Go Vegetate!

It may have taken a few months, but we finally discovered DC's vegetarian restaurant, Vegetate. I suppose there might be others, but this one has the appeal of actually attempting to be upscale and vegetarian simultaneously. A rare and difficult combination. Sometimes those crowds aren't quite looking for the same things in a restaurant, so a nice veggie joint has to wow the fine diners without the luxury of meat, or convince enough vegetarians that there is such a thing as a $17 vegetarian entree at a restaurant.

Vegetate starts working to rack up your bill with wine, cocktails and the cocktail pairing menu that they call the “bites” menu. Kind of like pre-appetizers. They also encourage you to patronize several “small plates” and a “large plate,” just like any restaurant but with a slightly larger focus on appetizers. That's how they get you to spend over $30 on a vegetarian meal. Clever. But was it worth it?

We decided to get drinks but skip “bites,” since they were priced very closely to the supposedly larger “small plates.” After glancing at the risotto fritters, fancy grilled cheese and veggie sliders on the next table, I realized that the portions were fairly generous and perhaps we misjudged, at least for the sake of carbs.

We did order two of the better looking “small plates,” which were more interesting but only somewhat larger than the “bites.” The first was a turnip gratin in a romesco sauce with gouda cheese. It was very tasty. There was not an overwhelming amount of cheese, just enough to add a little saltiness, nuttiness and texture to the gratin. The romesco was the key, with its mustard adding a lot of character and depth of flavor to the turnips. The turnips themselves didn't have a ton of independent flavor but added consistency and heartiness to the dish, beyond just being a sauce and cheese agent. We also ordered another “small plate” of wild mushrooms and cider-braised cabbage with a poached egg and toast. It was quite a novel dish and had an amazing combination of flavors. I especially liked how the perfect soft-poached egg interplayed with the tanginess of the cabbage.

For dinner, Julia ordered the vegetable risotto with truffle oil and cashew cream. It was filled broccoli and a few other vegetables and had a lovely creamy and deep flavor in the risotto. I couldn't taste the cashew itself but Julia said she could. Julia's dad and I each ordered the BBQ seitan, a housemade meat replacement, which was actually quite impressive. It was made out of wheat, but actually had the consistency and flavor of a pork tenderloin. It was pretty impressive – I actually had to use a steak knife to cut it. Plus, the BBQ sauce was very tangy and delicious, and it came with superb mashed sweet potatoes and some sautéed greens. It was incredibly unique and just fun and tasty to eat. Oh and get this! Both entrees, despite mashed potatoes in mine and “cashew cream” in Julia's, were completely vegan. Of course our appetizers were not vegan, but they were clearly marked as containing eggs/dairy.

With dinner, we also ordered two of their sides. The first was hand-cut chipotle fries with scallions. They were tasty but did not have too much noticeable chipotle flavor. The chipotle was the reason we ordered them, so it was a little bit of a letdown. We also ordered some terrific Brussels sprouts though, and I'm not usually even a Brussels sprouts fan. They had a very flavorful broth over them and were tender and wonderful. I would definitely get those again.

Lastly, we had dessert. We were running out to a comedy show, so we ordered and ate quickly. The first was a raspberry mascarpone ice cream that was house made. It was very creamy, but it was not apparent what made it so mascarpone-y. The other was an awesome dark chocolate ganache with sesame seeds, lemongrass syrup and basil. You're like, “wait! What?” But I'm serious. It was like a big hunk of fudgy goodness with all of these interesting savory flavors that enhanced and sharpened the amazing taste that blossomed from each bite. It was really worth staying an extra few minutes to enjoy.

I think we will definitely be going back to Vegetate to continue to try some of their other veggie fare. Plus, it seems that their menu varies by season and ingredients that are available freshly and locally, so that's always a plus too. The creativity and flavor running throughout the menu is the true winning point here, and should hopefully show diners and chefs alike that vegetarian food can and should be done well and done often.

Check out my reviews of this place in even more detail at Menuism.com!

Restaurant Week Miniseries, Part III: Dan & Brad's

This is the third and final installment of this week's three-part Restaurant Week miniseries. Yesterday, I told about lunch at Kaz Sushi Bistro in DC, and Monday I discussed our experience for a dinner at U Street's Vinoteca.

Part III, Dan & Brad's

Our Restaurant Week explorations and adventures culminated in an early weekend evening dinner at Dan & Brad's, the restaurant of the Arlington Hilton in Ballston. It was very quiet for a nice place for dinner on a weekend, but it was just six PM, so I didn't think too much of it.

For what was lacking in crowds, it made up for in service and ambiance. The look of the place is very homey, with a twisting layout to the dining room, and little private nooks overhanging the lobby below. The decor was English-feeling-Euro and was very sharp. Despite being the only ones there, we were sat in the middle of the most open dining room rather than a private nook for two, and I was admittedly a little disappointed.

Our waitress was very attentive, knowledgeable and elegant, winning me over with the bits of proper French she threw into her descriptions. She started us with some crunchy, warm bread and fresh butter, a simple, rustic pairing that outclassed the bread and butter/oil that the vast majority of places ever offer.

The prix fixe RW menu was very intriguing, but had almost nothing to do with the normal menu. This was a little bit of a letdown, since the menu had seemed filled with unique dishes, but at the typical $35.08 for dinner, offering a selection for three courses, I still couldn’t pass up the RW menu. RW at D&B’s also had the option for an additional flight of three wines (a Cabernet, a Chardonnay and a disgustingly sweet, undrinkable ice wine) for $10. We decided to sample the sampler together and got almost three glasses for the price of 1.

The menu for the first course included a seared ahi tuna with a bean and olive salad, a warm ancho chili-rubbed beef tenderloin and fig salad, an heirloom tomato Carpaccio salad, a crab and corn chowder and a fresh chilled gazpacho. A hard choice, no? Julia chose the tomato Carpaccio, which had a bright, country feeling and tasted extremely tangy and fresh, but it was huge slices of tomatoes -- nothing near how I would envision a Carpaccio of tomatoes. It had some nice greens on top and was deliciously dressed with olive vinaigrette and some gorgeous, cool goat cheese, so I still found it to be a very unique salad.

I, on the other hand, was apparently in a very "meaty" mood and ordered the tenderloin salad. It was rightfully far smaller and daintier than the more robust tomatoes, which is a rare feat for a meat dish up against a vegetarian one. However dainty it might have looked though, it didn't matter. The perfectly medium tenderloin with the ever so slightly sweet sauce of sour cherries and the soft, melt-in-your-mouth figs was a warming and winning combination. It was one of those dishes that is just enough food and goes down so smoothly that you want to kiss the plate after. Yes, that was this dish. You never know when they're coming, but I refrained from actually kissing the plate.

I had to save the plate-kissing for the entrees. The dinner choices were equally if not more interesting than the salads. There was a pancetta-wrapped beef filet with caramelized onion grits, a loin of lamb with warm Swiss chard and mint-pesto gnocchi, a seared black cod with carrots and fingerling potatoes, an Alaskan salmon with fennel apple slaw, and a sage-pumpkin ravioli. To continue in my unusually "meaty" mood that day, I decided to try the lamb. And I was not disappointed one bit. The meat was perfectly done, with just enough pink in the middle. The taste was just a little peppery and was juicy and tender. I also really enjoyed the presentation, with a few small slices accompanying the rest of the mini loin. It was flanked by some very flavorful and crispy chard with amazingly light gnocchi and pesto on top. I loved how a dish that could seem so heavy was actually quite light. I was thrilled by this dish and would have likely thought about kissing THIS plate, were I not so distracted by the most innovative dish I have seen in some time.

I am speaking, of course, of Julia's unsettlingly good entree of bright orange pumpkin ravioli, with crispy sage, a brown butter sauce, pumpkin seeds and bittersweet, crunchy chocolate shavings. Was it savory or was it sweet? Quite hard to tell, but the taste blew my mind. The smallest amount of chocolate turned a dish I would never bother ordering (gourd-filled pasta) into a dish I'll never forget. Simply put, creative innovation and a penchant for sparkling the palette can turn a typical dish into a mouth-watering treasure. I know, since my mouth quite literally watered. I was completely content after these two courses, and barely noticed the pretty good crème brulee I had for dessert.

I was so overwhelmed by the last entrée that I completely forgot to kiss THAT plate either. So instead, on the way out, I kissed the girl who had brought me to this wonderfully elegant and underrated restaurant.

Missed the first two installments of the Restaurant Week miniseries? Check out Vinoteca and Kaz Sushi Bistro, and remember to save up a few extra dollars and calories for Restaurant Week 2009!

Check out my reviews of these places in even more detail at Menuism.com!

Restaurant Week Miniseries, Part II: Kaz Sushi Bistro

This is the second installment of this week's three-part Restaurant Week miniseries. Yesterday, I discussed our experience for a birthday dinner party at Vinoteca off U Street in DC.

Part II, Kaz Sushi Bar

It takes a lot to get me to spend $20 for a lunch. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that Restaurant Week was able to. It was probably a combination of things. My coworker Steve had told me that Kaz Sushi was one of the best sushi places in the city. It's located at 19th and I St NW (right near work), so Becca and I decided to invite a few coworkers out for RW sushi at Kaz, since we normally had no excuse to go there. So four of us made a reservation for a Friday Kaz lunch and made the three-block journey under the sunny afternoon together in eager sushi anticipation.

I won't say much about the look, decor or service at Kaz, since I rarely do, and since it was adequate but not noteworthy. I will fill that space with a few notes about their regular menu. It was filled with very interesting combinations both in Maki rolls and in the Nigiri pieces. The prices were a little high for sushi, but with high-end ingredients like truffles, foie gras and kalamata olives being thrown around with the likes of tuna, salmon, lobster and whitefish, along with other not-sushi-like complements like almonds and garlic chips, I was still quite intrigued. Plus, their vegetarian sushi was even impressive, with a red pepper and asparagus roll, and a sundried tomato and portabella roll, to name a few.

It was with this diversity now intriguing me that I was disappointed to learn how ordinary the lunchtime RW menu was at Kaz, even at the prix fixe price of $20.08. Essentially, they offered a miso, a seaweed salad, a scoop of ice cream and a sushi choice. The choice was either a sushi tasting or a bento box. The bento included a California roll, Japanese short ribs, Barbecued Mackerel and a couple other little tastings. The sushi tasting was a spicy tuna roll, a spicy California roll and then one each of tuna, salmon, flounder and cooked shrimp Nigiri. To me, these seemed like either skimpy or uninteresting choices for over $20, during RW, but it was lunch so neither was actually insufficient. There is a reason that I don't like spending $20 on lunch though.

I ultimately ordered the sushi tasting and found it to be quite tasty. The spicy California had a great kick and they worked the orange roe, which normally dons a Cali roll, into the rest of the sushi, which I found to be much more pleasant. The spicy tuna roll had a similarly flavored kick, which I quite like with my sushi rolls, but it was the smallest spicy tuna roll I've ever seen. It was wrapped seaweed-side-out and was no larger than a regular tuna roll or a standard vegetarian sushi roll like asparagus or avocado. Usually spicy tuna rolls are quite large, so to see a small one was certainly noticeable and the slightest bit disappointing, since it did taste so good. The Nigiri pieces were not cut too thick and were quite fresh. They all had an appropriately rich flavor and color, and were very pleasant to eat. Again, there was nothing out of the ordinary here and the potions were modest, but it was certainly a good plate of sushi.

The other accoutrements were passable if not typical versions of miso and green tea ice cream. The seaweed salad was actually the only huge portion of the meal, and I was initially excited, since it is one of the tastiest and healthiest items on a Japanese food menu. However, this version was actually drenched in a creamy, sesame dressing, which did not dramatically change the taste from the typical salad with just a light sesame finish, but certainly did wonders to kill the healthy aspect that I usually like about this salad.

I think Kaz makes nice sushi from good quality fish, and has some extremely interesting sushi innovations. Through which, Kaz has likely made its name. However, the RW patrons were not offered anything interesting, unique or name-making-worthy. Even at over $20.

They might have intrigued me just enough to give it a shot for dinner, where I make the sushi selections, but it's not going to be any time too soon.

Stay tuned for the third and final installment in this week's Restaurant Week miniseries, as I reveal our trip to Ballston's Dan & Brad's.

Restaurant Week Miniseries, Part I: Vinoteca

For those of you who don't know, last week was restaurant week in the DC-NoVA area. For those of you don't know what I'm talking about, RW is a week where you don't feel guilty about eating out three times at nice places, and simultaneously somehow feel like you're contributing to something. To what, I don't know. Culture? The economy? Our waistbands?

Well, no matter the reason, we ended up going to three very different RW venues to sample the cheap(er) fare that some of the finest area restaurants were offering. For the next three days, I will highlight these three places -- Vinoteca in the U Street area of DC, Kaz Sushi Bistro near Farragut Square in DC, and Dan & Brad's in the Arlington Hilton in Ballston -- within and without the context of Restaurant Week. I hope it will help to determine whether you should go to these places and/or Restaurant Week in general in the future.

Part I, Vinoteca

When Rebecca (not of Becca's housewarming) invited us out with her friends to celebrate her birthday and the choice was Vinoteca, I was pretty excited. However, I needed to look at the RW menu before I could get fully excited, as my last RW experience was in New York City last year and was skimpy, limited and forgettable. To my pleasant delight, this RW menu looked fabulous, and after looking at it with Becca (of Becca's HW) I couldn't wait to go, and Becca even made a plan to go later in the week.

Full disclosure: we've been to Vinoteca before, but it was only for wine and cheese. And as I've clearly established before, I don't review wine, especially sans food. So this was my first official dinner there. The menu had always looked interesting to me, with a mix of comfort food updates and upscale Euro, and I had always been looking forward to trying their highly spoken of dinner fare.

This wine bar/restaurant has kind of a rustic, hole-in-the-wall look from the street, near the corner of U and 11th, but is actually pretty new and has that feeling inside. Besides the onesey bathrooms with barely-there locks (oh my!), everything about the place feels pretty chic and comfortable.

RESTAURANT WEEK MENU -- $35.08, prix fixe before non-included wine, tax and tip

FIRST COURSE

The first course was a raw oyster in a white wine mignonette-like sauce with cucumber foam, all in spoon, accompanied by a glass of a decent and unnamed sparkling wine. It was pretty tasty, but didn’t seem too well-liked around the table. For our table of 7, we also ordered a bottle of Zardetto Prosecco and a bottle of the “three ranches” Cabernet Sauvignon. Both were enjoyable, but neither was paired with anything in particular, so I suppose there's not much to say. Vinoteca has a nice selection of wines, but even as a total wine novice, the menu doesn't seem anymore in-depth than most classy restaurants, and the prices were quite high.

SECOND COURSE

After the oyster and some underwhelming bread and olive oil came the first course. Julia had a mesclun green salad dressed lightly with vinaigrette, shallots and shaved celery root. I sampled some and found it to be a very tasty and elegant salad, but a little ordinary considering the other first course offerings were slightly pricier on the regular menu. I bypassed that and the choice B of the first course, the chilled split pea soup, and chose the cured salmon Carpaccio salad. It was gravlax sliced tracing-paper thin, with a great fennel oil, shallots and shaved fennel. It was a terrific salad nouveau, with a great look and such an intricate, slightly salty flavor. The salmon really melted away inside my mouth, and I was quite pleased.

THIRD COURSE

The offerings for the entrée course consisted of homemade pasta with truffle butter sauce and greens, seared scallops and prosciutto, shrimp & grits with fried green tomato, and a bison hanger steak with potato croquettes. I chose the shrimp and grits and found it incredibly warming and tasty. It was garnished with some jalapeño and jack cheese sauce and had chunks of shrimp under the fried green tomato and a full jumbo shrimp on top. It appeared brilliant on the plate and it was even fun to eat. The grits were buttery and excellent, the shrimp was very fresh and not too salty, and the fried green tomato was spicy and well, sinfully good. As if to verify that my entrée was indeed the best of the four, I took an opportunity to taste Julia’s truffle butter homemade bowtie pasta with micro greens and Reggiano parmesano – and was quite literally floored. This was probably the most deep and developed taste I have tried since I have been in DC. Perfectly textured pasta with just a little pepper from the greens, mixed with the Reggiano, the truffle and the butter flavors. It was so simple and yet heavenly. I actually kept eating, and she had to push me off so she could continue enjoying. I could not imagine a better set of two entrées, which is why I never bothered to notice the other two less interesting-looking selections.

FOURTH COURSE

This course was the chef’s cheese course, which was the American cheese flight on the regular Vinoteca menu. Each person received maybe half an ounce each of Pepato, a tangy cheese with peppercorns, Winchester super-aged Gouda and a very soft and creamy Humboldt Fog. They were paired with about the same-sized portions of walnuts, blueberries and speck, a German prosciutto-like cured meat. It was nice that the first three courses were high on flavor but more medium in size, because it was fun to be able to try the different cheeses with everyone and still enjoy them. I quite liked the flight and actually thought the soft Humboldt was the most enjoyable. I would highly recommend the Vinoteca cheese and charcuterie – it’s diverse and actually pretty reasonable in price.

FIFTH COURSE

We finished off our evening at Vinoteca with dessert, and everyone had a choice between the lavender chocolate cake and the white chocolate bread pudding with macadamia nuts and caramel. The table seemed to order the cake and enjoy the bread pudding more, with myself ordering the pudding and enjoying the cake more. I usually don’t like chocolate cakes, but found this one beautifully soft, moist and not too sweet. The lavender was strong but seemed to go well. Apparently for the rest of my table, they thought the lavender was way too strong (“it tastes like you’re eating the plant,” remarked one) and preferred the more home-style pudding. I thought the pudding was okay, but a little one-dimensional after the caramel layer and that the hard nuts were a little off-putting in the middle of a bread pudding. I managed to squeeze down at least a few bites of each, so it couldn’t have been that bad, right?

In all, the experience at Vinoteca was very nice. For $35 a head for 5 courses, I was quite pleased. My high expectations for the menu were pretty much satisfied and reaffirmed my feeling that I would return any time for just the cheese, olives and charcuterie, and would ask them to improve the boring, small bits of bread they give you. But I think I would now return as well for a gravlax salad, truffle butter pasta and American cheese flight every so often, so maybe restaurant week did do its job?

Stay tuned tomorrow for my second of three Restaurant Week installments, as I delve into my lunch experience at Kaz Sushi Bistro.

Check out my reviews of these places in even more detail at Menuism.com!

Unchain Thyself

We all end up going to big chain restaurants sometimes. You know what I mean: the super chains. As you can probably tell from what and where I typically eat, it's not my favorite. In theory, a restaurant being successful enough to have multiple stores should mean that the place is (at least at some point) good. Why would a place open more stores if it didn't have success in its model? I would hope that some element of goodness would indicate success in the ultra-competitive restaurant industry. Given this assumption, it's the gradual deterioration over time and size that makes most of these restaurants rather abhorrent.

I find that there are several exceptions to the rule that chain restaurants are bad. Don't worry. Not for fast food. Not for any of the true super chains either. The real exceptions come in several areas.

Nice places: I'm sure by this time a few chains have probably popped into your head that are lovely counterexamples to my current claim. You would love to go to these places! Places like fancy steakhouses Ruth's Chris, Morton's and Capital Grille, seafood places like McCormick & Schmick's and Legal Seafood, or nicer novelty places like Benihana and Melting Pot. I have been to many of these places, and they are all quite enjoyable. Would I choose one of these over a smaller steak or seafood place with a possibly more unique, creative and/or personal vibe that I may not be able to get in every city, the answer is no. But all the same, I am not lumping these into the bleak abyss of the super chains, because at least these ones try.

Chef places: Celebrity chefs and chef-restaurateurs often create a brand of restaurant after themselves. While these are not always good, I don’t believe these deserve to fall into the Avoid-Me chains by face value alone because these are usually nicer places, and usually have a real person/chef/owner that cares about the reputation of, well, his or her OWN name. Not always. But as a rule of thumb, these places are worth trying.

Smaller places: By this I mean more localized chains. Usually when there is more than one of a local restaurant that is a good sign. It means it has done extremely well and is extremely popular with locals and tourists alike. This means it is just an expanded version of the original, rather than a completely corporate, profit-driven, stripped-down, boring and unhealthy option like most. You might be surprised by how good these places are. For now. How do you think some of the super chains got started?

In my quest to deride super chains without mentioning any specifically, I feel the need to shout out to a super chain I have just recently tried. And enjoyed. Quite a lot! We went twice! Don Pablo’s. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s okay. It’s not the hugest of super chains (if that makes any sense). But it does have $2 drafts, $3 margaritas; they also make their own fresh corn chips and freshly made tortillas to go along with their tasty, fresh entrees. That pretty much makes a Mexican place a winner for me, and strangely, most small, authentic Mexican places don’t even make their own chips/tortillas. It makes so much difference, plus the cheap drinks, that they have actually moved away from the realm of bad super chain restaurants into a full-fledged recommendation from me.

Armed with my rules of thumb, I imagine you’ll be all set to face the scary world of chain restaurant selection. Or if you get bored, go find a DP’s.

Zay Yes!

When my friend asked us to go out to Zaytinya, a chic Middle Eastern tapas (they call them mezze) restaurant in the China Town area of DC (9^th and G), I said “yes” quicker than I had to run to catch my train today. Why did I say yes so assuredly? Well, because this was not my first time there, and I'd been looking for an excuse to return. Perhaps this is one of the higher compliments that I can pay a place. I mean, there are tons of places in DC and the surrounding areas in Virginia, plus I enjoy cooking and eating at home, if not for just the caloric and monetary benefits. So if I can be excited about going back to a place in a relatively short time horizon and enjoy it both times, you should probably take notice as well.

The atmosphere is pretty trendy and the place pretty hopping, even on a Tuesday, at Zaytinya. We waited about 25 minutes with no reservation, so I would definitely recommend one on the weekends and maybe even on the weekdays.

The prices are moderate here with many of the mezze in the six to eight dollar range. We ordered three cocktails and eight mezze and got out of there for under $90.

THE MENU

The delightful part about this menu is its depth, with a wide array of meat, seafood and vegetarian dishes spanning across a variety of Middle Eastern countries, from Greece to Turkey to Israel, but all with a clearly Med motif. The classics are there, with grape leaves, hummus and spanokopita, but the real interest here is in the creativity running through the menu. While this was a pretty vegetarian meal, with two lifelong vegetarians and me, a vegetarian lover, there were several very interesting meat entrees, including crispy skirt steak, mahanek (sausage), several lamb dishes, mussels and a swordfish kabob.

THE ORDER

Labneh with zatar and fresh pitas: Our dinner friend, Rebecca, has spent a significant amount of time in Israel, so she was the expert dish suggestor at this particular meal. For instance, while Julia and I normally would have stayed with old favorites like hummus or baba to start with, Rebecca introduced us to a phenomenon: labneh! You may have noticed it (already) made my Olympic top ten (twelve) list last Friday, so it shot up my personal rankings very quickly. For those unaware, this well-spiced hybrid of cheese and yogurt is heavenly and makes any piece of pita, no matter how packaged and processed, instantly relevant. Of course, Zaytinya has an endless run of fresh, warm pitas, so this is a must order in the future for me.

Tilton Cheese from Israel: A creamy goat, this cheese had a lot of flavor. Zaytinya has a nice little cheese menu tucked away on the left, which makes for a changeup from just ordering typical tapas.

Peynirli Pide: If you’re not familiar with a pide, it is kind of like a tiny flatbread pizza. This particular one had halloumi – a great sheep’s milk cheese – some tangy tomato sauce and a hint of cinnamon. It was delicious, and was probably the one dish I wished I had had more of, as it is not big at all and incredibly tasty. This is definitely something I will return to in the future.

Kolokithokeftedes: These little bites were zucchini circles with some cheese and spices over a creamy, yogurt sauce. They were recommended by the waiter as one of his favorite vegetarian mezze, and I thought they were pretty good. Usually zucchini is pretty bland, and this wasn’t, but this dish still didn’t have that extra pop or zing that would make me want to order it over and over again.

Imam Bayildi: This was eggplant with stewed tomatoes and onions stuffed inside. I found this dish to be a very nice use of several ingredients that are pretty common to make a very interesting flavor. This probably could have had a little more spicy aspect and I would have been all over it, but then again, Mediterranean food usually is not very spicy. Sometimes a dish can be too savory though, and I thought this one did need that little bit of extra depth of flavor from somewhere.

Havuc Koftesi: Well who doesn’t love a fritter? Not me. These were bundles of carrot and apricot goodness with pine nuts and a pistachio sauce to add just a bit of creaminess and nuttiness to the actual bite. This was something we had tried on my first visit to Zaytinya, and they tasted great both times – even not being much of a carrot fan. Plus, they’re not too greasy. A really nice mezze.

Salmon phyllo: This was the only non-vegetarian dish that we ordered, and it was also probably the weakest dish. It was kind of like spanokopita with salmon instead of spinach. This was the only mezze where the flavor did not seem to mesh right. The dill-like flavor that I tasted with the salmon seemed to overpower the overall taste and it came off as one-dimensional. I probably would have liked to see a play on spanokopita with either a different fish or perhaps adding in some red pepper and tomato to give it a little more kick. That being said, it was a special, and sometimes there are good reasons that things are on special and not on the regular menu. So I give them a break on that one.

All in all, the meal was immensely satisfying. A good meal of tapas (or mezze) is great because you get to try so many things and really balance out your taste buds. And like a well differentiated stock portfolio, even with a couple dishes that were just okay, there were enough great ones to make the meal terrific.

And when I am asked to go there a third time someday, I imagine my answer “yes” will come even quicker yet.

Check out my reviews of these places in even more detail at Menuism.com!

Popeye's Psychodrama

Recently I was trapped on a bus going to New York City with 70 strangers (and Julia) for five hours. It was actually a fine experience until the rest stop. A typical, modern facility you see on big travel highways, with the token Burger King, Cinnabon and, the all-too-innocent-looking Popeye's Chicken. Being good little yuppies, who don't typically eat food like that and who had reservations at nine at one of the nicest restaurants in New York (future post), it did not take very much to get us to abstain from the rest stop pre-dinner.

Apparently we were in the minority. As we re-entered the bus for the final leg of the trip, I was inundated with the knock-you-over pungency of the smell of fried chicken, a dish I save for only the rarest of occasions. As I looked around, nearly all of our traveling counterparts were presently digging their faces into little cartons of fried chicken, and well, fries. Conveniently, this was mixed in with just the right amount of Cinnabon smell from those who needed dessert as well, to truly make it a knockout punch. My hungry self was suddenly salivating over this menagerie of gross, and I found myself deeply hankering fried chicken. Popeye's, for lack of a better option.

At this point, it was too late to even think about getting some (as if Julia would have allowed that), so I tortured myself over the smells for the last hour and a half and eventually got myself over it. We got into the city and had a terrific dinner (remember: future post). Let's just say that I ultimately consumed far more spinach than fried chicken that night, so my Popeye the Sailor instincts thankfully “out-muscled” my Popeye's Chicken ones.

Or so I thought. Fast forward two weekends.

After completely forgetting about my little bus craving, I made a Saturday night reservation for a restaurant back in DC with Julia and some friends. The restaurant was between Foggy Bottom and Dupont Circle, Hudson Restaurant and Lounge, at the corner of 21st and M. I was inexplicably attracted by its tag of contemporary-chic comfort food. Now it probably seems obvious why, but at the time, I was none the wiser.

When we got there, I was instantly impressed by the ambiance and decor. It is one of those dark, loungy places that I love, and it had a very crisp, and yes, chic feel to it. I'm not usually a big decor guy, but this is one of those places that makes me want to stay and talk (and eat, and drink) all night. It's loud enough to know that the place is happening and not lame, but not so loud that it hinders conversations.

We ordered a pitcher of their white fusion sangria, which was big, reasonably priced and very flavorful, if not a tad too citrusy for sangria. They served a nice, crusty bread with butter and weren’t shy about refilling it. We found the price to be very reasonable: dinner for four including 1 large pitcher of sangria, 2 entrée pizzas and 2 regular entrees was less than 100 bucks.

THE MENU

The menu was relatively close to what was advertised: new takes on comforts and old faves. The “starters” section included Matzoh Ball Soup (with pulled chicken), Tuna Tartare (with wonton triangles), deviled eggs, cheese steak sliders and mussels. They had a variety of brick oven pizzas with interesting topping combinations, at least four of which were vegetarian. The entrees were a little more main stream and less within the restaurant’s theme (like risotto and whole grilled fish) but were highlighted by duck confit (with truffle fries), truffle macaroni and cheese, and – wait for it – buttermilk fried chicken. Oh the horror!

THE ORDER

Mashed potatoes. Buttermilk Biscuit. Pan Gravy. Clover Honey. My silly brain, upon seeing this description, reverted back to bus torture mode and was immediately begging my better judgment to order this dish immediately. “I mean, how bad could the dish be,” it asked. “This is a nice place – not Popeye’s!”

Well for some reason that brain of mine has unbelievable control over me, and I went for it and finally ordered the chicken that I so didn’t need. And it was good. For fried chicken, I’d say it was very good, maybe even darn good. But it failed to send me over the moon like my craving and my nose and my stomach and my brain all told me it would. Again, I reiterate that I have no complaints about the dish. The breading was crisp and peppery; the chicken was moist and flavorful; the mashed potatoes were creamy; the biscuit was dry but the honey was a delightful remedy for that. And the gravy was, well, indulgent. So it was a fine meal and I don’t fault the restaurant for anything. It just didn’t add anything too new or too memorable to my fried chicken repertoire. And thus, my craving is now gone, and I feel it will be a long while before it returns. Strange, those cravings. And that brain.

The others in my party were not so affected by their deep psychological underpinnings as I was, and ordered sensible and interesting dishes like Shrooms. Had you going there? That was the name of one of their pizzas, and it was topped with mushrooms, garlic confit, brie and black truffle oil. Another ordered pizza was Hawaiian House, with ham, pineapple, fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce. The pizzas were both thin but not crispy, pretty big and very tasty. I would say that the toppings seemed a little scarce, especially on the Shrooms one, but I suppose with all those rich flavors it didn’t take away too much. The last dish ordered was a wild mushroom and smoked Gouda risotto, which I did not try, but it got a very nice review from the eater.

All in all, I think we would return to this place, if for no other reason than to further explore some of the interesting other options. Not necessarily to reorder anything we happened to order this time. Or to necessarily quench deeply recessed cravings. That is, unless we go back to New York and the bus stops at Popeye’s Confit or something.

Thoughts on a Train

Food can be the simplest and also the most deeply interesting parts of our lives. Sound cliché? Yes, but it's as true as the paper I'm writing this on. Oh wait. Seeing as I'm writing this on my blackberry while waiting for the Washington DC Metro to take me to work, this is certainly not paper, and I certainly get the feeling that I'm going to have to work quite a bit harder to prove my point.

Now that the train is moving and I'm standing, holding on for dear life, I can only imagine this becoming even more challenging.

I'm here in DC not even two months into my first real job. Less than a few months removed from my old life as a student and ball of stress in Michigan, I have new and bittersweet feelings about life. Stress? Out the door. I mean I have a job -- in my life that's when the stress ends! But the old life in the flexible and ever changing atmosphere I grew accustomed to as I plowed through my grad school at Michigan is also gone forever. Let's say I'm adjusting.

As I am finding out, when you start your career, people constantly want to know what you actually WANT to be doing with your life, as if the current thing couldn't be further from your hopes. Inevitably, I've been asked this at least 5 times in the past month. After receiving the look of horror from my co-worker when I told her that I always thought Human Resources would be fun for a few months, I thought I would redeem myself by telling her the truth. I told her being a chef or a writer. This returned the previous smile to her face, and she went on to bash HR as a profession to the rest of the present company.

The next week I met a super nice young guy in New York City (a friend of a friend) and as we chatted, he asked me the same question verbatim. Hoping not to invoke the same reactions as at work, I gave him the latter response. Being enthusiastic and creative, he immediately said, "why not do both? Be a food critic! Write about what you eat." How novel was this? A light went off for me: how fun would THAT be? As I thought about it more, I knew I wasn't going to change careers anytime soon (contrary to the last 2 paragraphs, I actually like my job). And the thought of a Bon Apetit or New York Times type food critic seemed too elitist and structured and perhaps most importantly, hated by the world. I am a food creator and food lover at heart. I would always favor the side of the creator, wanting to understand the motivations and culture behind a dish equally as much as the styles and techniques.

Food impresses me. World cultures are built around cuisine, and many people derive entertainment and pleasure from eating at restaurants and cooking for friends and family. But at the same time, food is as simple as the bowl of cereal I had for breakfast today. It is the building block of every day for every person on earth. We are healthy or unhealthy based upon what we eat, and it affects all of us the same and all of us differently at the same time. A complex system of tastes and temperatures and textures that can make our mouths water, make us sweat, make us gag, make us sick, make us healthy, make us happy, make us sleepy, get us in the mood, inspire us, amaze us and enlighten us. It drives our bodies, drives our days, drives our lives and drives entire cultures. Yet it's so simple.

Through my own story and my own eating adventures at home, cooking and in restaurants, trying, combined with those recipes and experiences of my friends and family and even people I've never met -- like you -- I hope to write about food through the lens of lives. And so woven will be my Auto-Foodography.

Please always feel free to send me recipes, restaurants and stories that you love or that characterize your love. I'll try them out and post what I love about them!

Six shaky stops later, I’m at my station. I should probably put this device away and start rushing toward my day.