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Restaurant K - Klosed.


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In today's newsletter from FreshFarm Market:

FUNDRAISER from the new RESTAURANT K

Alison Swope is opening a new Restaurant K at 1700 K Street, NW.

But before she opens, she invites you to enjoy a 4-course meal from her signature menu for $35 per person and all the proceeds from the dinner will be donated to FRESHFARM Markets!

Dinner is planned for Thursday, September 13 from 5:30-8:30pm. Please make your reservations by September 10. ..

As for the nature of the fundraiser:
We have started a "Farmer to Chef Connection" to link more restaurants with our market farmers so the chefs can use more local products in the restaurants. We are piloting the program at the downtown Penn Quarter FRESHFARM Market on Thursdays. It would help to have a vehicle that we could transport the food from market to restaurants. Alison thought this was a good idea too, so we'll use the dinner donations to help pay for this vehicle and, hopefully, make it even easier for the chefs to buy local foods from our market farmers.

ETA: Original email sent w incorrect contact information. New details to follow.

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Went there for lunch last week. I started with the roasted beet salad with fennel, arugula and gorgonzola, and my friend had the wild mushroom baklava, which the waiter was pushing very hard. Both were very good, and the portions were big. For entrees, we both had the crab ravioli with brown butter and sage - also very good, but a bit heavy on the sage. I will definitely go back, and look forward to the wait staff ironing out the kinks in timing. I had barely dug into my salad when the ravioli arrived. Otherwise, the service was good, the atmosphere was nice, although not that much different from Jimmy's. Overall, I am considering this a keeper, and the perfect place to take clients for lunch.

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One obvious problem with the newly opened Restaurant K is that it's just as big as it was before, when it was Jimmy's on K Street. I had no idea what to expect when I walked in, but the K-Street happy hour crowd is big, bustling, and noisy. clearing out at around 8 PM. Unfortunately, once the crowd clears out, the fact remains that Restaurant K's beer selection is so tremendously bad that you're forced over to the wines by-the-glass list, which is equally bad. It's a shameful, shameful list of beers and wines by the glass, and there's no excuse for it.

Smoked Corn and Grilled Green Chile Chowder ($5.95) was a decent, zesty bowl of soup, reminding me of something that Alison Swope might have served up back in her glory days at Santa Fe East, the restaurant which used to occupy the space which is now Restaurant Eve.

Cheese Fritters ($8.95) didn't fare as well, a plate of six or seven tater-tot lookalikes, except these are gruyère cheese, not potatoes, coated in a panko crust, and then flash-fried, with a little mound of salad on the side. The first bite was fine, but eating all of them made me tired, the dish not sustaining much more interest than your typical bowl of fried mozzerella sticks.

I walked around the dining room and observed some plates that looked better than what I was seeing at the bar, and then walked out of the restaurant "tentatively pessimistic." My initial reaction is that I don't have a good feeling about this place, but time will tell - certainly Alison Swope has a track record of success, and I really enjoyed her work both at Santa Fe East and Andale.

Cheers,

Rocks.

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Any way to be more specific? (I tried to see if they listed the beers and WBTG on their website, but it seems to be down.)

shaggy, I didn't hoist the bar menu, and so I don't have the list with me. I do remember thinking to myself that Bass and Guinness were about the best of a sorry lot, maybe Sam Adams too, I can't remember. Definitely Miller Lite on tap. I opted for a crummy glass of wine, and for me to do that says something, as I'll take a good beer over a bad wine any day of the week. Unless I missed something, there wasn't one single beer that I wanted to drink.

Funny thing is, I ran into a parallel situation last night - a restaurant with mostly terrible beers and absolutely horrific wines, except that ... they had a perfectly decent Hook and Ladder Golden Ale on tap which saved the night. More on that later. Cheers, Rocks.

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Had lunch at Restaurant K yesterday. Overall a good experience. The "Fifty under Fifty" wine list offered a wide selection to choose from. The Malbec went well with the Roasted Beet Salad that was well balanced with good flavors. Before we could finish our salads our mains were brought out. Why do they do that? The Chili Rellenos with pork and black beans were fine, if a bit well done. Pricing was good and otherwise service was attentive.

-Ed

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Just got back from lunch at Restaurant K...overall good first impression.

The decor and layout is on the corporate cookie cutter side, but there is a nice bar space with plenty of seating. The menu is friendly for having a reasonable lunch at a fair price. I had the soup and sandwich combo (approx. $12) and started with a cup of the smoked corn and green chile chowder, which on a chilly day like today was perfectly creamy and rich with a pleasent heat from the green chile. Then had the lamb sausage sandwich with baby arugula, goat cheese and grilled onions, which came across as a take on a Greek gyro kinda thing in flavor, I would have liked some sort of sauce spread on the bread, it was served with a heaping pile of potato chips. The place was full and the serve was friendly and efficient.

I would definitely go back again for lunch.

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Anyone been here around happy hour time? Do they have any kind of food or drink deals?

They have some food specials on appetizers -- our hummus was $4.50 (not bad and a large portion). I don't believe they have any drink specials, unless $7 for a Sam Adams or Stella is considered special.

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Last night's happy hour was ok, but nothing special. The mango margarita was pretty good, but the food was ok. The queso fundido was alright but served with pieces of soft, floppy toritilla that made it a bit hard to scoop up the the cheese. The Angus burger was cooked to order but not too flavorful, and fries were so so

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