O'Hare Airport, Chicago, IL

Saturday afternoon, I had a three hour layover at O'Hare Airport, so I ate at a Chili's Too, an abbreviated version of the Dallas-based national chain, where they had mostly burgers, sandwiches, salads, and only a handful of other entrees. Wasn't really my preferred choice, but it had the advantage of being one of the few sit-down restaurants, rather than fast food. The waitress recommended against the fish and chips, so I let her pick, and she brought me a Carribbean chicken salad, which was the typical entree salad with sliced chicken breast meat on top, plus some canned pineapple chunks and canned mandarin orange segments. Tasty enough. I was still hungry, though, and still needing to kill time, so I ordered some French fries, which came amazingly quickly, and were actually hot and fresh.

Last night, back at O'Hare on my way home to D.C., I wasn't in the mood for Chili's Too again (different terminal, another restaurant), so I ended up at Quizno's for a decent but messy chicken carbonara sandwich and then a disappointing piece of chocolate chip cheesecake from one of the cart vendors outside the sandwich shop. O'Hare is not one of the better airports for the more discriminating travelling diners.

Saigon Saigon, Arlington, VA

Over the weekend, we were at Pentagon Row to hit the Harris Teeter store and World Market, so we ate dinner (during rush hour!) at Saigon Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant which is way around to the side of the shops, well off the beaten path. Saigon Saigon is owned by a local Vietnamese family which also owns Saigon Asia in Virginia Square and Saigon Crystal in Crystal City; it's quite a good place to know about, since the establishment is in a nice, contemporarily decorated space and the prices are amazingly cheap for busy Arlington shopping districts.

We started with spring rolls, Leo's being the fried "crispy" variety, and mine the uncooked rice paper-wrapped variety. The crispy rolls came with a fish sauce for dipping and mine came with a peanut sauce; I thought the peanut sauce tasted thin and had no real flavor to it, though the roll itself was good. For our main courses, Leo had a big bowl of beef pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup accompanied by a plateful of vegetables, sprouts, mint, and such to add to the broth as wanted, which he said was quite good. I had the bun cha gio—vermicelli with grilled pork. It was delicious. Vietnamese vermicelli is a rather unique dish, almost like a big salad what with all the lettuce, plus a good sized quantity of vermicelli noodles, and a very large serving of succulent strips of grilled pork on top all come in a big bowl to be mixed, and fish sauce can be added to serve as a salad "dressing." Since all they had that night for dessert was fried bananas, we opted not to have dessert.

Saigon Saigon is an excellent bargain, and I'm sure we'll be back again to try some of the other items on their menu.

News Cafe Cucina Italiana, Georgetown, D.C.

Last Thursday when I got home from a reception in Arlington, Leo was both hungry and wanting to Christmas shop, so we walked over to Georgetown to accomplish both missions. After the shopping was done, we were on M Street, so we decided to pop into a place called News Cafe Cucina Italiana, a/k/a News Cafe Italian Kitchen. The restaurant name is an interesting mystery; we've walked by the place multitudinous times, and I hadn't realized it was an Italian place; there's also no explanation as to what "news" has to do with the restaurant, since it's not near any publishers or broadcasters and there was no evidence of journalism in the decor; in fact, it looks pretty much like any other D.C. area restaurant with the exception of the tile mosaics leftover from the previous tenant, a Moroccan restaurant, and the bright ruby walls in the front dining area.

It was close to 10 p.m. when we wandered in and we were immediately seated at a small table along the banquette side of the dining room. They were still doing decent business at that hour and during our visit. Due to the late hour, we chose to have a light supper with just one main course (the Italian tradition is two).

Leo started with some kind of martini concoction which contained green apple vodka and some melon liqueur (Midori?); I took a tiny sip and thought it was nasty, but he likes sweet drinks. I contented myself with a couple of glasses of the house champagne (which was actually a dollar cheaper per glass than the house chianti). He asked for and got bruschetta (which was not on the menu) for his antipasto, and I had the zuppa del giorno: assorted wild mushrooms in vegetable and mushroom broth (tasty enough, but I would have preferred them to have added a splash of cream). For our main courses, he had the linguini frutti di mare, which was assorted shrimp, squid, scallops, and seafood in linguine with a mildly spicy red tomato sauce, and I had one of the evening's specials, a bed of linguini in a white Alfredo sauce with a whole lobster which had been cut in half resting on top. The lobster's claw meat had been removed, dipped in melted butter, and placed in the thoracic cavity for ease of eating, and I enjoyed my lobster and pasta quite a lot. For dessert, Leo had the tiramisu, which I tasted, and it seemed good; it included real ladyfingers (laid horizontally rather than vertically, though), mascarpone cheese, and tasted of both espresso and Kahlua.

While the food was tasty at News Cafe, I found the service to be rather dismal. We quickly ate our two little breadsticks, and those were never replaced during the meal. My champagne glass stood empty for quite some time before the host (not the waiter) asked if I wanted another. We only saw the waiter when our orders were taken and the food delivered, then he was gone until it was time for the check; even then, we had to wait an inordinately long time for him to pick up the cash and bring change.

The other problem was the ventilation system. We were in a designated non-smoking section, but there was a man at the bar smoking a cigar, and that dreadful smell permeated the entire restaurant. I mentioned it to the host on the way out, and his only comment was "I know." All I can say is His Honor the Mayor had better not veto that anti-smoking-in-restaurants bill, or I'm going to be quite cross with him.

The Sign of the Whale, Washington, D.C.

After going to the Advent Lessons and Carols service at St. Matthew's Cathedral last night, a small group of us walked down M Street to a pub called The Sign of the Whale for a pint of beer and half-priced burgers. Our table was right by the roaring fireplace in the bar area, where three television sets were each tuned to different sports channels. My hickory burger was tasty, though very messy to eat (nice touch of grilled onions, too); the hickory sauce was a touch sweeter than I prefer, but still good; I thought my French fries with mayonnaise for dipping were excellent. I drank a pint of Foggy Bottom Ale, a local microbrewery product, which tasted like beer (I'm not a beer person). Others liked it, though I thought it a touch fruity and possibly flat, but beers are not my area of expertise. I noticed the pub also had a separate dining room in the back, and there was another area upstairs, though it was closed last night.

La Plaza, Washington, D.C.

Russian concert pianist Svetlana Potanina was in town tonight to play a recital at the Library of Congress. After the show, we wandered down Pennsylvania Avenue looking for a place to grab dinner, but I guess all the stuff near the Capitol is lunch only, because we ended up walking nearly to the Eastern Market Metro station before we found a strip of restaurants which were still open. We landed at La Plaza, a Salvadoran place.

I started with an horchata, a non-alcoholic beverage often thought of as "rice milk" but which is actually made of rice, almonds, vanilla, and sugar, and given the Salvadoran touch of being seasoned with cinnamon and a little ground cocoa. The waiter brought a basket of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa, and I think their salsa is by far the best fresh salsa I've had in the D.C. area. I had thought to have just a light snack and ordered a puppusa and a tamale, but the waiter brought me the "El Cuscatleco" plate, which was a full dinner with a puppusa, the traditional pickled cabbage and hot pepper salad, a large chicken tamale, sour cream, fried yucca root, slices of fried plantain, Mexican rice, and beans. It was actually a fun dinner and I ate most of it, so I didn't complain. The puppusa, tamale, and plantain were good, the rice was okay, but I thought the yucca had a funny taste to it (probably the grease they used to fry it) and the beans were quite bland.

While La Plaza won't be a "destination" restaurant for us, it was a pleasant place while we were in the neighborhood, and they do have great salsa!

El Chalán, Washington, D.C.

Had a quick dinner at El Chalán last night with my Guatemalan friend Gustavo. Why he wanted to eat at a Peruvian restaurant, I don't know, since Guatemala is in northern Central America, just below Mexico, Peru is way down in South America, and the culinary traditions are very different. But, I've been to El Chalán before and enjoyed the food, so I was okay with it. I was particularly glad to have him along last night, since our waiter spoke no English at all.

Anyway, he had the pollo al vino, a stewed chicken dish with carrot slices, peas, onions, and a light brownish sauce with white rice. I had one of the house specialities, the lomo saltado, a wonderfully tasty dish with tender, braised strips of beefsteak with potatoes (cut like short, thick fries), onion, tomatoes, peppers, peas, cilantro, all tossed together in a zesty brown sauce, and served with a large side of white rice (why does a dish with potatoes need rice?). That's all we had—like I said, it was a quick dinner. Gustavo had to run to Maryland, so it was more of a snack to tide him over til he got back to his family.

Sin é, Arlington, VA

Never have dinner in an Irish pub when Notre Dame is playing Stanford. We made that mistake last night, and couldn't even hear ourselves chew!

Leo and I were trying to goad Ryan into eating something "ethnic" for dinner last night, and he kept wanting boring, plain, American food from national franchises. He just wouldn't do any of the Thai, Chinese, Lebanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Italian, or French places in the area around the mall at Pentagon City, or even Wolfgang Puck's California Fusion place, but I had an ace in the hole: Ryan isn't just Indian, he's also Irish and Scot (his family claims to be direct descendants of William Wallace of Braveheart fame), and there's an Irish restaurant and pub on Pentagon Row called Sin é.

Sin é (pronounced "shin-ay") is really more of a cross between a pub and a sports bar, but they do have a full menu with half a dozen Irish dinners, eight American dinners, and a full assortment of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, and wraps. The host found us a booth with really high walls around it to shelter us a bit from the bar noise and the television-in-every-room-turned-to-the-Notre-Dame-game environment of the evening. Leo had some kind of Samuel Adams on tap and Ryan and I drank iced Earl Grey tea while we pondered the multi-page menu.

We opted to share a couple of appetizers, and chose a basket of spicy fried calamari, small squid rings breaded and deep fried then served with what they called a garlic aioli but which tasted to me more like honey mustard dressing, and a huge plate of Irish Nachos, made with thickly sliced potato chips instead of tortilla chips which I just loved!

For main courses, which arrived just after the appetizers were delivered (so much for "courses"), Ryan had a bacon cheeseburger with a house salad, Leo had fish and chips (the fish pieces were huge and looked excellent), and I had a chopped club salad. My salad was ok, but failed on a couple of fussy technical points for qualifying as a true "chopped salad," and was really more of a normal mixed-lettuces-from-the-bag with diced fried chicken fingers and some avocado cubes tossed in ranch dressing salad.

While we didn't endulge, the dessert menu had some fabulous looking things on it, from a bread pudding with Irish whiskey sauce to a Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake to a chocolate hazelnut cake and others.

I plan to go back to Sin é. The food was good, the prices were quite reasonable, and the service was adequate. I'll just make a point to avoid Notre Dame football evenings!

Washing dishes

There must be a genetic difference between men and women when it come to washing dishes.

At family gatherings, just as soon as people leave the table, the womenfolk quickly sweep the dishes off the table and into the kitchen, where they all stand around to socialize and wash the dishes. It doesn't matter if a female guest is a non-family member or even a just-met acquaintance, her genetic conditioning will kick in and she will go into dishwashing mode. I think if a woman knew that dishes would be left out unwashed all night long, she would be positively apoplectic.

Men, on the other hand, are perfectly happy to leave the dishes on the table after a big meal, move into the living room, and promptly fall asleep. The idea of gravy drying on the china on the table doesn't bother them one little bit.

Last night after dinner, with great effort I made myself debone the turkey and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. This morning, all the dishes, pots, pans, bowls, and the turkey carcass were all waiting on the counter to greet us. Now, as I hear all my female readers gasping, let me explain my logic that by allowing all the pots and pans to soak over night, they were infinitely easier to clean this morning. We had to hand wash everything today, and it took over an hour! I suppose it's a record for all my dishes to be washed by noon on Friday, cause usually I would have run one dishwasher load a day, and it often takes three days to get everything washed. One of the challenges of tiny D.C. apartment kitchens is that we don't have a dishwasher!

Cooking in a miniature kitchen was a challenge, too. My little oven is just barely big enough to hold the turkey roasting pan. We also have very, very little counter space, so the great logistical challenge of the meal was just finding places to set things!

Ryan's simple "white trash" menu and recipe requests were surprisingly easy and quick to prepare. Other than having to pop the turkey in the oven for six hours, there was basically nothing else to do until about an hour before dinner time, when the hardest task was peeling a bag of potatoes. Ryan couldn't figure out what my boiled potatoes were when they were sitting on the counter before the boiling cream and butter were added; I rice my potatoes instead of using a hand mixer on them, so I suppose they did look "different" to a non-cook like him. Everything else was just opening and mixing cans and boxes. I miscalculated a few grocery purchases; usually I go through a quart of cream on Thanksgiving, so now I have half a quart left over; no cream soup and using "Cool Whip" for dessert will do that. And, alas, the sad news of the week was that the lady who invented Stovetop Stuffing just died.

So, now, we're off to the Kennedy Center for a National Symphony Pops concert of all-movie scores. Ciao for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The turkey is in the oven and should be done in plenty of time for our target five o'clock feast time. Got up this morning to bake the pumpkin pie. It felt strange not to be baking pumpkin challah or other Thanksgiving breads, but Ryan wanted those store-bought brown 'n serve rolls, so that's what we're having. He wants everything to be very plain and simple; I hope my doctoring of the turkey (a basil and butter rub under the skin and all over the outside, plus wedges of onion and orange inside the cavity) won't violate his sense of "nothing exotic, nothing foreign" "white trash food" (his term). I indulge his wish for simple, country food cause the Ivy League and the East Coast really is quite a culture shock for western Indian kids. This is his third year at Dartmouth, and he's never been able to go home to his family in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, so I hope this keeps him from getting too homesick.

After the turkey went in, I fixed myself my traditional Thanksgiving cook's breakfast of slowly scrambled eggs and the turkey liver sauteed in butter with a splash of brandy. College boy was still in bed, so he didn't get any.

Here's our projected menu, as chosen by Ryan:

A White Trash Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
November 24, 2005

Plain Deviled Eggs with Paprika Garnish
Bread and Butter Pickles

Salad of Iceberg Lettuce, Diced Ham, Onions, Egg Slices
Cheddar Cheese, and Sunflower Seeds
with ranch dressing

Plain Roasted Turkey with Pan Gravy
Stovetop Cornbread Stuffing with Neck Meat and Giblets
Plain Mashed White Potatoes with Butter
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Homemade Creamed Corn
Canned Whole Cranberry Sauce
Brown 'n Serve Rolls
Southern-Style Iced Tea

Mrs. Smith's Pumpkin Custard Pie
with Cool Whip topping

Time to check on things again in the kitchen.

Capital Q Texas-Style Barbeque, Washington, D.C.

We went to the Indian museum at the Smithsonian, which blissfully was not crowded this afternoon. I kinda wanted to eat lunch at their Indian foods cafe, Mitsitam, which was featuring smoked turkey, roast venison, grilled buffalo, and planked salmon, but holiday houseguest Ryan thought it was too expensive at $12.95 per person, so we ate a late lunch when we got to Chinatown near the movie theater, where he spent $18 on a little plate of barbequed brisket, pulled pork, slaw, beans, and iced tea! He's starting to learn Washington prices.......

I've always been curious about Capital Q Texas-Style Barbeque when I've walked past it right by the busiest corner in Chinatown. I just couldn't imagine barbeque here being any better than the dismal attempts at Mexican food. So, when Ryan wanted to eat at a non-ethnic restaurant (in Chinatown!!!) and our only choices were Hooter's, Fuddrucker's, or Capital Q, I encouraged him to pick the "non-national chain." Once I got inside and tasted the food, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Capital Q is a small restaurant with rustic, Texas-themed decor. In the back is a food counter where you pick your meats and the attendant cuts your ribs or chops your meat to order, and also helps you pick your side items. Everything else is self-service. With that in mind, I thought the prices were just a touch on the high side for a barbeque joint—a pound of beef ribs was going for $26! My half-pound of chopped beef at $7 was worth it, though, because the meat was wonderfully flavored and juicy. Ryan had a two-meat sampler plate with nice slices of beef brisket and a big spoonful of pulled pork, which he particularly liked. The baked beans looked pretty normal to me, as did the cabbage slaw, but he didn't like the slaw because it had celery seed in the recipe. Nevertheless, I liked the place, and I'll definitely be back.

On our way out of the movie theater last night, it was snowing! The snow only lasted a few minutes and didn't stick, but first snow is always such a magical moment.

Thai Kitchen, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I went to a late dinner at Thai Kitchen on M Street in West End. We discovered it the other night while we were walking home from Dupont Circle and thought it looked interesting. The restaurant takes up a lot of square footage in a half-below-ground floor at the bottom of an office building, and their position allows them to have an entry plaza with a fountain and koi pond outside. A lot of the decor is Chinese in nature, including ba-gua feng shui items over the doors. Inside, one of the first things one see is a huge picture of the management with actress Angelina Jolie, who recently used Thai Kitchen to cater a fund raising dinner for one of her refugee charities. Continuing on down the stairs into the restaurant, one first enters the bar area, where a long bar snakes along two walls and bears a boldly decorated top. Around the corner in the dining area (bar and dining room are all one great big space), banquette line the window wall, tables and chairs are in the middle, and booths sit along the interior walls. The exposed architectural support columns are on 30-degree angles from the vertical; all are wood paneled.

The menu is very traditionally Thai and the prices are quite reasonable, especially given their West End location. Since the night air was chilly on the walk over, I started with a lovely hot tea with a light jasmine fragrance and medium amber color that hit the spot. Leo got a cocktail called "Kiss Before Dying," which was some kind of vodka, tequilla, Galliano, and orange juice concoction. We both ended up starting with Yum Nua, a grilled beef salad. The thinly sliced beef was wonderfully flavorful with a hot spicy lime juice dressing and bits of green scallion throughout. It was mounded directly on the plate next to a small pile of lettuce, which included long, curled shreds of carrot and two endive leaves.

I planned on just the salad for my meal, but Leo had another item, having selected the southern style red curry dish, Panang. There was a considerable quantity of tender chicken chunks in the center garnished with a few deep-fried basil leaves on top; a row of crinkle-cut zuccini rounds lined the edge of about one-third of the bowl. White rice came in a separate small bowl. He declared that the food here was better than that at the Thai place we usually frequent downtown.

Dessert, though, was a bit of a disappointment. Leo had the mango sticky rice and I had just mango, but, while he reported the sticky rice itself to be good, both of our mangos were very much far from being ripe. Nevertheless, he grabbed a delivery menu on the way out, so I think there's a good chance we'll be eating Thai Kitchen's food again.

Chevy's Fresh Mex, Arlington, VA

There's a little shopping center across the street from the big mall at Pentagon City called "Pentagon Square," noted mostly for the Costco, plus BestBuy, Linens 'n Things, and Border's Books, and we were there to pick up some household necessities. We decided to try one of the cafes there, Chevy's Fresh Mex. Leo said that back when he was fresh out of college with his advertising and marketing degree, Chevy's was one of the accounts on which he worked. So, it seemed like a fun place to try.

Since we came in from the shopping center and not their main door from the outside, we had to walk through the main dining room, where there were a lot of empty tables. We waited at the host's stand for probably five minutes before he talked to us, then we stood there probably another ten minutes before we were seated. He was very slowly controlling the flow of new tables into the dining rooms, and we had to wait for him to seat about five tables ahead of us (most were in the bar), answer telephone calls, and wander around the restaurant. There seemed to me to be no reason why all the tables couldn't have been seated immediately. I think, though, the problem was that they were short staffed on full-fledged waiters. There were tons of waiter's assistants and bus boys in the place, but not that many waiters. Our waiter was quite unfortunately scarce after taking our order, with the food brought from the kitchen by expediters and the assistants pooring drinks, filling chip baskets, and so forth.

Leo, who is supposed to be on a no-carb diet, started with a frozen margarita and an appetizer serving of "Dos Tamales," a large plate with one pork tamale topped with red chile sauce and one chicken tamale topped with a very hot green chile and tomatillo sauce, and all sprinkled with crumbles of white Mexican cheese. I ordered a Santa Fe Chopped Salad for my meal, so I opted not to do appetizers. Meanwhile, though, I tasted the salsa and it was very good, with a roasted tomato taste and a much darker color than most salsas; it was a touch sweet and rather thin, but I liked it nonetheless. My salad was good, too, and too big to completely finish. For a main course, Leo ordered chicken fajitas; they brought him a huge tray with a raised platform in the middle holding the hot, sizzling skillet of chicken strips, onions, and green pepper slices, with a lower compartment on the left holding a big plate of black bean (there were three different types of beans available) and Spanish rice, and on the right a plate with guacamole, pico de gallo, and sour cream. Tortillas came in a little paper bag placed on the table, but we didn't open it. One of the most interesting things on the main plate was their roasted corn salsa, which appeared to be a puree of smoky, roasted, fresh corn kernals with a powerful corn flavor and just a touch of pepper fire that was quite good. After abiding by the "no-carb" rules for his main course, Leo ended dinner with a great big flan garnished with a sliced strawberry and a little tiny, cactus-shaped sopapilla.

I thought the food at Chevy's was quite good, but I don't know if I'll make an effort to go back, since I thought the service abominable. When we paid, Leo even had to ask for his change to be returned (how dare the waiter assume he was being left a 30% tip!).

Cafe Nema, Washington, D.C.

One of my bigger culinary adventures was last weekend when I'd been at a Red Cross charity fundraiser and ended up going to a too-early dinner with a chemical engineer and a Ph.D. physicist. We wandered around the P Street strip looking for a place that opened at 5, and were unsuccessful, so we walked up to U Street to check out some new places there, but they didn't open til 6, either. Then, we just happened to notice a lower level cafe behind a staircase full of people, and Cafe Nema was open!

Cafe Nema is a Somali restaurant. For you geographically impaired, Somalia is a country on the very eastern tip of Africa, immediately east of Ethiopia and south of the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian peninsula. Just a few days before, Somalia had been in the news because of Somali pirates who'd attacked a cruise ship off the coast! Unlike Ethiopia, which was never colonized by Europeans, Somalia was British until 1960 and early on some provinces had been Italian, so their food is much more accessible to Western tastes.

Since none of us had been to a Somali restaurant before, we asked our very personable waiter to pick our meal for us. I guess he wasn't that comfortable with just bringing us stuff, so he kept questioning, and based on my dinner companions' less adventurous palates, he made the "decision." Drink orders came first. Since Somalia is one of those strict Sunni Muslim countries, I was surprised that they served beer here. I was disappointed that they didn't have iced tea! How un-American! We each got mixed green salads to start with a lemony olive oil vinaigrette that was fine, but I don't think very traditional. We all ended up with the same basic entree, a delicious stewed chicken dish called kalankal. Mine was served in the center of a plateful of rice, whilst my companions (both of whom claim Italian ancestry) had their kalanal mixed in with fettucine noodles. The flavor of the kalankal was very good, and unlike Etiopean stews, not hot at all. For extra spice, we were given tiny containers of a green mint and other spice sauce that was hot but not overpowering.

Our waiter said there were no traditional Somali desserts. That was a little disappointing, since I know that Somalia is a major exporter of bananas, but I also have to remember that desserts are not at all common in non-western cultures.

Cafe Nema was a fun place I plan to visit again. And, one of the best things, the bill for the three of us was only $37!

Lebanese Taverna, Arlington, VA

While on a Friday night shopping expedition to the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City and the "large" Harris-Teter grocery store in that neighborhood, Leo and I stopped in for an early dinner (early being the operative word, since had we arrived 30 minutes later, the place would have been packed with a line) at the Lebanese Taverna in Pentagon Row, the multi-use shopping and high-dollar apartment area just outside the mall, overlooking the outdoor ice skating rink there.

Lebanese Taverna is a part of a small, family-owned, local chain of restaurants specializing in Lebanese and middle eastern foods. I was pleased to try it, because I've always found Lebanese food to be amongst the best of modern middle eastern cuisine, and I've some familiarity with it, since all of the decades-old steakhouses in Tulsa are owned by Lebanese families and they've included tabouli, cabbage rolls, barbequed bologna, garlic sauce, and their unique meat marinade to the Tulsa culinary scene.

The Abi-Najm family does a good job presenting some of the variety of traditional Lebanese cuisine. One of the things their menus emphasize is the "mezza," which is a collection of small dishes in much the same vein as Spanish tapas (the Spanish learned the habit from their Muslim occupiers in the first half of the previous millennium). They also have a variety of hummus dishes—which they spell "hommos"—and plain chickpeas as a side item, and lots of lamb items.

Leo started with a hommos special from the mezza list, which was their version of the chickpea paste topped with a mixture of sweetly spiced ground meat, almonds, and pine nuts, served with a basket of pita bread halves. I tasted some of the meat mixture, and it was very good without too much cinnamon. I had a malfouf salad, which is a traditional shredded cabbage dish marinated in lemon juice and olive oil with garlic.

For main courses, Leo had a shrimp kabab with white and yellow rice and I had a sliced roast lamb dish (I forget the Lebanese name....shawarma??) with tahini sauce that was smaller than I'd hoped, but it was from the mezza list, so I guess it wasn't totally unexpected. What little there was was quite flavorful, though. I forget what Leo had for dessert; I had a melted white Lebanese cheese dish topped with a ground pistacchio and bulgar wheat, then drenched with orange blossom water syrup and a cup of strong Lebanese coffee.

The food here was very good, though the service was rather spotty.....had we been there in the midst of the Friday night dinner rush, I could understand, but in the early part of our visit, the restaurant was not yet full. I hear the family is opening a new restaurant and market in Old Town Alexandria next month, which should be fun.

More nouveau wine talk

Tried a glass of the Georges Duboeuf beaujolais-villages nouveau last night to compare it with the beaujolais nouveau we had earlier in the week. As you know with French wines, the smaller the controlled geographic area of the source of a wine's grapes, the higher quality the wine; a beaujolais-villages, therefore, should be better than a mere beaujolais.

The beaujolais-villages is noticeably drier than the beaujolais, but otherwise the tastes are similar, and in this case, I don't think the extra dryness is an improvement. The beaujolais-villages is only a little over a dollar more per bottle than the beaujolais. Nevertheless, for general drinking (remembering that all the "nouveaus" need to be drunk by New Years), I think I'd stick with the plain beaujolais.

Interestingly, the two liquor stores in our neighborhood with wine selections both are stocking only the Georges Duboeuf nouveaus, so I've not tried this year's beaujolais nouveau from any of the other wineries.

I miss my parish back in Oklahoma City. They would, no doubt, be pouring beaujolais nouveau this morning as a communion wine.

David Greggory Restau-Lounge, Washington, D.C.

Last night we finally got around to dining at David Greggory Restau-Lounge, a popular "retro-forward" place in the West End we've walked past dozens of times on our way to and fro other destinations. It's also been on my radar screen since May, when the establishment was rented out for the exclusive 80th birthday party for gay rights leader Frank Kameny, and if 160 homosexuals party at a restaurant, you know it's good! (For those of you who don't recognize Kameny's name, he was Ph.D. Army astronomer and WWII hero who was the first person to challenge the Eisenhower Administration's policy that gay federal employees could be fired or denied employment for "sexual perversion" in 1957, eventually going to the Supreme Court in 1961; in 1971 he was the first openly gay person to run for public office; he led the local movement that succeeded in decriminalizing sodomy in the District of Columbia in 1993; he was one of the leaders of the movement to convince the American Psychiatric Association to vote homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses in 1973.)

Located in the ground floor corner of an office building at the corner of a busy three-street intersection, David Greggory takes up a surprisingly large amount of real estate, all of which has been decorated in a starkly contemporary, yet warm way. The luxe decor even carries over into the rest rooms, where floor to ceiling panes of frosted glass serve as partitions, floors and walls are polished red and brown marble, and bright copper bowls on glass countertops serve as lavatory basins. Different styles of contemporary art from eight different artists hang on the interior walls (the exterior walls are all windows) and are available for sale. This contemporary backdrop provides the canvas for the duo-restauranteurs' culinary concept, that of taking traditional comfort foods and "updating" them with world fusion ideas and 21st century foods and techniques. It's an interesting idea and rather fun, though I think I would tire of it rather quickly if I dined here often.

While we perused the menu, Leo sipped a DGtini, a vodka martini which looked and tasted very much like a margarita. His appetizer was the chicken empanadas, which were two small empanadas filled with smoked chicken and spices, then arranged in a small au gratin dish atop lettuce leaves, some very spicy guacamole, and something they called Salsa Mexicana. I had the deviled egg assortment; they brought me a plate with three egg halves, one filled with the egg yolk mixture with heavy herbs, one with minced smoked salmon, and one with lots of bacon crumbles; the eggs rested on a bed of watercress (at first I thought it was spinach, til I tasted the pepperiness of the watercress) with three grape-tomato halves, dressed in a drizzle of olive oil. We also were served a basket with tiny round wheat rolls, small wedges of foccacia, and small slices of what looked to be a wheat sourdough loaf.

This might be a good time to mention the restaurant's penchant for pork dishes. There were a lot of pork and bacon dishes on the menu, every Wednesday they have "Pork and Pinot" night, and they've been having monthly "Aphrodisiac Bacon Dinners," the next of which is Monday night. And, kosher and vegan diners should beware: many dishes and vegetables are seasoned or garnished with bacon.

They encourage compiling different assortments of small dishes to make up a dinner here, from appetizers to half-sized entrees to full-sized entrees. I like the possibilities here, since I prefer multiple courses at dinner and modern portion size is much too large for four or five course dinners. For our entrees, we both opted for half-sized entrees, and they were plenty big. Leo surprised me and didn't order the sea scallops on grilled spinach, but he got the seared jumbo lump crabcake (he's supposed to be allergic to crab). His crabcake arrived resting on two large, crossed, steamed asparagus spears, all floating on a mirror of mango shallot puree and accompanied by a red bell pepper relish. When I asked him how it was, he said, "It was good. It tastes like chicken." I opted for "Not Quite Mom’s Meatloaf," a surprising little dish which had an individual meatloaf stuffed with foie gras mousse that was then cooked and served rare in a pool of roasted tomato sauce and then garnished with diagonal stripes of whole-grain brown mustard and a very liberal sprinkling of crumbled bacon. The meatloaf normally comes with garlic mashed potatoes, but I asked for a non-carb substitute and got a large serving of braised greens. I liked the meatloaf, but if I get it again, I think I'll ask it be cooked a bit more than rare—it's not steak tartare!

For dessert, Leo had a Tres Leches cake with caramelized bananas. The "Tres Leches" that I'm used to from the Cubans in Miami was a yellow cake soaked with three milks—cream, coconut milk, and rum—and then frosted with whipped cream. David Greggory's version reminded me a bit of a banana upside down cake, with gooey banana slices militantly arranged on top, the cake being banana flavored, and, sadly, there was no rum involved. Don't know about the coconut milk, either, since Leo reported only banana taste. While he devoured the entire piece-of-cake-for-two, I drank a little espresso macciato.

One of the other little niceties of David Greggory was their free little boxes of matches—except they didn't contain matches, they are filled with little candy red hots.

On the whole, David Greggory is a nice restaurant (or "restau-lounge", as they call themselves) with a much higher standard and level of service than one would expect for their more modest West End prices. There were plenty of waiter's assistants running around tending to the tables, but our actual waiter was unfortunately scarce; in his defense, though, he and another waitress got pulled shortly after our arrival to tend to a party of 19 lawyers who came in without a reservation. So, next time you're on the M Street strip, consider this place for dinner and drinks.

The "official" beaujolais nouveau party

Tonight, the official beaujolais nouveau party was at the French Embassy here in D.C.. Unlike Bistrot du Coin's party last night, the Embassy party has a limited number of tickets, admission is $65 per person instead of being free, and they have actual food with the wines (the Bistrot only served bread and only had one wine).

I didn't want to go to the Embassy party alone, and I couldn't find anyone around interested in French food and wine, so I stayed home. Probably just as well, since I'd be wanting to eat and drink everything, and that's not on my diet. But, had I gone, this is what they were serving:

Menu

Salmon steak in a dill sauce
Beef Bourguignon
Ratatouille of fresh vegetables
Scalloped Potatoes
Assortment of Charcuteries, Saussisson, Ham, pates,
Mousses, Terrines, cornichon, and onions
Assortments of Cheese, fruits, breads, and crackers
Seven Grain Salad: Wild rice, green beans, garbanzo beans,
Kamut, Millet, Barley, and Tomatoes
Salade Landaise: eggs, smoked duck breast, croutons, and mesclun
with balsamic vinaigrette dressing
Desserts & Mini Pastries


Beaujolais Nouveau Wines to be Presented

Domaine Manoir du Carra
Maison Lamartine
Domaine du Perret
Georges Duboeuf
Joseph Drouhin
Bouchard Aine

Beaujolais Nouveau 2005 Report

Le beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!

Once again, it's the third Thursday of November, and the newest crop of beaujolais nouveau has been presented. I'm just in from the annual party at Bistrot du Coin, where a totally packed restaurant welcomed the new wine and uncorked the first bottles at 12:01 a.m.

The trendy bistro, up near Dupont Circle here in D.C., removed all of its tables and chairs from its floor to allow for the huge crowd, and bouncers at the door had to regulate the flow of people in and out with a line remaining outside in the cold even when I left a little before 1 a.m. A disco sound system blared Euro-Pop (or is it Euro-Trash? I forget) music for those who wanted to endulge the fantasy that there was actually enough room to dance. As one made his or her way through the crush of people to the bars, the bistrot was giving away free glasses of wine. It wasn't a terribly elegant thing—they used those large red plastic cups—but they quickly had the crowd to where they were feeling no pain.


(this was right before I left, when the crowd had thinned considerably)

They served the Georges Duboeuf wine. I do believe this is the best beaujolais nouveau I've tasted in nearly a decade. The wine is very smooth and fruity with good color and aftertaste. It's not a dry wine, and it doesn't have the feeling of being "thin" or "tannic" in the mouth as have some in the recent past. The fruitiness is a good blend of all the desirable wine notes, and there's a touch of spice in the nose. This should be an excellent vintage with broad appeal. I heartily recommend it for everyone's Thanksgiving dinner.

Menu planning for the holidays

Thanksgiving is just a little more than a week away, and along with the fun and excitement of the family gathering and meal. But, for many people, Thanksgiving is a day which has them trembling and shaking in enormous stress. Why? They are cooking the family Thanksgiving dinner.

The vast majority of my friends share one personality trait in common: Obsessive-compulsive perfectionism. That means that for them, everything has to be "just so," and when things aren't perfect, they'll fall apart to varying degrees. So, being a veteran of designing and cooking dozens of family holiday dinners, let me offer a few of tips for your holiday sanity and success to keep you from falling apart and having to overdose on your Buspar or Ativan.

First, your family isn't going to be that critical of your results. They are just glad they they don't have to do the cooking! And, if you know that the one Asshole family member will criticize your meal, just remember that if your meal is perfect, the Asshole will find something else to criticize, so just smile, relax, and ignore the Asshole.

Second, keep the menu simple, small, and manageable. They already know you have impeccable taste, so you don't need to try to impress them with some fancy-schmancy ultra-gourmet recreation of standard Thanksgiving fare. Further, if you are like me, your stove only has four burners on top and the oven will only hold one turkey and one thin, flat casserole dish. Count!

Third, avoid food poisoning your family. Use a meat thermometer (don't have one? go buy one today) to cook your turkey to the correct 180-degree inside-thigh temperature (don't rely on those worthless little pop-up thingies) and bake your stuffing or dressing in a separate pan, not inside your turkey. Don't pre-set food on the table as it gets done, cause you want to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold until serving time.

Fourth, NEVER NEVER NEVER cook a brand new recipe for the family dinner that you've never cooked at least once before. If you are bound and determined to cook something on the 24th which you've never cooked before, be it a brand new recipe or an old family tradition, prepare it once this week for the practice and experience.

Fifth, children will be children, and the presence of multiple children in the same room increases exponentially the liklihood that something will get broken. Keep that in mind when deciding what china and stemware to use and whether or not you have objets d'art in your home which need to be put away for the day.

Sixth, stash a bottle of your favor wine/liquor somewhere where no one can find it. This is for you and your spouse/significant other Thanksgiving night after everyone has gone home.

Follow these Six Rules, and I'm sure your family Thanksgiving dinner will be a marvelous success!

Johnny's Half Shell, Washington, D.C.

Poor Leo. His glasses suddenly broke at the office this afternoon while he was sitting in front of the computer. So much for the "quality" of Giorgio Armani metal frames. He came home and we wandered out to find an optometrist; he got his eye exam, some contact lenses, some fabulous Burberry frames and lenses, and a bill—for $618.

To help Leo get over his unexpected expense, we had dinner at Johnny's Half Shell, on P Street just off Dupont Circle. It turned out to be a very nice seafood restaurant, crossing the tastes of the two owners, one from Maryland and one from Mississippi near New Orleans. I was curious but leery; the place has several good reviews but also several negative "reader comments."

The interior is comfortable and elegant. We sat towards the back by the lovely, contemporary, green marble bar, where a huge aquarium with great big goldfish and little angel fish swimming together filled the back wall. The menu had one steak entree, one chicken breast, and all of the other things were seafood; the appetizer and soup list was mouth watering and it was hard to pick just one! They had a nice list of wines by the glass and other list for by the bottle selections.

Leo started with steamed mussels in a seafood broth scented with Spanish paprika and enriched with butter. I declined an appetizer, but then changed my mind on the waiter's next pass through, selecting a half dozen oysters on the half shell. The oysters were great, being imported "raspberry point" oysters from Nova Scotia, and the juice in the shell had a special crisp brininess; a vinegar-based mignonette sauce accompanied these premium shellfish instead of the usual catsup and horseradish sauce. With this course, Leo drank a glass of Domaine de la Denante, Macon-Villages 2003, which I got to sample and it was a classic, clean, flinty French chardonnay.


The entrees were excellent. Leo had broiled sea scallops with grilled endive and butternut squash. I had the wood-grilled wild rockfish fillet in wild mushroom sauce with sauteed spinach.


For dessert, Leo had a piece of lemon chess pie in a coconut crust with a cup of coffee and cream; I continued to sip my sixth or seventh glass of passionfruit iced tea.

Johnny's Half Shell is a great restaurant. I look forward to dining there again.