La Crêperie, Arlington, Va.

In our last couple of soujourns to the mall at Pentagon City, we've ended up dining at La Crêperie, a French place in Pentagon Row just outside the mall. Ryan seems to like the place, and so long as he isn't eating hamburgers, I'm happy.

Trip number one was with Edward and Jeff. While Edward was getting his hairs cut, Jeff had a little McChicken sandwich at the food court McDonald's, so he wasn't hungry when we got to the restaurant for dinner and only drank water. Edward ended up getting a "pesto cavatappi," which is some kind of spiral macaroni dish they serve at Noodles & Company next door. It seemed simple enough, with a pesto sauce tossed with the macaroni, and there was supposed to be a diced up chicken breast in there somewhere, too, though I wasn't really sure I saw it. He picked up his meal "to-go" and then joined us on the patio to eat.

I wasn't terribly hungry, so I got the salade maison and the soupe tomate. The salad was your basic everyday iceberg and romaine lettuce salad with tomato, carrot, cucumber, olives, and beets in a typical French olive oil emulsification dressing. I love their soupe tomate. Not only does it have a nice roasted tomato flavor, it's rich and very, very thick—almost like eating a thin pudding. It's a great explosion of tomato flavor in the mouth.



Ryan ordered the crêpe monsiuer, a crêpe based on the classic croque monsieur sandwich that is a fancy French version of a ham and cheese sandwich, except with the cheese melted. They put a stripe of tomato sauce across the crêpe as a garnish.



For dessert, Ryan ordered two crêpes for the whole table, a crêpe nutella with extra bananas and strawberries, and a crêpe aux pommes, an apple pie tasting thing.




For trip number two, we were with Ryan's friend Gustavo. His English is a little limited, as is my French, but Ryan has some French but no Spanish, and I have a little Spanish still, so we managed to communicate all around. Our waiter was a French, Arabic, and English speaking Moroccan, so we were able to eek out a mutual understanding.

Gustavo had the hangar steak aux poivre avec pommes frites. He said the steak was good ("Es bueno."). It seemed to me to be two thin, little slices of meat in a pepper sauce. In addition to the French fries, there was a serving of what looked to be frozen mixed vegetables.



Ryan had a crêpe ratatouille, a little vegetarian thing filled with that nasty eggplant and vegetable stew (I don't do eggplant).



I did a series of little dishes to make up my meal, starting with a bowl of the soupe tomate (see above picture) for all to sample. Then I had some of their paté du maison garnished with cornichon pickles and little cocktail onions, served with a small, thin loaf of French bread, followed by the pommes du terre au gratin, a sort of French version of scalloped potatoes. The potatoes were disappointing and it was the first time I got something at La Crêperie I didn't like and didn't think was very good. The crumbs on top comprising the "au gratin" were dry, the cheese and bechamel sauce in the potatoes seemed grainy, and the thin layers of potatoes seems to be soaking in some kind of oil or grease. I couldn't finish it.





Ryan insisted on desserts for everyone, so he ordered another crêpe nutella with bananas and strawberries (see above picture) and a crêpe aux peches avec glace vanille (see the apple crêpe picture above and add ice cream). I liked the peach crêpe.

The best part of the meal came at the end when Ryan paid for everyone! Yay!

Whitlow's on Wilson, Arlington, Va.

Svet's leaving today for a month in Europe. Just before he left, he embarked upon a new work-out program and joined the new Gold's Gym opening at Clarendon as a "charter member." Anyway, the other day, he dragged us along with him to the gym. After we closed out the place, we walked over to Whitlow's on Wilson for dinner. Svet, of course, being the elitist that he is, said the place was awful and he wasn't excited about going there, but since he wasn't willing to buy us dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, he acquiesced to going to the more affordable diner with us where we all paid our own way. As it turned out, I rather liked the place.

He and Ryan started out sharing a hot spinach and artichoke dip with melba toasts. It had actual pieces of artichoke heart in it (not everyplace serving spinach-artichoke dip uses much artichoke if any at all). I tasted it and it could have used more richness from mayonaisse.

As we moved along to our main courses, Svet, pretending still to be in a post-gym healthy kick, ordered a Cobb salad loaded with lots of avocado, bacon, and bleu cheese, and Ryan got some rather ordinary looking nachos. Of course, they probably tasted boring since he told the waitress not to put any jalapeño pepper slices or salsa on them.





After a prolonged discussion with the waitress in which I was trying to explain to her that I wanted only one sandwich instead of two, she still seemed rather dense and confused. The menu said, "WOW Panini," but I only wanted one panino, and she didn't seem to be able to comprehend that. What I eventually got seemed to be a panino which had been cut in half, but I'm not sure if they were counting the two halves as panini or not. When we got the check, it still said "panini" on the bill, even though I only got one.

The panino, nonetheless, was fine. It was kind of a "double meat" thing with grilled chicken and a grilled portobello mushroom cap. It came with mozzarella cheese and a pesto-infused mayonaisse. Really good French fries were on the side.



And, who got to do our Kody Pose for the day? Svet!! He did it with his chocolate milk shake (he was still on his post-gym healthy kick, you know).

Zed's Ethiopean Cuisine, Washington, D.C.

Will wonders never cease? Ryan actually likes Ethiopean food!

Mr. Order-a-Hamburger-at-Every-Restaurant and I went to Zed's Ethiopean Cuisine in Georgetown Wednesday with Ryan promising to try something "exotic" for a change (and I knew they didn't have any hamburgers on the menu). As we entered, he was quite enthralled by their gallery of famous politicians and actors who've eaten at the restaurant and then posed with the owners. I've always found it interesting, though, that most all of the politicians were from the Clinton Administration....do Republicans not eat African food?

I chose Zed's for us rather than some of the fun Ethiopean places on U Street or in Adams-Morgan because I knew that the sampler plate foods were considerably milder here than the sometimes-fiery and beri-beri sauce infused dishes at other establishments, as Ryan has a surprisingly low tolerance for spice heat.

Deciding to keep it simple, I ordered for us a vegetarian sampler tray and a beef/chicken sampler tray, which, as always, arrives on the same big tray for both of us to share. Most of the dishes were fine and at Zed's usual level of consistency except for the hard boiled egg and chicken leg dish (sorry, I've never learned the names for common Ethiopean dishes), where I found the chicken to be considerably over cooked, apparently prior to being stewed in the sauce, since the sauce wasn't scorched.

Ryan tried a St. George Ethiopean beer, but I don't think he liked it, since he didn't drink half of it.

As we began our meal, Ryan seemed somewhat bemused by the fact that we had no silverware. I had to explain to him the Ethiopean tradition of using torn-off pieces of injera bread to grasp the food and convey it to the mouth. He was still skeptical. He did, nevertheless, unroll his injera and launch into the feasting process with abandon.

Usually I don't have dessert at Ethiopean restaurants as they are usually Italian. Their neighbor, Somalia, was at one time under Italian control, so Somali food has Italian influences, including Italian style desserts, but I don't find them to be "authentic" to the region. Ryan wanted dessert, though, so I acquiesced. He ordered the profiteroles, which is actually a French confection made by filling small little cream puffs with ice cream and drizzling them with chocolate. Here, they chose to use chocolate ice cream inside the two puffs, and squirted them with whipped cream.



I got the caramel chocolate pyramid, which was a pyramid-molded rather plain chocolate mousse (no coffee or orange flavors) heavily dusted with cocoa. It was fine, though I never tasted the caramel. I think both desserts were okay, though, at $7.50 apiece, given the price point of the restaurant, were about a dollar too much for what we got, even realizing that there are other places in Georgetown that would have charged $12 for similarly-sized desserts.



For those of you who didn't realize it, Ethiopia is a land that a few thousand years ago was part of the ancient Egyptian empire and a region called "Upper Egypt" (since it's geographically higher than the northern lands around the Nile delta). I thought that made the pyramid dessert interestingly appropriate.

Le Pigalle, Washington, D.C.

While Ryan and I were in the Dupont neighborhood picking up a DVD Friday night, we decided to grab dinner at a litte French bistro called Le Pigalle. This was my first time to Le Pigalle in its current form (it opened last spring); in January 2005 when I ate here, it was called "Peppers" and I remember having had a blue cheese hamburger with fries. Well, it's no longer a casual burger and beer kind of place!

Actually, I was a little apprehensive about trying this place. Even though the chef and management are alumni of Bistrot du Coin, the restaurant reviewer for The Washington Post majorly trashed this place in his review last month. Of course, Mr. Sietsema and I seem to have very different experiences at the same places. Some of the places about which he raves I think are crap and/or not worth the money, and some of the places he criticizes I find to be worthwhile. He gave Le Pigalle a zero out of four stars, but that very simply wasn't our experience.

We opted to sit on the large, red awning-covered patio and got a nice-sized interior table. We didn't go inside the restaurant, so I don't know what's in there, but through the windows we could see some big screen video monitors playing Europop music videos.

Ryan started off with one of those weird, fruity, pineapple juice and several kinds of alcohol "martinis." I took a sip and it was way to sweet for my tastes, so I stuck with my iced tea.

Meanwhile, I started off with the soupe du jour, a cold green pea soup. It was lovely. They made it very much like a vichyssoise, so it was cold, rich, and creamy. I could have eaten another bowl.



Our main courses were both very nice. Ryan had the canard aux trois poivre, two leg quarters of duck with a three pepper sauce. The duck had a nice crispy skin on the outside and looked to be tender and juicy on the inside. The sauce was served on the side in a separate gravy boat. He also got pommes frites with his duck.



I chose the salade Pigalle. This was a rather unusual French-style potato salad with fried bits of prosciutto and crumbled up bleu cheese served atop a bed of greens and crowned with a sunny-side-up fried egg. It looked a bit small on arrival, but it turned out to be nicely filling. The Post reviewer accused this salad of being a way for the restaurant to empty out its refrigerator, but all I can say, then, is that they have a very nice refrigerator.



Dessert was tempting. Some small confections brought to us on a dessert tray that looked fun and adorable. It was late, though, and I was full (and Ryan chose to spend his food budget on that big martini), so we had to pass, but I'd love to try some of them on a future visit.



So, there you have my tale. We noted none of the problems mentioned in the review, we found the hostess pleasant and quick, and our waitress did a good job with bistro-style service. I'll be happy to go back another time.

Cafe Asia, Arlington, Va.

The other day on one of those high 90-degree days, Leo and I were wandering around the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington going up and down surprisingly steep hills. To rest and cool off, we decided to have a late lunch on the main drag at Cafe Asia.

Cafe Asia is very popular with the after-work crowd, since they have an inexpensive happy hour and the arrangement and decor is low and Asian-contemporary, lending itself to good socializing. This particular afternoon, though, it was quiet and only a few tables were occupied. We got a nice two-top table by the window wall.

While I had my ubiquitous iced tea, Leo had a jar of ice cold sake. Then we ordered.

It was so hot that day, I wanted something light and simple, so I ordered the bun, a Vietnamese style noodle and lettuce salad with grilled chicken on top.

Leo started with a big plateful of fried squid a/k/a calimari cut into strips instead of the usual Italian-style rings that came with a hot, spicy, sweet and sour type sauce. I tried some of it, and it was light, tender, and very well done--I'd recommend it to anyone trying this restaurant.



For his main course, he had several types of fish and eel sushi. I neglected to take any pictures of the main courses, but I did get some of the appetizer and dessert.

Speaking of dessert, we split a mango sticky rice, which turned out to be some of the best mango sticky rice we've had at any of the Asian restaurants in the metropolitan area.

Copra, Baltimore, Md.

Once I got done with a meeting in Baltimore this morning, my friend John came and picked me up and, after a detour to his school to pick up some things from his classroom, we went to lunch in downtown Baltimore at a place called Copra, conveniently located across from John's condo and a half block or so from the church where he's the organist.

Copra's is a comfortable downtown cafe probably more popular for its bar and happy hour. While not a fish place, there was a prominent seafood odor when we entered. The place is done up in dark woods and colors in sort of a modern, clubby style.

Since Tuesdays are half price wine day, we decided to try a bottle of Los Caldos Doña Paula Malbec 2005, a nice little red from the Mendoza region of Argentina. I've been drinking a lot of Argentine wines of late because of their quality and affordability, and this particular malbec did not disappoint.

We ended up ordering the same food for lunch. I was having a hard time making up my mind, so I took his lead and followed along. I actually wanted some Maryland crab cakes, but they only had a crab cake sandwich and some small cakes for appetitizers, and there were no crab cake entrees. They also had a big selection of entree salads that seemed enticing, but I turned them down. What did we get? We had the meatloaf with tomato marmalade and baked macaroni and cheese.

The meatloaf was okay, though I'm not sure what made the tomato marmalade "marmalade" as opposed to just sauce. The macaroni and cheese also was quite tasty, but slightly on the salty side.



For dessert, we split a bananas Foster ice cream cake. It was better as it thawed a bit. The waiter recommended it over the carrot cake.



John was supposed to have had someone coming in for an audition at 1:30, but she called and rescheduled until "3-ish," which gave us time for a cup of coffee and a cognac (we originally ordered port, but the waiter came back and reported that the port bottles were in the bar but all empty!).

Here's a picture of John in his Kody Pose shortly after the wine arrived (and the wine spill made by the waiter cleaned up), followed by another with the cognac and coffee at the end of the meal.

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.