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RestaurantPalaver: Rick Eats DC

Since I've been blogging less frequently than Roger Federer wins majors, I thought the least I can do is refer you to my friend Rick's terrific blog on the DC food scene.  Rick Eats DC reviews the latest hot spots, hidden gems, and old favorites, and he has great taste and a thoroughly entertaining style.  His "best of" lists are my go-to resource when I'm trying to think of new places to try.  And he's so thorough and dedicated he once asked me if I wanted to have lunch at a certain pizza place "to see if it's still terrible" (I said yes, obviously).  His reviews are always candid, so he won't steer you wrong.

RestaurantPalaver: Mintwood Place Goes Green

Mintwood Place was already the best good food/good wine/neighborhoody/snow refuge/cozy dining spot in DC, but tonight they added an Irish menu and a guitarist singing not just trad but also U2 and the Stones. Did they read my diary?

RestaurantPalaver: Mintwood Place (the restaurant, not the street)

 

Photo c/o CityEats

 

Gradually, but decisively, Adams Morgan changed from being an eclectic neighborhood packed with good, ethnic restaurants to one jammed (mostly) with places for drunk people to buy a slice at 3 a.m.  My discouragement peaked when one constantly-changing space took the name McNasty's.  (To be fair, it might be a lovely place.  I have never been inside.  It is called McNasty's.)  So I was delighted at the arrival in January of Mintwood Place, where chef Cedric Maupillier, formerly of Central Michel Richard, serves a mix of French bistro food (steak frites, frogs legs, and the cast-iron chicken pictured above), upscale down-home food (deviled pickled eggs, maple pork cracklin', bacon cheeseburgers), and possibly the best tagliatelle Bolognese I ever had.  Mintwood Place is located below (and co-owned with) Perry's, an Adams Morgan mainstay and location of one of the best rooftop bars (and maybe the only drag queen brunch) in town, on Columbia Road near the corner of Biltmore (a block away from the street named Mintwood Place).  It's a big, comfy, noisy space with friendly, professional service, and delicious food.  What more could you want? Oh yeah, it has a sidewalk cafe!  And now brunch on Saturday and Sunday.  As an example of how good the service is, on one visit our server was Johnny- on-the-spot with an offer for a glass of wine with my main course just as I was silently lamenting the end of my first glass, and another server who brought us the baked Alaska we ordered offered to wait until my friend returned from the rest room to light it on fire (which was a beautiful sight).

I'd hoped to write about this place before the WPost reviewed it and it became even more crowded than it's been, but I dawdled.  Tom's three-star review runs this Sunday.  If you want to get a reservation in while you can, Mintwood Place has gone against the OpenTable trend and signed on with CityEats, a competing site owned by the Food Network.

The best restaurant in Adams Morgan before Mintwood Place opened, by far and for many years, was Cashion's Eat Place, a few doors down Columbia Road.  I love Cashion's, and hope that it will only benefit from the additional grown-up traffic Mintwood Place draws to the neighborhood.

RestaurantPalaver: District Kitchen in Woodley Park

Off the top of my head I count more than 20 restaurants within two blocks of my Woodley Park home, but I could count on one hand the number where I want to eat.  Conventional wisdom has it that because the two large hotels in the neighborhood send a steady supply of one-time-only diners to restaurants here, the restaurants needn't be good to survive.  So I'm happy Drew Trautmann and Jawaad Saadaoui decided to open their newest restaurant, District Kitchen, here.  The team counts Sonoma on Capitol Hill and the former Mendocino Grille in Georgetown among their credits, so I'm sure I wasn't the only neighbor pressing my nose against the window waiting for them to open.  The menu is largely upscale down-home food, including such items as house-made jerky, deviled country ham (it tastes like a borgasmord!), and a riff on Cincinnati-style chili with fusilli and lamb ragu.  The menu changes frequently.  I had a fluke dish right after the restaurant opened that included several thin pieces of seared fish stacked on top of each other and served with greens dressed with an Asian-style vinaigrette and gingered squash puree.  When I returned a couple of weeks ago the fluke was gone, but scallops were served with the same sides.  I opted instead for the Amish chicken "a la king" -- white and dark meat chicken cooked in a cream sauce with carrots and beech mushrooms served over grilled bread that got soggy with the sauce.  This was hearty and comforting, not least because it reminded me both of my mother's chicken a la king, and of when she would serve leftover pot roast on toast with gravy, and I'd skip the pot roast entirely.

After my first meal we had the chocolate pot du creme with salted caramel whipped cream, which was delicious, though even better was the chocolate shortbread alongside it.  Last time I was dying to try the German chocolate cake with coconut and pecan frosting and espresso Irish cream, but that chicken a la king didn't leave me room.   Next time I'll have to go easy on the main course to try the chocolate cream cheese parfait with pecan crust and chocolate sprinkles.  Chocolate sprinkles!  It's as if they've been reading my diary.

Tom Sietsema is giving District Kitchen 2 stars in a review this Sunday.  Here's my favorite line (in case you thought I was exaggerating above):  "The light mood is surely also the result of grateful neighbors, relieved to get an alternative to all the middling menus between Dupont Circle and Cleveland Park."

District Kitchen
2606 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 238-9408

Reservations at opentable.com.

photo from http://www.districtkitchen.com

 

RestaurantPalaver: Fabio Trabocchi Is Back, at Fiola

Washington has a new player in the Italian restaurant field.  Fiola is the latest venture of acclaimed chef Fabio Trabocchio.  It's a departure from Maestro, the over-the-top luxury dining destination at the Ritz at Tysons Corner where Fabio helmed the kitchen until 2007.  Fabio left DC for Fiamma restaurant in SoHo, which closed its doors in 2009, evidently a result of the recession and the public's reduced appetite for extravagant dining.  Perhaps in reaction to that experience, Fiola aims to be more informal and affordable, though both concepts are relative.  The dining room at Fiola may not be formal, but it is no neighborhood hangout, and though dining there won't break the bank, for most of us it's not an every day sort of event.  The menu reads like high end Italian comfort food, if that's not a contradiction in terms.  In addition to the traditional pasta dish cacio e pepe (basically, with cheese and pepper), the menu includes lobster ravioli, a very delicate but rich dish of a few ravioli stuffed with lobster, accompanied by lobster claw meat and a ginger-scented foam (apparently a staple of Maestro's menu).

I dined there with some friends during the restaurant's first week, when they were offering a 10% discount to make up for any bumps in service, a nice gesture.  When I called to make the reservation, I spoke to a woman who sounded like a gorgeous, stylish Euro, with a fancy Italian accent, and I immediately thought of the hosts in the movie "Date Night," who answered the phone at the exclusive Claw restaurant by saying "Claw -- you're welcome."  But instead she was very welcoming.   We were talking about the menu and she said it's more casual than Maestro's, then she said something like "and it's not as dressy as Maestro, since I know you're going to ask me that --you don't have to be super dressed up -- you can wear anything, just chic and modern!" And I thought oh no, now I have to go shopping!  Pasta dishes are priced in the 20s, as are second courses, with no dishes more than $30.  The wine list is relatively reasonably priced, and I appreciated the interesting offerings, particularly of Italian whites like Falanghina and Greco Bianco.

The meal started out with an amuse bouche of tomato water, accompanied by two skewered cherry tomatoes air-dried to remove the bitterness, which made me feel almost virtuous when I ate the rich, flaky, croissant-like roll.  We ordered a chocolate/pistachio torte for dessert to celebrate my friends' birthdays.  It was absolutely delicious.  Until I tasted it I regretted ordering it, because they also brought us each three small desserts gratis -- two tiny cookies and a small cupcake.  I've read nothing but raves about all the desserts at Fiola, so as much as I'd like to stick with the little treats from the pastry chef, it will be tough not to try all the desserts on the menu.

I never dined at the super high-end Maestro (given my own small appetite for extravagant dining), but I did go to an event at Casa Italiana back in 2006, where Fabio cooked several dishes to promote his cookbook, Cucina of Le Marche.  (Le Marche is the region on the east coast of Italy that Fabio hails from.)  I still dream about the fried stuffed olives Ascolana-style that he made.  Although the cookbook includes a recipe for these delicious morsels, I will never make them -- they involve stuffing olives with a mixture of 16 ingredients -- including 4 types of meat -- and then frying them.  But they were delicous.  (Note:  The cookbook isn't all high maintenance items -- it includes, for example, a risotto flavored only with cinammon and lemon -- the kind of dish you can make even when you think you have nothing to eat in the house.) 

Fiola is on Indiana Avenue, NW, between 6th and 7th Streets. (The official address is 601 Pennsylvania Ave., but I assume that's just for the cachet.)  No sign of fried stuffed olives Ascolana-style, which would be a tremendous bar snack, but perhaps they are even too high maintenance for a busy restaurant kitchen.  Fortunately, there's plenty on the menu to make up for it.

 

Fiola (warning:  music will blare when you click the link)
601 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
(really 678 Indiana Ave., NW)
202 628 2888
reservations will be available (though don't seem to be yet) at opentable

RestaurantPalaver: Suds & Fine Dining at Birch & Barley

A few years ago my brother and his wife were fantasizing about opening a restaurant that just serves beer and bread.  I thought of that tonight while sitting at Birch & Barley with a goblet of beer and a board holding pretzel rolls, bacon and sage buns, and raisin cinnamon bread in front of me.  That was just the start of an absolutely delicious meal at this newish addition to the dining scene on 14th Street near Logan Circle.  The list of beers -- their specialty -- is long, but the dinner menu is short, with half a dozen each of starters, pastas and flatbreads, and main courses, selected with the season in mind.  We started with the Arctic char tartare, which was as delicious as it is fun to say, prepared with yuzu gelee, ginger, and basil, and served with light sesame crisps.  For main courses, I had a perfect dish of four of five small slices of venison loin served with braised red cabbage, potato puree, and cipollini.  My friend's crispy wild striped bass, with baby fennel, artichoke, sunchoke, and olives was also delicious.  We rounded out the meal with a side of maple glazed brussels sprouts, which complimented the venison very well, though some might find a bit too sweet.  We were sorry to be too full for dessert, because it was very tempting. The dessert menu is not on the website, but from memory the options included some kind of crazy good sounding french toast item with a bacon ice cream or something on the side that the server raved about (and yes, I said bacon), spicy carrot cake, a chocolate and peanut butter tart with malt ice cream, and a platter of (presumably) tiny desserts including their variation on a Hostess cupcake.  Birch & Barley is not inexpensive; main courses range from $16 for a "brät burger" to the venison, which clocks in at $30.  But worth it.

The restaurant is beautifully decorated and convivial but not loud. We were led toward the back and feared we were being seated in Siberia, but it turned out that on the other side of the copper-colored columns behind the bar, which you can see above, is an open kitchen -- so we had a view of the action behind the scenes, as well as the action in the front of the restaurant.  Our server was tremendous.  Here's an example:  He helped us choose from the lengthy beer list (which includes five cask beers, which are hard to find), and I took his suggestion for a dark Belgian beer (I think it was the Gouden Carolus) to pair with my venison.  Just before they brought out the appetizer he swept in and gave me a small glass of a lighter beer, concerned the dark beer would overwhelm the fish.  Wow.

Thank goodness Birch & Barley takes reservations, because it's already very popular, and Tom Sietsema said on a recent chat that the Washington Post will be running a review of it next Sunday.  Make a reservation now (you can do so on opentable) if you want to try it out.  If you just want to drop in, you might get lucky and get a seat at the small bar downstairs.  (We're already plotting to do that for dessert one night.)  Or, if it's really beer on your mind, and you'd like a more casual (and less expensive) experience, head upstairs to Churchkey, where the emphasis on quality and quantity of beers remains the same, but the menu includes small bites, flatbreads, sandwiches, and salads.  I took a peek tonight about 6:30 and it looked like every seat in the spacious room was taken -- I can't imagine how crowded it is on weekends.  But my friend, who's been many times, said they've always managed to find a seat with a little patience.

Two unrelated bonus points:  the restaurant is only a couple of blocks from the Studio Theater, and they serve brunch all day Sunday.

Birch & Barley/Churchkey
1337 14th Street, NW
(between N St. and Rhode Island Ave.)
Washington, DC  20005
(202) 567-2576

Image from opentable.com.

DCPalaver: Obama at Ben's Chili Bowl

If you live in Washington, or watch "Meet the Press," you know by now that President-elect Obama ate at Ben's Chili Bowl on Saturday with DC Mayor Adrian Fenty.  It might seem like a silly thing to get giddy about, but it's been eight years since we've had a president who showed any interest in what Washington has to offer.  And I love Ben's.  A volunteer group I work with, Hands on Housing, has sometimes gone to Ben's for lunch when we've worked on houses nearby.  Though it's generally a counter-service place, they'd seat the 8 or 10 of us paint- or dirt- or plaster-splattered people in the back room and provide table service.  Everyone was amazingly nice.  If I worked at a hot stove cooking half-smokes and chili and serving a continuous line of hungry people, I don't think I'd stay so cheerful.

Here's a video.  Everybody's happy (except Velveeta's PR people).

Ben's Chili Bowl
1213 U Street, NW
Washington, DC  20009
(202) 667-0909

RestaurantPalaver: Take A Break at the Mandarin

For those of you who work in a godforsaken corner of SW Washington, where the opening of a Potbelly last year was cause for dancing in the streets, check out the Mandarin Oriental hotel's new "Take A Break" option.  This tiny take-out counter offers breakfast items from 7 to 10:30, lunch from 11 to 4 , sweets from 7 to 4, and coffee and other beverages from 7 to 5.  From 4 to 5 they will offer leftovers at "Fire Sale" prices.  (On Fridays they will also offer "surplus items such as overstocked hotel linens."  Whaaaatttt???)  The cafe appears to be an offshoot of the employee dining room, which you can see on the other side of the counter.  (There's no seating for riffraff off the street.)  The menu, which is pretty reasonably priced, is below.  Today I had the Marrakech Chicken Sandwich (a special on Thursdays), which was lemon parsley marinated chicken, Fattoush salad, and olive oil on lavash bread, for $6.95.  It was delicious.  They only had one person working behind the counter, so the service was a bit slow, but I was so happy not to be eating tofu with broccoli from the dreaded salad bar downstairs that I didn't mind.  However, they might not realize the throngs that could descend on them (at least if they've never walked past Potbelly at 12:30).  Take A Break is down an outdoor flight of stairs between the hotel and Portals I.  (Those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about can just go about your business; it's not worth driving across town for.)

 

BookPalaver: Holiday Books (with Optional Pizza)

If you've got books on your holiday shopping list, or need to buy Christmas cards, you can get 20% off most everything in the store at the Politics and Prose holiday member sale this weekend, December 5-7. An annual membership costs $20 (it's $50 for three years), and in addition to three member sales a year includes 20% off all books mentioned in the events calendar for that month and 20% off books on the P&P hardcover fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists.  You can pick up some gift ideas from their holiday newsletter, and most titles in it are 20% off for members through the end of the year.  For more book ideas, check out The New York Times for their 2008 lists of 100 Notable Books, 10 Best Books, and Notable Children's Books of 2008.

If you make it up to Politics and Prose, you can grab a pizza, a beer, and a paddle at Comet Ping Pong just up the block.  Here's an excerpt from Tom's review:

My vote for the most entertaining pizza parlor in the city goes to this spinoff of (and neighbor to) Buck's Fishing & Camping in upper Northwest Washington, which fuses its name from an old liquor store sign and a table tennis theme. Inside is a maze of green tables painted to look like Ping-Pong surfaces; Comet's white globes could pass for giant Ping-Pong balls. And way in the back, past the igloo-shaped pizza oven, await a jukebox and actual Ping-Pong tables for playing between sips of beer and bites of pizza. . . . . But the pies are what drive me here, particularly those topped with crunchy greens, fresh ricotta and black olives; mushrooms, gouda, bacon and soft onions (a.k.a. "The Smoky"); or, this being the mid-Atlantic, soft-shell crabs, leeks and fresh thyme. Whatever your pick, the base is thin, crisp, a little chewy and, like all good crusts, good enough to eat on its own.

Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 364-1919
(800) 722-0790

Comet Ping Pong
5037 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
(202) 364-0404

RestaurantPalaver: Potbelly, or Any Port in a Storm

A few months ago a Potbelly Sandwich Works opened around the corner from my office building.  I'm not a huge fan of Potbelly's sandwiches, but pickings are slim at the corner of 12th and Nowhere, SW, so this is big news under the Eb Principle.  (If you're a single woman in Hooterville, Eb looks pretty good.)  Still, I initially found going to Potbelly an assault on the senses:  the line, the noise, the live music, the ceiling fan/light strobe effect, the guy yelling at you to yell at him that you want a meatball sandwich on wheat.  And the micromanaging of the condiment people.  All this for a mediocre toasted sandwich.  I figured out two things that make it all bearable.  First, everything tastes better with hot peppers.  Theirs is a mix of vegetables, like an Italian giardiniera.  (One day during the jalapeno food poisoning scare this summer, a woman in line asked the condiment guy if the hot peppers include jalapenos, and when told yes, declined them.  The peppers were on display in gallon jars. Did she really think these were just canned that week?)

Second, and most importantly, you can now order online. I just log in, pick one of my usuals from my list, such as the turkey and swiss on skinny wheat with hot peppers, lettuce, tomato, Italian seasoning, and oil and vinegar, choose what time I want to pick up, and select the option to pay when I get there.  At the appointed time I arrive, go to the side cashier, give my name, hand over some money, and walk out with my sandwich.  No line, short noise-exposure, no yelling, and hot peppers.  It's perfect.  Like Eb.  If you're in Hooterville.

Not all locations are offering online ordering yet, but they seem to be rolling it out, so check back if you don't find your location here.  If you work in my building (you know who you are), you might want to bookmark this page.