January 18, 2006
In Remembrance of Restaurant Week
We of DCist Food are taking it easy (or at least easier) on the extra-rich, cream-laden, beautifully presented food over the next several days. It seems our epicurean slutiness has come to an end. Let's face it: a week of three-coursing it at D.C.'s best restaurants is a high-speed merge onto the fat-ass freeway. But reminiscing about the best and worst is calorie-free, so here's our chance (and yours) to give a rundown.
As far as our experiences go, it looks as if Corduroy wins for best overall experience for the second year in a row. A few DCists spent more than three hours at Tom Power's joint for dinner one evening, surrendering to osso buco, chocolate hazelnut bars, and three different grappas. It was seriously good.
Elsewhere, Willow's inspired desserts, Ardeo's delicious fish (and whole-menu availability), and Notti Bianche's pastas (but not its lunch-time surcharges) win top marks. DCist lauds 1789's service and pumpkin ravioli, and we dug Georgia Brown's appetizers, but the soul-food standby seemed to fall down on the main and dessert with only two choices. With many places offering up whole menus, you can't get away with such paltry selection anymore. A crabby hostess and poor service dampened an evening at Zengo for DCist, and a commenter wasn't too keen either. Sam & Harry's proved to be nothing special, even a little sucky, but we could have told you that beforehand.
If you haven't filled us in already, let us know in the comments how things went last week; we'll use your recommendations come August's Restaurant Week. As for us, it's celery and Fresca over the next couple of days. We'll convince ourselves that it's satisfying.
|
we had a yummy meal at david gregory. aside from poor bar sevice, our waiter was awesome, and the food was delish as always!
Boo to Old Ebbitt Grill for a poor showing with their three courses as green salad, crab cakes, and glass of bad house white wine as their only restaurant week option, with NO CHOICES! Agree that Georgia Brown's apps were fantastic.
As someone who hasn't lived here that long. And despite having lived in towns with bustling restaurant scenes like SF and Chicago. I don't understand Restaurant Week. As I've never seen anything like it. It sounds interesting, but: How does it work? Why does it exist? What is the advantage of going to a restaurant during that week? It would be nice to have a survival guide or something.
For vegans/vegetarians, it was a more than pleasant surprise to have Vegetate participating in restuarant week. My meal there was truly delicious.
The food was great at Butterfield9 but they practically shoved us out the door. The entrees were brought out while my friend was in the middle of her appetizer. We did the wine pairing as well so it was kind of disappointing to have to shove three courses and three glasses of wine down in an hour.
DINO was FANTASTIC...the whole menu was available, and everything was great -- cheese plate, wild boar pasta, flank steak, etc. They're also extending through this Thursday according to an email I got.
Not to be contrarian, but after the hype on here and from one of the foodie blogs, I was DISAPPOINTED in CORDUROY. I mean, it was alright, but nothing to get gushy about...besides, we went for lunch and the service was SLOW (and they weren't slammed at all -- our waiter seemed more concerned about the placement of our silverware than anything else). The hazelnut bars and root soup were good though...
After an extremely strong showing in August, TENPENH was an EXTREME LET DOWN -- service was HORRIBLE (our dessert plates sat empty on the table for 30 minutes while we had coffee...I think we were not even been served by a full-fledged waiter, but a bar back or runner...). The food was OKAY, but nothing special (unlike last time). Also, although the full menu was available, it was almost exclusively seafood and the only other meat option (lamb) incurred an upcharge and the whole dish (veggies included) was swimming in oil.
Anyhow, the WINNER is definitely DINO, while Cordurory and the batch of TenPenh/DC Coast/Ceiba/etc. won't be seeing us again soon!
DC Coast was very enjoyable for dinner -- a limited, but appealing appetizer selection, full entree selection, and several desserts. The service was great, atmosphere good (swanky without feeling overdone), and the four of us each had excellent entrees.
Kinkead's for lunch was also very nice, and the best deal by far at $20. Extensive options, delicious food, very good service -- timely for lunch, but not rushed.
1789 had excellent food, but I felt very self-conscious -- "Omigod did I use the correct fork?!" ... and I've dined at fancy places. I left with a feeling like fancy is okay, but there are plenty of other DC restaurants that make me just as happy without inducing etiquette anxiety. But the apple charlotte with calvados ice cream was divine... and ladies, the bathrooms are fantastic.
Cara, I agree with you 100 percent about DC Coast. It was awesome.
My girlfriend and I had a great experience at the Morrison-Clark Inn. The full menu was available, the service was superb, and the food was excellent.
My boyfriend and I were rushed through our dinner at Butterfield9 as well. The bus boy actually stood next to our table and waited for me to finish my dessert so he could whisk my plate away, and they cleared items off the table before we were finished so that we had to ask for them back. Food was great though.
I forgot to mention to Adam that I had a lovely meal at the somewhat underrated Mendocino Grille and Wine Bar in Georgetown. They offered their full menu at $30.06 with just a few supplements. I sat at the bar and had a fantastic beet salad, the stellar roasted venison, and the apple dumpling. A friend of mine expressed concern in the past about the service there during Restaurant Week, but I didn't encounter a problem with either that or Drew Trautmann's food, which is consistently excellent -- Restaurant Week or otherwise. And bartender Eric is extremely knowledgeable and friendly.
Our group went to Spezie, since I had read good reviews about their regular menu. The service was amazing-- which is such a welcome relief in DC. We were disappointed by the options on the restaurant menu-- nothing veggie (at an Italian restaurant!) and loaded with fish (eyh, land lovers)-- so we mostly ordered off of the regular menu. My seafood pasta was very good, and the spinach salad was my favorite part of the meal. Everyone else's food looked so-so. Overall, I'd give it a 6. I think we'll try Ardeo or Corderoy's next time.
Arcadiana - nothing special, felt really rushed
Mark and Orlando's - nice intro to new place. Good service, typical fare (except the squash soup).
Ceiba - fun for lunch. They went out of their way for the birthday girl.
Indebleu - great food; service so bad that we got free stuff out of it (3.5 hours is a bit much for dinner when 1 hour of it you don't have food, water, server, etc.)
Vidalia - The clear winner. Every course was good and the selection was fantastic.
Mediocre experience at 21p.
Good selection, but they were out of 3/4 of the things I ordered: no quail sausage, fruity dessert (don't remember exactly what it was supposed to be, and even ICED TEA!
Service was also mediocre: waited several minutes at the door to be seated, and they were in no hurry to refill my glass of water.
I ended up having the potato spring rolls, seafood tamales, and baklava. All were well done, if kinda small.
Their menu was interesting, and worth $20 for restaurant week, but it would have been a huge disappointment at full price.
In the past, I went to DC Coast and Red Sage for restaurant week and they were both definitely top notch.
We had dinner at Galileo. With the full menu available for Restaurant Week, it was an excellent deal. The food was outstanding.
I stopped in at Atlantico. CA during RW is always decent with reasonable offerings from their normal menu on the appetizers and mains. The shrimp with candied pumpkin are good but the lime foam is too tart. Any of their bird offerings are good, especially the phaesant with seared watermellon and mole. Overall an affordable way to get to know Atlantico if someone doesn't know it. Same impression last August, and I dine there about once a month or so.
---
Also went to Corduroy. Excellent service, very good food, and amazing corkage fee ($15). A must-try.
Had dinner for my birthday at Tabard Inn (what a nice coincidence!). The food was excellent, including the sake glazed salmon I had and the pork tenderloin my terrific lady friend had. Most incredible was the size of the dessert - definitely one of the best apple-cobbler type dishes I've ever had and it was HUGE!
The best thing about Tabard Inn had to be the atmosphere - on a cold wintry evening the warm glow to the place (aided by a couple of glasses of delicious Shiraz) definitely aided the meal. And although the service was a bit rushed, we were allowed to enjoy dessert and the rest of our wine before we went out to brave the cold again. Bravo!
Tabard Inn on Sunday, they were tired of making good food it seems. 2 out of 4 of us were quite dissapointed with our meals. My seafood wasn't the freshest, my friends Duck was afoul.
I am though a big Corduroy Fanboy, Chef Tom Powers does it up right, Ferhat and Rizza add to the ambiance.
We went to Seasons on Saturday. Had the beef burgundy, as well as maybe the best tiramisum I've ever had. The service was great, same as always. The restaurant week menu is a little limited, but I'm glad I was able to find some meals that appealed to me on it.
We went to Olives after having seen it on one list of participants, but it turned out that they weren't doing anything for Restaurant Week (and the waiter said we weren't the first people to say that, either). We stayed anyway, but felt rushed (if you don't want to serve people after 10, don't take a 10:15 reservation, guys) and my pasta was undercooked. From our vantage point we could watch them preparing a second plate while they were otherwise cleaning and shutting down the kitchen.
This wasn't the first time we were underwhelmed during Restaurant Week, either, so for our other RW experience we went back to Dino (which had been fabulous when we paired it with "Goodnight and Good Luck" at the Uptown). We ended up ordering "off the menu" instead of the prix fixe deal since the price would be better that way for what we wanted. Unfortunately the service was nowhere near as good as it had been on our previous visit. The server brought me the wrong size portion of wine twice (eh, whatever) and totally forgot my pasta (much bigger problem). There was also some odd thing going on with the kitchen, since my girlfriend's soup and pasta came together very quickly, and she was done with both of them before my salad even arrived (not to mention the AWOL pasta). We'll go back (good, inexpensive wine and a fine cheese plate are worth a lot), but we'll avoid that server.
fedward, I had the exact same experience with Olives a couple of years ago. Back then our food was really horrible, so I haven't been back. Though it's not on there now, I could have sworn the place was on the rw list earlier last week; I noticed it especially because of my experience.
Too bad about Dino, as I've only had great meals there.
Don't get me wrong. We were mostly scratching our heads at the (lack of) service. The couple at the table behind me were there for their first visit and Dean attended to them personally, which may have contributed to the scarcity of our server. My only complaint about the food was with my pasta (once we convinced the server I'd really ordered it), which had a vaguely bleachy flavor I couldn't identify (I blamed the prosciutto, which was nowhere near the melt-in-your-mouth quality of the "500-day" stuff they serve separately). The other dishes, the cheese plate, and the wines were all lovely.
I had wonderful meals (and good service) at both IndeBleu and Acadiana. I'll definitely be returning to both!
Galileo was a HUGE disappointment--service was terrible, atmosphere was a let-down, and the food (except for the tiramisu, which was to die for) was sub-par. Too bad--I was really looking forward to it.
Had two great dinners. First at Majestic Cafe which had the entire menu available, no add-ons, just good food and service. Alex the bartender and Kent our server both went out of their way to make sure everything went well. Joe Raffa is becoming on of the area's best Southern chefs.
Second dinner was at Cafe Atlantico was excellent as well. It was my wife's birthday and CA went all out to make sure it was a memorable one. Starting with the mojito (light on the rum) that she likes through the pheasant which was marvelous, to the dessert wine we had, a great experience.