Letting the Crab Out of the Bag

The phrase “crabs in a bag” always meant one of two things to me:


1. A hot brown paper bag that fills your car with the smell of old bay while driving back from the crab house.
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2. A bad joke about venereal diseases.

Then Marcy introduced me to meaning # 3. While checking out a food market in Chinatown in Las Vegas, she found a Doritos-sized bag stuffed with crabs. These things aren’t made by Keebler elves in a hollow tree – they’re real baby crabs, each about an inch wide. Their shells, claws, and innards are all intact.
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It was a no-brainer for Marcy to buy these things for me. They combine two of my favorite things: crabs and weird Asian food.
And I wanted to like them. The Japanese manufacturer, Shokuhin Company, markets them as a snack for Tokyo businessmen to eat while getting drunk after work. The bright yellow bag reads, “Let’s Party,” and, in Japanese, “A time spent with fun companions – come on now, all together!”
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I was riled up and ready to party, but then I took a bite. Have you ever eaten crabs and been reminded of crackerjacks stuffed with dried fish? Me neither. These “crabs” – processed in food coloring, MSG, corn syrup, and sugar – tasted nothing like crabs. The smell was like a fish market at closing time Sunday night, or a horseshoe crab washed up on the beach. And at the bottom of the bag, no owl whistle or 3-D picture of a deep sea treasure.
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Shokuhin calls them “Roasted Crab Meisaku.” Meisaku can either mean masterpiece, or interesting. I’m going with interesting.
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The only upside of this snack food was that it motivated me to go out and get the real thing. The commercial crab season started on April 1, and I needed a salt-of-the-earth crab house. I needed it immediately.

I rocketed my Civic through the sedate streets of suburban Maryland and found myself at Bethesda Crab House, the self-proclaimed second-oldest restaurant in Bethesda. Perfect. The restaurant was completely empty, and I sincerely hoped that all their customers weren’t at home getting wasted and eating crackerjack crabs. I grabbed a mallet and it wasn’t long before my back ached from leaning so enthusiastically over a pile of fresh crustaceans. Slathered in tomale, I told Frank, the weathered guy at the bar who looked more Dundalk than Bethesda, about my roasted crabs “party” earlier that day. “Sounds disgusting,” he said.
 
Daddy and baby crab

 
It was hard to imagine that these delicately textured, increasingly rare creatures belonged to the same species as their processed, maltose-soaked kin. Then it hit me: Shokuhin is taking perfectly healthy baby crabs, and instead of letting them flourish to their tasty adult potential, turning them into the Japanese equivalent of beer nuts.
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This should be a felony.
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Any red-blooded crab-loving Marylander would agree. Since 1990, the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population decreased from 791 million to 260. And U.S. environmental groups have long said that overfishing of crabs is a major factor in the blue crab’s decline.
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I don’t know where Shokuhin gets their crabs, but I did some research into Japan’s record on overfishing, and it reads like Saddam Hussein’s record on killing countrymen. Their legacy of exploiting fish populations goes at least as far back as the 1930s, when the Japanese all but annihilated the red king crabs of the eastern Bering Sea. In 1964, the U.S. had to arrange a bilateral fishing agreement with Japan, and the agreement notes the “historical fact that nationals and vessels of Japan have over a long period of years exploited the king crab resource.”
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Although that agreement provided some protection for king crabs, other subspecies weren’t as lucky. In the mid-1990s, snow crabs got popular in Japan, and the country’s fisheries were willing to pay top dollar and go anywhere in the world to get them. They settled on the North Pacific coast, casting their nets from Washington to Alaska. Predictably, they overfished, and the snow crab disappeared.
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All just so the Japanese can get their crabs and beer out of the same vending machine?

DC Market Brings Iberico Pork Belly to the U.S.

Before this past Friday, legendary Iberico de Bellota pork belly had never been sold in the United States.  Thanks to a fortuitous tip from Wagshal's Market, the exclusive retailer of this Spanish delicacy, and a drive through DC's suburbs at speeds more appropriate for exploring a nearby solar system, I got to Wagshal's in time to become the nation's first purchaser!

Shouldn't I get some kind of prize for that?  Is a Wagshal's refrigerator magnet out of the question?

And just how did this Spring Valley market get to be the only place in the U.S. that sells Bellota pork belly?  When I asked Pam Ginsberg, the Manager at Wagshal's, she explained that no other butcher is as committed to hogging top quality meats.  And, of course, the USDA had to approve Ibérico imports, which only happened a few years ago.

                                           Wagshal's Pam

The Market's ties with Jose Andres didn't hurt, either.  Last year, Andres, Spain's culinary ambassador to the U.S. and owner of DC's ThinkFoodGroup, was shopping at Wagshal's with a Bellota exporter when they bumped into owner Bill Fuchs.  A couple of handshakes took place in the vegetable section, and Wagshal's special arrangement was secured.

Just one problem: Washingtonians pig out too fast!  Pam recalled that all the Iberico got snatched up almost immediately, so this year Wagshal's has significantly expanded its product line.  And pork belly is one of the featured additions.
For those of you who weren't part of last year's stampede, Iberico de Bellota is considered the tastiest pig on the planet - the porcine equivalent to Beluga caviar and Kobe beef.


Iberico, with characteristically slender legs and long snout

While it's new to many Americans, inhabitants of southwest Europe have been salivating over these pigs for thousands of years, ever since cavemen chased wild hogs on the Iberian Peninsula.  Columbus even chowed Iberico during his Santa Maria trip to the New World. 

But it wasn't until a couple centuries after Columbus that the kings of western Spain stumbled upon Iberico's tasty potential when they required each village to cram their pastures full of oak trees.  The pigs took to gobbling up the tasty acorns that fell from the trees, and Iberico de "Bollota," meaning acorn, became an instant hit, especially when paired with a naranjo sauce.

These days, Iberian hogs have it better than most humans I know; guests pampered at a Menorca spa have little on these big porkers, who roam freely over five acres of land in a specially maintained oak forest called "la dehesa."  They do nothing but oink at the perfectly blue sky and eat their favorite food, oily acorns - so many that they gain two pounds a day, and after 10 months they've doubled their weight to 400 pounds.  They can then claim the coveted title of Iberico de Bellota, but even the matanza, or sacrifice, is laid back.  Producers put the pigs to sleep first, believing that stress toxins would otherwise taint the meat.

So, is all this trouble actually justified by the taste?

Check out pics of Iberico de Bellota and recipe after the jump

All-Star Octopus Dishes in the DC Area

Do you have a favorite dish you're so obsessed with that, when it's listed at a restaurant, the menu closes automatically, your eyes burning a hole through the waiter across the room before your conscious mind even realizes you've decided what to order?

I have a few, and when prepared by a chef at the top of his game, these foods monopolize my thoughts long after the meal.  In the days that follow, during meetings at work, I find myself nodding towards the person speaking to me and thinking: how did they get the skin of that pork so crispy the other night?  How hot do they set the oven?  In the shower, while others' thoughts drift to the guy who posted his kids on Craigslist, I debate the ingredients in the veal cheek marinade.  All this eventually forces me into my own kitchen to try recreating a dish that, let's face it, my culinary talents don't stand a chance of achieving.

Now, just imagine the disappointment when I request one of my favorites at a new restaurant, and it turns out their version is no good.  It's crushing.  Yes, my job performance is significantly better over the next few days.  Still, crushing.

So, to avoid such debacles, recently I looked for rankings of restaurants that offer my favorite foods.

They don't exist.

Which is strange, because we Washingtonians generally don't suffer from a shortage of food lists.  Some lists tell you the dishes most beloved by local chefs.  Others rattle off the best items that a given restaurant has to offer.  Some just catalog the whereabouts of Top Chefs contestants.  None of them, though, takes one particular dish and ranks all the restaurants that serve it.

So, without further ado, I give you ...

The Top 5 Places to Get Octopus in DC

1. Zaytinya

Grilled baby octopus, marinated onions, capers, yellow split pea puree

I ordered the baby octopus because I heard it's Chef Mike Isabella's favorite food to prepare. He got some cooking tips in Santorini, Greece, where octopi swim the Aegean in such abundance that native Santorinis paint them on their pottery and call them their "apples of love." Santorinis are, apparently, a somewhat creepy people. Like the Santorinis, Isabella braises his octopus in red wine vinegar. But whereas the locals just boil their love apples, Isabella also grills them until the arms turn brown and crisp.

Have this dish - it will rejigger your understanding of octopus. If, as I used to, you think of it as seafood's second-class citizen - certainly palatable but bland and chewy - Zaytinya will disabuse you of your octoprejudice. Isabella's version is sweet as lobster, and I haven't enjoyed crispiness this much since cracklings. Thanks to Zaytinya, I overcame my fear of slimy undulating tentacles coming to life in my kitchen and attacking me, and bought my first octopus to braise and grill.

 
2. Cafe Atlantico

Grilled Octopus with sobrasada, salsa verde, fingerling potatoes, arugula

Chef Terri Cutrino’s octopus actually competes with Chef Isabella’s work at Zaytinya. Instead of the more traditional approach of boiling, Cutrino cooks it sous-vide before grilling. The flavor is, as Sam Sifton would say, head-scratchingly good – Cutrino packs the sous-vide bag with a pungent mix of paprika, oregano, and salt. For unbeatable tentacle texture, I’d go with Isabella’s version, but this was close.


3. Vidalia

Grilled baby octopus – green chic pea hummus, piquillo peppers, smoked lemon emulsion

4. Palena

5. Ceiba
Gazpacho Vinaigrette, Queso Fresco, Black Olive Aioli

Honorable Mentions:


Eventide

Octopus Escabeche with green olives, cauliflower, peppers, chickpea mash

My Apartment (probably biased)

Most Disappointing:

Jaleo

Boiled octopus with potato, pimentón and olive oil

Jaleo plates their eight-leggers right after boiling instead of proceeding to grill them - just like they do in the kitchens of Spain.  The side of potatoes is authentic, too - just like you'd get it at a beach resort in Santorini.  One problem: Mediterranean people should grill their octopus, and they should give you more than a few buttered-up potatoes.  It's better that way.  To see why, all Jaleo Chef JohnPaul Damato has to do is drop by fellow Jose Andres restaurants Zaytinya and Cafe Atlantico.   Maybe it's time for a ThinkFoodGroup conference call.
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Others that I Still Need to Try:

Masa 14

Black Salt

Vidalia - Southern Hospitality in D.C. from Northerners and a Bulgarian

Vidalia is #1 so far!  See all my restaurant ratings

..............Taste...Creativity...Ambiance...Service...Price...Total
Vidalia......9..........10................8.......10.........7......44
............................................................Menu



In 1835, writer Jacob Abbott observed that, in the South, “the gentleman of the house sees a traveler’s approach and is ready upon the steps. Conversation flows cheeringly, for the Southern gentleman has a particular tact in making a guest happy. Such is the character of southern hospitality.”
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The same description applies today at Vidalia, Jeffrey Buben’s southern-style restaurant in DuPont Circle.
There’s no plantation involved, but Buben’s underground rooms are spacious, the green-and-gold interior sleek and welcoming.
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And when you walk in they don’t hand over a big plug of grandpa’s chewing tobacco; they do however offer a couple pairs of reading glasses for the hard-of-sight to read the menu – a savvy accommodation for Vidalia’s noticeably older crowd.

Yep, basically just an updated version of the South – except, of course, that neither Buben or Chef de Cuisine R.J. Cooper are actually from the South.
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Cooper grew up in Detroit.

And Buben says Washingtonians only started thinking of Vidalia as a Southern restaurant when his wife took up answering the phones. Customers heard her South Carolina accent and demanded Southern soul food!
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Yet, for a pair about as Southern as Giuliani and Trump, Buben and Cooper have a knack for applying down-home ingredients to New American cuisine – and the James Beard awards to prove it.
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Which brings us to the most important acts of Southern kindness, the ones performed in the kitchen, and you don’t find more charming food in the District than Vidalia’s three tasting menus. 

Unlike most restaurants, Vidalia lets you can pick and choose from all three menus to form your own signature tasting menu.  Peter, our Bulgarian waiter, said he liked our orders so much that he planned to recommend adding our repertoire to the menu.  Apparently, when it comes to hospitality, Chefs Buben and Cooper aren't the only quick studies in the house.
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Must-haves:

st. canut farm piglet variation - cornbread pudding, fiddlehead ferns, blueberry gastrique, rye emulsion

Eggs and avocado

chicken fried orchard morel mushrooms - 18 month cured country ham, black pepper gravy

Jumbo lump crab and big eye tuna – cucumber, grapefruit, horseradish, seaweed gelée

Other good dishes at Vidalia:



Grilled baby octopus – green chic pea hummus, piquillo peppers, smoked lemon emulsion

roasted vidalia onion bulbs – sage, brown butter, smoked salt

DC Top Chef Reality Check

It's official - the DC Top Chef version of Gawker Stalker has reached full boil.  Check out this map put together by the Washingtonian to track our favorite prey - er, celebrity saucepan whizzes.

This map doesn't seem quite as advanced in the art of inane celebrity drooling as the real Gawker Stalker, but, it's okay DC, you've got to crawl before you can stalk.  Before you know it you'll be boiling Gail Simmons' pet rabbit - well, if you're a real Top Chef fan, sous-viding it, then pan-roasting and serving with a nice prune terrine.

I also wonder how accurate these Washingtonian reports are.  I mean, if I sent in a tip to topchefdc@washingtonian.com that Padma's taking a shower in my bathtub right now, do they add it to the map?  If not, they should - just a matter of time, Padma!

For all of you wondering if you're losing touch with reality as you come closer and closer to putting that love letter in Tom Colicchio's mailbox, I have a sanity check for you - if you see Tom strumming his guitar on the south side of Dupont Circle, and Barack Obama dribbling a basketball on the north side, which gets the attention of your high-power surveillance binoculars?  Who do you run over to and ask embarrassing questions?

Here's the Washingtonian's list of recent Top Chef sightings:


UPDATE (4/19): A tipster saw Tom Colicchio at Union Station boarding an 8 AM Acela train to New York this morning.
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UPDATE (4/16): We hear from a reader that Tom Colicchio and Eric Ripert had dinner at Zaytinya, and chef Mike Isabella, who was a contestant on Top Chef last season, greeted them.
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UPDATE (4/15): A tipster told us Padma ate lunch at Raku in Dupont Circle today.
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UPDATE (4/15): A reader saw Tom Colicchio eating yogurt at Sweetgreen in Dupont Circle yesterday, and the Washington City Paper reports Padma had dinner at Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert.
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UPDATE (4/14): Chef Jamie Leeds wrote on Twitter that Gail Simmons, Mike Isabella, Spike Mendelsohn, and 8 others ate at Hank's Oyster Bar, her seafood restaurant.
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UPDATE (4/13):Latest update: A tipster tells Twitter user @topchefdcnews that there was an orange "oval office" set decorated with pots, pans and knives, Top Chef flag, and a statue of liberty with a chef's knife at 650 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest.
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UPDATE (4/12): A commenter on this blog post says the chefs were filming at Mount Vernon, and a reader saw the production team setting up for a taping at 13th and K streets, Northwest.
UPDATE (4/12): A reader saw judge Gail Simmons at Oyamel.
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UPDATE (4/8): A reader tells us he saw the chefs going into a 5-bedroom, 5-bathroom house at 2121 Leroy Place, Northwest, that's on the market for $4 million.
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UPDATE (4/7): Twitter user @cajunjen rode the elevator with Padma at the Hilton Embassy Row.
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UPDATE (4/6): One of our readers says the crew is using the former Farrah Olivia kitchen and living in a penthouse in the Meridian Apartments at 450 Massachusetts Ave., NW.
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UPDATE (4/6): Twitter user @JGH spotted a sign at the Whole Foods in Silver Spring that says Magical Elves will be filming a show called "The Mission."
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UPDATE (4/5): Twitter user @amazzara snapped this photo of the crew on the roof of the Newseum, home to Wolfgang Puck's DC outpost, the Source.

The Best Korean Fried Chicken Joints in Delmarva

A recommendation for the Annandale City Council: it should not be legal to operate a car with two pounds of Korean fried chicken in the backseat. 

As I drove along Little River Turnpike recently, the shapes of the traffic around me were just a blurry blackground, what with my eyes undressing the chicken in the rearview mirror.  Not to mention the sweet smells of kochujang that were busily invading the neurons of my brain responsible for hand-eye coordination.  So I swerved to the side of the road.  The only way to stop my distraction from consuming me was to consume it.

In one corner of my backseat, weighing a pound and hailing from Annandale by way of Manhattan, was Bon Chon.  With a steady following and multiple franchises along the East Coast including the NYC flagship, most people think this restaurant dons the championship belt when it comes to crunchy, moist Kofricken.

Bon Chon is so good someone took a bite out of the C

                               Bon Chon locations

And in the opposite corner was a pound of the other chicken stud of Annandale, a place called Cheogajip - not quite as successful as Bon Chon, but a respected challenger.  It arrived to Virginia in October 2005.

Cheogajip, aka Pizza & Chicken Love Letter

Consensus is that these are the two best places for Korean fried chicken in the DelMarVa region.  When you become a diehard fan of one place, you swear a Samurai's oath against the other. 

Which to-go bag do you like better - classy Bon Chon or sexy see-through Cheogajip?

Sorry, Hamburglar - these happy meals are much cooler looking than Mickey D's

Did you just roll your eyes at how seriously some people take Korean chicken?  Well, you've got to try a bite.  As I enjoyed my roadside feast, the skin was so crunchy that the noises legitimately threatened to wake up the guy sleeping in the car behind me.  Plus, the chicken of both restaurants isn't as greasy as the Colonel Sanders' version because Koreans double fry their wings, and much of the fat bubbles out. 


Bon Chon on the left, Cheogajip on the right

And the flavor of the kochujang sauce, mixed with honey, vinegar, and soy sauce, beats the closest relative, KFC's sweet n' spicy sauce, by a DMZ length, maybe two.

Kentucky Fried Chicken sweet n' spicy (n' subpar compared to Korean wings)

Now, as much as I liked Bon Chon and Cheogajip, there are more drawbacks than just the crumbs underneath your floormat. 
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Consider:

1. If Jimmy jumps off a building, do you do it too?  These places have similar strengths - the great taste of the chicken - and weaknesses - pretty much everything else.  I don't know which restaurant is the original and which is the copy-chicken, but Bon Chon and Cheogajip share at least one weakness that doesn't track anything you'll see in Seoul: a goupy side of coleslaw.  It's an awkward, unappetizing sellout to American tastebuds. 

Plus, each place seems to have picked up its customer service skills from a Comcast employee traning video - they don't speak English and make you wait at least half an hour for everything.



How similar are these two rivals?  Their happy meals come with the exact same sides

Cheogajip: American friendly

2. Save yourself the Cheogatrip.

Specializing in the art of Korean chicken has its pros and cons.  You can become a master at your specialty, and Bon Chon and Cheogajip have achieved just that.  The downside?  Customers just need to learn how to prepare that one dish in their own kitchens, and any motivation for returning to the restaurant vanishes like a wing into the deep fryer.  

A few months ago, Saveur published this recipe for Korean fried chicken, and it's as good if not better than anything that gets plated down in Annandale.  Prep time and frying only require 25 minutes, which is about half the time it takes me for a roudtrip to Virginia.


I played the fried chicken version of around the world: Bon Chon (top), Cheogajip (right), and my very own Kofricken (left)

My own creation was just as crispy as the pros!

Bon Chon and Cheogajip might be upset with you for staying home, but the motorists of Annandale thank you.

Finally Getting Through to Minibar: Not Quite As I Imagined

For weeks, I've been trying to get a reservation at Minibar in Jose Andres' Cafe Atlantico.

They only take reservations at 10 a.m. for exactly one month in advance.  I had thought the biggest challenge would simply be remembering to call at precisely 10; as long as my mid-morning memory didn't glitch, I assumed, a Ministool would be mine.

Then, one fateful Sunday morning, April 3, I met my Minibar nemesis: the busy signal.  For 13 straight minutes, I pumped my redial button, but, outmatched by the finger agility of my foodie competitors, I came in fifth on the waiting list.

This, it turned out, wasn't just some freak occurrence of bad luck.  On three subsequent mornings, staring blankly at my computer screen at work to give the appearance of reading a document, I dialed repeatedly for over 15 minutes each time, to no avail.

At least Marcy is standing by her man.  Well, not really.  "Minibar is fixed," she emailed me.  "You need to face the music."

But even when everyone gave up on me, I persevered. 

And this morning, on my very first dial at 9:59, amazingly, the icy, jarring busy signal was replaced by a ring as warm as a campfire, or a rainbow.  It was like the difference between the relentless, booming song of the lyrebird and the melody of a nightingale.

The receptionist picked up.  "Hello?"

"Yes," I said, my voice shaky with excitement, "I would like to make a reservation for Minibar."

"A month from April 17 is a Monday.  We're closed on Mondays.  We don't take reservations today."

Click.

American University Food Experiment Goes Horribly Wrong

What do these foods all have in common?

1. Boiled, mushy okra
2. Graham crackers soaked in milk
3. Rotten banana
4. Cottage cheese

They're all items appearing on the menu at Michel Richard's new restaurant in Tyson's Corner!

No, actually, they are all items I snacked on this afternoon for a study at American University.  Joyce's friend, Laura, is conducting the study for her PhD to learn more about foods that cause a "disgust response."

                                   Laura

Now, if you know me, you probably won't be shocked to learn that I was a very disappointing research subject.  It is not easy to disgust me when it comes to food.

After the break, check out the things I ate

Mr. Rain's Fun House - Good or Bad News?

If Mr. Rain's Fun House was a movie, the pitch would sound like the Bad News Bears: a bunch of foods that get no respect are thrown together on the same menu, and just when you think they're all going to kill each other, somehow, against all odds, they end up becoming one of the best teams in the league.

When I checked out Chef Bill Buszinski's online menu, it seemed to incorporate a range of foods that, like the Bears, should be mainstream winners but all have some kind of quirk that keeps them on the fringe of society.  Bulgogi, the marinated sirloin from Korea that's delicious but still too obscure for a lot of Americans to understand, is like Jose, the second baseman who doesn't speak English.  Pho, with chili peppers that make the broth a tonsil scorcher, conjures Tanner Boyle, the fiery shortstop who picks a fight with the whole seventh grade.  And the average palate thinks that headcheese is a little too gross like right-fielder Timmy Lupus.

Put them all on the same field and you get underrated prospects turning intriguing double-plays like the New York strip steak with bulgogi, and the East African spiced chicken with mango chutney.

Much like a Hollywood pitch, though, the online menu is just the restaurant's high concept sales-job.  Just because it grabs the foodie's imagination doesn't mean the restaurant will live up to the hype and become this summer's blockbuster.

Me, my dad, and Marcy went last night to see if Mr. Rain, showing on the third floor of the Visual Arts Museum in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, was as good as it looked in the previews.

Things were off to a good start when we walked in.  The decor of the dining room seemed to take its cues from Lady Gaga's jacuzzi room, with mosaic animal heads and kinky pinks and oranges streaking the walls.  The artsiness of the staff went beyond their mod retro clothes - our waitress, for example, was an aspiring fiction writer.  It seemed like just the right home for food that's equal parts creative, peculiar, appealing.

Need to spice up your living room?  How about some mosaic animal heads?

Really cool outdoor patio

Then my strip steak with bulgogi came to the table.  The steak and side of portobello looked fantastic - just one problem: no bulgogi.  Our waitress explained that, by "bulgogi," Chef Buszinski means that the steak is topped with a bulgogi dipping sauce, but this red blanket tasted more like Hunt's BBQ Original than the Korean pepper paste, kochujang.  Now, the restaurant website says that the chef tries to remain vigilant of the traditions surrounding his inspirations.  But eating Americanized where's-the-bulgogi was like rewatching the Bad News Bears and discovering that Jose now speaks English.
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Next up was my hog roast platter.  The hunter sausage was historically enjoyed by Polish nobility; it combines pork shoulder with bacon, adding a nice smoky flavor to the faint sweetness of paprika and juniper berries.  Right next to that Slavic delicacy, Chef Buszinski gives you a spicy, fatty Cajun one: tasso cured ham.  But when I peeked under the tasso in search of the real oddball, the headcheese, my fork scratched the plate.  No headcheese!  The waitress apologized that pig heads have been in short supply lately (except for the mosaics, I guess), which muddied my understanding that the head usually comes with the rest of the pig.
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And my dad's chicken was supposed to be the collision point of African spices and Indian condiments.  But if there was mango chutney on the plate, I couldn't taste it.

East African spiced chicken with black eyed peas, kale, and mango chutney 

Mr. Rain's Fun House serves a perfectly fine meal, but the menu and decorations wave a freak flag that's a lot more colorful than the actual food. 

The lone exception of the night was the pho, which comes with tasty bo vien, or Vietnamese meatballs, and a big dallop of sriracha that, when inhaled with the broth, gave me a tearful coughing fit.

Finally, some culinary mischief.  It was my happiest moment of the night.

Pho - rice noodles, free-range chicken broth, Thai basil, sprouts and sriracha

A couple more dishes at Mr. Rain's Fun House:

Arctic Char with black rice, English peas, and radish cream

Spring Salad spinach radish red peppers, carrots, almonds, herb buttermilk dressing

Minibar - Is it Really That Good?

Who gets up on a Sunday morning and remembers to call Minibar at precisely 10 a.m. for a reservation?

Everyone!

Or so it would seem. This past Sunday, I played along with the bizarre ritual required by the tyrants at Jose Andres' famous restaurant and called at 10 a.m. and 0.0 seconds to try to get a reservation for May 3.

My reward?  A busy signal.  So I dialed again.  And again.  For 13 straight minutes, the fast-twitch muscles of my thumb obsessed over my redial button.  When I finally got through, I was placed on hold for five minutes, and then I was bestowed fifth place on the SWSF (Suckers with Slow Fingers) waiting list.

Now, I know Minibar has a good rep.  I know they got featured on No Reservations.  I know Jose Andres is Mr. Tapas.  (You can read my review of Cafe Atlantico, here.)

But I also know that, unlike a radio show call-in contest, the "prize" in this contest is paying the people who run it no less than $125.

So I'm a little surprised that it's this hard to get one of the 12 spots available on a daily basis.

Marcy suggested foul play.  She thinks they give away spots to industry insiders before the rest of us - the peasant class of people okay with spending more money on dinner than a plane ticket to Chicago - have a chance.

I think they should give preference to those, like me, for whom $125 represents a significant percentage of their weekly salary.  C'mon, who wants it more, me or the guy with the castle in Potomac.  He probably spends 125 bucks on dental floss.

I haven't discussed this idea with Jose's people, but I did ask his media rep, Erin McCarthy, why Minibar only has six seats (12 total spots are available because they do dinner twice a night).  She said they're planning to expand Minibar's capacity, but details are still being worked out.

In the meantime, I have assembled TEAM MINIBAR: by day, a seemingly normal group of family members and friends; by night, a delta force of finger agility.  They eat busy signals for breakfast so they can have Minibar for dinner.  We will all be dialing this Sunday at the golden hour to bag a reservation for that oh-so coveted dining night, Tuesday, May 11.

Mandatory Eating: These Raviolis at Palena

For a restaurant to really achieve excellence, it has to do so on its own terms.  But winning over stomachs while defying conventions that other restaurants take for granted - and that customers often expect - isn't easy.  One requirement is an eccentric personality under the chef hat.

If you agree, then Chef Frank Ruta at Palena is your man.  Not that you'll ever see him at this Cleveland Park restaurant - he hangs out in an underground kitchen.  It's in this lair that he produces some of the best French and Italian inspired foods in D.C.

Chef Ruta isn't one of those chefs who spends all his time trying to nail a spot on Top Chef Masters and opening new restaurants.  He's what Anthony Bourdain calls a "chef's chef" - he'd rather be behind the stove than in front of a camera crew.  Did I mention he's eccentric?

Joyce, Ehsan and I all got the tasting menu (it runs $58, $67, or $76 depending whether you get three, four, or five courses), and it wasn't long before we started noticing a few more of Chef Ruta's quirks.

"Is this sausage?" Ehsan said about his chicken.  "One of these is a lamb sausage," I said about my entree of lamb cooked two ways (the other was braised shoulder).  "What's that next to your octopus?" Joyce wondered. 

It was sausage. 

Frank Ruto, apparently, is a man obsessed with more than just privacy.   

Another fixation: morels. They first popped up in the Ehsan's chicken sausage, then made no less than three encores in other dishes.

But what if you don't like sausage or morels?  Then you can go to another restaurant.  I'm pretty sure Frank doesn't care.  Whereas most restaurants make sure the menu has something you like, Chef Ruto is clearly more concerned that you have things he likes - and a lot of it.

Lucky for him he's got good taste.  The creamy raviolis, the smoked almond flavor of the morels, and generous amounts of butter combine for a lusty appeal.  Really, the food needs to be sexy to compensate for the dining room, which looks like the one in that mansion from Remains of the Day.  And when he makes contact, it's out of the stadium; the following are three of the top dishes I've had in DC.  Trust me, you need to go try them - and quickly.  The Chef changes his menu on a daily basis.


Yukon Gold Potato Gnocchi With a Tuscan style sauce of hare and olives

Raviolis with Sausage, Morels, Swiss Cheese, Raviolis, and Butter Air

Lamb Two Ways: Braised Shoulder and Sausage

Here are the rest of the dishes we had at Palena:

Oyster Soup

Strange - Joyce fell asleep with her mouth wide open for a few seconds

 

Quail (too bony if you ask me) and Beets

Chicken Sausage

Ehsan, fighting the urge to make a joke about Palena being a real sausage fest

Rockfish with Artichokes

                                                                           Octopus

Dish # 5 of the night for yours truly: the Cookie Plate