Pat

A little story. I hadn't been in for a while and they sent me a $5 off takeout or delivery code. I was going to be near the Navy Yard location around dinnertime so I put in an order. I would have liked pizza and it would have been much cheaper, but I had a long walk home and holding a pizza box flat that whole time seemed too much. Since I usually get pizza when I'm eating in and sometimes salad too, I went with items I may or may not have had at some point but which looked good and would travel in bags.

The order was for a Caesar salad and a house salad and eggplant parm. I could not decide if I should get the meatballs or not. After dillydallying, I decided against and put the order in. Then, D'oh!, I realized I forgot the $5 code. So I put a second order in for the meatballs and used the code. It looked okay, but it didn't take. Ugh.

I got to the restaurant and signs they were closing in a bit for a private event, so just asked for a manager. It didn't seem like the simplest process for her, but she was able to take the $5 off. I brought the food home and reheated the eggplant and meatballs for a little while in the oven. We enjoyed it. I really like their salads.

Each of the four items was in the $16 - $18 range, whereas one pizza with extras would be about $22, so I wasn't too bargain savvy here. But the nice manager did get me the $5.

Baked chicken leg quarters with BBQ sauce, baked sweet potatoes, buttered green beans, rice pilaf

Breakfast for Sunday night dinner: pumpernickel raisin French Toast with butter and maple syrup; bacon; and fried potatoes, peppers, and mushrooms.

I wasn't feeling very motivated or energetic tonight. I baked some bacon in the oven and roasted some kale in the bacon fat, along with cherry tomatoes. They were seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes. When everything was pretty well cooked down, I drizzled a little balsamic over it for the remaining time. When we were about ready to eat, I tossed some cubed feta in with the rest and returned to the oven briefly until the feta got melty. This all got mixed together with wheatberries I'd cooked in chicken stock, some of the bacon (crumbled), and pine nuts I'd toasted in a small pan in the oven.

This was pretty good. We had it with some sourdough bread.

Unfortunately there was no popcorn soup. The server said something about how it would be back when the weather got colder.🤷‍♀️ The bread (challah with rye toast and  caraway seed butter with honey) was as spectacular as it's ever been, however. We asked for a second one and ate most of that too.

I'm going to attach a menu. The Fois Gras Tart is listed under small plates but was brought out first as an amuse bouche. I personally enjoyed the pasta courses (i.e., Cacio e Pepe and Stuffed Gnocchi) the most. For the main course we had the Eggplant Parm, which was my second favorite course. Chocolate Souffle for dessert. The malted vanilla ice cream that came with that was fabulous. They even packed up the tiny bit of souffle that was left for us to bring home. For our $150pp+ we had leftovers, plus they also gave us 2 half sandwiches for later and Capri Suns.  I think the meat was lamb but not sure. (My husband had them for lunch.) They gave us tote bags to carry it all home.

It seemed like a pretty classic Rose's experience, except we didn't have to wait in line . It certainly hit the memory notes just right for a 10th birthday/anniversary dinner.

The thing about Rose's that has always struck me is the generosity of the hospitality. That is basically their mission statement. This had that, where our previous visit--which was still very expensive just not quite as much--didn't have that feeling so much.

I don't drink Capri Sun. (My husband drinks them when we get them there.) It's a 90s thing, which tracks with the ownership and management of the restaurant and is one of their distinctive features, along with the pork and lychee salad. The intentional branding has been there since day one. Aaron Silverman knows what he's doing and turns out great and creative food. I'm hoping that post-pandemic they can continue to thrive. I felt like they really nailed the hospitality element again with this. The experience, the feeling--those are hard to conjure.

We had an early dinner at Lupo Verde on 14th two Saturdays ago. I hadn't been in quite a while and it really has an Italian feel to it. It did before but it seemed more pronounced to me now. My husband was really wowed by the meal. I enjoyed it too, but he was raving about it. The last two meals we had out before this were at Rose's and Albi, so his enthusiasm is noteworthy.

Normally I think it's good when restaurants keep changing their menus, but in this case I can't tell from the online menu what we had, because it's rather different. 🙁

We both had the Lupo Verde Salad, which was Caesarish and enormous. It was more like a Caesar salad than what a lot of places promote as a Caesar. It now appears on the menu with a description close to the one I described above from quite a long time ago (hazelnuts, etc.). They now list a Caesar but it has grilled Romaine. Ours was not grilled. Nor was it chopped, which was one of the few things that made it seem less traditionally Caesar Salad.

Our mains were pasta. My husband's was Fettuccine Alla Norcina. There is a Tagliatelle Alla Norcina on the current menu, and the description (sausage, porcini mushrooms, truffle) looks close. I had a thinner pasta* with a vodka sauce. I didn't expect I'd need to remember it so soon or I would have taken notes 🤨. Both were delicious. Portions were large enough that we brought food home.

Service was decent but could have been a bit more attentive, though the person who filled the water glasses was super attentive. We finally asked for bread pretty far along. It was an excellent focaccia with bits of green olives.

The food that passed by also looked wonderful, including the whole roasted branzino (?), which was encased in something and set on fire to be brought out. We got to see the whole spectacle, down to the flames being put out expertly when it was presented. Wow.

If I lived closer I would be here more frequently.

*Edited with the middle-of-the night recollection that it was not thin pasta. It was ravioli stuffed to its limits with oh-so-moist shredded short rib. It suddenly hit me that I had told my husband it seemed like a rustic homemade pasta, as the dough was pretty thick. It had to be to hold that much meat without bursting.

Turkey meatballs, vodka sauce, and basil over eggplant ravioli
Polenta stacks, mozzarella, basil, and vodka sauce

Not as fancy (or homemade) as it sounds. I made the turkey meatballs myself, but that was about it. The pasta sauce and polenta were from TJ's (and the polenta was leftover from slices I previously cooked). The ravioli came frozen in a box from Whole Foods. The mozzarella was pre-sliced from Costco (that was the only kind of low moisture mozzarella they had when my husband went). Basil came from a vendor at Eastern Market.

Roasted wild salmon with blackberry sauce, roasted broccolini with nutritional yeast, and buttered green beans last night.

Last night was a skillet meal of roasted butternut squash, hot Italian sausage, basil, cream, and butternut squash ravioli. Parmesan on top. Sourdough bread.

I roasted a whole Bell and Evans chicken last night in the oven, using the convection roast setting. I roasted a couple whole sweet potatoes at the same time. (I poured a little maple syrup on mine because I love maple syrup on sweet potatoes.)

The chicken roasted on a bed of sliced onion and a mixture of quartered bell and poblano peppers. Some of the peppers were more to the side. I took the pepper and onion trimmings and mixed with some cubed stale striata baguette (improper storage = hard bread. Gah.). That mixture went into the cavity for an impromptu stuffing. Otherwise...melted butter over the chicken, plus lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I cut up several of the season's last tomatoes from the farmers market and threw them into the mixture closer to the end. It all melted together nicely.

The roasting pan was left to me by a friend who passed away 7 years ago. It's a well-loved and-used Descoware Belgian pan. It is perfect for a roasting a whole chicken with veggies around. I think of her every time I use it. ❤️

The Descoware, after cleaning:

There is now a Sala Thai in the Park Kennedy Apartments near Stadium - Armory metro (1901 C Street, SE). It opened a few months ago, but yesterday evening was the first time I stopped in. I got some food to take out, and I have no idea* why I made the choices I did. I got one order of Pad Se Ew with Marinated Pork (flat rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, and egg; $16) and one order of...Beef Sukiyaki (cellophane noodles, special sauce; $17). Given that they also have a sushi menu, I suppose getting a Japanese beef dish in a Thai restaurant isn't completely bizarre, but I preferred the pork. In addition to the sweetness being a bit too sweet, the sukiyaki had some sort of aftertaste I couldn't quite identify. I'd happily order the pork again but maybe one of the curries to go with it.

This said, it was a ton of food for the price. It was heavy carrying it home.

Locating near metro stations seems like it should be a pretty good strategy, but when I looked at the online menu for the [.pdf warning] Minnesota Ave. location, it looked pretty different from the [.pdf] Park Kennedy. On the other hand, maybe that shouldn't be a "but" and it's a product of demographic research.

*I also got a covid booster and flu shot yesterday and felt terrible (last October: same 2 shots and felt fine), so this may have had something to do with my scattershot ordering and impressions. My taste buds seem a little off, still. But, I didn't have to cook last night!

Last night was roasted delicata squash halves stuffed with a mixture of garlicky greens*, basmati rice, and shredded Parmesan. I roasted the squash with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper. When they were about done, I pulled them out and added the cooked chopped greens and rice. Topped with the Parmesan and put back in the hot oven until it was all finished.

We also had pita from Yellow.

*Curly kale, plus dandelion and radish greens

I believe the cookies may have also had some cardamom.

Your photo of the pita is much better than mine, Don 😋. And I forgot about the little S shaped cookies at the end.

I'd been trying to get a reservation for a while and finally got one by trying at the end or beginning of a month (forget now), right when they opened new slots.

We had a midweek dinner at Albi. The food was delicious and beautifully plated. The ambiance was LOUD. All those hard surfaces look cool, but it was hard to have a conversation across a table for two. And the tables were a bit too close together for getting in and out. In my twenties, I probably wouldn't have cared about either, but this restaurant didn't exist then either. So 🙃.

As for the actual food, we started with both snacks (sfeeha and eggplant arayes), which are as small as the menu indicates they are. Very delicious bites, though. I love their pita at Yellow, and we ordered the baba ganoush, which comes with a giant puffy version of that. I was able to confirm that it's za'atar and extra sumac on top. The charred eggplant was wonderful. Fabulous dish.

For our main we had the BBQ'd lamb kebob. What a gorgeous construction this is. The $82 price tag was mellowed a bit by the fact it was enough for two. Pretty much grilled perfection in addition to the aesthetic element. It was listed as ALC Lamb on the check, which I take to be a la carte, so it may also be part of the Sofra fixed price menu.

Service was fine, but it was somewhat hard to hear what the various people were saying. Otherwise, we didn't get dessert, and I had a Lebanese beer (Almaza Pilsner).

Puffy pita

Leftovers rock. The flavor builds up in them.

I'm using leftover beef and lamb stock to make a beef stew tonight. The last of the quinoa salad and some bread to go alongside.

Tonight I made this with some chicken cutlets I bought on sale at WF. Served alongside basmati rice and braised kale with hot pepper sauce. The appetizer was the cream cheese with pepper jelly over top and Triscuits.

I cooked a few short ribs I bought on sale at Whole Foods in the InstantPot last night and used the shredded meat to make some pita filling. I added some of the cherry tomatoes that were part of the cooking ensemble and some chopped parsley to the warmed pita halves, plus a dollop of Little Sesame caramelized onion hummus on top. Pitas were from Yellow. I saved the rest of the liquid to make some kind of beef vegetable soup.

This accompanied premade items I put on a platter: WF lemon pepper shrimp over Foxtrot Spicy Lime Red Quinoa Salad. I also scooped some of the shrimp quinoa mixture into halved avocados that had been sprinkled with salt, pepper, and lime juice and put them alongside on the platter. This concept worked really well and was super fast.

I made this squash beer cheese soup last night. It was pretty good. The rest of the meal was InstantPot turkey thighs with vegetables, herbs, and fresh and dried cranberries. The fresh cranberries were purchased at the end of last season and had been sitting in a clamshell in the refrigerator. Since they looked okay when I periodically eyed them. I never threw them out. I figured they probably weren't actually okay, especially over time, but many of them were, surprisingly, salvageable when I finally dug them out. The vegetables were onion, garlic, carrots, and celery. The herbs: rosemary and thyme. We served the turkey over jasmine rice.

R.I.P. Brooks, and my condolences, Don. It's hard to see your heroes go.

Rose's is celebrating their 10th anniversary October 4 - 14, with $150 pp special. I read the email right after it hit my inbox yesterday, started  browsing the dates (Wednesday through Saturday only), and by the time I decided to grab an 8 o'clock reservation rather than 5:30, the 8 was gone. I watched the times for different days disappear as I browsed. I grabbed the 5:30.

Basically, the whole selection of times had been picked over and depleted within 10 minutes of the email going out. So Rose's is still popular! Mostly what's left now are 9:30s.

They promise old favorites,  so I'm hoping for popcorn soup 🍿 😃

Market price for a lobster roll at Navy Yard yesterday was $37. My friend loves their lobster rolls, so it was worth it to her. She also had clam chowder and we split a half dozen oysters of different sizes. Of course I cannot recall the name of the ones I liked the most. I think they were listed as medium but were pretty large. From Virginia, I believe. I also got a shrimp cocktail and fries. The fries are back to being pretty consistently good.

The shrimp cocktail here gets me nostalgic. It was one of my favorite things to order at restaurants as a kid. When we went out to dinner, I could order whatever I wanted. There were eyebrows raised about the price (even then!) but I was allowed to get shrimp cocktail. The only thing I couldn't order was the chopped iceberg and onion salad (plus a couple tiny cubes of not real ripe tomato) that came with a vinegar heavy vinaigrette. It was the standard salad at the red sauce Italian place we went to on Friday nights. My mother would order it and let me have some. With the amount of hers I polished off, you'd think she would have let me order my own.

Sunday night I made a hearty fall kind of comfort meal: pork loin roast* (air fryer), green beans, roasted garlic - Parmesan mashed potatoes, and (purchased) sauerkraut. Haven't made a meal like that in a while. The pork came out especially moist. It was really good.

All I seasoned the pork with was some Schwartz's poultry seasoning my husband brought back from Montreal some time ago. He bought that and their steak seasoning. I'm almost out and wondering if I should re-order online, since both of the seasonings have been quite good, in my experience. Poultry seasoning, generally, makes a good crossover to pork.

Last night was roasted wild Coho salmon* with a cognac cream sauce that was originally supposed to be Calvados, but I combined plain VSOP cognac and pear cognac. I roasted it on a sheet pan with halved cherry tomatoes and previously lightly cooked green beans and broccoli florets. Just avocado oil, salt, and pepper for seasonings. It came out really well. Served with Atwater's scalded rye bread.

I had the sauce left over from making salmon not that long before, according to a recipe that called for pan-frying the fish and serving over a frisee salad. The recipe I followed said it would make extra sauce, but I'm kind of running out of things to use it on.

*On sale at Whole Foods. With the prices of meat being so high (or seeming to be), I frequently decide what to make based on their prime specials.

This recipe for Thai-influenced chicken meatballs turned out pretty well last night. Served with white rice. I didn't follow exact amounts and it was fine. Not feeling terribly inspired these days. Aiming for a turkey meatloaf tonight, which is really what you want to do when it's almost 100F outside...

Bumping this thread up because I went searching to see if I'd had Floating Island here, which indeed, I had. When I got it at Bistrot Lepic last night, it wasn't subtitled in English on the menu, so it didn't occur to me that's what it was until I was writing up that meal. Then I got this feeling I'd had it at Montmartre but labeled in English. Bingo. They were too far apart to compare, but I loved both versions, so I guess this a French dessert I am partial to.

R.I.P. Montmartre