back at La Carreta. I've always liked Cuban food. It's so interesting, different, and flavorful, and they do it without having to resort to a lot of jalapeno peppers a la Mexican food.

I had deep fried chunks of grouper fish with a special tartar sauce-type sauce which is herbed and has no pickle relish in it, with a large molded serving of yellow rice and a side of fried sweet plantain. The fish was so good! They deep fry quickly and at a higher temperature than what is typically used for fried catfish back home, so the grouper was just cooked, and it was golden without being brown or burned. The dinner came with a big basket of Cuban bread, which consists of slices of loaves of French-style bread which are then fried in oil and pressed.

For dessert I had flan con coco. Flan, of course, is the Spanish version of a French crème caramel, which is usually denser (more egg yolk) than the French version. The "con coco" means "with coconut," and grated fresh coconut preserved in a thick sugar syrup is piled atop the flan. That was followed by a cafe Cubano—Cuban coffee—which is very similar to an espresso, but made with a different bean and a different brewing technique (it is strong, but doesn't have the harshness or bite of many espressos), and which is also always very very sweet.

As you can tell, Cuban food is *not* diet food!

Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, FL

The UM alumni reception was tonight at the Fontainebleau. They're getting cheap on us.....we used to be fed an actual lunch, instead of a cocktail party. Anyway, I found the hors d'oeuvres service to be interestingly confused. A table in the center of the room was set with large trays of vegetable crudites and assortments of surprisingly unexciting canapes, cheese cubes, plus one baked brie en croute.

Then, waiters circulated, passing difficult to eat items such as beef satay, conch fritters, chicken and vegetable kebabs, and crab cakes. Wouldn't it have made more sense to put these items on the buffet table, and then pass the canapes? Open bar, of course, with the same set up as the other cocktail parties. I let myself indulge a little more tonight and got a bit tipsy. It's not too bad, though, cause so far it appears I am writing coherently! I knew very few people at the reception; none of my classmates were there.

Meat Me K.M.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that there's a large Jewish presence in Miami Beach. Yarmulkes are everywhere. The big church in Miami Beach isn't actually a church—it's a big Jewish temple. I've heard it said that English is a third language, behind Spanish and Yiddish. I opted to take advantage of the culture by eating today at a rather new restaurant called Meat Me K.M. (K.M. for "kosher Miami").

Meat Me is a small restaurant, very narrow and deep, with only twelve modern tables and sleek paneled walls displaying very modern art. The menu is surprisingly unremarkable--nothing "exotic" about it to make it seem like kosher food is anything really all that different from what we Gentiles normally eat. I started with their chicken soup. I thought maybe it would come with matzo balls, but it was a very traditional chicken soup with a rich broth, bits of potato, carrot, celery, parsley, and garlic, and a chicken wing served in a white quatrefoil bowl.

While I was eating my soup, the waiter brought a plate with three small bowls, each with a different salad. There was a very basic mayonnaise-based cole slaw. Another cabbage salad was made of long shreds of purple cabbage with lots of chopped fresh parsley, all marinated with a bit of salt in an olive oil dressing. And, there was a spicy, garlicky salad made of crinkle-cut carrot coins that packed quite a punch, which, when I asked the waiter what it was, he said "carrot."

Then my main course arrived. Some of the most scrumptious chunks of lamb shish-kebab were impaled on two long, metal, handle-less sword blades and presented atop a large white oval platter. The lamb was delicately spiced and roasted just to juicy perfection. On the platter was a large mound of intentionally-lumpy and very yummy mashed potatoes that were seasoned with chicken fat (remember, this is a kosher place, so butter can't be served with meat on the menu). A small triangular plate filled with a thoroughly sauteed melange of green and yellow squash shreds, onion, and julienned carrot was the side dish du jour. After all this food, I was way too stuffed to even think about dessert!

Wines of the New World, Miami Beach, FL

Masterson Gurr Johns hosts an exclusive, invitation-only wine tasting party, limited to one hundred specifically invited guests. To preserve their privacy, they hold their tastings at the hotel next door, the Eden-Roc (Elizabeth Taylor used to come to this hotel all the time). MGJ is a private international firm based in London and New York which does art consulting and appraisals. Every year, they bring in their expert wine consultant and specialist, Alfredo Saurini, to conduct a series of wine tastings. As we approached the terrace of the tasting site, we were discreetly checked off the invitations list and ushered into the tasting room.

Upon entering, we were handed a flute of a Mionetto Prosecco Brut Spumante, actually an Italian wine (Old World??), but one which we were told was quite popular in Argentina. As we were sipping our prosecco, we were guided to a large round table laden with fruits, cheeses, and pates. These were the good cheeses, too—no cubes of cheddar or swiss!—and included several soft goat cheeses such as herbed chevre, a big wheel of fontina, three different types of French bleus, and several other wheels I couldn't quite identify due to the way they were cut and garnished. There were also at least two different types of pates, including a small plate of pate de fois gras neatly hidden up towards the top of the display. And, of course, there were water crackers and rounds of toast.

In the main tasting room, the tables were set with each seat having a large printed placemat with circles numbered from one to six and a large burgundy-style wine glass in each circle, each filled about one-third to one-half full of each of the featured wines. Each place setting also had a list of the wines with space for tasting notes, a map of each wine region featured, a corkscrew, and MGJ promotional literature, pens, pencils, and mousepad. I might also mention now that as we left the tasting, we were given _Food and Wine Magazine's Wine Guide 2005_ book, something which retails in bookstores for $11.95. And now for the wines.

The first wine was a Jacob's Creek Riesling Reserve, from the Barossa Valley area of southeastern Australia. It was actually quite good for a riesling, and not as sweet as most. I was particularly surprised at its pleasantness, since Australia is mostly known for its sturdy red shirazes, and rieslings generally come from the higher, mountainous regions of Europe. I should think this to be a good cocktail and hors d'oevres wine, since it had medium acidity and would be drinkable both by itself or with food. The most amusing thing about this wine is that it comes in a screw-top bottle! More and more fine wines are starting to come with screw-tops, though, since it's considered to be the most superior "corkage," allowing in just the right amount of oxygen to an aging wine without the problems of corks, which can dry out or degrade over time.

Next we moved to the Willamette Valley of Oregon for the Sokol Blosser Evolution #9, a blend of nine different white varietals. This was a much sweeter and fruitier wine, much sweeter than I prefer. Of course, if someone were serving really really spicy foods, such as Thai or Indian dishes, this might be a good foil for the heat. Meanwhile, when I drink wines from Oregons, I think I'll stick to their pinot noirs.

The first red was actually my favorite wine of the night. From Argentina, we had a 2003 Terrazas de los Andes Malbec. Malbecs, of course, are one of the five great grapes from the Bordeaux region of France, and this one has done particularly well in the high, dry wine growing area of Argentina. It was nicely round with hints of plum on the tongue, fairly low tannin, and enough acidity to be able to stand up to foods. It was a little on the oaky side, though, and I think it's a wine approaching its peak right now. It's definitely a "drink now" wine that would be popular with most dinner party crowds.

Tasted side by side with the malbec was Baron Phillipe de Rothschild Carmenere Reserva from the Maipo Valley of Chile. This was my least favorite wine (for some reason, I never like Rothschild wines, even the expensive Chateau Lafite French ones), and it evoked strong opinions, pro and con, from the tasters. The wine has an earthy, almost coffee-like smell to it, and a smoky taste with a hint of what I'd have to call green bell pepper. It is considerably more acidic than the malbec, and the tannins are beginning to be obviously present in this wine. I think perhaps because of the smokiness of this wine, one might pair it up with charbroiled steaks or something.

The final wine came from the Mendocino Valley of northern California. The Fife Petite Syrah 2000 is one of those wines which definitely must be corked well in advance of drinking. The wine expert said that he had corked and poured the petite syrah about an hour before the tasting, and yet two hours later, there were still many unusual smells emanating from the wine and the high tannin content was still mellowing. The limestone soil of Mendocino gives the wine a bit of a chalky feel, so it really should be drunk with some substantial food. It was actually quite a nice wine for what it was, though I do think that it needs to age for several more years before it's ready to drink.

And that was the tasting.

I've been invited to a wine tasting tomorrow night featuring big wines of the Italian Piedmont, but I don't know if I'll get to go or not, since the University of Miami Alumni reception is tomorrow night, and I anticipate running into a few old friends who'll no doubt want to brag about their accomplishments, and I'll hopefully be able to turn their braggadoccio into an invitation to Joe's Stone Crabs. ;-)

Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, FL

One of the nice things about the Heckerling Institute Conference at the Fontainebleau Hotel is that with proper planning, networking, and contacts, one can get invited to enough private parties and receptions so as not to have to buy too many meals. The Institute provides a substantial complimentary continental breakfast every morning, plus the opening night reception we had last night. The rest of the evenings, various vendors in the exhibit hall host promotional cocktail parties and such for their select clients.

At the big welcoming reception in the exhibit hall the night before last, they had several tables set up with essentially the same things, with cheeses and crudites on the ends and down the sides heavy hors d'oeuvres like beef teriyaki and chicken satay (a/k/a beef and chicken strips on skewers), vegetarian egg rolls, coconut breaded shrimp, spinach spanikopitas, and mini beef empenadas, plus an open bar. I tried the white wine (always best for receptions, since it won't stain your teeth!), but it was nasty, harsh, and sweet, so I switched to the Woodbridge Merlot which is boring but drinkable. They also had beers and hard liquor, and I noticed an awful lot of people drinking doubles and triples.

Every year at the institute, the legal book publishers Thomson/West has a large "private" (it's a pretty open secret) theme party to tie in with the theme they have in their exhibits, and this year it has a football theme. So, last night we were herded outside onto the back "lawn" at the Fontainebleau for a tailgate party, where all the Thomson employees were clad in blue and white football jerseys and a DJ played peppy versions of "elevator"music. Prominently displayed was an autographed shirt from some pro football player named Joe Montana that was to be raffled off later in the evening, and which a lot of the party goers were just orgasming over. As we entered the yard, table after table was covered with pre-made margaritas, and there were more tables scattered all around with "bars" serving wines and beers. Since they weren't doing cocktails and highballs, I really had to search to find the non-alcoholic drinks so I could have my Perrier (I always get re-addicted to Perrier every time I come to this conference, especially now since it comes in nice plastic bottles!).

Near each of the wine/beer stations were tables offerring three different kinds of pizzas. Farther in, on either side of the lawn were big buffets with tossed green salad, potato salad, cole slaw, chicken strips, hamburgers, big hot dogs, steamed buns, spiced french fries, and a large selection of vegetables and condiments. Behind each buffet were two or three charcoal grills being manned by hotel staff, but judging from the size of the party and the speed with which they were cooking food, I think the grills were mostly just for show and that most of the food had been cooked in the hotel kitchen. On the backside of the yard was a big dessert buffet with assorted cookies, brownies, and cakes, and dozens and dozens of two-inch tartlet shells filled with creme patisserie and liberally topped with mixed fresh fruits, then glazed with apricot preserves. Since I had another engagement last night, I refrained from drinking their alcohol and only ate a little bit, mostly just sampling.

Legal Seafood, Washington, D.C.

For dinner tonight, I thought I would try the much-heralded "Legal Seafood" on K Street just north of the hotel a few blocks. I first heard about the place in my Washington DC on $80 a Day book, and then it's on the hotel's list of restaurants in walking distance. It was a bit of a splurge, but the prices were very reasonable for fresh seafood in a full service restaurant.

I began with a cup of New England clam chowder. It was creamy and rich, and had small diced potatoes with the occasional bit of carrot and lots of bits of clam in the stew. My main course was the Boston scrod, which was topped with bread crumbs and baked, accompanied by a red pepper and zuccini rice and steamed heads of broccoli. With dinner, I drank a glass of 2002 Remery pouilly fume, which was nice with the chowder, but didn't quite stand up to the fish. Dessert was a very nice lemon sorbet which was not too sweet and which had a very refreshing "bright" taste to it. They brought a plate with two large hard rolls and a big crock of whipped butter, but I forgot to eat any of the bread or the oyster crackers which came with the chowder.

I definitely want to come back to this restaurant again. They had quite a nice menu with lots and lots of fresh seafood, and the lobsters I saw coming out of the kitchen looked quite yummy.

McDonald's, Arlington, VA

Had a very interesting experience in the Food Court at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City: McDonald's has decided to offer a new Philly cheesesteak sandwich. The idea was intriguing! So, I tried it.

Let me warn you now, they are awful! I think this will be a shorter lived experiment than those nasty McRib sandwiches they tried in Oklahoma.

Magic Gourd, Washington, D.C.

Last night, I had a nice but late dinner at the Magic Gourd, a Chinese restaurant just a couple of blocks down the street from my hotel. I ordered a half crispy duck, and when it arrived, I was presented with a huge plate full of duck pieces resting on a bed of shredded cabbage, with a bowl of white rice on the side and a good sized bowl of deep brown, sweet, moo shoo sauce. For this to have been a "half" of a duck, the duck must have been turkey sized! In the Chinese tradition, the duck had been deep fried, then chopped into pieces with a large cleaver. I wish the Chinese didn't do that....it makes it rather hard to eat the pieces of duck, since there are always pieces and shards of bone to contend with, but the flavor is always so good, it makes the mess and the extra effort worth it. A pitcher of hot Chinese tea as well as orange wedges and a fortune cookie were complimentary additions to the meal. After I finished, the server brought a hot wet washcloth for me to wipe my hands. I may go back here eventually, too--there were several interesting things on the menu, including several Chinese lamb dishes.

Bertucci's, Washington, D.C.

After Epiphany Mass tonight at St. Paul's K Street, I wandered on down M Street to a restaurant called Bertucci's for dinner. I started with an "insalata" of iceberg lettuce, tomato, shredded mozzarella cheese, a couple of very very good black olives, and three unusual long, thin pepperoncini peppers in a rather ordinary Italian dressing. My main course was their scallop and shrimp Rossini, which is a fettuccine dish in a cream sauce enriched with a little tomato puree and enlivened with a little cayenne, and with the scallops and shrimp tossed with some chopped tomato, snipped parsley, sliced mushrooms, and capers, liberally doused with freshly grated parmesan cheese. The scallops were ever so slightly over cooked, but on the whole, I liked the dish a lot. The service was rather sucky, though. The floor was understaffed, with only two waiters trying to cover twenty-two four-top tables (only about a third to half full, but still!).

At the table next to mine was yet another of the "multi-generational" gay couples which seem to be so prevalent in Washington. I'm beginning to wonder if any of the college-aged boys in this town date boys their own age! Seems like everywhere I look is a college aged boy with a middle aged man. This one seemed to be undergraduate (he was too young to drink) and the man was 40-something; judging from their conversation, they were definitely a "couple" and not family or business colleagues.

Peppers, Washington, D.C.

Speaking of dinner last night, I had a very tasty "black and blue" burger—a blackened hamburger (Cajun spices) covered with melted blue cheese, and accompanied by spicy, waffle-cut fries at a sidewalk cafe on the corner near a townhouse I viewed called Peppers (not the same Peppers as is in Utica Square in Tulsa!). My other great accomplishment of the evening was finding an actual grocery store in that neighborhood that carried twelve-packs of Diet Dr Pepper......DDP is ***hard*** to find around here! Of course, that meant hauling it home on the subway and the several block walk from the station, but it's definitely worth it! ;-)

Mitsitam, Washington, D.C.

Happy New Year! What a glorious day today! The weather is warm and sunny and everyone is walking around in their shirtsleeves. One would never know it's January.

I took the subway to the Mall today so I could tour the new National Museum of the American Indian, which just opened this past September. The museum is very nice, but it wasn't at all what I was expecting. They have opted to go the route more of the very basic "educational" facility, rather than a place to warehouse a large quantity of Indian artifacts. The building is dominated by a large round performance space which becomes a central atrium for the building. Today while I was there, they had a drummer, an announcer, and two Plains-style dancers, who would do a small amount of demonstration, but then they would start pulling in members of the audience to participate. The ground floor also has an Indian foods cafe (more on that later), a nice gift shop with very expensive, high quality objets d'arts, and a theater. The second floor has another gift shop with more of the "tourist" souvenir and book type things and a long computer room for individual Indian research. The third floor has another theater and the first of the artifact exhibits, and the fourth floor has more exhibits and the big meeting rooms. A fifth half-floor houses curatorial and administrative offices.

Now, the whole museum is quite good, but I didn't find it to be particularly academic or thorough. Half the third floor and a third of the fourth floor were taken up by exhibits of the works of contemporary Indian artists, and the balance of the third floor was essentially about 21st century Native American experience. The fourth floor exhibits picked one tribe out of the various regions and had some very nice but rather cursory exhibits about those tribes. I also found the meandering cul-de-sac layout of the exhibits to be difficult, and even with the relatively small tourist volume today, it was difficult to get around and navigate the various areas. If such a time exists, it would be nice to tour the place when there are only a handful of people in the building. I was also interested to note how few Indians seemed to be working in the facility,



The highlight of the museum, though, was "Mitsitam," the native foods cafe. It, too, was crowded and awkward due to its architectural design of being one of those multi-station cafeterias so popular these days in institutional settings. A beverage station was centrally located in the space, and there were also a number of dessert items there, including some fine looking fruit tarts. Around the sides were cafeteria stations representing each of several regions: Northern Woodlands, Great Plains, Meso America, Northwest Coast, and South America. Complete menus were available in each area, and I wish I had the time and ability to sample a little bit from each section--I'll have to go back again to eat more. This plan, I think, would work better with sit-down menu service and with several sampler plate options.

I chose to start today with the Northern Woodlands section, where I had a generous serving of maple-roasted turkey breast with a cranberry-crabapple compote and a big dollop of coarsely-ground country-style mustand, and two side dishes, for $9.95. My sides turned out to be quite interesting, I asked the server to choose them for me, and he picked a wild rice salad with pumpkin seeds, pinon nuts, and watercress, and a succotash dish with big chunks of red and yellow tomatoes, lima and brown beans, white corn, onion, and chopped chives, and most interestingly, the succotash was presented cold, as a salad. I also had an Indian pudding for dessert, which, for those of you who've not cooked it before, is nothing more than a baked corn meal mush with dried currants and sweetened with honey--a simple dish, hence I was a little surprised that they charged $3.50 for it (it was tasty, though).

There were so many other things I wanted to try! Some of the more intriguing items included a cedar-planked juniper salmon, a lobster salad (also available as a sandwich), a watermelon and tomato salad, a jicama, orange, and nopales salad, and a big selection of soups. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to another trip back to the museum, if only to eat!

Roha, Washington, D.C.

There are lots and lots of restaurants and bars planning celebrations for tonight, but they are all quite pricey. I opted for a late lunch/early dinner, so I could avoid the crowds and the prix fixe prices. I'd been looking at a big apartment building on the U Street corridor, so while I was there, I stopped in at a little Ethiopean restaurant.

Roha is a very nice looking cafe just a block from a Metro stop which looked much like any other sleek, modern bar or cafe. Other than the staff and their friends, I was the only patron in the cafe at the time. Ethiopean restaurants are unique experiences, and since there are no Ethiopean restaurants in Oklahoma, I should explain a few things. First of all, there is no silverware. Food is brought out in mounds on a large tray covered with a big piece of injera, the spongy, sourdough, tortilla-like Ethiopean bread. A basket with with rolls of more injera accompanies the meal, and one eats by tearing off a piece of injera and using it to grab or scoop up food. All of the food is much like thick stews with complex, exotic spicing. Some are hot (and sometimes *very* hot!) and some are mild. The closest thing I can offer for comparison for some of you more adventuresome Oklahomans is that Ethiopean foods are reminscent, but different from, East Indian foods (no curries).

For my food, I chose the vegetarian combination. There were eight different foods arranged on my injera-covered tray, and I'll try to remember what they all were. There were two legume dishes, a misir wot, which was lentil cooked with red pepper and onion sauce, and kik alicha, which was a yellow split pea dish flavored with turmeric and ginger. Timatim fitfit provided a bit of a familiar pico de gallo flare, since it was a cold dish of chopped tomato, onions, and hot peppers with spices, lemon juice, and olive oil. There was a garlicy, spiced collard green dish called gomen (I'm not a fan of collard greens, but I ate it anyway!). One of my favorites was the tikel gomen, made of cabbage and carrots cooked in onion and garlic sauce with ginger and delicate spices, and I also liked the foslia, a green bean dish. There was a potato, onion, and turmeric dish the name of which I forget, and in the center of the tray was an item I never quite identified, but which had a nice ground meaty texture, was very hot and tasty, and reminded me of a milder version of the fiery hot Ethiopean beriberi sauce. Everything was all so good, and I'm always overwhelmed by the variety of flavors and spicings in Ethiopean foods. There was a *lot* of food in this meal, though, so I was not able to eat the entire thing. I think perhaps if I go again, I'll bring a friend and split the meal.

After my feast, I trudged back to the hotel. I think I've come down with a touch of a cold, since I'm kinda achy and have a bit of a fever. So, I've spent the evening napping and sleeping, and I'm going to watch the New Year's festivities in the comfort of my bed.

New Dynasty, Washington, D.C.

Had dinner tonight at a very interesting Chinese "fast food" place called New Dynasty with some huge steamed dumplings, a very large serving of vegetarian citrus "chicken" with rice and vegetables, and a Thai iced tea.

Table Ten, Tulsa, OK

Tony and I tried a brand new restaurant in Brookside called Table Ten for lunch today. We were anxious to try it, since it's a joint venture project of several people including the young, CIA-trained chef-owner of the French Hen. It's in a completely redone building across the street from Aberson's (the place in Tulsa where one can buy Armani clothes) and the Doran Gallery. The street-side wall is completely glass, and the decor is minimalist and practically all white. As one enters the restaurant, there is a floor to ceiling glass waterfall which serves as a partition separating the entry from the restrooms. The dining room is a large, simple room with a row of six two-tops on the far wall with a banquette all along the wall, and eight four-top tables evenly spaced in the rest of the dining room. There is also a bar with six rough-hewn wood barstools. I found the place to be potentially very noisy, since there was a painted concrete floor, essentially bare walls, and very little fabric on surfaces to deaden noise.

The menu was interesting, and seemed to have a lot of dinner-type and -price entrees, and only a couple of big salads and sandwich options for lighter appetites (and pocketbooks). We were served a very tasty basket of cheddar cheese and jalapeno biscuits, which were thin and about two inches square, accompanied by a plate of slivvers of butter (instead of the usual square or rectangular pats). We had too much to do to drink any wine, but I noticed they were serving their wines in stemless wine glasses. Interestingly, they were out of my first two entree choices, a pheasant pot pie and the chicken and cheese gnocchi (dumpling), as well as an artichoke appetizer. So, I ended up with a bowl of carrot jalapeno soup, which was very very good. It was served in a round bowl with a square-shaped rim. There was a good, slightly sweet carrot flavor and the jalapeno was present but not devastatingly hot. I also tasted creme fraiche, nutmeg, and white pepper.

For my main course, I had the two cherry bourbon lamb shanks, which were presented on a bed of succotash and garnished with a few leaves of flash-fried spinach. The lamb had a fine flavor and was good, but I wasn't blown away by it. There was a distinct bourbon flavor to the glaze, and I found several dried cherries. I think perchance if the lamb had been braised a touch longer, it would have had a more impressive tenderness to it. I liked the succotash. It was a bit lima bean-heavy, but there was also corn, red bell pepper, and onion in the mix. Tony had the same entree, but opted for a caesar salad instead of soup. It appeared to be nicely made and I saw distinct shavings of actual parmesan cheese, and Tony reported the dressing to be freshly made and with a touch of mustard taste.

We wanted dessert, but their only three options--a turtle cheesecake, a chocolate sundae, and strawberries and cream--didn't ring our bell, so we did without. Tony liked the place a lot and says it has potential, but I wasn't quite so impressed. For a $64 lunch for two that did not include alcohol or dessert, I expect to be more awed.

Shiloh's, Tulsa, OK

For dinner tonight, we went to Shiloh's, where I had a country pan fried steak with gravy, mashed potatoes, fried okra, a green salad with roquefort dressing, and a huge piece of coconut meringue pie. Tony had the same salad and okra. plus fried potatoes and the pot roast and gravy. Shiloh's is an interesting family-place, a notch above a diner, but with the same "blue plate special" type foods. One of their specialty items is a nicely spongey fresh-baked dinner roll, served with a delicious strawberry rhubarb compote in one of those condiment squirt bottles. Tony ordered a second round of rolls for us, but I made him wait til we'd eaten our dinners before he ate his. So, with great relish, he split open his roll, buttered it, then squirted catsup all over it, thinking it was the strawberry-rhubarb stuff. I don't think he likes catsup sandwiches!

Outback Steakhouse, Tulsa, OK

Tony and I did dinner at Outback steakhouse tonight. I wanted lamb, but for some reason I ordered the prime rib instead. It was a large piece of essentially flavorless meat, but I fixed that problem with large quantities of horseradish. Shoulda had a steak. Or the lamb. Tony did the baby back ribs. Afterwards, we went out to Rhema Bible College to walk around and look at their Christmas lights. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but I only got one....I think the camera batteries are dying. Then we went to the best espresso bar in Tulsa, Nordaggio's, to have espressi macciati.

Cardigan's, Tulsa, OK

Tony met my friend Darren tonight. We went to an amusing little bistro in his neighborhood called Cardigan's. Dinner was entertaining enough. Darren was a whimp and only ordered a large Caesar salad, and didn't even have chicken or shrimp or anything thrown in for fun. Tony had the 14 ounce club steak with a baked potato, dinner Caesar salad, and a huge piece of lemon merigue pie. I started with the house salad with a blue cheese dressing that was interestingly based on a buttermilk-herb recipe. For a main course, I had the grilled yellowfin tuna, medium rare, served on a bed of fresh spinach leaves and topped with a sautee of artichokes, diced tomato, chopped onion, chopped parsley, minced garlic and a hint of rosemary, all liberally doused with a balsalmic vinegar reduction. It was quite good, though on one occasion, I did get a shocking splash of vinegar in one of the artichoke pieces, and I thought the fish was cooked just a touch beyond medium rare. The accompanying rice pilaf was rather ordinary, but it was inconsequential. My dessert was a coconut cream pie, the filling of which was delicious, but I found the crust to be too thick, too salty, and too undercooked. After dinner, we went back to Darren's house for coffee, which I think he said was some Mexican organic something or other.....

And just think, Darren wanted to order delivery pizza and stay home!

Lao-Thai, Tulsa, OK

Lunch today was at the new-ish Lao-Thai in Brookside. I had a great pad thai scallops which was not only tasty but very reasonable.....it was $7.95, and I must have had at least a dozen good sized scallops in the dish. Tony had a red curry that smelled good, but was laden with green and yellow bell peppers, which I thought amusing since he really hates peppers.

Juanita's, Jenks, OK

My friend Bill called me to come rescue him from the Wal-Mart in Sapulpa, where, for some inexplicable reason, he took his car for an oil change. We did lots of shopping in Sapulpa (there are outlet stores for both Frankoma Pottery and Barlett Glass), then he took me to lunch at a cute Mexican place in Jenks called Juanitas. The service was rather poor (high school girl with Jenks-style "attitude"), but the food was excellent. The omnipresent chips and salsa were good, with a nice smoky taste to the salsa, and I think I detected a bit of tomatillo. We ordered some guacamole, which had a great flavor to it, and was freshly made upon our order. For entrees, Bill had some kind of combination plate, and I had what they call a "Mexican kiss" I loved it! It kind of reminded me of a quesadilla, and was similarly constructed. It was a large, thick, flour tortilla with some yummy pulled pork, cooked onions, and cheese, plus herbs, in the middle, folded over into a half moon, then fried on both sides. The chicken flautas were also juicy and full of flavor.

Taj Palace, Tulsa, OK

No wonder I'm back into my "fat clothes." Just got back from a lovely dinner with my friend Chad at the Taj Palace, and nearly three hours after we ate, I'm still absolutely stuffed. Chad, who was raised Methodist, fancies himself some sort of variety of Buddhist these days (mostly to annoy his parents) and has decided to be a lacto-vegetarian, not so much out of religious commitment, but more to be "unique," I think (and he won't eat eggs mostly to annoy me, I think!). Anyway, there are limited places in Oklahoma which can handle vegetarian food, so I chose Taj Palace, since it's owned by a Hindu family and it's one of my favorite Indian places in town. We asked the owner to choose our menu, so she picked a lovely, well-balanced meal that started with vegetable samosas and big steaming mugs of chai. When our main courses arrived, we got kadhai mushrooms, which was button mushrooms spiked with coriander and crushed peppers, yellow daal (the lentil dish), and my favorite, a vegetable malai kofta, consisting of spherical crouquettes of ground mixed vegetables and cheese stuffed with nuts and raisins in a tomato cream sauce, all accompanied by herbed basmati rice and both regular and garlic naan bread. After all that food, we couldn't even think about dessert!

Bad cat

Quick respite from the noise of Tony's birthday party.....

I baked a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling for Tony's birthday cake today, and frosted it in milk chocolate buttercream. I piped around the edges of the cake, then piped in a large diamond on the top. In the corners of the cake outside the diamond, I put blue and green icing, then swirled them to make a nice book end paper look, and then made blue roses for each of the points of the diamond. Then, in blue icing, I wrote "Happy Birthday Tony" (how original), and the cake was done, and looked pretty good, I thought.

In preparation for a 9 p.m. party start time, about 7:30 I put the cake out on the dining room table. While I was digging out the punch bowl from deep underneath the cabinets, in that five minute interlude, Rupert unbeknownst to me jumped up on the table and investigated the cake. When I walked back in the dining room, he was busy licking off the writing, and had eaten "happy birt." We were not amused. Since I'd already disposed of the leftover frosting, I just took the rest of the writing off and did what I could to resmooth and repair the top of the cake. The repairs looked a little rough, so I cut some maraschino cherries in half and used those to "garnish" the cat-damaged areas.

They cut the cake a little while ago. I didn't tell them the cat story. Am I evil?