RW Madness: Poste Moderne Brasserie
Wild striped bass with a red wine poached egg and caper beurre noisette.
Poste Moderne Brasserie is offering Restaurant Week lunch, brunch, and dinner. Diners have a choice of three appetizers, three entrees, and three desserts. There are also some specials, such as spiced poussin, duck confit cassoulet, and prime rib available for an additional charge. While the ideal Restaurant Week situation is to be able to choose from the entire menu, Poste has done a nice job of offering three very diverse options within each course. All the items are dishes that appear on their regular menu, and portion sizes are quite generous.
My dining companion and I decided to avoid the upcharges and stick with the regular Restaurant Week menu. For the appetizers, we ordered the poached farm egg and roasted pork belly. The farm egg is similar to a frisée and lardon salad, except with the addition of pistachios and green beans in a light tarragon cream sauce. The pistachios are a sweet, crunchy counterpoint to the jiggly egg and salty bacon. However, the strong tarragon flavor threatened to almost overtake the delicate egg. Texturally, this dish is not for the faint of heart; not only is the the yolk runny, but the whites are like a barely-set custard. If you like your eggs over-hard, you might be better off with the pork belly. Most of the fat is absorbed during the roasting, leaving a hefty, deeply porky tasting hunk of meat. Our piece was just a little bit dry, but the flavor was otherwise superb.
Poste has made a rather bold move by including seared calf's liver as one of the three entrees, along with striped bass and goat cheese ravioli. Liver is a hard dish for many people to love, between the oddly mealy texture, unmistakable flavor, and traumatic childhood memories of liver and onions. We never ate it growing up, so I was morbidly curious about Poste's rendition of this often reviled dish. Instead of being sliced thin, the liver is cut into big chunks and served with both pearl and tempura-fried onions. The searing created a brown, beefy-tasting crust while leaving the center creamy, not dry or grainy.
However, liver is still, well... liver. Paired with the vinegary pearl onions or the salty, slightly limp fried onions, the iron-y taste was still quite assertive. The only thing on the plate with a stronger flavor was a slice of incredibly smokey bacon, which clashed strangely with the earthy liver. If you enjoy pâté, you will probably like this dish, but it is not for everyone. That said, Restaurant Week can be a great opportunity to take a risk without having to pay full price if it fails. The calf's liver is available on the normal menu, but entrees are regularly priced between $28 - $42. It would be a shame to order an expensive plate of liver only to discover that you hate it, but this week you can afford to be a little adventurous. You just might be pleasantly surprised.
If calf's liver isn't quite your idea of a four-star meal, there is always the wild striped bass. It was the exact opposite of the liver -- subtle, delicate, and mild. The fish was topped a red wine-poached egg that added an element of creaminess to the crisp skin and moist, flaky flesh. Dessert was equally compelling. The generous chocolate pots de creme were cool, creamy, and redolent with coffee and a kick of chili pepper, and the gingerbread cake was bursting with gingery heat and spice.
Service was similarly well-executed; our waitress was attentive, swift, and helpful with the wine list. The atmosphere is hip and modern; Poste is located inside the Hotel Monaco and reflects the hotel's funky aesthetic. Poste's Restaurant Week offerings are not quite as inventive as PS 7's or Vidalia, but the available dishes are still cooked and seasoned with great care. And, considering that an entree at Poste costs almost as much as an entire Restaurant Week dinner, it's still a great deal.
If you can't make it during Restaurant Week, Poste also offers a pre-theater menu all the time for $35.09.
Poste Moderne Brasserie
555 8th Street NW
Washington, DC 20004
202-783-6060
Hours
Breakfast: Monday - Friday, 7 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Brunch: Saturday - Sunday, 8 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Lunch: Monday - Friday, 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Dinner: Monday - Thursday, 5 p.m. - 10 p.m., Friday - Saturday, 5 p.m. - 10:30 p.m., Sunday, 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.