You say "I ordered you a pancake"

Perusing our recent entries, you'd think that we only go out for brunch. While we need to play catch up (Bibiana and Blue Duck for Restaurant Week, an early January culinary scavenger hunt through the city, an an organic delivery service in Bethesda, to name a few) brunch will always have a special place in my heart - the one meal where food and relaxation can trump any other consideration.

Contributor extraordinaire Maria got married over the weekend and, with the help of a very understanding catering manager, we managed to throw an after-nuptials family brunch during Restaurant Week. The private dining room at Urbana fits 12, and during the peak of the brunch service we were grateful for the sliding doors that separate it from the main dining room (extra tables for Restaurant Week, ceramic tiles and Bottomless Bellinis generate an atmosphere that, while usually appreciated, were grating my sleep-deprived, slightly hungover self on this particular outing).

Our reservation was for 1 PM, so our group fell on both sides of the brunch divide - hamburgers and Chicken Caesar Salad for some, breakfast items for the rest of us, and coffee all around. The Bottomless Bellini (with refills all through Brunch until 3 PM) is still a steal at $16: a selection of fresh juices (favorites include passion fruit and strawberry, while the Pear is not for the faint of palate) topped with sparkling wine (an Italian Prosecco, Montelliana, with a mineral content that makes it ideal for mixing). Through years of practice (our extended neighborhood and all) Maria is particularly adept at creating creative concoctions. Tables of 4 or more get to keep the bottle table-side.

For their first brunch as a married couple, the newlyweds had classic menu items - a three egg omelette with everything minus the chorizo for the groom, and the Challah French Toast with a side of bacon for the bride who, despite her best efforts, always orders the same thing. The stomach, like the heart, wants what it wants, and Sunday was no exception. There's something about the crunch from the griddle and the acidity of the strawberry compote paired with the maple syrup that conspires to make this a great dish. As for me - I skipped the Bellinis (Botomless Cup of Coffee did the trick for me that day) and had the blueberry pancakes with bananas and a side of eggs. The eggs can come in any style but I chose scrambled, slightly runny, and doused with the hot sauce I requested. The pancakes are fantastic - fluffy, and with just a touch of blueberry. The banana slices are placed on top, and the dish could easily do without them. But at least you can use them to tell yourself you re having two servings of fruit, and conveniently forget to account for the warm maple syrup. Our server, Dana, heroically handled the sliding door and our floating head count to make this a very happy close to the festivities.


Urbana Restaurant and Wine Bar at Hotel Palomar Dupont Circle
2121 P St NW
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 956-6650
www.urbanadc.com

Sashay shante

As far as gastronomy-related performances go, Perry's Sunday Brunch is hard to beat. Brunch, my favorite meal, promises a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and exaggerates certain characteristics with a flourish - breakfast in drag, and at a much more convenient hour. While Perry's is a destination for groups of revelers, T. and I decided to give it the Any Given Sunday treatment and just showed up at their recommended hour of 11.45 AM. Perry's does not take reservation, and your arrival time is noted by the hostess. You are welcome to wait at the very crowded bar (where we were treated to a dancing father-daughter duo, as well as patrons that were sporting handle bar mustaches and bleached and permed hair). Most of the tables turn when the performers take breaks, and our wait was about 45 minutes. The servers play a huge part in keeping everybody happy and imbibed - Perry's serves the strongest Mimosa I've ever had in DC, with just a splash of OJ to go with your bubbles.

If you have anything important to discuss with your brunch companions, this is not the place to do it. The Queens command attention, and the disco/Lady Gaga/Beyonce mix blares on top of the ding of a crowded dining room. It is also a more interactive experience than the Gospel Brunch at the Corcoran (where, I suspect, none of the performers will ask you if you want or need a BBC in your life). On Sundays Perry's goes from a la carte to a buffet (around $25 per person, cocktails are about $6 each). I am not a huge fan of brunch buffets, and the long line that forms in between shows makes repeated visits difficult (the solution is giving you an enormous plate, which may not be everyone's favorite strategy). However, the kitchen tops off the selections regularly, and everything is well prepared - everything from eggs, salads, waffles, noodles, sushi, cold cuts, lasagna, orzo salad, and grilled chicken and pork. The corn muffins are very tasty and the dolmas, though they had no reason to be there, were chilled and tangy. The sushi is nothing special on its own, but its sheer presence next to scrambled eggs makes the roles noteworthy.

The most boisterous brunch in the city, and a wonderful way to beat the winter blues.


Perry's Restaurant
1811 Columbia Rd NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.perrysadamsmorgan.com

Christmas Tigers

Another recycled post from my now-defunct personal blog, The Border Fence. This one is from 19 December 2006. A safe and happy holiday season to all.

It’s a quiet night in Maryland and I am enjoying one-upmanship on my behalf. Each person in the house is cooking a dish, and soon the kitchen table decked out in Marimekko is populated by different entrees: whole fish in sauce, pork and peanuts, scrambled eggs with tiny fish, perfectly cooked vegetables, and tofu stir fried with mushrooms and bacon. I make a mental note to discuss this last dish with all the vegetarians I know.

The project involving visiting Chinese lawyers will wrap soon. They will fly home on New Year’s Eve, and are thinking about things to do with their last few days in the US. They ask me to suggest some activities, a question that comes as second nature by now, considering I have been running their lives for the better part of 6 months. I have never spent the Holidays in DC, but I rattle down a list: the Messiah at the Kennedy Center, the huge Menorah at the Ellipse, the rather quaint trees at the Capitol, Union Station and behind the White House. I warn them that all museums close on the 25th and that maybe they can take the opportunity to sample some local cuisine. They shudder at the thought, but reveal that they have partaken in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon tradition.

“We went caroling yesterday around the neighborhood with the church from down the street. Can you help us figure out some of the words?”

I smile at how new the age-old songs must seem to them. I am giving a thoroughly parsed booklet and go through the circled words:

“Bethlehem is the town where Jesus was born. Noel is another word for Christmas, and it comes from the French Noёl, a manger is where you keep animals. Gloria in Excelsis Deo is in Latin, not English, and it means Glory to God Above / in Heaven. Hark is a call to attention, I think. Ye is old English for The. Christ/Jesus/Christ the Lord is sort of used interchangeably […]”

“Will there be fireworks for Christmas?”

I am sorry to disappoint them, especially because they arrived in DC right after the Fourth of July. Maybe there are firework displays in the South, and in some locales for New Year’s, but not anywhere near them.

“Do you have fireworks in Mexico for Christmas?”

I set my tea down. I remember pointing empty Coke bottles at the sky, the perfect launching pad for whistling rockets, running around on the street in front of and behind spinning multicolor rosettes, covering my ears as black cats popped without much show. My grandfather’s gift of Bengal lights, his hand holding a Zippo steadily beneath a bumpy gray rod almost as tall as me, with ignition revealing millions of bright orange limbs that clawed into the night sky.

“Of course. Mexico is the land of Christmas tigers.”

Pho in the Wall

Few things are satisfying in this bitter cold as a steaming bowl of Vietnamese beef noodle soup with all the fixings. While Pho 14, a tiny café a stone's throw away from Target in Columbia Heights is not Pho 75, it is easily the best bowl of Pho in the District Proper. My former boss is Vietnamese-American, and her rule of thumb was that a proper Pho place should serve only soups, and leave it at that. While I miss our office runs to the Eden Center, this small place is metro accessible, and has the added advantages of taking credit/debit cards as well as offering some other simple staples of Vietnamese cooking such as banh mi, Indochine in sandwich form. The Tiki bar is a bit cutesy, but it gives the staff somewhere to hang out when things are slow. My recent trip - a late, late lunch at 4 PM gave me restaurant all to myself, and the bright orange walls were a welcome contrast to the bleakness outside and the maddening crowds at Target. There's magic in those noodles, or perhaps its the restorative powers of the fresh basil, the brightness of strategically squirted lime, and all the sriracha and jalapeños I can handle. Comfort food at its finest.

Pho 14

1436 Park Road NW

Washington, DC 20010

(202)986 23 26

And so this is Christmas...

Today is the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the traditional start to Posadas, evening parties that run for the 12 days of Christmas in Mexico and where beloved traditions such as piñatas come from. The Mexican Professionals Network of Washington DC held its annual Posada at Lupe Cantina today, and the friendly bar staff made sure the margaritas were perfectly salty and chilled, the XX Lager flowed, and the shenanigans went by smoothly.

While we have enjoyed Lupe's kitchen in past events, posadas require a special menu, so we turned to our caterer extraordinaire, Connie Johnson. The evening featured champurrado (a chocolate-based atole, making it a hominy flour-based drink); chicken and pork tamales; pozole (a robust, medium spicy soup with pork and chicken, hominy, and traditional fixings of oregano, fresh radish, and greens); guacamole, and refried beans. The food was well prepared, and the combination was perfect to stave off the cold and the homesickness.

If you're sorry you missed out on a traditional Mexican menu in downtown DC, check out Mexican Jalapeño - this online store has everything you need to recreate the meal and even fill a piñata or two.

Latkes' Lament

A few years ago, before Facebook was available to the post-college crowd, I kept a personal blog on Wordpress, The Border Fence. I stopped updating it in 2008 after I took over as editor of DCGastronome. It still exists in some password-protected sense, and on occasion I would write about food (no surprise there). In honor of the fantastic sweet potato latkes and mulled Manischewitz I had on the 3rd night of Hanukkah courtesy of M., here's a recycled entry from December 2006. If you are craving latkes and your friends aren't as accommodating, Firefly in Dupont Circle has a latke special for the duration of the holiday.

Latke's Lament 16.12.2006
We were making our way up 18th street, and I couldn't shake the feeling that there was a better way to get to Adams Mill Road - one that didn't involve stopping every other corner to wait for a street light to change. Jaywalking in DC is not the best idea generally, and in the area surrounding Dupont Circle specifically, with all those cars with diplomatic plates driving around.

"I never do it, unless there's a woman with a stroller stepping into the street. Then I run alongside them."

My friend seems amused. I explain that no one would deliberately run over a woman with a baby. Acceptable variants include pregnant women, dads with babies in arms, and even toddlers. "What if they swerve to avoid the adult with the kid element and then they hit you?" I retort with the running alongside them, thus creating a human shield.

I hear chuckles behind us. Two guys, strolling along 18th street. They've been tailing along for a while, but our general direction is very common for a Friday night. They tell us that they are not stalking us and that they are going to a bar. I take a look at them. Undergrads, barely legal if they cannot name a specific bar in Adams Morgan yet. After a few quips they ask us where we are going.

"Latke Party! It's the first night of Hanukkah."

"What's a Latke?"

"It's a take on a hash brown. The best part of Hanukkah is all the fried foods."

One of them answers, "Oh see I am a recovering Catholic. We don't have any specific food."

My friend turns to me, her walking reference guide who goes to Sunday school on Tuesdays. I ponder.

"Fish for lent? I guess every country has its specific holiday fare."

Recovering Catholic's companion says, "Well, then I guess you can claim the cuisine of any predominantly Catholic country as yours, no?"

Mexican, French, Italian, Spanish… we miss out on all the Asian cuisines, but the thought of religious cultural imperialism is perverse enough to work.

"So if you are Catholic how come you know what latkes are?"

I could wax philosophical about the war on Christmas. I just smile and say I am thankful and blessed with good friends.

"So can we go to this party of yours? Latkes sound like something worth knowing!"

We look at each other. The Adams Mill Road locale is homey, but small. It's also sit down dinner. We say sorry, but we are guests and we were asked to bring plates, not random 20 year olds. We pleasantly part ways in Columbia Road.

We get to our friend's party as the first batch of Latkes is coming out. Potato and onion ransack our noses. The candles are lit and blessings are said.

Sour cream and apple sauce conspire to make the latkes fly off the table. A late guest shows up just in time to claim the remaining three.

"I am so glad there's latkes left. I was at this massive Hanukkah party and the hostess refused to make the latkes, and she had the shredded potato and everything! She had stage fright!"

Latke anxiety. Sounds like a Woody Allen movie.

The Spirit of Mexico

The only country that drinks as much (and in some years, even more) tequila as Mexico is the United States. And yet the spirit that plays such a big role in Mexican culture gets a bad rap - I know plenty of adventurous eaters and drinkers who will not come near tequila, sheepishly confessing to underage binge drinking and hazy memories of Spring Break. If you count yourself amongst that bunch it is time to break free from the Girls Gone Wild associations and give it a second try - and I am not talking an overpriced margarita at Lauriol Plaza or ill-advised shots at Eighteen Street Lounge. The Mexican Professionals Network of Washington DC recently sponsored a tequila sip, and we all learned new things from the National Chamber of Tequila Makers that might make you come around.

Tequila is a highly controlled spirit, and at 35 to 40% alcohol by volume it shouldn't intoxicate you any more than vodka or whisky. It is produced in two categories, Tequila 100% Agave and Tequila (which contains other sugars, such as molasses, which are added before fermentation begins) in authorized regions in Mexico. Tequila does not come from a cactus - it is made from Agave Tequilana Weber blue variety, which is in the lily family and takes about 8 years to come to maturity and harvest. While mixing it with mezcal is a nascent trend, they are different spirits. There are more than 1,100 tequila trademarks bottled in Mexico. There are 5 kinds of tequila in each category: Silver (Blanco), Gold (Joven), Aged (Reposado), Extra Aged (Añejo) and Ultra Aged (Extra Añejo). Silver is bottled after distillation, the aged kinds are aged in oak barrels for 1, 3 or more than 3 years, and gold is a mix of Blanco and tequila that has been matured. The aged tequilas are far more aromatic, as they incorporate the notes from the wood into their profiles. The tequila region varies geographically, with the the more flowery tequilas being the product of agave grown next to orchards and the valley grown agave having a distinct mineral taste.

Which brings us to an important point - the best way to enjoy tequila is to sip it, not shoot it. The salt and lime chaser are the historical relics of the old process of producing tequila, and are now mostly optional. Lime will severely impair your ability to taste an aged tequila. As far as temperature goes, tequila freezes extremely well, but tastings will normally serve it at room temperature. A few years ago Austrian Glassware Maker Riedel created a tequila glass at the request of the National Chamber of Tequila Makers that looks very much like a champagne flute - holding the glass with the stem keeps the temperature of the tequila by keeping your hands away, and the flute shape puts some distance between your nose and the spirit, allowing you to smell it.

While I love a good margarita, a fine tequila should be enjoyed straight. Reposado is normally an aperitif and añejos are often digestives - because of their aromatics, blanco pairs well with cold cuts, salads, ceviche and guacamole, while reposado complements heavier entrées, tacos, and mole. The wooden notes in añejos make them ideal for dry fruits and yams - perfect for the holidays.

As Mexicans, we are proud of our national spirit, a mestizo blend of pre-Columbian herbology and European distillation techniques. So pay heed to our best ambassador and sip!