Levi's Port Cafe, Washington, D.C.

Robert discovered a new place down in the Barracks Row area near the Navy Yard called Levi's Port Cafe. They're definitely off the beaten track, since they're really in between the neighborhoods, south of Marine Barracks and south of the highway overpass. That's a shame, because it's a delightful restaurant, and we've put it on the list of restaurants for our regular rotation.

Levi's is a soul food place, and their barbecue is North Carolina style. Now, South Carolina, like I had recently at Ollie's, tends to use sweet, spicy sauce, but North Carolina sauces are unique and redolent with the tang of vinegar. The staff was very friendly, chatty, and accommodating. The restaurant dining room was clean and pleasant, with a lot of Navy and Marine decor on the walls. They have a big buffet with chicken of various sorts and a lot of side dishes so people can come in a serve themselves for carry out. We, however, wanted sit-down service in the restaurant.

In order to compare things, I got a North Carolina BBQ Beef and Pork Ribs platter, along with cole slaw, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese (on the recommendation of our waiter). The pork ribs were tender and tasty, and sauced with that vinegar-based sauce they use down there. The beef was quite different. It was "chopped beef," but it was minced very, very finely, and also had a distinct vinegar tang. The cole slaw was nice with a sweet mayonnaise taste, the collard greens were nicely done, and the macaroni and cheese had distinct cheese flavor and wasn't too terribly overcooked (often mac and cheese is mushy around here). The servings were all large. Then, for dessert, I had some really delicious apple cobbler with ice cream. The apples were actually fresh, and cut into smaller pieces than standard slices that were fully cooked and tasty. The pastry on the cobbler was flaky and good.

Meanwhile, Robert got an entire rack of pork ribs. Fortunately, he couldn't eat them all, and took nearly half of them home in a doggie bag.



Levi's is definitely worth a trip down, but for those of you from other barbecue traditions, just be careful not to use too much of that vinegar sauce. For me, at least, a little sour goes a long ways.

Ollie's Trolley, Washington, D.C.

We've been on a quest for good barbecue in D.C., and while we're at it, we've been trying out the soul food, too (soul food places are often great sources for barbecue!).

Not long ago, I found a little South Carolina barbecue in an unlikely place. Ollie's Trolley is a sort of old burger joint in a tourist hotel downtown near the FBI. One of their regular specials is a South Carolina barbecue pulled pork sandwich, topped with cole slaw, and served with a little order of seasoned French fries. I got mine with a styrofoam cup of iced tea. The pork had a good flavor, though the cole slaw was oddly bland. My main reaction, though, was that for nearly $8, they should at least use the large hamburger buns instead of standard sized. They could even get by with using the same quantity of pork and slaw, just flatten it out more, and the larger bun would make for a more satisfying customer experience. It didn't help my impression of the restaurant when I asked for a refill on my unsweetened iced tea, and, using the same cup and ice, they asked me to pay 50¢ for the refill.

Pete's New Haven Style Apizza, Washington, D.C.

Getting home early the other day, I popped into Pete's New Haven Style Apizza for lunner. Pete's is a new place right by the Columbia Heights Metro station, specializing in New Haven-style pizzas, with other pastas and panini. I'm not really sure what the "apizza" thing is all about. Now, what's New Haven-style pizza? I have to confess that in all the times I've been to New Haven, I never once had pizza there. Any Yalies around who can enlighten me?

I got the "Big Pete" panino, a surprisingly good, crunchy, pressed sandwich filled with soppressata and mortadella Italian deli meats, plus a huge quantity of melted buffalo mozzarella, and a layer of unexpectedly spicy roasted red peppers. A big mound of decent salad appeared on the plate, too, and that was a good thing.

The food is good here, and it's not terribly expensive. I plan to go back, at least for panini, and if I can find someone to share one of their big, expensive New Haven pizzas, maybe I'll try that, too.

Pizza Hut, Washington, D.C.

Someone (who shall remain nameless) dragged me all the way on foot to a Pizza Hut restaurant over a mile away because he was all excited about having a "P-Zone" for dinner. A "P-Zone" is the Pizza Hut version of a calzone. Apparently this was once a temporary item, but now it's back as a permanent menu item. I got the "Meaty P-Zone," allegedly with three kinds of meat. The place was full of children. We had to sit on stools at a bar in the window. The P-Zone made me bemoan the fact that I hadn't stayed home and taken advantage of two-for-one pizza night at Domino's. At least Domino's delivers.

Thai Roma Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

Also on Capitol Hill is Thai Roma Restaurant, a place and I went last Friday for lunch. I've never quite figured out the Thai-Italian fusion thing. The menu looks completely, normally Thai; they say they also offer Italian pastas with Thai seasonings, but apparently those only are offered at dinner.

Robert had one of the daily specials, the duck kaprow. It looked very good with slices of battered and fried duck and bits of fried fresh basil leaves. He also had the curry puffs, something vaguely resembling vegetable samosas in Indian restaurants, as his appetizer. The puffs, unfortunately, weren't up to standards, as Robert complained that they were cold on the inside.


I went for one of the lunch combination plates, getting chicken massaman with a little egg roll. The egg rolls was a greasy little inconsequential thing, but I enjoyed my massaman curry. It was very peanutty and had a nice, subtle spice bite to it.

Hunan Dynasty, Washington, D.C.

The other day when I was on Capitol Hill, I stopped in for a late meal at Hunan Dynasty for their lunch special. Hunan Dynasty is almost iconic on the Hill, and several M.C.s name it their favorite Chinese restaurant. It's been around a long time, but you have to know where it is, as it's upstairs over several street-level storefronts.

Instead of doing Chinese, though, I opted for their sushi lunch special. They started me with a little iceberg lettuce salad with a "fruit dressing" that was a pineapple flavored emulsification. Next came a delicious little bowl of miso soup with a unique clarity and slight greenish tinge. For the main course, we had a choice of two sushi rolls. I opted for the spicy tuna roll—delicious!—and a California roll. Hot tea came with the meal.


My one criticism is that they did not provide me with a little dish in which to mix my wasabi paste with soy sauce as a dipping sauce for the sushi. I ended up using a spare teacup.

Otherwise, it's a nice, quiet, cool restaurant with the sense of formality that marks many older Chinese restaurants. I'll look forward to going back again, as many of the Chinese lunch specials looked really good, especially at the $6.45 price.

Champp's Americana, Arlington, Va.

Had lunch the other day in Arlington at Champp's Americana. I got "The Havana," a surprisingly good Cuban sandwich (sliced roast pork, sliced ham, cheese, and pickles on a crusty roll that is pressed on a sandwich grill). Had a very satisfying flavor. It came with waffle-cut potatoes.

Annie's Paramount Steakhouse, Washington, D.C.

Today has been the Feast of St. Lawrence (or St. Laurent, if one is French), patron saint of librarians, archivists, accountants, and cooks. Deacon Lawrence was martyred in the Third Century by being roasted on a gridiron.

Peter, Robert, and I elected to observe the saint's day by going out for dinner tonight to have grilled steaks.

We chose for our sacred festivities Annie's Paramount Steak House near Dupont Circle, where we knew we could get decent steaks without paying for the whole cow. I think we made an excellent decision.

While Robert had cole slaw, Peter and I both got tossed salads with which to start. Then, the main courses came. Peter got a big, bacon-wrapped filet mignon and baked potato that looked quite tasty. I had the grilled sirloin steak with a baked potato, and I was quite pleased with my choice. Robert, though, being a convert to Episcopalianism from something dreadfully low church like Pentecostalism or Assembly of God or one of those other denominations I never do, hasn't quite yet grasped the Anglo-Catholic concept of the Invocation of Saints, and got his usual large-cut prime rib instead of a grilled steak. But, at least the prime rib had been roasted.



We washed our steaks down with gin martinis. Then, for dessert, Robert had another martini. Peter and I stuck to more traditional sweets, he having the chocolate cake (a dense looking thing he said was rich and good) with a glass of milk (he was driving the Mercedes tonight, so he couldn't drink) and I had their cheesecake with strawberry topping.



Annie's is always a fun place to go, and we always enjoy the waiters there. And, the prices are right, with the steaks being right around $20; at some of the "nice" steakhouses in town, those same steaks would easily cost more than twice that, and we got our salads and potatoes included at that price, too, whereas at the other places, everything is à la carte.

Backlog

Restaurant Week starts tomorrow, and I am so behind! I've yet to make my list of where all I want to go, when, and with whom, and I've got about a fortnight's worth of restaurant posts to catch up on first. Haven't posted my latest movie reviews or gushed over the Olympics opening ceremony. I haven't even had anything catty to say about John Edwards. Alas. Maybe tonight, when I get home from DeMolay, I can do some writing.

The evils of marketing

Sometimes I hate national franchise eateries.

This afternoon I went in to a Dunkin' Donuts with the idea of getting a little doughnut and an iced coffee. The problem? They have a special "combo" that is two doughnuts and a coffee/iced coffee that is actually cheaper than buying a single doughnut and an iced coffee separately.

So, I acquiesced to their caloric marketing insistence, and ate two doughnuts. Alas. How am I supposed to keep my 30" waistline if I'm eating all these doughnuts?

But, the good thing is that my iced coffee had a peel-off on the side of the cup and I won a free flatbread sandwich or personal pizza. That will make a nice lunch sometime soon.

Playing the piano for my supper

Yesterday I was the guest of the Junior Grand Steward at his lodge for its quarterly meeting. It's an interesting group. Called Fraternity Lodge, it's an affinity lodge where all the members are former members of Greek letter college fraternities. We all wore our fraternity badges, too! They are also a little bit unique in that they draw membership from across the country; the master himself living in San Francisco, one of the wardens is from New York City, and I also visited with a new initiate who lives in Oregon. Of course, since they only meet four times a year, it's a lot easier for people to come in to Washington for meetings, unlike with my lodge that meets twice a month. It was a long meeting, since they were doing the third degree for three new members. I got to be the pianist for the ceremony. The music was okay, but the excitement was when the antique piano stool seat broke while I was playing and singing a song!

After the meeting, they had a festive board with a very nice catered meal (they don't cook their own food like we do at Federal). After pre-dinner cocktails featuring top-shelf liquors, they sat down to a fine meal with waiters. The first course was a baby greens with asparagus, artichoke, and mushroom salad dressed in a dijon vinaigrette. Next came "chicken Villa d'Este," artistically sliced and arranged chicken breasts stuffed with herbs, prosciutto, and gruyère cheese somewhat reminiscent of a chicken cordon bleu, served with porcini mushroom risotto and grilled red and yellow tomatoes. Dessert was a gloriously presented chocolate royale, with a round "cake" of chocolate mousse and nougat on a mirror of crème anglaise and raspberry purée, and decorated with fresh raspberries and a spectacular spiral of chocolate bark. Throughout, the waiters kept our wine glasses full!



During and after dinner, there were lots of toasts and songs to sing. Twas quite a fun evening!

Laurent's Birthday

It's Laurent's birthday!

About a dozen of us got together tonight to celebrate with a little dinner at Bistrot du Coin up on Dupont Circle. We'd reserved a table up on the mezzanine level to avoid the noise and congestion on the main dining room floor, and yet we still had plenty of noise and a very festive atmosphere upstairs. Having a party at a busy restaurant on a Friday night is always a challenge, and since they were so busy, they really packed the chairs around as few tables as possible, even with two chairs on each end of the long table.

It was after ten when we left the restaurant. I came on home, but the kids all headed out to the bars for drinks and dancing.....to J.R.'s, I think, at least to start.

It was impossible to keep track of who all ate what, but here are a few food pics from the evening.


Les Hors d'Oeuvres





Les Plats Principeaux





Les Patisseries





Here's what you're looking at. In the appetizer category, there's French onion soup, salade d'artichaut et asperges (artichoke heart and asparagus salad), salade de chèvre chaud (salad with hot chèvre goat cheese), salade frisée aux lardons (frisée lettuce salad with a fried egg and crumbled bacon), and a salade de magret et gésiers de canard fumé (smoked duck salad). In the main course category, there's le steak maison (house steak with fries and bearnaise sauce), moules Normandes (mussels Normandy prepared with white wine, cream, leeks, celery, mushrooms, potatoes, and bacon, served with fries—this is what I had, and yes, they were delicious!), ravioles du Royan (mushroom and herb ravioli) and a seafood ravioli du jour, poulet rôti au four (roast chicken), and steak tartare (raw chopped beefsteak). Desserts included La Tropezienne (custard-filled brioche), chocolat liegois (sort of a chocolate ice cream sundae with caramel and chocolate sauces), fondant au chocolat (a baked bittersweet chocolate fondant cake with whipped cream), and a clafoutis aux poires (pear clafoutis).

The Heights, Washington, D.C.

Kevin and I were both in town this afternoon, so we decided to go to lunch at The Heights across from the Columbia Heights Target store. It's always nice lunching in this neighborhood because there aren't large quantities of office workers or tourists crowding the restaurants, so our time was quite leisurely. The Heights also has a nice luncheon special with your choice of a sandwich or a salad, plus your choice of either an appetizer or dessert, plus a beverage, for only $17.

Kevin started with the soup du jour, a carrot-ginger broth that was not a cream soup or potage and rather unexpected. As it turned out, it was a fun idea, but Kevin didn't like the soup at all. I traded appetizers with him and ate the soup, but it was definitely odd. There was a strong carrot presence with a little carrot pulp, plus flavors of ginger and butter, but what I couldn't quite place was a rather unpleasant medicinal taste, almost as if a little Pine-Sol had been added to the soup pot.


I ordered the ginger calamari flash fry, a really nice bit of lightly done squid with both squid rings and baby squid that had been very lightly breaded and then flash fried with ginger and scallion. They presented it with lettuce and shredded red cabbage, plus chopsticks as an eating utensil. I thought it delicious.



Kevin's main course was a bare burger, simply grilled, and accompanied by fries and a dill pickle spear. I got an unusual but tasty BLT sandwich with the standard BLT ingredients plus a provolone cheese-topped crab cake. The only thing I would have done differently with the crab BLT is make the crab cake a flatter patty instead of the thick cake they used.




I hope they feed their waiters at The Heights after their shifts are over. Our waiter and the other two I saw were all ***so*** skinny! I thought our service was fine today, though Kevin was a bit miffed. He seemed to think our waiter was flirting with me. Always a bad thing, waiters, when you flirt with just one of the people at your table, but you don't flirt with the one paying the tab and your tip!

Tastee Diner, Bethesda, Md.

After dealing with even more government bureaucracy this afternoon, I was in Georgetown, and Ian decided he wanted to go to dinner. The challenge, though, was that he wanted to go someplace where 1) he could have breakfast food, and 2) he'd not been before. Now, Number Two isn't that hard of a challenge, but the challenge is requirement number one. While lots of places in D.C. have breakfast, that isn't something they offer at five o'clock, and if you ask for something, they have all kinds of excuses why they can't do it from "the grill isn't set up" to "the evening cooks don't know how to do breakfast food." I'll refrain from opining on the validity of such arguments. Nevertheless, we tried to think of some place. Then it occurred to us. We've heard of a place in Bethesda called the Original Pancake House that's supposed to be good. So, we hopped on a bus and then transfered to the subway and went to Bethesda and found the Original Pancake House.

And they were closed.

Apparently, in Bethesda, they think people should only eat pancakes for breakfast or lunch, as they close at 3 p.m. Probably just as well; I looked at their posted menus, and they are very, very proud of their pancakes.

Ian hadn't eaten all day and was hungry, so we acquiesced to going around the corner to our old standby, Tastee Diner, which is open twenty-four hours a day.

Ian had a provolone cheese omelette with home fries and probably half a bottle of ketchup (those of us old enough to have grown up during the Reagan Administration will remember that that would count as several servings of vegetables for the day!).


I had the daily blue plate special, a baked ham dinner with Brussels sprouts and candied sweet potatoes. Yum yum!



I'm not used to two meals a day, so now I feel stuffed! Ja ja!

Corner Bakery Cafe, Washington, D.C.

Busy day today dealing with bureaucracy. In between, I got to have lunch with Laurent and see his new office with the window and the view of the Capitol dome. He took me to lunch at Union Station at the Corner Bakery Cafe. He had a tuna salad on wheat sandwich with kettle fried chips and a bottle of some disgusting looking vegetable juice "health" drink.


I had a chicken chopped salad and a little cup of one of the soups du jour, roasted poblano corn chowder, both of which were quite good.

Florida Avenue Grill, Washington, D.C.

I needed some help with some manual labor here at the house tonight, so I bribed Robert to come down with the promise of a free dinner at his new favorite eatery, the Florida Avenue Grill. Thus far, neither of us have come down with food poisoning, though the night is still young.

We discovered tonight that they do not cook breakfast all day long. Breakfast is only available until 1:30 p.m. They only do night breakfast on Fridays and Saturdays after 9 p.m., when they stay open til 4 a.m.

We also got to watch them make their iced tea. Unsweetened tea just isn't available, and when I asked the waitress about it, she got the most confused look on her face! They brew their tea with great big commercial tea bags in big kitchen pots with hot water and sugar. Then, they add a bunch of lemonade to it before putting it into their fountain bubbler.

Our food choices tonight were limited to sandwiches and some dinner selections. Robert picked the pork chops smothered in brown gravy, and selected baked macaroni and cheese and candied sweet potatoes as his sides. He liked them.


I got the beef spareribs with macaroni and cheese and candied sliced beets. I was amazed at how good the spareribs tasted.



My complaint here remains the same. The food is very tasty, but I continue to have major concerns about their food handling and safety practices. Our food all got dished up from their steam table by our waitress (who didn't wash her hands first or put on plastic gloves). She brought the food directly to our table, but when it arrived, it was warmish, but it wasn't hot. The U.S.D.A. recommends that hot foods be stored at temperatures at least 140º Fahrenheit, and they just weren't anywhere near that. My other complaint isn't really a complaint so much as noting their traditional recipes are very, very old school.....it seems like everything, even the macaroni and cheese, has added sugar! Good thing I'm skinny and not on a diet.

Indique, Washington, D.C.

Peter was hungry last night and wasn't looking excitedly at the Chipotle burrito he'd just bought for dinner. So, we agreed to meet in Cleveland Park for dinner, where we decided upon Indique for our non-burrito repast. Indique, and its sister restaurant in Friendship Heights, Indique Heights, provides "unique Indian flavors" in an elegant, upscale atmosphere. At the Cleveland Park location, we had our choice of sitting out on the sidewalk patio (too hot, sorry!) or inside either on the main level or upstairs. We picked the downstairs in the bar area by the street windows. Ordinarily that would have been a great choice had it not been for a couple of middle-aged women carrying on their conversations in their outdoor voices instead of their indoor voices.

The food was lovely, though. Each table had a wood boat of three Indian sauces, green, purple, and red-orange, which I'll guess were cilantro, tamarind, and tomato. The stylish menus are a little more limited in scope than I usually see at Indian restaurants, but here they have concentrations in items from the tandoor and they offer appams (spongey rice breads) served with a variety of meat and vegetable stews, plus the usual assortment of curries. We both opted for "Indique platters" because they sounded particularly interesting and unique.

The lamb shank "Bhuna" called to me. They took a large, meaty, lamb leg shank and braised the meat until falling-off-the-bone tender with tomatoes and spices until the sauce took on a dark richness. It was exquisite. The spice was somewhat hotter than I had expected (or, maybe, wanted), but the Indians say that hot, spicy foods are perfect for when the weather outside is hot and sultry. The lamb was garnished with flash-fried bean noodle threads.


Along with my lamb came a very large platter of accompanying side dishes, with (clockwise from bottom center) basmati rice, lettuce and tomato salad, dal (lentil soup), lemon saffron rice, a potato and vegetable timbale, and mixed curried vegetables including peas, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.


Peter was braver. He found a dish that had a menu line that said, "not for the faint-hearted," and decided he was up to the pepper and spice. So, he ordered the chicken Chettinad, flavored with what they called "telecherry peppercorns." I'm not sure if he'll ever order it again. He did eat it all, but I could tell from the surprising relative silence from him during the meal that it was rather hotter than he expected. I gave him a little bit of my lamb, and he ate it, not noticing any of the spice in the lamb, so when he offered me a bite of the chicken, I deferred. He had similar side dishes to mine, except his were all on the same plate.


WIth our meal, we had some garlic naan bread.



After dinner, I thought my meal was pretty filling, so I opted not to do dessert. Peter didn't like any of the available Indian options, so we left and went next door to the Cold Stone Creamery, where he had a "Cookie Doughn't You Want Some" concoction with vanilla ice cream, cookie dough, chocolate chips, fudge sauce, and caramel sauce.

Certainly ended up being better than an old burrito, eh?

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

A little dessert and champagne buffet awaited donors and sponsors at the Kennedy Center Sunday night after the performance of Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter, but Jim, Meredith, and I decided not to stay and went on in quest of dinner, as it was still early by the time we got out about 9:15.

There's nothing worth doing in the Watergate complex anymore, so we walked into Foggy Bottom to go to Notte Bianchi at the George Washington Inn. They closed early. So, we walked to Dish at the River Inn. They were closed. So, we started to walk to Circle Bistro at One Washington Circle Hotel, but Meredith got the big idea to call them before we walked all the way over....and they were already closed! Whatever happened to the concept of Washington being a cosmopolitan, international city that didn't roll up the sidewalks at 9 p.m.? Each of these restaurants, we saw other people trying to eat, as well.

We ended up walking over to Marshall's Bar and Grille, a place I've done multitudinous times, but a new place to Jim and Meredith.

Jim got the linguine al frutti di mare. Since he was away washing his hands when the waiter came, Meredith decided for him that he wanted it with the plain, boring seafood broth instead of the wonderful, rich, cream sauce. It had lots of nice looking scallops.

Meredith and I both got the California chopped salad with grilled chicken, roasted corn, romaine, radicchio, avocado, diced tomato, roasted peppers, blue cheese, bacon, and a simple vinagrette. It's an okay salad, but I never get excited about it.

Didn't get any pictures, since I've had both of these things before and there are probably already pictures in the archives somewhere.