Restaurant Eve, Alexandria, Va.

Our friend Mike from Atlanta came to Washington for a whirlwind business trip Thursday to inspect his company's coal-burning pollution power plant in Alexandria. He was gracious enough to invite Robert, Ryan, and me to join him for lunch.

I made reservations for us all at Restaurant Eve, the place that opened about three years ago that launched the Old Town Alexandria fine dining phenomenon. Located in an old Federal-era building just off Old Town's main drag, King Street, Restaurant Eve is excitedly mentioned as the best place in Alexandria and one of the top ten places in the Washington metropolitan area. Eve is actually two restaurants in one, with an exquisite fine dining "tasting room" and a more casual "bistro." The cuisine is official American with French influences, but the chef-owner is Irish, and I think his Irishness influences his recipes much more than the French thoughts. While they have vegan menu options, with the full menu and all the ham and bacon in everything, it's not a place for those seeking kosher or halal foods.

Now, I would have liked to have tried the tasting room, but that is only open at dinner, and Mike had a train to catch at seven to take him to Philadelphia, thus, that was out. So, we lunched in the bistro by a window looking out onto an interior courtyard. Several of my friends have been, but I never had, so I was excited to try it and to let connoisseur Mike try Alexandria's finest.

We started with cocktails. Another of Eve's reputations is for excellent and creative cocktails. While Robert got his usual Dewar's on the rocks (or "rock," in this case, as a single large chunk chilled his glass) and Michael got a Scarlett O'Hara (Southern Comfort with hand-pressed cranberry juice), Ryan got an intriguing "Eve's Temptation," a frappé with freshly squeezed Granny Smith apple juice, green apple vodka, powdered sugar, and an apple-cinnamon Altoid mint. I tasted it, and, wow! it was sour! I wanted one of their bloody Marys made with "tomato water" instead of tomato juice, but they were out of tomato water; then I ordered their New Age Gibson made with saffron-infused vermouth and saffron-marinated cocktail onions, but their were out of saffron vermouth; I settled for a glass of sauvignon blanc.



For our first courses, Robert had the steak tartare. He got quite an ample serving, and the raw, chopped beef was mixed with various spices and herbs. Salad greens and pumpernickel bread accompanied the meat, with large dots of stone-ground mustard adorning the plate.



Mike got the bacon, egg, and cheese salad, an almost breakfasty salad with free-form poached egg and morsels of house-cured pork loin bacon, and liberally enriched with shavings of three-year-old white Wisconsin cheddar cheese, all on neatly arranged leaves of trimmed romaine hearts.



Ryan selected the soup of the day, a roasted squash cream soup enriched with green herb oil (I didn't taste it, so I'm not sure which one), toasted pumpkin seeds, and fresh thyme.



I had the oxtail ravioli with toasted pumpkin seeds in a beef reduction sauce with some matchsticks of butternut squash.



As lunch proceeded at a leisurely pace, we moved on to our main courses, all ordering from the standard luncheon menu items. Robert got the pork belly confit presented atop a bed of cranberry beans. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but Robert seemed to like it. He also got a side order of mushroom risotto. It was covered with grated cheese (parmesan?) and served with a little demi-glace.




Mike got a croque monsieur-style sandwich made with ham and gruyere cheese. It came with some French cornichon pickles and hand-cut potato chips. He also ordered a side of roasted fingerling potatoes.




Ryan and I both got fish. Ryan got the Arctic char with braised lentils and ham hock. It looked nice, and I'd thought about getting it myself. I don't think he was wild about the lentils, though. He also got an order of the fingerling potatoes.



I had the Chatham Bay cod brandade with olives and dried tomatoes and some morsels of bacon. The cod was very nicely done, cooked through but still moist.



We moved on to dessert. Robert had a quince tart. It came with a little egg-shaped scoop of ice cream (was it crème fraîche?), but I forgot what flavor it was. Mike had the butterscotch crème brulée topped with a couple of little cookies and some vanilla ice cream. Ryan had their famous birthday cake, all frosted in pink buttercream and dusted with multicolored sprinkles (he loved it; I had a small bite and thought the cake was a bit dry), but, surprisingly, lacking ice cream. I had the apple-gingerbread upside down cake with a little scoop of caramel crème fraîche presented on some apple slices. The crème fraîche has a very different mouth feel from ice cream, since it's not as cold and it has a heavier "fat" feel on the tongue. Both the birthday cake and gingerbread came with a little crème anglaise on the plate.




Our waiter was personable and efficient, and we never were overburdened by too gratuitous staff. Other staff assisted him as needed, such as when a course was being served.

After dessert, Mike and I both had a cup of coffee. It was pretty good, the beans roasted in the French style, and the waiter brought it in a silver French press. A little anisette-scented biscotti accompanied each cup.

Now, I was a little bit disappointed with the Restaurant Eve experience. The food was delicious, the setting elegant and comfortable, and the service excellent, but I was expecting more.

The restaurant has such a high reputation, with very high prices to match, I wanted a greater level of perfection in the presentation and execution of the food. They can't blame assistants for the presentation, since I saw the chef-owner as we were entering the restaurant, so I know he was there in the kitchen.

The easiest way to illustrate these "picky" issues is by having you look at the pictures of the desserts. First, the crust on Robert's tart was broken. The decorative frosting (and decorative crème anglaise) on Ryan's birthday cake was marred. Certainly, neither of these minor flaws were any big deal, and I don't even know if Robert or Ryan noticed them. But I did. The restaurant is so attentive to detail in some areas—remember the single ice chunk in Robert's Scotch and how all the juices were made in-house), so these presentation errors troubled me.

Restaurant Eve is still an excellent restaurant and we had a lovely dining experience. I'm going to reserve final judgment, though, until I can dine in their tasting room. After all, it's the tasting room with the renowned reputation, so perhaps I'm expecting too much from the bistro. Nevertheless, while you'll definitely need an expense account budget, Restaurant Eve is well worth a special trip to Alexandria.


Thanks, Mike!

Thai Kingdom, Washington, D.C.

After Mass Sunday, Laurent and I had to go to Union Station to pick up his train ticket in anticipation of his holiday trip to his mother's house in Connecticut. We had lunch at Thai Kingdom.

We each started with chicken, mushroom, and onion soup, but Laurent had the tom yum gai version with a tomato and lemon grass broth and I had the tom ka gaiwith coconut milk broth. For our main courses, he had white pepper and garlic beef and I had the daily special, a fried fish in green curry sauce with steamed broccoli. My fish was excellent, though I think it was the hottest green curry I've had (usually the red curry is the hot). For dessert, I had the standard mango sticky rice. Laurent continued his multi-dessert trend, starting with the coconut custard and following it with the mango ice cream.

La Madeleine, Fairfax, Va.

Saturday afternoon, Kevin and I had to go to Fairfax to assist with a Masonic funeral for a late elderly brother of our lodge. After the ceremonies, we went to the La Madeleine near Tyson's Corner Galleria for a late lunch.

La Madeleine is a Dallas-based chain on the French theme with four or five dozen stores nationwide, sort of a step above fast food, but with a sort of cafeteria line means of ordering food.

Kevin ordered the beef pesto croissant, a huge sandwich served with a bow-tie pasta salad. I almost forgot to photograph it, so in the picture, he'd already eaten half the salad and half of the sandwich. He also got a potato galette (a big, fried potato cake) and a very pretty mixed fruit tart.




I had a very nice "turkey sampler" with a large slice of turkey breast covered in white mushroom cream sauce (delicious!) accompanied by some dressing and green beans "almondine" (of all the places to misspell amondine, it's in a "French" restaurant! LOL).



I like La Madeleine. I'd go to their stores a whole lot more often if I didn't have to order from a cafeteria line.

600 Restaurant at the Watergate, Washington, D.C.

Friday night after the symphony, Laurent wanted dessert while Ryan and Robert were running off to Dupont Circle, so Laurent and I stopped on the walk home at 600 Restaurant at the Watergate. I usually don't like going to 600, since they cater to the Kennedy Center crowds, which means they have a lot of pre-prepared items that can be served quickly to their in-a-rush, pre-theater customers, all at a premium price. Laurent, though, is not particularly discriminating, so I acquiesced, and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise that it was an acceptable experience.

Our intention was just to have dessert. Laurent ordered their chocolate explosion cake and I got the pecan pie. The cake had the standard uniformity of the commercial dessert manufacturers, but Laurent liked it. The pecan pie was actually good. It was a generous serving of standard pecan pie without any "weirdness" about it, and I enjoyed it. My only criticism is that the server had popped it into the microwave to warm it (you'll recall my previous rants about microwaving pastries and breads), so it was my fault for not telling her to serve it room temperature.

Then, Laurent decided he was still hungry, so he ordered a French onion soup. And then a Caesar salad. And then another dessert—the crème brulée. The soup and salad both looked good. The crème brulée is definitely pre-made here (the top sugar crust is supposed to be hot, in contrast to the cold custard below) and 600's are cold through and through; Laurent didn't care. At his encouragement, I ordered an appetizer (though I refused a second dessert!).

Now, their appetizer mussels at 600 are a Provençale-style preparation, baked with tomato sauce. On their entrée list, though, they do mussels "meuniere, " or at least their version of meuniere, steamed in white wine then sauced with minced shallots and a cream sauce. I didn't want tomato sauce, so I had them do the appetizer mussels with the entree sauce, and the kitchen happily complied. It was very, very good.

While Laurent was eating his second dessert, I had a nice little glass of Sandeman port.

California Tortilla, Washington, D.C.

Ryan and I were in the Cleveland Park neighborhood Wednesday afternoon to go to PetsMart and stopped in first for lunch at California Tortilla. California Tortilla is a locally-owned chain of Mexican fast food restaurants (with no stores at all in California, to my knowledge) in the same vein as Chipotle, Baja Fresh, and so forth, featuring several Mexican-American items, but concentrating particularly on oversized burritos.

Ryan had the crunchy BBQ ranch burrito, a barbecued chicken thing, but I've no idea what made it "crunchy." It included the usual lettuce, rice, and beans, and he seemed to like it a lot.

I got a very unusual "gyros burrito." Yes, gyros. Those of you who've been to a Greek restaurant have seen and maybe eaten gyros sandwiches on pita bread before. This was a rather unique burrito made with all the standard Mexican stuff, but also with gyros meat (a lamb blend) and bits of feta cheese. I'm not quite sure of my opinion; the gyros meat works, but the feta has a zing to it that is inconsistent with the normal zang of Mexican items.

We both had our burritos made into "combos" for the drinks and the queso dip. I liked the cheese flavor, but it was definitely "processed cheese food," rather than real melted cheese. One of the unique things about the restaurant is an enormous display of hot pepper sauces from which patrons can choose, should they like a fieryer spice.

They gave each of us a free sample of their turkey chili. It was good! There was a nice balance of flavor and light spice, and the turkey could almost pass for beef. It is something I might actually buy as a free standing entree on a future visit.

IHOP, Arlington, Va.

We had a major crisis at IHOP last night.

Since my friend Ian was in town and staying with us, he, Laurent, and I went to the IHOP in Ballston. Now, ever since I introduced Ian to IHOP in October 2006, other than that first visit of ours, every single time we've gone to IHOP, Ian has ordered the chicken strips dinner. Every time. And that's what he did last night.

But they were out of chicken strips.

Ian was stunned. He didn't know what to do.

After thumbing through the menu over and over and over in a state of disbelief, he ended up ordered the components of a chicken strips dinner à la carte: Caesar salad with no dressing, French fries, green beans. He substituted a basket of cheese straws for the chicken.



Laurent had a big super stacker Philly cheesesteak sandwich with French fries. He ordered it with onion rings; they never came. We were just happy to get it, though, since for some reason, his order didn't get processed with the other food, and Ian and I were done eating by the time he got his food.



I had the new ham and egg melt, slices of ham, scrambled eggs, and melted cheese on thick toast, with a side of fries. The sandwich was pretty good.

Cactus Cantina, Washington, D.C.

After church at the National Cathedral Sunday, Laurent claimed utter starvation, so he and I walked up the street to Cactus Cantina for a quick brunch. It was crowded, as always, but we timed it just right to get squeezed into a table.

We got the ubiquitous chips and salsa as soon as we sat down. They have a different kind of salsa here, being a cooked salsa served hot, instead of the usual cold kind. We washed the chips down with some sangria.

Laurent was famished, so he got this enormous Triple BBQ platter with baby back ribs, grilled shrimp, and grilled fajita chicken. Large rings of grilled onions and green bell pepper adorned the plate, and a side plate with Mexican rice and their garlicky bean soup accompanied the meats.



I was daintier and ordered the burrito gordo, a hefty flour tortilla wrapped around a generous serving of shredded beef. I also got sides of rice and beans, plus a pile of large cabbage shreds with a few pieces of lettuce and tomato. The beef in the burrito had good flavor. I also like their rice, which isn't too tomatoey, but I'm not quite sure of what I think of their soupy and very, very garlicky bean soup.



For dessert, the choices were very limited, so Laurent had a flan and I had a slice of key lime pie. I thought my pie filling was very good, though I prefer a key lime pie in pastry instead of graham cracker crust and with meringue instead of bare as they served it at Cactus Cantina (or with whipped cream, as it also commonly done).



As always, the food at Cactus Cantina is decent enough Mexican-style stuff, and the cost, if one orders wisely, can be inexpensive by Washington standards (like my burrito, which was only $8). Sometime, though, I really need to try some of their brunch food when we go there for brunch!

Guapo's Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

One of my organizations had a dinner meeting last night in the upstairs "fiesta room" at Guapo's Restaurant in the Tenleytown neighborhood. While I didn't write a review about it, I'd eaten in their main dining room once before about two years ago, and it's okay Tex-Mex food. It's a small chain of about eight restaurants in the D.C. metropolitan area. This particular store is right on top of the Tenleytown Metro stop.

As always, they put out lots of baskets of chips and salsa. I didn't nibble on much, because I was talking to lots of people, but I recall larger chunks of onion and bigger pieces of fresh cilantro leaves in the salsa.

For my main course, I got the chiles rellenos. These are made by taking some of those big, dark green peppers and stuffing them with Monterrey Jack cheese, which are then breaded and fried, then covered with ranchero sauce and more cheese before serving. They were plated with seasoned rice and a leaf of lettuce with sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo; a bowl of brown beans was on the side. I wasn't able to pay a lot of attention to the food, but I remember the chiles had good flavor and were very consistent with what one would expect at a Tex-Mex chain restaurant (my favorite chiles rellenos are actually New Mexican-style, but that truly is a very different culinary genre than Tex-Mex).

The guys on either side of me both had fajitas. They sizzled and made a lot of noise.

It just occurred to me this morning that nobody ordered dessert! That's too bad, cause they have good cheesecake chimichangas here (cheesecake wrapped up in a tortilla and then deep fried), not to mention tres leches cake.

The Grill from Ipanema, Washington, D.C.

Still hungry and vaguely dissatisfied after our Tuesday night dinner "experience" at Left Bank, we wandered about Adams-Morgan a while, looking at the sights, and trying to decide if we wanted to get something else to eat. Laurent wasn't much help in the matter: he has the body of an underwear model, yet he can (and does) eat twice as much food as can I, and naturally, he was game for another meal. So, we did it. Thinking after our meagre sushi meal we'd need something substantial, we went to a Brazilian place, The Grill from Ipanema. We should have gone there in the first place. It was great!

Now, they weren't exactly offering dinner for two, either, but they did offer two hearty appetizers and two of their exotic Brazilian cocktails. This prompted me upon my return home to review the promotional materials, and the flyer actually said "food and drink for two," not "dinner," so I guess that lets places off the hook. We'll just have to go to places on the other end of the price scale instead of the more expensive venues if we want a full meal.

Anyway, The Grill is a nice, white tablecloth restaurant with formally attired waiters, and it was busy. Brazilians like their beef, so there was a very hearty menu, and the place smelled wonderful with all the sizzling meats.

We started with a couple of caipirinhas, cocktails that can best be described as Brazilian margaritas. They are made with a traditional Brazilian liquor crafted from fermented sugar cane called cachaça, lime juice, and sugar. I've had caipirinhas at various places around town, and these were, by far, the best.

Laurent had never had a caipirinha before, so we decided to maintain the adventure with our food choices, picking things he'd never eaten.

Our first appetizer was the carne de sol com mandioca, some fried cubes of sun-dried beef and fried cubes of yuca. Yuca is a big, ugly, starchy root that is very popular in South and Central America and in the Carribbean, serving as an alternative to potatoes. The sun-drying had the nice effect of concentrating the beef flavor, and these morsels were quite tasty. A very hot, green dipping sauce accompanied.



Our second appetitzer was jacaré ao pantanal. Some surprisingly tender alligator was cut into small strips, breaded, and deep fried. I've had alligator many times before, and sometimes it can be tough, chewy, and a bit fishy tasting, but this was really good. They served the alligator pieces atop a big green salad with lots of green olives, and it came with a slightly spicy, sweet dipping sauce.



At this point, we'd had plenty to eat, but we were really enjoying this restaurant and the food was excellent. So, we ordered dessert. We didn't need it (well, certainly I didn't), but we did. And I'm glad. They were yummy.

Laurent ordered the Brazilian-style cheesecake. What he got wasn't what either of us expected. It looked very much like a cheesy flan drenched in guava (a Central American fruit) sauce and garnished with fresh strawberries and kiwifruit. I sampled a tiny bit, and it was, indeed, a cheesecake, but definitely not the "New York" style we're used to around here.



I ordered the mousse de maracujá, a passionfruit mousse, which is a very common dessert item in Brazil. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it to describe it here.



We will definitely go back to The Grill from Ipanema.

Left Bank, Washington, D.C.

It's the first part of the month again, so it was time for the second "1stuesday" promotion in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, where we get dinner for two for only $25.00. We had such a good time last month, we headed up again to explore other new restaurants.

The place we'd wanted to go, Perry's, was closed for a private party. Alas. So, we walked on down to 18th Street and entered Left Bank, an ecclectic American bistro with a sushi bar (an odd combination that seems to be popular in Adams-Morgan).

There was hardly anyone there. Our waitress sneaked in the door right behind us. There were only a few people at the bar, and once we were seated, we were the only table in the dining room. By the time we left, they had three more tables filed and several more at the bar, but the place was far from busy.

The dining room is a great, big, open, emotionally sterile room decorated in the new "trendy" taupe look seen in some D.C. restaurants and clubs. A very large bar sits in the center of the room, and in the very back by the restrooms is a small sushi preparation bar. Along the sides of the walls are these enormous three-top booths at tables so large, intimate conversation was impossible, and I felt during the meal that my dinner companion was at the far end of a long table. In the spaces between the booths and the bar were little skinny two-top tables that were so small, I don't see how they'd squeeze in two dinner plates and two cocktails.

The menu was very impressive, with a lot of nice looking entrees in the $20-something range. They also had a substantial cocktail and mixed drink list. Tuesdays are "Smirnoff Night," so any drink made with Smirnoff vodkas is only $5. The 1stuesday menu, though, was disappointingly very limited: one order of the sushi and sushi roll combination plate (an entree for one) and two tastes of different cold sakes (one clear, one unfiltered) for each diner. Period. No substititions. No accommodations for non-drinkers. No "regular" food options that weren't sushi. Last month we went to a Japanese restaurant where we were expecting sushi, that place gave each of us a bowl of miso soup and a scoop of green tea ice cream in addition to our sushi and sake, but that was not the case at Left Bank. And, Tuesday night was the first noticeably cold night of the fall, and cold sake wasn't exactly what I wanted, but they weren't substituting hot sake for the cold (it isn't a matter of just heating the cold sake; different types of sake are meant to be served one way or the other, and they aren't versatile).

Well, we knew we weren't going to get full on half a plate of sushi each, so we opted to start with bloody Marys (Smirnoff Night, remember?) and an order of their hummus guacamole. I noticed that our waitress brought the bloodies and the sakes all at the same time, instead of saving the sake for the sushi. The hummus was different. It came in an oversized bowl with deep, lopsided edges, with a mound of the hummus in the bottom of the bowl and half a dozen slices of lightly toasted bread on the sides of the bowl (sorry about the picture, I forget to photograph it until we'd already eaten some of it). I think I was expecting more guacamole taste and green color; what we got was chickpea tan and tasted like a fairly bland hummus with little chunks of not terribly ripe avocado.

I also forgot to take a picture of the sushi plate, but, hey, how many times can you look at a picture of a routine plate of sushi? Now, the sushi nigiri (the slice of raw fish on a piece of rice) we got tasted very good and seemed nicely fresh. The sushi rolls, though, supposedly had three different varieties, but they all tasted boringly alike, save for one that tasted like the others but with some hot spice. We each got four pieces of sushi nigiri and six pieces of sushi roll, which I consider an appetizer, not a meal. When the waitress brought the sushi, she had to be reminded to bring the chopsticks, soy sauce, and the little dish for mixing the wasabi.

Once we finished eating, we just kind of looked at one another. We looked at the dessert menu, but nothing was inspiring. The emphasis at this restaurant is definitely on the liquor sales, not the food, and I had the impression from the waitress and all of the staff that they really couldn't care less if we were there or not. So, we decided to leave and move on to another establishment where we could get the taste of Left Bank out of our mouths.

Raku An Asian Bistro, Washington, D.C.

After our adventurous expedition to the Shrine at CUA this afternoon and after having to deal with the long waits on the under-repair red line, we were famished and before going home stopped off at Dupont Circle in quest of sustenance. We ended up at Raku An Asian Bistro, a pan-Asian concept restaurant by the noted restauranteur Mark Miller of Santa Fe's Coyote Cafe fame.

What with all the hype and the very passionate reviews—both pro and con—from various local food bloggers, I was actually rather happy with the quiet and peaceful cafe. We were seated at a corner booth with windows on both sides giving us nice views of the Dupont Circle foot traffic, and we were isolated a bit from the bustle of the sushi bar in the main dining room.

Many of the reviewers complained about the service, but I found our servers to be pleasant, efficient, and around when needed, so I had no displeasure there at all. My only "disappointment" was a menu issue: there is no regular iced tea, just some nasty peach flavored stuff.

We started by splitting an order of crispy calimari with Asian chile sauce. The squid was cut into strips instead of the traditional calimari rings. It was lightly battered and fried, but not fried crunchy enough to be "crispy" as it was called in the menu; I had no problem with that, though, as the squid was nicely tender.

For our main courses, Laurent chose the sushi and sushi roll combination platter. He got a nice assortment of sushi nigiri that included some eel, and several pieces of sushi rolls. The pickled gingerroot was fresh.


I had the dan dan noodles made of thick, egg-enriched, Asian-style spaghetti with some surprisingly hot ground pork stewed with Szechuan peppers, peanuts, and sesame topping the noodles and served with cilantro and julienned cucumber.


After the rather standard main courses, where the restaurant really shined was with the desserts. Laurent had a surprisingly tasty croissant pudding (think bread pudding) with ginger ice cream and crème anglaise and raspberry coulis and I had a very, very nice green tea crème brulée. The custard had a nice, intense green tea flavor and deep green color, and I was pleased to notice the caramelized sugar crust was warm, indicating that the dish had been freshly made to order. The top was garnished with a little mound of diced fresh strawberries.

Roof Terrace Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

After Friday night's concert, we all went upstairs at the Kennedy Center to the Roof Terrace Restaurant for dessert. The Roof Terrace is the "fine dining" destination amongst the Kennedy Center food spots, but it's not a place I regularly go. In fact, last night was the first time in nearly thirty years that I ate there.

What's the problem? Well, I think it's a matter of complacency, since the Kennedy Center is off by itself along the river, and there aren't any other restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Aside from one mediocre place across the street at the Watergate, everything else is either several blocks' walk away, or even farther away in Georgetown or in the West End. With a captive audience, they were just used to offering quick, overly expensive food with no real passion or flair. They've recently acquired a new chef de cuisine and a new pastry chef, though, so I thought I would give them a try.

I'm sad to report that I didn't really notice a whole lot of improvement. The concepts were intriguing, but the execution remains cursed with the uncertainties of attendance and the need for immediate food production to turn all those tables before curtain time. Now, perhaps I should try a full dinner sometime (any rich people want to volunteer to take me?), but based on the dessert performance, I'm going to continue to eat before I come to the Kennedy Center.

The bulk of the Roof Terrace crowd is in the 5 to 8 p.m. time slot when people are getting ready to go to a show. After our concert, the place only had a handful of tables occupied, so we had no trouble whatsoever getting a table for five with no reservations. We had a lovely view of the river and the Georgetown harbor from our seats. I thought the hostess and waiters were all very professional and there was plenty of staff on hand to see to our needs. The problems were in the mass production of the food.

Ryan got the milk chocolate banana cream pie with chocolate malt ice cream. The $11 it cost could have bought two entire pies back in Oklahoma, and this piece was a particularly small single serving. When I asked him his opinion, he gave a quick, "It was very good," which, when unelaborated, is his code phrase for okay, but certainly nothing to write home about.


Scott had the crème brulée. He reported that the crème was flavored with maple syrup. It came with some fat little pumpkin and ginger cookies, a few fresh berries, and a dollop of whipped cream. He said it was good, though "different," and I thought it had an attractive presentation. He also reported that the caramelized sugar crust on the top of the crème was cold, a sign that they had all been pre-made and not freshly broiled prior to service.



Where things were really disappointing, though, was with the beggar's pouches Robert and I ordered for our desserts. They looked beautiful on the plate, but they were such a let down. First of all, they were served cold. They really, really needed to have been served warm, fresh from the oven. Cold just didn't cut it. No crispness to them. And, the pastry used to form the cute little bags was tough and tasteless. The fall fruits inside the bag didn't really inspire me either. I think I tasted pear and apple, and there definitely were cranberries, but the thickening agent for the filling was blah, and, once again, really needed to be hot. Along with the pouch, we got a scoop of what was advertised as apple cider-caramel ice cream, but I couldn't really taste anything. It was garnished with a cute, thin slice of crispy, dried pineapple. They used interesting tear-shaped plates on which to serve.

Robert had an Irish coffee served in a proper glass that he seemed to find quite satisfactory. I had some delicious regular coffee, though I was rather perplexed at their method of service: it came in a small, individual-sized, French press pot, but there were no coffee grounds in the pot, and, hence, there was no cause whatsoever for the press. Odd.

Oh, did I mention that Laurent was a snob and just sat there texting and refusing to eat with us?

So, that was our Roof Terrace experience. Good thing I'd cooked us dinner beforehand. My fried pork chunks with milk gravy, boiled red potatoes, brown beans with tomatoes and onions, fresh spinach sauteed in bacon grease with minced garlic, and grape Jell-O are what got us through the night.

Bistro Français, Georgetown, D.C.

Any of you who've been in Bistro Français the past decade or two ever noticed this big poster up high on the wall in the window-side dining area? I finally took a picture of it last night.....does it look like Katie Couric to you?

Once Laurent and I had pushed our way through the Georgetown Hallowe'en crowds last night and made our way into the heart of the party district, we stopped into Bistro Français for a brief respite. I'm starting to think that Bistro Français is becoming my Hallowe'en night tradition! :-/

They do have this convenient 10:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. "early bird special" (they also have one from like 5-7 p.m.) offering a three course meal plus a glass of wine for just $20, so that seemed as good as anything.

"Superman" Laurent started off with the mousse de foie de volaille au sherry a pâté-like mousse of chicken liver served with French cornichons and potentially spreadable on the restaurant's baguette bread. It always amuses me when he orders pâtés and things like this mousse, since he professes to violently dislike fried liver and onions because of the taste.


I got the moules niçoise, about seven or eight mussels with butter, garlic, and black olives that had been baked just a hair too long, but were still flavorful.


We both ended up with fish for our main courses. Laurent chose the thon mariné au poivre vert, a grilled tuna steak served with a salad, and I got one of the daily specials, a grilled sea bass on a mirror of Nantua (lobster) sauce with mashed potatoes and this delicious little leek custard timbale.



While we were dining, a small party came in for dinner that included Tarzan, clad only in his breechcloth and a really, really bad wig. At least he was one of the few bare torsoed revelers last night who actually had the body for the costume. However, Tarzan wasn't willing to put on a shirt, so I think the manager asked them to leave.

The waiter brought around the pastry tray for our dessert selections. Laurent got a lemon tart and I got a surprisingly good apple tart.



We walked home after dinner and the streets were still full of people running around and being wild and crazy. Just another Hallowe'en in Georgetown.