Mayuri, Reston, VA

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Don

I started my dinner with a Kingfisher ($6.95 for a 650 ml / 22 ounce bottle), and perused Mayuri’s fairly lengthy menu for something I was unfamiliar with. Mayuri means “(female) peacock” – the national bird of India – in Hindi, and sure enough, the front page of the menu is decorated with a big blue one (I suppose I’ll always remember this now). While I sipped my beer, my server brought out a complimentary basket of standard-issue Pappadam with a bit of tamarind and coriander chutney. Kingfisher is headquartered in Bangalore, is India’s largest selling beer, and has been brewing since 1857 (note to Tom S – “since before the days of the Raj,” by precisely one year) :)

I’ve become fluent enough with many ethnic menus, including Indian, to order items simply because I have no idea what the words mean, and tonight was no exception.

Hara Dania Kabab ($5.99) was a plate of about 8-9 battered nuggets, looking almost identical to battered, fried dates. “Hara” = Green, “Dania” = Coriander, and these were beignet-like morsels translated on the menu as “cottage cheese rolls with spinach and green coriander leaves.” Almost surely purchased pre-made, these were uniform in size, and came out perfectly hot throughout within minutes, without any visible signs of either frying or microwaving – perhaps placed into a super-hot tandoor? Regardless, they just weren’t very good, with the herbs too bitter, and the filling too salty, the shards of paneer not enough to compensate. As I ordered my next item, I asked for an order of Raita ($1.99) to tone it down, and my server brought the watery version over and said it was with his compliments – a nice gesture, much appreciated.

I’d never before heard of Pesarattu ($6.99), a southern dish of “green gram [Mung bean] crepes stuffed with onion,” but it didn’t matter because they were out of them. So instead, I ordered a second small plate, Fish Amritsari ($8.95), a traditional Indian fried fish dish with Punjabi spices. I knew amrit was the nectar drunk by Guru Nanak (the father of Sikhism), but did not know that Amritsar was the town in India where this dish originated (what I know, I really know; what I don’t know, I don’t know at all).

These were also double-bite sized morsels, about 8-9 of them, made with sturdy, boneless, flaky whitefish (perhaps haddock), and they also came out remarkably fast, in less than five minutes; yet, showed no signs of improper heating, or glistening oil, or anything else suspect about the cooking process. They were also perhaps purchased pre-made and finished in a hot tandoor, but were delicious, a good value, and I recommend them highly. These worked well with both chutneys and the raita, and I thought enough of them to buy a second order to go. Do try them if you come here.

As I waited for my carryout order, I finished the meal with a Gajar ka Halwa ($2.99), “Gajar” = Carrot, “Halwa” = Scrambled, the dessert being a carrot and milk pudding (with not much milk used), but with [get this] “the touch of green cardamom.” Pleasant, moderately sweet, and a nice way to end the meal – you’ll sometimes see this dessert on Indian lunch buffets.

Thus ends my nightly quest to expand my Hindi vocabulary while also expanding my culinary horizons, gonzo style.

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Magnolias at the Mill, Purcellville, VA

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Don

Every small Virginia town seemingly has its “restaurant by the train station,” and Purcellville, where the W&OD Trail ends shortly after mile marker 45, is no exception.

Magnolias at the Mill is Purcellville’s “detour off of Route 7” restaurant, with a charming, historic mill as its location, a full selection of good beers, and one heck of a talented crew working pastry.

I arrived just in time to see the Nats getting shellacked in game #2 against St. Louis, and took a seat at the bar to watch the carnage over a Williamsburg Aleworks Caledonia ($5.50) which the entertaining beer menu describes as “Scottish Ale at its best” – honestly, it was just too hoppy for me to consider as a great example of a Scotch Ale, so much so that it almost prevented me from ordering a second one.

The beer list is a strong point at Magnolias, featuring 29 drafts, and a description of Bud Light which says, “You can almost tell it’s beer.” What’s not to like? In addition, they have a significant “Big Bottle” selection featuring larger format bottles from across America and around the world. Justin, my bartender, was kind and enthusiastic.

My first choice for an entree, a “Wood-Grilled Bone-In Pork Chop (Loudoun County 4H),” a daily special, was 86’d, so I changed my order altogether, starting with a salad.

I rarely order salads in restaurants “such as this” (charming places out in the “country”) because of the exact reason I shouldn’t have ordered it tonight: despite sourcing local and seasonal ingredients, the whole is almost never greater than the sum of its parts, and is often less.

No exception here. The Endless Summer Harvest Salad ($9), was, despite the same name, completely different on the paper menu than the internet menu. My version consisted of oak lettuce, dates (cut to look like sliced olives), (soft) candied pecans, smoked Gouda, and cranberry vinaigrette, and the salad was nothing more than the ingredients piled on a plate – exactly what you’d do when tonging together a salad at Whole Foods’ salad bar. Essentially, if you think this combination of ingredients would appeal to you, then sure, order it; and if you don’t, then steer clear. For my palate, there was no magic here at all, and it tasted very much like a poorly conceived salad-bar salad. The salad, incidentally, came out almost instantly, certainly in less than several minutes – it was assembled in haste, and it showed.

However, there was an early standout: the basket of Focaccia (gratis) with a ramekin of sweet-salty butter which forced me to take note of the Pastry Chef, Marcy Mergler, for the first time. This was excellent focaccia which was better than what I’d had two weeks before at Robert Donna’s Al Dente. Example number one.

From the “Magnolia’s Specialties” section, I ordered the Pork Scallopini Involtino ($22.75) with prosciutto, aged Provolone, asparagus, Asiago polenta, caramelized shallots, and Madeira mustard sauce. Unlike the salad, this took at least twenty minutes to be prepared, and I suspect not many people were ordering it on this Monday evening. An involtino is essentially a roulade – a meat rolled around a stuffing – and this was an honorable attempt at a dish which failed. It came out inedibly hot, the cheese inside was liquified, it was very salty, and most importantly, it was so herbaceous as to be unenjoyable. Magnolias at the Mill sources well, and I believe one of the things it has access to is good, fresh, local herbs. The problem with this is that these herbs, in the hands of an overzealous chef, or inexperienced line cook, are such an exciting find that there becomes a need to “highlight” them. “Diners! Look at these babies!” Unfortunately, fresh herbs are so much more potent than their dried counterparts that they can easily overwhelm a dish if not applied sparingly, and such was the case here. I could not get past the herb-dominance of this dish, no matter how I tried, and whoever is cooking it needs to avoid the temptation to show off their superior product, and treat these as the restrained embellishments they are meant to be, no matter how good or fresh they are. It hurts me to say this more than you might imagine because I am, in essence, discouraging the (over)use of an excellent product.

With the involtino, I ordered a Left Hand Milk Stout ($6) from Longmont, Colorado, and I wish to stress that the three things that stood out here were the beer selection, the atmosphere, and Example number two: the Parmesan-like tuile that came with my involtino. Like the focaccia, I believed this tuile must have been at the hands of the Pastry Chef, and as silly as it might sound, I began to develop a quiet kinship with Marcy Mergler – enough so that, despite being very full, I felt a moral obligation to order a third thing under her jurisdiction.

With my check, I ordered an Individual Key Lime Tart ($7) with graham cracker crust and pomegranate reduction to take home with me.

When I got home, I had a text message from two restaurant friends of mine who wanted to stop by and pick up some wine that I was holding for them (it was Eric and Celia). “How about a glass of wine?” I said. Well, they weren’t going to turn that down after their extremely disappointing Italian dinner in Falls Church. “And I have what might be a really good dessert to go with it,” I added.

I plated the key lime tart, with three forks, and opened a bottle of 1959 Gaston Huet Le Haut Lieu Vouvray Sec that I just knew would pair perfectly with this, and sure enough, it did. The 53-year-old Chenin Blanc was magnificent, and the bone-dry, “sec” nature (“sec” means “completely dry”) all of a sudden showed some fresh sweetness alongside the beautifully executed key lime pie. “I don’t even really like key lime pie, but I really like this,” I said. “Well I do like key lime pie, and I really like this,” Eric said. Marcy had batted three-for-three on this evening. Kudos to a very fine pastry chef, laboring in anonymity out in Purcellville.

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Rafagino, Burke, VA

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Don

On a very slow, cold, rainy night on a Columbus Day Sunday, Rafagino was fairly empty with only a few tables taken, but the suave owner, Paulo Carvalho, greeted the trickling of patrons by the door, just as he has done for 18 years.

In a downscale strip mall, Rafagino is a downscale version of fine dining, with service that is more European than American. Silverware is cleared after each course (DC restaurants, please take note), wine and water are attentively refilled, and no customer is left feeling neglected or unwanted. You are not “eating” here; you are dining.

Aside from the service, the wine list is probably the restaurant’s biggest strength, with many palatable wines priced in the $20s and $30s. A 2010 Placido Chianti ($29, and erroneously listed on the menu as a Chianti Classico) was everything you’d want with this meal – understated, with mild, ripe (but not overripe) red cherry marching in lockstep with its supporting acidity – a fine, food-oriented Chianti that can be taken home if you don’t finish the bottle.

I wish I could go on with my praise, but I must stop here. The bread in the basket was industrial, day-old, slices of baguette-like substance that was what you’d find on a bad day at Shoppers’ Food Warehouse, served with foil-wrapped pats of real butter and a decent olive oil. I didn’t try the Lemonade ($2), but believe my young dining companion when he said it tasted bitter and unappealing (if I were Rafagino, I’d consider offering the San Pellegrino Limonata which is now becoming more-and-more widely distributed, now even available for home delivery by Deer Park).

Carpaccio di Tonno ($10.95) was a plateful of flattened tuna, looking like a prosciutto, sprinkled with capers, a central thimble of what might have been crushed anchovies, and capers. It was on the dry side (meaning that the tuna wasn’t at all glistening), but it was pleasant enough.

Gamberoni Avolti in Pancetta e Scamozza ($10.95) were four shrimp, baked and served in their own clay pot (DC restaurants, please take note), wrapped in pancetta and smoked mozzarella, topped with a drizzle of balsamic. At $2.25 per shrimp, this was an expensive dish, but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it having been served in its own baking vessel. “The cooking times for shrimp and pancetta are different,” my astute dining companion remarked, “and there’s no way the doneness of this dish is going to be perfect.” The drips of balsamic added a tinge of sweetness in the millimeter of broth that had formed in the bottom of the clay vessel, and better bread would have gone a long way toward saving this dish.

A daily special of Rigatoni con Bolognese di Cinghiale ($16.95) was a plain, white bowl of dried rigatoni, not cooked to death, bottomed with an enjoyable sauce with wild boar that could have doubled as ground beef. The price seems reasonable, but this needs to be a sauce dish, and it needed twice the amount of sauce to have been successful; as it was served, it was tolerable, but stingy in the only place where it really mattered.

Cotoletta di Agnello con Carciofi al Rosmarino ($25.95) was the one big loser of the evening, the two small T-bones of lamb being so tough (uncuttable with anything not serrated), bland, and soulless that I would have difficulty discerning this was lamb had I not known. It appeared at once frozen, braised, and reheated, and was rescued by the occasional artichoke and its accompanying side of linguini in oil. The Grated Parmesan service tasted powdered to me, and added nothing to either the linguini or the rigatoni.

Rafagino brings out mostly purchased desserts on a tray in a fairly elaborate presentation – about a dozen in total. A tulip of Vanilla Ice Cream with Caramel and Walnuts ($8) was cold, store-bought ice cream with corn-syrupy caramel and … wait a minute … the umami of the walnuts magically bringing my last glass of Chianti back to life and over the top. Yep! The best wine pairing of the night was with the walnut aspect of this dessert. Surprise!

Rafagino has a wine list worth knowing about if you’re out for a civilized dinner, and service that can match most any restaurant in the Virginia suburbs despite it’s strip-mall roots. The mostly older (50s, 60s) patrons genuinely appreciated  Mr. Carvalho’s deft hand running the front of the house, and were all happy. Good service costs money, and it’s worth it, too, because I’ll remember this aspect of Rafagino long before I forget the leathery lamb chop.

But this dinner for two, all-in, was a painful $130. At this price, the food simply must be better – a lot better – and there’s no amount of service that can dance around that simple reality.

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Langano, Silver Spring, MD

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Don

I’m convinced that because I don’t eat Ethiopian more than a few times a year, I’m not used to the injera, and that causes each little air bubble to act like it comes with it’s own microscopic pneumatic pump, resulting in the injera quintupling in size after I swallow it, with me invariably becoming full after about twenty bites of food.

Several years had passed since I’d last been to Langano (*), and it hasn’t changed a bit. This evening, I saw about 40 customers total during my time there, and I was most likely the only non-Ethiopian in the restaurant. (Next door, Lucy, no doubt named after this young lady, had a more vibrant and convivial dynamic that almost surely snowballed by attracting foot traffic.)

After the staff convinced themselves I wasn’t an inspector from the Department of Liquor Control – which took some doing, as I stood out like a sore thumb – service could not have been nicer. Without a single exception, the bar acted as a dividing line between genders, with the women behind, serving, and the men in front, drinking and watching soccer.

There’s something about dining in an ethnic restaurant that compels me to order beers from that country – Singha in Thai restaurants, Tsing Tao in Chinese restaurants – even though they’re often made for export, and don’t really enhance the authenticity of the experience. But as this light genre goes, I like St. George Lager ($5.75), primarily because of a slight maltiness, and also because I rarely see it elsewhere. If you enjoy beer, give this a go – it’s only 4.5% alcohol, and won’t hit you over the head.

Despite the DC area being one of the strongest Ethiopian pockets in the country, only two out of the three potential joys of eating Ethiopian are usually realized by diners – 1) being young and indoctrinated for the first time, or 2) being in a group of several people at a jovial table. For a solo diner at the bar, the third joy – 3) becoming immersed in really good cooking, happens on occasion, but not nearly often enough – there are a fair amount of very ordinary Ethiopian restaurants in this area.

Vegetables are often mehgetables, straight off a Sysco truck, and Langano’s Vegetable Combination ($12.75) was no exception. Nominally served with gomen, salad, shiro, lentils, cabbage, collards, and azifa, this generous platter had some of these things, but was really just ten little piles of whatever they had, including beets and carrots. If you think about it, at $12.75, these are going for $1.27 per dollop, meaning the food cost is probably about 40 cents per pile – when you break it down to these terms, it’s really hard to find any fault. The beets and carrots were the best two items on the plate, followed by the cabbage and gomen; I really struggled with one item that may have been shiro, but it came across more like somewhat harsh, dry, refried pinto beans that had been sitting out and congealing.

I’ll tell you what, though: really good injera, made with teff (and I’m thinking of the version I last had at Meaza), would have brightened up this cooking a fair amount. If I were to come back to Langano, I’d try to convince the staff that I was a serious diner, and ask them to recommend a meat dish. Sampler platters are a nice introduction (and this one properly took a good twenty minutes to arrive), but manually combining single dishes is usually the best way to go, certainly when you’re in a group.

(*) Langano is named after Lake Langano, in the Oromia region (there are nine regions) of Ethiopia, about 200 km south of Addis Ababa. This sprawling region, shaped like the number “7,” borders a remarkable 8 of the 9 Ethiopian regions.

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Bistro Vivant, McLean, VA

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Don

I was the last diner at Bistro Vivant this evening, happily sitting outside, just me, my CD jacket (as reading material), and the parking lot of Langley Shopping Center.

It was a Tuesday, and I knew the staff wanted the heck out of there, so I made it clear to the host that I’d be quick, but he was perfectly gracious, and made me feel welcome.

A healthy, quick meal starting with a glass of 2011 Jean-Marice Raffault Chinon Rosé ($10). I mentioned this above, but it’s worth repeating: Driss Zahidi’s fine cooking works well with a bone-dry rosé – the paler the better – yet the Raffault isn’t really all that pale or dry, but still works well with everything but the darkest of meats on this menu.

There’s a reason French food is the best food in the world: because it is. And it’s so nice, civilized, and genteel to enjoy a glass of wine al fresco, even overlooking a parking lot, with (what surely must be) Panorama bread with fine, salted butter, waiting for the Seared Tuna, Salmon & Lobster ($23) to arrive, cooked with wilted frisée and citrus sauce which could have been orange-based, but skewed its acidity more toward clementines in the treble register. The butter in this dish has its arm around the citrus, and virtually ensures that no bread will remain. Chunks and claws of lobster took the center of the plate, on top of the gorgeous wilted frisée, and flanked by a triangle of three roulades of seared tuna stuffed with irregularly cut salmon, everything knitting together in harmony.

A beautiful, one-course dinner at McLean’s best restaurant. I assume Chef Driss Zahidi was on the line this evening because the cooking was right on the money; if he wasn’t, then that’s better still. I’m batting 3-for-3 at Bistro Vivant, my only complaint being the uncertainty I have about the wine pricing, as it relates to the size of glasses, half-carafes, full-carafes, and bottles – it would be good to title these categories with the number of ounces in each pour.

Thank you to the staff at Bistro Vivant for gracing me with a delightfully peaceful meal. Although I was not out reviewing this evening, this clearly remains as the top restaurant in McLean, and I happily look forward to returning in the future whenever I crave local downscale fine dining without a lot of fuss or jacked-up prices. This is good food, prepared well, and you’ll leave happy and feeling like you just had good value for your money.

And I think it’s beautiful just how many senior citizens were leaving the restaurant this evening, as I sat near the door, watching them being helped to their cars. In a way, it reminds me of Bethesda’s Tragara, a wonderfully accommodating restaurant that I’ve heard we’re on the verge of losing (please say it isn’t so, Claude). I love seeing senior citizens enjoy themselves, and to a person, that’s exactly what they were doing tonight. Bravo.

Keep it up, Aykan – you’ve got yourself a winner on your hands. It’ll never get buzz, but you’re developing quite a loyal clientele who respects you greatly. This is the type of restaurant that could easily survive for thirty years, and I hope it does.

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Adour – Minibites, March 4, 2012 – March 10, 2012

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Don

Minibites are delicious samplings of Don’s culinary adventures, condensed, distilled, and always meant to be savored with your Monday morning coffee.

The DCDining.com Restaurant Guide is located exclusively on donrockwell.com. (For an extra shot, click on the link and enjoy the full thread.)

Härth (Tysons Coner, Hilton Hotel) – If you haven’t seen this hotel yet, you’re missing a lot: it’s a beautifully designed hotel. Corporate, yes, but designed in a striking, eye-catching way, from the lobby to the restaurant. There’s a reason places like Hilton pay their designers well, and this is it. Since my young dining companion and I stayed in and had pasties the night before, I took him out to a fancy-dancy brunch on Sunday morning, and we had a nice time at this lovely restaurant. My bottomless cup of coffee ($2.00) was just what I needed to wake me up, and accompanied by my Breakfast Bun ($9.50) – I’m going from memory here because there is [anger] no menu [/anger] on the website – it was essentially an over-easy egg with cheese, canadian bacon, etc., on a brioche roll served alongside overcooked wok-fired potatoes, peppers, and onions, as well as a fried tomato. Very good, but outperformed by Matt’s inexplicably named Green Eggs ($13.00), two eggs, over easy, with similar potatoes, an ample portion of ham, and a fried tomato with toasted baguette. A side order of bacon ($6) was a rip-off for three pieces. Nevertheless, this was a very good brunch, if a bit on the expensive side, and Härth is initiated as a strong Good, and I could seeing it moving higher in the future, although probably not for dinner. An enjoyable, but expensive, Sunday brunch.  I’m sorry I don’t have more detail, but neither the website, nor the check, has much information on it. I’d come back here again, but I wouldn’t rush. An enjoyable meal, to be sure, but nothing special, save for the very well done design of this restaurant.

Kushi (Downtown, Mount Vernon Triangle) – Kushi went from being wonderful when it first opened, to extremely mediocre when it ran into tax probems, and now that it’s devolved into Coupon Land, it rests somewhere in between the two. I have still yet to have anything truly bad here, but it sure isn’t what it used to be. Beers are frightfully expensive, the wonderful Tokyo Black Porter ($11) works out to a heart-stopping $66 a six-pack, my friends. By any measure, that is something close to criminal. But boy, what a lovely porter it is. My first course began with Chawanmushi Dashi ($5.50): egg custard, which was delicious but needed some soy squirted in, along with Agedashi Flash Fried Tofu ($5.50), a delicious soup-like concoction consisting of four pieces of delicious quick-fried tofu in a soy-based broth. These two courses were wonderful. Afterwards, two courses from the robata, the Kobocha Squash ($4.00) and the Griled Squid Legs (Geso in Japanese) ($6.00). The third and final course was three Makimono Rolls: Kanpyo and Tamago ($4.50), Salmon, Avo, and Cucumber ($8), and Spicy California with Fresh Lump Crab Meat and Jalapeño ($8.75). Truly, evey single single dish was a hit, with nothing less than very good. The drinks here are where they gouge you – they are expensive as all get out. But Kushi has somehow survived their tax problems (thanks in no part to coupon sales with distant expiration dates). I had a lovely dinner here tonight, and was thanking the powers that be that I had a Living Social to cash in due to the cost of the beers. Maintained as Very Good in the donrockwell.com Dining Guide. I really can’t say it’s Noteworthy for anything in particular (other than its sheer size), but it is still a nice restaurant, and I’d come here again (and, in fact I will because I have another Living Social coupon to use up). A good showing for Kushi that they should be proud of.

Pie-Tanza (Falls Church) Pie-Tanza is an odd restaurant because it does pizza very, very well, and not much else. On this evening, a Sausage, Onions, & Peppers Pizza ($12.29) with homemade slow-cooked mild and hot Italian sausage, tri-color fresh peppers, and white onion with red sauce, mozzarella and fontina cheeses with oregano was right in keeping with how their pizza usually is, a level of quality that keeps me coming back for carryout; alas, there’s nothing else here that I’d order (if someone knows of anything, please let me know and I’ll give it a try). I’ve ordered carryout pizza at both the Arlington and Falls Church Pie-Tanzas probably 20 times, and I’ve almost always been happy. Their wood-burnng ovens make all the difference in the world, even if their ingredients aren’t all that special. Overall, Pie-Tanza is maintained as Good, and I could perhaps say it’s Noteworthy for their Very Good pizzas, but the overall quality of the restaurants just isn’t good enough to take it to the next level. Get carryout pizza here, and you won’t be disappointed; get anything more, and you probably will be. No, you know what? I am going to mark this as Noteworthy because their pizzas are consistently good, and it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t. Get the pizza as carryout – it’s worth your time and effort.  This just goes to show you how close a call things are sometimes. This is very good pizza – look at the char on the bottom of the crust, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s a reason I keep ordering carryout pizzas from Pie-Tanza, and it’s not because I’m a masochist; it’s because they’re good pizzas. Addendum: I enjoyed my pizza so much that I got the same thing for lunch the next day, and oh, what a difference a day made. The second rendition was decent at best, with the vegetables chopped 3-4 inches in length, the combination of flavors all wrong, the onions nearly raw, and the only standout being the crust itself. Not bad, but a relative disappointment to be sure, and it just goes to show you how futile it is to rely solely on reviews by restaurant critics, especially single-visit reviews. If you haven’t been to a restaurant 10-20 times or even more, then you don’t know the restaurant, period, and I don’t care if you’re the most experienced restaurant critic in the world. If you only remember one thing I ever write, please let it be this.

Arax Cafe (Arlington) It’s places such as Arax Cafe that inspire me to continue writing about restaurants and eateries. It’a a tiny little Armenian (yes, Armenian) owned place that serves mediocre coffee (actually very good coffee when pulled from the espresso machine), and pretty good cakes and pastries – this morning I had a slice of lemon cake to go with my coffee, and it was slightly more dried out than usual. I primarily frequent Arax Cafe for my morning coffee, going a good half mile out of my way to avoid going to Starbucks (I actually alternate between Arax and Toby’s, across the street, to split my business between these two independently owned businesses). But the real draw at Arax Cafe is something I rarely order, and it’s the Armenian Meat Pies – a tiny little round flatbread, almost matzah thin but slightly more floppy – a pretty good picture of one is right here (I realize this looks somewhat spicy, but Armenian Meat Pies are actually extremely mild, and the crust is just fabulous). I don’t remember the price, but they are dirt cheap (cheap enough where you can buy several to take home and reheat). I’ve written about Arax Cafe numerous times, urging people to come here for a quick lunch (you can be in-and-out within minutes; or, you can dine in and choose from a wonderful selection of magazines – old National Geographics, etc.). It is near the original Lebanese Taverna on Washington Blvd., and should be on anyone’s short list who cares about hard-working people running small businesses – I suspect this place isn’t exactly making a fortune, so please support them with your breakfast or lunch dollars. The two gentlemen I’ve seen working in here are extremely kind, and I almost desperately want them to succeed. Arax Cafe is maintained as Very Good, and I suspect that’s where it will always be. Also, Noteworthy for being one of the few Armenian restaurants in the area and for serving their delicious, inexpensive Armenian Meat Pies. This place is a little gem, and it’s businesses like this, in general, that contribute mightily to the character and humanity of this world we live in.

Adour (Downtown) A couple years ago, I was invited to a media dinner at Adour with Alain Ducasse himself. I’d only been to one of these in my life (a one-on-one dinner with Antoine Westermann at The Willard Room), and I figured it would be a sea of journalists. Well, it wasn’t – it was only about ten people at a single table with M. Ducasse in a private room. The meal was lovely, but unbeknownst to Adour, I’d actually downgraded it in the dining guide that day because the meal simply was not up to its standards of excellence. This week, I was invited to another media dinner, showcasing items from M. Ducasse’s new cookbook “Nature,” and to be honest, I was somewhat dreading it because I had since re-upgraded Adour, and didn’t want to downgrade it again based on a press dinner – but I was prepared to do so if need be. This time around, there were probably thirty people in attendance, sitting in the main dining room during lunch; M. Ducasse spent less time dining, and almost all his time in the kitchen, and it showed: the food was absolutely superb. Let’s start with canapes and cocktails in the lounge. Outstanding young sommelier Brent Kroll whipped up a Strawberry-Cilantro Lemonade with fresh lemon and herbal syrup just for this event, and they also offered a Citrus Iced Tea with green tea, lemon, lime, and grapefruit, both to be had with pass-around Asian-plastic spoons containing bites of Tzatziki and Daurade Ceviche with parsley and popcorn (this was wonderful with the tea). The lunch bell rang, and we all took our seats and enjoyed a four-course meal. A Spring Vegetable Tartine was spot on with me, although I heard a respected writer say he thought it had a bit much ricotta; regardless, the vegetables were worthy of your full attention. This was served alongside a Cookpot of Farro Grain with bell pepper, basil, and Taggiasche olive, and paired with a 2008 Ostertag Sylvaner from Alsace. In a perfect word, this would have broken into two courses, but alas, the realities of a press banquet kicked in. Then the fabulous main course of Fillets of John Dory with tomato, mushroom, and spinach served with the 2008 Fontsainte “La Demoiselle” Corbieres, a wise choice to pick a red with this hearty fish dish. Both wines came from California importer Kermit Lynch, and showed beautifully. For dessert, a Dark Chocolate Mousse with ginger, lime, and orange peel left everyone satisfied, no one hungry, and many an employer strapped with non-productive workers all afternoon long. A fabulous meal that I needlessly feared would downgrade Adour from its Superlative status, but it didn’t. This was very close to Michelin two-star dining (this was better than some two-star meals I’ve eaten in France), and needless to say, Adour is DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week. A virtuoso performance, especially considering this was essentially a glorified banquet.

El Manantial (Reston) – What a wonderful, old-school throwback this elegant, polished restaurant is, staffed with professionals working the front of the house who take their jobs seriously, and a kitchen that knows how to cook. In many ways, this restaurant reminds me of Tragara in Bethesda because it’s a (needlessly) dying breed: fine dining, in a setting that will leave you feeling pampered and special, with linens, white tablecloths, polite, attentive service, and a quiet atmosphere perfect for conversing rather than shouting. My young dining companion wanted a civilized dinner instead of a grab-n-go, so we opted for this Mediterranean hideaway, splitting our appetizers. A very serviceable glass of Vinho Verde was only $5, and two of them got me through the entire meal.  El Manantial has a tapas menu that is less expensive, and really something of an abbreviated variant of their main menu; although I didn’t order from it, I wouldn’t recommend it strongly although it may be a way to save money here. Flash Fried Oysters ($11.95) come atop a pink alioli and some rings of shockingly good marinated onion that went equally well with the Baby Spinach Salad ($7.95) with fresh spinach leaves, hearts of palm, and crumbles of feta cheese – the two very different appetizers complemented each other well.  Matt got the Flounder Imperial ($23.95) with a good-sized crabcake atop potatoes and diced vegetables; I had the equally impressive Barramundi ($25.95), semi-boneless and stuffed with crabmeat, with similar condiments. Both of these entrees were very well cooked in a traditional, old-school European style. Best of all was the 30% discount we got by spending $10 on Savored.com, knocking a full $24 off the bill, turning an Excellent restaurant (it does eke into the Excellent category, and is also Noteworthy for being beautiful, old-school fine-dining) into one which is also quite a good value. Absolutely upgraded in the donrockwell.com dining guide and highly recommended, especially if reserving through Savored.com. Note that if it weren’t for the meal at Adour – which I reemphasize was complimentary – El Manantial would be DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week, so depending on the grain of salt with which you buy into the notion of free media meals, take your pick.

Saint Michel Bakery (Rockville) – This tiny storefront with just a few tables is about as close as you’ll find to an authentic, neighborhood French boulangerie in these parts. I’m not going to say it’s 100% authentic (their pan bagnat, for example, is served on a baguette like the rest of their sandwiches, and please forgive me, but I’m a pan bagnat snob and proud of it!). Still, the two sandwiches we split were wonderful: a Panamé ($5.45) with what seemed like real French ham and generous wedges of Brie, and a Dry Sausage ($5.45) which was essentially a saucisson beurre. Delicious sandwiches served on really good baguettes, baked right there in-house. For dessert, a good, eggy Canalé ($1.25) which I’m not sure how to describe eloquently, so here are 1,000 words, and a proper Pain au Chocolat ($1.85). A wonderful little rustic French bakery, maintained enthusiastically as Very Good (could be Excellent depending on how you wanted to prioritize), and absolutely Noteworthy for being a little piece of country France in the heart of industrial Rockville. If you haven’t fallen in love with St. Michel Bakery yet, you will soon enough.

Bayou Bakery (Courthouse) – After my last visit a few months back, I gently (and quietly) downgraded Bayou Bakery in the Dining Guide just a bit, and a late Saturday night dinner did nothing to change my impression (I had originally been swept up in the press storm, like everyone else, and have since slightly modified my position). A friend and I had a very good, unfussy dinner, starting with a couple of Abitas, a double order of Pimento Cheese – one as a sandwich ($5), and the other as a side order with Triscuits ($4). The sandwich was by far the better of the two, since it was grilled and heated; the side order came out too cold (and with pimento cheese, this affects the texture as well). Still, as good of a pimento cheese sandwich as you’re likely to find in this area. And my friend’s Boudin ($6) was as good as I remember, and something well-worth ordering here; my Shrimp and Andouille Jambalaya ($14) was fine, but not at this price. Bayou Bakery is a very press-driven restaurant, but it’s also maintained as Very Good and Noteworthy for its talented pastry-chef / owner, David Guas – his background is your key to what you should be ordering here.

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Addie’s – Minibites: February 26, 2012 – March 3, 2012

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Don

Minibites are delicious samplings of Don’s culinary adventures, condensed, distilled, and always meant to be savored with your Monday morning coffee.

The DCDining.com Restaurant Guide is located exclusively on donrockwell.com. (For an extra shot, click on the link and enjoy the full thread.)

Fishnet (College Park) – If Fishnet were located on Knox Road, it would have lines out the door (and probably unaffordable rent); in its charming old house on Berwyn Road, it faces a much tougher challenge, and it’s going to be interesting to see if it can survive. Quality-wise, there is no doubting what chef-owner Ferhat Yalcin is producing: truly fresh fish, purchased whole, and hand cut every single day to make some of the best fish sandwiches the Washington, DC area has ever seen, not to mention “fish sticks” made with hake that will forever change your perception of what a fish stick can be. Four of us went through a large portion of this menu, and there wasn’t a single bad item in the bunch. Look at this! Hand-Cut Fries, very good – Cole Slaw, great – Hake Fish Sticks, great – Grilled Spanish Mackerel Sandwich, very good to great – Balik Ekmek, great – Lobster Roll, at least very good (I only got one tiny bite) – Falafel, at least very good (it’s a heavy, polenta-like falafel) – Soda Selection, great (no alcohol served). Believe it or not, I reheated half the mackerel sandwich the next day in the microwave for thirty seconds, and it was still fantastic, probably because the addicting Turkish tartar sauce soaked into the Panorama ciabatta roll overnight. Fishnet has free WiFi, needs to work on its decor, and has absolutely got to go after neighborhood residents (it’s smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood). And they’re going to need to figure out how to serve beer and wine sooner rather than later. This place could thrive, with lines of budget-minded seafood lovers reaching out into the street; or, it could go belly-up if it doesn’t advertise itself properly and take advantage of getting a beer and wine license. It’s not a cross-town destination, but it is the single best budget fish shack in the entire Washington, DC area. Leaps and bounds better than Surfside, and better than the Georgetown Tackle Box when that restaurant first opened (people forget just how good Tackle Box used to be at first). Fishnet has them all beat, quality-wise, but will it survive? Gosh, I sure hope so, and if you care about supporting quality-minded small mom-n-pop businesses, you will, too. If you find yourself near IKEA, then you’re less than a five-minute drive from Fishnet. Go, and go now before it’s too late – this place deserves your support and business. Coverage initiated as a very enthusiastic Very Good, and marked as Noteworthy for serving the best inexpensive fresh seafood in the entire DC metropolitan area. This place has GOT to succeed. It must! Please make it so.

Han Gang (Annandale) – One of Annandale’s most expensive Korean restaurants, and needlessly so. A hopeless beverage list relegated me to a bottle of Cass ($5), and all seven panchan were very good, but also entirely vegan. One very nice touch about Han Gang was a little bowl of bean soup for an amuse-bouche (this, in addition to my miso soup), as well as a little bowl of what seemed like red-bean pudding that came gratis after the meal. The highlight was my appetizer, a small order of Nokdu Bin Dae Thuck ($6), a really nice, somewhat polenta-like mung bean and vegetable pancake served with dipping sauce. I definitely recommend this (almost surely vegan) dish, especially at the price. I didn’t fare as well with the disappointing Hwae Dup Bap ($15), a bowl of mediocre greens with a bunch of low-quality tuna, salmon, and flounder thrown in. Mixed together with the red chili sauce, it became palatable, but by no means was this a good version of Hwae Dup Bap, a dish which I’ve had a good two dozen times in my life. Han Gang has the audacity to charge $50 for a small sashimi platter, $75 for a medium, and an eye-popping $100 for a large. All I can say is: the platters had better be pretty darned big, and the fish had better be a whole heck of a lot better than what I had. My goodness, I wouldn’t roll the dice on these platters unless someone was holding a gun to my head. Service was quite pleasant, and the restaurant is attractive, and taken as a whole, Han Gang is a low-end Very Good restaurant, with the caveat that it can be quite expensive. Perhaps I ordered the wrong thing, but this is all I have to go on and I was mildly impressed at best.

Joe Squared Pizza (Baltimore, Station North) – If you don’t like Joe Squared Pizza, then you need to reevaluate the way you look at life. This dumpy semi-dive, semi-sports bar isn’t much to look at (I was at the one on North Avenue), but boy oh boy is the pizza good. Not just good, but great. I was here on a Tuesday evening, and they had a special where if you buy two bottles of beer, then you get a 10-inch cheese pizza for free (toppings extra). No way I was going to turn that down, so I tried a beer from their extensive selection that I was entirely unfamiliar with: a Kostritzer Black ($6) from Germany, a lager (believe it or not) with only 4.8% ABV and a refreshing, malty taste that makes me desperately want to find this beer for home consumption (if anyone knows who sells it, could you please write me and let me know?). And yes, you can rest assured that I got two of them to go with my earth-shattering pizza with 6 toppings for the price of 4: it comes with red sauce and mozzarella, but I added capicola, sopressata-salami, Canadian bacon, fresh garlic, artichoke, and mushroom. Doesn’t that sound great? Well, it was! Joe Squared pizza is square, like the original Ledo, but the crust is extremely thin (but durable enough not to break because of the exquisite coal-oven char).  A 10″ pizza only has four slices, but with six toppings, these slices are easily big enough to fill up a hungry man, and hungry I was. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a pizza this much – I’m not sure if this is considered “gourmet” pizza or “low end” pizza, but regardless of what it is, it’s one of my favorite pizzas in the world. I love it! Coverage maintained as an enthusiastic Very Good, and Noteworthy for both it’s excellent beer selection, friendly, down-home service, and a pizza that I could happily have on my death bed. As I’m typing this, I find myself craving this exact same meal, and wishing that Joe Squared Pizza was in my neighborhood, sigh.

Del Ray Pizzeria (Alexandria, Del Ray) – I’ve been meaning to get in here since President Obama put it on everyone’s radar, and what better time than with my young dining companion. I started with a wonderful Milk Stout ($6) from Longmont, Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing Company. I’ve had this beer several times now, and seem to like it more each time I try it, the milk sugars somehow cutting through the coffee-like bitterness of the stout. We then split an order of 8 Chicken Wings, Spicy ($7) which were better than the norm (chicken wings are rarely great, but these were quite good; the only dispute was that Matt insisted on blue cheese, whereas I insisted on ranch – a quarrel ensued). Pizza time! We split an Obama-approved Deep-Dish Supreme Clientele ($14) with red sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, peppers, black olives, red onions, and mushrooms, and a Thin-Crust Cheese Steak ($14) with red sauce, sliced rib-eye, mushrooms, red onions, and provolone. The toppings, particularly in the cheese steak, were wonderful; the crusts left something to be desired. We had a nice meal at Del Ray Pizzeria, and coverage is maintained as Good, and the restaurant is raised a notch in the Del Ray dining guide. The beer list here falls just short of being Noteworthy, but is quite good and worth knowing about. It was a pleasure, as always, to see Eric Reid once again – I hadn’t seen him since Del Merei Grille closed awhile back.

The Dairy Godmother (Alexandria, Del Ray) What, do you think I’m going to take a 15-year-old for dinner in Del Ray, and *not* go to The Dairy Godmother for dessert? We each had a small cone (he, cake; me, waffle) of Mexican Chocolate Frozen Custard (I don’t remember the price). What a great flavor this was, and I hope they bring it back again, often. The Dairy Godmother is maintained as Very Good and Noteworthy for serving some of the best homemade ice cream in the area. There’s nothing at all not to like here. Thank you, Liz Davis, for owning this fine ice cream shop.

Addie’s (Rockville) – I’m often asked what my favorite restaurant is, and I simply don’t have an answer to that question – it depends on so many different things. But if I was asked what I thought the most underrated restaurant in the area is, I might just say “Addie’s.” Chef Nate Waugaman has been doing fantastic work here for a long time, and has been inexplicably overlooked, both by the professional restaurant critics, and also by the internet. I’ve had Addie’s listed as the number one restaurant in South Rockville since I can remember, and I’ve just never understood why people aren’t positively flipping over the place. And this visit gave me absolutely no reason to change my mind. I started with a housemade Charcuterie Plate with Proscuitto (Brad Parker’s whey-fed hog aged fifteen months), Spicy Fennel Salami, and the amazing Randal Lineback Veal Head Cheese, all accompanied by pickled beets, local watercress, and pickled cherry bomb peppers. Moving on to a glass of 2009 Domaine de la Chaise Sauvignon Blanc ($10) from Touraine with a fine Bean and Ham Soup ($9) with navy beans, black-eyed peas, green lentils, Benton’s ham foam, grilled baguette and chive oil. And finally, this stupendous meal was capped with a glass of 2010 Faiveley Pinot Noir ($10) with a Randal Lineback Veal Scaloppini ($24) with black pepper spaetzle, napini blossoms, braised cabbage, rosemary, and mustard jus. It should come as no surprise that Addie’s, which I’ve consistently had ranked as the #1 restaurant in South Rockville, is maintained as Excellent, is Noteworthy for having a fine wine program in the backwoods of Montgomery County, and is, without any question, DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week. Unfortunately, this review is largely academic, as this past Saturday night is Chef Nate Waugaman’s final night at Addie’s – he’s moving up to Carroll County, to New Market, to open Mealey’s Table in April – needless to say, this will be a restaurant for Baltimore and Washington diners alike to keep a very, very close eye on. Waugaman is a brilliant cook, and deserved much, much more recognition than he got from DC area food critics. Best of luck to you, Nate, although I don’t think you’ll be needing it – your talent more than speaks for itself. For all the details about Mealey’s Table, click here.

The Italian Store (Arlington) It was mid-afternoon, I hadn’t eaten all day, I was starving, and (as my mom used to say) “my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” So I phoned in for a Muffaletta ($8.99). I’ve had muffalettas here before, and there are two noticeable things about them: they are big, and they are salty. Meant to serve two people, it’s round Sicillian bread, over stuffed with mortadella, provolone, smoked prosciutto & genoa
salami, topped off with olive condite and olive oil dressing. And they’re just perfect with a bag of Route 11 potato chips, or at least they usually are; on this occasion, the bread was unusually dry, and the sandwich just wasn’t as good as it usually is. It pretty much lasted me throughout the day, however. This was a sub-par showing for The Italian Store, which is nevertheless maintained as Good and Noteworthy for being one of the most popular sandwich shops in the entire DC area – I can’t ever remember being in there when it isn’t crowded, so it’s always best to call ahead.

The Pure Pasty Company (Vienna) The Traditional Pasty ($6.99) is quite possibly my most-favorite grab-n-go food item in the entire Washington, DC area. I get it every time I come here, and this time we got four of them, and made it our in-home dinner. I cannot stress enough just how wonderful these savory pastries are. How much do I like them? Quite honestly, if this were the last thing I ever ate, that would be A-OK with me. Maintained as a strong, enthusiastic Very Good (would be Excellent if there was more breadth to this carryout storefront, table service, etc., but boy oh boy does it execute what it’s trying to do in a big way). Also Noteworthy for serving this Cornish rarity, and for being so earth-shatteringly awesome. If you haven’t tried one of these, make a special trip out to Vienna, and load up. They are that good – trust me on this one (make sure to get the Traditional because I’ve had other flavors that aren’t as good).

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Masala Art – Minibites: February 5, 2012 – February 11, 2012

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Don

Minibites are delicious samplings of Don’s culinary adventures, condensed, distilled, and always meant to be savored with your Monday morning coffee.

The DCDining.com Restaurant Guide is located exclusively on donrockwell.com. (For an extra shot, click on the link and enjoy the full thread.)

Masala Art (Tenleytown) – During the Super Bowl, Masala Art delivered (literally) in a big way. In protest to the second-most caloric day of the year for Americans, I militantly decided to stay vegetarian, and ordered from Masala Art a vegetarian’s delight. A Chicken Tikka ($5.25) for the wee one was the exception, and the chicken looked quite good although I didn’t budge from my stance. Charbroiled cubes of chicken in yogurt and saffron marinade, looking lovely and loosely fibrous, they were (reportedly) spicier than normal. The buzzer went off, and adult swim began. Three vegetarian dishes of Lassoni Corn Palak ($10.25), creamy spinach with corn tempered with garlic; Paneer Nain Tara ($11.50), velvety cottage cheese cubes in onion gravy with black sesame seed; Dal Panchrattan ($9.95), a mix of five different lentils was accompanied with Rock Salt & Cilantro Nan ($3.25) and a Missi Roti ($2.95), chick pea flour bread with ginger and ajwain, Raita ($3.75), and two orders of Pickle ($1.75 each), each of the vegetarian entrees accompanied by Pulao rice. The corn was hand-cut, with bites often containing odd-shaped, multiple-kernel wedges; the cottage cheese was brilliant and downright granular it was so fresh (luscious, silken, and notchy as opposed to rubbery, bland, and spring-back); the lentils thin, but very complex in their meltdown; the rice unfortunately oily and definitely the weak point of the meal; the pickles probably jarred but high-end (which, even for jarred pickles, can be pretty high). Masala Art delivered, all right, and they scored a touchdown of their own right in the middle of the Super Bowl. Unbeknownst to all, I’d downgraded this restaurant to Very Good after my last carryout meal here (which was a pick-up order – this can be a very fine restaurant, but I have seen consistency issues); this solidly raised them back to Excellent, and to pull this off during the Super Bowl was remarkable, with only a 45-minute wait, too. A masterful performance by Masala Art, right in the middle of all the crazy din. I hate to kill off the starlet in the first part of the movie (refer to Janet Leigh in Psycho), but based on the overall strength of the food – everything but the rice was exceptional – and the speed of delivery during Super Bowl Sunday, Masala Art is DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week (but only by the thinnest of margins – read on …)

St. Arnold’s Mussel Bar (Cleveland Park) – After hearing murmurings about this second branch of Dupont Circle’s basement “Belgian beer bar” opening, I decided to give it a try for myself, and issue an unbiased opinion (I’ve never been to the original, and knew almost nothing about it). It’s in the old Sabores space, so is essentially a sunroom, cheerfully staffed and decorated with chalkboard menus for all to see. I was extremely leery about all the draft beers that St. Arnold’s offered (a wide selection is nice, but puts the onus of responsibility on the restaurant to flush the lines daily, and to keep the beers in top shape), so I chose not to invest my money to find out their bar practices (which may be just fine), and instead ordered from bottle: a Westmalle Dubbel ($11, 7% ABV) was one of 15 bottled beers offered, fully 12 of which are in the double digits (you might want to re-read that again). I sipped it in a frat-house atmosphere at the bar, complete with F-bombs being dropped left-and-right with vigor, and the bartender joining in the din (no worries – I was a frat boy once, too, so I don’t have a problem with this). There are fully twenty variations of wan, Prince Edward Island Moules-Frites, all of which are $18, and I ordered the Saint Arnold’s House Specialty made with house beer sauce, caramelized, shallot, garlic, and thyme, and (get ready …) duck fat! Yes! That’s proudly listed as these rowdy dudes’ house special sauce, and it was … okay. Not bad, but I was not dunking either my uniform mussels (mussels are becoming this decade’s chicken nuggets), or my horrific, industrial “French Bread” (did you really call it that, Fritz H?), or make use of the generic mayonnaise or ketchup. You know what? Price aside, the Belgian bottled beers here are Noteworthy, and St. Arnold’s Mussel Bar is easily initiated as a strong Average in the donrockwell.com dining guide because of the beers rescuing the mussels from a potentially deeper cull. And for all the readers who criticized Frank Ruta for never learning to master how to make crispy fries, well, guess what? You can find just what you’re looking for right here at St. Arnold’s Mussel Bar, glaring catacorner out their greenhouse-like windows at Medium Rare, with Dino next door, perched safely above the din.

Pupatella (Arlington) – Minibites has three very different components to its rating system. First, there’s the standing in the dining guide (Average, Good, etc.) which reflects my opinion of the restaurant as a whole. While more-recent visits are weighted higher than older visits (for obvious reasons), if I’ve been to a restaurant twenty times, then this rating is already pretty well-calibrated coming in – if you haven’t yet noticed, most restaurants I visit are “maintained as…” instead of “upgraded to…” or “downgraded to….” I’ve been doing my homework for the better part of a decade, and unless there is a major issue (new chef, very first visit, etc.), these ratings are massaged, tweaked, and gently kept up to date; one exception to this is the Superlative category, in which there is absolutely no room for slippage (the Outstanding category – the second-highest – can be considered a snapshot of a moat, and the only way to know if someone in the moat is swimming towards the castle, or away from the castle, is to know where they’ve been before) – an off-night at a Superlative restaurant will result in a downgrade every single time, and should not be taken as an indictment.  The second component is “Restaurant of the Week,” and this reflects one thing only: “Which meal did I enjoy the most?” It’s not about what the best restaurant is; my personal enjoyment of this one, single meal is the only thing that matters (a few weeks ago, for example, I awarded this to a total dive place in Harrisonburg instead of The Source even though The Source is a higher-rated restaurant. Any restaurant can win this, no matter how lavish or decrepit it is – it’s highly personal, and based entirely on how I feel when I walk out the door. Finally, there is the “Noteworthy” category, and this has to do more with distinctive characteristics than quality. Ben’s Chili Bowl, for example, is absolutely a Noteworthy restaurant. It could be because it’s the only Sudanese cuisine in the area, or maybe because the patio has beautiful views of the Blue Ridge mountains. Three very different rating criteria, each with a distinct meaning which brings me to my most recent meal at Pupatella. I long ago lost count of how many times I’ve been to Pupatella, but there have been exactly three meals I haven’t loved: the very first visit, and the two most recent visits. All three times involved ordering pizzas either with smoked mozzarella (which just seems overly smokey to me) or burrata (a cheese which I adore served with salt and olive oil, but for some reason not as a pizza topping). A special appetizer of Fried Brussels Sprouts ($5) mixed with green apples and balsamic glaze was the star of the evening, but just a touch overdressed, and a Panino ($9) with (really good) porchetta, prosciutto cotto, marinated red onions and cherry tomatoes came across as a bit dry with the bread a little too dense for my tastes. On this evening, Pupatella slid down just a touch in the Excellent category, but remains Noteworthy for its fun, completely unpretentious atmosphere (where you stand in line to order, get a beeper, and even bus your own tables), and more importantly, for having the best pizza in the Washington, DC area right now (and yes Enzo and Anastasia, you can quote me on this one!) – even tonight, when I didn’t love the toppings, the crust was fantastic. You will undoubtedly see Pupatella as Restaurant Of The Week sometime in the future, but I just can’t do it this week.

Victoria Gastro Pub (Columbia) – Thursday nights are half-price bottles of wine at Victoria Gastro Pub, and there is a lot of wine to choose from: their beverage list is forty (that’s four-zero) pages long, dominated by beers, but the passion clearly carries over into the descriptors of each wine (even if the wines themselves are not uniformly excellent). A bottle of JJ Vincent Pouilly-Fuisse ($46 discounted to $23) was served at a perfect temperature and lovingly poured by my friendly bartender, and the description on the list described the wine quite accurately. Since it was a white Burgundy, I let that dictate my order and got a very Burgundian dinner, starting off with a gutsy appetizer of Escargot (a very good value at $8) served outside of shell with roasted garlic, lemon brown butter, nebrodini mushrooms, and gremoulata. Doesn’t that sound like a great combination? It was, and it went just perfectly with the Chardonnay. For my main course, the Lobster Grilled Cheese ($16) with Maine lobster and Brie fondue – it’s very much like a warm lobster roll despite its description, and like the escargots, was just stunningly good with the Burgundy. If you get this sandwich (and many people do), I recommend the jalapeño potato chips instead of fries (and instead of paying the $2 upcharge for the duck-fat fries) – as tempting as it may be to get the fries, you want the crispiness of the chips, and the slight zing from the jalapeño to cut through the soft, fatty texture of the sandwich. One thing to keep in mind about Victoria Gastro Pub is that it’s got a lot of very fat-laden, “guy food,” but what I had and what I saw was executed quite well within this genre. Maintained as a strong Very Good and Noteworthy for it’s beers, the beverage list itself which is quite an impressive document, and the clubby bar area which is full of dark wood and yet manages to be cheery at the same time.

Earl’s Sandwiches (Courthouse) – Fast Gourmet gets all the press, and their chivito, when it’s well-executed (which it isn’t always), is one of the greatest sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. But as a whole? I’ll take Earl’s Sandwiches over Fast Gourmet. A Roast Beef and Cheddar ($7.99) was beautiful in its simplicity, the fresh-roasted beef in just the right proportion with the cheddar, and served simply with horseradish mayonnaise on grilled sourdough. I liked this sandwich so much that I took my son here for lunch the next day and got him the exact same thing – he loved it just as much as I did. Maintained as Very Good and Noteworthy for being one of the greatest sandwich shops in the DC area, as well as for being a tiny independent business surviving, and possibly even thriving, while being closed in upon by development. Earl’s Sandwiches is a little gem that is worthy of your support.

Maple Ave. Restaurant (Vienna) – There are so many things about Maple Ave. Restaurant that I like – it’s a true mom-n-pop, owned by Chef (and pop) Tim Ma, and GM (and mom) Joey Hernandez, a lovely young couple – and relatively new parents – who have taken a decrepit building, and turned it into something charming, not unlike Pupatella has done. Actually, more than any restaurant I can think of, this feels to me like Element in Front Royal (and if you’ve been to both, you know why). Matt and I arrived at 6 PM on a Friday evening. Following the laws of supply and demand, this teeny-tiny restaurant with Tim’s ambitious cooking seems like it’s almost always full – we were lucky to snare a table that needed to be released at 7:15. I wish the wines by the glass here were $1-2 less expensive, but the food is reasonably priced and the money needs to come from somewhere. A glass of 2009 Zaca Mesa Viognier ($9) paired very well with our first two courses: a composed Beet Salad ($8) with thinly sliced, poached beets, spiced walnuts, red wine vinaigrette, a touch of Himalayan salt, and the bond that tied it all together: Laura Chenel chèvre. The star of the meal, and the single best dish I had all week, was the Salsify Soup ($8), thoughtfully divided into two small bowls for us to share. I don’t know the recipe for this soup, but I enjoyed this as much as anything I’ve had on my three visits here. A bottle of Terrapin Moo Hoo Milk Stout ($6) accompanied our next two courses which I felt were slightly weaker than the first two: Shrimp and Grits ($9) with jumbo tiger shrimp, venison blueberry sausage (!), red onions, piquillo peppers, and stone ground grits was a little out of balance with the almost chocolatey-tasting sausage (but both the shimp and the grits were good), and Steamed Mussels ($9) were PEI’s, with saffron coconut broth, thai chills, Chinese chorizo, and grilled crostini – worth ordering, but caught me at the wrong moment as I’m getting a bit musseled out (just as I was with scallops a couple of years ago). These were both perfectly fine dishes (and look at the prices), but after that titanic salsify soup, pretty much anything is going to be a letdown. For 24 hours, I had it in my mind that Maple Ave. Restaurant was going to be restaurant of the week, but after letting the joy of the moment fade, I just can’t forget what a solid showing Masala Art made during the Super Bowl – it truly could have gone either way this week, and I can’t imagine anything other than long-cooked Indian food being a candidate for such a thing on a delivery-only basis (it excludes the entire front of the house aspect which is arguably just plain wrong). Enthusiastically recommended as Very Good to Excellent, and Noteworthy for being such a cool, funky little dive mom-and-pop with the audacity to have aspirations of fine dining, as well as for being the number one ranked restaurant in the Vienna-Oakton area. I really like Maple Ave. Restaurant, and if you care about small, family-owned businesses with character and soul, then this is a restaurant that you should be supporting.

PassionFish (Reston) – I’ve been to PassionFish several times now, and on a frigid Saturday evening, this sharp-looking restaurant was pretty well packed, with one empty seat available at the end of the bar. Like other Passion Hospitality restaurants I’ve visited in the past, the draft beers here are a disgrace and an embarrassment, with beers such as Miller Lite and Stella Artois on display for all the customers to see. (Why is it that every restaurant in town with a lousy draft beer list has the exact same lousy draft beers? Miller Lite, Stella Artois, Blue Moon, etc. Customer demand (which would be an easy answer)? Or perhaps something a bit more complex, such as product placement? I don’t know the answer, but this is worthy of an extended article by one of our local food journalists.) Regardless of the reason, steer clear of the beers here, and stick with wines by the glass because they’re decent wines, and very generous pours served in good stemware – this is a no-brainer. I ordered a low-end glass of 2010 Les Arromans Entre-Deux-Mers (a white Bordeaux, similar in spirit to a Graves) for only $7, and had to stop my bartender from accidentally pouring me a $14 glass of Chablis. These pours must easily be five ounces, and I can’t stress enough how much sense it makes to order low-end white wines by the glass here.  PassionFish is expensive, and the only way around it is to buy multiple appetizers – I was very tempted by the Chesapeake Rockfish at $33, and was going to get the Yukon Gold mashed potatoes with jumbo lump crab ($6 supplement for the crab), but decided to try several things instead since I don’t get here often. As before, they brought out a little bowl of fish rilletes (this used to be whitefish, and it may still be) which seems to be mostly a cream cheese-like spread with a small amount of fish bits, served with crispy, thin, slices of baguette – it’s good like a bagel with cream cheese is good, and difficult not to finish. From the raw bar, a half-dozen Wild Wellfleet Clams ($9) were attractively presented in an ice-filled tray, with a mignonette and cocktail sauce and meshed lemon wedge. I enjoyed these very much, but no more so than the fresh clams I’d had the week before at La Chaumière at only $8.25 for six. Blue Crab and Corn Chowder ($9) with jumbo lump crabmeat and green onions should be thought of as a corn chowder, perhaps with some shells thrown into the stock for depth, and the very few shards of jumbo lump sitting in the center of the bowl should be considered a little bonus when you find one – if you go in with this expectation, you won’t be disappointed at a very good bowl of corn chowder. Grilled Baby Octopus ($13) contained mainly legs (and they weren’t all that small). Served with Greek salad, delicious grilled Halloumi cheese, and Tzatsiki, this is a well-composed, somewhat labor-intensive plate that is worth the money, but also could not be priced any higher. If I sound somewhat disappointed with this meal at PassionFish, then I’ve conveyed my impressions correctly. I’m a bit surprised I didn’t have the restaurant listed in Italic in the dining guide, however, as I’ve had it as the top restaurant in Reston for awhile now (although I’m not completely convinced I should have this ranked over Mykonos considering my last meal there was quite good). Upgraded from Good to Very Good with the caveat that this place is not cheap unless you go out of your way to make it so; to get the most out of PassionFish, you really need to go in at a higher price point than I was willing to bear, so in a sense, I didn’t give it a really fair shot this week.

People may be surprised that neither Pupatella (which I unabashedly adore) nor PassionFish (which I’ve praised in the past, and which has the reputation as one of the best restaurants in the Reston area) were even remotely considered for the Restaurant Of The Week award, but I’m just calling them as I see them and trying to be fair – this week, it was between Masala Art and Maple Ave. Restaurant, and nothing else was a contender.

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Postscript (written in late February) – Your humble narrator has been flattened by a bug. Oh, I’ve been eating at restaurants all right, but they’ve included such places as Baja Fresh (twice), Sweet Rice (Thai delivery, twice), and others that are perfectly decent places for nourishment, but I ate primarily for survival, and the restaurants weren’t necessarily worth your time to read about. Beginning on Sunday, February 26th, I will restart my normal rotation of insanity, with the blog starting back up on Monday, March 5th. Please accept my apologies for the multi-week gap in writing, but I really didn’t have much choice – however, I’ve finally got this thing licked. Remember that old saying your mom used to tell you: “You don’t appreciate being healthy until you aren’t?” Well … your mom was right, just as she almost always is. I can’t wait to begin writing this blog again – see you on March 5th!

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New Heights – Minibites: January 29, 2012 – February 4, 2012

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Don

Minibites are delicious samplings of Don’s culinary adventures, condensed, distilled, and always meant to be savored with your Monday morning coffee.

The DCDining.com Restaurant Guide is located exclusively on donrockwell.com. (For an extra shot, click on the link and enjoy the full thread.)

Teavana (Tysons Corner) – After being denied by American Girl Bistro (no, really – I sat there and sipped a glass of ice water because the kitchen was closed at 4 PM on a Sunday while my charming young dining companion enjoyed a Cookies and Cream milkshake with her adorable little namesake doll, Mahira, who even had her own little six-inch tall chair and tiny cup of tea (kids make my heart just melt, and there’s nothing I can do about it)), I stopped by Teavana for a pick-me-up on the way out of Tysons Corner Centre because I knew I had a couple hours to go before dinner. Teavana is an Atlanta-based, mall-strong tea store with 150 locations nationwide. Ordering a large cup of darjeeling to go, I was very impressed with the massive tin of tea they pulled from behind the counter, then dismayed by seeing the retail price: $20 for 2 ounces. Again impressed by how thoughtfully the tea was steeped into my cup; again dismayed when I received the bill: $5.24 for a paper cup full of tea ($4.99 + 25 cents tax). But you know what? This was a really pleasant cup of Darjeeling (Darjeeling de Tromphe, they call it), and I’d consider getting it again, even at the price. Coverage intitiated as Good with the caveat that it’s very much of an upscale (i.e., extremely expensive) mall tea retailer; not really a Starbucks-type operation – there was no seating in this particular location. I’ve traditionally bought my teas through the mail from Upton Tea Imports in Boston – a company every tea lover should be intimately familar with (if you enjoy tea, I promise you that you’ll thank me for introducing you to Upton). Still, for me to walk out of a mall essentially raving about a paper cup full of hot tea says something about this SFTGFOP-1 (and if you’re a tea lover, you’ll know precisely what that means) from Teavana, although my instinct tells me this is a less serious version of Upton.

Pesce (Dupont Circle) – I’ve been craving simple seafood lately, and so my friend and I went to Pesce, a restaurant that I was extremely surprised she’s never tried before. Chef Tom Meyer was in the kitchen, and we secured a beautiful four-top right at the front window – I believe this may be my favorite table in the restaurant. The prices at Pesce seem like they’ve crept up over the past couple of years (this is becoming quite noticeable to me lately as a general industry issue), and Pesce’s website is very out of date: It appears that things haven’t been updated in over a year, as they mention they’ll be participating in Restaurant Week 2010, and no wine on the list is younger than 2007. Please, Pesce, take an afternoon, and update your website – this is really important in this day and age, and not doing it is costing you more money than you think – it should be especially easy since you have no fixed menu to upkeep. Service was lovely, and still exhibits aspects of classic French bistro protocol, our bottle of 2009 Chateau Reynier Bordeaux Blanc ($40, retails for about $20) was served at the correct temperature, with good stemware, and was just wonderful with all three items. The first, a little bowl of PEI Mussels with Tomato and Chorizo ($10) was zesty, with just enough sauce for Pesce’s surprisingly good Sunday-night bread to soak up. Better still was the Shrimp and Octopus Hash ($14) which at first glance appeared small, but that was only because it was served in a large, flat bowl; it was a good portion, and had really deep, complex flavors accentuated by the small-diced mango and bouillabaisse-like scents in the saucing. A whole Branzino ($27) stuffed with rosemary rounded out this fine showing for Pesce, maintained in the dining guide as Excellent.

New Heights (Woodley Park) Where do I start with the disclaimers? How about here and here. Nothing more needs to be said except that you take this “review” with the appropriate grain of salt. On Tuesday evening, Eric Ziebold, his charming wife Celia, and I all met at the New Heights bar for dinner, and other than a couple of “must haves” for Eric, we decided to let his former sous chef at CityZen, Ron Tanaka, cook for us. This is, incidentally, the first meal that any of us three had enjoyed under Ron’s tenure there, and with Kavita working the bar, it was comped (though rest assured, I pay a stiff price in return). We all started with a smokey Yellow Lentil Soup ($10) with sherry vinegar (which lent depth to the soup), micro mirepoix and bacon, a beautiful Salad of Braised Endive ($10) and grilled radicchio had innocent-looking candied walnuts furtively playing off the sumac vinaigrette, fantastic cylinders of Pork Trotters ($11) with savoy cabbage, caraway and grain mustard (if you like Bistrot Lepic’s, try these). Then, we split off and I had Mediterranean Sea Bream ($23) with fingerling potato confit, piquillo pepper, and parsley taragon, while Eric and Celia had The King of the Show, and probably the best dish of any type I’ve had all year: Ron’s Moulard Duck Confit ($25), with white beans, sun dried tomatoes, and kale, an updated version of a cassoulet-like presentation that was out of this world. “It’s like it had some sort of crispy disk of duck right underneath the skin,” Eric mentioned before adding that he’d like to get another order to go! A little cheese course was followed by Fried Apple Pie ($9) with toasted poppy, vanilla ice cream, and cabernet gastrique. Course after course of extra-base hits was accentuated by the Duck Confit home run, and when I mentioned to Eric and Celia that I might need to recuse myself in considering New Heights for the restaurant of the week award, they basically scolded me. “It wouldn’t be fair to Ron or Kavita not to,” they said, and they’re right. In a week filled with excellence with fully four Excellent restaurants from which to choose, New Heights was clearly the best of a strong field. It is raised back to a high Excellent (I’m being conservative here – try it for yourselves and see), and marked as Noteworthy for being the best restaurant in Woodley Park for many years, within walking distance of two of DC’s largest hotels (the Omni Shoreham and the Marriott Wardman Park) I promise not to over-pimp New Heights, but don’t be surprised if they eventually get raised to Outstanding (which will still remain in Italic in the Dining Guide); the restaurant is not set up to be Superlative without some fundamental changes. I do hope that diners try it for themselves and report back honestly about their meals on donrockwell.com (I will leave all posts unmoderated (which I pretty much do anyway)) – my reluctance to say much leaves the internet with virtual silence about this excellent restaurant which deserves much more recognition than it currently gets. For the great chef Ron Tanaka and his Duck Confit, for the best gin program in the city (with over 50 different gins), for extremely reasonable prices given the area, for the new panini press at the bar offering grilled artisan cheese sandwiches on homemade bread with compound butters and house made chips for $6 ($6.50 with homemade bacon jam), and for the relentless toil of GM Kavita “Sling a Pour” Singh who works over 70 hours per week without adequate recognition in the restaurant media (NB Please consider hiring an AGM so I can see you sometime?), New Heights is DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week.

X.O. Taste (Seven Corners) – Wow, even *I* was surprised at how much I’d downgraded X.O. Taste after my last meal here. This evening, after working on donrockwell.com for over four hours, I was starving at 1 AM, and nothing was open outside of Annandale. It was time to give X.O. Taste another try. I didn’t have a current menu (the prices have increased here yet again), and the kindly host walked me through a very specific set of needs – when I said I wanted the Steamed Flounder, she warned me that it was $30. Oooch!  So I told her that I was hungry, but wanted something healthy – a fish perhaps, and I didn’t care if it was frozen. I wanted rice, vegetables, and a minimum amount of MSG, and wow did she come through for me in a big way – stir-fried white fish atop white rise with minimal (albeit noticeable) oil, and some chinese broccoli on top – I couldn’t care less if they culled this from their freezer because it was a lot of food, satisfying as all get-out, and I was stuffed *and* not feeing overly bloato when I’d finished my carryout at home (which took all of ten minutes). The price for this? $11.95. Thank you very much to the kind lady at X.O. Taste for taking care of me, and based on this one late carryout order, this restaurant is raised from a week good to a strong good, but raised several notches in the Seven Corners dining guide where I’d considerably lowered it before. I just may get this exact same dish next time. Also marked as Noteworthy for being open until 2 AM, seven days a week which I’ve taken advantage of numerous times. It’s not often I leave a 20% tip for carryout (actually, I don’t ever remember having done so), but I did on this evening.

 Artie’s (Fairfax) – Artie’s has always been overrated by certain restaurant critics, and considering how much it has gone downhill in the past few years, the importance of a current review could not be greater, especially when even the best reviews can become out of date within weeks or months. There are no longer any such things as “definitive reviews of record.” Now, the best diners can hope for is honesty, humility, experience, and willingness to backtrack and reevaluate, rather than to rely on a ten-year-old certificate sitting in a restaurant’s window, gathering dust, talking about a chef that retired years ago. Artie’s is a local chain that exhibits the catastrophic mediocrity of national chains, right down to the beer list. Look at these beers they had on offer this evening – On tap: Miller Lite, Stella Artois, Blue Moon, “Artie’s Lager,” and “Arties IPA,” the latter two coming NOT from Sweetwater Tavern’s brewery operation, but from Old Dominion. In the bottle? Budweiser, Bud Light, Heineken, Corona, and Guinness. The wine list is equally bad, with “wines” such as Sonoma Cutrer taking center stage. Service is the same friendly, but robotic, “yes sir, no ma’am, how are we doing this evening, how is this tasting, are we still working on that” spiel that works for 90% of the situations, and absolutely fails in the remaining 10%. Think otherwise? Do something outside the norm (hold onto your menu for awhile, or put a credit card on the table for a couple of minutes – and see what these automata do – it’s like confusing the Borg. They’re nice kids, but pre-programmed and not very good at thinking quickly on their feet). The previously reliable, refreshing Chopped Salad ($7) has devolved into something I’d expect to see on an airplane, and the Pecan Crusted Trout ($17) was a large, split portion, unfortunately served with candied pecans, overdressed with somewhat thick chardonnay citrus sauce with good acidity and a nice flavor, a fine little pile of arugula dressed with lemon (again, good acidity), and tainted by a bizarre portion of gooey, unhealthy, parmesan potatoes which didn’t match anything at all on the plate. Nevertheless, the fish itself saved the meal, and along with the friendly attempts by the staff, makes it easy for me to maintain Artie’s as solidly Average. I can’t in good conscience go below this because I’ve seen what’s down there, and it gets a whole hell of a lot worse than this. Fortunately, just not for me. The sad thing is: Artie’s is most people’s idea of a good restaurant. The bar area is one of the nicest in Fairfax County; it pains me to think there are legions of restaurants worse – much worse – than this.

2 Amys (National Cathedral) – My eyes lit up, and my heart skipped a beat when I walked in and saw my two dining companions sitting at the left end of the bar at 2 Amys, even having a seat saved for me. In so many ways, this is like a bright, clangy version of Taberna del Alabardero’s bar (Taberna’s bartender, Manolo, spooning up tapas, and knowingly, lovingly, pouring wine with a wink and a nod). I wanted vegetables and healthy food, and got it, well, sort of, tonight at 2 Amys. The food was right in front of us, so all I had to do was point: Carrots with Pistachios ($6), Eggplant with Smoked Ricotta ($6), a Charcuterie Plate ($15) of 3 meats, in this case 3, 2 Amys house-cured versions of lomo, capocolla (sort of), and lardo, all of which were a bit (okay, more than a bit) over-ripe, but delicious, and then a special Pizza ($13.95) of a runny egg (sliced up into the entire pizza), with a crust topped with fingerlings (!), bottarga, and grana. Our young dining companion was thrilled with his root beer float (and pepperoni pizza). Maintained as Excellent and Noteworthy for too many reasons to mention. A lovely meal at 2 Amys, thanks to the staff – in particular, the bar staff – and quite honestly, a certain je ne sais quoi that somehow manages to keep calling me back to this way-too-bright, clangy atmosphere that I’d normally try to be fleeing from.

La Chaumière (Georgetown) – There are few gestures of friendship greater than when a man asks you to take out his wife for her birthday. While having dinner at New Heights, Eric Ziebold asked me if I could take Celia out to dinner Friday evening because he couldn’t get off work. She was going to be in Georgetown, and the obvious choices were Citronelle Lounge, or La Chaumière. “I’ve never been to La Chaumière,” she said, and that sealed the deal because I knew she’d like it – every French person I’ve ever taken there has. I called on Thursday for a Friday table for two at (of course) 7:30, and (of course) none were available, so we got one at 8. A gentleman with a light French accent was on the phone. “Name?” Rockwell. “First name?” Don. <silence> “Are … you the blogger?” Well, shit. I keep thinking how pretentious it is to use fake names, but if you really care about anonymity, then it’s best to do so. I’m glad I didn’t because I ended up chatting with GM Martin Lumet for several minutes, and we have much in common with our love of French wines. He knows of Eric, and was flattered that his wife wanted to have her birthday dinner there, and also said it would be no problem to bring a bottle of wine and pay corkage. Anonymity or not, we stood and waited for about 20 minutes for our table to clear (See! Being known doesn’t guarantee everything!) before being seated – during the wait, the congenial hostess (who used to live in Fabron, Nice, and who speaks like a native) graciously brought us two glasses of champagne while we waited. “Believe me, we’re in the business and we both understand,” Celia said. (There is absolutely nothing a restaurant can (or should) do to keep an earlier table from lingering over dessert and coffee, and the wait is a price that diners should be happily willing to bear – it is merely a cost of civilized dining. The only reason I mention it at all is to point out that it wasn’t a service issue; it was a random blip on a full Friday night. It happens, and if it does happen to you, please don’t automatically blame anyone. Patrick Orange has been the chef here for many, many years now (over 15, I believe; La Chaumière has been open since 1978). He grew up near the Champagne region of France, but married an Argentinian, so you can find Latino influences here-and-there in his cooking. We started with a bottle of 2009 Lafont-Menau ($46), a Pessac-Leognan from Celia’s native region of Bordeaux (you don’t buy a Burgundy for a Bordelaise). It went beautifully with a platter of Palourdes Fraiches ($8.25 for 6), an excellent price on a hard-to-find dish. These were good and tough, with clean shells and assertive brininess. We pretty much were going to split every dish, but Celia started with a Boudin Blanc ($8.95) a house specialty of chicken and pork sausage, and I had to get the same thing I get every time I come here, Quenelle de Brochet ($10.25), also a house specialty of pike dumpling in lobster sauce (insider info: the same that’s used in their fine lobster bisque, so don’t order both!). We didn’t discuss a favorite, but we seemed like we were both gravitating towards the dumpling, and I highly recommend this, even as a larger, entree portion. We kept hearing murmurs from Eric that he might be able to get out by 10, so we waited to fire our entrees of Magret de Canard ($20.75), marinated duck breast in black currant sauce, and my daily special of a Lapin Roulade, figuring both would pair well with a bottle of 1988 Leoville-Las Cases I brought with me (a stunning, nearly perfect showing for this wine which I had standing up for several months to release the fine sediment, and a masterful cork-job by Martin, having overcome a few genuinely dicey moments with aplomb). Eric enjoys eating outside the norm, so we ordered him what I thought was going to be another classic dish here, Tripes a la Mode Caen which is a classic Calvados preparation, but what came out was tomato-based and looked more like a menudo (aha! There’s that Argentinian influence in Patrick’s cooking!) He says more people prefer this style of tripe, but he keeps about six orders of the real thing around for those who specifically ask for it. Patrick came over and sat down to chat for quite awhile, and although we offered him a large glass of the 88 Bordeaux, he smiled and said, “I’m from Champagne,” as Martin brought him a flute filled with bubbly. It was a wonderful, leisurely, very French dinner that was exactly as I’d hoped it would be – the perfect restaurant for this occasion, and if I were to recuse myself, this would nudge out Pesce for the restaurant of the week. Between Pesce, New Heights, 2 Amys, and La Chaumière, it was a strong week, breadth-wise, and really makes me appreciate the number of opportunities I have to dine at such lovely restaurants. La Chaumière is maintained as Excellent which is exactly where I would expect it to be the next time I go. It’s also Noteworthy as being one of the last torch bearers for several classic French dishes in this area. (One day they will quite possibly disappear, as so many others have, and when the renaissance of pure French cooking occurs (and I’m talking about Escoffier here, and I promise you it will occur, it’s just a matter of when and where), I have my fingers crossed, hoping that they don’t “modernize it” or “give it a contemporary twist,” because it doesn’t need one (other than for cost-cutting measures). We need a Frank Ruta / Johnny Monis type of French fanatic in order to pull this off. Eric, what about you? Nah … too much Asian influence; you’re not going back. Gerard? Don’t you wish you were thirty years younger? I have La Chaumière ranked below BourbonSteak in the Georgetown section of the dining guide, and that’s because BourbonSteak is a lavish, expense-account restaurant with an extraordinary atmosphere and $15 cocktails. There are many criteria that go into ranking these restaurants, but the one that matters the most is a very simple question: “If someone else was paying, where would you want to have dinner?” Of course I’d rather go to BourbonSteak. That having been said, not all of the cooking at BourbonSteak is as good as it is at La Chaumière – no way. Some of it is (how do you not make a sensational $68 Lobster Pot Pie, for example) – but I’d be surprised if BourbonSteak had any one person in their kitchen who was a notably better chef than Patrick Orange. This gentleman has been doing fine work for a long, long time.

Crisp & Juicy (Arlington) – I can’t vouch for all eight area Crisp & Juicys, but the Arlington location has been consistently good for me over the years. A carryout order of two Whole Chickens ($10.35 each) and four large Fried Yucas ($2.99 each) was right in line with how this fine hole-in-the-wall has been for me in the past. For the first time, I tried the Arroz Chaufa ($6.35) here, and since they’re using their own tasty chicken as a base, this dish is automatically better than the norm. These types of fried rice dishes can be dangerously oily, and this was to some degree, but nothing over the line. It was a lot of food for under $45, and a good evening for the Lee Heights Crisp & Juicy which is maintained as Very Good in the dining guide.

 

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Little Serow – Minibites: January 22, 2012 – January 28, 2012

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Don

Minibites are delicious samplings of Don’s culinary adventures, condensed, distilled, and always meant to be savored with your Monday morning coffee.

The DCDining.com Restaurant Guide, i.e., Le Grand Champ, is located exclusively on donrockwell.com. (For an extra shot, click on the link and enjoy the full thread.)

Pearl Dive (14 UP) – Just after 7 PM on a bone-chilling Sunday evening, we walked in and grabbed the last deuce at the restaurant. A quick scan of the pricey wine list sent me to Chablis, and when I got my chance to order, that’s what I did – first with the hostess (who may have intervened after noticing we’d waited a bit), then, a few minutes later, when our server asked if we’d like a drink. “We just ordered a bottle of the Chablis,” I said. “Which one?” he asked. “The only one on the list,” I replied, honestly trying to make his job easier (unfortunately, someone confused it with Champagne, so out came the ice bucket and frosted hideosos (and I must have sounded like a pretentious tool when I said “The only one on the list” because there were three sparkling wines; only one from Champagne)). After being seated for, I don’t know, 20 minutes or so – an interminable length of time when you’re trying to get your first drink –  we got our 2009 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis ($38). The mix-up was perfectly understandable (Chablis, Champagne, Chardonnay, etc., it can happen), but it was enough to send this young staff into la-la land, off-balance, and off-kilter. We said we’d split both of our dishes, a Seafood Gumbo ($22) of oyster, four good, deveined shrimp placed at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, and local crab, and a C.E.B.L.T. Po-Boy ($14) with fried catfish, the ever-important over-easy farm egg, Benton’s bacon, lettuce, and tomato, served with aptly named “dive fries.” The gumbo – carefully portioned – was salty, the fries saltier still, and the sandwich small and unmemorable. Along with the rice, the grilled baguette, and the basket of bread, this became a very starch-heavy meal. Pearl Dive is unfortunately downgraded from Very Good to Good – I really don’t have a choice after this meal – and moved below Estadio, Bar Pilar, and Cafe Saint-Ex in the 14 UP dining guide, but it is nevertheless maintained as Noteworthy for its architecture and interior design (both of which are important and lovable), its fun menu, and for being “the” happening place in 14 UP (aka Little Baltimore) right now. On this particular evening, it was kids serving kids, and as both supply-side and demand-side mature, Pearl Dive could also mature into something special, assuming they mature in lockstep; otherwise, one will abandon the other. I’m sorry for this less than glowing review, because I really like the spirit of this restaurant and it’s exactly the type of place I want to support in the future (unacceptable noise level notwithstanding (I’m sorry to sound like an old fart, but absence of linens, carpeting, etc. is every bit the plague on dining that sous vide is)); nevertheless, for the money, on this particular evening, things should have been better. Please also note that “Good” doesn’t mean bad.

Kotobuki (Palisades) – I’m convinced that Hisao Abe has an unplumbed fetish for Nordic women in white stockings. After a long run of pretty drab meals here, Kotobuki finally came through for me with good, neighborhood-level sushi. And yet, despite this being the first good meal I’ve had here in a couple of years, the sushi standouts were just as they were before: light-colored seafood, for whatever reason. The scallops and flounder were very good, and a touch better than the watery escolar, which was in turn much better than the flavorless, dried-out salmon. A roll of yellowtail and avocado was excellent, and much more interesting than a spicy white tuna (escolar) roll which was made spicy only by a shake of powder. While the light-colored seafood remained the strong point, it was accompanied on this evening by the sushi rice which was better than I’ve had here in a long time. Even though Kotobuki’s “inexpensive sushi” is 50% higher than it was a few years ago (remember, for a long time it was $1 per piece, before going up to $1.25, and now $1.50), it’s still the best in DC at its price point. Raised to a stronger level of Good, perhaps a weak Very Good, pushed up a couple notches in the Palisades dining guide, and maintained as Noteworthy for being the best budget sushi meal in town, as well as for being the lovable pillbox it has always been.

Yechon (Annandale) – Where do you go when you’re hungry at 4:30 AM? You could do a lot worse than Yechon, whose newish carryout menu is now quite large, and with a remarkable array of dishes. It can also be very expensive if you’re not careful what you order. I had two criteria: cheap, and filling – thus, the satisfying Yukgaejang ($9.95), a shredded beef soup with spicy sauce, vegetables, and egg and, for the next day, the lesser Jaejangguk ($8.95), stewed beef in simmered broth with vegetables. I’m pretty sure Yechon is pretty liberal with the MSG, and as usual, I was thirsty several hours after the meal. Maintained as Good, and also Noteworthy for being one of the best restaurants in the area open 24 hours a day, and for it’s warm, wood-based atmosphere.

Old Europe (Glover Park) – I’ve been coming to Old Europe off and on for twenty years – including for my mom’s birthday dinner perhaps eleven years ago with Karen and Matt (just imagine how important these four people were to me), and not once have I had a better meal than what I had this evening. Matt had his mug of Root Beer (an expensive $3.50, cheerfully refilled), and I, my huge, beer-hall sized one-liter mug of a seasonal special of Einbocker Winter Bock ($14, although it showed up on the bill as a Spaten Festbier – regardless, it was a wonderful, malty beer that I adored – along with the DC Brau Thyme after Thyme, this is one of two beers I’ve recently had that I really want to hunt down). We split three items, three ways, asking them to go ahead and bring them all at once: an appetizer of Karthoffer Puffer ($6.00), potato pancakes with homemade apfelsauce, wonderfully fried, and as good as any potato pancakes I’ve ever eaten (a bold statement, to be sure). an appetizer of housemade Wildschweinwurst ($10.00), wild boar sausage with pickled red cabbage and corn, and an entree of something “famous,” but something that I haven’t tried in many a year: Hossenpfeffer ($29), two fine legs of wild hare, sauerkraut, and magnificent potato dumplings, everything served with a tray of sliced white rolls, rye, wheat, and pumpknickel with real butter. It was a wonderful richly satisfying feast that left both of us stuffed, and also with juuuust enough room for dessert: Carrot Cake, and Black Forest Cake ($6 each), decent, if slightly dry, housemade renditions of these classics, the carrot cake a touch better due to moistness and its correctly made creme anglaise. There were no real flaws in this dinner anywhere – and please do note the stunning regimental beer steins upon entry (I know quite a bit about WWI regimentals, and these are the real things, sitting in the right corner cabinet as you walk in. In World War I, German gave out beer steins to its soldiers, just as a basketball team might give out t-shirts to its team members – these are dated, 1906, 1912, etc., and that date reflects the graduating class of the soldier, who also has his name etched onto the stein. The lid (a cannon, for example), reflects which division the soldier was in (a cannon reflects “infantry”). It’s all very historic, and quite important from that context. I’ve gotten sidetracked here – the food was all very good at the absolute minimum, ranging up to excellent. You’d have to go to Hagerstown and visit Schmankerl Stube to even come close to this quality. To my surprise, upgraded to Excellent, and marked as Noteworthy for being the best German cuisine in the entire DC region by a fair margin, as well as the oldest, established in 1948. A wonderful dinner, with wonderful, friendly service. Based on this visit, moved above Town Hall, Surfside, and the wine bar at Bistrot Lepic in the Glover Park section of the dining guide (that last one was a tougher decision). A very impressive showing for Old Europe – so much so that I asked the manager whether they had gotten a new chef (no, they hadn’t; it was just a perfect night for them). Bravo!

Little Serow (East Dupont Circle, Previous Minibite) – The first time (a few weeks ago) I waited outside at 5:20, I felt like I needed to so that I could pay Johnny Monis proper respect in visiting Little Serow; this time, I waited outside at 5:20 because I selfishly wanted to. Once again, a meal as good as the first, with several different items on the menu, and a (happily) honored request made by my server, asking me if I’d like Johnny to try a couple new courses on me that he’s thinking of putting on next week’s menu. I’m not sure how to say this in Thai, or Issan, or whatever it is, but – yes, omakase! I confidently place myself in your hands, and this time with the drinks as well (although I couldn’t resist starting with a single glass of that lovely sparking Gruner Veltliner). My love and respect for Little Serow is deep and abiding, from the splendid little drinks program, to the impossibly gracious, enthusiastic staff, and of course, for the gutsy, fearless Issan cuisine. I suppose I’m no expert in judging whether or not this is authentic Issan cooking, but if it’s not, then something really weird is happening because this is nothing like I’ve ever encountered. I love Little Serow so much that I’m thinking of taking my son here for his 15th birthday even though I’ve already warned him that he won’t be able to take some of the spicing (he doesn’t care, and he got pumped at the thought of it). Maintained as Outstanding (it will never be any higher than this because it isn’t trying to be), and of course, Noteworthy for any of ten different reasons – just pick one, and be grateful that this restaurant is here. At the end of the meal, I walked back to the kitchen, and got the attention of Johnny, who walked over and graciously extended his hand to me. I got down on one knee, bowed my head, and gave him a full-fledged Tebow, then stood up, shook my head in disbelief, looked him in the eyes, and simply whispered, “awesome.” Yes, my friends, it was supposed to be funny, but it’s also called Respect – Respect with a capital R. I understand this is a vegetable-heavy menu (a good thing because you can stuff yourself and still eat healthy here which I love more than I can say), but I once again counsel that this $45 prix-fixe is going to be much more expensive within several years. Remember my prediction about Minibar right after it first opened, and pay heed to what I’m saying now about Little Serow – something, at some point, is going to have to give. Go now, friends, go now, and get there at 5:15. For the second time this month, Little Serow is DCDining.com’s Restaurant Of The Week. Thank you, Johnny Monis, for having the courage and foresight to open this fine restaurant when you did in 2011.

Kaz Sushi Bistro (Downtown) – It’s very typical for Matt (my son) and I to hop in the car, not having any idea where we’ll end up for dinner – it’s usually dictated by his hunger level, and the ability to find parking. Fortunately, we arrived near International Square at 6:28 and nabbed one of the meters, so we walked one and a half blocks up to Kaz. Kaz and I have been talking a lot lately (please see the article written about him by Tim Carman this week) about the state of Japanese cuisine, and he has been doing a lot of self-reflection and soul searching. Well, he wouldn’t have needed to search very deeply on this evening because for the first time in a good, long while, I ordered the way you should order at Kaz Sushi Bistro: a lot of different small plates, and the more experimental, the better. And the meal on this evening was just terrific, the best food I’ve had here in quite some time. During the course of the dinner, along with my little pitcher of Masumi Sake ($13 – sakes here are high-quality but too expensive) and Kaz Red Ale (brewed by Echigo, and again too expensive at $11, brewed by Echigo) – these two drinks were 33% of the bill) we split Caramelized Crispy Brussels Sprouts ($6) with ginger dressing [on the greens underneath], Chawan Mushi ($7), a traditional Japanese custard soup with seafood and vegetables, Tebasaki ($7.5) Nagoya-style crispy chicken wings [actually, four drumsticks], Aghe Dashi Tofu ($5.50 for four cubes), a Shitake Croquet ($7 for eight pieces), and two maki: Salmon Avocado Roll ($5.50) and Walu with Chive (overpriced at $9). The only miss was the croquet because of the sweetish tomato sauce, and the maki which were just too densely packed. That having been said, having had this back-to-back right after last night’s dinner at Little Serow, it might surprise some readers to hear that food-wise, Kaz was nipping at Little Serow’s heals on this evening. Little Serow is a better overall restaurant because of the service, the exceptional drinks program (though Kaz does have good sake and beer in its own right), and the baffling nature of the cuisine, but as far as sheer quality combined with innovation (and please, let’s not forget just how innovative Kaz Okochi has been over the years), these plates of food may not be siblings, but they are cousins, with Kaz’s probably straying further from Japan than Johnny’s does from Thailand. A comparison between the two, especially at the Izakaya level, is not at all absurd even though I understand it may sound that way at first. Kaz Sushi Bistro is solidified as Excellent, and is Noteworthy for being the first truly creative Japanese cooking employed in the Washington, DC area. The best meal I’ve had here in awhile reaffirms my fondness of this restaurant, and Kaz should be very proud of the institution that he has built – he deserves much more love and respect from restaurant critics than he currently receives. Go there and see for yourselves – you’ll thank me if you do. Well done, Kaz, well done. Total bill for two hungry men (one of them drinking): $70 before tax and tip – yes, that’s Restaurant Week prices for cuisine that’s superior to 99% of all that you’ll find during Restaurant Week. I thanked Kaz on the way out, and he later texted me, asking me why I didn’t tell him I’d arrived. The answer is simple: I wouldn’t have felt as comfortable writing such a glowing review if I had. Thank you, Kaz Okochi, for having the courage and foresight to open this fine restaurant when you did in 1999.

La Caraqueña (Falls Church) – For a quick, carryout lunch, I don’t know why I don’t think to call La Caraqueña more often. In something of a rush, I phoned in an order for two grilled arepas – the Carne Mechada, which I suspect is their best seller, and the Reina Pepeada, which is something I’ve never thought to try here. The Carne Mechada is fine – long-cooked, stringy, stew meat – well-seasoned, but ultimately more useful as an entree ladled over some potatoes or rice, maybe with some long-cooked green beans; on a grilled arepa, after the second or third time you’ve had it, it gets a little monotonous (and I mean literally monotonic; I absolutely do not mean “boring” because it’s not). On the other hand, the Reina Pepeada was California-thrilling, looking like innocent guacamole, but with distinct flavors of good, tender chicken, avocado (the primary visual component), and surprisingly, egg. I don’t see how I could have enjoyed this arepa any more than I did, unless it was bigger. These arepas are fairly thick, but also pretty small in diameter, and at over $19 for two of them (including tax, but not tip), they remind me that La Caraqueña really pushes the upper bounds of acceptable pricing considering their location. For me, it’s worth paying a few dollars more to support good cooking such as this, but I do take notice of the bill whenever I come here. Maintained as Very Good to Excellent and Noteworthy for having the best arepas (really, the best Venezuelan cooking, and also the best salteñas) that I’m aware of in the DC area. As I type this, I realize that every single restaurant I’ve been to this week has been marked as Noteworthy – I suppose it’s because I go out of my way to seek out the interesting, the unusual, and, well, the noteworthy. Maybe it’s time I try somewhere boring for a change, just to stay grounded, and to keep things in perspective? Nah.

Bollywood Bistro (Fairfax) – A few months ago, I had a pleasant dinner at The Wine House (across the walkway), but still hadn’t visited Bollywood Bistro. We were fortunate enough to get the last table on a Saturday night, and were treated to a very good meal with surprisingly gentle prices on drinks (beers here are in the $3s which in this day and age is pretty remarkable). We ordered a fair number of plates, and asked them to bring them out whenever they were ready, and there really wasn’t a clunker in the bunch: Assorted Pakora ($6.95), Makhan Palak ($10.95) with cheese, Bharta ($9.95), Garlic Naan ($3.50) Pudina Paratha ($3.50), and Olive Raita ($3.95) were all things I’d order again (although the olive raita was just raita with a few slices of olives thrown in). The one expensive miss was the Goat Boti ($15.95), not because it was bad, but because there just wasn’t enough meat for the money (there were perhaps eight tender and flavorful bite-sized cubes, skewered, which sounds like a goodly portion but it really wasn’t). Both vegetarian entrees were ample, and better than typical versions of these dishes which I tend to order fairly often. Bollywood Bistro is raised to Very Good (which is probably where it has been all along), and pushed up a notch in the Fairfax portion of the dining guide. Also, it is noteworthy for being the only restaurant of my week that isn’t specifically noted as noteworthy.

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