D.C. Cafe, Washington, D.C.

After church tonight, I had dinner unexpectedly alone at D.C. Cafe, which is an odd sort of Lebanese cuisine place and pizzaria in one in the Dupont Circle area. I had lamb shawarmas (think flautas or eggrolls made with pita bread) with a tasty tabouli (heavy on the parsley rather than the tabouli, and even had a touch of minced mint leaves), hummus, and that sour cream/yogurt and cucumber thing they use as a meat condiment, and then for dessert some kind of traditional semolina pudding with honey garnished with ground pistachio nuts.

Charlie Chiang's, Washington, D.C.

Our most recent foray into Asian restaurants was to Charlie Chiang's, a grand old Chinese place on Eye Street east of 20th (we end up in this neighborhood alot because it's near Leo's gym). This is one of those old-style Chinese restaurants that is very formal and where the waiters are attired in black tie, vest, and trousers and white shirts and aprons.

We started with two different types of dumplings, one a traditional pork-filled fried dumpling and the other the house specialty "szechuan dumpling," which were interesting small dumplings wrapped in what appeared to be won-ton and served floating in a bowl of oyster sauce, garnishing with frizzled scallions. For main courses, Leo had some kind of noodle dish (I forget which one) and I had something called Yu-Shiang pork, which was a tasty stir-fry with pork slivvers, onions, mushrooms, and other vegetables. They also brought me a cute, little, alumimum, sleekly designed, covered bowl full of some nicely tender and fresh rice.

Their dessert selection is limited to various kinds of ice cream, so we opted to stick to our diets and abstain.

Nooshi (Oodles, Noodles & Sushi), Washington, D.C.

We had a lot of fun the other night at Nooshi (Oodles, Noodles & Sushi), a big operation with an affilliated take-away location next door, in the 19th and L Street area. We'd gotten a delivery menu in the mail, so Leo immediately wanted to try it out. The busy dining room is expensively decorated in a very sleet, Asian modern design. Our table had a hammered copper top encased in clear, smooth resin, and one whole side of the dining room featured banquette seating.

I was in a sushi mood, so I started with a very nice seaweed salad that featured five different types of seaweed, each dressed differently with miso, sesame, vinegar, and other dressings. My main course was the "sushi grand" platter, a big round box with luscious tuna, salmon, whitefish, mackerel, yellowtail, eel, surf clam, and shrimp sushis, plus a good sized California roll in the middle. The gari (pickled ginger root) was very fresh, and was not yet fully pink (that is a good thing).

Leo started with the sonomono, which is a cucumber and seaweed salad with shrimp and octopus in a vinaigrette dressing, then had a main course of mee goreng, which is a Malaysian-style fried egg noodle dish with bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage, scallions, shallots, fried tofu, and pork, all with a lot of hot spices. It was very artfully arranged and had a yellow, curry-looking appearance, but I don't think it was a curry, since I tasted one of the carrot coins and didn't detect a curry flavor. For dessert, he had a ginger crème brulee that he pronounced divine. I had a wonderful, huge bowl (more than enough for two!) of fresh strawberries, bananas, mango, and pineapple which I'm going to guess were doused with something like a ginger ale, and there were a couple of little pieces of lemon grass in the mix that I chewed on for an explosion of lemon grass taste, but which were probably just in there for flavor, since the stalks were too woody to actually swallow.

It was a great evening, the waiters were all very attentive, and I'm sure we'll end up back there again sometime.

China Doll, Washington, D.C.

A rather unfortunate restaurant we recently visited was a place in Chinatown called China Doll. We went specifically for dim sum, so we were directed upstairs to the dining room there (the downstairs appeared to be much more casual). Rather than bringing a cart around for diners to select their tidbits, China Doll has them select items on a paper menu and then brings them to the table, which Leo tells me is the way it is done in the more elegant restaurants in Hong Kong. I dunno. I kinda miss the cart, cause it's always fun to try new things just cause they look intriguing.

Anyway, Leo ordered us an assortment of dumplings, a big plate of gai lan (Chinese broccoli), a big plate of chow fun (fettuccine-like pasta), and, finally, he talked me in to ordering some chicken feet.

Chicken feet are interesting. Obviously, there's not any muscle or meat to speak of on them, so I think the primarly "food" value is from the skin and the associated brown cooking sauce. The remaining foot bones, though, are attached to one another with cartiledge, and if one has the patience to suck and gnaw on bones for a while, you can extract some flavor from the cartiledge and then spit out all the little tiny foot bones.

The gai lan was great, being cooked to a tender-crunchiness and dosed with a garlicky oyster sauce. The fried dumpling were okay, but I thought the steamed dumplings were a little sticky from being over-steamed.

The chow fun was disappointing in several ways, first because the wide noodles were overcooked and clumpy and secondly because we found a piece of a metal brad or big staple in the food. What's worse, Leo and I both ended up feeling queasy and unsettled for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Thai Tanic, Washington, D.C.

Hit a happy hour after work, where I got to drink nasty Miller beer in big plastic cups and eat cold chicken nuggets, and ran in to my friend William (the DOE lawyer). He, of course, was drinking high dollar beer out of a glass beer glass, instead of the happy hour common swill. You know how those rich government lawyers are. The bar was also passing out free samples of mango rum. Interesting. Very sweet, very little rum taste.

Eventually, he, two of his friends, and I wandered across the street to Thai Tanic for dinner. Even though the Logan Circle theater district is full of a variety of restaurants, some of which I've not yet tried, we ended up there since William is vegetarian these days. As you can imagine, Thai Tanic features Thai food, and I've had their food a couple of times before via delivery, though this was my first time actually to dine inside the restaurant. It was crowded, since it's a popular and economical place, but somehow, once again, we got seated at the table in the front window. I think I must resemble some celebrity or famous politician or something.

I can't remember all the foods that got ordered, so I'll try to hit the highlights. One guy got a blue lemonade cocktail of some type, which seemed to be a rather weak lemonade with blue curacao and he also reported a bit of a Midori (melon liqueur) taste. William had some little fried spring rolls which looked a bit greasy and resembled Mexican flautas. I had a big plate of green papaya salad, with lots of shreds of papaya, some scallion, something a touch starchy (potato?), red chiles, and lime juice. The salad was spicy, but not really hot-hot (on a scale of mild, medium, hot, and firey, I'd asked for hot), and it was not as good as the papaya and apple version I've had at Malaysia Kopitiam.

When we were ordering, we all had this prolonged discussion with one of William's friends to shame him into ordering something different for a change, instead of the dish he always orders every time he goes to Thai Tanic. He acquiesced to our peer pressure and got something different. But I can't remember what it was. The other friend had what looked to be a plateful of pork-stuffed steamed dumplings. William had a bed of white rice with chunks of fried tofu and some kind of brownish, curry-smelling sauce.

My main course was exquisite. I had grilled catfish served on a mound of green tea-infused rice, all resting in a pool of green curry sauce, and with steamed asparagus and steamed baby carrots drifting in the curry sauce. Aside from a bit of bone which had been missed in the filleting process, the catfish was nicely grilled and had no "muddy" or fishy taste to it. I really loved the green tea rice! It added quite a new dimension to the dish, with the strong flavor of the tea and also a touch of sweetness, and it made the rice a nice, deep green tea color. The carrots had been hand-trimmed, and they didn't use the commercially made "baby" carrots which have become so prevalent in grocery stores and salad bars. The green curry was also nice, and I continue to think Thai green curry is my favorite kind of curry. It's always milky or creamy, and I think that takes some of the harsh edge off the spicings.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll eat again at Thai Tanic. They also have the big advantage of being one of the restaurants where I get triple miles from American Airlines for each dollar I spend there.

L & N Seafood Grill, Arlington, VA

While we were at the mall (Fashion Centre at Pentagon City) today, we had a late lunch at L & N Seafood Grill, up on the third retail level. It's surprisingly good for a chain restaurant, and the prices were reasonable for a seafood place. Leo started with the mussels and then had shrimp creole for his main course. The bowl of mussels was huge! It must have been one of those appetizers designed to serve two. His shrimp creole was also an ample serving, and he said it was good, even though he's never been to New Orleans and had no basis of comparison.

I had some Maryland crab soup, a dinner salad, some crab-stuffed mushrooms, and a Boston cream cheesecake. The crab soup was excellent, though I thought it odd that when it arrived, it had a little "skin" on the top. The mushrooms were ok—I think I would have given the filling a bit more cayenne pepper to zip it up a bit. I really really liked the dessert. The Boston cream cheesecake is based on the concept of Boston cream pie, which you probably know isn't a pie but a yellow layer cake with vanilla pudding between the layers and chocolate frosting all around the outside. Here, the middle layer between thin layers of yellow cake was a tasty cheesecake, and they still had the vanilla pudding and chocolate frosting, and a couple of big squirts of whipped cream.

Too bad we were lunching and not dining.....they had green, fish-shaped bottles of Pescevino (that's Italian for fish-wine) white wine all over the bar, and we were curious about trying it. Maybe some time for dinner.

1789 Restaurant, Georgetown, D.C.

Not long ago, Leo and I went to 1789 Restaurant for dinner, and I've been saving my description of our meal for this special anniversary in memory of the first anniversary of the death of Julia Child, as this was the restaurant chosen for Julia's gala 90th birthday party. I'm always worried when I dine at a restaurant "legend," since most of the time I end up being disappointed. Not only did I go to 1789 knowing about Julia's birthday dinner, but I knew that Gourmet magazine had named it as one of the top restaurants in America, and it appears in all the guidebooks and lists of "top" Washington restaurants, with a long pedigree going back to its 1960 opening. We weren't disappointed, though, and I can certainly see why 1789 received the honor of hosting Julia's 90th birthday dinner.

1789 is located in an old, Federal-era house right by the Georgetown University campus. The rather small rooms are all furnished with period furnishings and art, and there are antiques everywhere, including colonial silver and a wine shelf from a 16th century Irish monastery. Even though we dined on a week night, not only did we have to have reservations, we were only able to get 6 p.m. reservations, as everything later in the evening was already taken. I also took note of the restaurant's dress code, with gentlemen being required to wear jackets. When it was time to eat, we were escorted up a steep, narrow staircase (this old building is most assuredly not handicapped accessible) to the Wickets Room. The walls were done in old, light-colored oak panelling, and 19th century lithographs of caricatures and hunting prints were framed and hung in every niche of the panelling. A large, black, wrought-iron chandelier hung in the center of the room. From our vantage point at a square table near the wall, we could see into the Garden Room, which was painted a light butter-yellow, had floral and botanical prints, and featured a window wall looking out over the Georgetown U campus.

No matter how good the chef in the kitchen, one of the major things that can ruin a dining experience is the service, from the host to the waiter to the busboys, but Chef Ris Lacoste has no worries in this department. Service was not only impeccable, it was impressive. The wait staff was all formally attired in black trousers and bow ties, with the full waiters in white mess jackets (think tailcoats without the tails) and the waiter's assistants in long, white waiter's sackcoats. Our waiter, Micheal, was a young man, but he had eleven years of experience with 1789's owner, the Clyde's Group, and has spent the last five years at 1789. He knew everything about the food, the accompaniments, and the wines. If you had a question about an ingredient, he knew not only the answer but the history. He was intimately acquainted with the wine list and knew what went with what. After we had ordered and I was pondering wines, I asked him about a particular varietal with which I was not familiar and he told me all about the wine; but then, he actually suggested that I consider a different, more complementary white wine for our meal, a wine that was cheaper!

As our food was prepared, we were brought a basket of warm foccacia bread, sufficiently flavored with caramelized onions and cheddar and parmesan cheeses so as to almost constitute an amuse bouche. They make their breads and pastries in house, and the bread was clearly fresh and hadn't been rewarmed. My only criticism of the restaurant for the entire evening is for the foccacia, which I thought was ever so slightly too salty. Historically, though, 1789 was originally a French restaurant before becoming the quintessential Washington "American" restaurant, chef received her training in France, and the French do tend to like a bit more salt than do modern Americans. Along with our bread we received a square of fresh unsalted butter which had been sprinkled with crystals of sea salt and then given a splash of virgin olive oil (Micheal told us which kind, but I've forgotten) to add a little extra richness to the butter.

We chose seafood for our first courses. Leo sampled the Prince Edward Island mussels, which had been poached in a broth scented with garlic and Pernod (an anise- or licorice-flavored liqueur). On the edge of the plate were several grill-marked crostini (think fancy toast) and some saffron-yellow aioli (hand-made mayonaisse). He liked the mussels and even allowed his crostini to "accidentally" drop into the broth so he could eat it, as well. My first course was a large, soft-shelled crab that had been tempura-battered and fried, then cut in half, some green Japanese-inspired sauce inserted, and the two halves were then stood on end on one side of the plate, claws and legs waiving in the air. On the other end of the plate was a salad of mixed seaweeds with a few threads of carrot and some slivvers of mushroom in a lightly spicy dressing. A little bowl of ponzu dipping sauce (think flavored soy sauce) which I didn't use was served on the side. The crab was perfectly cooked and I thought the seaweed salad gave the course an interesting opportunity for crunch.

We stuck with seafood for our main course, though I was quite tempted to try the house specialty rack of American lamb. Leo ordered the New Bedford sea scallops on Thai rice noodles. He received a goodly quantity of large scallops which had been lightly rubbed with a red spice then seared on the grill and served rare on top of the noodles. The Thai rice noodles were combined with shrimp, peanuts, ginger, basil, lime, and spices to make a hot, spicy, delicious pad thai. I had the grilled North Carolina grouper, a thick chunk of fish which was presented on a fried green tomato and surrounded with a South Carolina risotto. This simply prepared fish was delicious. The fish was just cooked through, with no dryness or rareness anywhere. The green tomato was a nice touch. I didn't detect any cornmeal flavor in the breading, so chef may have used fine Japanese bread crumbs, or else white corn meal that was so mild I didn't notice it in the profusion of other flavors.

Oh, I should mention our wines. I chose, based on Michael's recommendation, the Chateau La Mothe Du Barry Entre-Deux-Mers (Cuveé French Kiss) 2004, a nice buttery, yet crisp, white which stood up well to the variety of foods we ate. Leo prefers non-tannic reds, so he ordered the Trinchero Family Selection Merlot 2003, a California wine. I thought it was rather pleasant for a domestic merlot (and Leo had never watched the movie Sideways until this week!).

Now, on to the dessert course. I wanted to do a cheese course first, but Leo is somewhat lactose-intolerant, so I thought a cheese course might not be the most considerate thing to suggest, and we went straight to the goodies. He had a warm chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream that he still talks about everytime we go to dinner. He had a large, muffin-sized, individual dark chocolate cake that was a little crusty on the outside and soft and warm on the inside, drizzled with a tiny bit of chocolate and accompanied by a handmade vanilla ice cream with little bits of fresh peppermint mixed in the ice cream, and garnished with a bright green sprig of peppermint. He didn't share.

Thinking of the warm peach cobbler served in lieu of cake at Julia's birthday dinner, I ordered the warm peach galette, which was a sort of an individual peach cobbler. It came with a handmade vanilla ice cream with a swirl of fresh raspberries. It was lovely, of course, but I was particularly intrigued with the pastry. They used pâte sucreé—pie dough with lots of sugar in it, making it almost like a cookie dough—yet the end result was layered and almost flaky, like a puff pastry! I have no idea how they did that, so I guess I'm going to have to experiment and try to recreate it. Another pastry challenge. Remember how Julia used to do those puff pastries on TV, making it seem so incredibly easy?

1789 Restaurant, 1226 36th Street Northwest at Prospect Street, Georgetown.

Julia Child (1912-2004)

One year ago today, our beloved Julia Child went to the great heavenly kitchen in the skies.

It is no exaggeration to assert that Julia was one of the greatest influences on American culture in the 20th century. Even today, we benefit from the quality, excitement, and variety of culinary adventures she started in the 1960s.

If you think back in American history, the time of the Eisenhower Administration was when Americans were learning to be peacetime Americans in the post-World War II, post-Korean War era. All of that military scientific and engineering ingenuity was being adapted to domestic uses. Fabulous new inventions helped the housewife save time in the kitchen. Convenience foods began to transform the American palate as exciting things like artificial creamer, frozen TV dinners, frozen fish sticks, Cheese Whiz, Lipton's Soup Mix, Sweet 'N Low, Rice-a-Roni, and McDonald's Restaurant franchises were invented. "Fancy" restaurants were known for their exciting menus of grilled steak and baked potatoes and grilled steak and baked potatoes. Other courses would typically be shrimp cocktail (boiled shrimp arranged around a small bowl of ketchup and horseradish "cocktail" sauce) and a wedge of Iceberg lettuce with a slice of tomato and some blue cheese (for the bold) or orange-colored "French" (for the rest of us) dressing. America plunged into a craving for cookie cutter sameness à la Father Knows Best or Leave It to Beaver. Into this bland conformity came Julia Child with her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961 and her Public Television series The French Chef in 1963.

Julia was an unlikely vehicle for mass cultural change. Born in 1912 to an upper middle class family, she was educated at Smith College and then joined the OSS (today known as the CIA) in World War II, where she met her husband, another OSS employee. After the war, they traveled the world with his State Department diplomatic career, eventually moving to Paris in 1948 for a new posting. It was their first meal in France after a week of dreadful shipboard food that inspired Julia's conversion to good food and good cooking. The simple goodness of fresh oysters on the half shell, sole meunière, a green salad, some crème fraîche, and a bottle of cold, crisp Pouilly Fuissé sparked Julia's revelation that food didn't have to be bland and boring. Soon thereafter, Julia enrolled in the world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and learned to cook. Eventually she met two French women, the three of them started a cooking school in Paris, and they began a ten-year collaboration to write a French cookbook targeted at the American audience. It was finally published in 1961, and the rest is history.

The French Chef lasted from 1963 through 1966. One of my earliest childhood memories was watching those black and white PBS shows with the big, tall (she was 6'2"), hooty-voiced woman cooking yummy food with funny (French) names. After a round of reruns, a color version debutted in 1970, with Julia staunchly staying with PBS and the "educational people" instead of crossing over to network television. Then over the decades, a succession of Julia Child cooking shows—all with companion cookbooks—hit the PBS stations, including Julia Child and Company, Julia Child and More Company, Dinner at Julia's, Baking with Julia, Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, and Jacques and Julia at Home. Julia was the first television chef and celebrity, and she paved the way for Iron Chef, Emeril, and Martha the Criminal. Her shows—mainstays of Saturday morning PBS programming—inspired Americans to raise their culinary standards and to be more adventuresome in trying and tasting cuisines from around the world.

Eventually, age began to overtake Julia. In 2001, she announced that she was moving to sunny southern California to an assisted living home, and that she was donating her famous kitchen in her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to the Smithsonian Institution here in Washington. In August of 2002, in time for a grand celebration of Julia's 90th birthday, the Smithsonian opened the kitchen exhibit at the National Museum of American History. There was a birthday party and a special $350 per person tribute birthday dinner created for Julia by Chef Ris Lacoste at her landmark Georgetown restaurant, 1789. Then, last year, just two days shy of her 92nd birthday, Julia died, leaving her indelible imprint on American culture.

Requiescat in pace, Julia. We miss you.


Julia's kitchen at the National Museum of American History

Uni, Washington, D.C.

Last night, Leo and I finally popped in to Uni for dinner. Uni is on P Street between 21st and 22nd, next door to Mimi's, a place where we brunch frequently, so we've wanted to try Uni for some time. We'd also gotten a take-away/delivery menu from the place, and it looked intriguing. Taking its name from the Japanese word for "sea urchin,"

Uni is a sushi bar located on the second floor of an old row house. As one enters the restaurant, there is a leopard-print carpeted dining room to the right and a wood floored sushi bar to the left. Smooth, plain, light-colored wood paneling adorns the walls, and the windows are covered with square hangings of green tea ice cream-colored fabric. They advertise free Wi-Fi connections, and we saw several people in the establishment with their laptops. We got to sit by the front window in the overhang over the P Street sidewalk.

The menu is standard sushi bar fare, with the non-sushi items being some appetizers and some of the half dozen or so bento box offerings. Their beverage list included a number of interesting gourmet teas I wanted to try, though I ended up with iced green tea (Leo had dragged me all over downtown Washington on foot, and it was hot and humid out!). We started off with a salad of sliced, seared ahi tuna pressed with sesame seeds and cracked peppercorns topped with thin slices of green onion, and arranged on a plate drizzled with sesame sauce and garnished with a big mound of shredded threads of carrot and a parsley sprig.

I was feeling rather unadventurous, so I ordered the maki mix, a standard sushi roll assortment. They brought me a square, white, ceramic dish with six pieces of California roll arranged in the center, then in each of the corners of the dish were three pieces each of cucumber, tuna, salmon, and eel sushi rolls. Small mounds of wasabi (green horseradish) and gari (pickled ginger) were at the nine- and three-o'clock positions, respectively. All of the sushi was very nice and fresh, and I was particularly impressed with the California rolls. The ubiquitous California roll (cooked crab legs, avocado, and cucumber) is so typically haphazardly thrown together and is one of the "common" sushis that everyone eats, that care is not always taken. Uni's version, though, used real crab meat instead of imitation, and they used flying fish roe to decorate the outside instead of the less expensive masago roe, all lending itself to a very tasty, rich taste.

Leo ordered a la carte, selecting tuna, fatty tuna, eel, and sea urchin roe sushi nigiri. They each were very large pieces of fish, and the uni was served with two pieces of roe instead of the usual one. Leo let me taste one of his unis, and I was impressed with the freshness and smooth richness of the roe. Uni has a rather unique, intense flavor, and I wasn't quite expecting the double dose I got! Leo also liked the restaurant (he usually trashes most Asian restaurants) and said the fish was very fresh.

For dessert, Leo had tempura ice cream, where a long roll of vanilla ice cream was encased in tempura batter, deep fried, sliced in half, then drizzled with chocolate syrup. I assume it was good, since, despite his "diet," he ate the whole thing. I had the sake ice. It was lovely. Now, sake is the the traditional Japanese rice wine, and it was mixed with sugar and water, frozen and mixed, and it ended up coming out very much like a granita, looking like a pile of distinct ice crystals. They took preserved Japanese cherries and plums, put a few in the bottom of a large martini glass, then mounded the sake ice on top of the fruit. As the sake crystals melted, they "marinated" the fruit in sake. It was a wonderful dessert for a hot, steamy, Washington evening.

Au Pied Bistro, Georgetown, D.C.

Last Tuesday after I got in from the airport, we walked into Georgetown for a late-night supper at Au Pied Bistro, on M Street near the M and Pennsylvania merger. One of my friends asked me yesterday why I would go to a restaurant called "with the foot café," and that stopped me for a minute until I remembered the history and provenance of the bistro.

Back when I was living in D.C. years ago doing my undergraduate internship at Georgetown, there was a popular bistro on Wisconsin called Au Pied de Cochon, or "with the foot of the pig." It was an elegant French place that specialized in country French cuisine, and in France, braised pig's feet are a popular "comfort food." I remember eating there once, and had some of the most exquisite monkfish in a lobster nantua sauce (which, of course, made the monkfish taste like a great big piece of lobster). The restaurant gained a certain international notoriety back in 1985 when it was the site of a famous KGB defection at the height of the Reagan-era Cold War. It's now the location of a Five Guys burger place. When Au Pied de Cochon closed early last year after nearly 30 years at the prior location, the concept moved to Au Pied Bistro, with much of the old staff moving to the new location, and with many of the menu items remaining the same.

We arrived after ten, and the restaurant had about half a dozen occupied tables. They seated us in the corner table by the front window overlooking the street (why do we always get seated by the windows?). I noticed the walls were covered by large numbers of over-sized canvasses which must have been painted by high school students attempting (badly) to emulate the French post-impressionists. It was certainly colorful, though.

Leo started with an entree (remember, this is a French restaurant!) of baked mussels. He got a plate full of mussels on the half-shell, stuffed with butter, garlic, herbs, and tomato, then baked. I had a nice crock of potage St. Germain, a classic French soup of pureed peas, lettuce, leeks, and herbs enriched with cream. It would have been great with a shot of sherry.....do you remember that old crêpe restaurant national chain called The Magic Pan? They used to serve their potage St. Germain with a small vase of sherry and a tiny bowl of crème fraîche. Mmmm.

As we moved on to our plats, Leo had scallops on a bed of leeks. It was rather different than what either of us expected. A wide band of sauteed, chopped leeks ran down the center of his plate, flanked by bands of white rice. On top of the leeks were a collection of tiny scallops. Looked interesting, though I didn't detect a lot of enthusiasm from Leo. I had a half roasted chicken scented with rosemary and arranged on a bed of caramelized onion-flavored mashed potatoes. My food was very good, and reminded me of the country food of the original restaurant.

For dessert, he had a crème caramel (served in a rectangular piece) and I had a mousse au chocolat. My mousse was thick, dense, and very dark chocolate, with just a hint of espresso but I didn't taste the hint of orange liqueur which is also part of the classic French recipe. That didn't stop me, however, from eating all of it.

We'll likely be back to Au Pied Bistro. While the food wasn't spectacular, it was functional and tasty, and, more importantly, the place is both within easy walking distance and is open late for dinner.

Brookside by Day, Tulsa, OK

Oh, brunch Sunday. Tony and I ate at Brookside by Day yet again (where he made me go for Sunday brunch when I visited in March and where we used to go every frickin' Sunday after Mass when I used to live in Tulsa) and he ate his usual eggs Benedict with runny egg yolks. I, on the other hand, had a fabulous chicken fried steak and gravy with good, plain, no-additive mashed potatoes. In D.C., every kitchen has to add something to the mashed potatoes--roasted garlic, wasabi paste, pureed parsnips, etc., etc. And chicken fried steak in D.C.? Non-existent. At least nothing that deserves the name.

Costa Azul, Tulsa, OK

Sunday in Tulsa, Tony and I went to Costa Azul, a "real" Mexican place in the, shall we say, "ethnic" area of Tulsa. This is one of the places we used to go to a lot back when I lived in Tulsa cause the food is always so good, though it helps to be able to speak at least a little Spanish there. We'd already had a late brunch (what? Tony get out of bed before noon?), we'd just had bubble teas (wow! bubble tea made it to Tulsa!) at the mall, and we were eating dinner rather too early so we could go to a QAF finale watch party, so we kept it fairly light.

I ordered the birria stew, $8 (only available on weekends) and Tony ordered a seven seafood stew, $11, filled with crab legs and shrimp in a rich red tomatillo broth. They were both wonderful, but we ended up taking it home in go-boxes, cause we had gotten so stuffed on nibble food.

We'd made the mistake of ordering a bowl of their delicious white chile con queso and a bowl of guacamole dip for our tortilla chips. The bowls were huge! There had to be at least a half dozen avocados in the bowl, and the guacamole was freshly made, too, since it was still bright green and there was no hint of lime juice to slow the oxidation that makes guacamole turn brown soon after it's made. And you know how much that huge bowl of guacamole cost? $4.50.

Rosa Mexicano, Washington, D.C.

A couple of months ago, one of my friends and I went to a place here in D.C. called Rosa Mexicano, near the MCI Center. I'd been looking forward to trying it, since the original Rosa Mexicano is in New York near Lincoln Center, and received rave reviews. It's a fancy place for a Mexican joint, with a no-longer working waterfall in the dining room (it sprang a leak and flooded a law office on the floor below, so the insurance company won't let them turn it back on) and white cloths on the tables. In addition to a full bar, they had a special tequila bar set up with all kinds of fancy and expensive tequilas. The menu was pretty fancy, too, with none of the down-home country favorites most people expect from Mexican restaurants.

Most entrees were in the $20- to $30-something price range. We were there mid-afternoon, so we just had several appetizers, since they are usually wonderfully tasty teasers of the kitchen's main offerings and really more than enough food for a pick-me-up. We had some queso fundido (melted white Mexican cheese with chorizo sausage and charred poblano peppers), some cornmeal masa empanadas stuffed with crab meat with some mango pico de gallo, some rather stale chicken flautas with sour cream and salsa verde, and a roasted duck quesadilla-like thing (it had another name which escapes me right now) covered with a hot, spicy, yellow sauce that didn't quite cover the dried out tortilla edges. Each of these appetizers cost between $8 and $12 each.

We also had their signature guacamole en molcajete, a fresh guacamole dip prepared tableside to order at a big cart that made the rounds of the dining room (a molcajete is a big mortar and pestle carved from volcanic rock). Guacamole for two was $14. It was interesting watching the guacamole being made. They used a lot of fresh cilantro, fresh diced onions, an assortment of dried spices, and fresh jalapeño peppers were split, cleaned, and diced in front of us. Our rather chatty waiter then selected a single avocado (just one avocado for the two of us!) and added it to the molcajete for blending. It tasted very good, what little there was.....

Belga Cafe, Washington, D.C.

To celebrate what will probably be my only Restaurant Week experience this week, my friend Bob and I ventured down to the Barracks Row section of Capitol Hill to lunch at Belga Cafe today. What a fun place!

Belga (the G is hard, as in 'gate') Cafe opened around Halloween last year in that Eighth Street strip of southeast Washington, right by the Shakespeare Theater administrative offices. The chef-owner is the young, tall, and very handsome Bart Vandaele, a Belgian national who has been cooking in various diplomatic venues in the District since about 2000. We saw him quite a bit at lunch today, since the kitchen is designed to be completely open to view so we could see him cooking, and he also came out into the dining room several times, sometimes to greet guests, sometimes to do work (once we saw him straightening askew chairs on the front patio). He was wearing an unusually cut white chef's jacket, but instead of the traditional houndstooth patterned trousers, he wore blue jeans.

The restaurant itself is very deep and narrow, with a patio on the front sidewalk which looked to seat about two dozen. Inside, a large bar occupied the center of a bare-brick wall and on the other side of the bar stretched the large display kitchen. The contemporary tables were bare with geometric-patterned taupe placemats at each seat. Each table also had a bottle of wine (available for purchase) and, rather inexplicably, a single, fresh lemon. The wait staff was clad in black trousers, long black aprons, and black collared shirts with the sleeves rolled up. The bartender (an incredibly cute, tossel-haired, blond boy worth a special trip just to gaze upon) wore a tight pearl gray t-shirt. It was a good thing we had reservations, cause even at 1:00, the restaurnant was completely packed, inside and out, and when we left at 2:30, the place was still nearly full inside.

Our first big decision was picking a beverage. In Belgium, people take their beer very, very seriously, just like the French with their wines. Their beer list had about four dozen Belgian beers! Not being a big beer person, I had to follow Bob's lead on what to drink. He's lived in Belgium before (State Department posting), so he knew his way around the menus. We opted to go with the beers on tap. The first one we had was a Hoegaarden, which was a very pale, cloudy beer with a light taste that was slightly lemony. By the time our entrees were served, we had our second beer, which was a Leffe Blonde, which had a deeper amber color and more of a distinctly hop taste to it (and which was my preference of the two).

While many things on the menu were intriguing, we had gone there to experience the special three course $20.05 prix fixe menu that had been created just for Restaurant Week. The first course was called "Red and Green." We were given long, white rectangular plates. On one end was a cross-section slice of a roulade of romaine hearts with goat cheese and herbs between the lettuce leaves, with a thin, crisp, savory wafer balanced across the top. On the other end was a ball of diced red tomato and tiny little grey shrimp in a mayonnaise garnished with a piece of sun-dried tomato and an artistic wad of long-stemmed tiny clover. In the center was a scattering of tiny grey shrimp resting on a squiggle of sauce which reminded me a bit of a hoisin sauce. The plate was very pretty and carefully arranged. I particularly liked the tomato and shrimp salad.

For the main course, I was very tempted to have the pot of mussels (mussels are a Belgian specialty), but we both ended up ordering the biefstuk van de beenhouwer, which is grilled hanger steak. Lots of Americans are not completely familiar with this cut of beef, and often confuse it with a flank steak or skirt steak (fajita meat), yet in actuality, the hanger steak is the remnant of the cow's diaphragm where it attaches to the muscle wall just below the last rib. I've always found the cut very good when properly marinated and cooked, but the "grain" and feel of the beef is just a little different from standard steaks and roasts. Belga's steak was just what I was expecting--juicy, flavorful, and nearly fork-tender. A bearnaise sauce made with beer accompanied the steak. Along with the meat, there was an ample serving of roasted vegetables, including peas, carrots, green beans, and leeks on the plate, and a paper cone in a unique spiral holder held the hot Belgian fries (what we call liberty fries or "French fries" actually originated in Belgium). People gush about Belgian fries, but I can't say that I was wowwed by these. They were good, though, and I used my bearnaise as a dipping sauce instead of the Belgian-traditional mayonnaise.

A strawberry, peach, and beer soup with fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and cape gooseberries floating in the soup and highlighted with an egg-shaped scoop of very tart apricot sorbet was our dessert. Cape gooseberries are a little bit unusual, and I've not been served them anywhere else in D.C. For those who've never had them, they look a lot like small yellow cherry tomatoes and they have an interesting taste that is sort of a cross between a tomato and pineapple. This was a fun dessert, and I loved the sorbet and how it made me pucker. Dessert was followed by espresso and coffee with cream.

Our waitress was very helpful, pleasant, and informative. There were also a number of other waiters involved in bringing our food to us at various times. My only big complaint with the service, though, was when our salad plates were removed, the waiter took our salad fork and salad knife off the plate and laid them down on the bare table. You would think that a restaurant of this calibre could manage to bring us clean flatware for each course.

We're certainly looking forward to another visit to Belga Cafe. There are lots and lots of very intriguing items on the menu, including foie de canard (smoked and poached duck liver pate), lobster hamburger, leg of rabbit braised in red ale beer, pan-seared salsify, asparagus fritters with asparagus ice cream, and a Belgian endive tart, not to mention forty-some more beers to try.

Belga Cafe, 514 Eighth Street Southeast, near Eastern Market Metro.

Chinatown Express, Washington, D.C.

My Tulsa friend Jeff, who used to be one of my voice students at the college there, popped into D.C. yesterday evening for a whirlwind business trip (I think he leaves this afternoon), and it was so good to see him! He loves Asian food, and since "authentic" pickings are slim in Oklahoma, we prevailed upon Leo to take us to Chinatown, pick a restaurant, and order us some "authentic" Chinese food.



Most of the time, the tourists stay on the main drag around the Chinatown arch, but last night Leo took us way down and then around the corner on Sixth Street to a place I never would have thought to try, mainly because the name—Chinatown Express—sounds so mall food court-y. As we got closer, though, it started to look more and more "authentic." It's very much a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, small, crowded, and noisy, but I'm so glad we went there, and it's going to be on my list of recommended D.C. restaurants.

From the street, we could see all these cooked chickens and ducks hanging, ready either for take-away or for being served inside. They also had roast pork and barbecued ribs hanging, and if you look closely, you'll see in the steam table below pigs' ears (by the red tongs) and on the far right, chicken feet. Not all of the dinner entrees were hanging in the window. There's a huge aquarium right by the front door full of fish, crab, and lobster—they want you to know your seafood is fresh!



Leo and the waitress bantered a bit, though his Cantonese and her Mandarin weren't totally compatible, and they had to negotiate a few points in English, but we ended up with a splendid meal! In keeping with Chinese tradition, food isn't served in courses, but tends to come either all at once, or as the more complicated items get cooked. The first thing they brought (actually, as soon as we sat down) was water and a big pot of hot tea. When the food started coming, we got a huge plate of sliced roast duck, roast pork, barbecued pork, and barbecued squid (it was bright orangish-red; at first, I thought it was strips of red bell pepper) accompanied by a little dish of pungent but addictive pickled sliced garlic and another little dish of a chopped green substance that turned out to be fresh ginger root with chives and a touch of garlic.

No sooner had we started eating when a big plate of "potstickers" (fried dumplings) and a big lettuce leaf-lined bamboo tray of steamed dumplings showed up. The table was getting crowded, but on her next trip, the waitress brought a plate of shredded lettuce salad topped with long thin slices of jellyfish marinated in ginger and rice vinegar with sesame seeds and thinly sliced scallions (the marinated jellyfish was not quite so crunchy as the time I had it before, but this preparation was different and good in its own way), three bowls of steamed white rice, a big plate of lightly sauteed gai lan (Chinese kale, which is sometimes misidentified as Chinese broccoli), and the piece de resistance, an absolutely exquisite shrimp and walnuts in cream sauce. LOL....the waitress had to point to a couple of the nearly-empty dumpling platters and command us to "Eat!" so she could clear more space on the table for the newest food.

Our table was deep inside the restaurant, but from my vantage point, I could see the work station up by the front window, where a chef was preparing many of the rotisserie items, plus hand-making and stretching fresh lo mein noodles. It was fascinating to watch....the dough was stretched and folded and stretched and folded, and eventually he stretched the now-multiple strands as far as his arms could reach, when he some how "popped" the strands, and they fell into dozens of shorter pieces, which were then slipped into the simmering soup broth.

Now, I have to tell you about the shrimp dish. They took a bunch of jumbo shrimp, cleaned and peeled them, then dredged them very lightly in cornstarch before flash-frying them. They were cooked again with big chunks of fresh pineapple in a thick, slightly sweet cream sauce. As it was plated, it was strewn with walnut halves, and the platter was carefully edged with precisely cut pieces of blanched broccoli. The shrimp was perfectly cooked (it's easy to overcook shrimp, especially when the technique requires two cooking cycles), succulent, and ever so delicious!

The three of us absolutely stuffed ourselves, and couldn't quite finish everything. And the best part? The bill for the three of us, including tax and generous tip, was only $60! Not only is that an impressive feat for downtown Washington restaurants, but we ordered some of the most expensive things on the menu, what with the jellyfish and the jumbo shrimp.

We waddled back to the main drag and stopped and looked at the bus stop, looked at one another, then promptly hailed a cab. Getting on a bus would have been too much work!

Chinatown Express, 746 Sixth Street Northwest, near Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro.

Starbuck's, Washington, D.C.

Those of us who are sufficiently geriatric so as to be in the 35 to 55 year old range will no doubt remember the bright pink bubbles and potent sweet scent (which can't be called anything but "bubble gum") of Bazooka Gum. It came in these little one inch long rectangles that were individually wrapped, and inside around the hunk of gum were these inane but wholesome little comics. When I was a wee small boy, my dad used to drive me all the way across town to the barber shop in this place called Oak Park Village, and after my haircut, we'd hit the penny candy cabinet (inflation had hit--things were up to two to five cents), and one of the things I'd get sometimes would be a piece of Bazooka bubble gum.

Well, what brought up this childhood reminiscence this evening? Well, I just got back from shopping in Tenleytown, where I stopped in at the Starbucks (under coersion, of course) and tried their vogue drink du jour, the green tea frappuccino. Twas an interesting drink. It reminds me very much of a cross between Bazooka bubble gum and melted green tea ice cream.

It actually wasn't bad. Of course, I think I got my refined sugar allotment for the week in that one drink. Has Starbucks ever considered using Splenda or doing a diet version of their drinks? Anyway, on those occasions when I'm forced to go to Starbucks, I at least have two possible drinks to order, the Chantico (chocolate) and the green tea frappuccino.

Aroma Indian Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

Last night, Leo called me from his gym, wanted to go out for Indian food after his workout, and asked me to meet him at Aroma Indian Restaurant near 20th and Pennsylvania. This is a restaurant I've wanted to try, since I've seen it recommended in several guidebooks and favorably reviewed in places like the Washingtonian magazine, so I gladly agreed. Aroma is a typically-sized downtown Washington place in a rowhouse arrangment that is narrow and deep and has a large window overlooking the sidewalk. The walls were pleasantly lacking in Indian kitsch. Banquettes line the eastern wall of the dining room and white cloth-covered tables set on the diagonal are arranged in the rest of the space. Several waiters in black trousers, vests, and ties and white shirts scurried busily around the mixed ethnicity clientele.

For our first course, Leo started with two meat samosas stuffed with a slightly sweetly-spiced minced lamb that came on a big bed of iceberg lettuce with tomato and cucumber slices. I had a very nice soup badami, which was a surprisingly simple concoction of peeled and finely ground almonds in a milk and cream soup with a tiny little garnish of fresh coriander leaves in the center. We'd also been brought a basket of peppered papad wafers and a deep greenish herb sauce I didn't really recognize (it wasn't the usual mint sauce most places bring with the lentil crackers). I also had a cup of hot masala tea, which was a lovely light tea that had been lightly and delicately spiced, and came with a pitcher of milk on the side.

For our entrees, we ordered the shrimp tandoori, chicken curry, gobhi paratha (cauliflower-stuffed bread), and paneer kulcha (cheese-stuffed bread). We also had to order our rice a la carte--in this case, the basmati pulao. When the food arrived, we also received an unordered (but not complimentary--they charged us for it!) dish of channa masala (chickpeas and potatoes in a tomato and onion sauce). There was a good quantity of large shrimp, but with the tails still on (one of my constant complaints with restaurant shrimp is leaving the inedible tails on for "garnish"). Leo reported that he thought they were overcooked. The chicken curry was tasty, but I was disappointed that it was very, very mild, especially since the menu advertised "medium" spice and we had asked the waiter to make it very spicy. The channa masala had some kick to it, but it, too, was not terribly hot. The basmati pulao was elaborately spiced, with a tell-tale saffron yellow coloring and multiple whole spices cooked in. Now, basmati rice traditionally is aged, which makes the grains of rice cook up separately rather than being sticky like American or sushi rices, but I thought this basmati pulao to be rather dry. The breads were good, but they were all arranged in one basket, cut into quarters, and I'm not sure what we got—I never found a distinct taste either of cheese or of cauliflower. Since the rounds of bread were smaller than many I've seen at other local places, I wasn't sure if we got one order or two.

While none of our food was bad, I do not find Aroma to be a good buy. Their serving dishes were typically and average "individual"-sized, yet their prices were two or three dollars higher per entree than comparable competitors. And, then, they required a la carte purchase of rice! I was also distressed that our special spice request for the chicken curry was disregarded and that we were charged for an unordered chickpea dish. While I wouldn't object to eating here again, this is definitely not a "destination" establishment for me.

Aroma Indian Restaurant, 1919 Eye Street, near Farragut West Metro.

The Homogenization of America

Once upon a time, cities and towns had character. Not only that, but they had distinct character, and as one travelled across the country, one could experience wonderful, unique, and interesting differences in culture, cuisine, and clothing from city to city. One could taste the difference between North Carolina barbeque and South Carolina barbeque, between Memphis barbeque and Kansas City barbeque. One could recognize certain cuts and certain fabrics in a suit or the design of a pair of shoes and, regardless of where one was in the world, one knew immediately from whence the wearer came (or at least shopped).

Alas, those days are quickly slipping away, and America is becoming one bland, similar, boring melting pot, with everyone shopping at the same stores and eating at the same restaurants.

This homogenization of American culture took another unfortunate step forward this past week when Federated Department Stores, Inc., the survivor of the merger this spring between Federated and the May Companies, announced that they were converting all the regional department store chains in the former May stable to Federated's major store name, Macy's. Now, I have nothing against Macy's. In fact, I often enjoy shopping at various Macy's stores around the country. But, with every merger, with every change, with every renaming, we lose a slice of America.

Our choices are dwindling. It's getting so that when we travel, we aren't going to have a clue where we are, based on shopping and dining; the malls and the strips look the same. Already, we can go to the same big box stores in every major American city, large or small. Best Buy. Staples. Barnes and Noble. Circuit City. PetsMart. Home Depot. One of the 3,600 some Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. alone. And even when we pay for our purchases, whether we write a check or use a credit card, our banks are consolidating, too. The huge Bank of America and MBNA banking corporations announced earlier this year that they were merging, too. Then when we quench our thirsts, we have our choice of the same mediocre coffee at Starbucks on every street corner (they are planning to open another 1,800 coffee shops in 2006) or the same arteriosclerosing Happy Meals at one of the 31,561 McDonald's stores in the country. And what city doesn't have an Olive Garden or a Chili's or a Red Lobster or a Bennigan's? Did you travel to another town to shop? Will you be staying at a hotel in the HIlton group or the Marriott group?

Not everyone is unhappy about our homogenization. Every mall wants a Gap and an Abercrombie and Fitch. Krispy Kreme has to have traffic control for a week when they open a new store in a new city. Anywhere in the country, I can guess a guy's age based on whether he's dressed in Nautica, Hilfiger, or Hollister. We watch television and movies to see what people are wearing, and then we want it for ourselves. We watch music videos to see what the hip-hoppers are wearing so we know that we want North Face winter gear so badly our kids will murder one another for it. T.G.I.Friday's and Denny's always seem to be packed with diners, no matter how bad the food or rude the service. So, obviously, there's something about national franchises that the American public seems to accept, if not crave. We all want to dress alike and shop at the same stores and eat at the same restaurants, whether we are in Atlanta or Seattle, Bloomington, Indiana, or El Paso, Texas.

It makes me sad, though, because when I go home to Tulsa, I don't want Florida stone crabs claws or Louisiana crawfish etouffee or Maryland blue crab cakes, cause they just aren't the same in a town that cooks beef 90% of the time. In D.C., the Amerindian food all has that institutionalized blandness, I don't even want to talk about what passes for Mexican food, and the chicken fried steaks would even shame my high school cafeteria. Yet, we continue our march towards mediocrity, towards our least common denominator; we accept and welcome our increasing homogenization.

Homogenization is for milk, not for stores and restaurants. I just pray that I am not the lone voice in the American consumer wilderness who values what we are losing.

Malaysia Kopitiam, Washington, D.C.

I'm craving food right now. What I want is a salad we had the other day at Malaysia Kopitiam they called a "crispy squid salad with lemon grass dressing," which really wasn't "squid" at all. It was a big mound of long, thin shreds of green apple and green mango with shallots and mint leaves which had been tossed in a mouth-watering hot-spicy sweet and sour vinaigrette scented with lemon grass. Some very crispy small pieces of deep-fried squid were sprinkled on the top, but it was really more of a garnish than a main theme for a salad. The dish really didn't have much of a seafood taste to it at all. Anyway, it's that zesty apple-mango stuff I'm craving now.

El Chalán, Washington, D.C.

In keeping with our tradition of observing international independence days in the month of July, tonight we celebrated the 1821 independence day of Peru from Spain by dining in D.C.'s western downtown area at a Peruvian restaurant called El Chalán. El Chalán is a name which my fading high school Spanish tells me translates roughly to something like "The Horse Trader." Located in a very unpretentious storefront underneath a row of shops across the street from the Uruguayan Embassy, the restaurant is a simply decorated, two dining room operation. The walls were covered with large poster-sized photographs of the Andes, Mayan ruins, and street scenes from Lima, which were approaching sepia-tones with age.

We didn't have a reservation, but were seated immediately at a tiny two-top table covered by a thin white cloth in a niche in the main dining room with a view of the bar and the entry way. I noticed that all of the larger tables were merely arrangements of the same two-tops. There were quite a number of mature waiters and assistants running around the restaurant, and I did see one female waiter. All were clad in black trousers and bow ties with white shirts. When we arrived a little after 8, probably about half of the tables were filled. There was an older gentleman in the other room (he later visited our room) who played the guitar and sang what I would call standard "Miami-style" nightclub music, heavy on the Elvis and showtunes, but with a few Latin standards.

We drank a Peruvian beer called Pilsen Callao while we pondered the menu. The beer was light and pleasant and very much in the pale pilsner tradition. The three-page menu was very straight forward and fully translated into English. There was a page devoted to soups, salads, and simple appetizers, a page with the "better" (mostly seafood) appetizers or first courses and house specialties, and a page with chicken, beef, and steak entrees (I thought the division between "beef" and "steak" was interesting). Many of the offerings looked very traditionally Spanish, while others had a decided South American flare to them. I didn't see anything at all on the menu which was exotic or unfamiliar. As soon as I saw the listings, I saw immediately what I wanted for my entree, since it was something I've not had in years and years.

Our first course was the ceviche mixto, the traditional Spanish raw seafood dish where the seafood is "cooked" by marinading it in lime juice. Their version also included some very hot pepper spice in the marinade, as well as a goodly quantity of sliced red onion rings. The ceviche included at least two different types of fish, plus shrimp, a mussel, some squid, and some conch. I'm usually not wild about conch, but this version was good and not tough or chewy at all. Along with the fish we received a basket of sliced bread with a distinctly sweet taste and a sauce which resembled brown mustard but that was not mustard at all, and which had a very hot, "heavy" pepper taste.

For entrees, Leo had the arroz con mariscos, a paella-like dish with traditional saffron rice and vegetables with an assortment of seafood, including both mussels and clams. Apparently it was good, since he ate the whole plateful (his Atkins diet notwithstanding!).

I was excited to have cabrito norteno, as this is the first time I've been to a restaurant in over a decade that featured cabrito. The cabrito was explained in the menu very simply as being a "goat stew" (a bit of a misnomer, since "cabro" is goat and "cabrito" is kid), so I was totally not expecting what arrived on the table. The cabrito was almost like a gourmet braised lamb shank, with two pieces of large bone with large chunks of melt-in-your-mouth cabrito, all in what was more of a long-simmered, rich, brown, reduction sauce than a traditional stew or soup. The meat was just wonderful, with no tinge of toughness or strong taste (so they didn't cheat and use "young" goat), and I think this was the best meal I've had all week. Also on the plate were a scoop of white rice, some lettuce and spicy marinated onions, and a serving of some variety of white bean that was fully cooked and which had an intriguing butteriness to the flavor.

The dessert offerings were a little limited, with only flan and rice pudding. We were already feeling full from the meal, so we passed on the dessert.

During the course of the meal, the restaurant crowd picked up considerably, so that when we were leaving around 9:45, all of the tables were full and there were people standing waiting for tables. Ten o'clock is a "normal" dinner hour in Spain and many hispanic cultures, so that's not all that unusual. Later in the evening, a lot of big families were coming in, but earlier on, I was noticing a lot of tables with three men and one unusually beautiful and exotic young woman. I assume that most of the patrons were either Peruvian or at least South American, since I was hearing Spanish being spoken at most all of the tables other than ours. Since this is not a weekend night, I don't know if the late crowd is normal for this place, or if people were coming in to celebrate Independence Day. There were no particular holiday food specials, though, and when I mentioned to the waiter we'd come for the holiday, he didn't seem overly excited about it. That may have been more of a language issue, since Spanish seemed to be his primary language.

I'm looking forward to another visit to El Chalán, especially to try some of the other traditional Peruvian specialties such as lomo saltado, lamb in beer, and the chicken in peanut and onion sauce. El Chalán, 1924 Eye Street Northwest, between the Foggy Bottom and Farragut West Metro stops.

Cactus Cantina, Washington, D.C.

After another Summer Music Festival performance at the National Cathedral tonight, my friend Bob from the State Department (who'd dragged me out to the concert tonight) and I wandered up the street a bit from the cathedral close and had a little late evening supper at Cactus Cantina, a "Mexican" place that's a part of a small local chain. For some reason, the restaurant's decor included not only the traditional Mexican-looking stuff, but several posters and a big display case of Plains Indian regalia such as a feather war bonnet, a porcupine-quilled pipe bag, a beaded buckskin shirt, and other articles near the entrance. I'm not really sure why they had the Indian stuff there, since there weren't any Indian food items on the menu, and nothing else at the restaurant referred to it. Odd. Very odd.

The restaurant was loud, noisy, and crowded. The menu was pretty standard "contemporary"-Mex. Service was rather young and untrained, but typical for this type of restaurant. A few times, I noticed our waitress slowly reaching for our table nearly suspended in limbo as she was busy giving the Suzie Sorority fake "hiii-eeee" to other female patrons she seemed to recognize.

I ended up ordering the spinach enchillada platter. It had two enchilladas in flour tortilla wrappers, stuffed with a lot of too-intense spinach (probably from them using a goodly quantity of chopped frozen spinach inside), covered with some kind of strangely flavorless white sauce, and topped with a few slices of avocado. A big helping of plain white rice was on the plate, and a small bowl of black beans came along on the side There was also a mound of salad on the platter, but I wasn't expecting the large amount of shredded cabbage along with the lettuce and tomato.

Bob had a combination plate that looked very good. There was a taco, a tamale, and an enchilada with ample shredded beef on the plate, plus salad like mine, and he got some Spanish rice with a bowl of brown beans. We were tempted to get dessert, but it was late and we really weren't still hungry, though I was quite curious to try their strawberry-almond charlotte.

Cafe Deluxe, Washington, D.C.

Went to a concert last night at the National Cathedral with a couple of friends. Afterwards, we wandered over to Cafe Deluxe for an apres-concert supper. I had a lovely, thick, crab cake floating on a pool of tasty, sweet, cream sauce lightly touched with dijon mustard along side an interesting mix of sauteed sweet fresh corn and clipped bits of fresh asparagus. For dessert I had a strawberry cobbler à la mode with a pate sucreé top crust so thick and sweet it was nearly a cookie dough.

Ben's Chili Bowl, Washington, D.C.

Last week, Baj was headed back to Toronto, so before he left, we got together to see a bit more of esoteric Washington. We started with a late breakfast. Do you know how hard it is to find a restaurant in D.C. that's actually open for breakfast and that isn't a $30+ per person hotel dining room? We started at Dupont Circle, went to 17th, then went to U Street and ended up all the way down by the Cardozo Metro stop, where we landed at Ben's Chili Bowl. Ben's, the fifty-year-old landmark greasy spoon, is actually open for breakfast, and they have all kinds of breakfast foods that don't include chili! Baj had a breakfast sandwich of egg, cheese, and vegetarian sausage, and I had the (regular) sausage and egg platter with a big bowl of grits. Yum yum. Not a good place for the arteries, but I do like diner food.

Mar de Plata, Washington, D.C.

Last week, a realtor friend of mine took me to dinner at a place near his office. He chose Mar de Plata, an Argentine restaurant on 14th just south of P (around the corner from Whole Foods). I've walked by Mar de Plata several times, but this was my first time to go in. They have a very interesting menu with a full page of tapas and then a long page with both Spanish and Argentine classics, including a large grouping of various paellas. We sipped amontillado sherry while we perused the menu.

We started with their summer classic cold gazpacho, which turned out to be a servicable soup of finely pureed tomato and herbs with some tiny, tiny dice of cucumber, tomato, and carrot in it for texture and a good squeeze of lemon juice in it. They brought us a big basket of rustic country bread and a bowl of grated white cheese, roasted peppers, and olive oil as a tasty spread for the bread.

For our main course, he had an interesting vegetarian tower with a spicy lentil patty, longitudinally sliced and grilled yellow and zuccini squashes, broiled tomato, a little frisee, and some thin, crisp cracker things stacked on the sides. I had arroz negro con mariscos from the paella section of the menu. The arroz negro, or "black rice", was a risotto-like dish with arborio rice cooked in squid ink until it was thick and black as tar. In keeping with its paella roots, there were little pieces of diced sausage in the mix as well as a number of shrimp, some squid, some fish, and several mussels in the shell. The seafood had a bit of a doggy taste to it, a disappointment which is something I often encounter when meats have been frozen and then cooked. The arroz was quite good, though, and I enjoyed the dish. We drank the house Chilean cabernet (which the hispanic waiter kept calling a "cab-er-net") that was a little thin, but went well with the arroz.

For dessert, I had a flan which was okay but rather ordinary.

Notti Bianche, Washington, D.C.

A couple of weeks ago, a small group of us headed out to Sunday dinner, and went to the George Washington University Inn on the street behind me to see if their restaurant, Nectar, had reopened after remodeling. Turns out it's open again, but it's now known as Notti Bianche, an Italian-style trattoria. I was kind of amused by the name.....notti bianche is, literally, "white nights" in Italian, but it's also an idiomatic expression in Italy meaning "sleepless nights." LOL

The young chef from Dish at the River Inn down the street is also overseeing this new restaurant. When we arrived, the main dining room was filled with a group of Girl Scouts who were staying at the hotel, so we got the manager to seat us out on the patio for a little more quiet. We also let the manager pick our menu for the evening, and it turned out to be a nice adventure. Here's his picture:



We started with the roasted house olives. They took a mixture of four or five different green and ripe Italian olives, marinated them in olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, and fresh oregano, then roasted them in the oven and served them warm at the table. Hot, juicy olives are really good! We also got a basket of toasted Italian breads and foccacia, and the obligatory plate of olive oil and roasted garlic was poured up for dipping the bread. With the olives, he brought us the first of the evening's wines, and I thought it interesting that all of the wines he brought were reds. We started with a 2002 Capestrano Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. Now, abruzzos are notorious for being pleasant, innocuous little wines, but this one was actually very flavorful and had enough substance and acidity to stand up to the heavy garlic of the olives. There was a nice blackberry touch to the taste and it was a bit spicy for a typical abruzzo.

Next we had chilled tomato soup with tiny poached shrimp, toasted pinoli, and a basil mascarpone. This was a really interesting soup. The base soup was a rough puree of tomatoes and cucumber with multiple other vegetable flavors, and it seemed to have been brightened a bit with a shot of red wine vinegar. The soup was ladled into a soup plate, and then a mixture of the shrimp, quartered cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, and fresh shredded basil leaves were mounded in the center, and the mascarpone cheese sauce was drizzled all over the top of the presentation. It was very pretty, and there was enough shrimp and cheese almost to make it qualify as a fish course.

Our second course was a fava bean salad with a glass of 2003 Mark West Pinot Noir (no, no chianti!). The salad was an interesting construction. On the plate was a mixture of fava beans and pureed fava beans with a hint of mint chiffonade, topped with a thin, crispy, crepe-sized, peccorino romano cracker. On top of the cracker was a mix of bitter salad greens with crispy slivvers of fried pancetta ham dressed in a light lemony vinaigrette. A large thin slice of pecorino cheese rested over the greens, and another cracker crowned the entire oeuvre. It was a nice mixture of tastes and textures. The wine had a nice richness to it with hints of strawberry tastes and a touch of oakiness. It wasn't bad for a Central Coast wine.

We all got separate entrees. One dish was a cannelloni stuffed with poached chicken and sweet Italian sausage and served on a bed of braised baby spinach and shallots, then sauced with a veal stock and chianti reduction and garnished with frizzled sage leaves. Another was a half grilled Tuscan chicken served with a vegetable fricassee and creamy polenta. Both of the chicken dishes came with a glass of 2003 Morgante Nero d'Avola, which I didn't get a chance to taste.

My entree was a skillet-braised monkfish with Sardinian couscous. There were a couple of things I didn't like about the presentation, but when I read the menu after dinner, I saw that those things were specifically explained and set out, so I guess I have to accept them as they were, since we let the manager select the menu without any guidance or restrictions. What I didn't like about the fish presentation was that it was served on the bone, "steak style." It gave it a novel look, but I didn't like having to hack around the big fish bones. The plate was also surrounded by a semi-circle of thin anchovy crackers, and I hate anchovies, so I didn't eat more than a bite of the crackers. The fish itself, though, was very flavorful. Monkfish is one of those fish that strongly takes on the flavors and character of the foods cooked with it, and this dish had been braised with procscuitto ham, anchovies (ick, more anchovy, but not too much), fennel, olives, celery, garlic, Italian parsley, capers, and tomatoes in a shellfish stock. The couscous was nice, though I don't know what made it "Sardinian." My wine was a 2002 Cantele Primitivo-Puglia. It was a medium-weight, slightly peppery wine that was adequate, but didn't really stand up to the complex, strong flavors of the stewed vegetables.

We were too full for dessert, so we segued into coffee and cognac. The manager brought us snifters of a very nice Pierre Ferrano Amber Grand Cru.

Notti Bianchi was a very enjoyable dining experience, and we didn't experience any sleeplessness at all! The prices were surprisingly moderate for the quality of food and service, and we all agreed that it's a place we should put on our regular restaurant rotation.

Bistro Francais, Georgetown, D.C.

Once again it's time to celebrate the French independence day. Or, at least it was last Thursday. My friend Bob and I made a late afternoon appearance at the Hirschhorn Museum (the "modern art" place at the Smithsonian) to see the Visual Music exhibit, then rode the new D.C. Circulator bus into Georgetown. We were walking down the street headed elsewhere, but had to duck into Bistro Francais when it started to rain.

As it turned out, Bistro Francais was hosting a special Bastille Day dinner that evening, with the main seating at 9 p.m. It was a little $45 per person prix fixe thing, but I didn't feel overly impressed with the menu choices. Luckily, though, we were there early, and the bistro has an early bird prix fixe until 7 p.m. for $19 that includes three courses plus a glass of wine, so we opted to do that.

After a Dubonet Rouge on the rocks with a splash of club soda and a twist of lemon (a French cocktail seemed in order to celebrate the holiday), for my entree (in France, the starter course is called the "entree"), I started with the mousse de foie de volaille au sherry, a very tasty liver mousse that was served like a slice of pate on the plate and accompanied by the bistro's crusty breads. It had all the flavor of a pate, yet it wasn't too strong with intense liver flavor, and had a good lightness more appropriate to summer dining. Bob chose the moules Niçoise for his first course, which were mussels baked in a tomato, garlic, black olive, and butter sauce, and he ate them all, so I guess they were good.

We both had the same plat, the bisto's version of Moroccan couscous, which included stewed lamb shank and a big sausage along with stewed vegetables, all resting on a big mound of couscous. While couscous may not be a particularly French dish, it's very popular in France. The first time I ever had couscous was in Paris in a little cafe over the shops on a street across from the old Opera House over twenty years ago, about a week before Bastille Day that year. A glass of the house red bordeaux accompanied dinner.

We were stuffed after this much food, but the dessert is included in the dinner, so our waiter Thierry (should I mention that Thierry made a point on at least two occasions to tell us that he was an exotic dancer at Secrets? I'm sure Bob's kids would have been appalled!) brought us a dessert tray. We picked a pear tart and an almond tart. My almond tart was pretty good for a French dessert (I've always preferred German and Viennese pastries).

It was pouring down rain, so we lingered over coffee with cream and Hennessey V.S.O.P. cognac, and since we had a table right in the front window, we got to watch the Georgetown street traffic. Eventually we found a lull in the rain and dashed down M Street, only to get two blocks and have to take refuge under an office building awning by an art gallery. A Circulator bus came by, so we hopped on it and rode to Washington Circle, and by then, the rain seemed to stop.

Vous avez un jour de bastille heureux!

Market Cafe, Washington, D.C.

My visiting Indian-Canadian friend Baj had never had grits before, so we wandered down to Market Cafe at the Eastern Market and got little tiny bowls of grits with a huge dollop of butter. I showed him how to put salt and pepper on them and stir in the butter.....I think he actually liked it! Of course, he's always very polite, so he might have hated them and was just being gracious.

Bread and Chocolate, Washington, D.C.

My friend Baj and I had brunch at Bread and Chocolate on Capitol Hill, eating al fresco and braving the risk of additional downpours, but luckily, none happened. Baj had a huge bowl of muesli with walnuts and fresh fruits and I had an avocado and cream cheese omelette with some rosemary new potatoes and a slice of canteloupe. He had a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and I had a cafe au lait. I had a refill on my cafe au lait, and the waitress charged me for it.

Pan Am Cafeteria, Fairfax, VA

While I was in Virginia yesterday, I had an interesting lunch at a place in Fairfax called Pan Am Cafeteria. I was kind of tired of all the Asian food we've been eating lately, so I thought that the Pan Am would probably be Mexican or South American or something. One look at the menu, though, with its roast lamb, spanikopita, and moussaka, and I knew I was in a Greek place.

I ordered the calf liver and onions special. The waitress brought me a great big green tossed salad with house bleu cheese dressing that was very tasty. Then the liver arrived, and I was very pleasantly surprised. The liver was not heavily breaded, had been gently sauteed on both sides, and was still tender and juicy when served. One ordinarily doesn't expect such cooking delicacy in a diner-type restaurant, but this was really good. There was an ample supply of cooked onions, and the rest of the plate was mounded with hot, fresh, hand-cut French fries.

I shouldn't have, but I endulged in a piece of coconut cream pie for dessert. The pie had a thick layer of whipped cream with commercial coconut sprinkled on top. It was ok, but I did notice that the pastry was the frozen commercial variety.

From the looks of other tables around the cafe, it looks like they do a lot of good blue plate specials here. If I'm ever in the neighborhood again, I might just have to pop in again.

Panda Cafe, Washington, D.C.

After I danced another show tonight, Leo dragged me out to dinner at the Panda Cafe near us at 22nd and Pennsylvania. I had a big bowl of seaweed salad and the salt pepper squid with white rice, washed down with a couple of Tsing Tao beers. My squid was very nice. The squid was decoratively scored, very lightly battered, and then flash deep fried, after which it was dry cooked in the wok with sea salt and lots of pepper (very spicy!) and some cooked pieces of white onion and green scallions. then presented on a large leaf-shaped plate. Even though the squid was twice cooked, it was still tender and didn't get that rubbery overcooked tooth to it.

Leo was drinking almond bubble teas and had a plateful of half a dozen huge chicken dumplings for an appetizer and for his main course had a sushi and sushi roll assortment platter that was served on a pretty celadon rectangular platter.

The restaurant was very comfortable. It was a deep, narrow space, with little two-top booths on one side of the room and on the other, a room long banquette in black vinyl with triple-level backrests accommodated a series of black laquered four top tables.

Time to go elevate and ice my foot.

Four Wines at Best Cellars, Washington, D.C.

What an unexpected surprise I had this afternoon whilst I was getting my hair cut when the wine shop next door to the barber shop, Best Cellars on Connecticut Avenue, was hosting a little wine tasting and invited me in to join them. Now, this was a surprise because I've never been in that particular shop before, and I don't know anyone on staff. Connecticut Avenue is a very busy shopping thoroughfare with a lot of street traffic, and they weren't inviting all the passers-by to come in and taste, either. I don't know if I look like a lush or if I just have about me the refined air of an established oenophile.

The theme for the tasting wasn't really apparent. I'm not at all sure they had one. They presented four wines, two whites and two reds, which were all mid-range priced bottles costing from $24 to $32. The two reds were both from Napa Valley, with one white from Burgundy and the other from Paso Robles on the central California coast.

The afternoon started off with a Domaine Gerebeaux Pouilly-Fuisse 2003, the only French offering of the day. It was a crisp, clean wine with a clear hay color, and was very classically "pouilly-fuisse-y" tasting. It would probably make a nice aperitif wine, though I daresay it didn't have the substance to stand up to more than a light, simple canape. The second white was a Tablas Creek Vineyard Cotes de Tablas Blanc 2003. This was a very interesting white with a complex array of scents and tastes (no doubt because it was a blend of several grapes--I tasted viognier, grenache blanc, and at least one or two other somethings), and had a good acid content that led me to believe it would be a good wine for stronger cheeses. I might actually choose this wine to serve for a cocktail party, and, surprisingly, it was the least expensive bottle of the afternoon.

The reds started off with great promise with a smooth, buttery Hendry Block 7 Zinfandel 2002. It had a nice level of tannin and wasn't too terribly fruity or floral, as some zinfandels are wont to do. It didn't seem to have much aftertaste or staying power to it, but it did seem to have a strongish alcohol afterburn. This was, interestingly, the most expensive wine of the day. The final wine was the Edge Cabernet Sauvignon 2003. It was a surprisingly soft wine, and I suspect that it wasn't 100% cabernet, but probably had a substantial blending of merlot mixed in with it. It's drinkable now and had very little tannic edge, so I suspect it would be a good choice for immediate consumption and not for cellaring. It seemed a little thin and didn't really have the umpff needed to stand up to a heavy meal, but I'm sure it would be fine for cocktail parties or such.

So, there were four interesting wines, with the two middle offerrings being the best, and the Tablas Creek being my favorite of the bunch.

Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Leo got home from the gym tonight and announced that he was ravenous. So, he dragged me off to one of his favorite locales for his dates, Thai Place, just a short three block walk through the fireflies to the 22nd and Pennsylvania area. It was a little too humid to sit out on the sidewalk, so we went inside and got the window seat. Didn't make much difference. It was warm and muggy in the restaurant, too.

While I sipped my limed iced tea, Leo started with a Rain Forest, a cutesy cocktail in a mai tai glass made of rum, tequilla, lime juice, and raspberries. We split a Tiger's Tear, a Thai-inspired salad of green leaf lettuce with shreds of carrot, julienned red onion and red bell pepper, scallions, and thin slices of grilled steak in a lime, vinegar, and fiery spice dressing.

For our main courses, he had shrimp in red curry on rice (he liked it, but he said the green curry is better) and I had one of the daily specials, a Goong Pattaya, which was a very interesting square plate covered in a tomatoey sweet and sour sauce with a mound of ground chicken in the middle, eight large tiger shrimp artfully arranged around the sides, and then the entire dish was sprinkled with flaked crab meat and cilantro leaves.

While we waited for dessert, he had a Tango Mango Martini, made from orange and mango juices and some kind of premium vodka and garishly garnished with a huge orange slice and a sugared rim. His dessert was a big scoop of green tea ice cream with a speared maraschino cherry impaling the scoop—one of the "Ice Cream Dreams." I had the Thai coconut pudding, served on a big plate in three tiny bowls which had been steamed. Each bowl had a layer of dense, sweet coconut pudding on the bottom and an upper layer of congealed sweetened coconut milk.

It was a fun, tasty meal. The dining room, though, is very "ordinary," and lacks exotic ambiance. For the same price, I think I prefer some of the Thai places on K Street where there is a greater sense of Thai decor. Leo likes it a lot, though, and it does have the advantage of being a neighborhood place that delivers.

Dupont Italian Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

Had a lovely al fresco brunch with my friend Scott at the Dupont Italian Kitchen today. I know he looks like a teenager, but I swear he's in his thirties! I've seen his driver's license! He had the eggs florentine and I did the omelette au jambon et fromage. We both asked the waiter to bring us little side salads instead of the fruit and fried potatoes that came with our dishes, but I guess since we didn't say it in Italian, he brought the fruit and potatoes anyway. Alas. I hate to waste food.

Lalibela, Washington, D.C.

Last night, I had a good time meeting a guy from Tulsa who's here in D.C. for June and July to do an internship out at American University. He'd not had any "exotic" food before, so I took him to Lalibela, an Ethiopean place at 14th and P. I thought their food was pretty good. We got one of those variety sampler trays, and it had collard greens, a cabbage and carrot dish, lentils, a lamb dish, two beef dishes (one hot, the other mild with peas), a chicken drumstick, and a hard boiled egg. I also sampled some Ethiopean beer called Harrar, which was pretty good for beer (I'm not a beer person).

Aatish on the Hill, Washington, D.C.

Had an interesting dinner last night on Capitol Hill. We went to Aatish on the Hill, a Pakistani cafe featuring foods cooked in a tandoor. A tandoor is a special type of clay oven used for the equivalent of barbecuing for many types of Indian and Pakistani foods. I've always found tandoori cuisine amusing, since the meats are marinated in yogurt and spices before cooking, and they always come out of the tandoor with a characteristic bright red color.

As soon as we sat down, I was offered a masala chai, which was a black Indian tea (tasted a bit like assam) with an assortment of spices, including cardamom, cloves, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, and I think just a hint of saffron. An assistant brought us some papad (those thin, crisp, torilla-sized wafers made of dal or lentil flour and then deep fried) and a couple of sauces, one the usual mint chutney, and the other an unusual chutney that reminded me of beans and cooked tomatoes.

We decided to eat from the tandoori selections, so we started with a lamb botti kebab and a chicken tikki for appetizers, accompanied by a bowl of raita (yogurt with cucumber and mint), then for the main course, we had a big lamb sheekh kebab and a shrimp kebab tandoori, plus a large dish of spinach and homemade cheese called palak paneer. The palak paneer was good and very traditional for northern Indian cuisine (and Pakistan is in the northwest part of the Indian subcontinent), but I've always prefered the southern version called saag paneer, which is basically the same dish with cream and yogurt in it (I know, the spicings are different, but I'm trying to express a broad, general concept). I didn't much care for the tandoori shrimp. They had been rolled in a very thick layer of spices heavy with paprika to the point that it almost felt breaded in the mouth. On the other hand, the lamb was delicious. The chunks were tender and flavorful, and the tomato, peppers, and onion used on the skewers between the meat while it cooked were included on the serving plate. I love how the meaty pieces of onion were sweet and tender and had taken on a bit of the smokiness of the tandoor.

The main course dishes came with decoratively garnished saffron rice, but I told the waiter not to bring me any. I'm trying to reduce my carbohydrate intake and I'm avoiding rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, etc. That's also why I didn't order any naan or other breads. The waiter didn't help my cause, though, cause after we were totally stuffed from eating dinner, he brought us a big bowl of kheer (rice pudding) on the house. So, in order to be polite, I had to eat my half. It was very good kheer, too, since it was thick and full of spices (I don't like the runny kind or the kind made from vermicelli you see at some other restaurants).

One Fish, Two Fish, Washington, D.C.

Dinner tonight was at One Fish Two Fish, a West End Asian restaurant on Pennsylvania just before the bridge leading into Georgetown. I had one fish, and Leo had two fish. I had a crispy whole fish (deep fried sea bass, as it turned out) and he had the sashimi, which came with just tuna and salmon. After dinner, he had a "bubble tea," which was a rather unusual drink with mango juice in it, but most odd because of the large, black beads of tapioca in the bottom. The drink came with an extra large straw, and it was funny watching him drink the "bubbles" and seeing them travel up the straw, and then down again when he stopped sucking.

It was an okay restaurant which I've seen recommended in several publications, but it really is just a notch above Chinese fast food. We'll probably be back, though, since it's very close to the condo.

Cafe des Artistes, Washington, D.C.

Lunched today at the Corcoran Gallery, where the service was abysmally and abominably slow.

Jaleo, Washington, D.C.

Jaleo, a Spanish tapas bar up the street from the street festival on 7th, gave Leo, Guy Bill, and me a wonderful mid-afternoon luncheon respite from the heat and the crowds. I had a very very interesting "white gazpacho," which was presented by the server in a large square glass bowl with green grapes and olive oil in the corners and a mound of crab meat in the middle, and then a carafe of the soup was poured into the bowl tableside. It had a very unique taste and texture which I still can't place.....it was almost potatoey, rather than white tomato, and had a distinct vinegar edge to it. Cold soups are always wonderful in the summer.

I also had a little omelette (I forget the Spanish name) with an unusual slice of Spanish sausage in the middle with some Spanish white cheese. Everyone made me have dessert, so I had the arroz con leche (rice pudding), with lots of whipped cream, toasted almond slices on top, and the essence of orange in the thin, rich pudding.

Guy Bill had an interesting shredded apple and cheese salad and the same omelette as me (which he hated), and Leo had a huge bowl of mussels, a plateful of fried squid, a broiled salmon plank, and an enormous flan with an "espuma" of airy whipped cream and Valencia oranges, plus two big sangrias (Guy Bill and I were just doing iced tea, being the Southern boys we are). I don't see how Leo can eat the way he does and still stay so thin. Must be one of the great mysteries of the Orient.

Alero, Washington, D.C.

After the parade this afternoon, Leo, Guy Bill, and I wandered up Connecticut to Alero, Guy Bill's favorite Mexican restaurant in town, and had dinner. We started with chips and salsa (the salsa was good, but the chips were too thin and kept breaking!), some chorizo Mexicano (Mexican sausage covered in melted cheese), and a grilled shrimp thingie of some type. Leo had a seafood stew, Guy Bill some spinach, chicken, and cheese quesadillas, and I had a carne al paso (steak). This is a restaurant which gives black beans as its standard accompaniment with plain white rice. I also had some fried yuca on my plate. For dessert, Leo and Guy Bill each had their own cheesecake chimichanga, and I had a piece of a very good Tres Leches cake. Oh, did I mention the big pitcher of margueritas?



Did Leo drink too many margueritas?

The Melting Pot, Washington, D.C.

Tonight, my friend Scott and I went to the Melting Pot for what turned out to be a *very* long dinner! The Melting Pot is a small national franchise specialty restaurant chain serving up Americanized versions of traditional and not-so-traditional Swiss fondues. The D.C. location is just south of Dupont Circle on the lower level of a newish office building. Upon entering the building, one has to descend a flight of stairs to get to the Melting Pot, and I didn't see an elevator anywhere around, so handicapped people may be out of luck. The decor is modern and elegant, and a large bar sits right off the maitre d' stand. We were seated in the main dining room in a booth that featured a large hot plate and fondue pot in the middle. We were given cocktail menus, plus large dinner menus that had probably five pages of wine lists before the two pages of food options. They had several prix fixe as well as a la carte options, and since Scott had never had fondue before, we opted for one of the prix fixe menus so he could taste a little of everything.



Naturally, our first course was a traditional Swiss cheese fondue. Our waitress started by placing a quantity of chablis wine in our pot, then slowly adding some shredded Emmenthaler and Swiss cheeses. Once they started to melt, she added garlic, nutmeg, and a couple of stout shots of kirschwasser. While it melted, she brought us small cubes of French bread, cubes of Granny Smith apples, and an assortment of small crudites, all of which were to be speared on our long fondue forks, dipped in the melted cheese, and then eaten. It was a nice fondue, though I daresay that it could have used a couple more shots of kirschwasser (the fondues I've had in Switzerland have all had an almost overpowering alcohol bite).

The next course was a large pecan and dried cherry salad on an interesting bed of mixed baby spring greens that included some unusual greens like Swiss chard, all dressed in a cherry vinaigrette. I enjoyed the salad, but I daresay it could have used a little more chicory, endive, and raddicchio for more bitterness to help cut the richness of the first course.

Next was our "Potomac platter," a lovely large plate full of assorted raw tiger shrimp, ahi tuna cubes, chicken chunks, and a whole lobster tail cut into bite-sized pieces, plus a smaller plate with mushroom caps, broccoli, quartered new potatoes, and yellow summer squash demilune slices. All of these items were to be speared on the fondue forks, then immersed into the new fondue pot full of hot cooking oil. We had the option of cooking the meats and vegetables au natural, or dipping them first into a tempura batter or a sesame batter. Once the food was cooked, we had a plethora of dipping sauce options, including a three-welled dish with a chipotle sauce, an oriental barbecue sauce, and a curried yogurt sauce, and four small bowls of sauces such as a lemon butter, a hot spicy house-made cocktail sauce, a lovely gorgonzola cheese sauce, and a "green goddess" sauce of sour cream and herbs. Seems like I'm forgetting something, but you get the gist. Fondue cooking is such a great boon to conversation, since it takes a minute or two for each morsel to cook in the boiling oil, and you just had to talk in between bites!

The waitress then forced us to eat dessert. We had about eight options as to dessert fondues, and Scott selected for us the "yin-yang" fondue, a mix of dark chocolate and white chocolate in the same pot. The dippers that came with the chocolate on a big platter dusted with confectioner's sugar included a slice of cheesecake, cherries on stems, strawberry halves, banana pieces, pineapple chunks, cubes of angel food cake, and marshmallows rolled in dutched cocoa.



Scott likes sweet drinks, so we shared a bottle of asti spumante with the meal, and after dinner while I sipped my cappuccino, he had a yin-yang martini, which was an interesting white chocolate liqueur, Ketel One vodka, and cream concoction with half the top of the cocktail garnished with a heavy layer of grated dark chocolate.

The Melting Pot is a great place to eat, though, obviously, one will want to dine with friends to be able to share the wonderful fondues. And, be sure to allow plenty of time to eat! We were there tonight for about three and a half hours.

Bistro Francais, Georgetown, D.C.

I'm just back from Georgetown, where my friend Garrett took me to eat at Bistro Francais in his little tiny red convertible sports car. It was odd being back there—I was there decades ago when I was doing my internship here—and it was vaguely familiar and yet very strange. We had a simple dinner, since this bistro is known for its prix fixe menu selections.

I started with a very delicious cold cucumber soup with little shreds of julienned cucumber and a flavorful, herbed, thin cucumber liquid. My plat was from the poissons section of the menu, a very nice grilled halibut served on a mirror of lobster Nantua sauce and accompanied by two tiny pieces of carved white potato and a luscious crab and broccoli custard timbale. Also had a nice glass of the house sauvignon blanc. Garrett had the roasted-rare sliced duck breast in an apple-honey sauce on a bed of wild rice. For dessert, we chose from the dessert tray, with Garrett opting for the strawberry tart and me having the lemon tart, followed by an espresso.

We really should go to Bistro Francais more often. It's simple, French bistro food, but more importantly, the kitchen is open late every night, and I have the hardest time finding late-night places to dine in D.C.

Sushi Taro, Washington, D.C.

Last night, Leo took me back to Sushi Taro on 17th Street, which I think is becoming my favorite local sushi bar. He had the sushi and sashimi bento box, and I had a an ecclectic assortment of food starting with a big bowl of steamed, salted edamame (soybeans in the pod), followed by an interesting salad of five different types of seaweed in a sweet, creamy, "vinegar" dressing, followed by the Tori no Karaage, which is the Japanese version of fried chicken, and ending with the Chawanmushi, that Japanese seafood soup with a layer of egg custard on top, all washed down with many cups of hot, Japanese green tea. The chicken was quite good. They selected large, bite-sized morsels of skinned, boned chicken (both white and dark meat), dredged them very lightly in Japanese bread crumbs, then flash deep fried them until just done and still quite juicy and tender. They came to the table steaming hot. The seafood soup was a little different than it was the last time I had it, since there was very little actual soup broth this time, and the custard layer was thicker. It was still good, and came with shrimp, eel, chicken, fish cake, and some vegetables in it.