cgarden

I loved, loved Buenos Aires - get up late, have a media-luna and a cafe con leche, do some people-watching, stop off at a sidewalk cafe for lunch and a glass of wine, go to a museum, then sit down to an enormous dinner that rivals the food anywhere, with two bottles of wine, all at a small fraction of what it would cost in DC or NYC (I don't think we ever managed to spend more than $40 on dinner). Repeat the next day. The city is extremely cosmopolitan and friendly to tourists. Great sightseeing and shopping as well. Six months later, and we're trying to go back as soon as possible. (Of course the national specialty is steak, but as a pescatarian, I ate extremely well too.) We went last December, which was perfect, weather-wise.

The +1 and I tried Old Siam last night - we hadn't heard much about it, it's in the neighborhood, and we were too tired to head out to Arlington for Bangkok 54 or Thai Square, so it seemed like a good bet. Everything started out well with tasty Tom Yum soup and summer rolls - all the ingredients were fresh, the rolls had plenty of cilantro and, I think, shiso, and the Tom Yum was more complex-tasting than some (i.e. it was seasoned with more than just chili oil). I moved on to the green papaya salad, which was not spicy at all (not just "not spicy for green papaya salad"), but otherwise fine - just not what I expected a green papaya salad to be. My dining companion had pork drunken noodle, which was underwhelming - rubbery noodles, and the pork was ground. Also not spicy at all (despite the menu's assignment of three chili peppers to the dish). Anyway, it wasn't happy hour while we were there, but I'd probably go back another time for a happy hour $2.00 beer and appetizers. The restaurant seemed to be doing fairly well though - two birthday parties were there while we were (and the staff enthusiastically sang happy birthday to both).

I keep going back to 2 Amys because the pizza is great, but I also love the specials. On Saturday night, they had a panini with rapini, roasted lamb, and eggplant marmalade. It was very tasty and so different than what I usually eat. My dining companions kept laughing at me as I was dumbfounded by this sandwich. The lamb was a nice big slice almost like fresh roast beef and the rapini was bright, crunchy and slightly bitter. I think what made the combo so unusual to me was the cold marmalade that consisted of cooked and macerated eggplant, some sugar I think (it was sweet) and some hot chili flakes. Overall delicious and different. If you were like me for a long time and only ordered pizza at 2 Amys, I highly recommend branching out to the specials menu.

Funny you should mention, we have been several times with the thought that we'd share a panini and a pizza (last night, we very nearly ordered a smoked mackeral panini), but when it comes right down to it, the pizza is too hard to pass up. Next time, we'll have to strengthen our resolve.

New on the menu: warm ricotta tart with Sorrento lemon ice cream. The tart has a lightly sweetened, slightly fluffy ricotta filling in a very short crust. The ice cream is just barely sweet enough to keep your mouth from puckering.

Lemon ice cream - my favorite.

I had this dessert last night - the lemon ice cream hit the spot, especially given the swampy heat outside (the 2-block walk from the parking spot was painful), but I thought it overpowered the tart (which, for my taste at least, was a bit overcooked - the crust was more than a few shades past golden-brown). As tasty as the lemon was, 2A's Mint Chocolate Chip is still my favorite - it's like no mint ice cream I've ever had, earthy as well as sweet, no industrial mint extract in sight.

For dinner, we started with the suppli, which has won out over the salt-cod fried appetizer as our standard, then I had the basic pizza with tomatoes and eggplant (which I wouldn't recommend to someone who likes a drier pizza, but fortunately, I'm usually in the "extra sauce" camp -- which, I know, is a controversial and inauthentic camp). My fiance had pesto and one of the special ingredients, grilled green onions, on his pizza - the onions were huge and served whole, so we had an extra step cutting them up and distributing them more equitably on the pizza. As always, we had to be rolled out, only to find ourselves eating the leftovers two hours later.

Has anyone tried the Tuesday-night wine tasting at Vidalia? What is it like? Does it tend to get very crowded? Should I (or is it possible to) make reservations?