Tweaked

1) Lechon Buns from Doce Provisions

2) Cubano from Versailles

We spent several days down in Miami last week.  Turned out it was also the South Beach Wine and Food Festival (SOBEWFF) weekend, fortunately we didn't run into any Food Network stars.

Miami Beach/Mid Beach Area

Shepherd Artisan Coffee - Coffee shop/cafe along an unassuming Collins Ave shopping strip, a block from the beach.  Good coffee, pastries, and to go sandwiches (lunch on the beach!).  And certainly better than the Starbucks across the street.  Since this was close to our Airbnb, we ended up going here for coffee and pastries three times.

27 Restaurant and Bar - Packed on a Thursday night at around 9:30pm.  We managed to walk in and grab a couple of seats in the loungey upstairs bar area, with lots of low slung chairs, sofas, and tables.  Excellent Patacon (mashed fried plantains) with avocado, annatto oil and sumac onion.  Good Yucca fries with a preserved lemon mojo.  The Cauliflower with pistachio pesto and parmesan was ok. 

Traymore by Michael Schwartz - We were looking for a spot for a late afternoon cocktail and not finding much.  We stumbled across Traymore located in the Como Metropolitan Hotel.  The restaurant has a nice outdoor sitting area/garden along the bike path.  From 4pm-8pm the bar offers half price cocktails, so the $16-$17 drinks were suddenly quite reasonable.  Food and drinks have a South Asian twist and I went with a riff on a Pimm's Cup.  Pretty tasty after a day on the beach.   

South Beach

Planta - Trendy plant based menu at the southern tip of South Beach.  Croquettes of cashew mozzarella, hearts of palm. mushroom bacon and ranch dressing were very tasty.  The black bean queso with chips was solid if a bit one note.  Spicy tuna made from compressed watermelon made for a delicious maki roll.  The Planta Burger with fries was a dead ringer in taste and look to a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  The Chicken Fried Mushrooms were a let down, more batter than mushroom.  Planta was solid, but several notches below Fancy Radish. 

Wynwood

Bakan - Hipster Mexican with house made blue corn tortillas.  Enjoyable guacamole and chips.  Very good ceviche Bakan tostadas.  And we enjoyed the quesadillas stuffed with zucchini flower, poblano, corn, epazote, and asadero cheese.  Very drinkable mule style cocktail made with mezcal.  This place has a sceney vibe, but we enjoyed the meal.  

Little Havana 

Doce Provisions - Neighborhood Modern Cuban with Asian influences.  Inside has a store front vibe and outside is an inviting courtyard.  Obviously, pick the courtyard.  An artist friend took us here for a late lunch, and we are glad she did.  Best food of the trip.  We split several different plates.  Crispy Brussels with cauliflower, bacon and sweet soy, read as every trendy of-the-moment ingredient thrown together on a plate, but excellent.  Burrata Cheese toast with mango marmalade and shoyu lemon dressing was very good with a nice large creamy ball of burrata and a scattering of greens.  Shrimp fufu was delicious. And the Lechon Asado Buns with sour orange-achiote, aji amarillo and grilled pineapple confit was excellent, the best dish of the trip.  A light, refreshing mojito rounded out the meal.  We considered coming back here for a second meal, but ran out of time.

Versailles - After lunch at Doce Provisions, the artist friend said we had to check out Versailles, so we did.  We stopped in the bakery for coffee and dessert, good sweet cafe con leche and mini-alfejores.  We decided we would stop in the next day for a late-lunch, heading to the airport meal and it seemed like the appropriate way to end our trip.  Versailles sits on the edge of local institution meets tourist trap, after all, it has trademarked "The World's Most Famous Cuban Restaurant".  However, its history is legit, apparently hosting many Cuban exile dissidents and is still a must-do on the local political circuit.  The restaurant is massive and despite always having a line, most waits are usually fairly short.  At 4pm on a Saturday, we waited about 15 minutes for a table. I had to have the Cubano, which was very good, but could have used a touch more mustard and pickles.  The gf went with the mahi-mahi sandwich and proclaimed it delicious.  We also had some very good fried sweet plantains.  All washed down with a tasty mojito and a cafe con leche to go. 

And it was off to the airport, fat and full.     

Due to holidays etc it had been a while since sitting at the back bar at 2 Amy's.  The Serenity Now menu was very nice last night.

Excellent oven roasted mussels with garlic, butter, parsley and breadcrumbs.  

A delicious nervetti salad (beef tendon) with toasted bread.

Guinea hen, pretending to be capon, cooked like they do in Mantova, served with tardivo was also very good.

And then we went all in...14 day dry aged 230g tenderloin from a 7 year old dairy cow, served with marrow fat beans and roasted romanesco.  I'm not a big steak guy, but damn that was good, lovely salty outer crust, extremely rare on the inside.  The 150 day dry aged 900g bone-in ribeye looked insane.

We also had the Sicilian anchovies, salt cod fritters, sheep's milk ricotta with a beet-apple-celery salad, and Seville orange chiffon ice cream for dessert. 

Miguel and Tammy were working the bar area and were as lovely as always. 

A bad photo of the steak: 

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream

Weygandt's Wine in Cleveland Park has excellent, informative tastings on Saturdays. From time to time they will have visiting wine markers in store. Weygandt's is heavy on European wines: French, Austrian, German, with a smaller selection of Italian and Spanish. Limited supply of US wines. 

Domestique on Florida Ave, near North Capitol, has good wine tastings on Sundays, with a natural wine focus. 

Yeah, the Dabney has them on the menu regularly. And they are really good. 

Coming to the Dupont area in the former Rosemary's Thyme space, 1801 18th Street, NW

Celebrating the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death.

Raphael and His Circle

"Raphael (1483–1520) was one of the greatest artistic figures working in the Western classical tradition. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of his death, the Gallery presents 25 prints and drawings in an intimate installation. The works will illustrate how the combination of artistic traditions, wide range, and immediate influence of Raphael’s art shaped the standard of aesthetic excellence for later artists, connoisseurs, and scholars. The exhibition features four drawings by Raphael: the sheet from which the design of his painting Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1506, National Gallery of Art) was transferred; the cartoon for the so-called Belle Jardinière (La Vierge à l'Enfant avec le petit saint Jean-Baptiste, 1507 or 1508, Louvre Museum, Paris); a detailed representation of the prophets Hosea and Jonah; and a well-known study for part of the frescoes in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Nine drawings by his closest collaborators and followers— Giulio Romano , Polidoro da Caravaggio , and Perino del Vaga —are also on view. The exhibition includes 10 engravings, as well as a chiaroscuro woodcut, by the earliest interpreters of Raphael’s designs: Marcantonio Raimondi and his followers Agostino Veneziano and Marco Dente da Ravenna as well as Ugo da Carpi . The Gallery’s five paintings by Raphael—the largest and most important group outside a few European collections—represent the central decade of his activity and will be on view on the main floor of the West Building to complement this exhibition."

For those contemplating a spring time visit to NYC:

Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara

"From the first millennium, the western Sahel—a vast region in Africa just south of the Sahara Desert that spans what is today Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger—was the birthplace of a succession of influential polities. Fueled by a network of global trade routes extending across the region, the empires of Ghana (300–1200), Mali (1230–1600), Songhay (1464–1591), and Segu (1640–1861) cultivated an enormously rich material culture.

Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara is the first exhibition of its kind to trace the legacy of those mighty states and what they produced in the visual arts. The presentation brings into focus transformative developments—such as the rise and fall of political dynasties, and the arrival of Islam—through some two hundred objects, including sculptures in wood, stone, fired clay, and bronze; objects in gold and cast metal; woven and dyed textiles; and illuminated manuscripts.

Highlights include loans from the region's national collections, such as a magnificent ancient terracotta equestrian figure (third through eleventh century) from the Institut de Recherches en Sciences Humaines, University of Niamey, Niger; and a dazzling twelfth-century gold pectoral that is a Senegalese national treasure, from the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, in Dakar."

Washington Post Review

Kimchi fried rice with avocado

42 minutes ago, dracisk said:

If they can give you e-mail addresses of their local friends you could also set up a Meal Train for them. Local friends can sign up to bring them homemade dinners or have food delivered from restaurants on a specific date (I suppose non-local friends could also have food delivered). Since most people have limited freezer space these meals could supplement the freezer meals.

Our friends just had twins and we are participating in their Meal Train.  They love it. 

We did the chili and corn bread which provided them with a couple of dinners.  And then we also picked up some SouperGirl Soup and a Whisk Quiche for a quick lunch option.   

They also appreciated the company when we dropped things off.

Chili - meat or vegetarian (whatever they prefer).  Plus corn bread freezes well.    Chili is obviously very container friendly.  Slice up the corn bread into individual sized portions (squares), wrap individual squares in saran wrap, and then stack them in a container. 

"Janet Echelman’s colorful fiber and lighting installation examines the complex interconnections between human beings and our physical world, and reveals the artist's fascination with the measurement of time. The volumetric form suspended from the ceiling of the Renwick Gallery's Rubenstein Grand Salon is inspired by the data recorded March 11, 2011, following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that rippled across the Pacific Ocean toward Japan. The geologic event was so powerful it shifted the earth on its axis and shortened the day by 1.8 millionths of a second, lending this work its title. Echelman's knotted meditation contrasts the forces we can understand and control with those we cannot, and the concerns of our daily existence with larger cycles of time. Dynamically-changing lighting casts projected shadow drawings in vivid colors that move from wall to wall, enticing viewers to lie down on the carpet and contemplate the work."

Delita Martin: Calling Down the Spirits

"Delita Martin (b. 1972, Conroe, Texas) creates large-scale prints onto which she draws, sews, collages, and paints. Martin claims space for her subjects, particularly black women, creating a powerful presence that simultaneously highlights the historical absence of black bodies in Western art.

Through her work, Martin aims to create a new iconography for African Americans based on African tradition, personal recollections, and physical materials. A recurring theme throughout Martin’s work is exploring interconnections between past and present generations. She conveys these connections through symbols such as circles, a shape representative of the moon and symbolic of the female, and birds, which represent the human spirit. Masks, inspired by the Sowei and Ife masks of West Africa, appear in many of Martin’s works, signifying transition between this world and the spirit world. Her use of color is also symbolic, particularly the color blue, which she associates with spirituality.

Additionally, Martin incorporates materials and imagery linked to her personal memory, and likens this process to quilting, a skill she learned from her grandmother. Expertly layering all of these elements, Martin visualizes the liminal space between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Delita Martin: Calling Down the Spirits showcases seven monumental works combining tradition with innovation. Through her rigorous and meticulously layered process, Martin creates striking images that bridge time and space between generations."

I had some extra tomato sauce, some cheese, and pesto kicking around my fridge, so I bought some pizza dough from Vace.  I let the dough warm up by a radiator for about 90 minutes, cranked my oven to 550 degrees, formed a couple of rectangle-ish pizzas on sheet pans, and baked them on the lowest oven rack for 10 minutes.  Came out pretty awesome for home pizza making.  One bag of dough cost $4. 

DC folks might be familiar with Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, half of which is on view at The Phillips Collection.

Over the next year-and-a-half, Lawrence's 30-piece Struggle: From the History of the American People (1954–56) will be reunited for a national tour.

Press release from the Peabody Essex Museum:

"This January, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), debuts Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle the first museum exhibition to feature the celebrated series of paintings, Struggle: From the History of the American People (1954–56), by Jacob Lawrence. Painted during the civil rights era by one of the best-known black American artists of the 20th century, the series of 30 intimate panels depicts pivotal moments in early American history with an emphasis on the contributions that black people, Native Americans, and women made in shaping our nation's founding and identity."

"Reunited for the first time in more than 60 years, the Struggle series brings American history to life through energetic, expressive paintings that hug the boundary between figuration and abstraction. For this reunion, 25 of the Struggle paintings are accounted for while five remain unlocated. Of these, the known works are presented alongside reproductions of the missing paintings as well as those too fragile to travel. The paintings reflect Lawrence’s desire to “express the universal beauty of man's continuous struggle” and his visual style conveys the physical, emotional, and ideological struggles inherent to the country’s founding."

Article from the Wash Post.

Peabody Essex Museum Jan. 18, 2020 - April 26, 2020

Metropolitan Museum of Art June 2, 2020 -  Sept. 7, 2020

Birmingham Museum of Art Oct. 17, 2020 - Jan. 10, 2021

Seattle Art Museum Feb. 11, 2021 - May 23, 2021

The Phillips Collection June 26, 2021 - Sept. 19, 2021

Obama portraits are going on tour. June 2021 - June 2022.

Art Institute of Chicago (June 18, 2021 - Aug. 15, 2021)

Brooklyn Museum (Aug. 27, 2021 - Oct. 24, 2021)

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Nov. 5, 2021 - Jan. 2, 2022)

High Museum of Art, Atlanta (Jan. 14, 2022 - March 13, 2022)

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 25, 2022 - May 30, 2022)

We stopped in for a pre-dinner glass of wine at Dio Wine Bar on H Street. 

Overall, a favorable first impression. The space is cozy, with a nice bar and a handful of tables.  The feel is organic wood with a mix of industrial: concrete floor, exposed duct work etc.

Dio features about 100 wines, with about a dozen by the glass ($11-$18 range) and about a dozen cocktails ($12-$15 range).  The wine list features a good selection of bottles in the $40-$60 range. 

The food menu is a small selection of cheese, olives, and charcuterie along with a couple of salads and sandwiches.

The staff was very welcoming. On a chilly Friday night around 7pm the place was about half full with a laid back vibe.

H Street isn't the most convenient area for us to get to, but we look forward to returning.   

The smoked chiogga beet toast.  If you look up thread you can see the evolution of this dish.  I'd say it is much better composed now.

Version One (2018)

Version Two (2019)

2020 version:

A tasty return to Fancy Radish.

We arrived promptly for a 7:30pm reservation on a Friday night, and waited and waited, finally seated a little after 8pm.  A little annoying.  However, Fancy Radish immediately brought out an on-the-house order of the excellent Rutabaga Fondue.  Which we immediately inhaled.  So good, we ordered a second round.

Also excellent was the Smoked Chiogga Beet Toast with smoked tofu, crushed cucumber, tomato, capers.  This dish is basically a vegan lox and bagel knock off.  I would say this is a must order.

Fancy Radish, braised green meat radish, yuzu avocado, smoked tamari, shiso was a fine dish, but didn't really stand out.  We felt that if it was a vegan/veg order at a non-vegan restaurant we would think it was a really good effort, but at Fancy Radish it's more of a middle of the pack dish.

Peruvian Potatoes aji amarillo, cilantro, peanut, dried olive was the miss of the night.  The sauce was excellent, but the dry, almost mealy potatoes didn't do it justice.  Frankly, the potato looked like an ordinary Russet potato. We all felt they need to rethink the potato element on this one.

Trumpet Mushrooms as fazzoletti, grape tomatoes, basil was excellent.  The sauce is lick the bowl clean good.  We considered ordering a second round. 

Charred Romanesco whipped sesame turnip, kimchi vinaigrette somewhat suffered the same fate as the Fancy Radish dish, good, not great, wasn't a stand out.

Spicy Dan Dan Noodles, sichuan pepper, sesame, five spice glazed mushrooms kinda needed to add something else to the party.  It's a plate of noodles.  The Dan Dan sauce is nice, definitely spicy, but the mushrooms didn't add much.  Perhaps some other veg element would help.

Seared Maitake Mushroom, celery root fritter, grilled celery salad, smoked remoulade, was a dish where the individual elements didn't really work together.  They seemed like individual components that were plonked on a plate.  We all agreed that the Trumpet Mushroom dish was superior.

For dessert, the clear winner was the ice cream of the day, which was Speculoos flavored (think Biscoff Cookies).  Seriously good, I'd put this up against any other ice cream in the District.  

The rest of the desserts were pretty solid, including the Sticky Toffee Pudding and Mud Pie.  Fancy Radish also provided us with a round of on-the-house amaro to pair with desserts (I'm assuming it was the Amaro Sfumato and it was quite tasty).     

Despite the long wait for the table, everyone was happy.  Especially the vegan sister-in-law.

We all put the Rutabaga Fondue, Smoked Chiogga Beet Toast and Trumpet Mushrooms, as well as the ice cream, as the best dishes of the night.   Also, we thought this meal was better than the meal we had over Thanksgiving weekend at V Street in Philadelphia.  We have not yet dined at the mother ship Vedge.

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