Addie's

When an amateur food critic looks death in the eye twice in one week, her life priorities start to become clearer. She realizes that if she ever survives the tremblings of the earth and the whipping rains, she should at least dedicate her life to completing the A section of the top 100. So, the day after realizing the apocalypse had indeed narrowly missed us, I went to Addie's, a surprisingly secluded fried food place off of Rockville Pike (in Maryland). I no longer use the term "soul food," because I can't feel my soul after I eat soul food. This was just straight up unhealthy. Oh, but delicious.

So Sunday, after verifying my car was under neither water nor tree, I drove 25 miles to Addie's, a restaurant in the Black Restaurant Group, along with Black Market Bistro, Black Salt, and Black's Bar and Kitchen (all top 100's themselves). They have a great track record and while I felt a bit guilty getting Sunday dinner sans Dotti (who loves both the Black Restaurant Group restaurants and fried chicken), I couldn't take another day of being half conscious on the couch reading Jane Austen and drinking Bordeaux.

So I arrived, catching first a glimpse of the neighboring bar, Dietle's Tavern, with a few old men eyeing the arrival of a city girl pulling into the shared drive (mind you, this is across from a medical park and looking out onto a four-lane traffic artery, so it's really not, say, Checotah, Oklahoma). But, proximity-to-dive-bars bodes well (please note the motorized scooter parking).


After parking, I caught a hipster feel from the employees in the back smoking. The host was vibrant and enthusiastic and crossed my name off his reservation list (the only one that afternoon). I passed the empty dining room and went to the back, where unfortunately and suddenly, the smell of disinfectant, cat, and old person assaulted me. I'll neglect from saying anything ageist about the (only) neighboring table whose occupants matched my 91-year-old grandmother in age but not spryness (meaning: less spry). This did not bode well for my appetite ("why does it smell like formaldehyde?" and "geezer" kept running through my head). Don't watch (just listen) to the only association I want to have to the word geezer.

The association extended, though; regretting my decision to eschew sunshine, I headed out to the patio. Addie's offers an exceedingly generous $35 Sunday dinner menu which is really an extraordinary (and overwhelming) tasting menu of American fare. For $25 you get almost as much (but have to choose which two items you don't want). I ordered everything.

I started with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from France (bien sûr) and two salads, both substantive, refreshing and perfect for summer.


On the left is a cucumber, cantaloupe, yellow tomato salad. On the right, a perfect (not too salty, anchovy-y, or overdressed) caesar salad with grilled croutons and grated egg.



















I'd like to draw your attention to what happened next: I had eight plates of food with nine types of food on them placed before me. There was first the fried (tempura style) okra, the creamy mashed potatoes, and the corn on the cob in the background, and the sliced steak and fried chicken in the foreground:


The okra was nontraditional and despite its thin, crispy batter, was dried out. But, they were beautiful and I ate nearly all of them. The steak was rich and flavorful with a hint of sweetness and the fried chicken was juicy and in each of its crispy crevices was a grain or two of pepper, which gave it character and authenticity.

I had, on the left, zucchini pappardelle, one of the cleverest incarnations of a traditional favorite I've seen in a long time. There wasn't a strand of pasta in it, but the squash and zucchini were cut widely and thinly enough to resemble it. On the right are stewed tomatoes, thickened up with foccacia. With each dish, I found something more delicious and thankfully no one outside could hear me talking to myself about my surprise that the more seemingly banal the dish was, the more delicious I found it (who thought stewed tomatoes, for example, could be exquisite?).



















I also had a full trout fillet, adorned with salt and pepper and a brown butter sauce that tasted homey like vanilla or espresso (why I'm amateur). I asked for bread (mainly for sopping up teaspoon-size portions of four delicious sauces) and got a basket of both cheddar/chive biscuits and cornbread. It was sort of like having all my Southern food fantasies apparate (sorry, I'm really amateur with Harry Potter references) before me at my table.














I couldn't help but notice how pretty my little Southern food fantasies looked all together. I was in such a state of delight that I even gasped rapturously when a neighboring umbrella turned inside out.



















There was really no need for anything save calisthenics after 10 plates of food, but the peach/blackberry cobbler came anyway. Tasting menus are merciless. The fruits were fresh and concurrently firm and giving, while the cake was sweet and salty and tasted like what all the best attributes of baking soda, a well-run farm, and polished boots would taste like.

After a quiet drive out into Virginia's countryside (I was alive, after all), I celebrated Irene never having met Addie's or Sonic.