Cedar

Dinners like Thursday's at Cedar are why blogs that treat the nexus between love and food are so easy to write and maintain. Between the ecstatic cries of delight after the placement of new dishes on our table, the batting of eyes as our waiter asked us how we were faring, the stories between wine sips of love expended and carelessly brushed aside (the dismissing all on our part), and the contorted faces of pleasure that became more satisfied bite-by-bite of dessert... made me question myself as to how I ever preferred to dine alone. Bartenders never have as good of stories, insights, or exuberant of responses to food and wine as my friends.

Particularly at the good places we accidentally frequent because of their inclusion on lists. Cedar is on the more interesting end of this spectrum because it is down a flight of stairs and is without windows (a bit English basementy), its service didn't begin in a particularly sparkling manner (our waiter equivocated on cocktail recommendations), and the pulsing hum from the air system eclipsed the clarity of the piped-in jazz.

But we did quite well: Christine endured three modes of transportation to arrive and I survived apartment viewing with strange men to get there. As a reward for our troubles, we unspokenly agreed on the utility of cocktails, mine the girly one on the left with lillet blanc (a white French aperitif wine), lemon, black raspberry liqueur, and honey and Christine and her classy Maker's mark, lemon, and honey on the right.



















Restaurant Week, when we went, is usually pretty mediocre. Sometimes it seems to be the week when waitresses come on the job after only having taken a how-to-use-a-ballpoint-pen training class, when bartenders appear to forget that oftentimes you want your drink soon after you ordered it, and when a general disparaging nod is the most affirmation you'll get to a request.

To illustrate, Dotti and I went to Chef Geoff's on Tuesday and while the food was fantastic, the waitress lauded the "shashimi" (she included an extra "sh" sound), was hopeless on timing her table interactions (frequently and petulantly interrupting us in our most juicy exchanges of gossip), and told us a story about the first time her boyfriend stayed over (that's when he learned to like grits). Well, the shashimi and her boyfriend's grits were good:












As was Dotti's serrano wrapped pork tenderloin, with a saffron potato gratin (kind of unexciting) and asparagus/piquillo peppers and her key lime pie.



















But, I digress. Christine and I were lucky that after only one dish in, we found our favorite. She started with the chilled corn soup with blue crab, sweet with whipped crème fraîche and corn, tangy with lemon juice, and oceanic and fresh with the crab. I had an exquisite grilled peach salad with greens and goat cheese with a Virginia honey-black pepper vinaigrette (I had trouble concentrating at work hours earlier imagining this salad). It was to the Cedar dining room what an artificial vitamin D lamp is to dank office cubicles: a beam of light. But these weren't our favorites.



















Our waiter brought us a basket of bread, remarkable in its freshness but no more exceptional than a very good but average fresh baguette. What we realized, however, is that the bread began to get more delicious bite by bite as we slowly learned that bread, plus increasingly softening butter and a few flakes of sea salt made for bites of bread perfection. You can't see much of either because at this point there was little of either.


Christine ordered the pavé of ribeye, a term that means a cut-of-meat-the-size-of-a-cobblestone ribeye. I couldn't comment on its cooking temperature (rhymes with dell wone) but its flavor and tenderness (despite being nearly turned into jerky) were exquisite. It was served atop risotto--that really could have stood independently flavor-wise as its own dish. I'm only taking liberties on meat cooking preferences because I believe I was given implicit permission to do so; the fact that cooking preferences, however, did not eclipse our mutual enjoyment of the steak was a testament to its quality. Also, please note the squash blossom on top.



















I had grilled swordfish, which was adorable in its deconstructed Mediterraeneanism. I preferred dessert, so I'll quickly note it was arranged fallen-Jenga-piece-like with swordfish juxtaposed to chickpea "frites" atop a puree of roasted eggplant, and served with julienned pickled beets (which made for a pretty Bougainvillea-esque pop of color) and thick tzatziki with basil oil.


As our romantic observations became more insightful, the drinks became better. To get these drinks, however, our bread basket had to be taken away, which produced two very crestfallen faces. Our sparking wine glasses, slowly condensating by candlelight, fixed that fast though.


Christine recognized, when we ordered the desserts at the beginning of dinner, that usually two people should not choose the same dessert. We discussed the short-sightedness of people who hover in the same types of foods as their dining companions. We decided, however, that in cases where a dessert both sounds and appears to be superior to its fellow menu items, that we could dismiss this rule for a peach crumble financier, with a local peach compote and chantilly "ice cream." A bit of a dessert photo shoot produced these delectable images.



















The financier was moist and tender on the inside, with a chewy, crunch exterior, like any finely crafted Parisian pastry. We were incapable of speaking for a few minutes, eschewing any utility of trying to describe ecstasy in mere words. Christine was able to construct a perfect bite for posterity's sake.


We did better with the unexpected digestif, accented with a lavender liqueur, and were able to quite sufficiently articulate our delight with that one.



















Not a bad night when your blog's existence is easily justified, you have 33 restaurants left, and you find this glory in your mailbox (ignore the left side, please).