Majestic

Tonight, I ate an eye ball. It would almost sound like a Katy Perry song if I said "I liked it," but I didn't. It was a fish eye ball, so small, delicate, sophisticated, but I ate it when it had connective tissue hanging from it. And without knowing that its consistency would be that of a soft acorn or a stale gum ball with a lollipop stick bisecting it. By the time I thought it tasted tolerable, it was down my throat and any residual flavor was washed down by a gulp of Chardonnay. Purposefully. It creeped me out.

I went to the Majestic tonight and I feel like I won some culinary credibility tonight.. with myself.

That's right, that's an eye ball, and some pretty clever (macabre) photography. The Poor Fish looks a little Edvard Munch-Screamy.

I know, appalling. I was really surprised that no one noticed that I was giggling nervously as I gently separated the eye ball from its socket encasement. Should I rate this PG-13 perhaps? And what you can't see is the entrails (entrail? there was only one). It didn't have a bad consistency until you hit the middle. What is that, eye core? The eye stick? I'm grossing myself out now.

The Majestic is a nice place, fancy, dignified, nice lighting, intimate dropped ceilings. I'll say in advance I wasn't a fan of my waitress. I didn't feel I was adequately.. served. Despite the fact that I wasn't a pushy patron with a pink Blackberry (to my right), a lady who dinners (with her Blackberry flashing green through most of my meal), half of a pair of women who were sharing champagne on ice (both tables in front), or one of several rude men at a business dinner to my left who were playing with their phones, I deserved just as much attention.

Whatever. She was much too fragile of a waitress to not faint while I was conducting my surgery, so good thing she stayed away. But let's start at the beginning. The Majestic is co-owned one of my favorite Alexandria chefs, Cathal Armstrong, who runs Restaurant Eve, Eamonn's, and PX. I wanted fish tonight but I didn't realize I'd get so lucky. So, first I had bread. There was honey in there somewhere.

Then I had a great spinach salad with shallots, toasted bread crumbs, caramelized onions, and a balsamic vinaigrette.Then, it came. The orata, aka gilted seabream. Almost sounds like a type of bangle sold at Tiffany's. It was served with a chilled fennel salad (with pesto cream), accompanied by orange slices, capers, and kalamata olives.

From left

To right

I got wine, too. These are the ladies with the tableside champagne chiller. Also, notice the clever mise-en-abime. If they are going to drink alcohol from a container in a container, I can make erudite French artistic references.

Eye ball intact. I always thought fish cheeks were some kind of delicacy, but these weren't. I tried eating those too.

This fish was amazing; it was like creme brulee of the mer. The orata was grilled, clearly intact, so the skin of the fish was crispy and warm and delicately came off the flesh. The flesh was delicate and gladly left the bones, but was, I don't know, delicious. I haven't had myself a whole fish since Greece on Santorini. Maybe one time in my life I preferred to have a lecherous man serve me food instead of tonight's cold fish.

Afternoon Delight

Oh boy, it was. I departed Restaurant Eve this afternoon a happy woman. While there has been much lamenting and wringing of hands about power outages, hours of shoveling snow, falling icicles, frozen windshields, feet of precipitation, immovable vehicles, frighteningly ghoulish-sounding winds, unhygenically-colored snowdrifts, and weather-induced cabin fever, I'm satisfied. I had Restaurant Eve for lunch. On the phone with my mom, she described it as THAT place. The place I had a really good first date. Where I took my brother for dinner on one of his early visits to DC and he liked it. Where I took myself when I got promoted. And I went today, braving minimally dangerous sidewalks and dripping awnings and avoiding eating my lunch at my desk, work-style. Bring on the snow!

Going to Restaurant Eve for lunch is like going to those wedding dress factory stores in New York where you score a Vera Wang for.. some exponential amount less. But there is no defect in Restaurant Eve's lunch menu; it's only offers more diminutive portions. I'll say size doesn't matter at Restaurant Eve though.

The bar is nice--a friendly bar for the single diner. I knew I was where I wanted to be when the bartender explained to the hapless dining couple to my right the difference between pate and terrine. They were only hapless in the way they asked (and for criminally askeing for their lunch to be expedited.. maybe they had a good, life-preserving reason, but that didn't seem to be the case) as I had no idea either.

I also didn't know what Papri Chat was either. But first, let me explain Restaurant Eve's lunch menu. I may have explained this (reverentially, respectfully, awe-fully) before, but the idea is so good I'm going to do it entirely again. For $13.50, a diner can order two items off their "lickety split" menu, which includes wine/beer, appetizers, entrees, and dessert. So, I asked about the Papri Chat, which I've seen on the menu but ignored...it stoically stands alone, with no indication of even from which continent it's derived (I thought it was an Indian cracker, so never asked about it because it sounded a bit... too deconstructed). So, I got it because the bartender said it was delicious and the terrine as well, because the bartender explained so thoroughly (nearly literally) how the sausage was made. I quietly asked for an appropriate glass of red wine and my nice bartender brought me a $13 glass of pinot noir. Nice choice, buddy, but rarely has a glass of wine cost 96% of the cost of my meal. Thanks for appreciating my deference.


So, Papri Chat is a mix of about seven delicious things in a very flavorful but very innocuous salad. At the base are chickpeas, studded with roasted pearl onions and baked Indian, cumin-infused bread bits. On top a small mound of the chips are a tamarind sauce, a jalapeno chutney, and a tangy yogurt sauce, underneath parsley and.. some other charming green micro-herb. It was delightful: cool, refreshing, flavorful, smokey, crunchy.. It was the perfect assemblage of multiple flavors that allows the slow, deliberate diner (me) to make every bite unique forkful
by forkful.


So, I got the terrine of Randall Lineback. The menu is admirable in its simplicty, but it's certainly not helpful in explaining why the menu subordinate components are capitalized. Am I getting terrine served in the Randall Lineback style? Commemorative of famous terrine-eater Randall Lineback? From the small French organic enterprise La Ferme Randall Lineback? Googling my food, a frequent habit of amateur food writers, suggests that Randall Linebacks are an endangered breed of cattle who provide "the discriminating and health-conscious gourmet the finest rose-veal in the world." I buy that, my terrine was awesome.


But, maybe that's just because I appreciated its geometric shapes. South-terrine are dijon mustard pools, north-terrine are homemade cornichons, one of my favorite French treats.. they are like the Napoleons of the vegetable world.. a bit small but of enduring import. The salad was tasty (mesclun looking but with real leaves too, as well as large chunks of shallot) and the terrine was delightful in its erudite meatloaf-ness. I imagine that terrine is one of those dishes that has a vaunted culinary status while its origins lie more humbly in French farmhouses, by butchers who sought to make appetizing cuts of meat that had a less-than-appetizing appeal on their own. The bartender explained terrine as the mixture of a variety of cuts of meat, mixed with cream (and some other stuff I've already forgotten), baked in a loaf pan and served cold. And it was delightful, especially when I realized it had bright green jewels-of-pistachios mixed in and could be complemented differently by bites of fresh bread, cornichon, salad, and mustard. I can't resist the pun nor can I say I'm disappointed that while everyone else is digging out, I'm digging in.. :)