It has been fifteen or so years since we ate at Obelisk. We'd continued to hear good things about the small Dupont Circle restaurant, on P Street, NW, but had never quite had the occasion to go. That changed this weekend with the arrival of friends from New York who had eaten there 11 years ago and wanted to retry Peter Pastan's fine Italian cuisine.
The restaurant certainly lived up to every expectation.
As a prix fixe restaurant there are minimal choices for the mains, pastas and desserts with the house making your decisions for cheeses and antipasti. Whether you make the choice or the house chooses, all are excellent.
For starters the server delivers a series of five antipasti, ours were creamy mozzarella-like cheese, followed by toast with chopped tomato, a swordfish taste, a roll of various meats sliced wafer thin, and crab with green beans. Coupled with our hosts' choice of a Temerezano (spelling?) white, the evening began beautifully.
Our pastas were excellent. Ben and I both had fettucine with sea urchin, while our visitors enjoyed gortole with lamb ragù. The ragù bettered my own version. The sea urchin sauce was lovely. We enjoyed our first red with this course, a Dolcetto, which was beautifully full, almost too full, to go with the meal.
The mains offered included sea bass, which Ben had, a thick pork chop, which I had, and our hosts had guinea hen. All were wonderful. The chop, in particular, was luscious and nicely pink.
The restaurant then follows with a small plate of three cheeses, all exquisite and dessert, which in our case was raspberry and fig tart.
Our third wine was an lovely, lighter, Barbera d'Alba, which we really enjoyed.
There is no fault to find with Obelisk. It continues to be as wonderful as it has been for many years, 20 to our knowledge!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Bistro D'oc...a fine dinner
Monday, September 15, dinner with friends at Bistro D'oc, 518-10th Street, NW, Washington.
Bistro D'oc is small, very old, in a building across the street from Ford's Theater. It's normally a very touristy street, but at 8pm on a Monday night it was less than busy. On arrival we waited at the bar with an Alsace pinot gris for Ben and Stella D'artois beers for me and our host. We were seated after the wait staff cleaned off a table and along came the board of specials, all very French, and I gather, often representative of the food of the southern part of France, Languedoc.
As an aside, Languedoc means language of oc, which is how the southern French from that region pronounced the word "yes".
We made our decisions: Starters were lamb brains for me, watercress soup, to replace the lobster bisque which had run out, for Ben and our host, and a boudin noir for our fourth. Then the mains were tripe with capers for me, beef small ribs for our host, lamb's liver for our fourth and mussels with frites for Ben. We enjoyed the meals though our host found the watercress soup ordinary. Ben enjoyed his. Our fourth asked for a side of frites, but they tended to be a bit underdone. When told, the waiter did not charge us for them.
The wine list tends to be a bit pricey, but we had a very nice Languedoc syrah and a Gigondas from the Rhone, both about $45.
The atmosphere is very bistro with an old tin ceiling, lots of bright lights and old fashioned chairs and tables scattered about the room. There is a bar with stools and a bay window out to 10th Street. A pleasant room, though we found the lights a bit glaring.
A good meal. If you avoid the wines you can eat reasonably. Probably $40 per person with a drink and tip. Our's was more, of course, because of two rounds of drinks and two bottles of wine.
Bistro D'oc is small, very old, in a building across the street from Ford's Theater. It's normally a very touristy street, but at 8pm on a Monday night it was less than busy. On arrival we waited at the bar with an Alsace pinot gris for Ben and Stella D'artois beers for me and our host. We were seated after the wait staff cleaned off a table and along came the board of specials, all very French, and I gather, often representative of the food of the southern part of France, Languedoc.
As an aside, Languedoc means language of oc, which is how the southern French from that region pronounced the word "yes".
We made our decisions: Starters were lamb brains for me, watercress soup, to replace the lobster bisque which had run out, for Ben and our host, and a boudin noir for our fourth. Then the mains were tripe with capers for me, beef small ribs for our host, lamb's liver for our fourth and mussels with frites for Ben. We enjoyed the meals though our host found the watercress soup ordinary. Ben enjoyed his. Our fourth asked for a side of frites, but they tended to be a bit underdone. When told, the waiter did not charge us for them.
The wine list tends to be a bit pricey, but we had a very nice Languedoc syrah and a Gigondas from the Rhone, both about $45.
The atmosphere is very bistro with an old tin ceiling, lots of bright lights and old fashioned chairs and tables scattered about the room. There is a bar with stools and a bay window out to 10th Street. A pleasant room, though we found the lights a bit glaring.
A good meal. If you avoid the wines you can eat reasonably. Probably $40 per person with a drink and tip. Our's was more, of course, because of two rounds of drinks and two bottles of wine.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Ace at Signature Theater
"Ace", the latest production at Arlington, Virginia's Signature Theater is a lovely piece. Its music is good, its acting is superb, the kids who have the leads are superb and the plot line holds your interest. The play is about a mother who had been determined to keep from her son the family history of flying. Her husband crashed and left her pregnant in World War II, her husband's father crashed and left his wife pregnant in World War I. The mother suffers from significant suicidal depression over the thought of losing her son, but in the end decides to fill in the blanks of her son's life.
The sets give a fine illusion of flying, from Sopwith Camels over Germany to Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers over Chiangmai, Thailand when it was occupied by the Japanese.
We don't understand why Peter Marks at the Washington Post didn't like it. Conversations with friends who have seen it add to our feeling that this production will do well. It's a premiere here and will go on, we expect, to Broadway. Our New York brethren will enjoy it.
We have not been dining out much lately.
A couple of weeks ago we spent four days at the Jersey shore staying with friends in their Victorian house in Asbury Park. We "did" the craft fair in adjoining Ocean Grove, where we did not eat deep-friend Oreo cookies. We roasted a bit on the beach during the afternoon and enjoyed a Saturday night fireworks with the sound of surf in the background. We even went out and danced some at the local club, the Paradise Lounge. The crowd was hot enough for our hosts to return to the club after we thought we had called it a night. And the music, though loud, did have a good disco thump to it.
We continued our study of diners adjacent to the New Jersey turnpike. The last, Liberty II Diner, on U.S. Route 130 north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike access spur, near Bordentown, was enjoyable. Very large Greek style sandwiches.
The sets give a fine illusion of flying, from Sopwith Camels over Germany to Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers over Chiangmai, Thailand when it was occupied by the Japanese.
We don't understand why Peter Marks at the Washington Post didn't like it. Conversations with friends who have seen it add to our feeling that this production will do well. It's a premiere here and will go on, we expect, to Broadway. Our New York brethren will enjoy it.
We have not been dining out much lately.
A couple of weeks ago we spent four days at the Jersey shore staying with friends in their Victorian house in Asbury Park. We "did" the craft fair in adjoining Ocean Grove, where we did not eat deep-friend Oreo cookies. We roasted a bit on the beach during the afternoon and enjoyed a Saturday night fireworks with the sound of surf in the background. We even went out and danced some at the local club, the Paradise Lounge. The crowd was hot enough for our hosts to return to the club after we thought we had called it a night. And the music, though loud, did have a good disco thump to it.
We continued our study of diners adjacent to the New Jersey turnpike. The last, Liberty II Diner, on U.S. Route 130 north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike access spur, near Bordentown, was enjoyable. Very large Greek style sandwiches.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)