Cafe du Parc

So that I can continue keeping this blog, I can only devote 30 minutes to writing about a fine meal at Cafe du Parc. See, after all of these delicious yet highly-caloric, butter-filled, carbohydrate-inflated, and always-comes-with-dessert meals, I worry that my clothes won't fit and my food budget will go to buying clothes replicates one size up. As such, I intend to go to to gym early tomorrow morning which may preclude neccessary editing.

Anyway, I'll begin. Two lovely girlfriends joined me this evening at Cafe du Parc, a two-level restaurant in the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania.

We ordered a bottle of red, had our bread (slices of a delicious baguette, a pile of which were welcomingly visible as we ascended the stairs to the dining room).

I started with an appetizer (then you'll understand the need for gym-time early tomorrow morning), a salad (perhaps an ensemble?) of escargot, German spaetzle, spinach, and wild mushrooms. It was heavy and greasy and delicious in a way few dishes that seem to be favored by burly Alsatian men foraging for mushrooms would be.

For dinner, I had the rockfish served with ratatouille. The waiter detailed the acquisition of the fish, which came from the Virginia Beach area. It was tasty but a bit too generous: the middle was pink and was too thick to be useful or delicate. The ratatouille was tasty: the vegetables tasted fresh, the acidity not too puckering, but it wasn't quite stewed enough to be the French soul food it usually seems to be.

One delightful friend ordered the seared scallops with a wild mushroom risotto:

And the other ordered the other special, a lamb stew, with exquisitively tender lamb perfect for the rainy evening:

The delightful lamb-stew ordering friend had the coffee tart for dessert, which was accompanied by a chocolate sorbet.

For dessert, I had the Ile Flottante (I know, there's no circumflex but that's how the menu listed it and remember, workout), done up a bit unconventionally with a non-floating mergingue ile on top of an un-bruleed creme brulee with caramel sale at the bottom of the glass. Salted caramel is one of my new delights and here it was delicious. The presentation was beautiful and original but a bit too perfectly constructed to the sinking mess an Ile Flottante usually becomes.

Dinner was lovely--mostly because of the exquisite conversation. But, the blue, continuous banquette along one of the exterior wall provided a pop of color, drawing your attention out to the view of Pennsylvania Avenue along two walls.

Appetizers and entrees were a bit pricey, but could easily be covered by cancelling one's gym membership for a month.