Michael's Noodles

I'm already back--I forgot that I like eating and writing in such quick succession.

My adventurous noodle eater man and I went to Rockville, Maryland yesterday, building our entire afternoon activities around a Top 100 Cheap Eats restaurant, Michael's Noodles. Rockville, as I have noted in past culinary excursions, seems like it's a prime hub for shops-that-Americans like--DSW, Dick's Sporting Goods, Bed Bath and Beyond (where I used three large blue coupons), etc.--but unfortunately also seemed to entertain all DC area drivers who wanted to go anywhere. That means there was an amazingly dense amount of traffic.

 

After we stopped for halvah at one Middle Eastern grocery and picked up meat pies at a Russian grocery--and endured Maryland traffic--we were ready for food. 

It's always an adventure stepping into a top 100 restaurant of any variety, particularly ones on this list. We were greeted--unofficially--by a young boy taking a picture of the art in the entryway; I halfway assumed he must have been a food blogger too, so I felt at ease (he was a bored kid at a multiple-adult dinner, so this was only one of many diversions we saw him participating in). It was a good sign, though; it was loud with lots of families.

 

We used the Washingtonian write-up as our starting point because the menu was eight pages long with about 30 items on each page. Intestines, duck blood, jellyfish, mustard greens, squid, fish head, and live fish--almost certainly the head too--are on the menu. We started with tea and beer; those choices were easy.

 

 

We started with Szechuan wantons, exquisite little gathered-dough packages with a rich meat filling and chili oil and scallions soaked into every little dough rivulet. Proud chopstick users, we couldn't savor them well enough with chopsticks so we broke out the forks. And because they were really slippery.

 

 

We ordered dumplings next. The dumpling dough was thick and soft on the inside but crisp and crunchy: nothing like the glorious effects of food that comes out of a fry pan.

 

 

I had the dan dan noodles. I had no idea what that entailed but the alliteration was too alluring. Nevertheless, I was still surprised at what it looked like: lightly steamed spinach took up half the bowl and the other half were Michael's homemade noodle covered with dried, shredded pork. I gingerly took a little of each noodles and spinach and put it on my little plate; our waitress soon came over, tsked me, and stirred everything together. Then it tasted good; she dredged up all the sauce at the bottom and coated the dry pork with its sweet sauce.

 

 

My co-cheap eats-er demurred on trying my dish as his "would be the star of the show," or something similarly overconfident. He was right: pork, chicken, shrimp, and tons of vegetables were in a thin gravy and floated on top of a nest of crispy, thin noodles. The longer it took us to work our way through his lunch, the more the noodles soaked up the sauce and the better they became.

 

 

So, we're one more cheap eats joint down, with about a million more restaurants, calories, and meals (but not dollars!) to go. One could say the same for the photos of leaves I intend to take until they are all gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ris

Today was a day for the blog. Well, I took the day off and got an expensive haircut too, but it was really a day for the blog: a boca sola meal, a glass of wine in the middle of the day, a gratuitous dessert (after more than enough food) and a novel on the table (even though it was more decorative than utilitarian as I was near a window with much people-watching).

This morning, after already deciding to take the day off, I took a gander at the Washingtonian Top 100 list for 2013. As you may know, my 99 culinary adventures (save Citronelle) were from the 2010 list, so I was curious what I have missed in the meantime. Of the 20 or so I have not visited, Ris--near the heart of fancypants Georgetown--was one.

 

I'd heard it mentioned--by a fancypants colleague--but rarely have found myself in the Westend, except twice notably at the Westend Bistro, also quite sophisticated. I cleverly drove, which I note sarcastically, as I barely made my reservation on time despite departing about 20 minutes earlier than I needed to. I'm shocked I made it at all, in light of my delightful morning Old Town lollygagging (stopping to photograph the sidewalk).

 

...More than once.

 

 

As is the Boca Sola custom (I'll admit I'm a bit rusty), I thought of my dear readers when I ordered. That means, I ordered everything on the menu I thought I might possibly be able to eat most of, which ended up being three dishes and two drinks. I started with the Scallop Margarita, a sort of scallop ceviche with quartered oranges, chili peppers, avocados, and a scoop of tequila sorbet, with a salt rim and chips. It was terrific--I savored each bite, scooped up every last bit with my chips, and admired each forkful's unique blend of textures.

 

 

I enjoyed it so thoroughly, though, the kitchen evidently had expected me to have finished dining 10 minutes earlier, because my lunch had been under the heat lamp for a while (I learned few things at Santa Fe Cattle Company in Oklahoma as a waitress, but one of them was that food kept under heat lamps inherently depreciates in taste).

 

That means my food--salad, yogurt, pomegranate seeds and all--had been under the heat lamp while I was still rapturing about scallops.

 

It was a lovely lunch but its arrival was rushed; post-scallops, I had read about one paragraph of my book before lunch arrived. Since a blog is one big soapbox anyway, a key frustration about lunch dining is restaurants' bias that you want to eat quickly and leave. My lunches during the workweek are usually things like Generic Asian at an airport because I'm flying somewhere, so I haven't encountered this problem frequently. Nevertheless, I can't understand why a fine restaurant (as Ris is) would sacrifice dining pacing below a quick meal. I had a book and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc... and nothing but time. 

 



The grilled swordfish fish was still delicious--flavorful and juicy and just enough char to balance out the richness of it--and was served atop Greek yogurt, a small ribbony cucumber-radish salad, with sides of "mint tabbouleh" (nearly all bulgher wheat and little mint) and pomegranate seeds. The fish was tasty but since it hadn't come directly off the grill, lacked the mix of textures--of char and moist flesh--had it not been sitting and warming up. Similarly, warmish yogurt gives me the heebie jeebies. 

 

Dessert was lovely, though--I had a warm chocolate tart with ice cream and caramel popcorn. The brown butter ice cream that was supposed to accompany it was rum butter, but was still delicious.  The interior of the tart--a separate  melty puck of chocolate gooeyness--was warm and rich and the chocolate crusty cup surrounding it was crisp and stuck to the plate with caramel. I followed each bite with either the ice cream, popcorn, or little bits of chocolate crumbs on the plate; it was a great accompaniment to people watching. While pondering bite pairings, I saw an Indian diplomat hop into her blackened out Suburban and saw a handful of personal security officers head into Ris' back room.

 

I can complain as an amateur blogger that it wasn't fully up to snuff, but as a lady playing hooky (don't worry, I asked my boss) it was a treat. And treats were par for the course this week.

 

My non-mountain man and I had fancy hot dogs earlier this week from Haute Dog and Fries up the street: "The Monroe" on the left (a hot dog with chopped jalapenos, grilled onions, and mango-pineapple salsa) and some German sausage monstrosity (with sauerkraut and brown mustard). That was a treat--he indulged me in glasses of tempranillo and a cheese plate right before. What a guy.

 

 

Earlier in the week, I caught up with Christine at Bazin's in Vienna, a lovely, sophisticated-but-homey bistro, where we collectively had a butter lettuce salad, tuna tartare, tagiatelle bolognese, and sea bass with wasabi mashed potatoes. Since my camera has no flash, this is the only photo that resembles what it is meant to represent. 

 

 

Then there's the normal treats, thankfully, trickless. Happy Halloween and happy blog-reading in near real-time!