Tea flowers

Leo's brother was in Hong Kong and Taiwan a few weeks ago and came home with gifts for the family. Amongst the gifts were some little tiny, solid, tea leaf balls about 3/4" in diameter. He gave Leo two of them, and tonight we fixed one.

Now, these are very special tea balls. FIrst of all, they are very expensive—about $30 a piece, and that's in U.S. dollars. Second, they are practically magical: when immersed in hot water, these little balls begin to open up into beautiful tea "flowers." Each of them are hand-made, and the process is very labor intensive. They can only be obtained from Taiwan.

Since we wanted to watch the tea balls develop, we ended up using my French press coffee pot to steep the tea. We filled the pot with boiling water, then dropped the ball into the water, where it began to float on the water. Then, slowly, the ball began to sink; after a little while longer, we started to see little leaves begin to "open" up. As the whole ball began to open, suddenly a white shoot came from the middle and began to open into airy flowers. Once the whole thing was open, the base was like a green chrysanthemum with a shoot holding the whiteish, delicate flowers. Once it was fully steeped, we drank it, and it had a fine, jasmine aroma and taste.

Along with the tea, Leo fixed something called wagashi. This Japanese confection is a translucent jelly or "Jell-O" type item made from arrowroot molded in a bamboo shape. It comes with a plunger used to force the jelly out one end through a mesh that cuts the jelly into a series of long, worm-like threads. He separated the threads, then poured chilled plum wine over them to serve.

We have one of each still in the cupboards. Now we just need another occasion to prepare them.

The Dubliner, Washington, D.C.

After dining at Kelly's Irish Times in the Union Station neighborhood, we walked next door for dessert. The Dubliner An Irish Pub is always a popular, busy place. Their dining room was full and there was a line, so we opted to sit at a table in the bar. Sitting in the bar here can be challenging, since not only is the kitchen door in there (and hence a lot of waiter traffic), they often have loud, live bands playing. Wednesday night, though, the big noise source was the crowd gathered there to watch the Sugar Bowl and root for Notre Dame (what? In an Irish pub?).

Robert had a couple of Dewars scotch on the rocks and since I'm trying to watch my weight, I just had water. For our desserts, Robert ordered the Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake and I had the bread pudding with Irish whiskey sauce. They were both quite tasty, though we both noted a rather total absence of either Bailey's Irish cream or Irish whiskey taste to the desserts.

Kelly's Irish Times, Washington, D.C.

After our unexpected happy hour at the George up on Capitol Hill yesterday evening, Robert and I wandered towards Union Station and decided to have dinner at one of the Irish restaurants on the corner across from the station. Robert has been both places, but I've only eaten at The Dubliner before, so we opted to dine at Kelly's Irish Times, the former hangout of my friend, Georgetown law school alumna Chris.

The Irish Times is very much like a bar with food, and there really wasn't a whole lot that made me feel like I was in a specifically Irish place. It was the same with the menu. The choices were all very standard American bar-with-food choices.

While we split an order of poppers (mild jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese, breaded, and deep-fried), Robert had a Guiness stout to drink. I never drink stouts or bitters—I think they're vile things—but Robert loves them. Ick. Robert ended up ordering a full rack of back back ribs with chips (a/k/a fries) and cole slaw and I had the fish and chips with cole slaw. Had to ask the waiter to bring a bottle of malt vinegar for the fish.....I guess they aren't Irish enough to remember, especially since the fish came with a great big plastic cup of tartare sauce. The fish was actually pretty good, not having a fishy flavor and not being too heavily breaded. Robert liked his ribs, too, but he was a good boy and requested a go box and put half the ribs in there to take home for another meal.

They don't serve dessert at the Irish Times, so we decided to go next door for a wee bit of sweet. See the next entry for more about dessert at The Dubliner.

Bistrot Lepic, Georgetown, D.C.

Happy New Year 2007!

Such a happy new year we had last night at Bistrot Lepic in Georgetown! Matt and I were lucky enough to be able to get a table for the late seating at the bistro, and we had a great time with wonderful food and lots of good champagne.

The chef created a lovely five course prix fixe menu at a surprisingly reasonable cost (I've spent the same amount here for two courses and a glass of wine), although I suspect that reservations were granted mainly to the "regulars" of the restaurant, hence the price was a thank you for frequent patrons.

What made things difficult was the fact that several of the courses offered multiple options, all of which sounded wonderful, and it was quite hard to decide what to get. By coincidence, it turned out that Matt and I ended up ordering all the same things!

We started with the salad of lobster medallions, fresh artichoke hearts, green beans, and shallots, all tossed with a mix of European style greens and tossed in a classic herbed vinaigrette. They were generous with the lobster and artichoke. The French haricots verts beans gave a nice beefiness to the salad, and there was just enough bitterness to the curly endive in the greens to balance out the flavors.



Next we had a Grey Goose lemon granite. This was an interesting lemon ice served swimming in Grey Goose vodka in a small wine glass rimmed with large green Pernod-scented sugar crystals. Pernod, of course, is the greenish, anisette/licorice-flavored liqueur that was created as a substitute for absinthe when absinthe became illegal in the early part of the twentieth century.



Our main course was exquisite. We selected the seared filet of venison served on a confit of zucchini, fennel, saffron, raisins, and lemon, and drizzled with an intriguing red wine sauce perfumed with chocolate. Not quite a molé, the sauce accented the venison and didn't over power the flavor. And speaking of the venison....it was melt-in-the-mouth tender, certainly some of the best venison I've had in the District in the past two years.



Our final two courses were both assortments. First, we had a cheese plate with four cheeses: a Savoie beaufort, an Auvergne roquefort, a Normandie camenbert, and a Pays Bisque petit basque. They were served with thin slices of French bread and walnuts, apple slices, and butter.



Dessert was an assortment of miniature French pastries. We had a little chocolate eclair, a wedge of pear tart, a fresh fruit tartlet, and an interesting profiterole filled with pumpkin ice cream, the plate being garnished with cigar-rolled shavings of chocolate, fresh mint, and dustings of confectioner's sugar and cocoa.



Naturally, we had some nice French wines to go along with our meal. Matt played sommalier for us and selected a Chateau les Amouruses Cote du Rhone for our first course and a Louis Latour Bourgogne chabis for our main course. Both wines were quite good, but Matt got them backwards, with the red wine for the lobster and the white wine (which would have been exquisite with the lobster, by the way) for the venison in red wine sauce. LOL...that's what I get for letting a Durham man pick the wines. ;-) With dessert was a Heidsieck Monopole Brut rosé champagne (rosé sparkling wines continue to be very vogue this season).

Our great waiter started coming by after we finished eating to refill our champagne glasses with whatever he had in hand at the time, most usually a very nice Veuve Fourny et Fils Premier Cru Brut. At midnight, he brought around more champagne for our New Year's toasts, and they broke out the party hats, noise makers, and streamers.

Twas a very happy new year, and I hope everyone will have a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2007!

Afterwords Cafe, Washington, D.C.

My friend Matt from North Carolina came to D.C. for the weekend to visit all of us and ring in the new year. He got in last night around ten. Rather than cooking dinner at home, and after drinking a couple of bottles of wine, we decided to walk up to Dupont Circle to one of the few late night cafes still open to find a little late night supper. Along the way, we picked up Robert, and he joined us for dinner at KramerBook's Afterwords Cafe.

Well, Robert decided to drink dinner and had two Irish coffees. I wasn't really hungry and debated not eating anything at all, but went ahead and ordered some nachos. Well, what they call nachos. They were okay and I'm sure the locals love it, but I found the sun-dried tomato "salsa" and the black beans underneath to be too sweet, and the so-called jalapeño pepper slices were about as hot as a bread and butter pickle. I only ate some, so Matt finished them off after his dinner.



Matt had the lobster, asparagus and mascarpone ravioli. These were interesting little hand-made packets made in parsley pasta and sauced with a mascarpone cheese sauce. With his dinner, he had some kind of beer.



After that, he had a slice of goober pie, a rather unusual but traditional Southern peanut butter pie topped with chocolate and made in a graham cracker crust.

Cantina Laredo, DFW Airport, Tex.

While making airline connections on my Christmas Day flight through DFW Airport in Dallas, I ate lunch at Cantina Laredo in concourse D of the airport. I was excited to be back in a part of the world where there is decent Mexican food!

I started with a great, freshly made guacamole served with freshly fried tortilla chips. It was so good, spicy and chunky, and way better than anything I'd been served in D.C.



Next I had a chicken chimichanga. It was, alas, disappointing. The flavor was excellent. Unfortunately, though, the chimichanga had been prepared in advance (I don't know if this is normal proceedure or just for Christmas Day) and the kitchen had microwaved it to rewarm it. That meant the outside wasn't crispy and, even worse, the very center of the chimichanga was cold. When I was almost done with it, the waiter was by and I told him about the coldness; he offered to take it back to rewarm it, but at that point, I was nearly done. Surprisingly, I was offered neither a discount nor a free dessert or something in recompense. Such is airport food.

Heritage India Dupont, Washington, D.C.

My friend Rachel and I went to lunch at Heritage India Dupont yesterday, after having to reschedule our plans made before the holidays and before I booked my travel plans. Heritage Dupont is the sister restaurant to the original Heritage India in the Cleveland Park neighborhood north of Georgetown. Naturally, they offer Indian cuisine (spot, not feather). Leo and I discovered this place rather by accident early this month during a Christmas shopping expedition, and we found it to be the best Indian place we'd tried in the D.C. area. I told Rachel about it at a cocktail party and she was excited; she's a vegetarian and loves Indian food. So, off we went.

Heritage is on Connecticut Avenue just south of Dupont Circle. It's beautifully decorated as a sleek, contemporary restaurant and bar, but with large, ancient, Indian artifacts and structural elements such as doors, windows, and lintels along the walls as decoration, and with colorful paintings of Indian royalty. As typical with Indian restaurants, they have a large, efficient staff tending to the tables. Part of the fun aspect of Heritage is that in addition to all of the traditional Indian restaurant dishes, they have an entire menu section of "contemporary street fare" that is very much like an Indian version of tapas, and even an Indian-inspired selection of pasta dishes.

Rachel and I started by sharing a pakora, an appetizer dish of battered and fried vegetables. An unusual combination of yogurt and spicy plum sauce accompanied the vegetables. The batter here is light and crispy without being oily.



For our main course, we shared the Begumi platter, an assortment of their vegetarian curries with pilau rice, presented on a huge silver tray. My favorite curry of the four provided was the palak makai, a creamed spinach and corn dish very reminiscent of saag paneer. Rachel and I had very different tastes....my 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th were her 4th, 3d, 2d, 1st! LOL That worked out well, though, so we could have second tastes of our favorites. Along with the curries and rice came a big plate of lettuce, cucumber slices, and tomato wedges (more like plain vegetables than a salad) and some of the best, thickest raita I've ever had with both cucumber and tomatoes in it with a little snipped mint on top. Raita is fresh, homemade yogurt with vegetables that often accompanies spicy Indian dishes, since the yogurt is great for putting out mouth fires. We also ordered some onion kulcha for our bread.



Rachel surprised me a bit and chose the "American" raspberry sorbet for her dessert. She got quite a large serving, and ate every bit, so I can only guess it was good.



I was more traditional and chose the kulfi, a pistachio-flavored, frozen, dairy dessert that is the ancestral precursor to today's ice cream and sherbets. I found their version to be very good.



I've been to Heritage twice now, and I can't wait to go back. The atmosphere and service are excellent and every time, the food has been top-notch. If you're looking for a nice Indian restaurant, I highly recommend this place.

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

A couple of weeks ago, Leo got home late from the office and wanted to go eat, so we went to the neighborhood "utility" restaurant, Marshall's Bar and Grille for a quick dinner.

Leo had an interesting daily special Mediterranean penne pasta dish with sundried tomatoes, garlic, black olives, and mozzarella cheese.



I had a daily special seafood salad. The term "seafood salad" just does not adequately describe this delicious salad. The base of the salad was some kind of puffy bread, which I guess must have been some kind of southern or western Asian flatbread. On top of the bread was a layer of regular, iceberg-heavy, salad greens. But on top of that was a wonderful melange of excellent seafood, including shrimp, scallops, and squid rings, all in large quantity, tossed with chopped tomato and onions, and dressed in a light, spicy, lemony dressing. Large lemon slices had been cut and put together like a three dimensional lemon slice and used to crown the top of the seafood. It was all so good, I practically wanted to lick the plate.



Leo had one of those weird cosmopolitan-type drinks, but I forgot which one. He said it was too sweet (which is why I drink ultrapremium gin martinis very very dry and without any weird little additions or adulterations). Meanwhile, I stuck to my iced tea.

La Chaumière, Georgetown, D.C.

Leo likes to celebrate birthdays with big dinners at nice restaurants. This year was no different, and we agreed upon La Chaumière in the east end of Georgetown, where Leo took me last night for my birthday this year. It's a place we've both been wanting to try for a couple of years, but we've never been around at the right time or when there were open tables, so this was something to which both of us were looking forward.

It was worth the wait.

La Chaumière—"the thatched cottage"—is a French place approximating a French country inn restaurant. The interior is arranged around a large, central fireplace, and French art and country tools and items adorn the walls. The menu is rather pricey, so we noticed the full dining room was filled with an older, well-dressed crowd, with almost all of the gentlemen in jackets and ties and the ladies in dresses.

We started by ordering a bottle of petit chablis from bin 15, but I forgot to write down the name of the winery. It was a lovely wine. I've missed chablis, which was the "vogue" white wine when I was in college, but today it seems like pinot grigios are the new vogue, supplanting the chardonnays, and chablis are seldom seen. It's too bad, since chablis is a more complex, fuller-bodied wine, especially since the cheap bottles for the "vogue" wine are no longer omnipresent.

Sorry about the dark, off-color, food photos to follow. The restaurant was full, the tables close together, and the patrons rather upscale, older, and quiet, so I thought the flash would be too disruptive and I tried to photograph everything using ambient lighting.

Our first course was a dozen huitres fraîches, which we split. The oysters were sharp and crisp and quite nicely plump. In addition to the traditional cocktail sauce and lemon wedges, a spicy vinegar also was offered for dipping. The oysters were clearly not the standard, every day raw oyster, but my French was not good enough to be able to ask our waitress exactly from whence our oysters came.



We diverged on our second course. I chose the soupe du jour, a very nice butternut squash purée enriched with just a little cream. There were still little pieces of squash in the soup to give it some texture, and I thought it quite good.



Leo, on the other hand, had one of their house specialities, the boudin blanc. This was a plump little link of a mild chicken and pork sausage served with little roasted apple chunks and sauced. He raved about the dish and the complexities of flavors, saying the apples provided a nice, refreshing sour balance to the sausage.



Our third courses were wonderful. Leo had the St. Jacques Provençale, the sea scallops with garlic and tomatoes. They were quite large, and the photo does not put the plate in proper scale. He reported that the scallops themselves were excellent, but he found the garlic, tomato, butter sauce to be a bit too salty.



I had one of the daily specials, fried sweetbreads with wild mushrooms—ris de veau frits avec les champignons sauvages. They were divine! Sweetbreads are one of my favorite foods, but due to their high perishability and their delicacy, they aren't often found, and amongst those places, few do them well. That certainly wasn't a problem at La Chaumière. My huge, oversized serving of sweetbreads rested upon the braised mushrooms and the dish was garnished with fanciful waffled potato crisp "wings."



For the fourth course, we ordered a salade maison, asking to split it. Well, we were only charged for one salad, but we each received this huge plate of their mixed French lettuces. If those were each just one-half, I can't imagine that salad as a subsidiary course—it would be a meal by itself! I liked the house dressing—a classic vinaigrette spiked with dijon-style mustard—and it was nice to have the salad in its traditional, proper place in the meal.



The fifth and final course—which we'd ordered at the beginning—was soufflés, a Grand Marnier one for Leo and a chocolate one for me. Soufflés are soufflés; either they come out or they don't. These, obviously, did, and were just fine. They came with individual sauce boats of crème anglaise to add as wanted, and I thought it tasted faintly as though spiked with a little brandy or cognac.





After dinner for coffees and demitasses (which neither of us ordered), Leo had a French 75 and I had a Hennessey VS cognac. I found it interesting that there is no bartender at La Chaumière; the waiters themselves have to act as bartender for their tables! Our waitress did not know what a French 75 was, so Leo told her the basics but not the truly correct recipe. He'd only mentioned champagne, gin, and lemon juice, forgetting to tell her about the sugar and the bitters. Oh, well, I think at that point, we didn't really care. I tasted a sip and it reminded me rather of a lemon mimosa (instead of the usual orange juice) with an odd punch from the junipery gin.



Thus we had a wonderful dinner.

After we walked home, though, there was more to come. Leo had gone to Bread and Chocolate and ordered this absolutely light, airy, and divine strawberry cream cake coated in slivvered almonds as a birthday cake! And, with that, we had a bottle of Trittico prosecco while I opened my birthday present. All this, and Leo didn't tell me to not have dessert at the restaurant! This is why I gained six pounds over the holidays.



Thanks, Leo, for everything!

Alamo Grill, Georgetown, D.C.

Ian and I decided to have dinner in Georgetown tonight as a combination farewell to fall semester and early Christmas celebration, and Ian was in the mood for Mexican food. So, we planned to dine at Alamo Grill on 31st Street between M Street and the canal.

We checked their Web site for hours (it said open til 11 p.m.) and then just to double check, I called about 8:30 and was told 11 p.m., so we walked all the way over to Georgetown, arriving about 9:45.

And they had already closed their kitchen! The manager came over and said basically the same thing, not being particularly sympathetic when I mentioned I'd called for the closing time and had walked all the way over from downtown. I sent him into the kitchen to see what might still be available, but when he returned, he said everything was already put away. He made no invitation to come back another night nor did he offer any kind of discount or free appetizer or something for a next visit as an "apology" for closing over an hour early.

So, my warning to you is not to make any special trips to Georgetown to eat at Alamo Grill.

Chef Geoff's Downtown, Washington, D.C.

After attending Christmas Lessons and Carols at St. John's, Robert and I wandered in to Chef Geoff's Downtown for brunch. A festive jazz quartet played Christmas songs in the front dining room. We wanted to be able to chat, though, so we asked to be seated in the back dining room.

The food was pretty much as usual. It's not bad, but it's not special. "Mediocre" is a word that doesn't really communicate well the quality of the food, since that word has more negative connotations, so, perhaps "average" is a better choice, but I don't know what to consider "average" for D.C.

Anyway, Robert had the eggs Benny, their version of eggs Benedict, with home fries. I noticed that the poached eggs, which are supposed to be served with runny yolks absent specific request, were actually a little beyond medium.



I had the American chopped salad including chicken, bacon, and blue cheese, but I found the lettuce to be rather limp (dressed before I'd ordered it?) and the salad to be very bland. With our meals, I had a mild bloody Mary and Robert had a couple of extra-spicy bloodies made with Absolute pepper vodka.



Dessert was better. Robert had a pear-cherry crisp topped with cinnamon ice cream that he thought quite good.



I had an interesting gingerbread trifle made with a thick butterscotch crème anglaise sauce and accompanied by a little poached pear resting in a pool of butterscotch crème anglaise.



After dessert, Robert had a glass of the Cockburn port. Then he decided to do a Kody Pose for us.



Chef Geoff's isn't a bad place, it's just more like an upscale Denny's. Lots of people love it and think the food is wonderful; I just have never shared that enthusiasm.

Tastee Diner, Bethesda, Md.

We don't always eat "gourmet" and "high end" foods at fancy restaurants. In fact, I actually have a great interest in greasy spoons and diners, but Svet is too much of a snob to eat diner food, Leo doesn't like American food and won't go, Ian doesn't eat red meats, etc., etc., etc., so I never get to go.

Fortunately, dear nephew likes diner food. Must be an Oklahoma thing. One day during his visit, we Metroed all the way up to Bethesda to the Tastee Diner, one of those classic American diners.

Ryan had breakfast, one of the usual and traditional menu offerings of the diner. He ordered a breakfast plate with two eggs over easy, two patties of sausage, fried potatoes, and a biscuit, plus an order of chocolate chip pancakes. He couldn't eat it all.



I had the turkey and dressing blue plate special that included mashed pototoes, gravy, pickled beets, cranberry sauce, and biscuits. Yum. I do like a restaurant that isn't afraid to use a little gravy on the plate.

Bistrot du Coin, Washington, D.C.

For nephew Ryan's last night in D.C. before flying to Oklahoma for Christmas break, he, Robert, and I went to Bistrot du Coin for a light supper. As it turned out, Robert only ate a little and Ryan didn't eat at all. I think it was all that French alcohol.

We started out with a late celebration of beaujolais nouveau night in mid-November with a bottle of Bouchard Aîné & Fils Beaujolais Nouveau 2006. I liked it quite a bit. Much like the Dubouef, it's a fruity wine this year, but the Bouchard had a lot more substance and complexity to it.

Meanwhile, we ordered food. Ryan didn't have anything but the free bread. Robert ordered the escargot à la bourguignonne. These are the classic French snails in garlic butter, but at du Coin they aren't served in shells, they come in a ceramic snail dish.



I had the pâté de campagne maison, a rustic country-style pork pâté accompanied by a tiny salad, cornichons, and delicious black olives, with some slices of grilled bread.



Robert wanted dessert, and they have some nice ones here. He selected the “La Tropezienne”, a very prettily assembled almond-studded brioche filled with orange blossom custard, then served over a mirror of light custard sauce and raspberry coulis.



After dessert, both Robert and Ryan had snifters of some of the more expensive cognacs on the menu. Ryan didn't really like the cognac, so he just chugged it. Alas. I keep trying to tell him how to appreciate fine wines and cognacs, but he persists in the college frat boy approach of just drinking to get drunk.



To wash down the cognac flavor, I guess, Ryan decided to order a glass of a very sweet, syrupy German eiswein that, naturally since it was sweet, he liked a lot. I think it was his first eiswein, since he didn't know why the stuff was so expensive or how it was made (the grapes are allowed to freeze on the vine to concentrate the sugar before they are made into wine).

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

Our friend Maxwell took nephew Ryan and me to brunch after we visited his church and watched him play altar boy.

He likes to cocktail, so he picked Annie's Paramount Steakhouse, where I've been many, many times for dinner, but never before dark; this was my first brunch there.

Max, an unrepentent southern Virginian from an FFV family, lives just a few blocks from the church, and always drives there. I guess it's an old Southern tradition. That was convenient, though, since he could drive us up to Annie's. The problem, however, is that we had to drive around for nearly fifteen minutes before he found a parking place big enough for his car!

Once we got there, it was clear that the entire staff knew Max and we quickly had a non-stop flow of bloody Marys coming to the table.

Meanwhile, Ryan decided he had to have some barbecued ribs, so he ordered a rib appetizer with three big ribs. As you can tell, he was ravenously hungry. And he didn't share.

Once we got to our main courses, everything was quite good. I always like Annie's; the steaks are good but still inexpensive. Max had steak and eggs with fried potatoes and fresh fruit.



Ryan had French toast with two big links of sausage, fried potatoes, and fresh fruit.



I ordered the country fried steak. What I got was delicious though totally not what I was expecting; they brought me a sirloin steak that had been sliced into fingers, dredged in flour and fried, then doused with gravy. I had country fries with mine.



Nobody did dessert, even Ryan. I think everyone preferred just to have another bloody Mary and call it dessert. After all, tomatoes are fruits, you know.

So, that was brunch at Annie's. Very good, as usual. Now that I realize they are open in the daytime (LOL), I may have to go back. Thanks to Max for his usual Southern hospitality.