Bibiana

Conviviality and hospitality are two words tied unconditionally to Italian food. The emphasis on friend-creating wine, cheeses meant to be shared, pasta dishes that invite forks aggressively sampling foods across the table, and heart-gladdening olive oil in Italian food usually complements the rapport between two friends. In my gastronomical world, friends and diners enjoying Italian cuisine should feel enveloped by metaphorical Italian grandmother's arms and her nagging insistence at how welcome they are to her hospitality.

My friend Dotti and I last night went to Bibiana, the 99th best restaurant in DC. After taking a series of one-way streets going in the opposite direction of the restaurant and realizing the restaurant was on the total opposite corner of where we were in relation to the monolithic building to which the restaurant was attached, we desperately wanted a warm seat and a drink when we arrived.

The bar, lounge and dining room are all beautiful: sophisticated, full of clean lines and luxury. We took a seat at the bar, which somehow had a delightfully warm counter top where we defrosted our hands. But that was the most sincere attention we got for the approximately 30 minutes we were there while we waited for our table.

We asked the bartender why the wine servings beyond glasses were oddly labelled QT and BTG. "Is it Italian?" we asked. He responded that was just how they were labelled, then wandered off and bursted out like a small child who just mastered a curse word, bottiglia. (I had to google that.) After asking if he would take our wine order, we ordered a bottiglia, which he set down before us without uncorking it and with two glasses, not returning for another five minutes. He finally returned, uncorked the wine and poured it; then our table became available and I huffily took the bottle. A manager had the attentiveness to notice I was awkwardly carrying an open bottle of wine to our table and relieved me of it. That was a welcome gesture, but the bewildering inattentiveness of the waiter was alarming.

The menu was beautiful and we didn't put our finger on it then, but it was sort of cold and a reflection of the restaurant. The descriptions lacked voluptuousness, the font was tiny and austere, and Dotti even asked, crestfallen, "where's the lasagna?" This didn't bother us any: we were raucous and loud with a hint of vulgarity, but not because the restaurant encouraged that type of celebration over food.

Ah well: the bread was delicious, porous but tender, with a delicate olive oil.

Dotti and I both had antipasti. She ordered the datteri, a sentimental favorite of us both: here the roasted dates were stuff with Crescenza cheese and pancetta and covered with probably honey and candied pistachios. It was a hint too sweet, but still flavorful and rustically textured.

I ordered the burrata, one bite of which I've only ever had at Acqua al 2 and I've been haunted by its flavor and texture since then. Last night, it was Pugliese burrata (Puglia being a region in southeastern Italy) with picked beets and mint. It was exceptional in its simplicity.

Not surprisingly, it took inordinately long for our dinners to come. And having been a waitress, I always worry when a hot plate arrives (as it did), as that usually indicates it's been sitting under the heat lamp for too long. I'm not sure if this is a heat lamp type of place, but the pacing was still decidedly off. Dotti ordered the braised lamb ravioli with almonds, espelette, mint, and pecorino. True to form, that's what I was considering ordering too.

Instead, I got the burnt wheat cavatelli, a delightful pasta that seemed full of kinetic energy with its tight spirals. It was served with espresso sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino. The broccoli rabe was rich, coupled with the cheese, and the sausage was broken into small pieces so it paired up more easily with bites of pasta. It could has used more pecorino, but it was a cleverly-constructed dish.

Despite the uninspired and mildly frosty service, I still had an appetite to keep going as the food was delicious. I ordered the Study in Chocolate/Hazelnut, which was exquisite: at the base, crushed hazelnuts composed into a sort of unhealthy but appropriately-desserty granola, surrounded by a pool of hazelnut cream, girded by a Viennese cookie (delicate exterior with a chocolate/hazelnut filling inside), hazelnut chocolate atop it all, with a smear of Nutella on the side. Seriously.

The food was admirable: beautifully plated, delicately arranged, classically constructed, but it all lacked the requisite Italian gregariousness that makes food that should be bursting with character remain as lifeless as the disengaged service. Molto triste.

Johnny's Half Shell

Well, the moment had to come when a restaurant didn't meet full top 100 muster. But at the high-level of competitive food critiquing my friends and I engage in, there is little room for error. So after tonight, where the mood and intonation of the waitress was a bit too affected (and eerily similar to how Annette Bening would sound self-righteously reading her own Beatnik poetry) and two beers and a basket of bread were delivered without our explicit consent, I could not fully endorse Johnny's Half Shell as the 44th best restaurant in DC. I was out with the regular crew, who were able to adeptly examine the strengths and shortcomings of Johnny's, succinctly between dessert and before the quarters in the meter ran out.

It began well: an interesting array of glad handers, pin-wearers, name tag-sporters, and toothy smilers stocked the bar, the white and green hexagonal tile on the floor added a bit of old-timey charm, and the whole restaurant had the ephemeral DC political buzz where you feel important things are being said and deals are being made all around that I rarely experience. We even saw Michael Steele.

Ok, well, that's Andy, but that's Michael Steele's arm in the distance.

We're all such easy diners: the girls got Stella, the boys got Anchor Steam. We ordered 12 oysters and everyone had their appointed three. Dinners were laid down and Mike initiated the food offering (a scallop on my plate) that was quickly followed up with various forks criss-crossing to help themselves to others' dinners. If Esther Williams and her synchronized swimming pals went out to dinner, they would have been hard pressed to coordinate their fork movements as effortlessly as us.

In the same vein, Andy observed that when ordering, it was helpful having a backup as we all frequently tend toward the same items. How cute. Andy got what Mike considered, Mike got what I normally would order, while I should have followed my instincts and gotten what Kerry had.

Kerry with the fritti misti (fish, shrimp, calamari, and fennel all lightly fried) and Andy with the what-should-have-been-wild-steelhead but substituted for another fish, pan-roasted with mild mushrooms and sauteed spinach in a vin blanc sauce.

Mike had a beautiful plateful of scallops in a lemon-caper sauce with a warm salad of roasted winter vegetables and olives.

I think I lost and had two alarmingly unique textured appetizers for dinner. I started with the grilled squid, served with a small arugula salad with crispy shallots and lemon viaigrette. It wasn't the delicious and crispy sucker-laced tentacles that bothered me.

It was the fact that it appeared that I had four huge insect pupae on my plate. I saw the Lion King.

Our minimally clever waitress--more interested in her turn of phrase than in the act of listening--said the crabcakes were the most popular item on the menu. They were fine, but I would have thought their namesake state was much farther away so that they could still be called Maryland crabcakes while embodying such mediocrity. The coleslaw, long strands of cabbage, carrots, and onions, was delicious though.

Dessert, as always, compensated for past wrongs. Kerry and Andy got the coconut cake:

Mike got the apple pie with a crumble topping:

And I had the chocolate bread pudding, served with chili-infused slices of blood oranges, which were responsibly chocolatey and cleverly sweet and spicy, respectively:

But it was still all surprisingly uninspired on the whole: we universally agreed the decor was an amalgamation of inconsistent styles and a poor use of space, the service was just a shade too preoccupied and indifferent, and there was a very glaring disconnect between a restaurant that appears to coast on its good reviews and tourist patronage with the sort of place so close to the Capitol that could be a bastion of quiet sophistication. But, Johnny's Half Shell put me 18 restaurants away from being halfway done.

Central

Thankfully the next slated restaurant is a seafood joint, because the amounts of butter and fried pork I'm consuming are at unsustainable levels. Last night, I went to Central, a restaurant run by French chef Michel Richard. Years ago, I spurned it with derision because it served "faux" gras, which I assumed was a typo and at a French restaurant, I found that to be insupportable. Apparently it was a conscious choice on the part of a French restaurant to not serve foie gras, which I could consider even more offensive that force-feeding geese.

Anyway, Central is on the list and since it's French, it had an irresistible pull, anti-gavage stance or not. It was charming, mostly because it combined the best of both American and French dining. The atmosphere was intimate and convivial, but had enough space between tables to be private, was well-lit to encourage boisterousness, had a nearly-open kitchen to make dining interactive and featured comforts from French cuisine (charcuterie, gougères, tarts) and American cuisine (meatloaf, burgers, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and banana splits (keep reading)). I tried ordering Ricard at the bar (I got there a bit early) and after a little explanation, got a Pernod. The drink itself was sort of irrelevant because the beauty of the bar was the tilted mirror above it where you could have a drink and see the entire dining room.

We went to the table and surveyed the wine list, which was surprisingly light on French wines. That turned out to be fine too, because I was in the dining room and could both see better being there and use the mirror to supplement my people-watching.

We started with a cheese plate, featuring a random selection of goat, gouda, camembert, bleu and a mystery one on the far right. They were delicious, creamy when necessary, and served at the right temperature.

We also got an order of gougères. I'll say I preferred them at Adour, which may not be a rousing endorsement since I didn't even know what they were called then. But these were still delicious and had a popover consistency.

Being a creature of habit/exaggerated French tendencies, I got the salade frisée with lardons and a poached egg. It was a mad swirl of frisée, lardons (French bacon bits) and one shy poached egg in the middle of it all waiting for its moment to shine.

Before:

After:

Then I had steak tartare for the second time in my life.

You knew it was coming, but below is a picture from the first time (the archives are well-organized, even if the photographer has little reliable skill):

Both were exquisite when I abandoned myself to savoring its slightly unnerving consistency.

True to form, French and French-inspired restaurants have impressed me recently in the taste and presentation of dessert. Since there were three of us, we logically ordered three. Christine's clever idea was that I use my real camera and she did you a service, dear reader.

We started with Michel's Napoleon, which was stellar. I find Napoleons get stale quickly (and are nevertheless served) and oftentimes their creamy interior is little better than the filling of cream cheese danishes on a conference room table after lunch. The layers weren't repeatedly alternated, which allowed for a more thorough tasting of the individual components: the gossamery, flaky crust and the substantive cream. Don't believe me?

Next, we had Michel's chocolate bar with vanilla ice cream. True to its reputation, it tasted like a souped up and sophisticated Kit Kat bar.

I ordered the banana split. It was even better than it looks.

Above was vanilla and chocolate ice cream, with strawberry sorbet in the middle. On the bottom were two thin slices of banana covered with whipped cream, pineapple bits, chocolate covered rice puffs, and strawberry sauce, between two pools of caramel and chocolate. Who's foie is the gras now?

3 Bar and Grill

There's something about bacon and the contagiousness of belly laughs that makes girls really enjoy the pleasures of girl talk. My friend Sue and I went to the 100th best restaurant on the list, 3 Bar and Grill, tonight and it was a series of ridiculously soulful and pork and duck laden products, all lined with some really stellar girl time.

I felt dignified after a good work day, legitimacy-lending Blackberry in hand and pretentious Francophilic semi-beret in sight while waiting the few minutes for Sue to park. I thought a glass of red sounded good (to match my sense of heightened dignity) until I saw the reason why 3 Bar and Grill was on the list in the first place (according to me): a bacon bloody mary. It contained bacon-infused vodka with their house bloody mary mix. After about seven sips in (at five of which Sue wasn't even present), the conversation was already good.

Mini cornbread muffins, rye (?) bread, and honey butter were all put out on the table before the drinks (that's Oklahoma style).

Restaurant Three, on Clarendon Boulevard in Arlington, celebrates the "joy of soulful southern cooking." As such, it seemed only appropriate I celebrate the joy of fried things with cheese and bacon, by which I mean "bleu cheese chips" with Point Reyes bleu and house-cured bacon.

For dinner, I had a twist on barbecue with a pulled duck sandwich, comprised of slow roasted duck and bourbon molasses barbecue on a sweet potato bun. Because they knew what was good for them, they put the conservative amount of coleslaw on the side and gave me a copiously laden bowl of collard greens (with, of course, bacon). I'm a bit tough on barbecue outside the Kansas City-Oklahoma City corridor, but this was tender, flavorful and not too heavily sauced.

Sue got the duck breast, with sweet potato and duck hash, shallots, and a pomegranate glaze. We were chatting so avidly I forgot to ask for a bite.

It was a dinner fit for two girls who wear pearls and watch football (but Sue actually knows the rules). Her brilliant idea was to order dessert: a bacon studded waffle with maple bacon ice cream. The waffle held its own against its densely moist interior and the deliciously rich ice cream and caramel sauce atop it.

After two nights in a row of exquisitely revelatory desserts, the 70 restaurants left seem awfully foreboding (I miscounted before I think). Who am I kidding: je suis préparé, Michel Richard.

Adour

Tonight I had a glass of 1982 "Don PX" from Bodegas Toro Albala in Malaga, Spain (only the Spanish home of sherries), a port-style sherry made from the Pedro Ximenez grape that thankfully graced my glass tonight. This hospitable glass was the metaphorical grape being delicately dropped into my mouth, as I sat in Adour's dining room at the St. Regis hotel, metaphorically side-reclining-Cleopatra-like. Poorly-crafted-metaphor-explained: the service was terrific. And Wolf Blitzer was there too (and he interviewed Anwar Sadat, so, full circle).

Dinner was exquisite, particularly breaking into an admirably and sensuously flavorful peak at dessert (that concurrent third glass of wine helped too). Since I can make semi-substantiated and pretentious comparisons, Adour was the warmest and most comfortable of the three Alain Ducasse restaurants I have been to (the others being Mix and Aux Lyonnais). The wood ceilings were richly adorned and painted, the wine cellar's packed-full-shelves girded the dining room with additional intimacy, and the tables were spaced well enough apart that two girls could get their talking done relatively unimpeded.

Lobby of the St. Regis

My friend Meredith (who embraced my food photography, even of herself) and I began with a delicious half decanter of whatever Pinot Noir the wine director (anecdote about him later) offered us, featuring blackcurrant and cherry notes. Then the butter was put on the table, to let it warm up a bit more. Unshakable expression of Francophilic habit tonight: my love of butter.

Then we had sturdy but conservatively wispy cheese rolls. Deux for each of us.

Then we were offered a cup of carrot-ginger soup, which had just a small insinuation of spice.

The amuse-bouches were delicious, but not zealously innovative, so it was good the fun quickly began. We were offered bread and, like good students of French, took petits baguettes.

My first course, seared day boat scallops with braised endive and shaved black truffles, arrived. They were plump, perfectly cooked, and had shaved black truffles, which for me are as extravagant as gold leaf on desserts (which I got, half an hour later).

They were delicious but not exceptional and certainly not photogenic. But, my entree was both of these things. And certainly dramatic. I ordered the Maine lobster and penne cocotte with black truffle and tomato/basil sauce. It's only partially true I ordered these dishes almost entirely based on the chef's inclusion of black truffles.

I ordered the lobster because it came in a cocotte, which is a French Dutch oven. I guess. And I've found that cocottes usually contain rich, reminciently-countryside-prepared, soulful foods whose flavors blend perfectly together in tight spaces. Surprisingly, my cocotte was prepared with a ring of pastry locking the lid on, which was cut tableside. There was enough lobster for two, perfectly prepared pasta, and flavorful yet densely intact tomatoes, with long strands of fresh basil clinging to them all.

Meredith got venison, which came with root vegetables that became symmetrical geometric shapes when plated.

Dinner was exceptional, but we and our table became luminous when dessert starting being served. As our desserts were laid down on the table, the waiter explained that since they didn't accommodate us just ordering one tasting menu (at least two have to do it, so we did a la carte), they'd offer us two glasses of dessert wine. This would typically be unwelcome, Meredith and I both agreed after the glasses were poured, as dessert wines can be syrupy, sugary, and resiny.

At other places, apparently. Meredith had a reminiscent-of-Gone-with-the-Wind glass of Madeira, allegedly with butterscotch notes and an orange finish (we only tasted the butterscotch) to accompany her hazelnut souffle and ginger-lemon sorbet.

I had the glass of 1982 Don PX, retrieved from the depths of the real, underground cellar, apparently. It had notes of chocolate and coffee and gratitude. It was a perfect complement to my dessert, a chocolate-pecan dacquoise, described as cremeux, crumble, and coffee ice cream. The pastry at the bottom was perfectly constructed--thin, crunchy yet flaky--with layers of chocolate and pecan under a chocolate frame with, you guessed it, gold leaf in the middle.

These were served, astonishingly, with four satisfyingly Parisian macarons (chocolate and raspberry?) and Adour-labelled chocolates.

Double-double fisting

The dining room was buzzing but still hushed, the lighting was faint but the whites reflected, and the service was friendly but unobtrusive. It was one of the most welcoming let logically-arrayed spaces I've seen at a DC restaurant.

As we left, I giddily thanked the handsome wine director for the delicious port-styled sherry. "I'll be sure to have plenty of it on hand next time you're here," he said.

A blog about the intersection between food and love just writes itself.