Cascade Cafe, National Gallery of Art

[ghostrider]

We're just back from 4 lovely days in DC. Although we had a good dinner at Potenza, described elsewhere, I have to say that my most enjoyable meal came at the Cascade Cafe yesterday, on the lower level of the National gallery between the East & West buildings. I've done a search & don't see the place mentioned, so it gets its own thread.

It's a cafeteria, as you probably know, with a good selection of decent food. What's special right now is the section where you can put together a plate of Spanish foods - serrano ham, chorizo, a medium sharp cheese, lightly sauteed broccoli rabe in olive oil, saffron barley salad & (not sure how this is Spanish but it was good) cherry tomatoes with mozz & fresh basil. Every item was totally fresh & full of flavor. At around $8 - you pay by weight, 60 cents per ounce - this was a steal.

This combination really tickled my taste buds & eased my sadness at the end of our trip. It'll be a nice memory to carry me through until we return.

[Merry Mary]

Restaurant Associates runs that, I believe.

[Hannah]

Yes, but the menus at NGA were, up until last Sunday, featuring Spanish food in conjunction with the Art of Power: Royal Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain exhibit. So basically it was a temporary mini-Jaleo with the nice waterfall and bouncy moving sidewalks.

[ghostrider]

Yes, but the menus at NGA were, up until last Sunday, featuring Spanish food in conjunction with the Art of Power: Royal Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain exhibit. So basically it was a temporary mini-Jaleo with the nice waterfall and bouncy moving sidewalks.

Right, that was the impression I'd gotten. The website talks about the Garden Cafe, which had reverted to normal American fare. Perhaps they'd over-ordered the cured meats & cheeses for Chef Andres and were fobbing them off on the Cascade crowd, which would explain the mixture of Spanish & more generic Mediterranean foods (I forgot to mention the 3-bean salad).

Anyway, the preparation was excellent, the olive oil (hopefully Spanish) was wonderfully fragrant, & we were lucky to have been there at the right time.