Kapnos, Tabard Inn

It's that time of year again: when restaurants I've never heard of (a more often occurrence now) sell food that may or may not be worth $35 and I write it up either in rapturous or disciminatory terms. Whether it's delicious or overwrought, I love this season. When others get their gym membership in early January, I figure out how I can ingest delicious calories without overdoing it over six days.

The fun starts tomorrow, but it informally began Friday night, with a lovely dinner with an old friend. We dined at Kapnos -- which incidentally is on the top 100 for 2014 -- and caught up in the far corner of very busy restaurant. In true Mediterranean fashion, we ate for hours, nibbling on Greek and Turkish delights.

It's a nice place, mostly. It's very crowded with the masses of coats -- and a bit noisy. The waitress hovered quite a bit (we did stay for three hours after our 6pm reservation), but the hallmark of Greek cuisine is the seeming effortlessness of complicated dishes and an uniterrupted meal. We didn't get much of either, but we did have some exquisite allusions to the Mediterranean.

I had a bright and gin-y lemonade and we shared chickpea dip. It was creamy and smooth, with chopped herbs and a side of oven baked flatbread (unlike nearly anything I've ever tried, simultaneously seeming both charred and fried).

We shared gigantes (beans) that looked lovely with their fancy accoutrements (flowers, stems, and bulbs), but the beans weren't all uniformly soft.

I ordered lamb tartare, perhaps my favorite dish. The lamb was finely chopped and smooth, served like a brightly colored sorbet, with small bits of diced vegetables on the side and small, creamy and crispy croquettes on the side. It was elegant but not self-conscious.

We ordered cauliflower, which was less roasty than we expected and heavy on the sauce...

And a potato and garlic phyllo pie, which was spiralled into a many-ringed circle. Its sunny side up egg was bright, but we mainly nibbled.

I ordered the semolina cake, hearkening back to my true top 100 days and the obligatory dessert. It tasted a bit like a Mediterranean madaleine. The surrounding sauce was made of persimmons, orange, and pistachios, jabbed with little bits of meringue. I'd not order it again, but it looked pretty.

I would have been more than happy to have for dessert what I had for an appetizer the next day, and it was a relief to vacate our table at Kapnose for a little peace and quiet and to liberate the waitress from her overly interested hovering. (Can it be true that I'm writing up two restaurants at once?) The man friend and I joined two of his lovely friends for brunch at the Tabard Inn. 

Tabard Inn, a gem of a institution with a dark parlor, a warm fire, and a heartwarming mash up of pop art and kitsch, is known for its donuts. These aren't fancy donuts -- with exotic filling, infusions of cheese, or hip bacon bits -- but rather, donuts. With a side of whipped cream.

My cocktail was sufficiently girly (prosecco with St. Germain)...

...Light bubbles that could only be undone by pork belly, grits, and fried oysters. Hello New Years Resolution (I have been reading the Washingtonian's magazine dedicated to the top 100 of 2014 all weekend).

My kind friends, as new as they are to the concept of my actual authorship of anything to accompany these photos, even ensured I snapped their brunch items in the best light.

With Restaurant Week upon us in only a few hours, I hope this prodigal amateur food blogger will be here again very soon!