Hazel Visited 12/22/2017 3 Forks

Hazel  808 V St NW, Washington, DC 20001

Whenever I meet up with Dan in DC, he tries to find a fun trendy place in the city, which I appreciate.  We both agreed that we didn't really get all the hype around this one and it was a bit of #fail, although he seemed to dislike it more than I did.  The setting of the restaurant was totally fine - it was a bit dark but they had a nice outdoor space that looked like it would have been a lot of fun if it wasn't 20 degrees outside.

The menu here is kind of a mish mosh of a bunch of random small plates as well as a duck special for 2-3 people that I would have totally indulged in if I were with my friends Jen and Kevin.  Instead, Dan and I opted for the zucchini bread ($15), steak tartare ($15), roasted sunchokes ($13) and the gnocchi ($16).  The zucchini bread came out quite quickly (almost too quickly) and was served with a side of foie gras mousse topped with chamomile gelee and bee pollen.  The bread itself was nice, warm and slightly sweet from an overdose of butter on it.  The foie gras was kind of a weird pairing with it - it just felt odd to spread foie gras on a sweet buttered piece of zucchini  bread.  I'm also not a huge fan of gelee either.  Dan and I kept saying that we only liked the bread yet couldn't stop putting foie gras on each piece.   Oh well - who wants to waste foie gras?  Next was the steak tartare and I was on my own for this dish  since Dan wouldn't eat it and it honestly was the best dish of the night.  It was a nice helping of chopped up tartare served with a yolk on the side - the pros of this dish was that it came with a side of tater tots which I thought was a genius way to serve it up, the con was that it also came with a weird topping of onion dip.  I like my steak tartare really clean tasting and a creamy dip on top it didn't work for me.  But I loved the combination of the tater tots with it - yes, it seems a bit childish but I will eat tater tots in any format.  Next came the roasted sunchokes, which we got mostly because the table next to us got it and it looked healthy and green.  It was more like a salad with kale, sunchokes and pieces of fried tofu.  Unfortunately it was majorly overdressed - like to the point where the kale was soaking in dressing.  Total buzzkill.  I liked the idea of the dish but it wasn't executed really well.  Last came the gnocchi which came with a pork kimchi ragu and smoked pecorino.  The gnocchi itself was nice and soft and the pork kimchi ragu was a creative topping.  It was a totally fine dish but it could have used a bit more flavor or heat to it given that it had kimchi.

Overall, the meal was totally fine and enjoyable enough.  But neither Dan nor I felt like it would be a place that we would run back to and we didn't really get what all the buzz was about.  I would definitely come back for the steak tartare and ask them to hold the onion dip and pile on extra tater tots.  Maybe the duck dinner is the way to go but I guess I'll never know.  Total bill:  $57/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit: Yelp

Chaplin's Visited 11/24/2017 3.5 Forks

Chaplin's 1501 9th St NW, Washington, DC 20001

Now when I come home for the holidays, I try to meet up with my friends in DC a bit more just to check out the scene.  The food and drink scene has definitely come in to its own and while it's still not NYC to me, it's definitely stepped up over the years. 

I met up with my friend Dan and Kevin after seeing Mean Girls the musical (which I would highly recommend - super fun and campy).  We started at another bar with a few drinks and we were at the point that we needed to eat or be in real trouble.  We went to Chaplin's which wasn't too far from where we were and unbeknownst to me, it turned out to actually be a ramen bar.  It's got this dark funky decor to it and it was definitely not very Japanese, so if I were to pass it I wouldn't have guessed that they were serving Asian inspired food.   The menu is pretty extensive here with a lot of appetizers but their main section is a variety of ramen dishes.  We started with the chaplin buns ($9) and then I got the Stamina Spicy ramen ($14) since I had a bit of congestion going on and thought something spicy would help.  I should note that if you come here before 7pm it's happy hour and they have 1/2 off wine and they have an AMAZING Cab Sauv from Silver Ghost in Napa Valley - it's usually $18 a glass but if you can get it for $9 a glass, do it and drink as many glasses as you can. 

The buns came with braised pork, cucumber, lettuce, carrot, in a steamed white bao bun.  I could have done without the cucumber and carrot part of it, but otherwise it was a standard but tasty pork bun.  As for my ramen, it was indeed spicy AF.  It came out pretty red looking and it tasted how it looked - it was definitely spicy and cleared out my nostrils but it didn't burn or hurt me like some other crazy spicy foods I've had.  It had your sliced pork, scallions and poached egg as well as some ginger an garlic.  I would have liked some bok choy or seaweed in it but I didn't feel like it warranted the extra $4 and making my ramen almost $20.  To me, those are kind of basic ingredients that should be in any ramen dish. 

The meal definitely hit the spot and helped with a congestion issue.  Unlike my other Asian fusion experiences I didn't feel like this was a total fail but compared to true ramen places like Ippudo, it's still not quite up to snuff.   But if I lived here I would definitely come at happy hour, order 2 or 3 glasses of the Ghost Silver Cag Sauv and maybe a less spicy ramen and feel fairly satisfied.  Total bill:  $44/pp with tax, tip and drinks 

Kotobuki Visited 12/28/2015 4 Forks

Kotobuki  4822 MacArthur Blvd NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20007

Lately, every time I go home to MD, I get lunch at Sushi Yoshi in VA because their lunch specials and cuts of fish are amazing, fresh and plentiful.  So I was a bit hesitant to try something new but my old roommate had sent me a note a while back saying that she had heard that this secret sushi place near her house that was supposed to be amazing.  Now if there's anything I'm a sucker for, it's trying "secret" restaurants.  Turns out, this place isn't really super secret since there is a sign outside for it but it is upstairs from the main Japanese restaurant Makoto, which is supposedly super fancy and much more expensive.

My mom and I checked out Kotobuki on a lazy Monday afternoon for lunch and it was still super crowded.  It's pretty tiny with about 10 seats total and then maybe 5-6 seats at the bar.  It's not super fancy at all - it's basically the top floor of a slightly worn out townhouse that has a sushi bar shoved in it.  We sat at the sushi bar which was slightly cramped but manageable.  They have a fairly small lunch menu and the food leans towards more traditional fare of simple sushi, chirachi, sashimi dishes vs. crazy rolls with cream cheese, mango and other weird things in it.  We both got the sashimi lunch special ($14.95), and split a spicy scallop roll and a spicy tuna roll to round out the meal.  The sashimi comes with a miso soup which was your standard miso soup.  The rolls came out next and they looked fresh and well done.  The rice was a nice texture and the scallop was the whole piece kind not the chopped up kind, which was great.  Strangely, I don't mind when the fish is chopped up for spicy tuna or spicy salmon rolls, which is how it was prepared here.  The rolls were simple but well done - no complaints.  The lunch sashimi came with 3 pieces each of tuna, salmon, whitefish and mackerel. My only disappointment was that it came with mackerel instead of yellowtail...apparently the dinner sashimi comes with yellowtail but they charge $26.50 for that one - not sure if yellowtail is really worth $12 more.  In any case, all the cuts of fish were well cut and of good quality - even the mackerel, which I usually don't like but if it's fresh and good, I'm willing to eat it.  It was a satisfying meal even with the mackerel.

Overall, I'm glad that I branched out and tried out a new sushi place while I was home.  While I enjoyed it and it is definitely better than most of the MD suburb sushi I've had, it's not as mouth watering or delectable as my experiences at Sushi Yoshi or Tachibana in VA.  It's still worth a visit, especially at such relatively affordable lunch prices.  Total bill:  $50 for 2 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Slash Run Visited 12/26/2016 3.5 Forks

Slash Run 201 Upshur St NW, Washington, DC 20011

I have always been a huge fan of solid burger joints especially ones that have a heavy metal theme to it (i.e. Kuma's Corner in Chicago).  I was home for the holidays and got to catch up with some long time friends from elementary-high school and we ended up at Slash Run since it was near my friend Martha's place.  Given that it was the day after Christmas, it was pretty quiet and low key but that was great because that's exactly what we wanted.  This place is a true local joint as judged by many patrons wearing Redskins jersey since the big game was on that night - even better! 

The decor is kitschy, rock n roll and comforting all at once.  The menu centers around bar food and lots of local beers on tap.  We got the fontina artichoke dip ($9) to start while we mulled over our burger choices.  They have a nice variety of burgers that range from basic (simple bacon cheese burger) to the random (one with pineapple relish and pork rinds).  I was torn but opted to get the Le Petite Mort ($11.95) which was a burger with blue cheese crumble, garlic aioli, arugula, and mushrooms sautéed in red wine.  Did I mention that all the burgers came with waffle fries - yum! The fontina dip was what you expected of an artichoke dip - gooey and cheesy.  Next came the burgers - they were a very generous portion and mine was cooked medium rare with a bit more emphasis on the medium but it wasn't so brown that I felt like I had to send it back.  I enjoyed the combination of the blue cheese and mushroom - in fact, I was actually a bit disappointed that there wasn't more toppings to the burger, although that's probably slightly healthier for me.  The patty was juicy and moist but it didn't necessarily have me wanting to drool over it like I did at Black Tap but if I lived nearby I can see why it would be a cool neighborhood joint to relax and chill out.  The waffle fries were a pleasant addition - other than steak fries, I am a total sucker for waffle fries and these were nice and crisp and really paired well with the burger and beer I had. 

Overall, the Slash Run is a nice rock n roll local joint that's unpretentious and chill.   It seems like a good Sunday Funday kind of place to go and have a few beers with friends.  While the food itself is basically bar food, I give them props for trying to be creative with it - especially in a up and coming part of DC (there's an artisanal pickle shop coming soon!).  The service was a bit slow despite it being not crowded at all but I guess, who really wants to work on the Saturday after Christmas anyways?  Total bill:  $36/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  The Washtingtonian 

Toki Underground Visited 12/24/2014 4 Forks

Toki Underground 1234 H St NE, Washington DC,  20002

Every time I come back home to the MD/VA/DC area, I end up going to the same places and most of them are in MD and VA.  So I am thrilled when local friends recommend anything that is new, cool, or fun in DC proper.   Luckily, my friend Dan is pretty up on these things and recommended that we meet up at a hipster-ish ramen place in NE DC, which is not a part of DC that I have been to frequently.  The area is still developing and you would never know that tucked upstairs from a random bar/restaurant is a Williamsburg-like hipster ramen place the size of my bathroom.  It's tiny but luckily when we got there at noon on Christmas Eve, it was still pretty empty.  But by the time we left around 1ish, there was quite a line.

The menu is pretty simple - 5 different kinds of ramen and then some sides like dumplings, cold tofu, steamed buns, and seasonal vegetables.  Louise, Dan and I split the fried chicken steamed buns ($12) and I opted for the red miso ramen ($12 for 4 pieces).   The food comes out rather quickly, so be prepared to eat right away.  The fried chicken steamed buns were freakin delicious and addictive. There were 4 Chinese style steamed white buns, a bunch of boneless fried chicken pieces, pickled cucumbers and mayo. The buns were perfectly soft and pillowy and were a great holding vessel for the pieces of fried chicken in sweet chili sauce and pickled cucumbers.  The chicken reminded me of the Korean fried chicken variety at Bon Chon and it was every bit as yummy as those pieces of chicken.  While I can't vouch that it's authentic or even mildly Asian in style, it was awesome and I would come back and order an entire plate just for myself.

On to the ramen.  Despite it's name, the red miso is not spicy at all.  It's just red in color and it comes with pieces of pulled pork, egg, pickled ginger and greens.  It was a very solid ramen dish - the noodles were cooked just right and it was topped with sesame seeds, scallion and nori.  I slurped up the whole thing pretty quickly, so I guess my only compliant would be that there could be a bit more noodles and toppings to go with the overabundance of broth.  As for the broth, it was also solid, it wasn't too salty but still had strong flavor from the pork and miso.  I did enjoy the bites of pork but I still prefer the pork to be more on the sliced side vs. pulled.

All in all, this was an adorable place that would fit right in with any city's hipster scene.   While I do think the ramen craze is over with these days, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to still enjoy a good bowl of ramen - especially when it's cold outside.  What nice about DC is that it's still mildly less expensive than NYC and it was great to enjoy a fun and delicious lunch for a reasonable price (in NYC a bowl of ramen at a good place like Ippudo will run you between $15-20 depending on if you add any extra toppings and steamed buns are $9 for 2).  While I wouldn't say that Toki Underground is on the same level as Ippudo, frankly, it's not that far off.  Total bill:  $25/pp with tax and generous tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Bistro du Coin Visited 6/8/2014 2 Forks

Bistro du Coin 1738 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009

I've never done real brunch in DC before so I was excited to give it at try with some friends who had just moved to the area.  I usually either to go my usual dim sum or pho in the burbs but this time I was meeting up with my friends in Dupont Circle and they picked a place that was within walking distance to their new digs. The place is a cute French bistro and had a great sounding menu - lots of different kind of egg dishes and lots of steamed mussels - which is their signature dish.  Since it was still pretty early in the morning, I opted to not get mussels (although I was very tempted) and went with a traditional eggs benedict with smoked salmon ($15).  It comes with fries and a salad so I didn't feel the need to order any other sides with it. 

As most of you know one of my biggest pet peeves with restaurants, particularly places that serve brunch, is when they can't poach an egg correctly.  And dear lord, did this place totally fuck up the egg in a major way.  It wasn't just over cooked, it was a down right hard boiled egg - to the point where I actually could have scooped out the yolk and it would have come out in a hard yellow sphere.  I know I probably should have said something but I didn't want to cause a fuss and I just ate around the yolk as the rest of the dish was totally fine.  I looked to see if it was just my egg but it looked like everyone else had a similar yolk experience with varying degrees of hard boiled-ness.    There also wasn't enough hollandaise sauce on the benedict - although that is probably better for my healthy anyways.  The fries were nice and salty and that helped me get full off the dish.  I also thought the salad was way overdressed.  In the end, it didn't matter to me too much that the food wasn't great since I was really more there for the company and to catch up with some friends but if I ever did end up here again, I'm thinking I'll probably stick to the mussels - even if it is before noon.  My friends graciously treated me to lunch so I don't know what the total bill was. 
Photo Credit:  Yelp

Rappahannock Oyster Bar Visited 6/7/2014 4.5 Forks

Rappahannock Oyster Bar 1309 5th St NE, Washington, DC 20002

Obsessed.  That's all I can say about this place.  Yes - it's in a totally hipster, bougie market called Union Market and I can see why people are kind of annoyed at all the expensive artisanal stuff in the market, but this restaurant was a big winner in my book.  It's a pretty casual place with some bar seating and a few table tops.  The menu is classic seafood as its best: full on raw bar, seafood chowders and then a few select fresh seafood dishes.  I also loved the fact that they had tons of local beers on tap, including one of my favorite local beers:  Flying Dog.  Now, since I am in Maryland, I know the crab cake ($16) will be amazing there, so there was no question in my mind what I was going to order.   But first, my mom and I split a raw dish of 6 oysters and 2 clams and they were all fabulous - they ranged from salty and briny to sweet and creamy.  They give you cocktail sauce, vinegar and horseradish and they were all great additives to the oysters.   I would have ordered more but since we knew the crab cake was coming and that we were considering snacking/nibbling on more food from other stalls, we refrained.  

On to the crab cake.  Now THIS is how you do a crab cake and this is why I will only eat crab cakes when I'm in Maryland or in the Metropolitan area.  It's pure delicious sweet crab meat with NO filler - which is exactly the way it should be.  There's no heavy breading or fried crap on the outside, it's just heavenly crab meat topped with a fantastic celery remoulade (it had a little spicy heat to it) and it's sitting on a bed celery root slaw.  I was a bit nervous about the celery slaw since I really hate celery, but even here was a wonderful and didn't really taste too strong of celery.   It was a nice side dish that added some crunchy texture to the crab cake.   It was simply fabulous.  I totally wished that I had ordered some of things off the menu like the chowder and steamers because I'm sure they would have been awesome too.  

If I lived near here, I would definitely be here every weekend - especially since they have $1 oyster happy hour.  Union Market itself does have a very hipster Brooklyn feel - so I did feel at home to a certain extent and I am such a totally sucker for these kinds of fancy food markets.   It's great places like this that make me think that maybe DC isn't such a bad place to!  Sorry I don't know what the total bill was since it was mom's treat. :)

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Rasika Visited 6/6/2014 4 Forks

Rasika 1190 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, DC 20037

Every time I go home I usually go to the same old places, so I thought it would be nice to try some place different in the city for my mom's birthday.  I had heard about Rasika from a bunch of friends and the chef, Vikram Sunderam, was recently awarded a James Beard Award, so I thought it was worth a visit.  I booked the reservation over a month in advance and the only two slots left were the 5:30 and 9:30pm slots.  Since I'm an old lady now, I took the 5:30 one but I was surprised at how popular it was. 

Upon walking in, I noticed that it was a much more of a modern place than the typical mom and pop Indian places on 6th street in New York that I'm used to.  They have a tasting menu as well as an a la carte menu.  We opted for the a la carte since the tasting menu seemed like a lot of food.  The place is famous for their Palak Chaat ($11), so we had to order that.  We also got the Tawa Baigan ($9), the Black Cod ($28) and the Dal Dhungaree ($6) with a side of garlic naan ($3) and cucumber raita ($5).  The Palak Chaat came out first and it was fantastic.  It's crispy baby spinach, yogurt, tamarind and date with some red onion and tomato.  The spinach leaves were perfectly crispy - it wasn't too dried out or raw.  The tamarind and date gave it a nice tang and of course red onion, tomato, and cilantro always make any dish delicious in my book.  It was unique and fabulous.  Next came the Tawa Baigan which was sliced eggplant layered and stacked with spiced potato in between each layer - it was quite tasty as well although it didn't seem as unique as the chaat.  For the main, they brought out the black cod and the dal with the naan and rice.  The black cod was melt in your mouth amazing.  I wish I didn't have to split it family style.  It had a honey glaze that wasn't too overpowering but added a nice touch to the dish.  The one thing that I didn't love about it was that it was served with a peanut quinoa that just didn't do anything for me.  It was fine but I would have rather had more fish and no quinoa.  Lastly, I tried the Dal dish - which was your typical lentils with garlic and tomato sauce and lots and lots of cream.  I love a great dal dish and the sauce was great, but I just wish there was more lentils.  There just wasn't enough actual lentils to make it a hearty dish but the flavor of what was in there was great.

The one small service snafu was that we had ordered more naan because there was too much dal.  So we waited and waited and the naan never came even though our waiter and the hostess both told us it was on its way.   While I don't know much about cooking, I know that naan doesn't take 20 minutes to make.  They finally admitted that they gave our naan to another table.  What?!  At that point, we didn't really want it anymore but they apologized profusely and brought out another naan (it only took 5 minutes) and brought another side of dal because otherwise, what was the point of the naan? The extra naan and dal was free of charge.  So that was nice and appreciated but it kind of disappointing in general from such a high end restaurant.

Overall, it was a lovely experience and the food was quite tasty.  It's not like the crazy, loud or even traditional Indian places in NYC that I love, but it was a nice birthday experience, especially for an "older" crowd.  Total bill:  $120 for 3 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Heights Visited 12/29/2013 3 Forks

The Heights  3115 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20010

I usually don't spend a whole lot of time in Washington DC proper, but now that a lot of my high school friends who came back to live in the area actually live in the city vs. the suburbs, I've been checking out the city more and more.  And you know what? It's totally different from what I remember as a kid.  The area surrounding 14th street is bustling with tons of great shops and restaurants and has kind of changed my perspective on living in DC (although I don't see that happening anytime soon). 

The Heights is your standard cute, neighborhood American joint.  There were 8 of us, so it was great that they were able to accommodate all of us and the waiter was really nice and very gracious (especially since we had an active toddler at the table with us).  The menu has your basic brunch fare:  benedict, breakfast platter, bacon/sausage and eggs, omelets, etc.  They also have a lunch menu but Martha and Meredith had made a comment that their last non-brunch meal wasn't super stellar, so I decided forgo the fish tacos and stick with breakfast type food.  I opted for the huevos motulenos ($10.50) - which is pretty like a huevos rancheros.  If you like bloody marys, they have a great make- your-own bloody mary menu where you can get weird things like old bay seasoning, shrimp, blue cheese, and beef broth in it.  The huevos motulenos came with eggs (I chose scrambled), chicken, plantains, avocado, black beans and salsa.  I was a bit disappointed that it only came with 2 small and slightly dried out corn tortillas, but if there were more of them it probably would have filled me up a lot faster.  The flavors of the dish were fine but I would have liked more spicy salsa added to the top of it. The chicken was a bit too chunky for the dish and it probably would have worked better as a shredded chicken.  While I love plantains, it didn't really add to much to the dish.  The avocados were surprisingly nice and ripe (it is the dead of winter right now), however mashing them up into guacamole might have been a better route for the overall dish.  While it seems like I have a lot of "suggestions" for the dish, it got the job done for brunch.  I didn't try anyone else's food but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as all our plates were fairly empty by the end of the meal. 

All in all, it was the right spot for such a big group and the waiter was really patient and nicely attentive (without being too annoying).  The food wasn't particularly outstanding but this was the kind of meal where it was more about the company of good friends and catching up versus having a fine dining experience.  Total bill:  $19/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Little Serow Visited 11/29/2013 4 Forks

Little Serow 1511 17th St NW between P St and Church St., Washington, DC 20036

Do you like spicy food? I mean food so spicy that it smacks the sh*t out of you and your eyes are watering in 5 minutes?  Do you like Northern Thai style food (so no pad thai or papaya salad here)? Do you also like to wait in line for over an hour in the cold, just so you can put your name down and eat 2 hours later?  If you answered yes to all of those things, then Little Serow is for you.  I had been reading about it for months as THE place to go in DC, so I finally decided to forgo my usual MD/DC places to check this place out the day after Thanksgiving.  It's totally got this NYC vibe in that it's got this tucked away, basement level location and you have to get there by 4:15pm if you even want a chance to eat at the first seating of 5:30pm.  I got there at 4:30pm and the group in front of us literally got the last 2 seats in the whole place (it only seats 28 people).  So I would say that if you want to guarantee yourself a seat at 5:30, get in line by 4:15 at the latest.  If you don't make the 1st cut, they take your number and text you when your table is ready.  There isn't much else around it within a 5 block radius (great business idea would be to build a bar next door), so I just waited it out with a coffee at McDonald's down the street.  Luckily, they texted us at 6:35pm that our table was ready!  You need to respond within 10 minutes or they give your seat away.  

The inside is like this dark cave with no windows, but they do try to brighten it up with aquamarine blue walls.  The menu here is entirely prix fixe - 7 courses for $45, which in my book is a steal.  They do not accommodate with any substitutions, so if you have allergies or are a vegetarian, stay away from this place.  The first dish of the night was a duck liver/shrimp paste/garlic dip.  It's served with crispy pork chips (similar to the shrimp chips you sometimes get in Asian restaurants) and they also give you a nice big basket of delicious sticky rice and a variety of very fresh greens ranging from lettuce to radish to basil to cabbage to cucumber.  The paste looked very unassuming but as soon as I tasted it my mouth had a 5 alarm fire.  It was so spicy that honestly it was all that I could taste for a while.  The liver gave it an earthy taste to it but really the spice was very intense (at least it was for me).  I had to cut it with some rice and cucumber.  Next we had a mushroom "salad" and a dried squid soup.  The mushroom salad was served with salted duck egg and rice powder and a few sprinkles of cilantro as the greens.  This dish was way too salty.  I mean, I could barely taste anything else in it, so it wasn't a huge hit for me.  As for the soup, the lemongrass flavor really hits you in the face.  It's also got chili slivers in it for heat and fresh squid and dried fried squid in it to add some fishy taste to it. It wasn't bad but I'm not a huge fan of a lemongrass based soup.  I was concerned at this point that I wouldn't get full because these 3 dishes were pretty small but luckily the next 4 dishes really stepped it up.  The 4th dish was described as snakehead fish with lemongrass and spices.  Honestly, if it didn't know there was fish in it I would have thought it was pork.  It had a very similar taste and texture to a laarb dish.  We were advised to eat it with the cabbage leaves which was good advice as it gave it some crunch and was a good soothing ingredient for my mouth that was still on fire.  There was a lot of flavor jammed into this dish which I liked.  Next were the fried rice cake cubes with salted prawns and peanuts.  At first I thought these were fried tofu cubes but they were indeed made out of rice which made eating 5 of them super filling.  The small shrimp were served with fish sauce, red onion and peanuts which kind of reminded me of a papaya salad - only this did not have any spice to it.  Phew.  The next dish consisted of some sauteed greens similar to a bok choy with more salted fish and a fried egg on top.  The egg was over cooked and didn't have a nice runny yoke to it, which I think would have really helped the dish.  Again - lots of flavor and lots of salt to this dish.  I wish there were more greens to it since there only probably 4 bites of actual greens in it.  The last dish was pork ribs served with whiskey and dill.  The ribs were fantastically cooked and fell right off the bone cleanly.  I was really surprised by the dill flavoring because that's not something you normally see in Thai dishes, but it worked for me here.  The meat was tender and there was a nice layer of fat right underneath the skin.  I was so full at this point that I had to leave a small piece behind, which was upsetting.  I'm not sure if putting the heaviest dish at the end of a 7 course meal is the right order for it, but it was a nice note to end on.  They do also give you a small dessert of sticky coconut rice - it was a nice palate cleanser to the meal. 

The decor was super cute and minimalist and very unexpected for the DC area.  They don't do a great job of maximizing the space as there is almost half a wall that is totally empty - they could fit almost 6 more seats there if they wanted.  The staff was super friendly and very nice which always makes a 3 hour wait more bearable.  The entire meal will probably take you about 1 1/2 hours, which isn't so bad for 7 courses.  I totally love and appreciate what they are trying to do here and it was indeed a unique experience that I didn't expect from a restaurant in DC.  It's most definitely not your standard Thai restaurant but it's not such a stuffy experience that you would feel out of place in jeans and a t-shirt.  While I usually reserve 4 forks for food that I'm in love with, I felt like I had to give it something higher than 3.5 because of the concept and overall uniqueness of this in this area.  I'm not 100% sure I would go through the whole experience again, but I'm sure glad I tried it at least once.  Total bill:  $135 for 2 with tax, tip and a glass of wine. 

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Range by Bryan Voltaggio Visited 8/31/13 4 Forks

Range by Bryan Voltaggio 5335 Wisconsin Ave NW, Ste 201, Washington, DC 20015

So while I am obsessed with Top Chef and the Voltaggio brothers, the main reason I came here was because while I was working with Jim Meehan (mixologist at PDT) on a project at work, he mentioned that this places makes a mean cocktail.  I couldn't believe that a place that was 5 minutes from where I grew up could make a cocktail that a NYC-based James Beard Award Winning mixologist would approval of, so it was on my list of places to check out on my next visit home.

I didn't realize that Range is inside this weird hybrid mall/hotel inside the Chevy Chase Pavillion.  It's literally across the way from an H&M inside a mall.  While it's definitely in a ritzy/yuppie part of town, the actual physical location is kind of hidden and hard to find because of its interior location.  The restaurant is pretty huge with several open kitchen stations that each specialize in different cuisines.  The waitress was one of the most well spoken/refined wait staff that I've experienced in the MD/DC area.  They are very well trained here.  The whole concept and vibe of the place just blew my mind because it's not what I've come to expect in a restaurant when I come home.  The menu here is all American tapas style (SIGH) and the waitress advised us to order about 3 plates per person.  I really don't mind tapas, family style sharing but what really irritates me is when a restaurant has that concept but still charges entree prices for these small plates.  So I digress.

Everything on the menu sounded really good, but instead of ordering 9 dishes, we opted to go for 3 larger sized plates, 2 smaller plates and a bread basked hoping that would fill us up:  lobster mac and cheese ($18), scallops ($21), grilled octopus ($18), wild salmon crudo ($12), country pork and squab terrine ($16) and the cheddar and jalapeno biscuits ($4).  I thought this was enough food but our waitress was really pushing us to order more food, but since we had already ordered cocktails and I wanted dessert too, I didn't really want to have a $200 lunch bill and drew a line in the sand with our ordering.  The dishes come out as they are ready, so we got the biscuits first and they were delicious.  They was fluffy, soft and with the right hint of heat from the jalapeno.  But what really made it addictive was the pepper jelly that came with it.  Luckily for my waist line there was only 1 biscuit per person, but I could have easily eaten the entire basked myself.  Next came the country pork and squab terrine with a fantastic homemade dijon mustard.  Despite my penchant for adventurous eating, I will say that terrine still kind of freaks me out, mostly because of its texture.  But honestly, this one was pretty damn good.  It has that slightly funky chopped and then binded together look and feel with a layer of cold jelly.  But it just all worked together and I really enjoyed it with the mustard.  Next came the wild salmon which is basically 3 thinly sliced smoked pieces of salmon (similar to lox) topped with a potato-shallot tot.  It was a nice piece of salmon but honestly I think I'm biased and have had much better smoked salmon in NYC for less money.   Then came the lobster mac and cheese.  I mean, how in the world can you go wrong with a dish like this?  For $18, it was a pretty small portion but taste wise it was huge.  It was made with a rigati pasta with a hint of old bay seasoning and several large chunks of delicious lobster with a very light cheese sauce.  You would think a dish like this would be super heavy but it was actually pretty light for a pasta.  Again, I could have eaten this entire dish by myself instead of sharing it with the table.  Then we waited a bit for the next two dishes to come out.  I will take this moment to call out the cocktails here.  They are all hand crafted, single batched cocktails and they were definitely PDT caliber.  Even my mom got in on the cocktail action with the What's with all the tattoos? (how apropos)  drink and I ended up drinking the entire thing because it was so fantastic.   After a bit the scallop and grilled octopus dishes came out.  The scallop dish came with only 2 scallops (so they were $10.50 each!) but I will say that they were two very large scallops that we were able to cut up into 3 pieces.  They were served with a sweet and sour eggplant quinoa and a very strong miso paste.  The scallops themselves were cooked to perfection, not too dry and with the right amount of ever so slight rareness inside.  I just wished there were more than 2 of them.  The octopus dish was also a winner.  This dish was the hefty-ist of them all with 4 medium sized pieces.  Octopus is so easy to mess up and make super chewy and gross but this was just right and very tender. It almost didn't taste like octopus texture-wise and it might even be one of the best octopus dishes I've had in a while.

At this point, I was full but not overly full, so I wanted to see what the dessert cart was all about.  The waitress wheels over this cart with a bunch of chocolate petite fours, cookies, brownies, rich krispy treats, and cupcakes (kind of seemed a bit low brow for such a high concept place).  For all the overpricedness (is that even a word?!) the desserts were pretty cheap ranging from $2-4.  We got the apricot cupcake and a chocolate cookie brownie.  The cupcake was light and fluffy and it tasted amazing with the fresh piece of apricot on top of it.  The cookie brownie was exactly how it sounds - a heavy decadent piece of soft brownie like dessert in a cookie formation.

All in all, I was super impressed with the level of service, quality of food and presentation here. It rivals any restaurant in NYC I've been to and honestly doesn't seem like any hotel/mall restaurant I've ever been to.  My only gripe for not giving it a 4.5 Fork rating was the fact that the prices were a bit too high for what we got, I wasn't overly impressed with the salmon dish, and the sizes were a bit too small.  Total bill: $172 with tax, tip and cocktails for 3 people.

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Shophouse Visited 11/27/11 2 Forks

Shophouse 1516 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036

I usually don't review fast food places, but ShopHouse was something I had been wanting to try and it's a bit unique to the restaurant scene, so I just had to review it.  It's the Southeast Asian "spin-off" from the founders of Chipotle (say what you will about Chipotle but sometimes a good burrito bowl just really hits the spot) and the only location open is in Dupont Circle in DC. 

The set-up is the same as Chipotle.  You walk in and you choose your concept - so a rice (brown or jasmine) or noodle bowl or a banh mi.  Then you choose your protein (chicken satay, grilled steak, pork and chicken meatballs or organic tofu), vegetables (chinese broccoli, spicy corn, thai basil eggplant, or green beans), sauce (tamarind vinaigrette, green curry, or spicy red curry) and toppings (papaya salad, cilantro, pickles, toasted rice, peanuts, and crispy garlic).  My mom and I decided to get a brown rice bowl with corn and long beans and red curry, a noodle bowl with organic tofu, eggplant and long beans and a bahn mi with pork and chicken meatballs.  At first it didn't look like a lot of food but in true Chipotle style, the bowl itself was extremely filling and had to take half of it home.  My first impression of my noodle dish was that the tofu was very disappointing.  It was chopped up so fine and tiny that you could barely taste or see it.  Most Asian places use bigger pieces of tofu and marinate it to give it flavor.  If they hadn't told me this was tofu I would have never realized it and coming from an Asian who has had tons of tofu in every variety, that is a bad sign.  The noodles were pretty decent but the whole bowl just tasted exactly like what it was, a bunch of random Asian ingredients thrown together but with no cohesion or flavor profile.  The eggplant was extremely smoky and spicy and it really overpowered my bowl.  The chicken in my mom's dish was fine and more flavorful than my dish but again it tasted like a stir-fry that I could have made on my own. 

The banh mi was also disappointing.  The bread was completely hard and I decided to just skip it entirely.  The only thing that made this a "banh mi" was the shape of the bread and that it had pickled veggies on top.  Otherwise, there's was no pate, ham, pork, cucumber, large bunches of cilantro, or daikon.  They did use a spicy mayo that went well with the pork and chicken meatballs but other than that, there wasn't much spicy or kick to it.  I will say that of all the meats we tried, the pork and chicken meatball was the best.  It was moist and flavorful.  

Overall, I like the concept but it needs to be refined a lot more.  In general, it's harder for Asian ingredients to just be thrown together and just work like Mexican food.  A lot of these flavor profiles just don't seem to work together and the quality of the food was below the Chipotle standard.  But I am hopefully because I do love Chipotle deeply and love Asian street food, so hopefully they can get their act together and make it work.  Total bill for 2 bowls, 1 banh mi, and a ginger ale $24.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Adour Visited 5/4/2011 3.5 Forks

Adour The St. Regis, 923 K St NW, Washington, DC 20050

 Talk about fancy.  This is the first Alain Ducasse restaurant I have been to, so I was pretty excited to see what he is all about.  He is an extremely well-known French chef and holds a 3 star Michelin restaurant in London, so there were high hopes for this place to blow my mind.  My initial reaction to the ambiance and service was that it took fine dining to a new level for me.  It was almost too high brow.  First, the restaurant was carpeted! It takes a lot of balls to go with white carpeting in your restaurant...I can only imagine all the cleaning and shampooing that rug must undergo each day to keep it as clean as it was.  Our waiter was wearing a very fine business suit and was just so serious that it made me feel like I was a kid at an adults only party.

I believe the menu is French inspired but it didn't scream French food.  There were several fish main entrees and a few cuts of steak and then the tasting menu.  We started with the cheese plate and then I got the Wagyu beef cheek ($37) and we also all split mac and cheese ($8) - which I thought was a bit weird to have on the menu.  They start out with giving you these small cheese puff pastries, which were quite warm and delicious and then an amuse bouche of ginger carrot soup.  The soup was more of a gazpacho since it was cold and it was topped with a bit of chili oil to give it some heat.  You could definitely taste the carrot and ginger but I'm generally not a huge fan of cold soups.  It kind of seems like an oxymoron to me.  Next they offer you your choice of bread, but I didn't see any butter.  Not sure if that was intentional or not, but probably better for my health anyways. Our cheese plate came out and I thought that in a place like this they would stand there and tell you about the cheeses and jams. Instead, they just put the plate down and walked away.  One was definitely a blue cheese and one was a light brie, but I wasn't sure about the other 2 (both hard mild cheeses).  Cheese is always tastes great to me, so no complaints there.  I wasn't a huge fan of the jams actually.  One was very bitter tasting and the others just didn't add anything to the cheeses for me.  They also served the cheese with this really fabulous toasted bread, but it just didn't seem to be the right vehicle for the cheese.  It seemed more appropriate for butter and jam since it was a very thick piece of bread. 

There was a significant lag between our cheese dish and main entrees but luckily I was pretty full from the cheese.  One of the reason I got the beef cheek was because it came with polenta.  But when the dish came out, the beef cheek was on the dish with a garnish of lots of sauteed onions and the polenta was in a side dish.  I guess maybe it's an Asian thing but I like to have my main entree on a "bed" of something or at least on the same plate so that I can combine them into one bite.  But that's not really a huge deal breaker or anything.  I will say that the beef cheek was extremely tender and soft.  I've never had beef cheek before so I'm not sure what I was expecting but it almost looked like a small pieces of steak but with a more pulled meat texture. The meat was fabulous but I didn't really care for the onions on the dish.  My co-workers got the lobster (which looked AMAZING.  I wish I had gotten that) and the cod (also looked very tasty but small).  The mac and cheese came in these small pots and while they were definitely good (how can you really go wrong with cheese and pasta?) it didn't taste any different than mac and cheese I've gotten in less fancier places.  At a place like this, I would have expected a touch of truffle oil or something like that.  For dessert, we got the roasted pineapple and chocolate cake.  They also serve you complimentary macaroons (which they are apparently famous for) and chocolates.  They also had a great sounding souffle on the menu but it takes 20 minutes to make, so I wish the waiter had told us about it earlier so we could have pre-ordered it.  The pineapple dish sounded good because it said it came with rice pudding (which I love) but when it came out, the pudding was more like a thin decorative layer rather than an actual bite.  Both desserts were certainly sweet and beautiful looking and put me over in the edge in terms of fullness. 

The overall experience was just very adult.  Everyone there was clearly either super wealthy or there on business.  I got this feeling that I probably shouldn't have shown up in jeans and a t-shirt. :)  But they didn't make me feel bad about that, it was more of my own feeling.  The service was definitely 5 forks and very attentive, but the food wasn't 5 forks.  It was good but not amazing and I'm just glad that I was able to expense it.  Total bill was $330 (with tip for 3 people).