I’ve only been to Washington DC once before that counts as tourism. Oh, I ran down there three or four times over the years I lived in New York for one event or another – a leadership conference, a food show, a martial arts tournament, a gay march – but it was just for a day, with once or twice a stay overnight, and then back home. I can’t tell you exactly what age I was when I was there for a couple of days for tourism – I vaguely recall seeing the Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington memorials, and I think my father took me on a tour of the FBI museum while my mom took the other kids to some other sight. Given that my mom was on the vacation, I had to be younger the 15, and given that, as I put it to my cousins this weekend, there was no Vietnam memorial because, well, we were still over there fighting, I’d guess it to have been roughly 1970-1972. So I’d reserved a good stretch of one day this weekend to just get out and see some of the tourist sights. Of course it had to be the one day that the skies decided that a steady light rain all day would be appropriate. I’m sure you’ve seen a zillion pictures of all the various buildings and monuments, so I’m not going to just post a bunch of those. Let’s see where we go…

A little street hockey on the plaza between the US Treasury and the north lawn of the White House. As good a spot as any.

The Smithsonian offers tours of the area via Segway – the tour guide has a wireless microphone and the folks along for the ride have receivers hanging around their necks, with attached earphones. To me it seems a very bizarre way to take a tour.

I’ve gotten so used to the Obelisco in Buenos Aires that I had fully expected the Washington Monument to be gleaming white. Is it just in need of a good cleaning along with the ongoing repairs (a “tremor” apparently disrupted the foundation)?

There was also no WWII memorial when I was first, or last, in WDC as it was built during the GWB administration. Really nicely done.

It’s a lovely walk down to the Lincoln Memorial…

…honestly far lovelier than walking along the famed reflecting pool which is scum and algae filled – tasty for some of the denizens of the area, but not all that attractive to look at.

Also not built when I last toured there, the Korean War Memorial – everyone always takes pictures of the soldier statues spread out across the garden in formation, but I thought the wall of etched faces was far more interesting, especially with the added reflections of the people examining it.

The rain had picked up, so I only continued with a brief visit to the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam War Memorial – the former jammed with people trying to stay dry, the latter a hurried visit for folk not wanting to get too wet. And then I headed towards the closest metro station which is a fair hike. I decided that I had to pass by the Jose de San Martin statue – I mean, he’s everywhere in South America – who knew he had a little plaza in Washington?

I’ve heard stories of the legendary chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl on the U Street corridor, most of them, however, seem to stem from the Tony Bourdain No Reservations episode in DC, and are just repeat tellings of the tale. But rumor had it that next door, at, appropriately, Ben’s Next Door, 1211 U Street NW, are the city’s best shrimp and grits. Much as I love a good bowl of chili, that sounded even better – besides, I could always do both, right? The shrimp and grits are really pretty amazing – easily the best I’ve ever had. I’ve never seen them served like this in a broth, but wow did all the flavors work. My only objection is that it seemed a whole lot more like an appetizer portion than a main course, so…

…even though I’d been thinking about the chili, I decided that I had to try the chicken and waffles, which has also been touted highly in many places. Yum, just yum. Crispy, crackly skinned chicken, perfectly cooked, spicy, delicious, and light, fluffy waffles. Okay, the chili idea went out the window at this point and will have to be saved for another trip, if that should ever come to pass, it was already getting on into late afternoon and there was a family and friends dinner coming up in just a couple of hours. I returned to the hotel, freshened up, changed, and headed back into town (National Harbor’s a bit of a hike from DC proper – shuttle bus to Alexandria, VA and then the metro into the city).

Stretched out along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of Capitol Hill turned out to be the National Asian Heritage Festival, apparently a term for bad karaoke performances by teen and 20-something Asian girls, on three separate stages, all at the same time, and, chicken on a stick. I think there were nine or ten cuisines represented at the various food stands and all of them were offering chicken on a stick. One can only hope the spicing was at least different. But, with a Chinese banquet looming only a half hour away, I passed on by. Regrettable, in the end, that I didn’t try the chili nor the chicken on sticks, as the seemingly endless quantity of Chinese food we had at Hunan Dynasty, 215 Pennsylvania Ave SE, was about as mediocre as it could have been – and none of it Hunan, all just the typical sorts of Cantonese takeout dishes. It was bad enough that my cousin’s fiance (as of that moment) apologized for what we’d been subjected to. Jews and Chinese at the various tables alike, survived.

My main reason for scheduling my visit at this particular time is for a family wedding, which I’ll get to in the next post. It was in the DC area and so leaving the bounds of New York are just part of the deal. An uneventful Amtrak ride down to Baltimore where I met up with my friend Frank once again, this time just for a short lunch visit. And breakfast…

Because we started in Fells Point at Bonaparte Bakery for coffee and a massive croissant just to fortify us. Then Frank had to run a couple of errands, like buying coffee and olives and picking up his stepdaughter from school and then dropping that trio back at home, and then we returned to Fells Point for lunch.

Starting with a couple of Heavy Seas ales at Riptide by the Bay, 1718 Thames St, a spot Frank hadn’t been to, but that looked good. Their carbonation was out so they weren’t serving beer on tap.

A little crab dip with toast and crab mac ‘n cheese and I was loaded with crabs and carbs. Frank shared the dip and had fish and chips. All pretty darned good, and sitting outside in the sun chatting away made for a nice afternoon of catching up, which is what it was all about anyway.

But we did get in a little green, in the form of some brussels sprouts dressed in parmesan and anchovies. Even better. And then Frank dropped me back at the train station to continue on down to DC. The MARC train whisked me in to Union Station in a mere 50 minutes where I was confronted by a near hour long wait at the taxi stand – not that the taxis weren’t coming, they were, continuously, there were just that many people waiting. And, a short ride out to National Harbor where I checked in to…

…the Aloft Hotel, 156 Waterfront St, and a lovely room with two queen beds and a great view. The desk person assured me that what she wanted to do was put me in a “much smaller room” but didn’t have one. Who says that to a guest? But it was kind of typical of the service at the hotel which has been kind of haphazard. Friendly and cheerful as can be, but not particularly ept (yes, I realize that the opposite of inept isn’t ept, which doesn’t exist, inept being the negation of apt, but at the same time not exactly being its antonym, but ept should be a word and I’m using it here).

Now, I’d planned on dinner with a friend and Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant, Range, but my friend wasn’t feeling well and had to cancel, and when a) I looked at what it would take to get to the part of WDC that it was located in in time for my reservation, and then to get back later in the evening, plus the style of the place is more about big sharing plates out of the wood burning oven, and b) ran into my aunt and uncle during check-in who seemed plaintively alone for the evening as well, I decided to forgo the effort and have dinner with them here at one of the touristy spots (and they are, really touristy spots here).

So very shortly thereafter, like 7pm (it always takes me great effort to adjust back to the eating schedule here in the States when I’m in, part of the reason for simply proposing grazing days and eves with everyone – people can join and unjoin at will), we were seated outside at McLoone’s Pier House, 141 National Plaza, where people were drinking colorful drinks, the music was pounding (indoors, thankfully not outdoors, part of why we picked to sit outside), and I had a glass of unsweet iced tea in front of me along with…

The smallest clams on the half shell I’ve encountered in a very long time, especially at $1.50 each… I mean, that’s a sort of pitiful looking plate of half a dozen clams, no?

Faced with a menu full of fish dishes with bizarre, fanciful concoctions I inquired wistfully if there was something a bit plainer I might have. Thankfully the waiter was happy to tell the kitchen to put my pineapple chutney on the side of the grilled mahi mahi with spinach and coconut rice rather than smothering it in the stuff, and I eschewed the chutney for some lemon and a little of the cocktail sauce that had come with the clams. Uncle and aunt, respectively, made their way through pistachio halibut and sunset salmon. I should have gone for one of the Maryland crab specials at the top of the menu… just sayin’. But again, it was about catching up and relaxing, this time with family.

More later – a day of visiting WDC and eating, then a day of eating and wedding, and today I’m eating and then heading back to NY just in time for more eating. Thankfully, the hotel here has a gym and I’ve been making use of it.

Okay, this is the day some of you have been waiting for. My friend David came down from Boston to spend the afternoon and evening – those of you who’ve been with me awhile may remember our jaunts in his town last year. We decided on a food and wine grazing day, and I decided to foursquare check-in all the spots, just to blow a few minds…. He arrived early afternoon and we met in the lobby of his hotel and immediately hit the streets.

We’d decided that since we were close and both like Korean food, we’d start in Koreatown and just kind of pick a couple of spots. When we saw the team at Mandoo Bar, 2 West 32nd, busily making dumplings faster than we could blink, we popped in and had a mixed plate of three different kinds – pork, shrimp and vegetable. We also nibbled on some edamame and gave a shot at a scallion pancake. The dumplings – tasty but a little thick and doughy we thought. The scallion pancake, really, really greasy and we ended up not eating half of it.

A few years ago I had a great Korean meal with some friends who know their stuff at Arirang, 32 West 32nd, and remembered it fondly. David and I didn’t go all out with multiple plates as our intent was to visit a whole lot of places for the day. I looked at my blog post from back then and we ordered the same chicken porridge (which I have the name wrong in the linked post, but the waiter corrected me with a name I’ve now forgotten) with the jujubes, black sesame, ginseng and ginger. It wasn’t as good as I remember it, but, my friends had also doctored it up with a bunch of added condiments – as you can see in the difference in the two photos from this and the previous post. We ate most of the bowlful anyway, it was still quite tasty.

From there we wandered into SD26 and shared a glass of sparkling Franciacorta with friend and former co-worker John. And from there, we walked down the street to Eataly, which David hadn’t been to, and just wandered around inside for a short while.

It was time for a quick coffee, so we walked a few blocks up to Stumptown, which both of us had wanted to try, and while we were there our eyes lit upon two Indian-Pakistani restaurants across the street, Lasani and Chandni, 11 West 29th St. With the power of foursquare in hand we quickly learned that the former was basically denigrated as a sort of Indian greasy spoon, while the latter has rave reviews, particularly for its chicken masala. So we split a plate, along with a side of tamatar – stewed potatoes and spinach in a really tasty sauce, and naan bread that came right off the griddle while we watched and waited. Verdict? Despite being a steam line casual cafeteria style joint, one of the best chicken masalas I think I’ve ever had, as were the other two components. Wow, what a find – I’d be heading there for my Indian food fix if I still lived in town.

Heading uptown a little bit we spent a little time in Times Square – wow, there’s more and more lights there than ever before – technology and all that. We headed into Little Brazil but didn’t see anything interesting and ended up settling in at Akdeniz, 19 West 46th Street for a mini-array of nibbles – vegetable and rice stuffed grape leaves, babaganoush, and easily the best tarama I’ve ever had – a complete wow and I want to know how they make it, because it wasn’t at all like the versions I’ve had before which are usually thickened with bread or potato – this was ethereally light, and the menu said it was just fish roe whipped with olive oil and lemon. Yum! The babaganoush was fresh and zesty but lacking any smokiness and we didn’t finish it off, the vine leaves were heavy and not very interesting. I’d go back for a platter of the tarama and some fresh pita bread….

Oh, and we were seated at a table right across from Jackie Mason and two of his companions. A slice of New York.

At this point we’d reached a bit after 5 pm (and if you look at it, we’d really only shared a few small plates of food), and it was time for a brief separation. David had family to visit for a steak dinner, and I had Japanese food plans with Michael, a sake importer and friend. David had been invited to join us but family obligations prevailed. Michael and I met up at Tsukushi, 300 East 41st. Now, if you like Japanese food and you’re in NYC and you haven’t ever been, you should. It’s not a sushi bar. It’s not a sake bar. It’s not a fancy restaurant. It’s a little hole in the wall that feels like you’ve just stepped into someone’s home and they’ve set up a counter in front of their kitchen to cook food and feed it to you. You get no say in what you eat, they just put dish after dish in front of you. If you do want more after eating “the set meal”, they have a short menu of noodle and rice dishes you can tack on.

Fresh bamboo salad with ginger and shaved bonito flakes

Instead of edamame, fresh fava beans, and a bowl of just made soft tofu in a soy and mountain yam broth

No sushi at Tsukushi, just sashimi – fluke, mackerel and sea urchin here

Pork belly and daikon stew

Collar of ocean perch grilled on a little hibachi right in front of us

Meltingly tender lamb chop

All absolutely delicious, as always. Though, I definitely was not up for ordering any of the additional dishes. Oh, and for the food portion, a mere $55 apiece. We did go through a bottle of sake, plus taste another one.

And then, still early eve, Michael dropped me back at the hotel where I relaxed for an hour and then headed back out to meet up again with David and another friend for a round of wine at the rooftop bar at Ed’s Chowder House in the Hotel Empire – unfortunately the rooftop bar was booked for a private party so we had to settle for the mezzanine bar and a strange Russian bartender who clearly thought he was funny. He wasn’t. And, we called it a night. While we hit a lot of places for the day, the truth is, it wasn’t a huge amount of food, but it was great fun!

Day 3 was the lightest in terms of number of places, but perhaps the most food overall. Met up with a wine importer friend at Le Philosophe, 55 Bond St, for a bit of a French bistro lunch.

Custom and recommendations dictated that we start with a plate of fresh radishes with mustard butter and sea salt – a bit of a meh – the radishes not quite as cold and crisp as we’d have liked, and wayyyyyy too much ice cold butter on the plate – soften it up a bit first, ya know? On to a classic roasted bone marrow plate, as spectacular as we’d heard, a great bowl of really delicious, plump mussels in a slightly spicy citrus cream with leeks and new potatoes, and finally their noted “Amish chicken” which was decent but not great – the skin wasn’t crispy and it was just a breast sitting on top of a large pile of arugula with a citrus vinaigrette and a few slices of an orange – and it also just paled completely in contrast to the amazing roast chicken from Calliope (previous post).

Next door a small butcher shop “Japanese Meats” – with some cute signs in the window.

Then a glass of wine at Cookshop in the early evening followed by a late eve meetup with one of my dearest friends in town, and we headed to Wong, 7 Cornelia St, where chef, owner, and friend Simpson Wong treated the two of us a to an eight course tasting menu. All good, some of it… unusual (despite the raves it’s received, and although I’m happy to have tried it, once, roast duck ice cream is not going on my list of faves). I have to say, though, that through his various spots that he’s opened my favorite for both food and ambiance remains Cafe Asean.

Standouts of the tasting were the garlicky and sticky smoked spareribs and the just perfectly cooked wild striped bass over a tomato and garlic jam of sorts and topped with crispy fried kale. We also enjoyed some lovely tempura soft shell crabs, a bit of braised pork belly, some shrimp and sweet potato fritters, lobster egg fu yung, and another that I’m drawing a blank on at the moment.

I did say that I was only going to post the standouts, right? Okay, maybe I have to at least mention a few things here and there – not all gemstones are pretty…. As I said, I’m grazing, and on one eve so far I met up with two friends with plans to simply try the food at one spot, early, and call it a night (at least for them, I planned on more). They decided they wanted to make it an evening of restaurant hopping as well, and so, we hit, in order, Mission Chinese, Cata, and Calliope.

So let’s start at the beginning. Mission Chinese, 154 Orchard St, might be the most talked about new Asian hotspot in NYC right now. At least in some circles. I mean, my friends eat out at Asian restaurants a lot and one of them is in the business. And they’d only really heard about it because the chef, Danny Bowen, just won a James Beard award for “Rising Star Chef”. I’d read about it, and someone from BA who’d been to NYC recently had said they’d really liked it. Supposed to be very creative Asian street food done up restaurant style. I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for a little dive of a basement that was dingy and reminiscent of some sort of 70s cafe where no one cared about the food, just about the attitude. And Attitude, with a capital A, they have. Okay, he did just win an award. He wasn’t there that I saw. I did, while I waited, witness two of the cooks arguing about one spice mixture and what went into it, both had completely different ideas and had been making it their ways “for weeks”, and then they were joined by a third who said, “why don’t you read the f*cking recipe, you’re both wrong.” That didn’t bode well for food consistency.

The attitude upfront continues in back, after passing down a long hallway and emerging in what passes for a dining room. It’s communal table style seating with tables and chairs jammed in like a tetris puzzle and pounding noise from both guests and an overblown sound system. After being informed that the beers on tap weren’t working and there was no other option for beer, we settled for a round of gin and tonics and ordered a half dozen small plates of food to share. Now, with one exception, none of the food was bad, it was all edible and even reasonably nicely presented. But there was simply nothing creative and unusual about any of it, other than that dishes that crossed into different Asian cultures were being served out of one kitchen. But any of the dishes were ones that we’ve seen before and could find down in Chinatown at a lower price or more abundant portion. The seasonings tended to be out of balance – not horribly so, but just off, not surprising given the exchange I witnessed up by the kitchen – leaving us wondering if anyone had actually tasted them before sending them out, not to mention the chef’s quality control on what’s coming out of his kitchen, whether he’s present or not. The plate pictured above, Mongolian long beans, was so laced with cumin and coriander and salty soy that it hurt to eat it, and we pretty much left what you see in the photo. Honestly, we couldn’t get the check fast enough to get out of there into the relatively blessed silence of Orchard Street…. And it was clear on our leaving that they couldn’t wait to jam in some new arrivals to the seats we’d just vacated. Sometimes, hype really is just hype.

At the serene other end of the spectrum, the newly opened Cata, 254 Bowery St, is a cavernous space with high ceilings, an air of calm, and friendly, solicitous staff. A mix of bar seating and high, communal tables with stools, it’s a tapas bar with no pretensions to anything fancier. No fancy fusion, just a modicum of creativity, it’s solidly cooked and presented small plate food designed to be nibbled on while imbibing cocktails. And, the specialty here is gin and tonics, with various gins and various tonics and various infusions gracing a list of a couple of dozen offerings. Apparently the gin and tonic is the cocktail of the moment in Barcelona and they’re following the trend here too. We had simple plates of grilled padron peppers, oysters on the half shell with bone marrow crust, cured anchovies with lemon and radish, and even a bowl of fresh percebes, a type of barnacle rarely seen here. Sorry about the photo…. We nibbled away happily for about an hour, thanked the staff and host, and wandered out into the night air far more fortified.

And, decided to head to Calliope, 84 East 4th St at the corner of 2nd Ave, where my friends had heard that some decent French food was to be found. The place was hopping, even more so than Mission Chinese had been, and we just barely garnered the last available table. And throughout the evening as fast as a party would leave the table would be re-sat with someone who was waiting. The space used to be a burger and drinks joint called Belcourt, I remember it from when I lived in the ‘hood as, pretty much, a sort of frat boy dive that was always annoyingly loud and rowdy. It’s still loud as there’s not a soft surface in the place, though it’s less rowdy, as the folk dining there are all from well north of East 60th street residents, well north of 60 years of age, and well north of the Mason-Dixon line – it had to be the whitest, waspiest, most upscale crowd I’ve ever seen in the East Village. And what they’re coming there for turns out to be what I’d say is the best French brasserie food I’ve had in more than a decade. One dish after another was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, and beautifully presented. We couldn’t stop ordering or eating. From the opening salvo of anchovy toast, followed by a dish of fresh Maine sea urchins, then the just barely broiled slice of king salmon pictured above with a vibrant sorrel hollandaise sauce, a spring onion, leek and goat cheese tart, and then the halibut with fresh peas and fava beans and white asparagus all poached in milk, then a perfectly roasted quarter chicken with skin so crispy it cracked when you cut into it, a casserole side dish of chard and sorrel gratin, and finally a tangy rhubarb and strawberry pastry for dessert. The menu is paired up with a brilliantly selected list of mostly French “country wines”, all offered at really reasonable prices. We were so stuffed, and so happy – a complete wow.

I’m grazing. Around everything else I’m doing, I’m just grabbing nibbles here and there, some on my own, some with friends, and much of it is small, shared plate kind of stuff. I’m not taking photos of everything (some stuff yes, mostly just with the phone), I’m just having a good time. And, I’m not going to post a round up of everything I’m doing and eating, just the standouts, and it may also be in somewhat random order… that’s life. Time is fungible and all that.

Grabbed coffee and this amazingly buttery and rich croissant au pistou for breakfast at Lafayette Bakery, 380 Lafayette St. What’s not to like? Fresh basil, a hint of garlic, black olives and a bit of goat cheese.

An early eve meet-up with some wine importer friends at the new Malibea, 2 Bank Street, corner of Greenwich Ave, the conjoined twin of the open slightly longer Barraca. We left a selection of a trio of tapas in the hands of chef Jesús Nuñez, who a few years ago arrived on the NYC restaurant scene from a background as a local chef enfant terrible in Madrid at restaurants Polenta and Flou. On the left, some really good hummus studded with fresh chickpeas, beans, toasted seeds, and packing a punch, with a side of too small but really delicious rosemary pita bread hot out of the oven. On the right, excellent falafel. But the true star was the center plate, a concoction that took a moment to grasp, not only in concept but in flavor – carpaccios of salmon and scallops topped with: red and black lumpfish caviar, slivered toasted almonds, tapenade, what I think were baby edamame, green and black olives, cherry tomatoes, finely diced salmon gravlax, and a just barely sweet toasted almond ice cream. A better photo on their FB page here. I am, of course, stealing the idea for some inspiration down the line. I don’t generally use words like this, but f*king brilliant!