So’s Your Mom, Adams Morgan

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Don

I stopped in today for a Rare Roast Beef Sandwich ($4.95) on white, with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. It was fine, just as good as you’d get at an office deli.

Lots of people seem to like So’s Your Mom, and I honestly wonder if it’s because of the catchy name. It’s nothing more than a walk-in deli serving Boar’s Head meats. But a lot of people seem to like Boar’s Head, too; not me.

They have a sign up saying how you can trust Boar’s Head. On Boar’s Head’s own website, it says, “Boar’s Head uses only the finest quality raw materials to produce our products. Our deli meats and cheese contain no fillers, gluten, artificial flavors, colors or trans fat.”

Really! Well, then, imagine my surprise when I leaned down and looked at the ingredients on their bologna, and saw nitrates and MSG.

I’m curious also why Boar’s Head doesn’t list the ingredients in their Nutrition Book.

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Passage to India, Bethesda, MD

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Don

Let me say before writing this that I think Passage to India is arguably the finest Indian cooking in the area, and has been for quite some time.

That said, let me also dispel the myth that being “known” in a restaurant guarantees a better experience. There have been numerous times in the past when I’ve been to a restaurant with a “friend of the house,” or (perhaps more surprisingly) another chef, and had the restaurant’s chef come out and offer to cook a special meal off-menu.

What do you say in that situation? “Sure!”

This is precisely what happened last night at Passage to India – my dining companion recognized some of the staff (and apparently knew the chef), and he came out and offered to cook off-menu. “Anything goes?” he asked in Hindi. “Yes.”

When chefs cook in this scenario, they sometimes try to “out-cook themselves,” especially when trying to impress another chef. As odd as it sounds … more often than not, they fail – not because they can’t cook (they can!), but because they’re improvising and experimenting with things they haven’t done over and over again, and, as they say in Russia, “repetition is the mother of learning.”

Last night wasn’t so much the case of a talented chef (and make no mistake about it, Mahipal Negi is one of the finest Indian cooks ever to grace this area) trying to over-cook; rather, it’s that so many of the items at Passage to India lend themselves to long, slow heating, taking time to become fully integrated, and something “whipped up off-menu” seems almost destined to fail here.

Such was the case, for example, with an innocent-looking bowl of spinach. I took one bite, and immediately said, “this tastes like a spoonful of peanut butter.” (Sure enough, when Chef Negi came out, I asked him about the prep, and he mentioned there were nuts in the dish. “Peanut butter too?” I asked. “A little,” he said.) I have no doubt that, had he not been caught off-guard, he would have done a more subtle job with this interesting presentation.

Swinging for the fences and whiffing? I love it. I do it all the time, and wish more people did the same thing. And I love (and perhaps live) that scene in Tin Cup.

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Buck’s Fishing and Camping, Chevy Chase

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Don

I’ve been to Buck’s Fishing and Camping probably two dozen times since it opened in 2003, but never have I had a meal as poor as the one this past Saturday evening (*).

At 9 PM, the restaurant was surprisingly crowded, even for a Saturday night. I walked past the kitchen twice and peeked in the window, and did not see chef Vickie Reh either time (although I did see 5-6 people in there; when Carole Greenwood was cooking, you’d often see only 2-3).

The service, despite many of the employees having worked here for years, was lacking, with the server often chatting with the person working the host stand rather than surveying the dining room.

A 2009 Fabrice Gaunier Chinon “Les Graves” was served too warm, and perhaps because of its youth, came across as dilute and thin, barely identifiable as a Loire Cabernet Franc.

Three appetizers were all failures. Warm Cheese Fondue ($6) was just awful – warm, not hot, granular in places, and based nastily on a blue cheese. With slices of industrial-tasting baguette for dipping. It was as bad as any fondue I’ve ever eaten (NB I’ve never been to The Melting Pot).

Rosemary Roasted Almonds and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds ($3) seemed like they’d be a perfect foil for a fondue and a Chinon, but they weren’t; they needed a higher almond-to-pumpkin-seed ratio for crunch, and there was too much peanut-skin texture running about.

Worst of all, at least for the price, was the Roasted Marrow Bones ($12) with grilled toast, roasted garlic, and a little parsley-shallot salad. Twelve dollars for one bone, cut in half lengthwise, each half containing about one rounded teaspoon of marrow. The salad was extremely overdressed, with glots of lemon flavor dominating the entire dish. There was one clove of roasted garlic on the plate.

At the end of the meal (and I ended the meal at this point), there were precisely eleven (11) pieces of bad bread, in three different forms, left on the table. Buck’s has always had very mediocre bread, inexplicably.

So why such a terrible night for Buck’s? A hypothesis:

(*) Someone told me, while I was midway through writing this, that Buck’s had a Groupon offer last weekend. This might easily explain everything. I’m not saying it excuses it; merely that it might explain it. I also wish I had known: not because I would have used it, but because I would have gone elsewhere.

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Unique Bakery, Fairfax, VA

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Don

Unique Bakery is one of those typical strip-mall bakeries you don’t know about – sometimes you don’t know about them even if you live only a couple miles away (it’s in Twinbrook Shopping Center on Braddock Road). But they’ve been open since 1999, and they specialize in wedding cakes (which presumably give them the revenue needed to keep chugging).

The owner, David Behnam, was adamant about both the Butter Croissant ($1.45) and the Apple-Raisin Strudel (also $1.45) being put into the microwave for about twenty seconds – ‘in this cold weather, the butter needs to come back to temperature,’ he said. Greedily, I ate the croissant while driving out of the parking lot, and I was left unimpressed – it was a decent croissant, but croissants are nearly impossible to make well.

However, I followed Behnam’s advice for the strudel, and I’m glad I did. It was a fine piece of strudel, and with a cup of Quartermaine coffee, it was a real treat. If you ever ferret this place out, give the strudel a try.

I also bought a loaf of German Bread ($2.60), which I had sliced, and nibbled on. Like the croissant, it was adequate, but not a repeat for me. ‘This makes great French Toast,’ he said. ‘You put it in your toaster, add some butter, and top it with some preserves.’ A neighborhood bakery, to be sure, the items meant to be taken home and adorned.

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Pizzeria Orso, Falls Church, VA

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Don

The best pizza in town. It’s a burning question that everyone can debate, like the best burger, or the best ice cream.

Five years ago, 2 Amys stood alone, as it had for many years. Then, upstart Carole Greenwood opened Comet Ping Pong, and at some point, pizzaiolo Edan Macquaid left 2 Amys. It was Comet’s turn at the top. But then Carole left, Comet went downhill, and we went into limbo until Pizzeria Orso opened (with Edan Macquaid as pizzaiolo). Orso sat atop the throne. But then Pupatella opened, too – a simpler place, at a lower price point, with its own rapidly improving Pizzaiolo, Enzo Algarme.

Within the past several weeks, I’ve re-visited 2 Amys, Comet Ping Pong, Pupatella, and Pizzeria Orso, and I have reached my conclusion. But, you’ll just have to wait …

Potato and Salami Fritters ($6) repelled some of the criticism I’ve heard about small plates here. Five perfectly fried beauties, not too salty (they’ve been too salty in the past), and just right with a bottle of 2007 Cantele Salice Salentino Riserva ($25).

A daily special pizza of fresh egg; brussels sprouts sauteed with shallots, pancetta, and hot pepper; and house-smoked provola ($13) was revelatory, and just a great bitter counterpoint to the more-neutral custom-built pizza of buffalo mozzarella, marinara sauce, ham, and egg ($13). The latter pizza was slightly bland, but woke up with a few shakes of salt and hot pepper flakes. The crust has been slightly tweaked here in recent weeks: it’s neither better, nor worse; just a bit different. The oven could have been a touch hotter. But these minor quibbles aside, this was something close to Pizzeria Orso at its finest. Edan was working last night, but Adam Litchfield was deftly manning the oven, and put out some truly great … dare I say “pies?” No? Okay, pizze.

Lots of new desserts on the menu. We split a Butter Pecan Gelato ($6), three orbs of terrific gelato with the pecans extremely finely ground (I’m used to butter pecan ice cream with more palpable chunks). It was served too cold, but that problem quickly resolved itself (not because it warmed up, but because it was gone in about 45 seconds).

So! The best pizza in town as of December 10, 2010? It’s a place whose first name begins with a “P,” ends with an “a,” and has four syllables. Every time I go to Pizzeria Orso, I think it’s Pizzeria Orso, and every time I go to Pupatella, I think it just might be Pupatella (which may not reach the highest highs of Orso, but is more consistent). If you want to argue for either one, I won’t argue back; if you want to argue for any other, I’ll fight you to the death!

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Java Coast, Gaylord Hotel, National Harbor, MD

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Don

Many of the “restaurants” at National Harbor stop serving lunch at 2:30 PM, so I decided to hold off until dinner, with a second cup of coffee tiding me over through the afternoon.

Downstairs in the Gaylord Hotel is Java Coast, a walk-in, take-out coffee shop that serves its drinks in paper cups.

It hurt to pay $3.75 for my medium Café Americano, but less so when I saw that many of the large espresso drinks here are priced at a stratospheric $6.00. Six dollars for a carryout coffee drink!

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New Heights, Woodley Park

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Don

Disclaimer: I’m personal friends with the co-owner of New Heights, and dine here often. That said, I’ve had the restaurant rated #1 in Woodley Park since long before we were friends, and am a genuine fan of Chef Logan Cox even though I’ve never seen him outside of the restaurant. It would be a disservice to Logan if I recused myself from writing about his complex, intricate platings and his fanatical commitment to quality.

At New Heights, the bread is homemade, and this time it was a basketful of slightly drying ciabatta (it’s very difficult to keep airy breads moist in this weather), fantastic whole grain, and good corn bread. The disk of moderately creamy butter always comes topped with milled Fleur de Sel.

Sometimes I’ll start with an entree and end with an appetizer, and so it was this evening. Poached Escolar ($25) is new on the menu, and comes with roasted beets, a spruce gelée (!), and a foamed golden beet vinaigrette. It would be appropriate to think of this dish as a composition of beets, because they are the star of the plate – they’re everywhere, in all shapes, cuts, and textures. The spruce gelée was just a couple of dabs, but was perhaps the most fascinating item on the plate, especially when you go on a hunt for a nearby sprig of rosemary.

Cox never fails to impress me, even when he isn’t around. His sous chef, Erik Morgan, was running the kitchen Thursday night, and I didn’t even realize it until after I’d finished the escolar. Cox’s dishes are extraordinarily complex (if a bit unintegrated – the diner often enters into an implicit compact with the chef to experiment and mix things together), and for Morgan to successfully execute this plate says a lot for both men.

On to the appetizer, which may as well have been an entree due to its heft. Crisp Braised Pork Shoulder ($13) is presented in a bowl with charred octopus, corona beans, and gaeta olive agro dulce. This was a magnificent cut of pork shoulder which many might mistake for pork belly, oven-braised (no sous-vide here) then grilled, and potentially in direct competition with the charred octopus, both alpha dishes tempered by the agro dulce (which was more dulce than agro) and grounded by the corona beans, given a bit of color by strands of fennel head. Two things would have taken this dish over the top: a wood grill (which New Heights does not have), and an “edge” of some sort – acidity, salt, forest floor – to counteract the pork-octopus-corona trio; I suspect ratcheting up the opposing, sour pole of the agro dulce would do the trick.

Johnny Spero, who used to work with desserts at Komi, is going to be working pastry at New Heights, but not for a couple more days, so instead I went with the Artisanal Cheese Selection ($12 for 5 cheeses). All cheeses are from Cowgirl Creamery, and there are eight on the list; I went with the Wild Weed Gouda, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Great Hill Blue, Cashel, and Dante, the presentation served with honey (on the honeycomb) and a stack of grilled bread.

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Happy Family, Falls Church, VA

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Don

Well, I had to try it sooner or later.

It had been sitting there, this decrepit shack, right on the main drag in old Falls Church. “In Business Since 1996,” the menu says, and it has a sort of poor man’s Thai X-ing feel (if you can believe it) inside. There was no heat on at all, and it was frigid.

Ultimately, what grabbed me was also printed on the menu:

Food = Healthy
Cookery = Art+Skill
MSG = Zero
Customer = Friends

And sure enough, the gentleman who answered the phone (and greeted me, and possibly cooked the food) was kindly. He batted one-for-two with the food.

Do not get the Spicy Tangy Wonton[s] ($4.25 for 6) because they are miserable, pasty little things, filled with a pea-sized substance of what is probably minced pork, bathing in a thin, sweet, soy-based sauce.

However, the Curry Chicken ($5.95 for a lunch portion) was not all that bad. It was clean, not oily, had a nice blast of curry powder, and was about as good as you should hope for here.

Happy Family delivers within 4 miles of the Lee Highway – Annandale Road intersection (minimum $12 for lunch, $15 for dinner). If I ever order from here again, I’ll keep it simple like I did with my entree, and get a non-battered, wok-fried item.

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PS7′s, Verizon Center

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Don

I’ve always resisted The OMFG Dip ($12) here because I can’t pull myself away from the “Primanti Brothers” Special. This, despite it sounding sooooo OMF good: seared porchetta with caramelized onions and melted gruyere on toasted foccacia, with a medium-sized bowl of smoky pork dripping jus.

There’s no doubt this is an excellent sandwich (nobody conjures up more appealing sandwiches than Peter Smith), but, believe it or not, it was almost too subtle.

The problem wasn’t necessarily the OMFG Dip proper; it was the company it kept: the Chef’s Choice PS7’s Burger might just be my favorite burger in the whole, wide, world right now. It out-Ray’s Ray, and it out-Frank’s Frank. Ordered and cooked to a perfect medium-rare, and served on a homemade buttery roll with house cured bacon (!), fried egg (!!), gruyere, and marinated tomatoes. I pledge allegiance to this hamburger, with all my heart and soul. Next time you go to PS7’s, get this. Trust me on this one.

As for the OMFG Dip, it was woken up a bit by the Hand Cut French Fries ($4), served sideways in a paper cone, the salt skewed towards the bottom. A Scrimshaw Pilsner ($5) rounded out this manly meal.

Actually, it didn’t. I couldn’t resist ordering the Evolution of the Chocolate Chip Cookie ($8) for dessert. This name was so intriguing that I didn’t even ask what it was. Well, as it turns out, it was an expensive misnomer: it was plate of three chocolate chip cookies, one chewy, one cakey, and the other crispy. Don’t get me wrong – these were all three very good cookies, but I saw only a difference in style; not any sort of evolution, and unfortunately since they’re (honorably) served warm, the tactile differences between the three were minimized. And at $8, that works out to $2.67 per cookie. No.

But the burger redeemed everything!

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Ravi Kabob I, Arlington, VA

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Don

People often wonder how I can eat out around 360 days a year. What do you do on Christmas or Thanksgiving, they’ll ask. Well, this Thanksgiving, and this past Christmas, I got carryout from Ravi Kabob.

And I went again this week, getting the exact same thing I got on Thanksgiving.

The service at Ravi Kabob can be brusque, but depending on certain factors (for example, if you can speak Hindi or Urdu), it can also be more than accommodating. And if you know what to order, the food itself is the best of its type in the DC area.

First order of business: Get the Champ (*) Tandoori ($13.99), three lamb chops, prepared Gujranwala style, marinated with hot spices and yogurt, cooked on a skewer, then served with the bones wrapped in aluminum foil for manual enjoyment. If anyone, anywhere, knows of better lamb chops than these, please write me and let me know. All kabobs are served with tandoori bread, rice, salad, and a cooling, yogurt-based chutney (all of these side dishes go best with the Karahis which I’m about to describe).

Then if there are enough people, either get the Lamb Karahi ($21.99) or the Chicken Karahi ($19.99), both portioned for two. Ask them which one is fresher (on Thanksgiving, they were asked which of the two would be better, and they came right out and said the chicken was delivered that day). Prepared Landi Kotal style, it’s laconically described as “small pieces of chicken cooked in clay pan.” Perhaps so, but it is so complex in its spicing and saucing that it’s impossible to gather what all goes in here. The small pieces of chicken are on-bone, but the sauce contains some shredded meat as well as about 500 other complexities.

The other evening I placed a late-night order (the restaurant is open until 1 AM during the week, and 2 AM on the weekends), and they had forgotten to include the bread. The next day, I found a message on my cell phone which was placed at 1:25 AM: a gentleman called to apologize for the exclusion and offered to deliver it (and said to call back if I wanted a credit the next time I came in).

Ravi Kabob is cash only, serves exclusively Halal meat, and is the best kabob house (or, for that matter, the best Pakistani restaurant) I’ve ever been to. By far.

(*) Pronounced “chop”

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