Liberty Tavern

It is both horrifyingly embarrassing and flattering to have things you've said yourself quoted back to you. When I was in San Antonio recently, visiting my dear friend Lisa, I said that San Antonio was full of real manly men because it had lots of strip clubs and men driving pickup trucks, she recently reminded me. Sometimes salty-mouthed girls transplanted to DC say things like that. It is also flattering when a friend, in response to my eager question about whether he had read a recent blog post, says, "You wore a hoodie to the opera?"

I've written about Andy before, who met me last night at his recommendation, Liberty Tavern. After kindly forgiving me for showing up late (I won't even say how late to risk offending conscientious readers who would be offended at my lack of planning and ability to ably find parking) and almost losing our table for rushing off to buy us beers (oh, but they were good), we started indulging.

Andy and I, as you could see from a quick perusal through this online publication, have spent a fair bit of time at Cowboy Cafe. And at Asian restaurants. And eating burgers and fries together. We felt grown up last night, though, he with his corduroy blazer, me in my monochromatic get-up, and with us discussing things like ethics in the workplace, professional development, and his upcoming wedding. Like a good friend though and true to form, Andy permitted my photographing, and we began.

Liberty Tavern is pretty great. It's in (I think) a building that used to be a drugstore and has an open yet intimate feel, with good service, a delightfully expansive menu, and even bell-shaped, glass cheese protectors. These probably have names, but it's almost nicer to let them exist in their own abstractness.

For an appetizer, we ordered grilled octopus. Octopus, I recently realized (partially because me and a date came to the mutual conclusion that octopus is one of the best items on a Mediterranean-themed menu) is one of those foods I like so much, that I have an obligation to order it regardless of where I am and what I else I get.


How heartbreakingly beautiful is this picture: grilled octopus (with the delightfully chewy, crunchy, tender suckers) with an English pea and baby carrot salad, farro, and a lemon-coriander vinaigrette. The octopus was reminiscent of lemon juice, Greek blue ocean waters, sailboats, springtime and salty air. The salad, with the slightly crunchy peas and the farro, was a complementary texture to the pliability of the salad and the varied consistency of the octopus. Total success.

Andy got pheasant, with the forward-leaning justification that one should order menu items based on their general availability on menus, which in this case (pheasant), was low. It was amazing. The pheasant came with LT bacon, red flannel hash, a small cooked quail egg, pea shoots, and roasting jus. In reality I have no idea what those things mean.

Andy is such a good friend of the food blog, letting me take photos. His pheasant was lovely; my sauteed escarole is the plate in the middle. I like getting greens because they are anachronistic and were eaten during wars and famines, which reflects the triumph of ingenuity in times of trouble of eating.

I found it to be like eating a warm salad, but in this case, it worked: they were heavily doused in shallots and a vinaigrette.

So, that was plate number two for me (although Andy was helping along the way). Dinner was.. fantastic.. with one only mildly undistributed mound of pesto. The gnocchi was accompanied by spring vegetable succotash, pinenut brown butter, and the aforementioned concentrated basil pesto and was even better when, with about seven bites left, I realized that I had accidentally been eating around the pesto in the middle until I bit into a large chunk of it. My pesto in the first 16 bites didn't have a whole lot of flavor beyond the vegetables. But, being a pseudo-aesthete, I didn't want to mess with the presentation or arbitrarily alter the dish's composition. Oops. That's what you get for using words like aesthete in your head.

(I guess the mound of pesto is sort of obvious in the middle). After good food and good conversation, the waiter put the dessert menus in our faces. To me, unsolicited menu giving is as annoying as a creepy single guys talking to me in bars diving into one-sided conversation with me without waiting for me to acquiesce (an approach which always clearly works out in their favor and not mine) so I guess it's no surprise that I ordered dessert. After about a second of each demurring, which Andy cleverly termed the dessert stand-off, we ordered ice cream. Unsurprisingly, it was awesome.

We even got to choose: one scoop each of vanilla, chocolate, and cinnamon. Little did we realize upon ordering, they are perfectly tri-paired with each other. How lucky were we. And thanks, Andy.

The Opera

"You're a special girl," the man with the treetrunk legs, vaguely Christmas-themed tie, heavy but foul-smelling breathing, and visible pretension said to me, at the end of tonight's opera. "Don't sell yourself short," he advised, as I successfully bolted from my seat in as unalarming of a way as possible and with a curt goodbye. I have a quality, that helpfully Steve--1976 Yale graduate, former opera singer, friend of the Senators, friend of the conductor (he yelled "Giovanni mio" when the conductor bowed), friend of the Kiwis to his right, friend to the mother-daughter duo to my left [so a prolific hand-shaker], friend to another Yale '76er sitting somewhere behind him--pointed out to me: I am a patient listener.

Damn straight I am a patient listener. I clearly don't know any better. "What book are you reading?" he asked, during the intermission, while I tried to avert conversation by feigning intense interest in my book. I closed it, showing the cover. No response. It apparently was unworthy of commentary. "I'm reading this," as he proudly displayed some book about Dutch settlers. (I think he may have even read me the riveting title). He proceeded to tell me why it was of interest to him, and presumably why I should care. What I stewed about until about scene 3, act II, however, was his inquiry into my career.

When I initially sat down, he inquired whether I was an actress or musician. I had a "sparkle," he said, after telling me I was a long way from Oklahoma upon seeing my hoodie. When I laughed a bit too derisively, perhaps, he tried again at intermission. "What exactly do you do at your job," he asked, after I mumbled something about government service. Before I even had a chance to ponder a response, his follow-up question was "Secretarial?" The theater started to turn black and white, I envisioned him in his pipe and loafers in his arm chair watching Leave it to Beaver, and I completely ignored the sexist and geographically-ignorant nature of his question and said yes. I capitulated, but I could have said I designed shuttle engines and he wouldn't have heard. "I know people," he crooned. "I know people at the State Department. I had lunch with John Kerry. We all need a little help," he offered. Have I mentioned this town is a great place to meet men?

If I had known that was my fate for meeting men tonight, I would have asked for extra onions on each dish tonight. Thankfully I didn't, though, and enjoyed a really stellar meal at the Kennedy Center's Roof Terrace restaurant. They offer a prix fixe menu with really, too much nonsense, so I ordered a la carte. The restaurant's arrangement is a bit strange; I was sat at a table opposite the large middle cluster of tables so there was something a bit adversarial about my table and the rest, which, being special, I quickly overcame. The chairs are also those terrible ones that remind me of chairs featured in 1980s office dramas or used in failed mortgage and loan lobbies: they're boxy and feel/look like they're upholstered in burlap. If I sat in the middle of the chair, I couldn't reach my food. If I rested on the outer edge, balancing precariously, I could reach my dinner but towered over it. There was something very Foucauldian about it. That's right, I said it. Even the copies/coffee-retrieval girl knows a little something about power structures.

I had a delicious salad with a glass of sauvingnon blanc. They arrived at the same time, about 1.5 minutes after I had ordered them (better than a Mexican restaurant, the point of reference for a provincial toner-replacer like myself). Bibb lettuce, watercress and endive were arrayed on the plate, with strips of Asian Pear, a small block of Gorgonzola, hazelnuts, and lightly (refreshingly) drizzled with pomegranate vinaigrette.

Dinner elicited a bit of cynicism (but I calibrated, showing I am not hard hearted). I ordered risotto, which came out looking like rice with gravy. It could have been a disaster, but may have been some of the best risotto I've ever had. And I only got it because I liked how I heard an old man pronounce it a table away (rolling his r's, rrrrrreeee-SO-tow).

It was called forest mushroom risotto, and the menu advertised its featuring white truffle oil and aged pecorino. I often recall, upon thinking of truffle oil, my nearly open hostility to a blind date who admitted to buying a $30 bottle of truffle oil because he liked the taste. Where's that guy now?

The view was beautiful though. Light mist, pretty blue sky. I was one of perhaps three diners who didn't qualify for AARP membership.

AKA:

The outside terrace was beautiful and gasp-eliciting as well. It was one of the best self-dates I've ever had. I really outdid myself this time.

The view south (Lincoln memorial in the center distance)

The view southwest

The view east (Washington monument in the center)

The show, Porgy and Bess, was great. My favorite songs didn't send chills down my spine. Maybe that was because in the second half I was physically recoiling from Steve's presence, breath, and space-invading thighs. It may also have been because it wasn't a super stellar performance, which I think is more likely. But the theater is beautiful. When one rolls their eyes repeatedly in frustration (even if only figuratively), the view above is quite nice.