Tujague

I've been meaning to try lunch at Sona for awhile, and Restaurant Week seemed as good a time as any, since their lunch menu included most of their regular offerings with a few different items. Depending on what one ordered, one would basically get a free dessert, or a meal about 1/3 less than what would pay for just two courses, so not too bad a deal. Bob had the two-cheese plate for his starter (since the 3-cheese plate is $18, this was about a $12 value), which was a very attractive slate tray with four sizeable piece of cheese (St. George--a parmesan-like hard cheese, and the tangy Casatica de Bufala), a few blueberries, housemade mango chutney and blueberry-thyme jam, and candied walnuts, along with a more-substantial-than-most bread basket--very nice. My gazpacho was lovely also, with a small amount of whey sorbet; I assume the advertised "grains of paradise" were pureed with the rest. We both opted for burgers--Bob had lamb with Ossau-Iraty cheese, arugula puree, and black olive aioli, while I went for beef, with Der Scharfe Maxx and aioli. Both were modest-sized but juicy and creative--a good lunch entree. For dessert, we both went for the lemon curd with meringue, goat cheese "snow," a crunchy topping with some unidentified herb, and blueberries--sort of a deconstructed lemon meringue pie. Decent. There were very few customers, but the meal itself suggested again that this is an underrated place that deserves more of an audience: it's modest but offering some intriguing twists on standard fare at a reasonable price, RW or not.

For poached eggs, I've recently tried the method in the most recent issue of Cooks' Illustrated. Here, you use a nonstick skillet, add vinegar to the water, bring to a boil, add the eggs to the water using a teacup, remove from the heat and cover for 3-5 minutes. It doesn't make a perfect egg necessarily, but seems to work better for me than the stir-the-pot-of-water method, and the eggs are easy to remove with no excessive strings of white. (The only trick I found is moving the pan off-heat without spilling the water, but that likely would be easy on a flat-surface stove.)

To Elaine Stritch. She's still here.

For the second time in as many trips, Bob and I wound up at the Dundee Bistro for lunch last week, run by the folks who own the Ponzi winery. If you find yourself in Dundee, this is a very respectable lunch option, though the AC was a bit wonky when we were there. The wood-fired pizzas are large and tasty (I had the Lambrusco, with roasted red grapes, blue cheese, and bacon, on a fine crackery crust) and Bob a simple but substantial turkey sandwich with truffled fries. We haven't had wine while there, but the list is substantial, focused on local wineries, and Ponzi wines can be bought in the tasting room next door. I believe on an earlier visit Bob had a good pasta dish, and I had a Reuben sandwich I enjoyed. This is an area gathering place, from what I can tell, and a good option if you're out in the Willamette Valley.

Five meals in the Twin Cities this past week, ranging from the passable to the terrific: Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge, a quasi-tiki bar in Northeast Minneapolis seems exceptional mainly for its massive riverside deck, overlooking the swollen Mississippi River. Mojitos and the Grain Belt-breaded cheese curds were decent, but their mainstay pizza was ordinary at best and the service, well, distracted. Go for the deck and the lively crowd; tolerate the food. Brasserie Zentral, a new Austrian restaurant in the Soo Line building in downtown Minneapolis, has a nice vibe, but it's hard for me to judge the place based on our lunch. My vegetable holiskes, cabbage stuffed with veggies and kamut berries, and sitting in a sweet-and-sour tomato sauce, looked terrific, but was a bit blah. Bob liked his pork cheeks braised in Maibock beer (that's what the online menu says; I could have sworn they were beef cheeks), but I didn't taste them, or the quark spaetzle that our dining companion had, and liked. Beer menu seemed decent. This may or may not be a good addition to downtown, but it seems to be trying, and prices were respectable. The Lowry, just north of the Uptown area, offers bargain-priced slightly upscale comfort food. For instance, my chicken with potatoes and carrots ($14.50) featured two nicely cooked of skin-on boneless chicken on top of a massive pile of skin-on mashed potatoes and a raft of fresh green-top carrots, and a near salad-portion of arugula on top. Not that elegantly presented, but delicious, and a huge portion. Bob liked his salmon burger ($11.50, again untasted), which hung over the bun by a substantial margin. Our companions had the blue bison burger ($12.25) and the steelhead trout ($18), both of which looked excellent and huge. Nicely crafted drinks as well, for a reasonable $8-10. Nothing fancy or earthshaking, but satisfying eating. The Craftsman Restaurant, near the Seward neighborhood in South Minneapolis (on Lake Street) was surely the highlight of the trip: the restaurant itself has a lovely arts-and-craft feel, but on a nice, blessedly rain-free night we went for the patio, where three of us enjoyed their specialty of whole roasted rainbow trout, butterflied on a bed of (I think, memory escapes me) garlicky barley with greens and other vegetables; the outlier in our group had the delicious-looking gnocchi. An affordable ($30), fruit-forward viognier complimented these perfectly. Highly recommended. Muffuletta, on Como Avenue in St. Anthony Park, used to be my go-to place for an affordable nice meal. In fact, the friend that joined us there for lunch recalled how we always used to order their terrific burgers, to the point that they called us "The Burger Boys." I wish I could say they were still as memorable, but beyond the delightful deck, they seem a shadow of their former self. Bob found his chicken-salad sandwich rather ordinary and unflavorable; my Asian burger--pork with peanuts and scallions, topped with an Asianish slaw and peanut dressing--was just okay; and our friend's three-course special of salad, chicken with vegetables, and pound cake with ice cream and fruit was unremarkable. I should have ordered the regular burger to see if it was still decent, but the bland food and slow service tainted my good memories of this place. Go for the deck in one of the Twin Cities' most perfect neighborhoods, and forgive the food. My takeaway: having not returned to the Twin Cities for seven years (and having lived there for nearly 20 years, 1979-1998), the food scene is slowly but surely improving. Everyone told me terrific things about the Bachelor Farmer, and there are other attractive places around. Wish I could have gone to my old favorite, The Modern Cafe, which still stands as my mainstay for slightly upscale comfort food. --- [ETA: What a wonderful post! DR]

Closing July 1 for renovations. I hope this is good news; the dining room here was hands-down the annoying space in which I have tried to dine in this city. Absolutely horrible lighting (either too dim or glaring directly in your eyes), noisy, awkward booths. Since the place already has a substantial bar area, as I recall, this suggests that perhaps they are going to steer away from a conventional dinner menu and focus even more on small or shareable plates. Overall, this has struck me as one of those places that is never as good as it promises to be, even with a solid chef at the helm.

Anthony isn't in between jobs, as far as I know; he's a business developer and culinary director for an importer of pizza ovens. He told me awhile back that he wanted to get more into the business side of things, and he left Seventh Hill in part because there was no way he would be given any sort of partnership. (And the last I saw him, he looked much healthier than he did toward the end of his run at Seventh Hill.) It's been awhile since I had a pizza there, but the last one I had showed little if any drop-off in quality, so perhaps the issue is more consistency, particularly when the place is slammed, or who's in charge of the oven on any given night. And I suppose it's a business calculation as to whether they need a pizziaolo like Pilla at this point if they feel they have the basics right. Your post suggests perhaps they don't have them together as much as they should.

I am so sad to hear this. I admired his writing a great deal when he worked for the Post.

Yikes! That's really bad. This restaurant group is the biggest clusterf**k in the city; I wish a reputable restaurateur would take it over or that Xavier would sell them off piece by piece to people who could make decent places out of them all.

Sona launched its brunch service this weekend, which happens to be when Bob and I paid them our first visit. The tables were only spottily occupied at 1:00 PM today, so the service was quick and friendly (if slightly formal at points, which I suppose beats over-friendliness). Bob's French toast ($10) might have seemed rather ordinary, with a pair of eggy baguette pieces coupled with fresh strawberries and syrup, but it was made exceptional by a tangy goat cheese spread that cut the sweetness nicely. My poutine ($12) brought together otherwise unexceptional French fries with excellent cheese curds, a nice lamb gravy and a fried egg. Rich, but damned tasty. The portions weren't huge for the cost, but not overly filling either, which was nice. The rest of the menu featured shirred eggs, pork belly, a veggie frittata, and a few of their regular lunch sandwiches. The bloody marys (which we didn't have) struck me as a bit pricey at $11, they looked interesting; the wines by the glass are also not inexpensive. Still, this seems like of those under-the-radar places on the Hill (like Tash, Pound, Zest, etc.) that are doing some pleasant cooking that may not get a lot of buzz but make for respectable dining. Worth checking out.

Actually, there are several restaurants on Barracks Row that offer valet parking, all on the 500 block. I know Cava and Trattoria Alberto participate in that; I'm not sure which others do. And, as others have noted, there almost always seems to be plenty of parking in the lot beneath the freeway, which is a block away from Rose's. Parking is less of a problem than many make it out to be; it's just not all on the street. Slightly off-topic, but many also complain that Little Serow only will take parties up to 4 people; Rose's seems designed mainly for 2-4 people (I think there's one table in the back bar area that may accommodate 6), so the upstairs deck does give them an option for larger parties, who are willing to pay for it. In both cases, though, it seems like the menus are designed in such a way that it would be hard to serve people easily in larger groups, unless there is that dedicated area with a different approach, which Rose's now has.

There are plenty of restaurants around town that are not particularly friendly to seniors or those with physical limitations for reasons that aren't restricted to not taking reservations. Indeed, even those that do take reservations may not be able to guarantee a comfortable or accessible space within which to wait if there's a delay, or a table that is easily accessible, or in a space where noise isn't an issue. I find it curious that throughout this issue of "hospitality," no one has actually documented a case where anyone at Rose's was directly inhospitable to a prospective diner, which indicates to me that they are pretty clear-eyed about their policy and handle with it relative aplomb, given the crowds. I find it sad that this gets focused so much on one restaurant, or pits one against another, which feels more like a resentment of popularity than a truly substantive criticism that goes beyond issues of personal convenience. And, anyone who is sentimental about the "better" behaviors of seniors should go to the weekend movies at the National Gallery of Art, where it's the older viewers who are far ruder and more talkative than the younger generations.

Yeah, that wasn't the most well-written news release; I'm still scratching my head over what they intend. The wi-fi at Pound is really inconsistent; I meet with a group there every week, and half the time we can't get on it. But yeah, the staff is very nice and it's perhaps the only coffee house on that side of the Hill that actually has space to accommodate larger groups.

I've not been overly enamored with the brunches I've had at Le Diplomate but we still gave it another shot on Memorial Day. On my last visit I had the Croque Monsieur, which was fine, but not better than others I've had around town. This time, I decided to aim at other parts of the menu, and had the Burger Américain, the recipe for which was recently featured at the Washingtonian, and is definitely an upscale take on a Big Mac. It's actually a decent option, different from the thick burgers that are the current trend around town. Here, the two thinnish patties retain a lot of juice (they're cooked to medium to slightly more well done, which works fine on this sandwich) and have the requisite "special sauce," pickles, red onion, etc., on a brioche bun. This is a reminder that the basic idea behind the Big Mac is actually really good, and can be rendered well with some care; I'm surprised it hasn't gotten much attention here. As Rocks mentioned above, the fries are over-salted though not inedibly so (no worse than the fries at Bearnaise). Bob had the Eggs Basquaise for a second time, two poached eggs on a nice polenta and a tomato/prosciutto sauce. At $15 apiece, I felt I got the better deal. Service was okay--as on other visits, a bit slow to start, and the server forgot to bring us our drinks until we were half-done with our meals (I do like the Atlas Brewery Rye Ale they have on tap), but in the end he basically acquitted himself. By 1:30, there were quite a few tables available throughout the restaurant; holidays are a good time to try brunch here. In the future, I suspect I'll stick more with the more lunch-like items rather than the breakfast/brunch dishes--they're more substantial, and I think the better offerings. (Unlike some others, I'm not a fan of that thick-crusted quiche.)

OK, that brought a tear to my eye. I know who I'll be raising a glass to when Bob and I hit Annie's in a couple hours--which seems utterly appropriate for all sorts of reasons. Peace to you both as you grieve his loss as well as joy as you remember his life.

Don suggested that we comment on what's going on at places that rarely come up, and so, a few comments on Annie's. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that this is probably the place where I wind up eating most often, since as I note above, I am fully aware that it's not a particularly "good" restaurant. The reasons for that frequency are this: (1) a cheap happy hour with decent enough martinis and manhattans; (2) friendly service that is especially attentive to regulars (looking at you, Manny and Ramon); (3) a few pretty good (or good enough) dishes that are prepared with remarkable consistency; (4) Bob likes it, especially since we can get out for around $30 apiece, including two drinks. Again, that doesn't mitigate the overall mediocrity, but I've come to realize that on a Friday evening after spending the week editing work on critical social theory, diasporic feminist theology, the Deuteronomistic authorship, or the Palestinian occupation, it's kind of nice for me to go out to a place where I don't have to think too much about what I'm eating but still not hate myself for eating it. The burgers are still pretty good, though not to the level of the burger renaissance that others have initiated; the pork chop can be excellent, as well as the half-chicken; I like the onion rings; and that pear-chicken salad really isn't bad. If you want to have a vegetable, hope that they have asparagus or green beans on that day. Nothing special, but usually well-prepared--there hasn't been much change since my last post in this thread, and that's not necessarily a totally bad thing. I did wind up here at brunch on Palm Sunday. My bloody mary was large, but blah. As I recall, my entree was a variation on eggs benedict, and it came through as something that would be utterly delicious if I was nursing a mean hangover. Objectively, that's faint praise, but there's still something weirdly honorable in that.

This is sort of a perplexing thread, which is not to say that it's not worth doing, but because there are literally dozens of well-regarded places that I can think of that rarely get discussed here (and Brian and LauraB noted a few obvious contenders); the question that comes to mind is, Why? Some may fall to the discussion wayside simply because of consistency and few changes (like, perhaps, Ray's)--what's new to say? Posting "Still good" may seem pointless. But does it have to do with changing dining habits? Trend-chasing? A reluctance to talk about a place that everyone already seems to know about (even if it is undergoing regular changes in menu that would seem worthy of notice). Simply too many new places? That said, one place that used to discussed constantly is Cork, which has not been the case for some time, perhaps even before Ron Tanaka left. (And for that matter, where's the talk about Thally?) I don't disagree on Oval Room, but many of Ashok's places don't get a lot of notice here either (701? Ardeo-Bardeo? Bibiana?) I've only been to Montmartre for brunch since Brian Wilson left, and I haven't seen much significant change. I think Stephane Lezla is holding down the fort.

Joe, you sound like just the kind of guy I would love to do business with, if I was in your line of business. Your point is well taken; those few early reservations do you give you some security for doing a business dinner. But let's face it; most of these places in question are not catering to a business crowd. You in some ways are an exception of being a food lover who seems to want to give your clients the best that DC can offer. I admire that. This is becoming sort of a Rose's vs. Red Hen debate, which is unfortunate, and I've contributed to that. They're two different places in two very different neighborhoods (and I don't see Red Hen as particularly accessible since I don't own a car and it's not particularly close to a Metro station--obviously, we live very different lives!). The point I see here is that things like reservations (limited or more open), valet parking, etc. certainly do convey a sense of courtesy and hospitality; but I don't think it follows that not offering those thereby necessarily renders a place discourteous or inhospitable, which even SIetsema seems to imply. It alters the experience, obviously, but does not in and of itself mean they're doing things "wrong" (though some may well do wrong, particularly if they have incompetent staff or other weak policies/practices in the business). As I was trying to say above re: Open Table, online reservations contributed to a shift in some power between restaurant and diner, and as some who have screamed about the abuse of the system have suggested, that has not necessarily been for the better; there are lots of cultural shifts going on here, and it's not just generational. I would hope that some places taking back some of the control that has been ceded to the diner may somehow ultimately redound to the benefit of many places who have struggled with these abuses, in which case everyone benefits.

Because they're playing with a different business and service model than the rest of the space? What's wrong with that? Late 50s here also, and I also don't agree with the ageism issue, outside of the "technology first" question I raised above. And I don't really see what a "limited reservations" policy would achieve since it would probably only apply to the times when it's already easy enough to snag a table. Let's face it: Rose's has chosen to fuck with our accepted norms of doing business, and that is going to drive some people nuts. Period. That doesn't make them arrogant, cynical, inhospitable, or whatever label you want to put on them. Their signature sign (that too many people feel compelled to steal) says "Fuck perfect," and they actually live into that. Deal with it.

Hey, my recent trip to the DMV to get my Real ID/driver's license renewal was terrific--in and out in under a half-hour, and friendly service to boot! That word "control" comes up quite a bit here and seems to be what sets many people off: yes, the restaurant does have control over its policies and chooses not to use that power as some would prefer; thus, Red Hen "gets it right" and Rose's doesn't. It's insinuated that the latter is somehow inhospitable or arrogant or cynical, which is really more perception than reality: I experience their no-reservations policy as inhospitable--it's reality only to the person who experiences it, since others don't necessarily experience that way. So basically, this feels like a matter of resentment that some businesses choose to fuck with the norm and sense of control that people have come to expect, and some even feel entitled to (and I'm accusing no one there). But sometimes we need a few norm-breakers to help us see the world differently, to ask how something became a norm in the first place, and put things in perspective.

I imagine one of the reasons the no-reservations policy irks Sietsema has to do with having a job where he eats out (according to him) an average of 13 times a week, which requires a lot of planning, especially when writing a restaurant guide. No reservations complicates his job, which he can then imagine as also a complication for people with kids, seniors, and others who don't eat for a living but may have particular needs. It's curious, however, to think of how much Open Table (and, to a lesser degree, City Eats and other online reservations systems) has likely changed our ideas about table reservations: it puts that task so much more under the control of the diner, and less the host/hostess who commandeers the reservations book. I know for myself that I am much more likely to try to dine at places that offer online reservations than if I have to call and speak to a person (damn my introversion!). Not only that, I often forget about places that aren't on Open Table when I think about places I might want to eat. Add in that OT doesn't just serve the fine-dining industry but also restaurants that at least I would never even think about reserving a table (and, needless to say, the definition of "fine dining" is in flux). OT has only been around for 15 years, yet it seems to have had as profound an enculturating effect on diners as it has changed restaurant practices. I'd be curious to know some of the social history of table reservations in America. Were they once mainly the province of the well-to-do and the "fine-dining" industry? When did they become more a middle-class phenomenon? It's also curious to me how all this is biased not just to the young or the powerful, but to the technologically connected: these systems favor those who live and die by their smartphones, and exclude those (like me) who thus far have chosen not to do that, for whatever reason. I get the frustrations/concerns on both sides, but sometimes it helps to examine critically the norms that we have come to accept for ourselves before projecting motives/attitudes on those who resist those norms, diners and restaurateurs alike.

Don, even if you weren't mentioned here by name, I think one can parse some respect for you here in the interview.

In case people missed it, Metro Weekly did a great interview with Tom Sietsema this past week that's a must-read. I was a bit daunted by this revelation: "I spend over 40 hours a week in a restaurant. I eat out an average of 13 meals a week." And this: "When I'm working on the Fall Dining Guide, I go to about 100 restaurants starting in May and June for publication in October, so I'm thinking fall. I'm not eating watermelon and rhubarb and soft-shell crabs. I'm looking for haunches of meat and heavier things knowing that this is going to appear in print in October." In all, it left me respecting what he does--and what it takes to do it--even more, even if I don't always agree with his tastes or assessment.

In her novella The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty wrote one of my favorite character descriptions of all time, when her narrator Edna Earle Ponder describes Uncle Daniel Ponder's estranged bride Bonnie Dee Peacock as "curled up on Grandma's rosewood sofa . . . eating the kind of fudge anybody can make." My mom would have never stooped to making that kind of fudge, but her precisely cooked and beaten mixture of chocolate, butter, cream, and vanilla was my other highlight of every Christmas, and to this day no one in the family has quite been able to reproduce it, even as we all pronounced it the world's best. I suspect the secret was in the old Revereware pan she cooked it in (missing its Bakelite handle) and/or the silver spoon she beat it with--still one of my treasures, with the left edge of its bowl worn flat from the fearsome beating she gave to that hot chocolatey soup until it surrendered into a silky mass that melted the second it touched human lips. Nearly as impressive was her tissue-thin peanut brittle, stretched to its translucent limits by her buttered fingers that must have been utterly calloused from years of contact with the hot caramelized sugar.

Joe H. recently asked in a posting on Fiola Mare whether people in "new" neighborhoods like Barracks Row, Shaw, and 14th St. are more likely to stay in their own backyards rather than venture out to experience other areas. I questioned this assertion with some offense, but this new study suggests that there may be something to that question after all. The basic finding is that the higher the percentage of same-sex couples in a neighborhood (a "gayborhood"), the gay men in that area tend to travel shorter distances out of it; even lesbians and straights tend to travel shorter distances than those who live in neighborhoods with fewer same-sex couples, though not at as high a rate. Given that DC has one of the highest percentages of same-sex couples in the country, and many of them are moving into and living in these "new" neighborhoods, it may be absolutely true that there is more of a "stay-close-to-home" phenomenon going on here. If this is so, the impact on restaurants would seem to be strong. Of course, one could ask if this is a chicken-or-egg phenomenon: Is it more true that businesses draw these demographics, or that the demographics draw the businesses. Still, this suggests anyone wanting to develop a "neighborhood" restaurant might want to see which areas have the higher densities of same-sex--particularly gay male--populations in order to target a local audience. And yeah, I was wrong.