Photo by Joe Flood. Dish of the Week: Stuffed Oysters
Where: Catch 15, Prime Rib, The Oceanaire, Pearl Dive Oyster Palace
Oysters Rockefeller are one of those throwback American dishes. You know you’ll find it on any number of throwback, mahogany-walled chophouses. If a jacket is required as it traditionally has been at The Prime Rib, you’ll find them. Right along the clams casino and imperial crab. Their presence is assumed at the fine dining seafood franchises like The Oceanaire Seafood Room and grand newcomer Joe’s. Across Chef Jeff Black’s local dining rooms like Pearl Dive and Blacksalt, you’ll find his version with spinach, bacon, and chive aioli.
The dish originated in Antoine’s Restaurant in turn of the century New Orleans. Its foundation, along with the oyster, is a sauce pureed from a blend of green herbs and vegetables with plenty of butter, of course. Cracker crumbs and perhaps a touch of absinthe or a like-minded substitute are also key ingredients. It was a sauce so rich it was named after the richest guy around, John D. Rockefeller.
The exact make-up has remained a family secret all these years, perhaps going to the grave with the recipe’s originator. It’s become sort of a game trying to figure out what goes into Antoine’s oyster. How many ingredients? Spinach or watercress? Herbsaint or Pernod? A secret-busting writer even swiped an oyster from the restaurant in the 1980s for a laboratory analysis of the sauce. The conclusion?
Eh, does it matter so much whether Antoine’s uses spinach or watercress? Stuff a bunch of stuff in an oyster and it’s likely going to be good. Cheeses, bacon, go for it, even though those are decidedly not part of the Rockefeller.
Catch 15, a K Street lounge that opened at the end of December, goes beyond Rockefeller. There is a quarter page dedicated to the stuffed oyster options on their menu. Some are creamy variations, incorporating béarnaise, hollandaise, or melted brie into their seafood, crab, or chorizo stuffings.
Small Bites
Easter Brunches
Grab seats if you still can. There are no shortage of special Easter brunches being served around town this Sunday. Bibianais wishing everyone a Buena Pasque with traditional and Italian Easter favorites like an Easter bread with cheese pizza and spring lamb with farro. Ripplehas an outstanding deal: $35 for a pastry basket, entree, and carving stations with lamb shoulder, honey-glazed ham, and house-cured gravlax. Co Co. Sala will have chocolate egg sculptures on display. Zaytinya kicks off a Greek Easter celebration with a brunch and two-week menu with specials like a Mayiritsa soup with soaked lamb liver and culminating with an Agorá (or Greek outdoor market) on May 3.
At Mioyou’ll find unique Latin-inspired takes on eggs, like quail scotch eggs with pimento ketchup, deviled eggs with sofrito ham and ‘cilantro madness,’ and rabbit fricassee from Puerto Rico’s El Yunque rainforest. Poor Easter Bunny!
Or if you want to get a head start and didn’t get tickets to the White House easter egg roll, Cafe Dupont and Bar Dupont are holding their own egg-hunts tomorrow. Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dupont Circle community members are welcome to search for eggs on the patios which will hold goodies and discounts promoting local retailers.
Weekend Easter Treats
Last week we featured Easter sweets galore in the Weekly Feed. Shake Shack’s Shackbury Easter Egg Concrete, Pinstripe’s housemade ‘peep-like” marshmallow creations, and Ted’s Bulletin’s PeepTarts. And yes, there’s more. Cork Market is selling chef Kristin Hutter’s drunken Peeps, a liqueur infused version of the classic marshmallow bird. There are two flavors available: Limoncello-lemon and Chambord-raspberry.
Start With the Head
Logan Circle’s The Pig begins a Head to Toe Supper Series later this month. Over four evenings, they will serve a five-course menu for $70, each night of the series featuring a different part of anatomy. April 28 starts with heads (not just of the pig but of many different animals), and the menu is something else. Tacos with lamb brain and tongue. An ancient Roman pig haggis with the face stuffed into the stomach. Black truffle stuffed calves eyes. Yes, eyes! Head parts are even incorporated into a dessert of vanilla gelato with candied cocks combs — those red rubbery things that hang off of rooster necks. Yes, people, you read right, they are serving stuffed baby cow eyes.
April Crawfish Boils and Beer Drinking
The 2nd Annual Crawfish for Cancer DC Crawfish Boil will be held Saturday, April 26th at Yards Park. The event kicks off at 2 p.m. and features a five hour open bar in addition to unlimited crawfish, corn and potatoes. Live bands, bocce, and cornhole will all be on-hand for your entertainment. Tickets can be purchased prior to April 25 for $80, and proceeds benefit the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. —Ashley Wetzel
Meanwhile, that same Saturday, Pearl Dive Oyster Palace kicks off their crawfish season with their own steamed mudbugs, roasted suckling pig, shrimp, pulled pork, desserts like deep-fried Twinkies, and Abita beer for two hours for $65.
If you’re less into sucking on crawdaddies, more in it for the beer, Capitol City Brewing Company’s SpringFest may be more the place for you. Outside of their Shirlington location along Campbell Avenue, $30 gets you 10 tastes of their new Sommer Hefeweisen plus craft beers from Cap City and other local breweries. There will be about 100 choices in all, additional pours can be purchased for $1 each and food from other Shirlington restaurants will be available.
Knockout Burgers
TKO Burger, from D.C. native chef/owner Lance London, debuts April 17th in the new Rhode Island Row community by his Carolina Kitchen. TKO will serve lunch, dinner and grab-and-go eight-ounce certified Angus-beef burgers in addition to several non-beef options, including the Soft Shell Crab and Black Bean Burgers. Tap and bottled beers will be available in the $4 to $14 range and non-alcoholic options include milkshakes as well as the “Sucker Punch” lemonade. —Ashley Wetzel
The Proper Way to Try Pepper Sauce
Right Proper Brewery will host a Glover’s Pepper Sauce happy hour this Tuesday from 5 to 8 p.m. Wings prepared with the locally-made hot sauce cooked up in Union Kitchen will pair with discounted RPB beers, and you can sample all of the other Glover’s Pepper Sauce flavors, as well.
