PS7's

Hopping almost directly off a plane after a four-day bender (not really, but sounds better) of oyster, clams, and pasta and heading to a Friday-night urban haute-hot-dog-and-pizza picnic, it's impossible to deny how lucky I am (culinarily). Maybe I'm defeatist in promoting a tired theme of my good food fortune, but what else would you call it when an amateur food critic has a bacon-chocolate milk shake less than 24 hours after admirably creamy burrata (besides full up on calcium)?

Dotti, new and old blog fixtures, and I went to PS7's, the 66th best restaurant in the city. After four orbits around the same block (that was me being unable to converse and spot parking spaces), we settled in quickly for a drink. Our waitress was quite possibly the most enthusiastic smiler-nose-schruncher I've ever seen, which put the table at ease.

And, again, why wouldn't I be at ease? The night before, in Boston's North End, I had a whole portion of burrata, a tomato half the size of my head, and butternut squash tortelloni. Plus, my waiter's name was Carmen. I vowed to myself I'd watch the Godfather II and sip chianti this weekend to prolong the memories.














At PS7's, we focused on all the details of the present. We ordered six of the eight appetizers to start. With there being four of us and three appetizer food units per appetizer plate, we ordered to maximize the amount of food each of us could try. In thinking we were ordering three full plates, we actually received two hot dogs instead of two plates of hot dogs, one pork belly banh "mini" sandwich, and one tuna tartare bun. After portioning up our mini-servings, we clarified and began filling the fully round Scarface table with more plates (Carmen's legacy lived on a day longer).

We ordered two flatbreads--exercising some restraint as there were three on the menu--starting with the "nutty goat" flatbread featuring walnut butter, goat gouda cheese, arugula, toasted shallots. Breads--particularly the pizza kind--are great complementary vehicles to gossip over.


We also had the Autumn flavor flatbread: butternut squash puree, spiced pepitas, pickled cranberries, and Virginia ham.


The tuna tartare sandwiches, as they began trickling out, were adorable in their modesty. Each was served with white miso aioli and cucumber-cilantro slaw.


The banh minis, a diminutive play on Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, were ridiculously tender and flavorful too, even when divided into two extra mini portions.


We kept drinking and food kept arriving. We had a charcuterie plate with reed-like breadsticks with exquisitely and complexly flavored meats.


We finally capitulated and ordered entrees, three of us getting the pork loin, set atop potato salad with pancetta, a side of BBQ peaches, and a fried basil leaf.

It seemed reckless and foolish to order any more, but when the waitress mentioned a dessert with banana, peanut butter, and bacon, rational-decision-making seemed irrelevant and we got “The Elvis.” Cutting into the peanut-encrusted cubes released a wave of melty peanut butter and banana. On the side was a chocolate bacon milkshake. It started off as a hunka hunka burnin' love, but quickly devolved to a bizarre aftertaste. It was worth it, though.

To finish, we had chocolate espresso balls.

One of our party graciously picked up the entire tab, pulling the pay-while-en-route-to-the-little-diner's-room. Thankfully, 24 additional--albeit veggie-ful--opportunities exist to repay the hospitality.

Palena

Sometimes, when I'm old-fashioned-thinking, I feel a little guilty for my self-congratulating tone when I write about my terrific meals and my wanton financial ways in ordering whatever I flittingly want. I know it's for a greater good--marking restaurants off a probably arbitrarily crafted top 100 list, which hopefully has some societal value...to someone--but sometimes I get a bit existential wondering what-does-the-incessant-desire-to-photograph-and-write-about-food really mean? Then, on Sunday afternoons, I find myself for 43 minutes sucked into and perusing the sordid world of Twitter and its role in memorializing the dissolution of marriages and I realize that mine hopefully classifies as quite a minor online self-indulgence. Before those 43 minutes, what 2.5 hours of brunch glory I luxuriated in, self-congratulation be damned!

Christine and I, this morning and afternoon, went to Palena, a cozy but proper establishment on Connecticut. Christine kindly called a while ago to set up a week-of reservation; after they more or less scoffed at her for presuming to get in reasonably soon, we walked in straightaway this morning and got a quiet seat near the kitchen. As anyone who's hosted a party knows, near the kitchen is where the talk is good.

In the minutes before Christine arrived, I had a delicious, roasted, and rich coffee and wrote postcards (what else would I do?). When Christine arrived, we delved into phase one of brunch: more coffee and breads. The impressively tender and porous options included sourdough, wheat, and semolina.



















After we covered the first phase of catching-up (and sufficiently sampled each of the breads), we transitioned toward the glory of Palena cocktails. Christine's had an exquisite ginger foam and was spiced with cardamom or cinnamon (a fall day spice) and featured the famous memory-evoker, Calvados...

Mine, the Alexandra, had pear vodka and soaked raisins (which I unabashedly retrieved with my soup spoon); a drink this exciting only exacerbated my wrist flourishes.

A good hour and a half in, we tucked into brunch. Our waitress, to our delight, timed our entire afternoon to our conversation and preference. Observervant, she neither rushed nor slowed us down unneccessarily. For her meal, Christine commemorated another fine one we shared together, eating buckwheat crepes (galettes) in Paris.

Since it's fall and I'd frankly rather be in Paris, I'll impose on the linearity of the previous paragraph and promote the legitimate Breton galettes at Breizh Café we had there. Located in the Marais, Breizh Cafe crafts somber but soulful buckwheat crêpes, with things like raw cheese and yolky eggs in them. All this is paired with cidre in pottery cups.



















And if Demi Moore can post creepy photos of herself with her eyes closed on Twitter, I can post a year-old photo of another hand-crafted meal Christine and I shared in Paris, with the salted butter (to accompany the bread, radishes, and even chocolate a few verres in) as the centerpiece. Self-indulgent indeed, on all accounts.



















Ok, back to today. To suit my Classics-friendly sensibility, I got a Roman-inspired stew. Vaccinara con Polenta featured oxtail, pine nuts, and raisins with a coddled hen egg, wilted spinach and cardoons, beautiful and celery-esque and also called artichoke thistles. I was so eagerly enamored with it, I consumed it entirely with a fork.



















Making it a two-day donut weekend for me, we ordered the frosted lemon donut, what Christine called the best of her life. It was crisp on the outside, porous but dense on the inside (reminiscent simultaneously of the textures of sourdough and pound cake), and subtly lemony.


Saturday's donut adventure was loukamathes at a Greek church's festival, so I should be set for the next few months.

Being so close to the Zoo, it seemed only natural to wander south and see the side of a zebra:


A panda bear in profile:


And an elephant...


...Up close on a poster.

Having 25 restaurants left on the list is something to congratulate oneself on, though, right?

Virginia, part two

(continued)

I like serializing. After our delicious dinner at C&O Restaurant in Charlottesville over Labor Day weekend--part of the Julie-and-Christine-traipse-around-Virginia-weekend--we ventured down Main Street for drinks.

Liam and Josh
In search of local color, we first found and wandered into a sushi bar playing live music and serving four dollar beers. Josh, the drunken college kid to our right, flattered us with his lascivious glances and slurred compliments and impressed us by downing three sugary shots in roughly 10 minutes. The intersection between food (well, drink) and love would have been quite palatable if we saw those shots again. As he was determined to get drunker while he could hardly stand (but somehow managing to dance quite well), we encouraged him to pound plastic cups of water, which we convinced him were huge shots of vodka. We placated his hard-drinking ego, talked to his beautiful but terrible friend who soon abandoned him for his resident co-ed, and enjoyed our too-cheap beers.

All manner of men found this amusing, including Liam the 60-year-old Irishman and didn't-catch-his name who asked us if were were students (the penultimate UVA law student, more adept at getting his collar to stand than securing our attentions). After more bars and more drinks, we started posing.

Thomas J.
After a hearty breakfast, Mr. Jefferson made it quite easy to see the link between food and love at his estate, Monticello. Would is be disrespectful to say IHOP breakfasts are almost as impressive as Jefferson's wall calendar jiggered with cannonballs or his below-ground ice pit?



















At Monticello, Jefferson's love of food, wine, and agriculture manifest itself in his gardens, expansive kitchen, beer and wine cellars, and multitude of squash blossoms. He crafted ice cream in the summer with his reserve ice from the winter, imported French wines, and even tried make his own.





































Bob
After all that Virginia history, I returned to DC and learned about present-day Pennsylvania and its vibrant sweets scene. Dear friend Tammy's husband, Bob, has a sister who runs a heartily successful cupcake shop, Warm Sugar. Tammy and Bob, love me (and I, them) and their own health, so decided to send me home with nearly a dozen cupcakes. Oh, and homemade, Tammy-made squid ink pasta.













I had the P.B. Incognutto, peanut butter-filled Valrhona chocolate cake, swathed in swirls of peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache.


Then the Tikicup (don't kid yourself, the same night), a coconut cupcake with coconut frosting, strewn with toasted coconut shavings.


And the Sugar Boy (the next day): lime–infused graham cake stuffed with real key lime filling and topped with toasted meringue.

Then I stopped taking pictures. But, I also tried the Limoncello cupake (lemon cake covered in fluffy lemon frosting). And the Strawberry Blonde cupcake.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a state named after a clever but single queen (and imported cupcakes brought into that state) would disappoint a couple of clever and single girls.

Virginia, part one

What would you, dear reader, say if I claimed to 1. have had an epic Labor Day weekend and 2. be able to pair ever significant food experience with one of "love." You may say it can't be done. You might also say it took me damn near long enough to force everything to meet those two criteria.

I'd say that I can do it if I change the definition of love to mean either a passionately positive or negative experience with an individual of the opposite sex. I'd further say that this will be most symmetrical food/love nexus description ever been written about a trip about traveling around Virginia. I've even included real names to praise the innocent and shame the brazen.

Unnamed (well, unknown) Men
The food/love adventure began as most of these described in this weekend do, over fish and alcohol. Dear Christine and I had beer, moules, and frites, to test to how strong our constitution would fare when faced with a weekend of fried-food eating (we passed the indoor-fried-food-consumption test). We found ourselves at Brasserie Beck at the moule-friendly happy hour, we met two young men, one of whom provided useful information on rural Virginia.



















We rewarded him with an invite to a bar down the street, as well as his friend, who runs drunk across townhouse roofs. Focusing more on his knowledge of Jefferson's accomplishments than his name, we thanked him heartily but generically at midnight and congratulated ourselves on securing beer, travel advice, and mild flirtation on a school night.

Scot (deliberately one T) and Andy
Ever wonder what culture has the best skirts and the worst food? After visiting the Virginia Scottish Games and Festival, watching strong men throw stuff they'd find in forests or toolsheds, and eating three bites total of both haggis and a Scottish egg, I had an idea. The day after Brasserie Beck, I caught up with old friends Andy and Rachel and had the wherewithal to order (see above) fish and chips and beer. Christine cleverly got a bridie, a burrito-shaped meat pie that evoked flavors of stew, pastry, and not-haggis.



But, with all the bagpipes, wool socks, and log-tossing, I started getting restless. Everyone's second-favorite fair treat (kettle corn) wasn't enough: haggis was my object. It was, quite possible, the most hideous thing I've ever eaten and tasted like how it looked: like ground up corn nuts, cat fur, and liver. I can say little better for the Scotch egg, whose sausage tasted like haggis with the haggis casing still on.

While largely similar in appearance in texture, I'd prefer to eat these and enjoy the company of Wilford Brimley, an added bonus.


James M.
I did live and luckily was able to celebrate the life and residence of James Madison, our fourth president, who built his fine estate in Orange, Virginia. What's the nexus here and how would I dare presume to compete with Dolley? Traveling to learn about James permitted Christine and I to eat at a fine Charlottesville restaurant and to swat love away in all the wrong places. But first, feast on Montpelier and its surrounding countryside:

Madison was a smart man and we admired the intellectual endeavors of the Father of the Constitution a great deal. So much so, we decided to discuss them in detail at Charlottesville's C&O Restaurant, a quite blog-worthy meal.



















We had bread, a delicious dense, biscuity, hearty-yet-pliable fortifier, and Christine had a delicious-looking salad with a mustard vinaigrette.



















For my appetizer, I had the cleverest combination of Mediterranean and Super Bowl potluck flavors: kibbeh and burrata from the former culture, fried onion straws from the latter. The base of the plate was filled with stringy burrata, holding in place the pine nut-studded kibbeh meat. In case you also wanted to simutaneously indulge in the buttery sparseness of a popover, a small profiterole sized one was sliced in half and placed on both poles of the plate. Atop it all were the fried onion straws. If I were fully reconciled to my skirt sizes getting progressively larger, I'd eat this every night.



















Then, we really commemorated the Federalist Papers and Dolley Madison's fine-art-related bravery by enjoying our entrees, Christine with the beef tenderloin and I with the salt-crusted fish and the best skin-on potatoes I may have ever had.













We polished off our dinners in less time than the Articles of Confederation even existed.













Proceeding to Calvados (apple brandy indigenous to Normandy and which we both tried sentimentally for the first time in la Normandie), we had for dessert the coupe maison, a scoop of ice cream infused with grated vanilla bean, toasted almonds, whipped cream and brandy laced Belgian chocolate sauce. We were in train to have a few more digestifs afterwards, though...



To be continued...