Alex's Pick

Alex, who relocated to Boston a few months ago, was in DC for the weekend, and she chose to hold court at American Ice Co., a stone's throw away from the 9:30 Club. The weekend had been a soggy mess, but we were lucky to get one of those glorious early Spring Sundays and take advantage of the bigger-than-it-seems patio. The restaurant itself (given the beer to food ratio, it s probably better to call it a bar that happens to have amazing barbeque) has the industrial feel and grit one would expect from a repurposed building: cement, brick, dark woods.

I took a seat at one of the patio picnic tables and perused the menu - an ample beer list, divided into glass (drafts) and steel (cans). The super friendly staff will bring them out to you in mason jars (with little ones for shots). I had a Czechvar (which I first encounted, many years ago, as Budvar, the original Budweiser) followed by a wheat beer. The lunch menu features a limited selection of sandwiches, and I ordered a turkey club mostly to keep myself from ordering the pastrami. I was pleasantly surprised by the sandwich - the turkey was carved, not sliced, and the bacon had a wonderful spice rub. It is easily the best turkey sandwich I've had in a restaurant in DC.

As our group of revelers grew, we took over more tables (the revolving group also meant that our very patient waitress adjusted the tab whenever people wanted to cash out). As I nursed my second beer, I could hear the telltale sounds of cleaver against pork. On the far side of the table, someone ordered Swachos - Swine and nachos, because pork rinds and queso are meant to go together, especially when it's sunny but you still need a sweater.

The dinner menu appeared and Alex ordered the combo platter. I wasn t particularly hungry after my enormous sandwich of a few hours before, but I simply had to try it - pulled pork and brisket. After all, she had already had the brilliant idea of asking for a Margarita (she can't get those up in Beantown), and I had happily followed suit. The plates brimmed with warm, smokey, flavorful without being fatty barbeque, and the vinegar sauce on our table gave it an extra kick. The greens were fresh, but the sides did not hold a candle to the brisket.

Go for the food, stay for the beer, and bring a gaggle of friends with you.


American Ice Co.
917 V St NW
(between N Vermont Ave & N 10th St)
Washington, DC 20001

Let's Get it On

M&A, newlyweds, were in town last week for a conference and wanted to meet for dinner. This presented a unique challenge: the last time I had seen them was at their wedding (a six course affair, not including the buffet service for appetizers and desserts), they are both excellent cooks, and you’d be hard pressed to dine with a better-traveled pair. M. used to live in DC and comes at least once a year, while it was A’s first time in the District. I had to find a place that was relatively new but still tried and true, representative of DC without falling into places mobbed by tourists, and a menu that was relatable but still managed to introduce them to something new.
Marvin, with its nods to Belgian and Southern cooking, met all my criteria, with a plus for being outside of M’s well-known DC neighborhoods and a minus for being a touch too loud for catching up with people you haven’t seen in months.

We arrived a few minutes apart and as I made my way from the back I caught M’s eye – our amused glances had the flash of recognition in them – Marvin’s bar, dark wood, brass, long mirror, and the hyper-articulate laying the groundwork for several levels of stupor, could have easily been our grad school watering hole. A, who hails from Rome, commented on the place’s European feel – that is, until we were sat smack in front of a huge oil on canvas depicting Marvin Gaye. In a place that celebrates otherness with such gusto, three expats had to feel at home.

Our server, a gentleman on the far side of thirty, realized that we were there to talk – gossip about our recently held (and missed) reunion, the behind the scenes scoop on their wedding, the challenges and opportunities of being away from home and country – and he let us order and look at the menu at our own pace. This was no small feat, as the place was packed. During our very long meal, he never pressured us to vacate the table, and only brought the check when we asked. We started our meal with the house sparkling wine – a great deal at $8 a glass. It is a brut, dry but not as mineral as prosecco, and it hit the spot perfectly.

For an appetizer, we shared moules frites – the mussels (my first batch since re-reading Kitchen Confidential a few months back) were plump and fragrant , with a fennel and chorizo sauce. The chorizo added smoke to the plate and I am not ashamed to admit I scooped up as many slices as I could – a few minutes floating in the broth did them wonders. As for the frites, they came piping hot and with three dipping sauces, but were missing a bit of salt.

As a second course, I had the coq au vin. While the taste and texture was definitively that of a young chicken (the traditional preparation calls for rooster), Marvin’s version does incorporate many of the traditional elements – mushrooms, a wine-based sauce, applewood bacon (in lieu of lardons, salted pork) and pearl onions. The sauce did not appear to be thickened and the overall effect was a deep sweetness folded into an earthy saltiness. A. went for what, in my mind, is Marvin’s signature dish – fried chicken on a waffle. A. has been living in southern Florida for a few months now, and had yet to taste fried chicken. He marveled at the technique, and the perfectly golden, crisp and not oily chicken is a sight to behold, gold upon gold with a side of collard greens and gravy, a reminder of the bridging qualities of food across cultures. I suspect this is the first of many pieces of fried chicken for A., and it was a superb introduction. M. had a seasonal dish, the pumpkin ravioli. The colors were wonderful, and it is always good to see a vegetarian option that looks so hearty.

After such a meal, we did not need dessert. But when the kitchen pleases you twice, you are always tempted to keep the streak going. For the sake of novelty, we ordered a hazelnut crepe cake (and three spoons). I expected to see little sachets filled with hazelnut crème but was pleasantly surprised to find a stack of crepes, cut into a thick slice – an overeager mille feuille, with an acidity to the crepes that was tempered by a scoop of creamy ice cream. I could not place it in either Belgium or the Southern US , but Marvin looked down from his canvas, approvingly.


Marvin
2007 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.marvindc.com

The Brunch Eclectic

Last week I was invited, along with other card-holding members of the unofficial press, to sample the new items on the menu for 1905, a restaurant that opened a few months ago in Shaw/U Street down the street from the fabled Etete. Though the awning that covers the door to the small building that houses both 1905 and a (independently owned and managed) wine store is festooned with the street number (which also happens to be the named of the restaurant, flanked by two skeleton keys) you'll stop for a moment at the base of the stairs, wondering what you're in for. Like Darlington House in Dupont Circle, 1905 feels intimate, as if you are being hosted by your hippest acquaintances. You'll see several decades represented throughout the dinning room (which features chandeliers and communal tables) and bar, as well as aged wood (the benches came from a locker room in the University of Maryland) that compliments, rather than compete with, the houses outside. Unlike its spiritual cousin, the kitchen, with Chef Jose Sanchez at the helm, concentrates on the food and its ingredients. The decoration compliments, rather than makes up for, the eclectic menu.

Since it was Happy Hour after all, I started with Peared Up, a pear cocktail - vodka, ginger liquor and fresh lemon - that was refreshing and aromatic without being overwhelming. I've had pear-infused vodka with ginger ale before, but the ginger liquor gave it a lot more depth, with the slight bitterness bringing out the acidity in the pear. We started the tasting with two items from the brunch menu - a Spanish tortilla (and egg and potato pie, made on a skillet and without crust) topped with some aioli, a garlic and olive oil dressing that sometimes includes egg. The tortilla is served cold, as a tapa would, and while I understand some people may not want something cold for brunch, it seems like the perfect choice to bridge the divide between breakfast and lunch. The following course, the Creole Benedict, was my favorite dish of the evening: a poached egg over a Cajun fried rice cake topped with a crawfish hollandaise sauce. There are a lot of Cajun elements in the 1905 menu, and this is a very successful dish: the rice cakes were steaming hot, and the rice within kept its firm texture giving it a great counterpoint to the soft, and not as hot, egg. The hollandaise gave it a lot of heat without being overpowering. The egg was perfectly poached - though I do not mind some yolk, runny eggs would have ruined the crisp of the rice cake.

We were also served selections from the dinner menu. The soup course was fantastic - heat from Cajun spice paired with the creaminness of a crawfish bisque, which reinforced the New Orleans connection. The Pan Roasted shrimp, seasoned with Espelette pepper, is the kitchen's take on shrimp and grits - though the grits are replaced by creamy coconut crab rice, a very interesting re-imagining of the starch: the texture was there, but the taste was augmented by the pungency of the crab and the slickness of the coconut. The Angus burger was very well done, and centered on smokey flavors - gouda cheese and a red onion marmalade. The roasted beet salad had prime ingredients and look beautiful, but the arugula and goat cheese combination is something we've all seen before. The ox-tail ragout came out of left field for me - though the fettucini was great in both taste and texture (hand rolled in the kitchen, with saffron for taste and color) and patrons will always find comfort in pasta, it wasn't as connected to the rest of the menu, and lack the heat I had come to expect from the kitchen. For dessert we had chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice cream, a very successful layering of hot and cold and dark and light.

1905 won't stay a secret for very long, but while it does, you'll feel like you've been handed the keys to the very cool kingdom.

(Photos courtesy of Dakota Fine)

1905 Restaurant
1905 9th St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 332-1905
http://www.1905dc.com view menu

Oodles of Noodles

These are scary times, the kind that inspire people to dare and endure. With all due respect to Mr. Churchill, comfort is not an alternative, but rather a necessity. I met M. for dinner, and our combined requirements where a U street location and a lot of heat, in both temperature and spice. DC Noodles, a funky eatery with a noodle-centric menu is a great alternative for people who love strips or strings of unleavened dough, but don't want to commit to a particular Asian cuisine.

The locale is impossibly bright - one red wall, one white wall, and a black bar. The white, red and black palette plays throughout in the menus and flatware. The music is on at full blast: as long as you are in a two-top and don't mind casual bouts of yelling, you'll be fine.

Most of the entrees are $12 (with a $2 surcharge for shrimp or seafood) and are divided into wok, salad, clear soup, spiciy soup, soy soup, coconut curry and special noodles and dumplings - a veritable tour of Far East Asian cuisines. The dumpling selection is limited, but there are plenty of bowl offerings served hot, cold, in a soup or in a curry. Most dishes let you chooese between wide or thin rice noodles (vermicelli, similar to the one used in ramen or Pho) and egg noodles (hefen, used in chow fun). The portions are plentiful - you could try to take some home (I meant to!) or otherwise have a good, hearty meal. M. had the noodles in soy soup, wide rice noodles (very similar to Udon at a Japanese restaurant) with Chinese broccoli, bean sprouts, carrots, cilantro, spring onion and celery with chicken. I ordered the thin rice noodles in spicy soup with beef and meatball. The soup itself reminded me of the spicy peanut soup from they serve at Breadline on Tuesdays. The meatballs were small but plentiful, and the base had the consistency of porridge (bolstered by the texture of ground peanuts, incorporated into the soup). The chili pepper gave it a noticeable heat that concentrated on my throat - the noodles were firm but not overcooked, and the cilantro and spring onion brightened the dish. The garnish added great color contrast, and was quite tasty.

The full bar at DC Noodles offers several cocktail options and the usual wines by the glass, but M. and I stuck to sweet sake, served at room temperature (plum wine is also available). Desserts are not on the menu (I do not know if this is because the kitchen changes them daily, or they hadn't come up with them when the menus were printed). Our choices were mango with sticky rice and black sticky rice with coconut ice cream. If you like the coconut ice cream at Bangkok Joe's, you'll like this dessert, but what really sets it apart is the color - it evokes the scheme of the place (without changing the flavor) and the ice cream has the great meat and texture of an actual coconut.

A place after my own heart, and a wonderful addition to U Street.

(Editor's note: I did not have my trusty Lumix at hand and had to rely on my cell phone camera, hence the fuzzy pictures)

DC Noodles
1410 U Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.dcnoodles.com
view menu

World Famous

C. was visiting from Botswana, so our aim was to please. An intrepid traveler, she's lived in 3 continents over the past 10 years, and enjoys eating local. When she expressed an interest in Southern food, I jumped at the chance to go to a DC Institution, the Florida Avenue Grill. I've done the Brunch at Georgia Brown's and have had the chicken at Oooh's and Aaah's, but had yet to get the full dinner experience, minus the bright lights and the tourists (a la Ben's Chili Bowl, a few blocks away). While I enjoy fine dining, Mexican street food, frequent trips across the border and long stretches of time spent on a student budget have made me a fan of holes in the wall.

Florida Avenue Grill has been around since 1944, and if you have any doubts about its standing as an institution all you have to do is look around the walls to find a myriad of autographed pictures. Every stool was full when we got there around 2 o'clock, but a smiling woman behind the counter pointed us in the general direction of a booth that had just become available. It could have very well been 1944 for the lack of flash, but the place has its own charm.

As C. and I pondered the menu, an unassuming bread basket showed up. I didn't want to ruin my appetite, but the smell, texture and color of the cornbread conspired against me. C., in Botswana by way of Shanghai and Manchester, had never tasted a cornbread muffin, and she was introduced to them in style. It was an unseasonably warm day in DC so we ordered a round of Iced Tea, which would have given any Sweet Tea in Louisiana a run for its money. The sugar shock was the icy jolt we needed to concentrate on the menu and stop pondering the muffins. The place was packed, but we were never rushed - we just had to make sure to catch our waitress before she made her way to the kitchen, all of 8 feet away.

C. had the fried chicken with a side of beets and I had the spare ribs with a side of baked Mac & Cheese. I am calling them sides but at the Florida Avenue Grill these are deemed "vegetables", a rather broad use of the term. C's fried chicken was golden and crunchy, with the pleasant texture but not the excess oil. My barbeque ribs needed the slightest touch from my fork to give way - the sauce was tangy and sirupy. I thought I had over-ordered (the plate came with 4 ribs) but the pork was moist and leaner than I expected. The Mac & Cheese was a bit dry, but one could chalk that up to it's vegetable complex. Though we were both stuffed we decided to have dessert - we were in a Southern diner, after all. Our choices were coconut cake and peach cobbler. C. was away when I ordered, and not knowing if she was a fan of coconut I opted for the cobbler, which was served in a small bowl. While it wasn't bad, it was almost unbearably sweet, and the wonderful crust and crumble that characterizes many cobblers was nowhere to be found, replaced by some dumpling-like masses floating about. Some jam and the rest of the muffins would have probably been a better choice. The better angels of our nature prevailed and we declined a second basket.

Florida Avenue Grill has an extensive breakfast menu, and I am looking forward to trying their pancakes. With such great ribs, I can't wait to see what they can do with cured meats.


Florida Avenue Grill
1100 Florida Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202)265-1586