This post is from DCist food contributor Mike Roscoe

Every once in a while you have to treat yourself. Throw common sense and responsibility to the wind, strangle that nagging voice of reason yapping inside your head and do something you know is truly irresponsible and imprudent. You work too hard not to splurge on the good stuff now and then, right? A fine place to indulge your blossoming epicurean side is the Russia House Restaurant and Lounge perched on the intersection of Connecticut and Florida Avenues, NW, where for the price of a modest monthly car payment you can dine like Nicholas in St. Petersburg.

DCist and friends went there in pursuit of two things and two things only. No borscht or Beef Stroganoff for us. Forget the Chicken Kiev and pirogies. Hold the sour cream. Now, we're big fans of Russian food but we had different plans in mind; we were after the pinnacle of Russian cuisine. We wanted vodka and we wanted caviar.

Truth be told I'm not much of a vodka drinker. I don't dine too often on caviar for that matter either, but on a chill winter's evening with the hope of snow lingering in the air, the time was right. We mounted the stairs of the imposing townhouse and entered the warm, cozy atmosphere of the lounge which was decked out in lush red velvet, dark shiny woods and illuminated by candlelight.

The vodka sampler is a great place to start if you truly want to get into a Slavic mindset. For $45 you get your choice of six samples from the impressive collection of regular and flavored vodkas that runs nearly a hundred deep. They're presented as double shots in two ounce test tubes upon a stainless steel chiller and served with the traditional Russian garnish of cornichons on the side.

Photo from flickr user arxetures.

Then, we ordered the caviar. The Russia House stocks around six types of caviar, ranging from the top-of-the-line, jet set, expense account beluga, to the more modestly priced American-raised sturgeon and salmon varieties. We opted for the middle-of-the-range sevruga which was nonetheless impressively priced at $145 per ounce; the server asked for my credit card up front.

Out came the vodka. We had selected a mix of flavored and straight vodkas from a range of regions. At the top of our list was Altay from Siberia: razor sharp, crisp as midnight frost and with nary a whiff of the rubbing alcohol fumes that prevail in cheaper distillations. Cold and bracing, it was like drinking freshly melted snow. The bottom end turned out to be a honey and pepper infused nightmare that I picked on a whim. Neither sweet nor peppery the fumes singed my nose from the inside out and left me with the distinct idea of what pure evil tastes like. It was the only one of the bunch that we couldn't finish.

And then the caviar. On a bed of shaved ice, a one and one-sixteenth ounce jar held hundreds of tiny, slate gray pearls, none bigger than the head of a pin. Beside it, a mother of pearl spoon sat ready to convey the eggs to either a waiting buckwheat blini topped with creme fraiche, red onion and chopped egg, or directly into a gaping mouth. I chose the latter. Sevruga beads don't famously pop in your mouth like their beluga cousins, but rather dissolve into a creamy, nutty, vaguely shrimp flavored paste that carries only the faintest hint of salinity. We tried every combination with the condiments, blini with creme fraiche, with onion, with egg, naked or off the tip of a finger. All were astonishingly good. We also made damned sure to get every single egg out of the jar, because at that price I wasn't going to waste one single, sainted bit.

By the time the check came we were full of superb vodka and toe-curlingly good caviar. But at $230 with tax and tip was it worth it? Absolutely. Not for every day, not for every month or even every year, but for that once in a great while fling with luxury it's perfect. We were happy, we were relaxed, we were awash with the endorphins that really great food and drink can release. The one thing we weren't? Full. So, we went out for dinner.

Russia House Restaurant & Lounge
1800 Connecticut Ave, NW
(202) 234-9433
Metro: Dupont Circle