What's happening to our forks?

Have you noticed the Great Restaurant Anti-Fork Conspiracy?

Perhaps, in this day and age of legal review and risk analysis of everything businesses do, restaurants have decided to minimize their customers' access to forks. Given the cost of restaurant checks these days, that might be a prudent decision. Or, perhaps in an even more sinister development, the blacklisting of the fork could be part of the insidious plan of conservative Christianity to dictate morality in even more facets of our lives. After all, when forks first began to be popular in Italy and began to move into France at the end of the 16th century, many leaders of the Church condemned forks as an insult to God, as He had already provided us with fingers to serve as our natural forks.

One of my friends argues with me over issues of what constitutes "proper" English when I despair of use of the language on television and in students' papers, and he says that common usage and common pronunciation makes English "proper." He extrapolates that argument to the flatware scenario and says that rules of etiquette change with usage patterns and the evolution of the lower classes into the targets of marketers and advertisers, thus making the habits of people who don't know any better the new standard of etiquette.

I don't think, though, that the current conspiracy is a matter of evolution. I think it's an economic decision being made by restaurants—restaurants that are trying to force their penny-pinching ways onto American society as though it were proper. These are the same people, after all, who created "California service" for their convenience in entertaining guests while the food cooked and made having a green salad at the beginning of a meal "normal," instead of having salads in their proper place between the main course and dessert. (Before you assail me for having outmoded and stuffy ideas of food etiquette, think back to how many times you've dined, filled up on salad and/or bread, and then not been hungry for your expensive main course that you ate anyway and then left the restaurant bloated and miserable.)

As Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is coming to Virginia next week to observe the quadracentennial of Jamestown colony (not to mention going to the Kentucky Derby), followed by a state visit to the District of Columbia and a visit with her cousin President George W. Bush, this seems like the perfect time to examine our customs, traditions, and table etiquette. After all, our American rules were established by the court traditions of Her Majesty's great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.

Now, forks are a tool of Western society. Asian society, of course, long has used chopsticks for eating its meals. Other non-Western societies favor eating with fingers or by using pieces of bread as a scooper. The ancient Romans were known to have flat, two-pronged serving utensils that were early forks, but the idea of individual fork flatware actually developed in the Middle East and came to the Italian region from the Byzantine Empire a little over a millenium ago. When Catherine de Medici left Florence in 1533 to marry the future Henri II and become queen of France, she took with her the custom of the fork. Catherine somehow was the arbiter of fashion and the source of many of our customs today, as she not only brought the fork, she brought Italian style cooking and lavish banquets to France to become what we now know as haute cuisine; she was the first woman to wear high-heeled shoes and she started the custom of the corset; she even is credited with bringing ballet to France. Soon after Catherine's death, it became the custom for noble guests to bring their own forks in elaborate carrying cases to dinner parties. The use of forks spread throughout Europe, becoming popular in England by the 18th century, and with a variety of specialized fork designs and purposes being developed. That, of course, is the European tradition that came to the United States.

The design of forks as used in America became standardized in England during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Some of these forks may seem a little precious to us today, but they are the established standard, and many people have inherited—if not purchased themselves—some of these specialty forks, so they continue in use today in the 21st century.

Yet, many Americans know only of two types of forks: the dinner fork and the salad fork. Why? Because restaurants, for their convenience and economics, consolidated forks and made them multi-purpose.

If we think about it, many of us who have been privileged to dine at one of the better seafood restaurants may also have experience with yet a third type of fork, the small, trident-shaped seafood fork. Even at the better restaurants, though, fork consolidation is rampant, with most diners being compelled to use salad forks as dessert forks and sometimes even as forks for appetizers and hors d'oeuvres.

Outside of the better restaurants, though, fork consolidation reaches its pinnacle. Sadly, even mid-range restaurants are trying to get by with using just one fork for an entire meal. How many times have you been asked as the waiter removes a plate if you would like to keep your fork? I have even had waiters remove my fork from a plate and set it down on the bare table! Sometimes about the only way one can get a clean fork is to "accidentally" knock the used one onto the floor, at which time the waiter will begrudgingly give you not a single new fork, but a packet of fork, knife, and teaspoon wrapped tightly in a napkin. Such a sorry, sorry state of affairs.

But fork consolidation isn't what prompted me to write this post. It's the disappearance of the fork altogether.

Just last night, while dining with a friend in Arlington, he was served a very complex dessert encased in a pastry shell, accompanied with a little ice cream, and he was not given a dessert fork (we won't even comment on the lack of an ice cream fork). The waitress brought the dessert with a fresh teaspoon. A teaspoon!

My friend, who prides himself on his non-pretentiousness and his "common touch," grumbled about the lack of a fork, and ultimately "stole" one from the place setting of an adjacent table. How do you eat that kind of a dessert with a spoon?

As we talked about his forklessness, it began to occur to us that in the last dozen or so times we'd gone to dinner, his desserts had always been served with spoons! Now, that might be understandable on those occasions he ordered ice cream, but during these meals, he'd usually had cake, cheesecake, brownies, fruit pies, and complex combination desserts. Yet not a single dessert came with forks.

It has to be a conspiracy.

I don't know whether restaurants are just trying to train customers to use that usually-unused teaspoon that shows up in their "napkin-pac," or if they are trying to eliminate fork—and eventually knifes, too—use altogether, forcing everyone to use spoons exclusively.

This is wrong. This is unnatural. This is an abomination. It must be stopped!

I am reminded of an explanation of Dante's famous epic poem, The Inferno, wherein Dante visited the depths of Hell and returned to explain the varying and more and more terrible punishments in different levels of Hell. Dante found that the first awful and terrible level of Hell was reserved for Catholics who ate meat on Fridays. As he descended the depths into the next and more horrible level of Hell, he found a place reserved for Jews and Muslims who ate pork. And finally as he ventured into the deepest, most terrifying, most dreadful place in Hell, he found the place reserved for Episcopalians who ate their entrees with a salad fork.

Perhaps you think my complaint petty. Perhaps you see no big deal about multi-purpose forks or even being forced to eat desserts with spoons. But mark my words, the erosion of our system of eating utensils is the beginning of the end of American society as we know it. If this isn't stopped, before long we will all be relegated to chopsticks and tablespoons. And then not long after that, everything will be served in sandwiches and wraps and we'll no longer have silverware, we'll all be eating with our hands and fingers like those primates from whom we evolved. Evolution will have returned full circle into our ultimate deevolution.

For those who care, for those who worry about the future of mankind and our future generations, let me take a moment to introduce you to our at-risk standards of proper fork utensils. Above you see an example of a dinner fork. A proper dinner fork will feel substantial and will range in size from six to eight inches in length. Naturally, for many purposes, eight inches is too big. So, let me tell you about the smaller forks in our silverware repertoire.

Here are some pictures of some of my more favorite forks. Since these are all from my favorite sterling pattern, Grande Baroque, you can get a little bit of an idea of the scale of these forks, since the decorative ends are actually all the same size, so where they look big in the picture, the fork is actually smaller, and where they look small, the fork is larger. None of these forks are going to be longer than six inches.



On the left is a dessert fork. In the number two position is the well-known salad fork, and I placed these two forks side by side so you could compare them. The dessert fork is a little longer, but the most important difference is in the tines. The two tines on one side are merged into one bigger tine, thus creating a little bit of a cutting edge for those desserts that require a little bit of minor "cutting," such as cakes, pies, or pastries. In a similar vein is the fork in the number three position, the fish fork. While there is such a thing as a fish knife, many people find their fish sufficiently delicate that they are able to "cut" the serving of fish with the edge of their fork, hence the thicker lower tine. Fourth you will see an ice cream fork. Yes, ice cream is properly eaten with a fork. The ice cream fork is probably the precursor of the "spork" we see in some fast-food restaurants, though the ice cream fork is nearly flat and does not have a bowl as do sporks. Fifth is the long-tined "strawberry" or fruit fork, used for impaling pieces of fresh fruit and delivering them to the mouth. And, finally, we see the trident-shaped seafood fork used especially for things like oysters on the half shell, crab, and lobster.

You are empowered with knowledge. Now that I have educated you, I urge you to go forth and use your new-found wisdom to stop this awful restaurant anti-fork conspiracy and to preserve the American way.

Afghan Kabob Restaurant, Springfield, Va.

Yesterday was such a warm, sunny day, I ventured down to Springfield to help my friend Mark prepare his front flower bed and back patio for spring and summer. He's kind of like me in that we get this burst of gardening energy in April that loses steam in May and then disappears altogether for the summer, so these things needed a bit more work. When we finished, he took me to dinner at Afghan Kabob Restaurant there in Springfield.

Afghan is a nice white-tablecloth kind of place in a suburban strip mall that was surprisingly busy for a Sunday evening. I was even more surprised that there were so many tables of families with young children--usually kids don't like "adventurous" foods. There was an empty table, so we were able to be seated right away. The decor was simple with pink wainscoated walls and lots of windows. One interior wall boasted four large, long, amateur paintings of what I presumed were scenes of Afghanistan. In between the windows on another wall were a portrait of Afghani President Karzai and a painted map of the regions of the country. The most interesting thing about the decor happened at sundown. They had a series of red lights on the ceiling throughout the dining room that they turned on, and between the regular lighting, the red lighting, and the pink walls, the room took on an orange glow that I think was intended to evoke a sense of campfire light.

The menu wasn't terrible large, but there were still many many things from which to choose, and as this was my first visit to an Afghani restaurant, it was challenging.

We both got green salads with a yogurt dressing with our entrees. They also brought a plate of spiced rice, a little bowl of a hot, spicy yogurt sauce called maust, and a bowl of a tomatoey meat sauce with a little meatball in the middle called qurma.




Mark's main course was called shami. This was a plate of seasoned ground beef formed into shapes that could go around a kabob skewer. It was quite strikingly presented on a large, long piece of nan flat bread.



I got the quabili palau, another grilled kabob, only mine was lamb. They put the lamb on the bottom of the plate, then covered it with a huge mound of spiced rice, and topped it with a sweet mix of fried carrot strips and raisins. It was quite unusual, and they encouraged me to use a lot of the meat sauce on it.



We shared a dessert. They were out of a couple of our first choices, so we ended up with the gosh-e-feel, something that reminded me very much of those fried wontons/crab rangoon we often see in Chinese restaurants, except this was sweet with cinnamon and powdered sugar, plus grated pistachio nuts all over the top. They were little, light, crispy things. Along with our dessert, we were given complimentary Afghan tea, a light yellow brew with a predominant cardamom flavor, in clear glass coffee mugs.



Mark reluctantly acquiesced to posing for a Kody Pose. He's holding a glass of dogh. Most of the Middle Eastern and south Asian cultures have a yogurt drink, and this is the Afghan offering. It was a little salty and included tiny cucumber dice and minced mint. This particular type also had a little ice in it, but I think it's probably normally drunk at room temperature, so the ice was for American palates. I liked it; I'm not sure Mark was so wild about it.



Afghan Kabob Restaurant is a pleasant place and moderately priced. Service was attentive. The owner came through the dining room several times to make sure that everyone was satified and taken care of. I look forward to another visit so I can try some of the other things on the menu.

Zen Bistro and Wine Bar, Arlington, Va.

Ian and I headed to Pentagon City for some quick shopping last night before things closed. Once we got there, though, he decided he was hungry and that we absolutely had to eat dinner before we could shop. So, we ended up on Pentagon Row to dine at Zen Bistro and Wine Bar, a fairly new place that opened up just this past year.

Zen is a fairly small, narrow place in the row of trendy restaurants that flanks the wintertime ice skating rink at Pentagon Row. The decor is sleek and contemporary, with deep reds and oranges as the colors throughout. We were given large menus; page after page of the menu was filled with wines and cocktails. Finally, the very last two pages had food.

We each started off with the Zen house salad. It was a nice mix of American-style greens with large slices of cucumber and tomato with a big wad of carrots shreds on top and a couple of slices of toast all presented on white, triangular plates and dressed in a ginger-balsalmic vinaigrette.

Dinner arrived mere minutes after the salads had arrived. I always have to remember that the service à la russe European tradition of presenting foods in separate courses is not a tradition shared by eastern Asian cultures. Nonetheless, with all these pan-Asian fusion places catering to the non-Asian, trendy American crowd, I keep thinking they'll start dealing more with courses and order, especially since at this place, they are doing separate salads and desserts.

Ian chose the rice claypot for his main course. It's basically a fried brown rice with chicken. It was supposed to have had bean sprouts, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots, but he ordered it without them. I thought it was a cute presentation idea.



I had the orange peel chicken. It was pretty good, with a sweet orange sauce that wasn't too terribly sweet. My only criticism was that the chunks of chicken were just a little too big...they needed to be half that size to be easily eaten with chopsticks. The chicken came with rice molded in the shape of a pyramid.



Ian is a dessert addict, so he had to have something. He seriously considered the chocolate lava, but ended up with the chocolate mousse cake, a confection with layers of flourless mousse cake divided with layers of mousse, garnished with a large dollop of whipped cream.



I usually don't do dessert, but he talked me into it, and I got the the cabernet pear tart. The tart was rather a bit like a pear clafouti with a top layer of jellied cabernet red wine. The smallish slice was garnished with sliced almonds, a half orange slice, and with whipped cream and a cherry on the side.



I never appear in the Kody Pose lineups, so Ian insisted on taking my picture. Here, I'm holding the mango bubble tea I ordered at the beginning of the meal. It was rather an unusual bubble tea, since it was much more like a mango slushie and didn't seem to have any tea at all. Also, the "bubbles" weren't the usual spheres of tapioca, but were tiny diced cubes instead.



After dinner, **finally** we got to shop. And shop we did, until we'd completely charged up Ian's credit card.

RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C.

Once again, it's that time of year when baseball games happen incessantly throughout the week. I allowed Ian to drag me to a Nationals/Phillies game last night, along with and courtesy of our friend Robert, who graciously arranged for free admission courtesy of some of his many rich and powerful lobbyist friends.

The food inside the stadium was exhorbitantly expensive for tiny servings. I had a barbecued pulled pork sandwich from the Red Hot & Blue stand that couldn't have been more than three or three and a half inches in diameter for $9.75! There was just a little piece of dry, bare pork on there, and even with sauce, it didn't perk up. I found a margarita at Cantina Marina that was tasty, though low in tequila. After my disappointing sandwich, I started to get one of those little mini pizzas, but the ones I saw looked dessicated and nasty; I ended up with stadium nachos and lots of fiery hot jalapeno slices.

Robert was enjoying the plethora of beers available inside, though at $6.50 per little plastic cup, I think he limited himself to three or four. Robert also had (that I saw) a big half smoke sausage and a big pretzel. Ian had his usual chicken fingers and fries with a $4 can of Pepsi. I thought the chicken looked overcooked and dry. Later, he got his traditional Dippin' Dots.

I wonder if the food service will be better (and cheaper!) when they move to the new stadium next year?

Pizzario Uno, Georgetown, D.C.

Last night Ian and I decided that we were hungry about ten o'clock, neither of us having had dinner. He made me walk all the way to Georgetown in that brisk, cold wind so we could go to Pizzaria Uno, since he wanted dessert and thought theirs were the best.

Eating more healthily, I chose a Cobb salad. It's usually difficult to mess up those. Their offering was good, with the one noticable substitution of cucumbers for the avocado.



Ian also had a salad, picking a side Caesar with the dressing on the side (since he never uses the dressing, I don't know why he always orders it on the side).



Then for his main course, Ian picked an appetizer called "pizza skins." I guess he was sort of continuing my trend from Sunday with the Eggs Idaho at Chadwick's. They made little deep dish pizzas and topped them with mashed potatoes, cheese, bacon, and the other usual stuff for potato skins. He seemed to like them.



Of course, what he really liked was the reason we went to Uno's in the first place: dessert. He got a deep dish chocolate sundae, which is a big chocolate chip cookie that is fresh-baked in a little round deep-dish pizza pan, then topped with ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. He could only eat about 2/3rds of it.

Chadwick's, Georgetown, D.C.

After Mass yesterday, Drew and I walked from the church all the way through Georgetown, down to the river, where we chose to brunch at Chadwick's, one of those old, traditional Georgetown bar/restaurants that's been there for decades.

The host immediately seated us at a table upstairs, a pleasant surprise, since often restaurants are packed for brunch if one isn't there early or late. Our server quickly came by to offer us our glasses of champagne (they do unlimited champagne at brunch) and bring our menus.

They had their full menu available, but we opted to stick with brunch offerings. Drew chose the steak and eggs, getting a nice little strip steak, a couple of eggs over easy, and homefries.



I got something called "Eggs Idaho," an unusual invention that is akin to potato skins topped with scrambled eggs, bacon, green onions, and cheddar cheese.



Chadwick's is a cosy place, with lots of dark wood paneling and wood tables and benches. Our waitress was very friendly and kept our glasses full. Naturally, Drew had to do a Kody Pose!

IHOP, Arlington, Va.

One little entree I ordered tonight, and I got five sauces! I ordered a seafood sampler platter with baked fish, fried fish, fried shrimp, and French fries, for which I was provided hollandaise sauce, tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, and ketchup.....plus, there was a salad dressing/sauce for the included side salad.

Ian, of course, didn't have nearly the saucy adventure I had, since he ordered his standard IHOPian chicken fingers dinner with a honey mustard sauce he never uses and a Caesar salad with dressing on the side he never uses, so all he got to use was a little tomato ketchup for his fries. Oh, he had another one of those fried banana cheesecakes with ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel sauce, so I guess he got *two* sauces tonight.

Robert didn't get to join in on any of our fun. He ordered the Rooty Tooty Fast and Fruity breakfast, or whatever they call it. It was just a couple of pieces of bacon, a couple of sausages, a couple of fried eggs, and a couple of pancakes, and not a sauce in sight.

Nam-Viet Pho-79 Vietnamese Cuisine

Nam-Viet is a Vietnamese restaurant just around the corner from the office on one of the side streets. They have three restaurants in town; I was at the Clarendon location. It looks very modest from the outside, but inside it was a nice place with tablecloths and a full menu of Vietnamese items. I tried the pho, the traditional Vietnamese soup with noodles, beef, bean sprouts, and several different green vegetables. Unfortunately, I found it rather ordinary, with the beef tasting as though the flavor had been boiled out of it. Other dishes I saw on other tables looked and smelled quite good, though, so perhaps next time I'll have a regular entree.

Mexicali Blues, Arlington, Va.

Recently I was wandering around alone in Clarendon and happened upon Mexicali Blues, so I stopped in for lunch. Something simple sounded appropriate, so I got the nachos with beef. The nachos in and of themselves were pretty bland and unspectacular and even the jalapeños themselves were lacking zing. The beef, though, was very good—they'd stewed and shredded beef, and aside from making the nacho chips soggy, I thought the beef was quite tasty. I think my choice of Mexican food may have been wrong; I later noticed that the ladies in the kitchen were Salvadoran, and many of the decorations on the tables and walls were from El Salvador. On my next trip (if there is a next trip), I think I'll ask for Salvadoran food. The place stays open late, but I think the emphasis is more on the bar and the cerveza rather than the food.

Clarendon Grill, Arlington, Va.

We went to the Clarendon Grill for lunch earlier this week. I had a cowboy steak salad that was good, though I was expecting the steak to be sliced up instead of in one big piece on top, and Matt had the crab cake sandwich that he thought was good. The place is very casual. We were there for a late lunch a little after one and there were only two other tables; I've noticed the place is always packed in the evenings, though, and they often feature live bands and music.

Dish Caterers, Silver Spring, Md.

Thursday I hosted a luncheon meeting in our office conference room for the members of our community advisory board. I wanted something different, so we got from a Silver Springs caterer, Dish, a mango chutney salad, a niçoise salad (tuna, potatoes, green beans, black olives), a spinach salad with strawberries, diced red onion, and sliced almonds, and a very interesting red colulsari and bamboo rice salad (both grains) with dried cherries and a champagne vinaigrette. We also had some turkey and vegetarian wraps. We had lots of leftovers! I'd ordered for exactly the number who came, but people just took little tiny servings. After our meeting and a subsequent staff meeting, I let our office staff eat up the leftovers. I like this place....we'll use them again.

Faculty Club, Georgetown, D.C.

Yesterday, my assistant Matt and I were on the main campus so I took him to the Faculty Club for lunch. The club is okay. They only do breakfast and lunch, then brunch on weekends, and they do have a full bar, but the food is all buffet (yet well prepared), so it's not really my favorite place to go.

We both started with salads from the large salad bar selection that included a number of more costly items like artichokes, hearts of palm, feta cheese, and a big selection of fresh berries and fruit. The entree selections included a baked fish, a Mexican chicken (looked like baked quarters), some delicious pork tenderloin with a red onion compote that I had, and the pasta station (complete with cook to prepare pasta to order) was featuring linguine with a red clam sauce that Matt had (I think he had pork, too). There was a large selection of vegetables; I had the peas with pearl onions and the sauteed cubes of turnip. The dessert bar had cheesecake, carrot cake, coconut cream cake, lemon cake, chocolate cake, bread pudding, a light red whipped mousse-looking substance in oversized martini glasses, and that big selection of fresh fruit on the salad bar (I had raspberries).

Bistro Français, Georgetown, D.C.

When Ian got back to town Monday night, he insisted that we go to Bistro Français. I decided to try something different for a change, since the artichoke vinaigrette I'd planned on having was being substituted by asparagus vinaigrette that night, selecting the "Sylvester." This was a turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with house-made mayonnaise on a chunk of French baguette, and somewhat understated. It came with an order of their very nice fries. I always find it hard to eat sandwiches in French restaurants with their tough, chewy bread, but that is the nature of the beast, since the French abhor American commercial sliced white bread.

Ian had (surprise LOL) the herb and Swiss cheese omelette, which also came with fries. I should do an omelette here sometime, since they always look plump and fluffy. After his omelette, he had chocolate cake—a multi-layer gateau—with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. He said the cake was a bit dry, but then again, it's a French restaurant and that is the nature of the beast....this is why the French slice their cakes into thinner layers, sprinkle the layers with alcohol, and then very often use fruit or cream fillings between the layers.

Taste of Morocco, Arlington, Va.

Earlier tonight Robert went to Clarendon with me to help move some furniture around in my office and take a bunch of books up to fill my bookcases. We decided to eat dinner there. The first couple of places we tried were closed, but we noticed that the dozen or so ethnic restaurants in the area were all open, so we headed to one Robert hadn't tried, Taste of Morocco, the Moroccan place I discovered a couple of weeks ago.

They were doing pretty good business for a Sunday night in a small, out of the way, restaurant location. People continued to come in the entire time we were there.

Robert, being unfamiliar with Moroccan foods, wanted to try one of the set dinners for two, so we picked the Walima dinner. As always, the meal starts with complimentary bread and some delicious, garlicky black olives. All together, they brought soup and salad. The harrira soup is an interesting blend of chickpeas, lentils, and rice served with a particularly unique traditional spoon, a hemisphere on a long handle. Salad was an assortment of cucumber salad, cooked carrot salad, and an eggplant salad.



Next, as a sort of hot appetizer, we got a chicken bastilla to share. The bastilla is a mixture of chicken, almonds, onion, and spices wrapped in layers of crispy phyllo dough, then flattened into a disk and baked; it is garnished with cinnamon and powdered sugar before being served, and that garnish gives the dish an unexpected sweetness.



Our main courses each arrived in traditional tagine cone-shaped pottery dishes. One was a chicken tagine with lemons and green olives and the other was a lamb tagine with raisins and almonds. A plate of saffron rice accompanied the meats.




After the meal, they brought us a plate with a banana, apple, and orange and a pot of hot, sweet, Moroccan mint tea. It was a sweet ending to a very enjoyable evening.

Slavic D.C.

Saturday afternoon there was a Slavic Festival on the square at George Washington University, across the street from me. Robert rang me and said he was there and they had free food, so I wandered over.

We found a Croatian booth that was giving away Croatian food. It was interesting, and I'm not sure how "authentic" some of it was, but it was definitely a taste experience. Starting from the six o'clock position, then going clockwise, was a stew of chicken, sausage, and red and yellow bell peppers; the black stuff was rice with cuttlefish called crni rižot made black from the cuttlefish ink; the light brown food was a rice with seafood dish; at the top was a pasta dish with penne and bowtie shapes with vegetables and a light sauce. They chopped off slices of French baguettes as bread for the meal.



Other booths had various types of cakes and desserts and I even later saw a booth with salads and pickled vegetables, but we didn't try it.

They set up a big stage on the far end of the square where various traditional dancers and musicians performed. While we were there, they had some folk dancers performing to recorded music, but they were blasting the music through massed speakers so loudly, not only could we not hear to talk, the sound was nearly painful. We ended up leaving just to escape the noise.

Redeux

What would a weekend be without Ian dragging me out to an IHOP?

This is the dessert Ian had—a fried cheesecake with bananas, ice cream, whipped cream, caramel sauce, and a cherry.

Silver Diner, Arlington, Va.

Even though I was well fed yesterday, Ian called and wanted to come down to Clarendon for dinner. So, I acquiesced; we went to Silver Diner.

Ian ordered their chicken tenders platter. It came with fries and a little bowl of cole slaw on the platter, preceded by a salad or soup (he chose a Caesar salad). I got the country fried steak with mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and a drop biscuit, preceded by a mixed green salad. My steak was okay. They used two different kinds of gravy, a cream sausage gravy on the meat and some kind of beef vegetable sauce on the mashed potatoes (next time I'll ask for the cream gravy over all).

For dessert, Ian had an enormous piece of multi-layer, moist, dark, chocolate chip studded, chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. I didn't even get to sample a piece!

We had the same waiter who tended to Ryan, Brian, Riley, and me last week.

Ian took pictures with his cell phone. He still hasn't uploaded them. Wanna see the pictures? Call or write Ian and demand that he upload the pics *NOW*!!! :-)

Sushi Sushi, Washington, D.C.

After attending Sunday morning services at the National Cathedral, Brian, Riley, and I ventured into Cleveland Park for brunch, ultimately selecting Sushi Sushi for its outdoor patio seating. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day!

Brian had never had sushi before, and it took us some effort to coerce him into willingly trying the restaurant. I think he ended up enjoying it and having a good culinary experience.

Brian stayed "safe" with his food choices, opting for vegetable tempura and chicken yakitori (those grilled strips of meat on skewers). He also sampled the miso soup and tried the salad (which had an interesting ginger vinaigrette instead of the usual sesame dressing).




Riley was considerably more adventurous, but he's an old fan of sushi. He's also quite a good Episcopalian, since he always orders a drink with every meal; this time it was a bottle of the higher-end Kirin Japanese beer. He selected three large sushi rolls. The ocean roll is a combination of salmon, yellowtail, red snapper, crab, and avocado that are flash-deep-fried just long enough to put a little crispiness on the outside of the foods before they are rolled up in the rice and nori. The sunny delight roll is basically a California roll (avocado and cooked crabmeat)with salmon on top and accompanied by a spicy-sweet sauce. The spider roll has softshell crab, avocado, scallions, and masago fish roe, also deep-fried to cook the crab and give the dish some crunch before it it all rolled up, and it same with its own mayonnaise-looking sauce.





I had been chatting too much to really make a selection and pay attention to the menu, so when the waitress came back again to take our orders, I just got the sushi combination platter. There were five pieces of assorted fish sushi and two rolls, a tuna roll and a California roll. It also came with a bowl of miso and a little lettuce salad. We enticed Brian to try the sushi rolls. He actually liked the California roll, but the tuna roll was a bit adventurous for him and he spit it out!



For dessert I got the mochi, green tea ice cream inside an odd, sticky sort of rice covering.



I think Sushi Sushi is very good. The food all had a fresh "sea" taste to it without being old and fishy and the service was solicitous. They might want to consider adding more awnings or umbrellas to their patio, since the sun quickly heats up the raw fish, but other than that, it was a very enjoyable experience.

Dakota Cowgirl, Washington, D.C.

Saturday, everyone ended up going their separate ways for last minute sightseeing and activities, and somehow I ended up spending the entire day with Brian. He actually got up "early" (the Gang of Three spent the week partying all night and sleeping all day), since there was a flea market he wanted to go to that started at noon. After the flea market, we grabbed a quick lunch at Dakota Cowgirl.

Dakota Cowgirl is located in the same spot as the former Hamburger Mary's. I understand it's basically the same owners and restaurant, but local ownership made the decision to separate from the national Hamburger Mary's franchise. The dining has been spruced up just a little bit and the menu changed to give things different names, but otherwise it's a very similar dining experience.

Brian ordered the chicken salad sandwich, with the addition of a slice of American cheese on top. It came with fries that Brian thought were particularly good.



I had the large size nachos appetizer. It came in a little cardboard basket and was somewhat smaller than I'd anticipated. The chips came in multi-colors and the chili they used for meat was a bit on the thin (and hence liquid) side; otherwise, they tasted like normal nachos with minimal hot spice.

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

Late, late Friday night, Brian, Jim (a friend of his who's a charming Southerner from South Carolina who was a Department of Justice retiree) and I went to Annie's Paramount Steakhouse for breakfast.

Jim ate lightly, getting just a bowl of the Maryland crab soup (regular Friday night soup of the day).



Brian got a grilled chicken sandwich with jack cheese on it, and I got a barbecued pork sandwich. Both of our sandwiches came with home fried potatoes.




That's the first time I've ever had anything at Annie's that wasn't beef, and I thought the pork sandwich was really good. I particularly liked the fact that the sauce wasn't soupy or too sweet.