What I really like about this place is the people…….

Sara is amazing with cheese. Her enthusiasm is intoxicating and almost requires that you learn to speak the romantic languages so that you might properly appreciate each and every specialty cheese.

David is the beer man. He loves to talk shop whether it is local or global. Be careful because he might get you hooked on some seriously hoppy brew.

Peter is my favorite wine man. I just love going to him with a menu and letting him scurry around the shop picking the perfect match for my meals. He has yet to miss.

Julia is the perfect hostess. She has an invigorating personality with the stories and knowledge to back it up. She owns the shop and she has done a wonderful job of making it a place where people need to return.

Truth is that I am far from an expert on wine, cheese and beer. The staff at RCC make me feel empowered every time I leave the store. They have good selection, fair prices, and they make shopping there- fun.

Since there has been some speculation about what restaurant might inhabit this space, I asked Russell some questions that might give us a sneak peak into this new eatery

What are some signature Russell Cook items we can expect on the menu?
As of right now, I have no intention of transplanting dishes I’ve done in the past, to Balliceaux’s menu. But, by the same token, I don’t think I’m a talented enough chef to suddenly start cooking differently than I have for the past 15-20 years. So there will definitely be a familiar feel to the food. I do have to say that the foie gras mac’n’cheese I started playing around with a couple of years ago has been requested in an obscene fashion. People (even women) have offered themselves to me to put that back on a menu. So, there may be some vestige of that at Balliceaux

How much of the menu is dedicated to local/organic items?
As much as possible. From going, daily, to neighborhood farmer’s markets, to CSA’s, to local organic produce companies (like Cabbage Hill Farms & Manakintowne Growers), to utilizing larger purveyors who have programs installed to insure that products come from no further away than 100 miles. It is important to us that the foods integrity never be compromised and we stay as green as possible, but we also need to be realistic in that all of what is needed to operate a full service kitchen can’t be procured, solely, in Richmond or in Virginia for that matter.
Tell me about some of the general difference between the bar menu/dinner menu?
First, let me say that none or this is set in stone, but I believe the plan is to have a “Social Hour” menu from 4-6pm and a “Late Night” menu from 10pm-12am. Both will be comparable to the Dinner menu, with slight derivations between the two. I guess you could say that bar menus offer items that are more accessible on a bar top. More finger-foods and morsels and nibbles, as opposed to things you might enjoy as part of a 3-4 course meal at a full-size table.

Needless to say, this is something that I am looking forward to opening. I hope to let you know more information as it comes to me.

Now let me get this out of the way, I know this place is a chain, but I don’t hate chains as long as they serve a quality product. TDB has a great product. We aren’t talking prime or even choice quality meats, but they are cooked simply and are very tasty. Oh and they have the most wonderful salad bar in town (in my carnivorous opinion).

The salad bar is full of wonderful prepared salads, meats, cheeses and other wonderful delights. I am personally a fan of the grilled provolone, grilled jalapenos, crab rolls, shrimp salad, and the addicting blue cheese dressing. Also make sure to grab chimchurri sauce for your meat and some extra bacon from the bucket o’ bacon.

They have a hot bar, but I rarely touch it because I am not there to eat side dishes. I am there to eat the meat. While there is a plethora of carne, I have a select few that I commit to eating. The lamb is a must (chops and leg). The flank steak is usually rich and wonderful. The linguica sausage is a nice break from the red meat. My two favorites are the beef ribs and the house special sirloin. The beef ribs are rich and succulent. I can usually only handle a small portion. Note- you sometimes have to ask you server to have the beef ribs delivered. The house special sirloin is also referred to as the picahna by Brazilians. It is a but of the top sirloin with a nice fat cap. It is tender, tasty and wonderful. It’s a travesty that the US and European butchers often destroy it.

By the time dessert comes around I am usually stuffed. I have had the flan and it is great. Also, make sure to try some traditional Brazilian drinks while you are there. The caipirinha is a strong and addicting adult beverage. For the soda drinkers out there, try the Guanara.

Overall, I love the place but the $40+ per person price tag is a bit much. That being said, by joining there e-club for free, you will receive multiple discounts over the year with several 50% coupons for special events.

Well, anyway, since my first visit to Mekong, I discovered Pho So #1 and never thought of any reason to go anywhere else. Until a few months ago, I was completely content in never going back. Then I learned about Ahn Mekong and his obsession with Belgian Ales.

It is a bit odd, that a Vietnamese restaurant has a beer menu that rivals Capital Ale House. It was enough reason for me to check it out again. So Mrs. Marinara and I were out on a little Valentine’s Day excursion and we decided to grab some dinner at Mekong.

Really, it was a solid experience. Everything was just good- nothing mind blowing- but good. The prices were reasonable. The menu was diverse. The food tasted great. I still don’t claim to be the expert on Vietnamese food, but it tasted good to me and the beer was great. I still can’t believe I waited so long to make it back there.

Am I the only one to have done this?

My plan was to have Thanksgiving dinner over 5 courses. By doing it over courses, we could slow things down and let people enjoy themselves. So here was the menu:

1) Soup- Carrot Dill as inspired by Limani
2) Salad- Spinach Salad with chevre, craisins, pecan pralines, and lavender vinaigrette
3) Pasta- Sweet Potato Gnocchi with a maple, sage, brown-butter sauce
4) Entrée- Fried Turkey. Andouille and cornbread dressing, Green bean casserole
5) Dessert- Apple-calvados tart, chocolate-pecan pie, pumpkin crunch

The Soup- This wasn’t a challenging recipe, and overall it tasted very good. The basic concept was cooking down and browning a bunch of carrots, pureeing it all together, and adding heavy cream. Hind sight being 20-20, I wish had cooked down some more white wine and had added it to the mix.

The Salad- This came off really well. My sister had been working the dressing earlier in the afternoon. It is really hard to have a bad salad with crumbled chevre and craisins.

The Pasta- I’ve learned my lesson on gnocchi. Not how to do it better, but rather buy it from someone who knows how to make it. To be fair, I tired finding someone else to make it and no one accepted the challenge. Still the gnocchi itself was decent and the sauce a decadent.

The Entrée- The turkey tasted great. The beauty of frying a turkey is that there is a lot of forgiveness, it cooks quickly, and it doesn’t take up oven space. The negative is that it forces the meal to become regional. The biggest failure of the night came with the dressing. The combination of the Andouille sausage and unfettered cayenne pepper made the dish too spicy. It had great flavor but it came with a cost to those eating it. The green bean casserole was a Paula Dean recipe. My mom did a great job with it.

The Dessert- I subbed all of the desserts to different people. All were well received. I was able to try only a bit of everything because I was still quite full.

Overall, it was a positive experience. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and I look forward to trying it again. Special props to my sister, she truly made this whole thing possible. I always forget how challenging it is to get up from the table and get the next course ready, especially for 10 guests.

Guess what! It sucked. The sauce was way too sweet. The pan crust was like cardboard. I am not sure why I thought a combination of toppings would somehow make it better, but now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

So with that trepidation always lurking, I cling to my sure things with all my might. One of those is my favorite DC Italian restaurant, Filomena Ristorante. Tucked in the corner of historic Georgetown, Filomena is quite nondescript in comparison to other more lavish spots. If you choose to drive there, your best bet is to park in the Georgetown Park Mall’s underground garage and walk across Wisconsin Ave to the small opening.

Have you ever gone into a historic building, or a well preserved home, or grandma’s kitchen, and just smiled? When you enter Filomena, you will simply smile, because upon entering, immediately to your right, is a tiny, ancient kitchen where a little old lady is hand making pasta. On my most recent visit, she was hand-stuffing raviolis. Regardless of what you were thinking about on the outside of that door, on the inside of that door, all you can think about is eating the very thing that this little old lady, whom Filomena boasts as its “Pasta Mama,” is making.

You won’t want to leave the side of the Pasta Mama, but eventually you will have to part ways (possibly not before whispering to her, “will you come home with me?”) and head down a flight of stairs into an atmospheric dining area that conveys New Vesuvio, but in a good way. It is almost always busy with commotion and crowds, but the manager and wait staff go out of their way to make you feel comfortable.

Ah, but how is the food? Short of describing the nuances of every dish I’ve ever eaten there, the easiest all-encompassing statement I can make is that the food matches the rest of the experience, if not surpassing it. I have shared in dishes of pizzas, linguinis, raviolis, and in my most recent visit, a penne dish called Penne con Salsicce. The care by which the sauces, meats, and pasta are made help redefine your thinking on what Italian food does to a man. It makes you feel warm and good inside and that you wish for a little while you were an authentic Italian.

If you dine for dinner, you are then treated with courtesy after-dinner cordials. Thoughtfully (if not dangerously) they don’t just bring you a tasting glass; they actually leave the full decanter on your table to imbibe at your leisure.

No, you’re not done yet. To finish things off, you have at your option and capacity the choice of tasting their pastry chef’s magic. The first time I went there with my family, the chef came out to talk to us about her cakes. She recommended a decadent chocolate cake, and said that with this cake, she would quite happily sit down with it and a glass of milk and enjoy her breakfast. After one bite I knew exactly what she meant.

You leave the restaurant begrudgingly, but it is now time to walk off your dinner. The historic area of Georgetown is the perfect place to go arm in arm with your loved one, delaying the inevitability of fishing your car out of the garage and leaving the place that you swear your loving Italian grandma is calling you back for one more bite of ravioli.

Filomena Ristorante
1063 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 338-8800