Vidalia - DC Restaurant Week

So, another Restaurant week excursion, this time with E for lunch. Vidalia's is an American cuisine concentrate on Southern foods, in the up-scale version. It's located at 1990 M St, NW, Washington DC, just past the McD's is you're walking from the Dupont Circle stop. The service was excellent, no complaints there. The gentleman we had was very polite and was great! The food...well a bit od a different story...

I took pictures of E's 3-course as well, so I'll explain a bit of both...

We started with a "pre-appetizer" - Corn Bread and Onion Bread. It was strange to eat the onion bread after the corn bread, but it probably would've tasted better in a sandwich or something anyway. E ate her onion bread before I took a picture, that's why you see 2 corn breads and an onion bread...


On to my appetizer: Sunny Side Up Path Valley Hen Egg which composed of chicken liver fondue, yellow corn grits and julienne black truffle. Now that I think about is there even such a thing as a Rooster Egg? Well that explains the picture below... I think I should've chosen something else... I didn't like the sauce or grits...it had a strange flavor I couldn't swallow. And I really didn't eat much of it either, just some of the egg whites. The truffles didn't taste like anything, just texture...


E ordered Crispy Pig Tails which had pickled turnips, quail egg, pink lady apple sauce and rye jus. I guess that explains the white and red thing on the side, quail egg and pickled turnips. I don't see how this is "pig tails" plural... I didn't taste it, so no comment from me, but E ate the whole thing so I guess it was acceptable to some respect.


For my entree I got the thing I wrote about in my status all week: Southern Fried Frog Legs which had blue cornmeal polenta, cinnamon cap mushrooms and garlic emulsion. Well, it was rather interesting. I never had frog legs before, and they really do taste like chicken, just without the big bones in them. It only had a tiny toothpick like thing and the joints. The sauce, again was strange to me. I don't know why the mushroomc were called "cinnamon cap" since it didn't have anything cinnamon to it. It was like the oriental white mushroom I had before, only bigger.


E got the Shrimp and Grits which had yellow grits, andouille sausage, pearl onions and spicy shellfish cream. It's rather bubbly. Ther table next to us got this and it wasn't bubbly at all, how strange. I had a shrimp and it tasted like shrimp. I didn't try the rest of it, the bubbliness was a tad strange to me.


On to dessert! I got Vidalia's Lemon Chess Square which was a buttery crust layered with rich lemon custard, garnished with berry compote and sweet cream. I really though the 'sweet cream' was just a thick whip cream. Ha. And it has a tree, which I'm attempting to write a story about later... It was pretty good and I was looking forward to it since the pre-course was just ok... It's as it describes and was pretty tasty.


E got the Banana Napoleon which had caramelized bananas with salted caramel mousse, bitter sweet chocolate layers and salted caramel sauce. I had a piece of it, the choclate wasn't exactly 'bittersweet' but it tasted pretty good. I didn't try the caramel sauce, now that I know it was 'salted' that was probably a good idea not to try it! Though the salted caramel mousse didn't taste bad so the sauce probably wasn't too bad either.


It's a good thing the dessert was good otherwise I would've been rather disappointed. I still think I ordered the wrong appetizer which just kind of set me off a bit..

Total price: r-wk price $20.09 + tax + tip = $26/person

So here's my tree! Isn't it pretty?


And it got de-rooted...


And in an attempt to plant it back into the "Earth" (caramel sauce)...


The End. *applause*

Marrakesh - DC Restuarant Week

DC's restaurant week was this week (ends on Sunday the 22nd). I've never been to r-wk before, I actually only heard about it for the FIRST time last year (or the year before) from AJ when she raved about Baltimore's r-wk. I was very surprised to learn about this event and have wanted to participate since I heard about it. I'm glad to finally get a chance to be a part of it and try out some really fancy restaurants.

Marrakesh is a Moroccan restaurant at 2147 P St. NW, Washington DC. Just 2 blocks from the Dupont Circle metro stop (walk diagonal to the left towards the circle).

This was a group from work. Not really co-workers since I don't/won't work with them (they're on the Federal side), but I know a Fed guy (went to school with him) and he invited me. (But then he ended up not going, long story, not appropriate for this blog). We ordered our 3 courses all at once...when everyone arrived finally at 8pm or so...

So on to the 3 courses! I have my handy dandy menu as reference! Appetizer was a Seafood Bastilla, which was "Filo dough stuffed with mushrooms, scallops, shrimps and vermicelli." It was rather interesting...it was SOOOO dark there, I couldn't see that the top was a lemon rind, I thought they were onions....although you can see clearly from this picture, they're not! Ha. The Bastilla was crunchy, the dough wasn't as I imagined it to be filling, but rather thin, in layers. The insides were as mentioned above. A bit of salt and some boring spices...not a very thrilling appetizer...



The entree was Lamb Tagine, Braised lamb with prunes, sesame seeds and almonds. The dark stuff surrounding the middle are the prunes...I forgot the ingredients and really thought they were shitake mushrooms until I took a bite of it...I don't like prunes. The almonds were good. The lamb was interesting, very soft but not much flavor to it. There was a bit of drizzle, but it didn't have a strong taste.



And finally the dessert. A boring old cheesecake with strawberry drizzle on it. I originally ordered a creme Caramel a la Marocaine, but after we finished our entrees our server informed us they were out of that....very very disappointed, I was really looking forward to some good dessert!



Total Price: r-wk price $35.09 + tax + tip = $45