The Stinking Rose, Beverly Hills, Calif.

Allium sativum undique.

What would a trip to southern California be without dining in Beverly Hills?

Sunday evening after a hard day at the beach and shopping on Rodeo Drive, having been turned away from Spago for lack of a reservation, my gracious host Kyle selected one of his favorite BH restaurants, The Stinking Rose.

Stinking rose? That doesn't sound like a very nice place! Well, for those of you not up on your culinary culture, "the stinking rose" is the nickname often given to garlic, that internationally ever so popular but ever so pungent member of the allium family, cousin to onions, shallots, and leeks.

The decor of the Stinking Rose is quite ecclectic. Here, you can see some of the private dining tents in the middle of the main dining room. All kinds of odd things hung from the ceiling, including little hot air balloons and biplanes.

A sort of gift shop fills up the entry area by the combination cash register/maitre d' stand where they sell a plethora of pepper and garlic sauces both used in the restaurant and from other sources.

Different kinds of art were painted mural-style on the walls, some serious (a reproduction of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling scene of Adam touching the hand of God), some pop art (an Andy Warhol-esque painting of multiple Campbell's Soup cans, though rather than tomato, the soup is garlic), and kitchy (the painting below with Kyle of southern California "scenes").



Of course, the thing that makes The Stinking Rose unique is the menu: every item on the menu contains garlic.

We started with a couple of shared appetizers, the bagna calda and the garlic spinach fontina fondue. A plate of soft garlic rolls accompanied the food. The bagna calda is a little skillet of roasted cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil and with just a touch of anchovies added. The roasted cloves are very soft and spreadable and of course the roasting makes the flavor very mild.



They served the fondue in a little au gratin dish and there were several large pieces of garlic Melba toast.



Both of the appetizers--as was most of the food--were liberally sprinkled with chopped fresh parsley; parsley is believed to help stop "garlic breath" (old wives' tale, but people still think it). We also had a jar of a very hot and pungent minced garlic and parsley sauce on the table to spice things up.

Our next course, since we were in California, was salad in the service Californien style. Kyle had a chopped Caesar salad (the recipe for traditional Caesar salad contains a couple of cloves of smashed garlic) and I had a Stinking Rose house salad (mesclun greens) with garlic walnut dressing.

There were so many tempting entrees from which to choose! As it turned out, Kyle ordered the roasted rabbit with olives and garlic in olive oil garlic sauce, accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes made green by the addition of chopped parsley. Aside from the usual inconvenience of small bones, he thought the rabbit was quite good. He's not a great fan of olives, but he found these olives to be quite palatable.



I ordered "Silence of the Lamb Shank with chianti glaze and fava beans." Yep, that's the name of the food. It, too, was accompanied by green garlic mashed potatoes (delicious, by the way). The large roasted lamb shank was studded with slivvers of garlic; it was quite tender, mild flavored, and very good. I should have liked more fava beans, though; considering that many Americans of European stock have previously-undiscovered severe allergies to fava beans (a Middle Eastern staple), perhaps they were limiting the quantity so as not to have any incidents.



With dinner, we drank a big bottle of their house 2004 Stinking Rose Chianti, which was actually quite good for a chianti.

I have some Kody Pose pics of Kyle which I don't have uploaded to Flickr just yet, so come back tonight after I add them.

Dessert is where things got particularly interesting.

We both ordered the "Gilroy's Famous Garlic Ice Cream" with caramel mole sauce. Yes, indeed, a garlic flavored ice cream. It really wasn't too bad, although up to this point in the meal, I'd not yet had a garlic aftertaste and the ice cream gave me (but not Kyle) that aftertaste. Mole sauce is a traditional Mexican sauce made from unsweetened chocolate and dried red peppers, and with the addition of the sweet caramel made quite a nice complement for the garlic ice cream.

The Stinking Rose is more than just an oddity or tourist attraction. The food is actually very nicely done and I certainly wouldn't hestitate to come back here again. The only problem they have in the restaurant is their serving staff isn't very well trained. One typical example is when we both had finished our first glass of wine, the waitress came up and asked if we wanted another drink, then noticed the bottle of chianti, and said, "Oh, I guess not...you have your bottle of wine," and then walked off without pouring us more wine! So, our meal was partially self-service Sunday night. On the whole, though, it was a very pleasant experience.

Hilton LAX, Los Angeles, Calif.

I just returned from a business conference for 300 of our college students in Los Angeles this past weekend. We were staying at the Hilton LAX Hotel and Towers near the airport.

The food at the Hilton was okay if one only ate there once. The problem was there was absolutely no variety for those who ate multiple meals. While my per diem didn't allow me to eat at their "nice" restaurant (an Italian place), I did eat in their mid-range cafe, Le Cafe (they also had a 24-hour deli and a bar), where I discovered on Thursday that their lunch buffet and their dinner buffet were practically the same items, with the exception of a different chicken entree at each meal. All the other entrees, vegetables, and salad bar were the same. The breakfast buffet in there on Friday morning wasn't bad for a buffet, and they certainly had plenty of choices, including a whole section of fish, rice, miso soup, etc., for any Japanese travelers.

Once the conference started, we had group meals in the ballroom, and, interestingly enough, they chose to have buffets, which in my experience planning banquets and convention is the more expensive way to go over plated, pre-selected meals. Here's the problem, though....the buffets were essentially an extension of what they were serving in the cafe's buffet! Naturally, I got quite tired of the food at the Hilton. By Saturday lunch, I was just eating a big plate of their Caesar salad.



We had a dessert buffet for a mixer Friday night with cakes, cookies, and ice cream and fixings for self-made sundaes. There was lots and lots of food leftover...I don't think people, even college age, eat desserts as much as they used to.



At the Saturday evening dinner, they had some very interesting desserts on the buffet line. They had quite a number of these bite-sized morsels which I found quite good.



Starting at the nine o'clock position, there was a coffee mousse wrapped in a thin sheet of chocolate, a little tiramisu square decorated with a little dab of gold leaf on top, an orange mousse topped with orange preserves and garnished with milk chocolate, a lemon mousse garnished and wrapped in white chocolate, a rich dark chocolate mousse wrapped in decorated chocolate and garnished with a fresh raspberry, an almond mousse rolled in chopped, candied almonds and garnished with candied pineapple, and a tiramisu-style pistachio cream square.

Chevy's Fresh Mex, Arlington, VA

The other day I met up with Edward, Ryan, and Jeff to do a little shopping in Virginia. We ended up getting hungry and popped into the first place to which neither Jeff nor Ryan objected, which was Chevy's Fresh Mex, a sort of Mexican place which I believe is a small national franchise.

The food there really isn't too bad for Mexican in this part of the country (I've still never found a Mexican, Tex-Mex, or NM Mex place around here I like). They are, of course, heavy on the American-food-in-the-Mexican-theme things, but those foods can be edible and enjoyable for what they are, so long as one isn't so anal as to insist upon truly authentic Mexican food items.

This is a picture of Edward sucking down a watermelon margarita. He and Ryan seemed to like it.

Most of us ate light. Jeff had a bowl of chicken tortilla soup. I had a small chopped salad. Edward just drank. Ryan, on the other hand, chose to enjoy the full array of culinary offerings at Chevy's. He ordered the "Taste of Chevys," an enormous platter with beef and chicken enchiladas, a chicken tamale, a taco, beans, Mexican rice, and sweet corn tomalito (a sort of chopped corn relish). This is a platter which could feed two hearty eaters or three normal eaters. Then for dessert he had the Chiquita Sundae, an interesting sweet cinnamon "boat" (kind of like a small taco salad shell) filled with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, cajeta sauce, and huge mounds of whipped cream.

Marshall's Bar and Grill

Thinking it was half-price burger night, and after the abject failure of our prepared dog food dinner at home (this bag of Banquet Crockpot Classics "beef stroganoff" Leo had bought—never buy this stuff!), Ryan and I wandered over to Marshall's Bar and Grill to grab burgers. Well, as it turned out, half-price burger night is Mondays, and it wasn't Monday. :(

I had the Cobb salad, normally quite large, and while this one was very large, it wasn't quite as large as previous entree salads I've had here. Not a problem, though, since it's more than enough food and with all the blue cheese and bacon crumbles plus avocado slices, it's a rather high calorie, high fat salad.

The ever-extravagant Ryan didn't want a burger after all, so he ordered the fettucine alfredo with shrimp, his usual "exotic" dish when he goes out for dinner at a fancy Italian place. I didn't try this one, but usually I find their alfredo sauce to be rather bland.

Once again, the restaurant was out of bread and rolls and we weren't offered a substitute.

Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I went to Thai Place for dinner the other night. It's that sort of neighborhood Thai restaurant we've often visited in the West End very close to Foggy Bottom Metro. It isn't a "destination" place, but I've never had any bad or disappointing food here.

Leo had the Thai Place Salad, which has grilled shrimp and salmon in a spicy lime dressing, followed by the "Spicy Fisherman" (shrimp, squid, scallops, and mussels stir-fried in chili sauce), all of which he seemed to enjoy. On the recommendation of our waitress, I had the rama long song, a nice dish of chicken in yellow curry served on a bed of steamed spinach and all topped with peanut sauce and ground peanuts. I liked it a lot, though I think I might have preferred a peanut sauce that was somewhat less sweet.

Five Guys, Chinatown, Washington, D.C.

Sunday evening Ryan and I met up with Robert for dinner in Chinatown. It's always challenging to find places to eat in D.C. with Ryan, since he doesn't like anything but American food.

We'd been told that Jackie Chan (the comedic martial arts movie star) had opened up a new restaurant in Chinatown, so we were going to check that out. It's in the location of the former China Doll, and it's not open yet. What's more, I don't think it's a Jackie Chan project; the name of the new place is "Jackey Cafe," which is both a different spelling of Jackie and also not the name Chan uses for his restaurant chain around the world, Jackie's Kitchen. So, maybe we'll hit Jackey Cafe on a different trip.

Weended up walking to Five Guys, where I had a cheeseburger and the other two guys had bacon cheeseburgers; Ryan and I split a regular fries and Robert had a large Cajun fries (he didn't eat all of them, though). Five Guys is always decent for that step-above-fast-food kind of burger place, and it's fun to sit around shelling and eating their roasted peanuts.

Summer recipe

In an informal poll this past week, I discovered that over two-thirds of my queried friends have never had vichyssoise! This is a serious deficiency in their life experiences! So, here's my recipe for you all to play with and use to make your own vichyssoise. Whenever I cook (except for cakes), all quantities are approximate and I play with and adjust recipes to fit my whims at the moment. Have fun and enjoy this great cold summer soup!



Crème Vichyssoise Glacée

Ingredients

6 to 8 fat leeks
4 to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 to 8 medium white potatoes
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup of dry white wine
3 cups heavy cream
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
White pepper to taste
Kosher or coarse sea salt to taste
Fresh chives

Preparation

Cut the green tops off the leeks and discard. Trim off the roots. Slice the leek in half lengthwise, then slice crosswise. Wash well in cool water—leeks are notorious for holding sand!

Peel the potatoes. Cut into thin slices. Hold the potatoes in cool water.

The chicken stock must be homemade. Don't used canned and don't use powdered chicken base. If you don't have homemade stock, use water.

Get out a food processor or blender and a fine sieve/strainer.

Cooking

Sauté the leeks in the butter over a low heat, stirring often, about 10 minutes or so until tender. Watch carefully so they don't brown.

Add the potatoes (drained), chicken stock, white wine (if you don't want to use wine, use water), and salt to taste (minimum 1/2 teaspoon, even if trying for a low sodium diet), and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 30-40 minutes.

Strain (reserving liquid) the potatoes, then puree in the food processor or blender, using reserved liquid as needed. Mix the reserved liquid back into the puree, then strain the potato-leek mixture, pressing larger pieces of vegetables through the mesh. Repeat the straining.

Mix in two cups of the cream (if you don't want it to be wonderful, you can use two cups of half-and-half instead). Add the nutmeg (do not use the ground bottled stuff because they really taste quite differently; just delete the nutmeg if you don't have a fresh one to grate) and sprinkle in a little white pepper to taste. Don't make it spicy, just a little pepper is fine (and do not use black pepper!). Mix the soup and spices, then taste; adjust the spices to taste, remembering that it's better to slightly overseason a cold soup.

Put the soup in a bowl with a tight lid or well-covered in plastic wrap (the soup will absorb refrigerator odors if not covered) and chill overnight.

Assembly

The next day just before serving, put the remaining cup of cream (this must be cream) into a chilled bowl and whip it with a wire whisk until the cream is thickened a little bit, but don't turn it into whipped cream. Stir the cream into the soup mixture.

Ladle the soup or into nested glass cups with cracked ice underneath (I have some old shrimp cocktail glasses like this) or into chilled soup plates, snip some fresh chives (must be fresh, not freeze-dried) over the center of each bowl to garnish, then serve immediately.

Usually I will serve vichyssoise with a loaf of crusty French bread, a slab of butter over which I've drizzled a little high quality, light, extra virgin olive oil, and a bottle of crisp chardonnay or chablis. For dessert, I'll serve fresh strawberries with a little bowl of confectioner's sugar for dipping or maybe slices of fresh, ripe peaches with a little sweetened crème frâiche.

Bon appetit!

Lei Garden, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, Ryan, Edward, and I went off for a day's activity, starting in Chinatown, where we met for lunch. Neither of them had had dim sum before, so we opted to go to Lei Gardens, which is always a dependable place for good dim sum in D.C.'s Chinatown. Lei Garden has a "normal" Chinese restaurant on the ground level, but upstairs they serve dim sum—sort of the Chinese version of tapas—every day during lunchtime.

As with most dim sum restaurants, a couple of carts circulate around the dining room with stacks of little round, covered, aluminum dishes filled with every imaginable type of dumpling or appetizer.

Neither Ryan nor Edward use chopsticks and didn't seem particularly interested in learning to use them, so I didn't push the issue.....it was nice just getting them both to try something different!

They wouldn't let me get chicken feet, so I kept things tame. We had mostly dumplings—round balls of meat wrapped in an outer casing of pasta or won ton wrapper type stuff. Some were beef, some were seafood, some were pork, and Edward's favorite kosher dumpling was a mix of pork and shrimp. He also had the special round dumplings filled with frog eyes. We all tried some kind of beef thing that was flat, square, and between two big sheets of pasta like stuff. In addition, we had fried and baked taro root, sesame balls, and little custard pies.

We were all shocked and appalled at Edward's table manners. You'd think his mother never taught him how to use a fork and a napkin! Since he couldn't do chopsticks, he just ate with his fingers, cramming that food in as fast as he could eat it!

Bistrot du Coin, Washington, D.C.

As we were walking around the Dupont Circle area last Friday evening, we went by Bistrot du Coin and decided that would be a nice place for a light supper. It was crowded and noisy, but they quickly found us a table and brought us half a liter of white wine.

Ryan had the confit de canard avec pommes sallardaises. It's a lovely duck confit with potatoes fried in duck fat and served with a big pile of frisée. He thought the duck was good and the potatoes were really good. I've had it many times before, and it's exquisite.



I opted for the blanquette de veau, a rich, creamy, veal stew with carrots, onions, and mushrooms served in a hot, cast iron casserole and accompanied by a dish of white rice. The stew is rich and velvety—you know, one of those dishes where you use your rice and bread to sop up every last drop of the stew.



Ryan decided he wanted his picture taken in a Kody Pose, so here it is:

Halo, Washington, D.C.

After wandering around D.C. on a photography walking tour after work Friday night, then a quick look-around at Whole Foods, Ryan and I ended up at a bar Halo, where they were having their famous buy-one-get-one-free happy hour. I just had a couple of Heineken beers.

Ryan, though, had to be more creative and flashy. He started with a flirtini, one of those faux-martini things with raspberry vodka, pineapple juice, and champagne. For his second cocktail, he switched to a "pomegranate truffle," made from Pearl Persephone (Pearl's pomegranate-flavored vodka), a splash of grenadine, and Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur. It was actually a tasty thing, and since it was so thick from the Godiva, it was almost like an alcoholic milk shake.

Noodles & Company, Arlington VA

While at the mall in Arlington the other night, we popped in to Noodles & Company for a cheap dinner, and that's exactly what we got. Ryan wanted potstickers, so we started with them for an appetizer. There were six, and they had potential, but they were over-cooked, cold, and greasy. I could only eat one. Ick.



For our main courses, Ryan had the Wisconsin macaroni and cheese, which was simple elbow macaroni with a bechamel sauce and two or three different types of cheese. He liked it.

I had the pad thai with beef, which was okay for an Americanized version.

International thoughts

Today I saw a colleague standing in line at a restaurant at lunch today, and when I mentioned to him later that I'd seen him at "Restaurant X," he didn't understand me and was confused. Why? Because I pronounced the name of the restaurant correctly instead of using the common, Americanized pronunciation.

Thus we have the topic of today's rant: American ignorance about common foreign word pronunciations.

Many Americans can't seem to deal with common food words from Romance languages such as Italian and French. Considering that well over a third of English comes from French (thank William the Conqueror in 1066), I find that perplexing. Yes, I know it may be a losing battle, but I'm well known for tilting at windmills in support of propriety.

Some words we have mastered. Everyone knows that we order out for "PEET-zah," not "PIH-zah." We understand that that bunch of flowers we give our beloved is not a "BOW-ket," it's a "boo-KAY." We've managed to learn enough Spanish to know that a tilde--the squiggly line over some Ns, as in ñ--makes an N sound like an "ny" and we also know that Js are pronounced like Hs, so some of us eat "hal-a-PAIN-yos" instead of "jal-a-PEE-nos."

So, it's really just not that hard. We just have to take the time to avoid ignorance and learn the pronunciation of those words.

Here is a list of my 2006 ten most immediate culinary pronunciation pet peeves.

1. Espresso. You know, that strong stuff you get at Starbucks in the little cups. Please note that there is no X in the word. Therefore, it is "ess-PRESS-so" (don't forget the double S).

2. Bruschetta. In Italian, a "ch" before an E is pronounced like a K, so don't say "brew-shet-uh," say "bruce-KET-tah."

3. Panini. A sandwich in Italy is called a "panino." Words that end in O are made plural by changing the O to an I, not by adding an S to the end of the word. Thus, if you want only one sandwich, order a panino. If you want two sandwiches, order two panini (puh-KNEE-knee). Never, ever order two paninis!

4. Guacamole. The green stuff is properly called "HWAH-kah-moh-lay." No G. And, before arguing with me about different Spanish national dialects, let me point out that the name "guacamole" comes from Mexican Spanish via the Nahuatl (Aztec language) ahuacamOlli, from ahuacatl (="avocado") + mOlli (="sauce").

5. Croque monsiuer. This delicious ham and cheese sandwich is a "croak miss-SURE," not "CROW-kay MON-sewer!"

6. Au jus. When asking the chef to put a little of the natural juices on your prime rib, please don't ask for "ow juice sauce." It is "oh ZHEW," and you needn't say sauce.

7. Dom Perignon. I will always remember the scene (amongst many others!) in the movie Misery where Kathy Bates tells the captive James Caan that she has brought him his favorite champagne, "dahm per-RIG-non." When I'm at a nice restaurant, I'll order "dome pear-in-YOHN" (although I really do prefer Perrier-Jouet Fleur).

8. Crêpe. One of those fancy, thin, French pancakes is not a "krayp." It's a "krehp." Further, whether there's one or two, the plural crêpes is still pronounced "krehp."

9. The restaurant chain Così, according to the company's own Web site, takes its name from the Mozart opera Così Fan Tutte. That means we use the Italian pronunciation of così, which makes the S a Z sound. Thus, we eat at "co-ZEE."

10. The bakery chain Au Bon Pain is not "ow bone pain!" It's French, which means the phrase is said "oh boh PAY," with a touch of nasality on "pay."

Finally, please be aware of double consonants in Italian words, and always pronounce them! There is a big difference between pera (pear) and perra (whore) and between anno (year) and ano (anus)!

I hope that this little rant will help all of you become more erudite and cosmopolitan, thus avoiding any future faux pas (foe PAW), etc. (ET SET-er-ah). I now hope that we can adjourn this cyberclass sine die (SEE-nay DEE-ay).

Bone swarr!

Murphy's Irish Pub, Alexandria, VA

Last Thursday evening, we went to Murphy's Irish Pub in Old Town Alexandria on King Street, just a few blocks up from the river. It was a very dark place (darker than any I'd been in in Ireland) with lots of wood paneling in that faux-British Isles look so popular with Irish pubs in this country. The downstairs area was essentially just a big, noisy bar; we were taken upstairs to a dining room, which also came equipped with a very large bar and, alas, a duo playing and singing Irish music that was far, far louder than it needed to be.

Our table was in the middle of the room near a large two-way brick fireplace (not lit, as it was 90+ degrees Thursday!). The wall sconces had a leprechaun painted on each one.

The menu was pretty standard Irish-American pub fare, but where they looked like they had real potential was on their chalkboard specials. Prices were moderate, even for the lobster and steak, which were both $15.95.

Ryan started with the spinach-artichoke dip, which was served in a hollowed out loaf of bread and came with tortilla chips. I tried a little bite of it, and it was really lame....needed artichoke, cheese, and mayonnaise to give it at least some semblance of substance and richness. For his "main course" he had their potato skins.



Stephen had one of the specials, a grilled strip steak with a baked potato and steamed broccoli.



Both of them reported their food to be edible but rather mediocre and nothing special.

I had the fish and chips. In addition to the traditional bottle of malt vinegar for the fish, little cups of tartar sauce and cocktail sauce were on the plate. The fish wasn't bad and was well cooked. The chips, on the other hand, needed work. They were thick rounds of potato deep fried in oil which had seen fish and they were not completely cooked through. Ketchup didn't seem to help.



While the food was uninspired and "not terrible," the service was. Our waitress, while friendly, was very inattentive and slow. After serving our main courses, she never came back by to inquire if everything was okay or if Stephen's steak was properly cooked. We all had iced tea, and, even after both requesting our own pitcher or carafe and explaining that we'd like several refills, we only got one or two refills and those came only after one of our rare opportunities to talk to her and specifically request more tea. When she came by to deliver jars of condiments she managed "not to see" three empty tea glasses on the table and didn't come back by with tea until asked! We'd contemplated having dessert, but she never came back by to take our orders, so we passed. We had to ask for our check. What's more, the restaurant was neither crowded nor busy nor understaffed; on several occasions, we saw our waitress standing at the bar reading a People magazine.

Stephen left a ten percent tip, which I thought was way too much.

We were kind of amused to see their go-boxes. Don't you think these are surprising for an Irish restaurant?



When Ryan saw them, he said he felt like he was back in Pryor, Oklahoma!

The verdict on Murphy's? I wouldn't be inclined to go back.

Panevino, Washington, D.C.

Tonight we dined at Panevino in the Embassy Suites Hotel in D.C.'s West End. It wasn't bad for a hotel restaurant. It's actually a very large space in a contemporary, but not starkly modern, setting with white lattice room dividers and big series of 2'x2' frames grouped together covering the walls, each holding a completely different piece of art which looked very much like student work painting a detail section of a famous great artist masterwork. It was all quite colorful.

The menu is quite simple and moderately priced. "Panevino" is Italian for "bread/wine," so as one might imagine, Panevino is an Italian restaurant.

We started with white wines, Leo a chardonnay and me a pinot grigio, then we ordered.

Leo started with the fried crab cake with cabbage slaw, then moved on to an absolutely enormous bowl of rigatoni in a red sauce (I couldn't tell if it had any meat in it or not), and he ate every bit of it.



For dessert, yet again, he had the tiramisu. I sampled the tiramisu, and, while it was tasty, it was very much a "commercial" version far from the authentic recipe.



These are the only pictures....I forgot to photograph the main courses.

I had the chop chop salad, which was chopped romaine with chopped bits of chicken, cashews, ginger, other vegetables, and some fried won-ton strips all in a slightly sweet, soy-tasting dressing. I thought about dessert, but all three of the things I wanted included either ice cream or gelato, and they were out of them both, so I just did without. My salad was big, so I was already full, anyway.

We had a pleasant waitress from Eritrea who offered a number of menu suggestions.

On the way out, we got some of their soft, lemoncello-flavored, Italian candy to suck on—it's quite different.

Beacon Bar and Grill, Washington, D.C.

Ed, Robert, Leo, and I all got up bright and early yesterday morning so we could meet up for brunch at 11:30 at the Beacon Bar and Grill at the Beacon Hotel. Beacon is always a fun place to go....they have a $19 all you can eat breakfast buffet on Sundays with a live pianist, and what's even better, unlimited bloody Marys, mimosas, and champagne. Let's just say that Robert and Leo got their money's worth!

The food is always basic but okay. This morning the executive chef and one of his assistants were running an omelette bar—chef made me an omelette with ham, onions, red peppers, spinach, and cheese—and there were large chafing dishes set up with an egg casserole, sausages, bacon (I love their bacon!), fried potatoes, a chicken dish, linguine and mussels, dirty rice, and steamed green beans and baby corn. The salad table had half a dozen different green or vegetable salads and a huge bowl of fresh fruit. The bread station was laden with croissants, muffins, and other breads, and the dessert table had all kinds of things from a big fresh fruit on crème patisserie tart to a tiramisu cake to a glazed lemon-lime cake.

Odéon Cafe, Washington, D.C.

Lured in by the maitress d' at the Odéon Cafe, an Italian bistro in the Dupont Circle area at which none of Robert, Ed, Leo, or I had ever before eaten, we decided to pop in for dinner and we were immediately taken to a table upstairs on the mezzanine level.

The place was packed, but we had a nice quiet corner table, so thus we got to eat without being rushed.

Robert chose the pane con gorgonzola for his appetizer. It was grilled bread covered with gorgonzola cheese (the Italian version of "bleu") and cream sauce, then broiled and melted. For his second course he chose the scallopini di milano, something I thought resembled a veal piccata. Dessert was the chocolate tartufo, and the whole meal was washed down with a couple of Dewars on the rocks.



Calamari fritti started off the meal for Leo, then he had the linguine con fruitti di mare and a glass of pinot grigio. He tried the tiramisu for dessert, which I also sampled, and we thought it was nicely authentic.



Ed ate a bunch of calimari then the tortellini alla panna, a tri-color cheese-stuffed tortellini dish with slices of Italian prosciutto, eating the squid and the ham even though he's Jewish! Dessert was the cheesecake.



I had a little insalata della casa, the house salad, to start, then the "special" advertised downstairs on the sidewalk, which was a whole lobster steamed and split accompanied by some linguine in a non-marina red sauce. They pulled the meat out of the claws back in the kitchen and split the lobster down the middle. The lobster was nice for the price ($16), but I thought the tail was just a touch overcooked and a tad bit tough. I tried the hazelnut mousse for dessert which was good in its own way, but it's not something I would order again.



Over all, I thought the food was pretty good, though there were several items we tried to order, but they were out of them. The service also wasn't really up to par, but it was a very, very busy night and the staff was constantly moving.

Leo and Robert had to mug for the camera for their traditional Kody Pose:

Georgia Brown's, Washington, D.C.

This was an odd week at the office, since all the other full-time staff flew to Detroit for a series of conferences and meetings, none of which were my projects, so I got to stay in D.C. all alone with just our summer intern and me in our great big office yesterday and today. Sometimes it was eerily quiet! Anyway, since this was his first week at work, yesterday I decided to take the North Carolinian out to lunch at Georgia Brown's.

Georgia Brown's, located straight across McPherson Square from our building, specializes in American Southern cuisine, more specifically recipes from South Carolina and Charleston. Georgia Brown's is an interesting contrast to D.C.'s other fine dining Southern restaurant, Vidalia, where the recipes are more broadly Southern and the Vidalia style is more re-engineered, updated, and showy, while Georgia Brown's tries to be more down-home—at least as down-home as one can be with $7 soups and mid-$20 entrees at lunch.

The restaurant, which is only two blocks from the White House, achieved a certain degree of fame in the last presidential administration. It is said that it was one of the Clintons' favorite restaurants, but that's okay; I'll eat there anyway.

The decor is rather unexpected and challenging to describe. It certainly isn't anything "homey" or evoking memories of antebellum plantation homes on slow, steamy, summer days. Instead, the walls are lined with high, comfortable, elegant banquettes and the walls and partitions are distinctly modern, with an unusual, undulating ribbon-like artwork hanging from the ceiling over one of the dining rooms. The only thing that reminded me of South Carolina were the people in the establishment, as most of the staff was black dressed in white jackets, and probably 98% of the patrons were patrician whites, much as one sees in the private clubs of the rather racially divided South.

We started with iced teas, mine unsweetened and garnished with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of mint, and Andrew's the "regular" tea—which in the South means the tea is brewed and lots of sugar is added while the tea is still hot so the sugar dissolves properly. The person who brought the teas got the orders switched, so we got to sample one another's tea, and I have to say that regular tea was really, really good.....if I wasn't trying to maintain my 32" waist line, I definitely would have ordered one.

Now, it's time to get down to business and talk about food. Andrew started with the house salad, which was a very large bowl full of mixed greens with ripe-looking tomatoes, Vidalia onions, sweet corn kernels, spiced peanuts, and blue cheese crumbles and what appeared to be a vinaigrette. His main course was the Carolina gumbo. Again, it was quite a large bowl, and seemed loaded with meats like shrimp, crab, chicken, duck, and Andouille sausage, and, as with all gumbos, okra, green peppers, onion, celery, tomato, and rice. He ate it all, so I gather it was good.

My first course was the Charleston she-crab soup. It was intriguing. Naturally, it was a cream-based crab soup, and it was garnished with crab roe. It had an unusual sourness to it, though, and since the menu indicated that the soup contained sherry, I suspect that the sherry used was old and had turned. While I'd originally come to the restaurant planning to order their big shrimp salad, I succumbed to temptation and ordered the shrimp and grits, partially because I like it, and partially to compare their offering with that I had last month at Vidalia. As it turned out, they were both good in their own way. I definitely liked the grits here much better. They were were creamy and good and there was quite a nice serving of them (unlike Vidalia, where there were very few grits). Over the grits was ladled a stew with a half a dozen jumbo shrimp with the heads and tails still on (I forgot to ask the kitchen to decapitate them for me) and quite a lot of Andouille sausage slices. I didn't eat all the stew, but I scraped up every little bit of the grits.

One thing that surprised me was the basket of cornbread and biscuits. Now, I didn't try a biscuit, so I can't comment on them, but I did eat some of the cornbread. It was made in sticks with yellow cornmeal, and it was sweet! In the South, white cornmeal is probably more common than yellow, but what surprised me most was the fact that it was sweet. That's a Yankee thing!

The dessert tray looked quite tempting with a chocolate walnut pie and a bourbon-spiked pecan pie, and I was intrigued with the idea of a sweet potato cheesecake, but I abstained from dessert. Andrew had the peach cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream and seemed to enjoy it.

Too bad I didn't bring my camera. Some of the food was very photogenic!

Who won the shrimp and grits competition? Well, it's a toss up. They're very different dishes, so it's hard to compare and they are both good in their own way.

After lunch, we actually went back to the office and got work done!

La Madeleine Bakery Bistro, Georgetown, D.C.

After finishing our dinner at Vietnam Georgetown, we walked across the street to La Madeleine Bakery Bistro for dessert. La Madeleine is actually a national franchise based in Dallas with about a half dozen stores in the D.C. metro area alone; even though they are a chain restaurant, their decor feels very homey and almost too original to be a national design. The best way to describe the food here is to say it's a French version of a fast food restaurant. The boulangerie includes all manner of French breads and rolls, filled croissants, and a big selection of French and European desserts. The bistro has quick-to-make salads plus quiches, gallettes, pochettes, and friands, all of which are really eat-in-hand items (though one is permitted to use a fork), some crêpes, and sandwiches. In the evenings, the bistro features country French style plats, though I didn't see anyone in the restaurant eating those. There is also a coffee bar with both hot and cold drinks. Prices for all seemed quite moderate.

As we were there just for dessert, we didn't try any of the food or breads. Leo selected a fine looking slice of Sacher torte and a glass of raspberry lemonade. I had a big individual fresh fruit tart with a cafe chocolat frappé (coffee, chocolate syrup, and ice put through a blender and topped with whipped cream). My tart was quite nice, starting with a very thin chocolate cookie molded into a bowl shape, then filled with a smooth crème patisserie and topped with blueberries, grapes, kiwifruit slices, mandarin oranges, and sliced strawberries.



We chose La Madeleine for dessert since Vietnamese food is very heavily influenced by French cuisine, especially since the long French occupation of Indochina during the middle part of the 20th century.

Vietnam Georgetown Restaurant, Georgetown, D.C.

A couple of dozen years ago during my internship days, I ate in a rather downscale corner restaurant in Georgetown that served what was to me at that time a very exotic cuisine called Vietnamese. Tonight I went back.

Vietnam Georgetown Restaurant is located on a busy corner along M Street in east Georgetown. It's still a fairly non-descript place, although they now have nicer decor and black, lacquered tables with comfortable and unrickety chairs. They also have a liquor license now, which I don't recall them having on my last visit. We were seated immediately in the middle of the dining room, and, while the place was never completely full, they had a rapid turnover of tables and a steady stream of new patrons to fill the vacated tables.

Leo started with the chå giò, a pair of those rice paper-wrapped spring rolls which were deep fried and crispy before being served and accompanied by a little bowl of fish sauce.



For his main course he selected the ever-popular phô bò, a thin soup with slices of beef, some vegetables, and a bunch of rice noodles. He liked both items, and particularly commented on the authenticity of the food and the unusualness of an American Vietnamese restaurant actually using the "correct" type of noodles.



I chose to begin with the chim cút quay. Two tiny quail were halved and cooked; the menu says that they were roasted, but they were so flavorful and crunchy, I suspect that they were fried instead (especially since I noted a little grease on the bed of leaf lettuce underneath them). Other than the leg bones and scapulas, I was able to eat all of the other bones.



A little bowl of a sweet yet hot red pepper sauce came with the quail. The next course was a delicious bò lúc låc, slices of Vietnamese steak marinated in garlic sauce and then stir-fried with slices of garlic cloves. I found the meat very flavorful and tender.

Marshall's Bar and Grill, Washington, D.C.

Last night after he returned from his big weekend in New York City, Leo wanted to go out someplace for dinner, so we walked up to Pennsylvania Avenue and started walking west towards Georgetown, when we decided to try a place in the far West End we'd passed countless times, but at which we'd never before eaten: Marshall's Bar and Grille.

Marshall's is wedged in where L Street splits off from Pennslyvania, right next door to that big Mormon center. It's a two-level building with the bar upstairs and the restaurant on the ground level. It's also an interesting mix of contradictions. The restaurant features a bunch of tall, casual booths and banquettes that look very much like a casual bar, but yet over the speakers they were playing Beethoven and Mozart. Also eclectic is the menu, which starts off with Lebanese appetizers, then moves to Mexican; salads are very California-influenced; burgers and sandwiches are very American; there are lots of Italian-style pasta entrees; and the main entrees include steaks and crabcakes, a lamb shank, a roasted chicken, and international chicken entrees from Lebanon, India, and Italy.

Leo ordered fried clam strips for his appetizer and the linguine al frutti di mare for his entree. The waiter forget to bring the clam strips, so Leo had to do without and opted not to have them with/after his pasta. "Fruitti di mare is the Italian phrase for "fruits of the sea," or, in American, mixed seafood. Now, I'm not positive since we didn't discuss it, but it appeared to me that there was only tail-on scampi in the dish; he reported it was quite good, though, and liked it better than a similar dish at Au Pied Bistro. He also had a glass of their house pinot grigio. I tasted it and it was nicely crisp with a bit of a green apple taste, but highly acid, so Leo wasn't quite so sure he liked it; I had him wait until he got his food to try it again, and one he had the cream sauce and pasta to counterbalance the acid, it turned out to be quite a pleasant wine and an excellent accompaniment for that particular dish. For dessert he selected the amaretto cheesecake, which turned out to be an Italian style cheesecake with a full amaretto flavor; I tasted it and it was nice, but I thought the thin layer of cheesecake had been baked in too hot of an oven, letting it develop a somewhat granular texture.

I had iced tea and the California chopped salad. The salad was huge. There was a large bed of chopped greens, including a lot of leaf and romaine lettuce, but also raddiccio and arugula. Mounded on top of the greens were diced grilled chicken, some still-warm crumbled bacon, bleu cheese crumbles, roasted red bell peppers, chopped tomatoes, half of an avocado, and some very interesting corn relish. For dessert I ordered their apple-berry cobbler à la mode, which turned out to be quite unusual. The cobbler was served in an old-fashioned sundae glass and the apple and unidentified berry filling were very dark colored and highly, almost overpoweringly, spiced with cloves.

We weren't served any dinner rolls, since they ran out of them earlier in the evening.

While they had a few service glitches, we both thought our food was pretty good. We discovered that their kitchen stays open until midnight every night, so we'll probably head back there again soon.

Loeb's Deli, Washington, D.C.

Svet came downtown today and we went to a late lunch at Loeb's Deli on McPherson Square. It's an old style delicatessen where people stand in line to order at a window behind which one can watch his sandwich being made. It's a fairly good sized place with both ample indoor and lots of outdoor seating. The only downsides I found to this place is that it's a little pricey and they don't take plastic.

We both had sandwiches. Svet ordered a cheesesteak sandwich without green peppers and I had the Loeb's Special, which is a corned beef and sauerkraut on rye/white marble bread. Both came with kosher pickle spears. My sandwich had an ample serving of corned beef and the sauerkraut was mild. I also had a little slice of their New York-style cheesecake, which was okay for a deli, though nothing spectacular. I think Svet also had a bottle of vegetable juice.

Another wine

We've discovered a decent, moderately priced, Italian red wine I thought I might mention. Leo found it at the wine store across from his gym in western downtown, and paid about $18 for it (he thinks).

The wine is Patrizi Dolcetto di Dogliani 2003, from the Dogliani area of the Cuneo province in the Italian Piedmont region, way up in the far northwest corner of Italy by France and Monoco. While Dolcetto di Dogliani is a fairly new DOGC denomination and is considered to be the best of the Dogliani area wines, Dogliani has actually been noted for its fine wines since the 15th or 16th centuries, and the dolcetto grapes have been the source of fine reds in northern Italy for centuries.

We drank it with a mild sausage and pasta dish with lots of cheese, then with dessert afterwards, and it stood up well to the food while remaining a smooth, drinkable wine. As with most dolcettos, it has a deep red color. Leo thought he detected notes of apricot in the flavor.

It's a nice wine. We will probably get more.

Saigon Saigon, Arlington VA

While we were in the neighborhood shopping Monday, we popped in to Saigon Saigon for lunch. We both had bento lunch boxes, Leo the curry beef and me the Hanoi grilled pork. Leo also had a garden roll and a mixed berry smoothie with rum. I tasted the drink, and it could have benefitted from a splash of cream. My only complaint was that I had asked for a garden roll (unfried) as a substitution for the spring roll (fried) that came with the bento box, and that request didn't get communicated to the kitchen.

Here's Leo in his Kody pose:

Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I popped in for a late dinner the other night at Thai Place at 22nd and Penn near GWU. It wasn't too terribly crowded, but it was full of students.

This was Leo's colorful cocktail night. He started off with a yellow cocktail called a Mango Monsoon, then a green cocktail called a Rainbow Forest, then a red cocktail called a My Tai. All I had was a single, little Singha, a Thai lager beer.

The food was very enjoyable. Our appetizers were an order of crispy, fried shrimp cakes...



and a roasted duck salad. The salad was particularly good, having lots of shredded roasted duck, sliced strips of red onion, and shredded cabbage all in a spicy dressing.



Our main courses were also quite good. You can see them on the left. On top is Leo's red curry with beef and fresh basil leaves. He thought it was good and not too sweet. The curry was accompanied by white rice.

I had the rockfish special du jour. You can't see the fish in the picture because it was wrapped in banana leaves before cooking and I had not yet unwrapped the fish before taking the picture. It was actually quite nice—thoroughly cooked and the banana leaves imparted a distinct, delicate flavor to the rockfish. Along with the fish I got a bowl of steamed white rice and the plate was garnished with a bunch of leaf lettuce, shredded cabbage and some hand-carved carrots. A spicy, sweet fish sauce also accompanied the plate.

Dessert was a pleasant surprise. We've been to this place often enough to have had most everything on the dessert menu, so we tried the one thing we'd never had: Thai custard. Now, this custard was different and very unlike the English or French style custards. The texture reminded me a lot of a clafouti, which is really more of an eggy, soft cake. It had been baked until browned on the outside; the inside was green, although I don't know the source of the green (it didn't taste like basil). Leo thought it tasted like green tea. Whipped cream topping liberally covered the top.



So, it was a lovely evening, after which I helped Leo stagger home.

American City Diner, Washington, D.C.

At six o'clock last night, Kevin came by in his car and picked me up so we could go to dinner. We drove around town looking for someplace different where neither of us had ever been and also which was affordable (a challenging thing in the District!).

Somehow we ended way, way up on Connecticut almost to Maryland in the Chevy Chase area of town where we found the American City Diner. Well, I'm always excited about finding diners; Kevin somewhat less so, but that's where we went. I noticed on their door that they are a 24-hour a day place which is great, although the all-night thing doesn't do me any good because that neighborhood is very far from a Metro stop and negotiating the bus system to get there requires a two-hour journey.

American City Diner is an older place that looks very much like a classic diner with a counter and bar stools, vinyl-upholstered booths, and a '50s decor. They offer breakfast all the time and a big list of dinner items and blue plate specials.

Kevin ordered the western omelette sans cheese. It turned out to be a twice-folded omelette served on an oval platter with a huge portion of diced fried potatoes and onions and two pieces of toast cut into triangles.

I had the chicken-fried steak, which was surprisingly good. It wasn't particularly huge, but it was well-fried and crispy and definitely wasn't one of those frozen, commercially made things. It came with a bunch of whole, long green beans and a scoop of mashed potatoes, all of which were good. The only thing I didn't like was the gravy, which was a yellow chicken-flavored sauce made from a mix, instead of the traditional homemade cream gravy.

For dessert, Kevin insisted on having a piece of apple pie, so I acquiesced to having one, too. I had mine à la mode. The pie wasn't bad, and I was pleased that the apple filling didn't have that preservative taste so common in many restaurant pies.

So, American City Diner was a great experience, and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates simple diner food.

Cosí, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday was a grey, cloudy day with occasional light sprinkles of rain—those rains where you don't quite need an umbrella; I think today is going to follow suit.

Rather than stay in where it was safe and dry, I lunched with my friend Eugene, who offices just across McPherson Square from me. We met up at the Cosí (which despite popular habit should not be pronounced "CO-see," but rather "co-ZEE") on yet another corner of the square. Cosí is Cosí—another ubiquitous national franchise. I don't know what it is about my Russian friends but Svet loves lunching at a different Cosí several times per week.

Actually, Eugene and I went to this Cosí because I had two $2 off coupons; what's funny is that Eugene only ordered the minnestrone soup, so he didn't get to use his coupon—it was just for salads and sandwiches. I had the Cobb salad, and, of course, we both got some of their warm flatbread.

Mourayo, Washington, D.C.

Fr. Stephen in his "Kody pose"

Yesterday evening, my friend Fr. Stephen dragged me off to north Dupont Circle on banking errands, after which we decided to find a place for dinner. We just happened to be on Connecticut across from several restaurants when we espied Mourayo, a Greek place at which neither of us had previously eaten, so that's where we headed.

Mourayo is a pretty little restaurant with white walls divided by natural wood moldings on the walls and decorative items with a seafaring theme. The wait staff, male and female, was all attired in tight black trousers, starched and ironed white Greek sailor shirts, and black Greek fishermen's hats. We were given a table right in front by the windows that were open to the sidewalk beyond.

The menu is long, featuring a lot of Greek items with which I was not familiar, and it appeared that there was a lot of "creativity" going on in some of the combinations and presentations. While we perused the menu, Fr. Stephen sipped a Santo Santorini white wine and I had a Mercouri Foloi white. I particularly liked mine, since it was dry and very sippable.

Fr. Stephen started with the Symposium Edesmata, an appetizer sampler plate with tyrokafteri, tzatziki, taramosalata, skordelia, fava, hoummus, and patzaria, all a series of pureed items intended as a pita bread spread that include things like fava beans, chickpeas, potatoes, cheeses, a fish roe, thickened yogurt, and some little chunks of red beets. I tasted a couple of them (plus I got to eat the beets and the wonderfully fruity Greek olives, none of which he likes to eat) and thought they were really good.



For his main course, he chose the Pythagorus Theorema, a very nouveau concoction featuring three medallions of pork loin grilled medium rare and crowned with a dollop of Greek manouri cheese and a candied fig half, then all sauced in a honey and walnut glaze. I sampled a little bite and it was quite nice with unusual but interesting flavors. Grilled asparagus and thickened yogurt sauce came with the pork.



My food was equally interesting, begining with poughi a "beggar's pouch" of manouri cheese with almonds and roasted Florina peppers encased in a phyllo dough "bag" and served with sliced green onions and a little bit of tomato coulis. The cheese mixture was quite rich.



My main course was a better-than-expected bowl of gida vrasti "Sparta", a traditional Peloponnesian goat stew. Rice and yogurt were placed in the middle of the large soup plate then covered with an enormous serving of stewed goat, then the bowl was filled with the goat broth. Much of the goat meat was still on the bone; it was tender and very flavorful--more like kid than goat.



Desserts sounded wonderful and intriguing, but we were both too stuffed to try them.

Mourayo is a place that is definitely on my list of restaurants to visit again. I'm looking forward to the next adventure there!

The Diner, Washington, D.C.

My friend Kevin was going to drive me home after lodge Monday night, but we hadn't talked in several weeks and he wanted to chat, so we went to Adams-Morgan to have dessert at The Diner, one of the very few 24-hour restaurants in D.C.

Our dessert turned out to be dinner. Kevin had a couple of sangrias and a Spanish omelette to match and I had the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and some of those pre-prepared carrots from the grocery store bags that had been steamed. The meatloaf was really good, but the dish could have used a lot more gravy, since there were a lot of potatoes.

Then, we had our dessert: apple pie for Kevin and cherry pie for me.

Au Pied Bistro, Georgetown, D.C.

This past weekend, Leo once again decided he wanted French food for dinner (how he expects to lose weight and get skinny when he goes to the gym for two hours and then promptly wants to go out to dinner is beyond me), and talked me in to going with promises of buying me dinner a La Chaumière in Georgetown. So, we walked over, but once we got there, the place he actually wanted to go was Au Pied Bistro, quite a difference from Chaumière! I was his guest for the evening, though, so I was gracious and went to Au Pied with him.

He started off with a pink diamond martini. I'm not sure what made it a "pink" diamond, since it was decidedly yellow and he reported a pineapple taste.



For food, he began with the ceviche. Now, ceviche is a traditional Spanish dish where the fish or seafood is "cooked" by marinating it in spiced lime juice, and typically it's served as an appetizer in a small bowl, much like a "cooked" sashimi. Leo was surprised, then, when the ceviche arrived as a large salad. He ate what he could (I got to eat the delicious French olives), but he'd only intended it as a first course, so he left most of the salad.



His main course was a shrimp fettucine with a light cream sauce. It looked okay to me, but later he complained about not feeling well; apparently, there's some Chinese folk wisdom about not mixing vodka with cream sauce (and, we all know how vodka is the National Drink of China and an old, traditional beverage).



I wasn't really that hungry, so I ordered a croque madame, which was quite disappointing. The sandwich is pretty basic, being a sliced croissant topped by shaved turkey and drenched in bechamel sauce—usually something pretty hard to mess up. Well, they managed to mess it up anyway, and this is a French bistro! I suspect that they microwaved the croissant to heat it up, but it only made the croissant tough and difficult to cut with a table knife.



To make matters worse, the waitress brought the plate without any condiments and without asking if I wanted any. If I hadn't asked the for a refill on my water, she likely would have disappeared into the kitched, never to be seen again. She came back with the water pitcher, but still no condiments; I asked for some mayonnaise for my pommes frites. What she brought me was something I don't think any self-respecting restaurant in France would recognize as mayonnaise: two packets of commercial "mayonnaise."



So, dinner wasn't quite as successful as we would have liked.